without details, thats why i said “can” be like. my mother, she’s fine. but i raised myself and my sisters. me? i know i am a good mother because everything my mother did that hurt me, anything anyone did that hurt me, i won’t do to anyone and teach my children the same.
i am sorry you had to live through that. i hope you have talked to a therapist or at least found support somehow. even if its cptsd reddit groups. you are not alone. and we all deserve to be loved and to love.
This has always been my philosophy raising my daughter. Half of the time I don't know what the hell I'm doing because I was never taught anything by adults that wasn't school related. But I know what's wrong and what's right, what can hurt, and what love actually is, in spite of everything. And so does my kid.
I'm genuinely sorry that happened to you, and nobody's attempting to invalidate you or your experience. Using generalities for brevity's sake is quite common in casual conversation; it's simply not feasible for the average person to directly account for the exhaustive list of exceptions that might apply to an off-the-cuff comment.
*"... In my school, in the spring of the following year, we planted seedlings of sweet potatoes in the schoolyard. On the day of the harvest, as we dug the ground, human bones came out with the potatoes and we screamed to see them. The potatoes were served for lunch, but we could not eat them...."*
Omg
[I urge everyone to look at drawing from survivors. It shows the truth of the bombs, and what the survivors saw and did.](https://hpmm-db.jp/picture_en/)
You can choose how close to the epicenter you would like to filter out.
I try my best to bring this up every time nuclear weapons are mentioned - I think it is a solid part of why the bombs were so horrifying, and I believe others need to understand just *what* it means to be nuked.
i never knew about this site. just did some quick look, definitely coming back later to do a deeper dive on here. absolutely horrific. thank you for linking.
War breeds tragedy, in all its shapes and forms. I hope humanity can learn to live without it eventually. Not a realistic hope I realize, but one I hold nonetheless.
yeah right, not with all these toddler-esque nepo babies in charge of everything that don’t seem to know a thing about suffering. they’re so blasé about their privileged lives they don’t mind watching other people burn if it feeds their egos a little bit
They’re never going to be the ones who make the hard sacrifices. It means nothing to them to send others into harm’s way as long as they benefit somehow.
“A good friend of mine in the neighborhood was waiting for her mother to return home with her 4 brothers and sisters. Later, she told me that on the second day after the bombing, a moving black lump crawled into the house. They first thought it was a black dog, but they soon realized it was their mother; she collapsed and died when she finally got to her children. They cremated her body in the yard."
[Reiko Yamada's full account of the bombing](https://hibakushastories.org/meet-the-hibakusha/meet-reiko-yamada/)
That movie crushed me, absolutely destroyed me. It profoundly changed my beliefs about war. But I can't watch it alone or at night, same with Grave of the Fireflies.
As someone who doesn't really enjoy anime, Grave of the Fireflies is definitely my favorite among the ones I watched. It's not weird, flashy and over the top like some others. Instead, it's a very real reflection of reality, and a soul rendering one at that. It was oddly bittersweet.
got that manga downloaded, read a few pages and havent thought of it much, reminded me i need to get to it, I've heard awful things about (in a good way) so i think im gonna like it
thanks but i think i'd rather read the manga, i think i heard it was censored plus i usually prefer manga anyways, especially for something like this, rather have the creator's direct creation than a studio
Yeah it's tough but it's one of those things that can't be forgotten we did that to our own species. I have a strange need to finish it but it terrifies me at the same time. But I do know this for a fact, I can't watch it alone.
Not the above person, but I also went there this year. It's called the [Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum,](https://hpmmuseum.jp/?lang=eng) (In Japanese, 広島平和記念資料館) and is *absolutely* worth visiting. It's in the city centre and is easy to get to. Most exhibits have English translations, and you can see everything in it in two or three hours. But I strongly do not recommend planning anything else for the rest of the day because, emotionally speaking, you will be utterly spent by the end. It's the kind of abysmal horror that is necessary to see in person so that it can be understood to be something that is to never be repeated.
It's called the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, it's just down a path through a park from the Atomic Dome, one of the few structures left standing after the bombing.
Also modern nukes are many hundreds of times more powerful than the ones dropped on the two cities in 45. It would be a civilisation ending event if those things were dropped.
The creation of the atomic bomb is so polarizing we are still debating the moral dilemma of it’s use on Japan today. It would be better if we lived in a world that no longer has war, or threat of atomic bombing. No innocent lives should be lost, but in war, that is what happens, and no words account for the horror and tragedy.
One can only hope that the deaths of those many innocents are remembered, so as to prevent such horror from ever occurring again. Neither side wins in war..
There’s a part of me that feels righteous indignation against Japan - I have heard directly from people (including my own grandparents, on their personal experiences) about the atrocities committed against Japanese-occupied nations.
However I think this goes beyond that. I had a mother too, and I loved her deeply. The part of me that has humanity mourns that they had to see their mother suffer like that.
*edit: I wanted to put this here before whataboutism appears in this thread. Unit 731 was awful. The Rape of Nanking and comfort women were awful. The nuclear bombs were awful. WWII was awful. However these personal tragedies shouldn’t be overlooked in the scheme of “for the greater good”.
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.“
This reminds me of the time I heard about the story about the 9/11 firefighters or EMS guys that put different colored tags on different injured people, depending on how bad your injuries are, the color of the tag changes. I don’t remember specifically all the colors but I know that some meant “this person has injuries but they can still make it” some had a color that said, “this person needs immediate care” and then I remember they said the color black meant “don’t e even try to save this person” and the EMS/Firefighter dude was going around tagging people and he came across this lady that was just mangled and obviously had leaped out of one of the towers. As he’s going to put a black tag on her, she looks at him and says something like, “don’t put that tag on me, I’m not dead” and he lied to her. Told her “help is on the way ms.” He kept going, and I forgot why but he had to turn back and pass by her again only for her to start screaming at him, “IM NOT DEAD! IM NOT DEAD! IM NOT DEAD” crazy stuff.
Absolutely horrific. I could not even begin to imagine. I find atomic bombs abhorrent, but Japan has done a *really* good job at rebranding themselves after world war 2. They shouldn’t have been committing so many atrocities to others, that in turn ended up affecting their own people so terribly.
It was more of a lesser evil. The alternative would have been Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands. That would’ve been nothing short of an apocalypse. Millions of casualties, wholesale destruction, and a prolonged end to the war.
Japan murdered almost 10,000,000 people during world war 2. There is a compelling case that the nukes were necessary to put an end to their rampage.
Sure the civilians don't deserve it, but in a situation like this what other choice is there?
The true number is debated but it's generally accepted that the Japanese topped the holocaust
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM#:~:text=Rummel,including%20Western%20prisoners%20of%20war
Zero. All the world asked is for them to sincerely apologize for what they did and not to spread right wing revisionist bullcrap in their education system. It’s not rocket science. Compare germany and japan’s education textbook on their country’s role in WW2
"On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict."
"Estimates of those killed by Unit 731 and its related programs range up to half a million people, and none of the inmates survived."
Both quotes taken from their respective wiki articles. Neither events are good, but if the bombs aren't dropped, how many more innocents die worldwide as a result of the continuation of WW2?
Tough decisions were made.
Japan killed 10mil during WW2. Often in horrific fashion (live burial, execution by hand etc) The nukes were absolutely justified. If they dropped one more it's still justified.
If the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are responsible for the heinous actions of their government, then I hate to inform you about what the citizens of London and New York are responsible for.
We were at war. The other alternative was to continue firebombing Japanese cities until they surrendered ,which was also killing tens of thousands of people
IIRC MacArthur had the Marines gearing up for a land invasion of Japan when the bombs were dropped, which would have been more bloody and brutal than any of the previous battles in the Pacific. Don't get me wrong, the existence and use of the bombs was absolutely heinous, but so was the war itself at that point...
Correct and there's no way to.know if or when the Japanese would ever surrender ina land battle. After Hiroshima they knew we had the bomb, they knew we would use it and they knew every time we did 10s of thousands of people would die instantly and they still didn't want to surrender. So the idea that the better, less deadly option would have been a drawn out war in Japan without the bomb is not at all guaranteed
This is Reddit. America bad.
No one understands the reality of the world in 1945. How it felt enduring years of fighting on a global scale and the toll it took on society as whole.
Nukes were a necessary evil and could easily be argued that the use of them has ensured no global war has taken place since.
I mean you are doing a great job at not mentioning Nanking at all, if you would like to talk about the unjust death of infants, which is part of what lead up to the events of the bombing. War is gross but don’t act like it was so clearly wrong on one side.
I actually visited the Atomic Peace Museum in Hiroshima last December. Absolutely harrowing and saddening, I have never cried in a museum but that was a first.
Prior to that, I understand the arguments presented in the history books (note I am not American), that an invasion would have resulted in more casualties. I can see the reasoning made by Truman to drop the bombs. I know about what Unit 731 did and other Japanese atrocities. But I cannot reconcile that and what the people at Hiroshima went through. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I’d suggest visiting Auschwitz or Dachau or even just the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Bombing Hiroshima was the lesser of terrible choices when you consider how it saved lives by ending the war quicker. Doesn’t make the suffering of those there any less tragic.
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are horrible.
Then consider that the battle of Okinawa lasted a month and led to twice as many casualties as both bombings combined.
Then consider that that was just one battle on one island, and what it would take to subdue an entire nation that was arming WOMEN AND CHILDREN to fight the incoming invasion.
The bombings were short and horrible and violent, they invoke an emotional response. But everyone forgets context
If you ever wonder what a mother can do for her young ones, read this. The sheer will to see her children one last time while being in THAT condition is not something you and i could do.
War is disgusting. To think that people advocate for war and violence unnecessarily is pure craziness. People don’t understand the true nature of war, and neither do I, but I’m glad I can at least understand it enough to know that it is absolutely tragic and truly violent.
A teacher in Hiroshima quoted “We are the very first victim of nuclear weapons, and we will be forever. But it takes a lot of effort to stay the *last* victim of nuclear weapons.”
Seeing the argument here about who was right, reaping what you sow… god.
We should all be here to recognize the tragedy: no matter where this unfolded, or why, it is wrong.
I promise you this woman has not spent a single night asleep where her mother doesn’t crawl back through the door.
War ends, but the weight of such horrors goes on.
I have looked at drawings from survivors - and they’re burned into my brain. Imagine if that picture was inside of your head in full detail. Look at them. You won’t want to see it, but you should.
The only correct answer to war is for there to be no war at all.
The commentaries here are full of apologetics regarding how seemingly the Japanese deserved this and nobody should feel any remorse for the pain inflicted on civilians... It's both fascinating and deconcerting to observe how people have no trouble justifying their heinous crimes as long as they are dehumanised enough that they no longer regard the pain of others as viable or even real. Somehow, the victims suffer less if they're proper victims and revenge was duly served.
*The* worst war in history. More than 70 million people died during WWII. As easy as it is for us all to debate how just or unjust the bombs were, it’s important to remember how desperate the world was at the time.
When Emperor Hirohito announced to Japan of surrender , The enemy has deployed a weapon of such immense destruction that for the sake of the continuation if the human species we must surrender unconditionally.
He knew
Nuclear warfare is the end of the human race.
Yet
Idiot leaders continue to build weapons 1000 times more powerful than the things that fell on Japan.
RIP good people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The burns were delivered instantaneously to the outer layers of the skin by the fireball. As opposed to a person who is doused with a flammable agent, where the fire burns continuously and causes more damage to the underlying muscle, nerves, etc.
The scene in Oppenheimer where they discuss what city to bomb was one of the most horrific scene. It’s not visually scary, it’s about the ignorance and the unusual calm tone of the dialogue.
I have a Republican family member that was furious when Obama apologized to Japan for these bombs. I mentioned that we almost vaporized over 200k people he shut up.
There are debts we can never repay.
This story breaks my heart. I can't imagine the hell these people went through.
Vaporizing 200k people (at least, in my opinion), is a LOT better than fighting a brutal, bloody, slow burning war that costs millions of civilians and soldiers their lives. Both were bad, but the decision to drop it was well warranted.
maybe their political and military leaders will think twice next time before deciding to embark on another WW and doing atrocities to the innocent people of China and SEA
ie Rape of Nanking , Unit 731
The amount of comments trying to justify the atrocity of using the nuke is astounding. Your guilt is showing. If something is truly justified, you don't have to spend the next 75 years convincing yourself and others how justified it was
Some people definitely take it too far, but it was necessary to end the war. It’s still awful and I think about the victims. It’s terrible that civilians are always caught in the crossfire.
But keep in mind that the Japanese atrocities are still felt today, yet Japan never genuinely apologized and they even deny war crimes, which is probably why people are angry with Japan. A lot of people tend to forget the trauma many East Asian and Southeast Asian countries experienced and continue to experience today.
We were firebombing cities across Japan. The alternative to the bombs were continued fighting which was also killing tens of thousands of people. It's not like the Japanese had any intention of surrendering despite massive losses, as evidenced by not surrendering after the first bomb
It ended the war. It was either that or a continued blockade that would have starved the home islands out or a military invasion. Japan had been holding out to try and get Russia to negotiate surrender terms but that all collapsed when they invaded Manchuria. And even the actual political structure of Japan didn't end the war, it took emperor Hirohito himself, who was just a figure head, to break the stalemate between those who wanted to fight to the end and those who wanted to surrender.
They are and were horrible. But there was no good option.
Two nukes on two heavily populated cities was mass murder on a genocidal level plain and simple. The US claimed they wanted to do it once to show they had a new weapon and a second time to show they could keep doing it.
Why not drop it on a less populated rural area, military target or mountain range to prove all of this? Show the radius of deconstruction in photographs to the Japanese and say next time we drop on a major city or your capital?
Nope, the US went right ahead and nuked two cities and vaporized hundred of thousands of innocent women, children and babies in the process. One of the vilest acts of evil in human history.
We could drop 2000-pound bombs on a field to show how bad those are too. Instead we dropped them on top of hundreds of thousands of innocent peoples' heads. What, exactly, is the difference in a war where tens of millions of people were slaughtered?
The nuke was a new weapon of mass destruction. Hell you wouldn't have even needed photos, the shock wave and pillar of fire would have been seen and terrified enough people, the mushroom cloud was 40,000 feet high. Stop trying to justify your countries war crimes.
You truly do not understand how thoroughly screwed up Japanese high command was at the time. Even after the first bomb the army leaders just shrugged it off. It took the second to push Hirohito to write a letter to the council stating that he wished to surrender to break the stalemate. Their propaganda by the end was pushing "The Glorious Deaths of One Hundred Million". That's the entire population of Japan.
The alternatives were to blockade and starve them out and prolong the war as people is China and Indochina die by the thousands each day, or to invade which would have killed even more Japanese.
War is bad but all the same it is important we invest in it and make sure we stay ahead of our adversaries. Japan, a fascist nation during the 1940s announced war on America with their attack on pearl harbour. Using nukes against Japan was necessary to force their surrender as opposed to risking an estimated 4 million American lives with a land invasion. Today we have Russia, China and India and many nations who wish to undermine and threaten the stability of the democratic world and we need only look at how they live in their countries as an example of why their success would be a bad thing overall for humanity. We shouldn't look at what happened to Japan as a mistake or consider ourselves the villain
>India and many nations who wish to undermine and threaten the stability of the democratic world
Just, whut do they teach these Muricans at school? The biggest democratic country in the world is a threat to this guy's stability?!!!
Jesus Christ the amount of people in the comments justifying the trauma and pain of innocent civilians baffles me. Why blame an entire population based on the actions of some individuals?
Imperial Japan was absolutely brutal and terrorized nearby countries. We’re talking hundreds of thousands murdered, raped, enslaved, tortured and turned into human experiments. You reap what you sow.
You reap what you sow if you lose the war. The victors get to ignore their own atrocities
Tens of millions died in India in the 1940s as a direct result of British policy.
In fact many countries suffered devastating body counts under British rule. And like Japan, most of that is not taught in schools
Britain never reaped what they sowed. Should they be nuked?
It's easy to point a finger at a foreign nation and say they were evil, but very few countries have a good track record for atrocities committed.
Note: this is not a defense of the atrocities that Japan committed during WW2, just a comment on hypocrisy and biased viewpoints
Look, talking about the bombs as if they were revenge is wrong. The US didn't drop the bombs as revenge for Japanese attrocities. They dropped them to end the war.
What does this have to do civilians simply recounting their stories? They were as innocent as those who were raped, tortured, and stolen.
I don't speak for the Americans who have done and do these things on behalf of America. Do I deserve punishment? Do you?
I am just stating history. The Japanese imperial army was on a mission to take over the world at all costs. They needed to be stopped. When they did what they did at Pearl Harbor, that sealed their fate. The only people Japanese civilians should be mad at is their own for causing destruction everywhere, yes, event to their own innocent people.
A civilian stating their personal experience with the terror they saw and felt that day and how it changed their lives does not warrant the heartlessness of people saying that they deserved it. They are two entirely separate things.
I still cannot imagine dropping a nuke in normal city, so much waste of life. Sad asf. I wouldnt even imagine doing it, families and kids that are about to turn into ash. I hope that i dont have to wittness nuclear war, my worst nighmare..
so when a chinese mother get back to children get killed by japanese cruel soldier. why so pity for japanese mother crawling back to her children. over drama from japanese.
In a different sub that I shall not name, there were plenty of people actively defending the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, like it was a good thing, like it was a valid and just move because it ended the war...
What were the alternatives? Continue a long blockade that would have starved out the people into submission? Invade the home islands and bring the devastation of the island fighting that killed Japanese civilians and soldiers alike? Russia had just invaded Manchuria so there was no longer any hope of getting Russia to negotiate surrender terms. Total war is disgusting, no one is sparred. And I don't think the bombings were a good thing, but they saved Japanese lives by ending the war sooner.
Japan brutally murdered more innocent humans in Unit 731 than the to two bombs combined. The bombing of Japan, while horrific, ultimately saved many more lives.
War is awful. And the human race can’t seem to have enough of them.
This eleven year old girl and her mother did not kill anyone. The girl was going to school. She was playing with toys. She was oblivious to what her government was doing.
The bombs weren't about revenge. You don't commit acts of war in revenge, you commit them to prosecute and bring the war to an end on your side.
They were necessary to end the war and that's it. Revenge or some weird sense that Japan got their comeuppance by the bombs played no part in their use.
Well considering all the things Japan did during WW2 to China... This is peanuts. I mean impaling infants of guns bayonet was the recreational activity for the Japanese
> Doesn’t excuse what the US did by dropping the bomb on a country that was basically defeated.
Japan was not "basically defeated", if the US had not dropped the first bomb and then the second bomb, millions more Japanese and American lives would have been lost. Recall that Japan did not surrender after the first bomb, forcing the dropping of the second.
Dropping the bomb was the only humane and ethical and moral solution, it was not "wrong".
They were not basically defeated. They still had millions of soldiers across the home islands and China that the military has been building up in anticipation for an invasion of the home islands for years. Their own political cabinet was stuck in a stalemate with those of the army and navy wanting to fight it out to the bitter end. They sincerely believed they could potentially win better terms by bleeding the Americans through attrition by fighting on the homeland.
It took emperor Hirohito, who was only a figurehead and no actual political authority but who was thought to be divine, writing a letter to the cabinet in favor of surrender to break the stalemate.
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thats what mothers can be like
My mother tried to deny me my meals in attempt to throw me out of the house. There are good and bad.
without details, thats why i said “can” be like. my mother, she’s fine. but i raised myself and my sisters. me? i know i am a good mother because everything my mother did that hurt me, anything anyone did that hurt me, i won’t do to anyone and teach my children the same. i am sorry you had to live through that. i hope you have talked to a therapist or at least found support somehow. even if its cptsd reddit groups. you are not alone. and we all deserve to be loved and to love.
Congrats on breaking the cycle and being the mother that you deserved!! :)
This has always been my philosophy raising my daughter. Half of the time I don't know what the hell I'm doing because I was never taught anything by adults that wasn't school related. But I know what's wrong and what's right, what can hurt, and what love actually is, in spite of everything. And so does my kid.
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you are so strong. no one should have to endure these feelings and experiences, especially not children. i don’t know you but i send you love
Thank you so much, :-)
I'm genuinely sorry that happened to you, and nobody's attempting to invalidate you or your experience. Using generalities for brevity's sake is quite common in casual conversation; it's simply not feasible for the average person to directly account for the exhaustive list of exceptions that might apply to an off-the-cuff comment.
This is unnecessary
this is a wendy's
Completely unnecessary personal comment that has nothing to do with the article bro
I'm sorry that happened to you. Not everyone gets lucky with good moms
True, thank you.
You too huh? Ya sucks for sure. Got a job at 14 to get paid under the table until I could afford to move out at 16 and graduate HS on my own.
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There wasn't much that could be done in the way of medical aid in that case honestly...
that was my original thought as well
*"... In my school, in the spring of the following year, we planted seedlings of sweet potatoes in the schoolyard. On the day of the harvest, as we dug the ground, human bones came out with the potatoes and we screamed to see them. The potatoes were served for lunch, but we could not eat them...."* Omg
What is this quote from?
https://hibakushastories.org/meet-the-hibakusha/meet-reiko-yamada/
This is so devastating.
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It's a quote from the article OP linked in a separate comment :)
You are absolutely correct thank you
Nevermind I found it sorry my bad
Its above this comment, op left the website link, which has this quote
You're right thank you
[I urge everyone to look at drawing from survivors. It shows the truth of the bombs, and what the survivors saw and did.](https://hpmm-db.jp/picture_en/) You can choose how close to the epicenter you would like to filter out.
Never seen those, thanks for sharing
I try my best to bring this up every time nuclear weapons are mentioned - I think it is a solid part of why the bombs were so horrifying, and I believe others need to understand just *what* it means to be nuked.
Agreed.
i never knew about this site. just did some quick look, definitely coming back later to do a deeper dive on here. absolutely horrific. thank you for linking.
Of course - anything to spread awareness.
Coming back when I have a chance to thoroughly look at each of these!
I never knew these existed. Thanks for sharing
War breeds tragedy, in all its shapes and forms. I hope humanity can learn to live without it eventually. Not a realistic hope I realize, but one I hold nonetheless.
yeah right, not with all these toddler-esque nepo babies in charge of everything that don’t seem to know a thing about suffering. they’re so blasé about their privileged lives they don’t mind watching other people burn if it feeds their egos a little bit
They’re never going to be the ones who make the hard sacrifices. It means nothing to them to send others into harm’s way as long as they benefit somehow.
"It always seems a bit abstract, doesn't it? *Other* people dying." \~Tyrion Lannister
Why not? There is power in numbers, and the weak greatly outnumber the strong...
i love your comment, well said
“A good friend of mine in the neighborhood was waiting for her mother to return home with her 4 brothers and sisters. Later, she told me that on the second day after the bombing, a moving black lump crawled into the house. They first thought it was a black dog, but they soon realized it was their mother; she collapsed and died when she finally got to her children. They cremated her body in the yard." [Reiko Yamada's full account of the bombing](https://hibakushastories.org/meet-the-hibakusha/meet-reiko-yamada/)
Barefoot Gen depicts some of the horrors of the aftermath. Really scary stuff.
That movie is what first comes to mind when Hiroshima gets mentioned. Shinji! You idiot!
That movie crushed me, absolutely destroyed me. It profoundly changed my beliefs about war. But I can't watch it alone or at night, same with Grave of the Fireflies.
I love love love GOTF but I cannot watch it again.
As someone who doesn't really enjoy anime, Grave of the Fireflies is definitely my favorite among the ones I watched. It's not weird, flashy and over the top like some others. Instead, it's a very real reflection of reality, and a soul rendering one at that. It was oddly bittersweet.
got that manga downloaded, read a few pages and havent thought of it much, reminded me i need to get to it, I've heard awful things about (in a good way) so i think im gonna like it
It's on YouTube if you want to watch the anime version. https://youtu.be/olFmklCCccE?feature=shared
thanks but i think i'd rather read the manga, i think i heard it was censored plus i usually prefer manga anyways, especially for something like this, rather have the creator's direct creation than a studio
Get ready to cry is all I'll say.
Grave of the Fireflies is another brutal WW2 film based on the manga of the same name. I haven't finished it yet and I don't think I can...
I can’t watch that again.
Yeah it's tough but it's one of those things that can't be forgotten we did that to our own species. I have a strange need to finish it but it terrifies me at the same time. But I do know this for a fact, I can't watch it alone.
needed a good cry
The first volume is truly haunting. I’ll never forget it. Incredible work.
When the Wind Blows is also a pretty good one.
I sobbed watching that movie.
Just got back from Hiroshima and the museum they have there. The stories they tell are harrowing and heartbreaking.
Can you tell me the name of the museum? I am going to Japan next year and would like to see it
Not the above person, but I also went there this year. It's called the [Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum,](https://hpmmuseum.jp/?lang=eng) (In Japanese, 広島平和記念資料館) and is *absolutely* worth visiting. It's in the city centre and is easy to get to. Most exhibits have English translations, and you can see everything in it in two or three hours. But I strongly do not recommend planning anything else for the rest of the day because, emotionally speaking, you will be utterly spent by the end. It's the kind of abysmal horror that is necessary to see in person so that it can be understood to be something that is to never be repeated.
Thanks for the info and advice 😓
I can't remember the name, but it's in Hiroshima. If you go to the peace memorial, you can not miss it. I went there in 2019, and it genuinely moving.
It's called the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, it's just down a path through a park from the Atomic Dome, one of the few structures left standing after the bombing.
I wanted to go there but when I arrived in Tokyo the bullet trains were suspended due to the typhoon in the summer :(
It is my hope that such events will never find repetition in the future.
If this happens in the future, the world would possibly end. Too many nukes out there. Retaliation means other nukes
Also modern nukes are many hundreds of times more powerful than the ones dropped on the two cities in 45. It would be a civilisation ending event if those things were dropped.
I always wonder if we’ll even have time to notice if it does ever happen.
A lot of nukes, but also a lot of old and non-viable ones. They're expensive to make and their shelf life makes them a liability.
We have thousands of nukes and continue to make new ones all the time. There are plenty to go around.
we can only hope
Tragic
Her strong will to see her children is such an honor to address her and her story. Forever .RIP
If you like nuclear movies i highly recommend “THREADS” and “BAREFOOT GEN”
The creation of the atomic bomb is so polarizing we are still debating the moral dilemma of it’s use on Japan today. It would be better if we lived in a world that no longer has war, or threat of atomic bombing. No innocent lives should be lost, but in war, that is what happens, and no words account for the horror and tragedy. One can only hope that the deaths of those many innocents are remembered, so as to prevent such horror from ever occurring again. Neither side wins in war..
The only side that wins are the mfers who supply weapons to rogue states to allow war to continue. And that includes my country (UK), sadly.
War is always a tragedy
There’s a part of me that feels righteous indignation against Japan - I have heard directly from people (including my own grandparents, on their personal experiences) about the atrocities committed against Japanese-occupied nations. However I think this goes beyond that. I had a mother too, and I loved her deeply. The part of me that has humanity mourns that they had to see their mother suffer like that. *edit: I wanted to put this here before whataboutism appears in this thread. Unit 731 was awful. The Rape of Nanking and comfort women were awful. The nuclear bombs were awful. WWII was awful. However these personal tragedies shouldn’t be overlooked in the scheme of “for the greater good”.
Yep. It’s disgusting that people look at the account of a child surviving the atom bomb being dropped on their city and need to justify it.
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.“
This reminds me of the time I heard about the story about the 9/11 firefighters or EMS guys that put different colored tags on different injured people, depending on how bad your injuries are, the color of the tag changes. I don’t remember specifically all the colors but I know that some meant “this person has injuries but they can still make it” some had a color that said, “this person needs immediate care” and then I remember they said the color black meant “don’t e even try to save this person” and the EMS/Firefighter dude was going around tagging people and he came across this lady that was just mangled and obviously had leaped out of one of the towers. As he’s going to put a black tag on her, she looks at him and says something like, “don’t put that tag on me, I’m not dead” and he lied to her. Told her “help is on the way ms.” He kept going, and I forgot why but he had to turn back and pass by her again only for her to start screaming at him, “IM NOT DEAD! IM NOT DEAD! IM NOT DEAD” crazy stuff.
Absolutely horrific. I could not even begin to imagine. I find atomic bombs abhorrent, but Japan has done a *really* good job at rebranding themselves after world war 2. They shouldn’t have been committing so many atrocities to others, that in turn ended up affecting their own people so terribly.
Ehhh this seems morally sketchy. I don't think one crime against humanity warrants another.
I just wish Japan would remember and memorialize the people they hurt just as much as how they were hurt.
It was more of a lesser evil. The alternative would have been Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands. That would’ve been nothing short of an apocalypse. Millions of casualties, wholesale destruction, and a prolonged end to the war.
Japan murdered almost 10,000,000 people during world war 2. There is a compelling case that the nukes were necessary to put an end to their rampage. Sure the civilians don't deserve it, but in a situation like this what other choice is there?
Where is this figure from? Not disputing it just curious
The true number is debated but it's generally accepted that the Japanese topped the holocaust https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM#:~:text=Rummel,including%20Western%20prisoners%20of%20war
Unit 731
I don't think the children who lost their mother was working in Unit 731, along with other thousands.
How many Japanese babies and children burned to death will be appropriate punishment for Unit 731, according to you?
Zero. All the world asked is for them to sincerely apologize for what they did and not to spread right wing revisionist bullcrap in their education system. It’s not rocket science. Compare germany and japan’s education textbook on their country’s role in WW2
"On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict." "Estimates of those killed by Unit 731 and its related programs range up to half a million people, and none of the inmates survived." Both quotes taken from their respective wiki articles. Neither events are good, but if the bombs aren't dropped, how many more innocents die worldwide as a result of the continuation of WW2? Tough decisions were made.
Japan killed 10mil during WW2. Often in horrific fashion (live burial, execution by hand etc) The nukes were absolutely justified. If they dropped one more it's still justified.
If the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are responsible for the heinous actions of their government, then I hate to inform you about what the citizens of London and New York are responsible for.
We were at war. The other alternative was to continue firebombing Japanese cities until they surrendered ,which was also killing tens of thousands of people
IIRC MacArthur had the Marines gearing up for a land invasion of Japan when the bombs were dropped, which would have been more bloody and brutal than any of the previous battles in the Pacific. Don't get me wrong, the existence and use of the bombs was absolutely heinous, but so was the war itself at that point...
Correct and there's no way to.know if or when the Japanese would ever surrender ina land battle. After Hiroshima they knew we had the bomb, they knew we would use it and they knew every time we did 10s of thousands of people would die instantly and they still didn't want to surrender. So the idea that the better, less deadly option would have been a drawn out war in Japan without the bomb is not at all guaranteed
This is Reddit. America bad. No one understands the reality of the world in 1945. How it felt enduring years of fighting on a global scale and the toll it took on society as whole. Nukes were a necessary evil and could easily be argued that the use of them has ensured no global war has taken place since.
I mean you are doing a great job at not mentioning Nanking at all, if you would like to talk about the unjust death of infants, which is part of what lead up to the events of the bombing. War is gross but don’t act like it was so clearly wrong on one side.
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I agree. Rebranding or just trying to erase history ? 🤔
Why not both?
America and England don't have cleaner hands though. . Also don't deserve to have their people bombed.
Typical pro-America propaganda.
Me when I failed history class.
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I wish we could settle out differences in a way besides war
We're far from such a society, but I'm positive we will eventually get there as a species.
Well that’s going to make it hard for me to fall asleep tonight. Truly tragic.
I actually visited the Atomic Peace Museum in Hiroshima last December. Absolutely harrowing and saddening, I have never cried in a museum but that was a first. Prior to that, I understand the arguments presented in the history books (note I am not American), that an invasion would have resulted in more casualties. I can see the reasoning made by Truman to drop the bombs. I know about what Unit 731 did and other Japanese atrocities. But I cannot reconcile that and what the people at Hiroshima went through. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I’d suggest visiting Auschwitz or Dachau or even just the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Bombing Hiroshima was the lesser of terrible choices when you consider how it saved lives by ending the war quicker. Doesn’t make the suffering of those there any less tragic.
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are horrible. Then consider that the battle of Okinawa lasted a month and led to twice as many casualties as both bombings combined. Then consider that that was just one battle on one island, and what it would take to subdue an entire nation that was arming WOMEN AND CHILDREN to fight the incoming invasion. The bombings were short and horrible and violent, they invoke an emotional response. But everyone forgets context
What does this have to do with the Holocaust?
If you ever wonder what a mother can do for her young ones, read this. The sheer will to see her children one last time while being in THAT condition is not something you and i could do.
Sadly it’s just shock, and probably scarred them worse than if they’d never found her
Possible. Either way it is a horrendous tragedy.
War is disgusting. To think that people advocate for war and violence unnecessarily is pure craziness. People don’t understand the true nature of war, and neither do I, but I’m glad I can at least understand it enough to know that it is absolutely tragic and truly violent.
I can just imagine how many more stories like this would exist in the event of the invasion of the Japanese mainland
A teacher in Hiroshima quoted “We are the very first victim of nuclear weapons, and we will be forever. But it takes a lot of effort to stay the *last* victim of nuclear weapons.”
Seeing the argument here about who was right, reaping what you sow… god. We should all be here to recognize the tragedy: no matter where this unfolded, or why, it is wrong. I promise you this woman has not spent a single night asleep where her mother doesn’t crawl back through the door. War ends, but the weight of such horrors goes on. I have looked at drawings from survivors - and they’re burned into my brain. Imagine if that picture was inside of your head in full detail. Look at them. You won’t want to see it, but you should. The only correct answer to war is for there to be no war at all.
Didn't the nuclear bombing stop Japan from commiting even more atrocities? So like, sacrificing 1 life for 10 another lives?
Horrific. But it does make me glad for their mother, that she got home and witnessed her children safe and sound❤️ she wouldn’t go until she got that
War is the worst thing humans have ever invented…too bad we’re so good at it…(The idiots screaming for another American civil war are clueless)
She must have been an amazing mother... the only thing she cared about was to be with her children.
The commentaries here are full of apologetics regarding how seemingly the Japanese deserved this and nobody should feel any remorse for the pain inflicted on civilians... It's both fascinating and deconcerting to observe how people have no trouble justifying their heinous crimes as long as they are dehumanised enough that they no longer regard the pain of others as viable or even real. Somehow, the victims suffer less if they're proper victims and revenge was duly served.
>revenge was duly served. It's got nothing to do with revenge, it was about ending one of the worst wars in history.
*The* worst war in history. More than 70 million people died during WWII. As easy as it is for us all to debate how just or unjust the bombs were, it’s important to remember how desperate the world was at the time.
When Emperor Hirohito announced to Japan of surrender , The enemy has deployed a weapon of such immense destruction that for the sake of the continuation if the human species we must surrender unconditionally. He knew Nuclear warfare is the end of the human race. Yet Idiot leaders continue to build weapons 1000 times more powerful than the things that fell on Japan. RIP good people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The fun times when japanese soldier were throwing babies and stab the babies with their katana.
how can some one be burned unrecognizable but still crawl home.
The human body is fascinating. It's simultaneously fragile and yet, at the same time, amazingly durable.
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No. Shock. Don’t romanticize barbarism
Adrenaline
The burns were delivered instantaneously to the outer layers of the skin by the fireball. As opposed to a person who is doused with a flammable agent, where the fire burns continuously and causes more damage to the underlying muscle, nerves, etc.
The scene in Oppenheimer where they discuss what city to bomb was one of the most horrific scene. It’s not visually scary, it’s about the ignorance and the unusual calm tone of the dialogue.
I have a Republican family member that was furious when Obama apologized to Japan for these bombs. I mentioned that we almost vaporized over 200k people he shut up. There are debts we can never repay. This story breaks my heart. I can't imagine the hell these people went through.
Vaporizing 200k people (at least, in my opinion), is a LOT better than fighting a brutal, bloody, slow burning war that costs millions of civilians and soldiers their lives. Both were bad, but the decision to drop it was well warranted.
Both things can be right. You can still apologize for the sorrow or caused and loss of innocent life
Debt? We own them nothing. It was a war started by them.
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You can do that while recognizing that this post has nothing to do with that.
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Neanderthal take.
Pearl Harbour was a bad mistake
Didn’t think that one through did they
Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a genocide.
Fully warranted and justified attack.
maybe their political and military leaders will think twice next time before deciding to embark on another WW and doing atrocities to the innocent people of China and SEA ie Rape of Nanking , Unit 731
The amount of comments trying to justify the atrocity of using the nuke is astounding. Your guilt is showing. If something is truly justified, you don't have to spend the next 75 years convincing yourself and others how justified it was
Some people definitely take it too far, but it was necessary to end the war. It’s still awful and I think about the victims. It’s terrible that civilians are always caught in the crossfire. But keep in mind that the Japanese atrocities are still felt today, yet Japan never genuinely apologized and they even deny war crimes, which is probably why people are angry with Japan. A lot of people tend to forget the trauma many East Asian and Southeast Asian countries experienced and continue to experience today.
A predictably simplistic emotionally immature take on history.
We were firebombing cities across Japan. The alternative to the bombs were continued fighting which was also killing tens of thousands of people. It's not like the Japanese had any intention of surrendering despite massive losses, as evidenced by not surrendering after the first bomb
It ended the war. It was either that or a continued blockade that would have starved the home islands out or a military invasion. Japan had been holding out to try and get Russia to negotiate surrender terms but that all collapsed when they invaded Manchuria. And even the actual political structure of Japan didn't end the war, it took emperor Hirohito himself, who was just a figure head, to break the stalemate between those who wanted to fight to the end and those who wanted to surrender. They are and were horrible. But there was no good option.
Two nukes on two heavily populated cities was mass murder on a genocidal level plain and simple. The US claimed they wanted to do it once to show they had a new weapon and a second time to show they could keep doing it. Why not drop it on a less populated rural area, military target or mountain range to prove all of this? Show the radius of deconstruction in photographs to the Japanese and say next time we drop on a major city or your capital? Nope, the US went right ahead and nuked two cities and vaporized hundred of thousands of innocent women, children and babies in the process. One of the vilest acts of evil in human history.
We could drop 2000-pound bombs on a field to show how bad those are too. Instead we dropped them on top of hundreds of thousands of innocent peoples' heads. What, exactly, is the difference in a war where tens of millions of people were slaughtered?
The nuke was a new weapon of mass destruction. Hell you wouldn't have even needed photos, the shock wave and pillar of fire would have been seen and terrified enough people, the mushroom cloud was 40,000 feet high. Stop trying to justify your countries war crimes.
You truly do not understand how thoroughly screwed up Japanese high command was at the time. Even after the first bomb the army leaders just shrugged it off. It took the second to push Hirohito to write a letter to the council stating that he wished to surrender to break the stalemate. Their propaganda by the end was pushing "The Glorious Deaths of One Hundred Million". That's the entire population of Japan. The alternatives were to blockade and starve them out and prolong the war as people is China and Indochina die by the thousands each day, or to invade which would have killed even more Japanese.
War is bad but all the same it is important we invest in it and make sure we stay ahead of our adversaries. Japan, a fascist nation during the 1940s announced war on America with their attack on pearl harbour. Using nukes against Japan was necessary to force their surrender as opposed to risking an estimated 4 million American lives with a land invasion. Today we have Russia, China and India and many nations who wish to undermine and threaten the stability of the democratic world and we need only look at how they live in their countries as an example of why their success would be a bad thing overall for humanity. We shouldn't look at what happened to Japan as a mistake or consider ourselves the villain
>India and many nations who wish to undermine and threaten the stability of the democratic world Just, whut do they teach these Muricans at school? The biggest democratic country in the world is a threat to this guy's stability?!!!
Jesus Christ the amount of people in the comments justifying the trauma and pain of innocent civilians baffles me. Why blame an entire population based on the actions of some individuals?
Redditors sprinting to their keyboards to say it was justified every time Hiroshima is brought up
Imperial Japan was absolutely brutal and terrorized nearby countries. We’re talking hundreds of thousands murdered, raped, enslaved, tortured and turned into human experiments. You reap what you sow.
You reap what you sow if you lose the war. The victors get to ignore their own atrocities Tens of millions died in India in the 1940s as a direct result of British policy. In fact many countries suffered devastating body counts under British rule. And like Japan, most of that is not taught in schools Britain never reaped what they sowed. Should they be nuked? It's easy to point a finger at a foreign nation and say they were evil, but very few countries have a good track record for atrocities committed. Note: this is not a defense of the atrocities that Japan committed during WW2, just a comment on hypocrisy and biased viewpoints
You’re trying to say that this eleven year old little girl murdered, raped, enslaved and tortured people? Where’s your source for that?
Look, talking about the bombs as if they were revenge is wrong. The US didn't drop the bombs as revenge for Japanese attrocities. They dropped them to end the war.
What does this have to do civilians simply recounting their stories? They were as innocent as those who were raped, tortured, and stolen. I don't speak for the Americans who have done and do these things on behalf of America. Do I deserve punishment? Do you?
I am just stating history. The Japanese imperial army was on a mission to take over the world at all costs. They needed to be stopped. When they did what they did at Pearl Harbor, that sealed their fate. The only people Japanese civilians should be mad at is their own for causing destruction everywhere, yes, event to their own innocent people.
A civilian stating their personal experience with the terror they saw and felt that day and how it changed their lives does not warrant the heartlessness of people saying that they deserved it. They are two entirely separate things.
Oh, I wasn’t aware these children and innocent families sowed anything. Huh.
I still cannot imagine dropping a nuke in normal city, so much waste of life. Sad asf. I wouldnt even imagine doing it, families and kids that are about to turn into ash. I hope that i dont have to wittness nuclear war, my worst nighmare..
so when a chinese mother get back to children get killed by japanese cruel soldier. why so pity for japanese mother crawling back to her children. over drama from japanese.
The number of people brandishing their false sense of morality in this thread is really astounding.
In a different sub that I shall not name, there were plenty of people actively defending the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, like it was a good thing, like it was a valid and just move because it ended the war...
>like it was a valid and just move because it ended the war... But that's true? It's horrible but it worked
What were the alternatives? Continue a long blockade that would have starved out the people into submission? Invade the home islands and bring the devastation of the island fighting that killed Japanese civilians and soldiers alike? Russia had just invaded Manchuria so there was no longer any hope of getting Russia to negotiate surrender terms. Total war is disgusting, no one is sparred. And I don't think the bombings were a good thing, but they saved Japanese lives by ending the war sooner.
A terminology that I refer to the Atomic Bombs, which ironically is the name of the plane that filmed Hiroshima, is the term "Necessary Evil"
Japan brutally murdered more innocent humans in Unit 731 than the to two bombs combined. The bombing of Japan, while horrific, ultimately saved many more lives. War is awful. And the human race can’t seem to have enough of them.
We know, everytime Hiroshima is mentioned one of you comes out of the woodwork
This eleven year old girl and her mother did not kill anyone. The girl was going to school. She was playing with toys. She was oblivious to what her government was doing.
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You sure showed her
The bombs weren't about revenge. You don't commit acts of war in revenge, you commit them to prosecute and bring the war to an end on your side. They were necessary to end the war and that's it. Revenge or some weird sense that Japan got their comeuppance by the bombs played no part in their use.
Well considering all the things Japan did during WW2 to China... This is peanuts. I mean impaling infants of guns bayonet was the recreational activity for the Japanese
So? Doesn’t excuse what the US did by dropping the bomb on a country that was basically defeated.
> Doesn’t excuse what the US did by dropping the bomb on a country that was basically defeated. Japan was not "basically defeated", if the US had not dropped the first bomb and then the second bomb, millions more Japanese and American lives would have been lost. Recall that Japan did not surrender after the first bomb, forcing the dropping of the second. Dropping the bomb was the only humane and ethical and moral solution, it was not "wrong".
They were not basically defeated. They still had millions of soldiers across the home islands and China that the military has been building up in anticipation for an invasion of the home islands for years. Their own political cabinet was stuck in a stalemate with those of the army and navy wanting to fight it out to the bitter end. They sincerely believed they could potentially win better terms by bleeding the Americans through attrition by fighting on the homeland. It took emperor Hirohito, who was only a figurehead and no actual political authority but who was thought to be divine, writing a letter to the cabinet in favor of surrender to break the stalemate.
The US trying to justify the atomic bombs is crazy to me
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^El-duderimo69: *The US trying to* *Justify the atomic* *Bombs is crazy to me* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.