# Hiroshima Day: A Worthy Cause **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 30, 2002, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542 "2002-07-30T15:29:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/121 "2002-08-05T12:45:51Z")
…to build a memorial IN JAPAN, to the memory of the US AAF crews who were MURDERED by the Japanese forces. The japanese people should remember that their government was a signatory to the Geneva Convention, which specifies the treatment of captured enemy soldiers. Our japanese friends seem to forget that US aircrews shot down over japan were routinely tortured , starved, and murdered. So, SCREW you, Hiroshima, and screw you , Nagasaki. I only wish that President Truman had 50-100 nukes at his disposal. ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/122 "2002-08-05T15:34:06Z")
And once again we see that the radical right is just as bad as the radical left. ---
**Author:** ![Sparc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Sparc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparc)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/123 "2002-08-05T15:52:03Z")
I say; Put ralph124c in a P51 and Halo13 in a Zero. Fill up half a tank of fuel in each plane. Launch them from a carrier in the middle of the Pacific. Block the launch and land pad and then sail home. Then the rest of us can go on with the peace in peace. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/124 "2002-08-05T15:58:13Z")
I wonder, if we collided **ralph124c** and **Halo13** together, do you think they would annihilate each other in a titanic burst of gamma radiation? ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/125 "2002-08-05T17:57:47Z")
And then we wouldn’t need nuclear power at all! We’d have matter/anti-matter fusion! (Or fission, or whatever it’d be.) ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/126 "2002-08-05T18:41:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr. Moto \* > \*\*Wasn’t Sunday your day of whining, **Halo**? How did it go? \*\* You’ll find an answer [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129191) Fenris ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/127 "2002-08-05T19:18:15Z")
Well, in the family of subatomic particles, we have the proton, the neutron, the electron, and so on. I suggest that if a new particle is discovered it should be named in honor of **Halo13** and **Ralph124c** –the moron! ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/128 "2002-08-05T19:38:43Z")
even my dad wasn’t sure dropping TWO bombs was the right idea. I always try to remember that innocent civilians are innnocent civilians no matter what the nationality. Hell, I try to remember the “innocent” soldiers who died also. It is the damn politicians who aren’t innocent. Let’s drop bombs on them. ---
**Author:** ![Sparc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Sparc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparc)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/129 "2002-08-05T20:52:42Z")
Ahem… I think we can stop ripping at ralphy there, he just doesn’t know better. Anyone who posts an OP like [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2338513) in GD has to be given some compassion and understanding, for they be obviously endowed with brains not cut from the best and sturdiest of mental wood. ---
**Author:** ![zigaretten](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/91b2a8/32.png) [@zigaretten](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zigaretten)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2002, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/130 "2002-08-05T21:59:11Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ralph124c \* > \*\* The japanese people should remember that their government was a signatory to the Geneva Convention…_\* Just a tiny point…Japan was **not** a signatory to the Geneva Convention prior to or during WWII. Ron ---
**Author:** ![Halo13](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Halo13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Halo13)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/131 "2002-08-06T04:38:44Z")
Great replies, keep them coming 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![fallom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@fallom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fallom)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/132 "2002-08-06T06:57:55Z")
At least when I get flamed, I dont make idiotic posts like > [@](#): > > Great replies, keep them coming 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Atreyu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Atreyu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atreyu)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/133 "2002-08-06T07:01:10Z")
Well, now that last remark by **Halo13** just leads me to believe that he/she is little more than an attention whore. There’s another word for that. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/134 "2002-08-06T08:23:16Z")
Mr. Halo, here’s a question: If you are so “enlightened”, why don’t you use your vaunted “knowledge” to actually respond to the cogent points brought against you in this thread? Lemme guess… you’re too busy watching Star Trek and drinking cappucino, right? And preparing your poetry for a reading with your buddies next Wednesday, right? ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2002, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/135 "2002-08-07T11:21:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fenris \* > \*\*All sarcasm aside, let me say that tearing down the posters, regardless of the contempt I hold you and your ilk in, was completely, absolutely wrong (and gutless. Showing up at your rally and mocking your idiotic ideas on the other hand sounds like my idea of a good afternoon well spent.). _Assuming you had the right to put them up_ (ie the consent of the property owner), the people who tore them down should be prosecuted for vandalism. \*\* I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that if local ordinances allow people to post notices, that only means you’re guaranteed the right to put them **up**. I thought it was still your responsibility to monitor them and make sure they’re still there and not obscured, and repost if things are otherwise. I mean, it’s not like you paid for the space, like with a billboard or bus-shelter ad. If it was just a matter of putting posters on walls, without getting permission from a specific person, I don’t believe you have recourse. ---
**Author:** ![jlzania](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jlzania](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jlzania)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2002, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/136 "2002-08-07T13:37:52Z")
**Halo** , I’d like to throw in a personal note: My grandparents and my mother were interned in China during WWII by the Japanese. Towards the end of the war, the Japanese soldiers began to erect gallows within the camp. Had the been a protracted and bloody land battle for Japan,my grandfather was absolutely convinced that the civilians would have been hung. To this day, I have mixed feelings about the bombing of Nagasaki. And, like any rational human being, I abhor the tragic loss of civilian life at Hiroshima. However, I firmly believe that had the U.S. not dropped that first bomb, I wouldn’t be posting this today. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2002, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/137 "2002-08-08T02:13:39Z")
[A Japanese atomic bomb may have been close to _testing_](http://news.independent.co.uk/world/pacific_rim/story.jsp?story=321619) > [@](#): > > Japan’s secret plans to build its own atom bomb have resurfaced with the uncovering of a dossier smuggled out of the country at the end of the Second World War… > …Several historians have claimed Japan was days away from testing an atomic weapon in Nagoya when Hiroshima was obliterated by one American bomb on 6 August 1945. I have never heard of this before. ---
**Author:** ![Sparc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Sparc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2002, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/138 "2002-08-08T02:42:18Z")
Hmmm… heard the myth before. Color me skeptic until I see some more of that. The source in the article isn’t exactly rock solid as they admit themselves. With or without that there is good reason to doubt the veracity of such a claim. Consider that even with Heisenberg in the lead the Germans were struggling against impossible odds to get their atomic bomb ready. Heisenberg of course claimed that he was actively sabotaging that effort. The recent publication of his close friend, the late Niels Bohr’s private letters and documents seem to indicate that this was not the case and that the famous Heisenberg-Bohr Controversy around a meeting in Copenhagen just before Bohr fled to the US to join the Manhattan Project was in fact an active attempt to recruit Bohr to the German A-bomb program. Heisenberg always claimed he tried to give Bohr a secret signal that he was going to work against a bomb in Germany, Bohr did not report it that way when he arrived in the States and after the war he refused to comment on it. Anyway, I digress. The fact is that Japan did not have a Heisenberg, or Bohr, or Oppenheimer, or any of the other umpteen guys that work in Los Alamos. Germany did and yet they were not even in the final stages of testing, for that matter they weren’t even close to having a feasible prototype bomb plan. I find it very improbable that Japan, with only three extra months would have been that much further along, even if they had all of Heisenberg’s plans, which they might have, but most probably did not. Anyone find anything more I’d love to hear about it. Sparc ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2002, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/139 "2002-08-08T02:53:43Z")
I have to voice skepticism about the Japanese being days away from their own A-bomb. Look at it this way, if they were that close, why surrender? Why not get into an A-bomb war? And where were they getting the plutonium from? It wasn’t exactly common at that time. As for Heisenberg-Bohr…did you see the play _Copenhagen_, **Sparc**? ---
**Author:** ![Sparc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Sparc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2002, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542/140 "2002-08-08T03:19:46Z")
Didn’t see the play, but I read it - interesting piece. The controversy around the play is partly what prompted the Bohr family to release letters and notes that Bohr drafted, but never sent to Heisenberg. Here’s a link to the [American Institute of Physics](http://www.aip.org/history/newsletter/spring2002/webnew.htm) with amongst other things links to the Bohr papers both as direct transcripts as well as translated versions. Sparc [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-day-a-worthy-cause/121542.md?page=8)