Kanye West on Alex Jones

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I used to work with veterans and others when I lived in Sydney.

One particularly interesting old gent I got to know was named Fritz.  He was Dutch and was a young boy in what is now Indonesia when the Japanese invaded.

He spent several years in a Japanese internment camp.

I remember him quite specifically mentioning the nervousness of the guards as news of setback after setback for the Japanese military came in.

The guards grew more brutal each time and there were plans, overheard from the guards, to slaughter the remaining prisoners before they retreated.

The dropping of the atomic bombs and the Japanese surrender saved the lives of everyone in the camp, and who knows how many others?

I'm still forced to question how much the atomic bomb influenced Japan to surrender.  What I've heard is that Japan was more afraid of the USSR (which is understandable when you look at what they did to Eastern Europe for the next 50 years) and having to surrender to them, even with atomic weapons being used.  So, if those deaths still could have been prevented without using nuclear weapons, wouldn't that be the preferable option?

It's important to remember that in the months leading up to the Hiroshima bombing, the Allies and firebombed and virtually destroyed more than 60 Japanese cities (the firebombing of Tokyo alone killed over 100 000 people and destroyed more than a quarter of a million buildings in a single night).

I find it telling that even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atom-bombed, it took the Japanese another six days to surrender. A persistent rumour is that word was gotten to the Imperial Command that a third bomb was going to be dropped on Tokyo, and that's what triggered the surrender.

I don't think the Russian factor had a lot to do with it, as Russia didn't declare war on Japan until the day Nagasaki was bombed. If Japan had surrendered when the Allies demanded it, they wouldn't have been surrendering to Russia at all.

Boru