As a PR writer, putting "LEAVE YOUR CITY" on the top would be my move, but this makes sense for a brainwashed populace that would likely disregard that.
There's obviously a lot of people who think that the atomic bombs were unnecessary and that the war should've ended in a different way. I don't really want to get into that discussion but I think more people should be aware of the effort the US put into understanding the psychology of the Japanese and trying to find ways to convince them to give up.
My father was a pilot in WWII. He flew a B-24 over Japan, and dropped leaflets warning the Japanese. His plane was selected for the leaflet mission since it was the only plane outfitted with radar (as I recall).
Hey, is your father still alive? I'm hoping this doesnt come off as a rude question. My grandfather was a bomber pilot in WW2, he was the pilot for Operation Greenup, and recently passed earlier this year at 98. His reunion group is quickly having less and less people arrive to the next reunion, and it's pretty sad to see such historically important people leaving us. If he is still with you, get as many stories out of him as you can! Hearing the stories from the crazy stuff my grandpa did back then was really cool. That was one hell of a generation of people.
Do you know how this was translated? By a computer? Native speaker of either language? Just wondering because some parts sound a bit strange and unnatural (although that could totally be the fault of my brain at 4am).
I actually heard we did this during Iraq I, but with a fuel air bomb. Dropped a bunch of leaflets to tell them what was coming, used a FAE to turn a section of their lines into a diesel cylinder, then dropped leaflets on another section which had a much higher learning curve and ran the hell away.
Ignore it because if people are going to nuke Iowa then we're all going to die, and honestly I'm probably going to need some of that post nut clarity if it turns out there is an afterlife.
I don't know what's more disturbing: that humans are capable of ending the world with bombs or that ya'll don't know that this is a translation when the 2nd line says it's a translation
For me it's the fact that the title says there's a leaflet when in fact it is clearly just a museum/archive note to which a leaflet used to be attached, but is now missing.
I swear it has to be on purpose at this point. Anyone who actually read the thing knows there is no question it's translated. Even if the actual post or image itself didn't say it was translated, why the fuck else would it be in English? Just straight up stupidity.
I thought Nagasaki was a last minute change in plans due to weather? They were supposed to drop it in Kokura. How would they know to drop leaflets in Nagasaki?
Nagasaki was the third option. It was always a potential site. It was chosen as #2, but it was changed to Kokura. Then the weather issue happened and it was changed back to Nagasaki in-flight.
I'm not a historian nor particularly knowledgeable, but I just read these meeting minutes that discussed targets for nuking and Nagasaki isn't even mentioned. The list consists of 5 choices, two classed as AA and three classed as A. They also offhandedly mention the emperor's palace but don't recommend it.
They dropped em on all/most of the possible target cities. It’d be pretty dumb to announce the exact place and let the enemy concentrate all their defenses there.
The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum claims the leaflets were actually dropped after the detonation but the US was routinely dropping bombing warnings over all the major Japanese cities at this time. It will forever be unclear if the citizens of Nagasaki knew the danger they were in or if they would have heeded the warning had they received a leaflet prior to the bombing.
In high school we had exchange students from both Germany and Japan. Our German exchange student knew all about WWII as it and the Holocaust are( were?) required teaching in German schools. He was kind of pissed about it since his feelings were that what happened wasn’t his fault and it felt like he was being punished for something his grandparents did. The Japanese exchange student had never heard about WWII at all, was very shocked Japan was involved, couldn’t believe they fought the US and was legitimately upset to find out the Japanese had lost. He had heard about Hiroshima but all the teaching was basically “nukes are bad let’s not do that again” he didn’t know the US had built and used that nuke on his country.
If you don’t mind my asking, what time period did you go to high school? I heard in school that the Japanese didn’t teach students about World War II (for various reasons, but I recall being told it was mostly over honor). I’d assumed they’d started teaching it in more recent times though. Nonetheless, still interesting stuff.
I used to be an English teacher at a high school in Japan. This was about 7-10 years ago. The students did learn about WWII, but it was very "barebones" compared to what I remember learning in school in America. They spent a LONG time learning about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They also go on a field trip to Hiroshima, and in the months leading up to it fold 1,000 paper cranes to make a big wreath-like thing that all the high school classes bring and are displayed at the Peace Memorial. My impression was that they focused a lot on the American assault on Japan, and not so much on Japan's invasion of East Asia and attack on Hawaii. Then again, I did not sit in on these classes and only know from helping students with their homework after school, so take this info with a grain of salt.
There is massive WW2 Denial in Japan (this is by every single government). A friend went there to teach for a few years she had to sign a statement that she would not bring up WW2 and if any student asked, she had to change the subject. If she didn't, her visa would be cancelled, and she would be deported from Japan. This was early 2000's
In 2012 I studied abroad in Cyprus, I had a German professor and one day asked him if they studied the holocaust in Germany. His reaction blew me away, he was so taken aback. He was both offended and flabbergasted that it wasnt obvious how accountable the country is. He said they study extensively and weekly publish something in the newspaper relating to it. The next week, he brought that days paper (one of the most popular in Germany, I can't remember the name) to prove his point. Nicest guy, seriously.
I had a similar experience with some Japanese students who were studying at my school that I became friends with. I remember one girl suddenly asked me, "did you know that America and Japan had a war once? That's crazy!" That girl maybe just wasn't the brightest bulb though and not representative. She also once asked me if I could give her a ride over to Miami which is waay across the whole country from where we were.
when I was in Austria I was told by this older lady at a bar one night that for a short time after the war, like maybe 5-10 years, no one talked about WWII or Hitler. But after that short time period the country did a hard 180, made it mandatory education, and were super serious about everyone knowing what happened, taking responsibility for how fucked up it was, and making sure it never happens again.
I share a surname with a key figure in the Hiroshima bombing story, and we live near the Udvar-Hazy museum where the Enola Gay is housed. A few jobs ago, I found out that my boss grew up in Hiroshima, and I lived in mortal fear of her ever visiting the museum and seeing my surname there. Well, that day finally came, and I wanted the earth to swallow me up right then and there. But as we talked about it, I realized that she really knew almost nothing about WW2, much less the bombing of the city. It was surreal.
It basically also sums up modern day views of WWII. Everyone knows about the Holocaust. No one knows or acknowledges the genocide, torture, rape or experiments done to millions Asians, particularly indigenous minority groups in SE Asia. It’s downplayed like the bombing of Dresden while the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the central event of WWII in Asia if people even deign to acknowledge the other part of the war.
I'll bet they also weren't taught about the death marches, pleasure women, unit 731, the rape of nanking, pearl harbor, or all the torturing of civilians and pows they got away with all of it because they handed over the "research" of the experiments(nothing was usable, they were just torturing people). Germany was horrible too, but at least they faced repurcussions.
In 2007, our Japanese exchange students thought the whole class of American History was trolling them when we started on the "Japanese Half" of WWII. They stood up, shouted at us and dramatically looked around for someone to give up the troll. How can there be a war started by Japan that they didn't know about? When everyone assured them that the war did in fact happen and Japan did Pearl Harbor and such, it was visually a very effective growth moment for them.
I met a couple of Russians a few years ago who had no idea about the Cold War. I explained it to them in detail and they couldn’t believe they hadn’t heard about it.
I used to work as a server to a bleach resort in Boracay. The pay was shit but the tips from the foreigners were the best, especially from the really rich ones
A German extended relative gets somber and annoyed by the continuous guilt—makes me feel awkward. However it somewhat like assigning blame to whites in the USA whose families were not even in the country 10 yrs before the civil war. At some point, it stops adding up…sorry to say but time goes on.
The Japanese gloss over the war in school. Many are not aware of the atrocities thay were committed in those times as a result. The culture is not equipped to face the facts and publicly admit to it. It's a slow process and by the time the country is able to freely talk about it the war will be irrelevant to modern society.
He probably knew about it and wasn’t being upfront about it. Feigning ignorance is a common cultural tactic to avoid a very awkward conversation today, much less back in the 90s.
The Japanese education is lacking. So is the USA about the civil war, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Vietnam War as it pertains especially to Vietnam and the Vietnamese people.
When I met a survivor of the bombings, she shared that the first thing she detected after the event was a church bell ringing, and taking refuge there being a seminal moment in the development of her (catholic) faith.
Nagasaki is one of the most interesting cities in Japanese history. It was one of the only (and sometimes the only) city allowed to trade with Europeans during Japan's centuries of isolation.
I own half of the actual leaflet with the warning in Japanese and an ominous artwork on the flipside. It is still in my post history if anybody is curious.
to be fair, I dont blame Japanese people for not believing the Americans had a totally real bigger than ever before bomb. Not clowning on the wording or anything, the idea of the nuke at that time obviously seemed preposterous. It's a shame, but how do you even warn people of something like that? Something never before seen or even thought of, completely science fiction and someone you've been fighting for 4 years with conventional weapons drops a leaflet that says that? "ya ok sure buddy"
My Father in Law is from Mainland China. We watched a WWII documentary together. When he saw that Japan surrendered to the US because of the atomic bombs....his reality all fell a part because he was taught Mao had brought the Japanese to their knees and saved the rest of the world from their dastardly aggression.
That's strange, as far as I know China takes great pride in its ability to build nukes, and the CCP propaganda campaign most certainly acknowledges Hiroshima and Nagasaki to emphasize the value of nukes.
China did play a big part in it though, they held japan down for a long time taking up to I think about 4.1 million soldiers at peak or so making them unable to dispatch them elsewhere.
The nukes are not the only reason Japan surrendered though. Firebombing had destroyed a ton of cities so Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the first and second cities razed. More like the 60th and 61st.
“The peace, which America will bring, will free the people from the oppression of the Japanese military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan.”
I remember posting this same link in response to this same image years ago and I was extensively downvoted and called a war crime apologist. I hope you fare better.
I was waiting in the doctor's office along with a few other folks years ago and got into a conversation with an older gentleman. It turned out he was a survivor from Wake Island at the start of the war and spent the duration in a POW camp. He said the conditions in the camp were as bad as you can imagine, and men were starving to death every day. When he finally got released after VJ day, he weighed around 90 pounds and had to spend 6 months in hospital. I wish I could remember everything he told me, but it was an amazing conversation.
Wow, they actually told the exact truth how destructive the A-bomb would be. But they didn't say how destructive its radiation would be. We all found out about that later.
I don't think they knew exactly the fully affects of the radiation. The first atomic weapon tested was about a week before Hiroshima. They also didn't mention that before the first test there was a lot of debate as to whether or not an atomic weapon would set the entire atmosphere on fire.
Japanese person: Nah, this is spammy bullshit. “To tnd the war”? A legitimate message from the US government wouldn’t make this mistake. Those damn Nigerians, I bet.
Operation Olympic called for 12 ‘Fat Man’ type devices to be dropped mainly on southern Kyūshū in support of the invasion. At least another three were slated for use during Operation Coronet, the invasion of the Kantō Plain to attack and capture Tokyo.
Part of the point of the second bomb was to convince Stalin that the US had several more ready to go and to make him think twice about occupying Western Europe or the Pacific.
It may have actually been the fact of the Russian army massing on the Manchurian coast and not just the threat of more nuclear bombs that led to Japan's surrender to the US. It was obvious they were in a no win situation by then and that surrending to US control was preferable to the Russians.
I got to talk to Col. Paul Tibbits back in the early 1990s. He said “every high school friend he had died fighting the Japs.” “I’d dropped a hundred on them if Uncle Sam told me to.”
Yeah, this is the part that people today don't get. Everyone had family members in the military, so when there were casualties it affected people personally.
Semi-related: my grandfather was 6 when WWII started. His parents, and aunt & uncle were in Auschwitz. His parents survived, his aunt and uncle didn't.
Japan was brutal, in Europe it was a sin to shoot airmen while they were parachuting (not that it didn't happen but it was rare) in the pacific it was a sport. That shit brought in a metric shit ton of resentment from all aviators over their.
Has anyone asked their parents or grandparents what it was like around this time? 28 year old here, folks my age were children when 9/11 happened and the conflicts thereafter. I can't imagine being around when our country nuked another country twice, or around a world war.
My great grandpa was at point du hoc. He was on a troop transport for the invasion of Japan after the war in Europe ended, and he said people were being locked in their rooms, they were trying to jump over the side of the boat. None of them wanted to go through another invasion. So when they heard about the bombs being dropped, they got to simply alter course and head to New York. He says the day he heard about them bombs was the second best day of his life, after his wedding day.
I’m older. I’m a grandpa now. My grandpa was a US Marine during WWII. I spoke with him a lot about this. He was very happy that the bombs were dropped because in his mind, it prevented perhaps a million more deaths on both sides. He had no animosity toward the Japanese but he hated their military until he died in 1993. He lost many friends.
No but I've become obsessed with listening to WW2 radio. Its the radio news broadcast excerpts of the tensions and then outbreak of the war on through.
No, but now I wish I did when they were still alive. My parents were children when the war ended and were too young to really comprehend what was going on.
Yes. My dad was 15 and stateside. One grandpa was a marine in the pacific theater. Talked to them both and both felt it absolutely necessary to drop both bombs… more if needed. They felt it saved the lives of countless Japanese civilians as well as soldiers on both sides. We had already fire bombed most of Japan and those death tolls were staggering… the Japanese government would not surrender. We dropped the first atomic bomb and they still wouldn’t surrender. The second bomb did the trick.
Japan murdered 20 million Chinese and Korean citizens. History tends to focus on the nazis and the atrocities committed by hitler. History is history, not there to be liked or disliked but to teach us all so that events like this will not be repeated.
And Southeast Asians as well! 60k in Malaya (the Western part of Malaysia) alone, at a time when the peninsula had 4m people - so, 1.5% of the entire population - as well as the Sook Ching massacres in Singapore. 150k Tamils and 90k civilians in Myanmar and Thailand as well
Yes, civilians were given warning but either thought it was American propaganda, or were forced to stay by the government. Brainwashing the populace can cause civilians to ignore something like this
"We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man." Is one of the most chilling things I have ever read. They were telling the truth.
I grew up in Beirut, and I remember when I was a kid in 1982, the Israelis dropped leaflets from fighter jets above the city… I remember being on the street and watching them fall.. a mental image that I will never forget. I don’t remember the contents, but it was a warning of sorts. This preceded the invasion of Lebanon by Israel, sometime in the summer of that same year. I can’t imagine the fear that the people of Nagasaki experienced when they read those flyers… RIP to all who perished
You know something that I learned once that I’ve never seen mentioned again, is that they dropped these warnings on 35 cities (including Nagasaki and Hiroshima). I feel like knowing that matters.
It’s crazy how extremely aggressive and threatening this message is, yet in retrospect it was clearly delivered in an effort to preserve life. The pacific conflict during ww2 was definitely one of the most horrific and interesting chapters of all of mankind. There were no winners, and nobody came out looking like a hero. A lot to learn from all sides involved, in the hope that we as a species can together avoid a conflict like that being repeated.
~200,000 killed, 2 bombs in about 5 days plus all the after effects of radiation. I don't know history well enough to say if it was warranted or not but that number has always astounded me. About 3,000 died on 9/11. Imagine 200k in a week.
Everybody bitching about how this is a war crime do you not remember the rape of Nanking? Have you never heard of unit 731? Do you realize that if we were to go through with the land invasion of mainland Japan it would’ve cost the allied forces at least 2 million dead, and upwards of 15 million Japanese casualties along with potentially 2 more years of war and possible occupation by the soviets?
If this happened in the US, I would put money on a few things happening.... Two of the main things: Managers would be asking, "You still coming in today, right?" Also, there would be lines in the drive thru at fast food locations when the bombs are due to be dropped.
My three uncles (i.e. my mother's brothers) were all prisoners of war in Germany in WW2. Despite that, she bought German VW cars in 1956 and 1978. Yet she didn't want me to buy a Japanese car in 1996 (so I could drive her around). So I bought a Ford which was really a Mazda 626 made in Japan.
The death toll for Tokyo bombings is estimated to be 130K but the estimate for Hiroshima is 70K to 130K and Nagasaki another 60-80K. That’s not counting those who died due to radiation in the following weeks months and years.
As a Southeast Asian, people who said that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unwarranted and unjustifiable, can get fucked in my opinion.
People have to understand while this event was probably one of the most fucked up things we have ever done as a species it stopped the war and probably saved many many more lives. While a few hundred thousand died in each city if the war continued millions more could have perished.
So gross how people here defend Japan, even though the crimes of the Japanese army in China, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines rival the worst of what the Nazis did in WW2. Not only that, but at least a few of the fools defending Japan have a grandfather who would've died invading them, negating their own existence. Morons.
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As a PR writer, putting "LEAVE YOUR CITY" on the top would be my move, but this makes sense for a brainwashed populace that would likely disregard that.
There's obviously a lot of people who think that the atomic bombs were unnecessary and that the war should've ended in a different way. I don't really want to get into that discussion but I think more people should be aware of the effort the US put into understanding the psychology of the Japanese and trying to find ways to convince them to give up.
My father was a pilot in WWII. He flew a B-24 over Japan, and dropped leaflets warning the Japanese. His plane was selected for the leaflet mission since it was the only plane outfitted with radar (as I recall).
Hey, is your father still alive? I'm hoping this doesnt come off as a rude question. My grandfather was a bomber pilot in WW2, he was the pilot for Operation Greenup, and recently passed earlier this year at 98. His reunion group is quickly having less and less people arrive to the next reunion, and it's pretty sad to see such historically important people leaving us. If he is still with you, get as many stories out of him as you can! Hearing the stories from the crazy stuff my grandpa did back then was really cool. That was one hell of a generation of people.
Thank you so much for post and the translation.
Holy shit
Get this man to the top!
crazy. maybe you could donate it to a ww2 museum or monument
Thanks for the sauce
Do you know how this was translated? By a computer? Native speaker of either language? Just wondering because some parts sound a bit strange and unnatural (although that could totally be the fault of my brain at 4am).
Not much to do with it. But ive done some research on it, and my great-grandpa was on a blimp in WWII that was actually shot down by a German U-boat.
Imagine finding this in your yard today. What would you do?
I’d say I already know that nukes exist and I’d wonder why the USA wanted to nuke Canada
I actually heard we did this during Iraq I, but with a fuel air bomb. Dropped a bunch of leaflets to tell them what was coming, used a FAE to turn a section of their lines into a diesel cylinder, then dropped leaflets on another section which had a much higher learning curve and ran the hell away.
evacuate my fuckin city probably
Ask my father if he has enough money to get us all out of here because I sure as hell don't?
I'd be confused. It's addressed to the Japanese people.
Ignore it because if people are going to nuke Iowa then we're all going to die, and honestly I'm probably going to need some of that post nut clarity if it turns out there is an afterlife.
Figure out who misspelled "our" on the fifth quotation.
I don't know what's more disturbing: that humans are capable of ending the world with bombs or that ya'll don't know that this is a translation when the 2nd line says it's a translation
Thank fucking god someone noticed. Half my inbox is just, “why is this in English”
For me it's the fact that the title says there's a leaflet when in fact it is clearly just a museum/archive note to which a leaflet used to be attached, but is now missing.
I was more disturbed by the typos and misspellings...
I swear it has to be on purpose at this point. Anyone who actually read the thing knows there is no question it's translated. Even if the actual post or image itself didn't say it was translated, why the fuck else would it be in English? Just straight up stupidity.
I thought Nagasaki was a last minute change in plans due to weather? They were supposed to drop it in Kokura. How would they know to drop leaflets in Nagasaki?
Nagasaki was the third option. It was always a potential site. It was chosen as #2, but it was changed to Kokura. Then the weather issue happened and it was changed back to Nagasaki in-flight.
From what I was told, they were dropped on several cities so the Japanese would have to keep defending several cities
They were to drop them on all of the potential bomb sites. There was a delay however, so they didn't get dropped until afterwards
I'm not a historian nor particularly knowledgeable, but I just read these meeting minutes that discussed targets for nuking and Nagasaki isn't even mentioned. The list consists of 5 choices, two classed as AA and three classed as A. They also offhandedly mention the emperor's palace but don't recommend it.
They dropped em on all/most of the possible target cities. It’d be pretty dumb to announce the exact place and let the enemy concentrate all their defenses there.
The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum claims the leaflets were actually dropped after the detonation but the US was routinely dropping bombing warnings over all the major Japanese cities at this time. It will forever be unclear if the citizens of Nagasaki knew the danger they were in or if they would have heeded the warning had they received a leaflet prior to the bombing.
To quote George Bluth "That's why you always leave a note".
You should teach them a lesson about that. I know a one-armed man…..
There’s always money IN THE BANANA STAND!!
To also quote George Bluth:
I thought he just wanted to get us off dairy!
Leaflet literally says a translation of the document
I FUCKING know right? I feel the need to enlighten and correct but I'm just like "fuck it, we're done."
The average age of someone on Reddit is like late teens/early 20s so they have the attention span of a sea monkey
In high school we had exchange students from both Germany and Japan. Our German exchange student knew all about WWII as it and the Holocaust are( were?) required teaching in German schools. He was kind of pissed about it since his feelings were that what happened wasn’t his fault and it felt like he was being punished for something his grandparents did. The Japanese exchange student had never heard about WWII at all, was very shocked Japan was involved, couldn’t believe they fought the US and was legitimately upset to find out the Japanese had lost. He had heard about Hiroshima but all the teaching was basically “nukes are bad let’s not do that again” he didn’t know the US had built and used that nuke on his country.
If you don’t mind my asking, what time period did you go to high school? I heard in school that the Japanese didn’t teach students about World War II (for various reasons, but I recall being told it was mostly over honor). I’d assumed they’d started teaching it in more recent times though. Nonetheless, still interesting stuff.
I used to be an English teacher at a high school in Japan. This was about 7-10 years ago. The students did learn about WWII, but it was very "barebones" compared to what I remember learning in school in America. They spent a LONG time learning about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They also go on a field trip to Hiroshima, and in the months leading up to it fold 1,000 paper cranes to make a big wreath-like thing that all the high school classes bring and are displayed at the Peace Memorial. My impression was that they focused a lot on the American assault on Japan, and not so much on Japan's invasion of East Asia and attack on Hawaii. Then again, I did not sit in on these classes and only know from helping students with their homework after school, so take this info with a grain of salt.
That's wild.
Took a college course called American Way of War that had some Japanese exchange students in the late 00s.
I went to Tokyo Disneyland once and they had this Diorama Of Japanese History film you could watch.
I assume they left out all the horrible things the Japanese did to the Chinese as well :o.
There is massive WW2 Denial in Japan (this is by every single government). A friend went there to teach for a few years she had to sign a statement that she would not bring up WW2 and if any student asked, she had to change the subject. If she didn't, her visa would be cancelled, and she would be deported from Japan. This was early 2000's
In 2012 I studied abroad in Cyprus, I had a German professor and one day asked him if they studied the holocaust in Germany. His reaction blew me away, he was so taken aback. He was both offended and flabbergasted that it wasnt obvious how accountable the country is. He said they study extensively and weekly publish something in the newspaper relating to it. The next week, he brought that days paper (one of the most popular in Germany, I can't remember the name) to prove his point. Nicest guy, seriously.
Visit the Edo museum in Tokyo sometime. The very small WWII section (at least when I was there 10 yrs ago) was basically:
I had a similar experience with some Japanese students who were studying at my school that I became friends with. I remember one girl suddenly asked me, "did you know that America and Japan had a war once? That's crazy!" That girl maybe just wasn't the brightest bulb though and not representative. She also once asked me if I could give her a ride over to Miami which is waay across the whole country from where we were.
when I was in Austria I was told by this older lady at a bar one night that for a short time after the war, like maybe 5-10 years, no one talked about WWII or Hitler. But after that short time period the country did a hard 180, made it mandatory education, and were super serious about everyone knowing what happened, taking responsibility for how fucked up it was, and making sure it never happens again.
Oh boy, wait until he hears about their war crimes
I share a surname with a key figure in the Hiroshima bombing story, and we live near the Udvar-Hazy museum where the Enola Gay is housed. A few jobs ago, I found out that my boss grew up in Hiroshima, and I lived in mortal fear of her ever visiting the museum and seeing my surname there. Well, that day finally came, and I wanted the earth to swallow me up right then and there. But as we talked about it, I realized that she really knew almost nothing about WW2, much less the bombing of the city. It was surreal.
It basically also sums up modern day views of WWII. Everyone knows about the Holocaust. No one knows or acknowledges the genocide, torture, rape or experiments done to millions Asians, particularly indigenous minority groups in SE Asia. It’s downplayed like the bombing of Dresden while the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the central event of WWII in Asia if people even deign to acknowledge the other part of the war.
One of my Japanese friends insists the kamikaze weren’t real.
I'll bet they also weren't taught about the death marches, pleasure women, unit 731, the rape of nanking, pearl harbor, or all the torturing of civilians and pows they got away with all of it because they handed over the "research" of the experiments(nothing was usable, they were just torturing people). Germany was horrible too, but at least they faced repurcussions.
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In 2007, our Japanese exchange students thought the whole class of American History was trolling them when we started on the "Japanese Half" of WWII. They stood up, shouted at us and dramatically looked around for someone to give up the troll. How can there be a war started by Japan that they didn't know about? When everyone assured them that the war did in fact happen and Japan did Pearl Harbor and such, it was visually a very effective growth moment for them.
I met a couple of Russians a few years ago who had no idea about the Cold War. I explained it to them in detail and they couldn’t believe they hadn’t heard about it.
I used to work as a server to a bleach resort in Boracay. The pay was shit but the tips from the foreigners were the best, especially from the really rich ones
A German extended relative gets somber and annoyed by the continuous guilt—makes me feel awkward. However it somewhat like assigning blame to whites in the USA whose families were not even in the country 10 yrs before the civil war. At some point, it stops adding up…sorry to say but time goes on.
It was the dolphins and the whales.
The Japanese gloss over the war in school. Many are not aware of the atrocities thay were committed in those times as a result. The culture is not equipped to face the facts and publicly admit to it. It's a slow process and by the time the country is able to freely talk about it the war will be irrelevant to modern society.
Imagine the culture shock to learnint this on an exchange trip.
He probably knew about it and wasn’t being upfront about it. Feigning ignorance is a common cultural tactic to avoid a very awkward conversation today, much less back in the 90s.
Really? How old are you may I ask, out of curiosity.
The Japanese education is lacking. So is the USA about the civil war, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Vietnam War as it pertains especially to Vietnam and the Vietnamese people.
Check out the Japanese Wikipedia articles on some WW2 topics, as well as the talk pages. They really try to keep them squeaky clean.
Nagasaki particularly has an interesting history with regard to the Catholic Church:
When I met a survivor of the bombings, she shared that the first thing she detected after the event was a church bell ringing, and taking refuge there being a seminal moment in the development of her (catholic) faith.
Very interesting that when Christianity returned over 2 centuries later, that there was an underground Catholic community that had lasted 250 years.
The book Silence by Endo is a beautiful work that covers this topic during this time period. Also a pretty good movie directed by Martin Scorsese.
I wasn't familiar with that; thanks for the link.
Nagasaki is one of the most interesting cities in Japanese history. It was one of the only (and sometimes the only) city allowed to trade with Europeans during Japan's centuries of isolation.
I own half of the actual leaflet with the warning in Japanese and an ominous artwork on the flipside. It is still in my post history if anybody is curious.
For the lazier among us:
Just looked at it, that’s so cool.
Cute dog
to be fair, I dont blame Japanese people for not believing the Americans had a totally real bigger than ever before bomb. Not clowning on the wording or anything, the idea of the nuke at that time obviously seemed preposterous. It's a shame, but how do you even warn people of something like that? Something never before seen or even thought of, completely science fiction and someone you've been fighting for 4 years with conventional weapons drops a leaflet that says that? "ya ok sure buddy"
The key part in this is "make inquiry as to what happened in Hiroshima". Meaning the US dropped this after deleting 3/4 of a city with Little Boy.
Ukraine should send leaflets to Russia that they have a bomb that turns people gay. End the war in hours. Some serious homophobia in Russia.
What I don't get is why people think that even if it was widely believed and everyone was motivated to do something that anything could be done?
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My Father in Law is from Mainland China. We watched a WWII documentary together. When he saw that Japan surrendered to the US because of the atomic bombs....his reality all fell a part because he was taught Mao had brought the Japanese to their knees and saved the rest of the world from their dastardly aggression.
Fascinating. We should have a primary school textbook exchange world wide. See what everyone’s got to say.
That's strange, as far as I know China takes great pride in its ability to build nukes, and the CCP propaganda campaign most certainly acknowledges Hiroshima and Nagasaki to emphasize the value of nukes.
China did play a big part in it though, they held japan down for a long time taking up to I think about 4.1 million soldiers at peak or so making them unable to dispatch them elsewhere.
The nukes are not the only reason Japan surrendered though. Firebombing had destroyed a ton of cities so Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the first and second cities razed. More like the 60th and 61st.
It’s more complicated than this
Thanks for sharing. This was very interesting!
“The peace, which America will bring, will free the people from the oppression of the Japanese military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan.”
thanks.. great article..
I remember posting this same link in response to this same image years ago and I was extensively downvoted and called a war crime apologist. I hope you fare better.
Very interesting read.
Tldr for this link ?
You've just reminded me how much I miss blogs being findable on Google.
Man.. thank you for sharing this. What a colossal fuck up
This should be the top comment.
I was waiting in the doctor's office along with a few other folks years ago and got into a conversation with an older gentleman. It turned out he was a survivor from Wake Island at the start of the war and spent the duration in a POW camp. He said the conditions in the camp were as bad as you can imagine, and men were starving to death every day. When he finally got released after VJ day, he weighed around 90 pounds and had to spend 6 months in hospital. I wish I could remember everything he told me, but it was an amazing conversation.
Wow, they actually told the exact truth how destructive the A-bomb would be. But they didn't say how destructive its radiation would be. We all found out about that later.
Is this... From something? If not, you have a very effective writing style.
I don't think they knew exactly the fully affects of the radiation. The first atomic weapon tested was about a week before Hiroshima. They also didn't mention that before the first test there was a lot of debate as to whether or not an atomic weapon would set the entire atmosphere on fire.
"As per my previous email...." BOOM
Japanese person: Nah, this is spammy bullshit. “To tnd the war”? A legitimate message from the US government wouldn’t make this mistake. Those damn Nigerians, I bet.
Excuse you, that message was from the presidnot!
If you'll notice, it says it is translated. The actual leaflet is missing. It's supposed to be in the big blank space.
They didnt send the letter to 10 friends
Hiroshima was bombed on August 6.
Thank god they surrendered after Nagasaki.
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Operation Olympic called for 12 ‘Fat Man’ type devices to be dropped mainly on southern Kyūshū in support of the invasion. At least another three were slated for use during Operation Coronet, the invasion of the Kantō Plain to attack and capture Tokyo.
The craziness to me was the fact Hiroshima wasn’t enough to throw the white flag.
Part of the point of the second bomb was to convince Stalin that the US had several more ready to go and to make him think twice about occupying Western Europe or the Pacific.
It may have actually been the fact of the Russian army massing on the Manchurian coast and not just the threat of more nuclear bombs that led to Japan's surrender to the US. It was obvious they were in a no win situation by then and that surrending to US control was preferable to the Russians.
I got to talk to Col. Paul Tibbits back in the early 1990s. He said “every high school friend he had died fighting the Japs.” “I’d dropped a hundred on them if Uncle Sam told me to.”
Yeah, this is the part that people today don't get. Everyone had family members in the military, so when there were casualties it affected people personally.
Semi-related: my grandfather was 6 when WWII started. His parents, and aunt & uncle were in Auschwitz. His parents survived, his aunt and uncle didn't.
Japan was brutal, in Europe it was a sin to shoot airmen while they were parachuting (not that it didn't happen but it was rare) in the pacific it was a sport. That shit brought in a metric shit ton of resentment from all aviators over their.
Nagasaki did receive a warning; however, it wasn't before the bombing, but a day after it.
Should have used TCP smh
oof
imagine being the fucking pilot dropping warning leaflets on the eviscerated remains of a city… bone chilling shit
"We've been trying to reach you about your car's warranty."
Has anyone asked their parents or grandparents what it was like around this time? 28 year old here, folks my age were children when 9/11 happened and the conflicts thereafter. I can't imagine being around when our country nuked another country twice, or around a world war.
My great grandpa was at point du hoc. He was on a troop transport for the invasion of Japan after the war in Europe ended, and he said people were being locked in their rooms, they were trying to jump over the side of the boat. None of them wanted to go through another invasion. So when they heard about the bombs being dropped, they got to simply alter course and head to New York. He says the day he heard about them bombs was the second best day of his life, after his wedding day.
I’m older. I’m a grandpa now. My grandpa was a US Marine during WWII. I spoke with him a lot about this. He was very happy that the bombs were dropped because in his mind, it prevented perhaps a million more deaths on both sides. He had no animosity toward the Japanese but he hated their military until he died in 1993. He lost many friends.
No but I've become obsessed with listening to WW2 radio. Its the radio news broadcast excerpts of the tensions and then outbreak of the war on through.
Grandparents were very, very happy.
No, but now I wish I did when they were still alive. My parents were children when the war ended and were too young to really comprehend what was going on.
Yes. My dad was 15 and stateside. One grandpa was a marine in the pacific theater. Talked to them both and both felt it absolutely necessary to drop both bombs… more if needed. They felt it saved the lives of countless Japanese civilians as well as soldiers on both sides. We had already fire bombed most of Japan and those death tolls were staggering… the Japanese government would not surrender. We dropped the first atomic bomb and they still wouldn’t surrender. The second bomb did the trick.
Homeboy who just survived Hiroshima coming home to Nagasaki and sees this shit
There were a handful of "double survivors" who were evacuated from Hiroshima after the first bombing... to Nagasaki.
You know this actually happened, right?
Japan murdered 20 million Chinese and Korean citizens. History tends to focus on the nazis and the atrocities committed by hitler. History is history, not there to be liked or disliked but to teach us all so that events like this will not be repeated.
And Southeast Asians as well! 60k in Malaya (the Western part of Malaysia) alone, at a time when the peninsula had 4m people - so, 1.5% of the entire population - as well as the Sook Ching massacres in Singapore. 150k Tamils and 90k civilians in Myanmar and Thailand as well
Japan was definitely the most ruthless in the war.
I remember my history teacher talking about how many people they slaughtered through china.
Wait… this actually happened?!
Yes, civilians were given warning but either thought it was American propaganda, or were forced to stay by the government. Brainwashing the populace can cause civilians to ignore something like this
In August 1945, leaflets were dropped on several Japanese cities warning civilians to evacuate and push their leaders to surrender.
No. They were not dropped until after the atomic bombs were used.
NATOWAVE: EVACUATE YOUR CITIES
Contrary to the thread title,
"We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man." Is one of the most chilling things I have ever read. They were telling the truth.
"A TRANSLATION OF THE ABOVE LEAFLET FOLLOWS:"
I grew up in Beirut, and I remember when I was a kid in 1982, the Israelis dropped leaflets from fighter jets above the city… I remember being on the street and watching them fall.. a mental image that I will never forget. I don’t remember the contents, but it was a warning of sorts. This preceded the invasion of Lebanon by Israel, sometime in the summer of that same year. I can’t imagine the fear that the people of Nagasaki experienced when they read those flyers… RIP to all who perished
Imagine finding out this was sitting on your porch since yesterday.
From what I understand this was dropped after the bomb and not in Hiroshima
"Our presidnot", that's an interesting typo.
Presidn't
It wouldn't be a real military document without at least 1 typo.
Probably the 400th flyer this guy typed
The amount of people asking why it’s in English is both hilarious and sad
I only see 1 comment like that
The post is misleading. This is not the leaflet.
It's sadder that no one is asking why the type font was so shitty in 1945 or later.
That's why you always read the terms and conditions kids.
You know something that I learned once that I’ve never seen mentioned again, is that they dropped these warnings on 35 cities (including Nagasaki and Hiroshima). I feel like knowing that matters.
Not only are we gonna fuck you up, we're gonna eloquently explain just how we're gonna fuck you up.
Give or take a few typos (god typewriters were a bitch)
It’s crazy how extremely aggressive and threatening this message is, yet in retrospect it was clearly delivered in an effort to preserve life. The pacific conflict during ww2 was definitely one of the most horrific and interesting chapters of all of mankind. There were no winners, and nobody came out looking like a hero. A lot to learn from all sides involved, in the hope that we as a species can together avoid a conflict like that being repeated.
~200,000 killed, 2 bombs in about 5 days plus all the after effects of radiation. I don't know history well enough to say if it was warranted or not but that number has always astounded me. About 3,000 died on 9/11. Imagine 200k in a week.
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Still boggles the mind that after one, just one atomic bomb, Hirohito would not surrender.
Everybody bitching about how this is a war crime do you not remember the rape of Nanking? Have you never heard of unit 731? Do you realize that if we were to go through with the land invasion of mainland Japan it would’ve cost the allied forces at least 2 million dead, and upwards of 15 million Japanese casualties along with potentially 2 more years of war and possible occupation by the soviets?
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I believe there was Zero notice given.
If this happened in the US, I would put money on a few things happening.... Two of the main things: Managers would be asking, "You still coming in today, right?" Also, there would be lines in the drive thru at fast food locations when the bombs are due to be dropped.
The US airdropped a Fuck Around and Find Out letter
Did Japanese common people really petition the Emperor to do anything? I don't think they had that relationship with him, and we knew that.
The way this sounds reasonable gives me the chills.
This isn't the leaflet dropped on Nagasaki before the nuke, this is just a tribute. You gotta believe me.
Probably the most interesting thing I’ve read in a hot minute
My three uncles (i.e. my mother's brothers) were all prisoners of war in Germany in WW2. Despite that, she bought German VW cars in 1956 and 1978. Yet she didn't want me to buy a Japanese car in 1996 (so I could drive her around). So I bought a Ford which was really a Mazda 626 made in Japan.
In high school a Jewish girl I knew was going on and on about getting a VW “ THING” . I told her it was a Nazi Jeep and she bought one anyway.
Kinda irrelevant at that point. More people were killed in night time bombings of Tokyo than the Nuclear Bombs ever accomplished.
Yes but that took many bombers over days, knowing all of that could happen from one plane at anytime was much more of a threat
The death toll for Tokyo bombings is estimated to be 130K but the estimate for Hiroshima is 70K to 130K and Nagasaki another 60-80K. That’s not counting those who died due to radiation in the following weeks months and years.
"Hey, this leaflet just dropped from that American bomber."
Old school version of “Fuck around and find out”
Imagine owning one of these.
This is surprisingly earnestly-written.
To think that these two are now puny even when compared to the MIRVs in today's ICBMs.
Now ask yourself - How many times has Russia freely informed everyone that they're going to nuke.
tnd the war! Tell the presidnet!
Not gonna lie; I would've called "bullshit"
Japan fucked around and found out.
As a Southeast Asian, people who said that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unwarranted and unjustifiable, can get fucked in my opinion.
People have to understand while this event was probably one of the most fucked up things we have ever done as a species it stopped the war and probably saved many many more lives. While a few hundred thousand died in each city if the war continued millions more could have perished.
The second leaflet was dropped TOGETHER with the bomb? Wtf?
A little light reading while you evaporate
Second leaflet just said “Look up. Gotcha suckers.”
Any copies of the Japanese leaflets for Pearl Harbor?
Never be sorry that we did, be sorry we had to.
Tl;dr: "fuck around and find out japan."
So gross how people here defend Japan, even though the crimes of the Japanese army in China, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines rival the worst of what the Nazis did in WW2. Not only that, but at least a few of the fools defending Japan have a grandfather who would've died invading them, negating their own existence. Morons.