Three months ago, I exchanged e-mails with Priscilla K M regarding the fact that there is very little available in English that deals with the horrific circumstances of the Dutch-Indonesians on Java under the Japanese during WWII that I describe in “with nothing but our lives”. Priscilla is the founder of The Indo Project whose […]
Tag Archives: WWII
Was the use of atomic bombs justified to achieve victory in WWII?
Was the use of atomic bombs justified to achieve victory in WWII in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States? What do you think? SUPPORTERS OF THE USE OF THE ATOMIC BOMBS GENERALLY EMPHASIZE THESE BASIC PREMISES: The Japanese were the aggressors, starting with the drive for Manchuria in 1931 The Japanese were […]
FIREBOMBING RAIDS ON TOKYO during the night of March 9-10, 1945
The firebombing raids on Tokyo, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, were low altitude incendiary bombing raids ordered by General Curtis LeMay. The first wave of planes was followed by a procession of bombers sowing death until dawn, touching off devastating firestorms: almost 17 square miles of the city were reduced to ashes. Estimates of the number killed […]
ATOMIC BOMB DETONATED OVER NAGASAKI August 9, 1945
Because of poor visibility this second atomic bomb (“Fat Boy”) missed its intended detonation point over Nagasaki by almost two miles, and the damage was less extensive than that in Hiroshima. An estimated 40,000 people were killed outright, less than half the number of the more than 80,000 people that were killed in the devastating […]
ATOMIC BOMB DROPPED ON HIROSHIMA FOLLOWED BY WARNING OF A RAIN OF RUIN
On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb (code-named “Little Boy”) on Hiroshima, Japan, that instantly killed an estimated 66,000 people in the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare. President Truman issued the following statement: “It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that […]
POTSDAM DECLARATION, the first step to dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Potsdam Declaration outlined the terms for Japan’s surrender in WWII commencing with the warning: “We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.” The mention of “unconditional surrender” and a warning came at the end of the declaration: “We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now […]