A leftie friend posted this on my FB page. Remarkable piece of film.
preview.tinyurl.com/o83lf5w
Last edited by: R.P. on Sat 8 Feb 14 at 22:21
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Boffins in shorts and spectacles.... an image that takes me back a few decades.
All they were interested in was whether the thing would work. Only later did some of them twig that it worked all too well, and hadn't really been that good an idea. But by then it was too late.
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Most interesting.
Not a pleasant thought on what the people on the ground suffered, but nevertheless a necessary evil.
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>>nevertheless a necessary evil.
War sucks.
In the recent Oliver Stone TV series about the USA he claimed that Japan was ready to surrender and it was down to timing and terms. The claim was that the US needed to demonstrate the weapon not only to the Japanese but to Russia as well.
The Japanese Govt did not appear to take the bombings seriously as they were more interested in preventing Russia from joining the war against them and in any case the incendiary bombing raids were already doing significant damage.
The program did cut to US service men who were overjoyed at bombing and totally understandably so because their lives would now not be put at significant risk during an invasion.
What is worrying, in a sense that lessons learnt may be forgotten is tinyurl.com/mjdk9wp
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I read Stone's book version last summer - very good read, but he has got an agenda...don't forget.
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>>but he has got an agenda...don't forget.
As I understand it, when marching, when others say, "Right, left, right", he says "Left, left, left"!
:-)
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I always wonder if that stratofortress took a hell of a buffeting when the bomb detonated.
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>> I always wonder if that stratofortress took a hell of a buffeting when the bomb
>> detonated.
Wiki suggests the bomb was an airburst and took about 40 seconds to fall from the drop altitude around 30,000 feet to detonation. Leonard Cheshire, who was the British observer at Nagasaki in one of the accompanying aircraft reported feeling the blast as buffeting turbulence.
None of the accounts of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki suggest the bombing aircraft were at risk of collateral damage.
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>>
>> In the recent Oliver Stone TV series about the USA he claimed that Japan was
>> ready to surrender and it was down to timing and terms. The claim was that
>> the US needed to demonstrate the weapon not only to the Japanese but to Russia
>> as well.
The US wanted an unconditional surrender, not one where the problem military still had some control, which the Japanese initially refused..and...the Yanks apparently leafleted a shed load of Japanese cities 5 days before Hiroshima...to warn the cities they would be destroyed and for the civilian population to get out.
People like Mr Stone don't acknowledge that.
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Oliver Stone is an American left-wing dissident. Don't forget the US as a society, and everyone under its influence, is subjected to a constant annoying barrage of political proaganda the polite word for which is 'conservative'. Far from being anti-American, Stone is courageous and makes his country look better, not worse.
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>> Stone is courageous and makes
>> his country look better, not worse.
>>
A matter of opinion.
Someone of either 'left' or 'right' who conveniently ignores or twists the facts to suit their own outlook is a rum one in my book.
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>> Someone of either 'left' or 'right' who conveniently ignores or twists the facts to suit their own outlook
Some people have views which they do their best to represent. But I haven't noticed Stone doing any more than that.
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Can I suggest reading the book - it certainly made for interesting reading - factual stuff can be separated from opinions.
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Remarkable war footage. - Armel Coussine
