Comments on: Yesterday was the 76th anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 04:30:15 +0000

@ TJ – “Re AesopFsn and the Heisenberg: unacknowledged Saint or Nazi Dinner? Debate.
My simple answer after repeatedly surveying materials on the question I’ve decades us this: neither.”

Sounds plausible to me, although it’s been a long time since I read the book.
Do you have a reference or link I could use to update my understanding?

By: Zaphod

Zaphod — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 02:43:42 +0000

@RichardAubrey:

Attitude toward the A-Bombings is a handy Shibboleth separating hopeless oxygen-wasting idealists from realists.

But I wonder what stealth Shibboleths Americans should be taking note of in their neighbourhoods today? Best to have lists compiled in advance. Spur-of-the-moment quizzes and guessing games played for keeps are unlikely to be fun.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 02:13:47 +0000

As I’ve said before, my father was an Infantry platoon leader, occasional company commander until they could find another captain.
We talked a lot about the war but practically nothing about his baggage. I heard about that obliquely from my mother.
Had a neighbor who’d fought in the Philippines. From time to time, having a drink, he’d go back there, to what he’d seen the Japanese had done to POW and civilians. Could hardly talk.
Two guys who thought the bomb was a great idea.

By: Gringo

Gringo — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 21:27:11 +0000

Richard Aubrey
Fussell suggested that condemning the use of the bomb meant, particularly among former military, one was not of the lowly status of Infantry, or other below-the-salt branches. It was a status thing. Not having been at risk in the invasion meant you were far too important.

Fussell’s hypo agrees with the Marine officer family friend who was against the bomb after flying over Hiroshima several weeks after the bomb. He had no combat experience.

By: Insufficiently Sensitive

Insufficiently Sensitive — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 16:09:11 +0000

It’s hard enough to determine what happened. How many died in Dresden, for example?

Don’t exclude the other half of the Axis. Let’s remember how Japan invaded China for pure reasons of economic greed, before any such thing as a nuclear weapon existed, and slew not hundreds of thousands but MILLIONS of Chinese civilians by traditional methods of warfare.

So that’s OK, because they weren’t Americans, and because of their exquisite hand craftsmanship?

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 15:09:40 +0000

Cappy. I sympathize. But it was going on decades ago.
Fussell suggested that condemning the use of the bomb meant, particularly among former military, one was not of the lowly status of Infantry, or other below-the-salt branches. It was a status thing. Not having been at risk in the invasion meant you were far too important.
I can imagine some people are that twisted, but to advertise….

By: om

om — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 14:15:30 +0000

It’s Nagasaki Day, the Pu for the Trinity device, tested at Alamogordo NM, and Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki, was made at the Hanford Works, near here, much to the eternal shame of local progressives.

By: Cappy

Cappy — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 13:14:57 +0000

I see these assholes waited until almost all WW2 vets are gone, or at least way past the age to kick someone’s ass to trot out this bullshit.

By: TJ

TJ — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 06:26:39 +0000

Re AesopFsn and the Heisenberg: unacknowledged Saint or Nazi Dinner? Debate.

My simple answer after repeatedly surveying materials on the question I’ve decades us this: neither.

Bohr knew he was pro-Hitler. But contrary to his any many’s claims, the actual finding records of Heisenberg’s research spending requests were very small if not tiny.

This was because of a different reason. Heisenberg believed that an atomic bomb was too impractical because it would be too large. Requiring an entire ship to enter a hostile harbor if it could be made that small.

Two of Heisenberg’s students later caught Heisenberg’s thousand fold calculation mistake on the effects of an atomic pile’s size needed to produce criticality (recall the football field at the University of Chicago where this was actually achieved), or instability.

The two made 5he correction and quickly got behind the allied side to make the Bomb. Because suddenly a transportable device was possible!

These two students believed Heisenberg would catch the mistake and correct it. (There were no back door channels to maintain communications at that time.)

But he didn’t. And there’s no evidence that he ever did. The extant evidence is also on the other side.

Which is why the secret tapes revealed H and his fellow captured German scientists utterly surprised, simply shocked! By the news of Hiroshima and the Bomb. Because IMPOSSIBLE!

By: om

om — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 05:18:17 +0000

The amoral-ist has the last word don’t you know. Not his monkeys, not his country, not even his history. A trifecta of arrogance. But the CCP is his future.

Over and out.