Hiroshima, 64 Years Ago

What a sad day.

Expect back and forth bickering between it was justified/saved lives versus it was not necessary and extreme, in 5, 4, 3.....

Geekazoid >> You beat med to it. :-)

Everyone forgets that it was known that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as well as the alternate targets) contained hundreds of American POWs. The Japanese put POWs in all their cities to try to keep the US bombers from destroying their war factories.

And the US was not the only side attempting intercontinental devestation. The Japanese had a program of launching large balloons with bombs (leading towards sending biological weapons) towards the US. Many landed in the western US and Canada; one family of picnicers was killed and the existence of the balloon bombs was kept classified for decades after the war....

We haven't learn anything... US (others too, but specially US) still kills hundreds daily and we still have people like TimO that justifies it...

War is hell.

-William Tecumseh Sherman

Why I killed 113 myself before breakfast!!

It's interesting that they built the city back up, but left the iconic dome building as a skeletal reminder of that sad day.

It was a shame we didn't have more than two bombs.

Wow, amazing pictures. I like the contrast of the last pic of the old building versus the reconstructed ones.

Not a nice picture right there.

Even 'The Good War' was wretched, as war is at best.

Would critics be happier if we had fire bombed the city instead and people hiding in their basements melted in the heat? "It's nucular so it's bad autamatically!"

Where's VonSkippy, I have a feeling he might have some thoughts on this :)

At least it wasn't a sneak attack.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki wuz an inside job!!

we were warned about the attack on Pearl Harbor, just as they were warned about those two bombs. hell, we tried to get them to surrender after the first one, and they refused. im not saying the people that died deserved it. im saying their government could have stopped it but didnt.

they never really dropped them. it was a governemnt hoax you idiots.

'Necessary Evil' was the name of the B29 who took Hiroshima's bombing pictures. I think its name sums it all.

@TimO
Everyone forgets that it was known that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as well as the alternate targets) contained hundreds of ALLIED POWs.

@Charles, we do now. I have an idea!

@TimO. Did you hear about the release of official papers the other day from the UK re: UK/Canadian plans for bio-poison darts and gas to be dropped on German cities....in the final phases of the war. Apparently they wanted to impress the USSR how ruthless we were but the engineering boffo's (damn them) couldn't get them to work w/o too much collateral damage. Hmmmmm....I wonder if an atomic bomb would impress the commies.

Disgusting how so many people think the taking of ANY human life can be "justified". The best part about you subhumans is that you're all probably unaware that a small group of banking families (people still in power to this day) from the U.S. and other countries funded all sides of the war to consolidate power and make insane profits. Most wars are catalyzed and perpetuated for profit alone. Give me a call when you guys become semi-lucid and figure out how war and humanity actually function these days.

felixthecat >> In a conventional attack with a fleet of bombers, the civilians would have got an air raid warning, and at least a little chance to survive. Still better than being vaporized in a millisecond.

I'd actuall prefer to be vaporized in a millisecond as opposed to being burned, maimed or blown up.

@ Rokefeller. It doesn't make you subhuman to have to take a human life if the justification is great enough. The Japanes government decided on their course of world domination without regard for even their own people. What was the world supposed to do, just sit back and let them? There was no "small group of banking families" running things. Do you think the Japanese emperor (who was thought of as a god by the way) would act upon the desires of foreigners? Learn your history. Defending yourself or your country from evil does indeed justify the taking of human life. There are people, individuals, groups and countries, that want to kill you right now just for who you are. It is and always has been, them or us. Do you want evil to win? Hiroshima was a necessary event to prevent even more killing.

@ D Bozco - "Do you want evil to win" - take your head away from your playstation-CNN-Bush-Hollywood Life and think for a second, please... when you drop an atomic bomb over a city you destroy schools, theaters, artists, gardeners... Of course that's not what you've been told, probably they tell you they eat american kids for breakfast... And they are told that Americans eat japanese kids for dinner... Great profit for some...

Everything in the world can be blamed on "white" US citizens that are Christian, especially if Catholic and male.
You can even blame them for not getting into the fight sooner! Hoo doggies, I bet them sumbitches wanted to kill them some heathen asses back then. They were even willing to die in tens of thousands to do it! Man, what assholes. :( I wish I could say their sacrifice was worth it.

Some of these conspiracy theories don't sound quite as crazy as they used to.

I mean, didn't a bunch of greedy white bankers just fuck up an entire world's economy while chasing profit?

let's hope pictures like this will remind people of the disastrous effects of war..

that's for starting the war in the first place...

@ Lasse

The US dropped millions of warning leaflets on Nagasaki, Hiroshima and other cities prior to the detonations of either bomb.

http://tinyurl.com/nqnwf6

Oh, really? US Warned? they threw leaflets? then its completely right, burn them all!!