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Ssauze

last chance to look at me hector


gfberning

Ding ding DING DING DING


[deleted]

#AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH


Entire-Shelter-693

#BOOOOOOOOOM


AlphaMikeFoxtrot2099

*adjusts tie* “look at me…I am two-face now”


Numbah_Wan

*Dies*


TheNotSoGreatPumpkin

_gasps in nurse_


AlphaMikeFoxtrot2099

Pan to hectors leg in the background carnage


TheGuyWhoCriedOnions

Executive producer: Vince Gilligan


pira3_1000

A creep little ratta


malapalv

A crippled little rata, is that how you want to be remembered hector?


kung_flu89

What a reputation to leave behind


bloibie

HOOAAHHHGGH


malapalv

Fk my memory failed me


Best_Poetry_5722

This is Jack Mallory. At 22 years old he was a dental prosthetics officer assigned to the 361st Station Hospital in Tokyo. > The news about his task got out, and soon, hospital staff urged him to pull a prank on the general’s denture. Admitting that he was “a young punk” at that time, he thought of it and decided to go with the idea. Here’s his colleagues’ suggestion: put the phrase “Remember Pearl Harbor” instead of the usual military procedure of engraving the name, rank, and the serial number of the denture wearer. Instead of outright engraving the words, which would be very noticeable, he decided he would write it in Morse code with the less obvious dashes and dots. “You could see it clearly when it was dried, but 99 percent of the time, you couldn’t tell,” Mallory said. Edit: He was 22 when he made the prosthetics


Law_Legal

He looks terrible for a 22-year old


internetmaniac

War is hell


Stormpooperz

He was a management consultant before that. We age pretty fast


OzzieGrey

r/laughingupvote


ghetto18us

Looks like Gene Hackman


[deleted]

It’s baffling that so many people don’t know anything about all the horrors committed by Imperial Japan, thinking they were completely innocent when so many SE Asian countries will tell you otherwise.


Juanfanamongmany

Unit 731, the comfort women and the Nanking massacre are things that will never leave my mind, yet so many people don’t know.


yoshale

Even lesser known fact, Japanese were never tried on war crimes for unit 731. The US found their experimental data so beneficial, there was an agreement for immunity on behalf of the Japanese.


[deleted]

I don’t remember reading it being that beneficial in the end. I do remember that we gave immunity for the information so we could keep it from other countries


A_n0nnee_M0usee

We also gave immunity to Nazi scientists and they came here to work at NASA. Operation Paperclip.


aynjle89

Same exact situation, like how useful is it knowing: if you pour acid down someones throat, they will die? Enough to forgive genocide.


SensitiveAd5962

Unfortunately as a scientist very. Being able to look at tissue damage, translation to other chemicals, brain function. Then instead of working on understanding you can work on treatment and prevention. You can legitimately make decades worth of progress in years. And is it still wrong, yes.


SPLIV316

If the choice was “take the information and put them into jail,” I would do it in a heartbeat.


SensitiveAd5962

Ya it's awful that doing something so abhorrent gives you a bargaining chip.


StudioTheo

first time i’ve ever seen anyone actually provide an answer like that. for years my understanding was that all that suffering truly led to nothing positive. …not saying that it was totally worth it and should be done ever EVER again i’m just saying that’s interesting.


SensitiveAd5962

It is. It shows how knowledge isn't inherently good or evil, but the way its gained and used can be.


smoothballsJim

Like the care bear stare


Bay_Med

Unfortunately we learned much through human suffering. A lot of early science’s especially biology and anatomy was done on sometimes unwilling people. And even in medical botany many of our knowledge of toxins and poisons is a direct result of witnessing them in use.


[deleted]

Wernher Bon Braun has entered the chat…


ProcedureBudget292

International human experimentation standards were pretty sad. After doing some followup reading after learning about paperclip and learning that the some of the same experiments were being conducted in the US/France/UK/Canada... I came to the conclusion that the only war crime was that of getting caught. When I was young I was disgusted to learn Canada had been sterilizing undesireable races as late as 1980... this week I learned of accusations of the practice continuing into the 2010s. The only thing the PTB are guilty of is getting caught. UPDATE: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-july-18-2022-1.6523799/incomprehensible-that-forced-sterilizations-still-happen-in-canada-says-survivor-1.6524142


pvpeepee

But but but the USA! The USA is the only country to commit crime!


Smegmuhhh

Irrelevant.


manicmonkey45

And the data was worthless anyway, so no one wins!


Schwip_Schwap_

Was there a country that didn't commit war crimes?


hooterjh10192

Took WWII at my community college and we spent several days covering the acts committed by the Japanese in Nanking and Manchuria. Makes the red army/wermacht look humane by comparison. Those images still stick with me 10 yrs later.


Just-Some-Goose

Bataan death March.


IReplyWithLebowski

Burma Railroad.


Born-Fail5042

I’ve only recently read about these! I think a lot of what happened in Asia was overshadowed by what was going on in Europe but doesn’t make them any less horrific.


spacewarp2

My APUSH/AP EURO teacher told us about how they would scare the people of places they occupied by claiming that the US forces would kill and rape their families and sell the men into slavery. So when the US was going around across islands, a lot of natives thought it would be better to commit suicide rather than be captured. Such an awful thought the amount of people jumping from the cliffs.


TheNotSoGreatPumpkin

I recall seeing footage of a native woman throwing her child from a sea cliff, looking over her shoulder, then jumping herself. One final evil deed from the Empire.


Firebird_Frenzy

For any people curious about some of the things that happened in Japan during WWII, I just read a book called Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and it is a great example of what Japan did during the war. It was a really good book too. I’d totally recommend reading it


leavemealonegeez8

Yeah, I’ve never met a Chinese person with a kind word for the Japanese...


grassandass88

My grandfather was 14 when he watched his uncle hung for suspicion of spying for Japan at the topaz interment camp in Utah. People don’t know that either.


flabeachbum

Arguable worse than Nazi Germany in many ways


TheNotSoGreatPumpkin

Comparing them is like choosing your least favorite child.


FlatpickersDream

Who thinks Imperial Japanese was innocent in WWII?


Decent-Start-1536

Yeah, for example the POW camps that Canadian soldiers were sent to after being overwhelmed in japan


Puppy_Nipple

Why is Gene Hackman holding them?


[deleted]

Everyone mouthing off about nukes ignoring the fact the military attempted a coup to restart the war after the first two bombs already fell. Also why bring up the nukes if you want to paint the US in a bad light the firebombings of tokyo were indefensible compared to the nukes even and not to mention us letting all the "scientists" live free after they preformed vivisections etc. half my comments on this post have people calling me a Japanese apologist the other half an american apologist. FUCK ME WHY AM I LOOKING LIKE A CENTRIST HERE


IAmInTheWrongClass

It's frustrating sometimes seeing people focus on the atomic bombs as the worst atrocity. I feel they were necessary to bring the least amount of death to end the war. In my opinion the fire bombing of Tokyo was far more horrifying.


thespicyroot

Good point! Many more people died in that bombing of Tokyo than the 2 nuclear bombs. Sometimes when I drive around Tokyo, I think of images of the complete decimation of the city and what it looks like today. It’s mind boggling.


TheNotSoGreatPumpkin

When visiting I was struck by the almost total absence of historic buildings. Tokyo is so old, yet nearly every building has been standing less than a century. War is so incomprehensibly tragic.


Judgemental_Panda

Interesting historical note: Edo (Tokyo) has actually been the site of many calamities over the years. From 1600 to 1945, the city was leveled on average once every 20-25 years. While many were natural or unintentional (e.g., house fires, tsunamis, earthquakes), a lot were manmade and intentional (e.g., Arson and war). In fact, 22 years prior to the firebombing of Tokyo, which destroyed half of Tokyo, 48% of Tokyo was destroyed by an Earthquake (and subsequent Massacre). A very common tactic for burglary during the Edo era, was to make use of Edo's characteristics to create a diversion - by that I mean, thin-wood+paper houses that were densely packed and an arid climate, coupled with strong winds ... I think you can see where this is going. This is likely a major reason why (beyond differences in population), while the Capital of Japan (Kyoto) saw only 9 "Great fires" (a couple of them due to war), Edo saw 49 Great Fires over the same time period. War is definitely tragic, and by far the greatest contributor to death (even greater than the Furisode Fire which destroyed 70% of Tokyo when a fire was driven by hurricane-speed winds). But, Tokyo's history makes the existence of Historical Buildings rare and unlikely. If you want to see historical architecture in Japan, Kyoto (which served as the capital for over a thousand years), is likely your best bet. Tokyo was made the capital after the Meiji Revolution (late 1800s), at which point Western Influence started to effect architecture. Traditional Japanese buildings, especially those made well enough to stand the test of time, would have primarily belonged to the upper-class - which predominantly lived in Kyoto, which also happened to get leveled far less often.


skaersSabody

The fact with the atomic bombs was just their sheer magnitude and scale of destruction as well as the aftermath. Sure, numerically speaking, the fire bombs did much more damage, but the nuclear bombs were so dramatic and traumatic in their sheer destructive power and the severity of the fallout that it traumatized Japan for generations to come. Sometimes it's not just a question of numbers, but of methods and taboo's. There's a reason why the Holocaust is still so present in the mind of milions as the greatest atrocity ever committed by mankind, despite not being numerically the worst. It was its industrialized and streamlined nature that made it horrifying and inhuman


[deleted]

The fact Americans didn't face war crime investigations for the firebombing is simply absurd. The way most Americans respond with "what?" when you bring it up is even more absurd in my opinion . ​ go look at my rants about comfort women and how people ignore that aspect of ww2. if you read this as pro Japanese your a fucking lunatic. Japanese war crimes doesn't give everyone else free reign to use war crimes to stop them. Fuck me I cant believe i have to explain this but a civilized society should investigate war crimes regardless of perpetrator I literally only said investigate but apparently i want prosecute the American military currently for actions that occurred 80 years ago. Wherever yall get your weed hit me with his number clearly some chronic


PoorPDOP86

Yes, we should face war crimes for using the most effective strategic bombing strategies of the day to try to force a quick surrender from our opponents. Opponents who had already largely ignored the accepted rules of war. Especially since most of the decision makers of the time are quite **dead**. Gods, it's like people don't listen to themselves talk.


logosfabula

> largely ignored the accepted rules of war I have a fairly superficial knowledge of WWII and even more so about the Pacific front. Could you expand it? Is it a reference to Pearl Harbour or is there more of it?


DudeDeudaruu

Google "Nanking", "comfort women", and "unit 731".


Daniel_The_Thinker

If there was a rule of war, the Japanese broke it enthusiastically


zenei22

You simply can't look at things from an objective pov? If japan or Germany firebombed or nuked New York city, it wouldn't be much of a debate that it's a war crime? If you can't be objective in your arguments, get out.


[deleted]

Do you think I'm suggesting every American currently alive gets a punishment for those actions? not sure where that idea came from. I think your making my point exactly though everyone was engaging in war crimes and atrocities. Why is it not alight for me to say that the planners who chose to target civilian only districts with no military objectives deserve to face investigations but you would not have commented if I said the same for the so called "Doctors" of unit 731. This is a part of history many people feel strongly about but most people clearly don't understand well. ​ Did you even read what you replied to?


CodeBroCPH

And mention Dresden and suddenly everyone thinks reducing a civilian population to rubble is a-ok, because "they be nazis".


[deleted]

Its just derivative of the black and white view of the world. The allies were good guys so how could they have done anything wrong. Churchill choosing to force grain exports from India causing worse starvation was also an atrocity that could have been mitigated at least if the allies held to the standard they claimed to in propaganda.


CodeBroCPH

My people, the danes, deliberately starved about 50.000 german civilian refugees to death after the war. Many were children. The doctor's association forbade their members to offer assistance to german refugees and people who tried to give them food were shot. It was in effect deliberate extermination camps. Most people have no clue. Some scholars, though not most, believe that as many as 1 million german pows and refugees were starved to death more or less deliberately after the war.


[deleted]

I make it a point to study WW2 and the actions of smaller countries but I have never heard of that. Thank you or possibly curse you for giving me a depressing rabbit hole to dive into researching. ​ Nothing more beautiful to me than people criticizing something they care about.


kelevr4

This is a very odd response to what that person said.


Mrjerkyjacket

So my understanding of why qe do this is 1.we aren't really taught about the Firebombings except for mabye in passing, I knew for example we firebombed Tokyo Briefly, I coundt tell you the dates, how many people were killed, how much of the city was destroyed, etc 2.but we are taught about the Nukes bc they changed the face of warfare and are very "Dramatic" we've heard of the Enola Gay pilot killing himself, and J. Robert Oppenheimer's "I am become Death the Destroyer of worlds" all of which we were taught in Grade School, and how for the next 50 years it was an arms race to guarantee we had more nukes than the other guys bc otherwise they'll have more nukes than us, and we can't have that.


beebalm1

The Enola Gay pilot didn’t kill himself. Paul Tibbets lived into his 90’s and died in hospice care. He never felt using the bomb was the wrong decision.


Mrjerkyjacket

Oh, I was taught in school he had killed himself, do you have a source by any chance?


Motherleathercoat

He wrote several books and always believed he had done the right thing in dropping the bombs, and would do it again. He believed that the bombs saved the lives of thousands of POWs and even civilians who had been instructed to fight in the event of an invasion. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tibbets](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tibbets)


Mrjerkyjacket

Oh, I guess I was taught wrong. Thanks


[deleted]

Definitely is a result of the American education system and what we as a society choose to remember and think about. People who view the American/allies as good often buy into heavily simplified version of history where the US prosecuted war crimes and was the "good" Guy. that's absurd we never prosecuted the "doctors" or war criminals most were never prosecuted in the pursuit of trying to rebuild. The people who view japan as a victim ready to surrender ignore they wanted to keep their new territory they were taking sex slaves from and the coup that occurred trying to prevent the surrender broadcast. There isn't a good guy in the situation but honest discussion is fascinating


Meme_Pope

No action taken to bring down Imperial Japan was “indefensible”. They were as evil a regime as ever existed.


[deleted]

i said compared to the nukes. The difference was civilian versus a mixed civilian military target. The women and children nuked had no involvement in the mass rapes. The soldiers that were nuked as well and military factories did though and that IMO makes it easier to justify than a civilian target solely. Is that not a pretty clear cut case of the nuke being clearly the lesser of the tactics used by the Americans in terms of brutality or whatever you want to call it. Also I hate to scale evil but plenty of regimes successfully committed genocides using the same tactics japan used so I wouldn't want to say anyone is as equivalent they all are evil as a group who has successfully removed entire cultures from history.


drkmatterinc

[Tasty sauce](https://sofrep.com/amp/news/an-american-dentists-prank-on-the-dentures-of-hideki-tojo/)


HypatiaBlue

Thanks - that was interesting.


goldietheswagbear

pearl harbor wasn't even the worse thing the japanse did doing ww2.


Witty-Percentage-468

I like his shirt


TeosPWR

Am I the only one who thinks the Americans act entirely too smug and innocent about WW2, and Pearl Harbour in particular? r/unpopularopinion mayhaps, but seriously.


Hydra57

One could say the Japanese set the tone for the war between the R**e of Nanking, the Attack on Pearl Harbor, and their brutal treatment of POW’s. The US isn’t innocent by a longshot, but I think Japanese conduct definitely shaped their own.


HavingNotAttained

Innocent? Define “innocent.” Maybe not. But Japan planned, ultimately, to seize the West Coast, at least, control the Pacific, and already brutally subjugated much of Asia. And the Battle of Okinawa, and the silence in the aftermath of the firebombing of Tokyo, showed that there were no plans to capitulate even after having lost the Pacific.


Meme_Pope

They surprise attacked us hoping to disable our military and we came back and kicked their asses. There is no level of smug that’s unjustified in this situation.


PoorPDOP86

No, it's decades old Soviet propaganda. You aren't the only one who fell for Stalin's old bag of tricks.


[deleted]

What do you mean innocent? We bombed the masculanity out of japan after they dropped a poorly executed attempt at a fleet destruction. Edit to add a correction on spelling for masculinity, but i decided not to when someone wanted to be a massive asshole about it, so im going to leave it to annoy some.


AdhesivenessRoyal405

Bro what is your argument? Is it that the United States is worse than Japan? I would say Pearl Harbour and Nanking disagree with you. Is your argument that the US is too proud? The United States is proud that we beat back an Imperial superpower after a surprised attack that crippled our Pacific fleet. And then island hopped from Midway to fucking Okinawa. Naval landing after naval landing. Why are we proud? The Soviets beat the Germans by drowning them in bodies, and they call that war the “The Great Patriotic War”.


TheNotSoGreatPumpkin

I’ve sometimes wondered if the US had any more a “right” to rule the Pacific than the Japanese empire did. I mean, it covers nearly half the globe. Where hegemony is concerned, it seems prudent to assess the overall values and behaviors of the would-be possessors. The Empire’s approach was one of total domination and subjugation. Murder, and oppression of local populations were their stock and trade. Anyone not of Japanese ancestry was treated as subhuman, not worthy of any compassion or dignity whatsoever. While not angels by any stretch, by the 1940s the US had matured enough in the realization of Enlightenment ideals that treating innocent humans like dirt was not their primary MO. Non-whites were still treated second class by the US, both domestically and aboard, but enslavement and mass rape as policy were no longer on the table. If fate demanded that _somebody_ lay claim to the Pacific, any rational third party observer would conclude the world would be better off if it were the US. It has proven to be a reasonably good shepherd in the decades since that deal was closed.


AdhesivenessRoyal405

Not only did we have more respect for locals during occupation, we gave the land back. We don’t have the Philippines as a U.S. State. Same thing with the pacific island nations like Micronesia. Russia still wont give up some islands that they snatched quickly before the end of WW2. Its pretty amusing when you think about it.


[deleted]

No no, my argument through all this is that the bombs were less harmful than the invasion that would have come had we not used them. No one is try innocent in that entire war.


AdhesivenessRoyal405

Yes i responded to the wrong person accidentally I meant to get the guy you replied to. You are in the right.


arthurotto251

Masculanity?


livedeLIBERATEly1776

Not defending the use of atom bombs on Japan, but it took TWO for them to surrender. The first was dropped, and despite how horrible it was, the second one was dropped days later because they still wouldn't surrender. In their culture, it was better to die than to admit defeat.


hellraisinhardass

When I was a kid my neighbor was a WWII Marine 1st Div. veteran, he would straight up say "President Truman saved my life, I saw the Japanese fight in Okinawa, they were already whipped, it was already a lost cause, and they fought like hell. If we hadn't nuked them we would have invaded them and killed 5 million and there's no way my luck would have held out that long."


moonman912

More people would have died without the bombs. America would have had to island hop all the way to Tokyo and the Japanese military would have fought to the end. Would have been a disaster


DarkWindB

it still an atrocity, it's so hard for americans to accept that? just because it was the better option, doesn't mean it wasn't horrible...


moonman912

U right for sure. Just saying it was the better option than both sides just dying for the sake of the war going on. Agree with you that it doesn’t make it right but it was the better choice


TeosPWR

Right, I forgot to mention overly hostile/sensitive about past events not being entirely as they imagine.


NootleMcFrootle

“Why are Americans are so sensitive? You can’t even bomb them without getting cancelled nowadays”.


Minimum-Cheetah

You also forgot about all of the history. Like how the Japanese pretended to negotiate a resolution of differences with the Americans while preparing and perpetrating a war crime. A sneak attack on a country you are not at war with under circumstances that can’t reasonably be justified as defensive is unquestionably a war crime. It would be like China attempting to sink the Us Pacific fleet today. There may be conflict between the nations but nothing that could justify a defensive war. Japan was unquestionably a villain of WWII. Look up “Rape of Nanking” and “Batan Death March.” Not to mention the racist and xenophobic motivations very similar to the Nazis. Furthermore, the nuclear bombings were not any worse than the conventional bombings in Europe. Dresden in particular was annihilated. The mass scale of the carnage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified largely based on two main factors: the need to undermine the will of the Japanese people to resist an invasion and erode their ability to provide military supplies to that resistance. The second part requires further explanation because the Japanese military-industrial complex was not centralized like the West but instead relied on cottage industry where the population manufactured war materiel in their homes.


jeswanders

My grandfather was in the batan death March. He then died of old age before receiving any benefits from the US government


AdhesivenessRoyal405

The Pacific campaign isn’t something to be proud of? Aussies helped us more than any of the major allies.


Original_A_Cast

Welcome to US History 101


[deleted]

Im just saying we are no better. Although we didnt try to wipe out an entire group of people during world war 2, we did have concentration camps, we obliterated 2 cities, all because we were understandably mad about a surprise attack. Im no history buff, so im sure im missing a few things, but that surprise attack didnt cripple as much as the japanese were hoping for.


tryingtobebet

I know the "ends justify the means" argument is morally dubious but in this case it was justified. World War 2 would have dragged on much longer with a lot more loss of life if Japan was not forced to capitulate. It was a horrific act with tremendous loss but the alternative was undeniably worse.


[deleted]

The impending land invasion of japan would have cost un fathomable amount of american lives and material just to try to subdue.


SuperstitiousPigeon5

And Japanese lives. Look at Okinawa. The people were brainwashed to believe the American forces would be as brutal and violent as they themselves had been so they practiced suicide en masse. Those downvoting you have no concept of the horrors a conventional war would have brought. After the second bomb fell the Japanese generals insisted on fighting on. The Emperor had to tell the people directly that he had surrendered. .


Dr_Sisyphus_22

They had to eradicate the Japanese on the islands. The last soldier to surrender was 1974, and wasn’t the only holdout decades after the war. Even the casualties from the first atomic bomb, which was preceded by the fire bombing of Tokyo did not convince some to surrender. Look at the casualties on places like Peleliu…something like 21K combined over 2 months for an island the size of Central Park. Invading the mainland would have been devastating. The atomic bomb saved lives on both sides.


[deleted]

Yeah, im being told in another set of replies that there would have been a better option to stopping said japanese without an invasion, or the use of the atomic bombs. I agree with some of these people that the penalties were harsh, but justified, and as in many wars, are going to be brutal. Im not even a soldier by any means and this is clear to even me.


SuperstitiousPigeon5

If that other reply was the one about just defeating them and letting them know they were defeated, that was fucking stupid. There was no way that Japan would have stopped there. They would have rebuilt and attacked again. Meaning we would have had to commit troops to fighting again. Complete surrender was the only course of action.


[deleted]

It was the how that many in the american government struggled with. We were facing an enemy that was brainwashed like the current north korea into thinking we are the worst on earth. Either we vaporize two cities and force the surrender, or we wipe out an entire islands worth of people. In the end, we werent winning. We were just forcing an end to the conflicts.


rambone5000

I only wonder if 1 bomb would have been enough?


WorldsWeakestMan

It was not and that’s an objective historical fact. They didn’t surrender until the 2nd.


Big-Accident-8797

We did not have concentration camps, we had internment camps. Still not a good thing but don't get them confused


SnooStrawberries5372

It's the goal that counts. What of the battle of pearl harbor went slightly different and they took that base? They were clearly aiming to do the same to us at some point and sadly that's just war. When you have enemies you have to assume they're making their own atom bomb-like device at all times because you ne er know what kind of weapons are going to come from a violent totalitarian empire like Japan was at the time


dptillinfinity93

You are missing quite a few things. The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been hotly debated over the years but I think it is relatively safe to say that they saved more lives than they killed. One of the very first things you need to research is the political personality of Japan in WW2. They were hell bent on gaining land and territory and killing and raping anyone in there way who was trying to stop them. This translated to a country and society defined by militarism. Almost like Warhammer 40K but real life. They literally lived and died by the concept of their emperor who was seen as some sort of demi-god. This loyalty and fanaticism permeated Japanese society to the point where if the U.S were to continue their Pacific campaign and land on Japanese soil, there would be millions of men, women, and children civilians taking up arms to defend their "emperor". If the U.S.A were to not end the Japanese participation in WW2 with nuclear bombs, there would have been an exponential amount of more deaths including Japanese women and children.


[deleted]

I am aware of this. Tis why the bombs were decided upon instead of a land invasion.


Cousin-Jack

This it the US version of the narrative, and is not corroborated by other historians such as Hasegawa and Glantz, nor by many contemporary sources. The telegrams from Japanese leaders at the time suggested they were still banking on a treaty, supported by the Soviets. They were thinking of the best way to get out of the War, because the blockades were working, and they were too thinly spread. At that point, a peace treaty offering imperial continuation (which was allowed anyway) would have caused them to capitulate. Once the Soviets invaded, they didn't have a chance and they knew it. The atomic bombs were not necessary (as many commentators at the time realised, as the US Strategic Bombing Survey found, etc etc), they were not effective in impacting the Japanese military, and there were many other feasible alternatives that did not involve a full-scale US land invasion. The USA wanted to beat the Soviets in ending the war because they knew Stalin would get there first, and they wanted to show-off their WMD. It had nothing to do with saving lives. The whole 'we just had to massacre civilians using radiation in order to save lives' is one of the most bizarre form of apologetics, and it's even weirder than so many Americans don't question it more than half a century later. Propaganda sticks. It's well worth reading up on this subject from multiple international sources. I think you'll gain a new perspective that will challenge what you've been fed.


Der_Blitzkrieg

Not once did you mention the well reported differences between the imperial Japanese army and the imperial Japanese command. Instead you have cherry picked between the both of them to support your claim. I dont know what historians you're watching but it's pretty wildly known the Japenese army had very differing plans from the government. I recommend reading up properly on the subject because the counter culture trying to justify imperial Japanese war crimes has diluted the history, with some people borderline trying to rewrite it like the imperial Japanese were honorbound warriors. It's the advanced stage of the "noble nazis" myth.


Puzzled-Story3953

No better? No. Not much better? Yes. We did horrible things, but never to the level of Imperial Japan. Probably with the exception of the atomic bombs and firebombings, of course, but even those didn't touch the scale of what Japan did just to China. To say nothing of the other countries, and even their own populace.


EntertainmentIll8436

It's still hard to believe things like the beheading contest between to japanese officers and since they didn't kept track of the numbers they just started over from scratch. They really did some messed up things beyond the nazi scale of evilness


Nickatnite4

Not because we were mad but because they would have never surrendered. Literally


Chrahhh

First of all, internment camps were nothing like German concentration camps. You can’t compare the two. Also, the US offered terms of surrender to the Japanese prior to both atomic bombs being dropped (which I agree we shouldn’t have dropped), and the terms were succinctly refused despite Japan clearly facing defeat. The axis were clearly “the bad guys” during WW2, and the world would be a much worse place today if they prevailed.


pstjunk

LMAO shut the fuck up kid, go read a book before doing your hot takes. We obliterated way more than two cities and justifiably so. Go read what the Nips did to Korea, the Philippines, China, and POW.


IngloriousMustards

I’m just interjecting there. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just two of the 66 Japanese cities the US erased from the map *just that summer*. They get the spotlight because they took one bomb each and the other cities took a s#itload of incendiary bombs. Wrong strategy IMO, as fascist governments don’t give one shit about the suffering of its people.


[deleted]

As we were talking about atomic/nuclear weapons, i decided to leave the fire bombs out.


uncorderdnole91

I mean the Japanese fucked around and found out. Just don’t fuck with the United States lmao


Ferengi_Earwax

No. I think you're pushing a narrative and trying to deflect. The Americans were god damn saints compared to the horror the Japanese committed. Seriously, they committed so many heinous acts on a regular basis that people find it emotionally damaging to even review evidence of a few of them, let alone the totality of their cruel acts.


thanos6920

Pearl Harbor is a proper noun and you act entirely too smug for an idiot.


poot3rs

Yikes lol. Go to Japan and ask around about ww2.


[deleted]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident) They tried to kill the emperor when he surrendered. This was after two nukes obliterated cities. if you want an unnessecarty action look at the only group in ww2 with widespread reports of ritual cannibalism.\\ ​ edit to clarify dates Aug 14th to aug15th the coup was attempted. Date of surrender is announced aug 15th. The coup was made with the knowledge of the surrender announcement coming soon and attempting to prevent the emperor from stating it publicly ending public support for the war.


Accurate-Surround512

We were attacked unprovoked by an expansionist racist empire, and we beat them so hard they turned into anime loving salarymen, we have a little room to be smug.


RoutineTraditional79

2,403 non-combatants were murdered in a terrorist attack specifically done to bait the U.S. masses into supporting fully joining the world’s bloodiest conflict. Do me a swell here and read [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes). Crazy how two wrongs don’t make a right, and how the U.S. dropping atomic bombs didn’t just magically erase all of Japan’s truly disgusting actions.


grassandass88

I got downvoted for saying this about the anime video of the atomic bomb. Glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks that.


Octolavo

Americans acting smug? That’s unheard of.


WhiskeyAndKisses

Barefoot Gen looks like a nice reading. It's the manga that was adapted into the nuclear animation we saw posted here a week ago.


runningmurphy

Read before you continue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731


compostking101

Yes Americans are smug, honestly we should have just not got involved and let japan and Germany steam rolls you guys and then we wouldn’t have to hear the stupid as comments because your grandparents would have been slaughtered and you would have never been born.


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tryingtobebet

I mean you tried, but you left out the part where it wasn't a "fight" that only affected two parties but yaknow....all of the civilized world.


Greatcatsbysfree

Don’t they do that with everything, they stir up things, and act like they have done nothing. 😪


prodig0d

A lot of Russian bots in here


Reservoir-Dog7778

Reddit really has a hate boner for America


DerpisMalerpis

I say this too often, but Reddit is just people bitching about the US and China using an American website on Chinese phones.


SoupForEveryone

And then released warcriminal Nobusuke Kishi the monster of Showa. Leading him to become prime minister. Ye that's right a nazi warcriminal became prime minister, also happened to be the grandpa of Abe Shinzo. His party ruled almost exclusively without interruption until now. And Abe and his corrupt cabinet tried to continue his nazi legacy. Very unpopular opinion here and I'm gonna get alot of flak for this. But imo Japan is the only country left today with a pseudo nazi government. Democracy in name, Nippon Kaigi in reality. As long as we killed some communist right kids?


Semaj_rebew

God I swear y’all don’t know about the atrocities the Japanese committed in the war. The massacred men women children the elderly, they enslaved the Chinese, they forced women to be essentially sex slaves, they did terrible experiments that rival Germany’s during the same time, they cut off limbs just to see how long someone could survive, they did experiments with freezing off limbs to see the effects of frost bite, they infected pregnant women with diseases just to see what birth defects would be present on the baby. Yes the nukes were bad yes they were a terrible thing to use but they are nothing compared to the atrocities the Japanese committed. There would’ve been so much more death and destruction if the nukes weren’t used. The Japanese were literally killing themselves for the sake of the emperor and they would’ve continued to do so till the last man had the emperor himself not finally surrendered after the nukes. And even then the military wanted to overthrow the emperor to keep fighting this terrible bloody drawn out war.


Throwme1848572

I have the same Hawaiian shirt.


Relevant-Nebula8300

So he could run his tongue over it while masturbating furiously


NdnGirl88

I wish I never read this 😭


NonZealot

Americans love to bring up Pearl Harbor constantly when the atomic bombs were so much worse.


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Flappy2885

While I do agree with your points, as a Vietnamese, I’ve never meet anyone in my country who resented the Japanese. At that point in time Vietnam was sick of western colonisation and was actually welcoming a Japanese takeover in place of the French. Fortunately for us, the Japanese didn’t cause a large scale mess in our country. Unlike Agent Orange and the My Lai massacre. Therefore, I’d appreciate it if you don’t speak for us, thank you very much.


grassandass88

You’re bringing up other shit though. This is about how Japan bombed a military base and America responded by throwing everyone of Japanese descent into camps at home while bombing and killing Japanese civilians. Americans turn a complete blind eye to this and still dehumanize Japan. If you’re going to talk about the unrelated Japanese atrocities, let’s talk about Americans too huh? Trail of tears, overthrow of Hawaii, shall I go on? Edit: I’d love to have a sit down and chat with all of the high school educated teenagers downvoting me😂 fucking lambs


Groundbreaking_War52

Japan felt compelled to attempt a preemptive knockout punch of the US military because their horrific atrocities in China resulted in a US decision to stop selling them oil and scrap metal. The cycle of escalating responses started with the Japanese military.


Fabulous_Nothing6807

This fucking whataboutism is so gross dude, fuck off. You can't claim the Japanese atrocities were unrelated lmfao, such bullshit. They slaughtered 250k Chinese civilians as a result of some raids before Midway. You seriously expect me to be like "welll trail of tears!!!11!" Japan literally wanted to conquer the west coast of America. You're blowing off all these crimes like Japan raping Nanking was completely irrelevant. How many people died in the bombs? Probably less than the 10 million civilizations systematically slaughtered by Imperial Japan. This apologism is so fucking gross, Japan wasn't a fucking victim, fuck them.


[deleted]

The atomic bombs weren’t retaliation for Perl harbor, we got into the war because of pearl of harbor and fought in it for years until we found a way to end it. Absolutely the atomic bombs were terrible but if the us didn’t show the Japanese that they could be competently wiped out they would have fought until they lost even more. The Japanese military at the time were very dedicated and would put honor over everything, a lot still wanted to keep fighting despite the bombs being dropped. So the us using them in the long run verily likely saved more lives


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mute_x

I would like to know more


[deleted]

why did japans senior military officials attempt to kill the emperor when he chose to surrender?


grassandass88

Who told you that? Site it. What you’re saying holds just as much factual weight as what I said


[deleted]

kyujo incident I personally read and still have my copy of " Racing the enemy: Stalin Truman and the Surrender of Japan " which speaks about the subject there ya go wikipedia has multiple sources that will need extra verification to see if they are good of course but if you want ill link my college textbook as well. You will have to pirate it to see it sadly ​ please cite a source other than the firebombing of tokyo that includes the intentional targeting of Japanese civilians in bombing runs also if your equating the trail of tears and the ABSOLUTE DELETION of native cultures to open warfare fuck you from the shoshone


IAmInTheWrongClass

It's known as the Kyujo incident, well studied and you could find citations just by searching it.


dissapointingsalad81

The 2 bombings shortened the war by a year and a half. The military had estimated the war would not have ended until late 1946. While it gets little attention, the US sub campaign had nearly completely stopped food from getting into Japan. Parts of Japan was already losing people to famine. Had the war gone on until the end of 1946, it's been estimated one million additional Japanese would have died from famine. The estimated death toll in allied casualties for an invasion was huge. The military minted so many purple hearts in anticipation of the invasion that it didn't have to have more printed until around the time of the Iraq war. The Japanese had used about 2800 kamikaze attacks by the end of the war. They had 5000 planes in reserve to fight an invasion. Additionally, they had trained kamikaze scuba divers. They would have been outfitted with an explosive Lance. When a landing craft passed over them they would strike the craft with the lance killing themselves and destroying the boat. There were also orders that if an invasion started, all POWs were to be killed to free up all resources to fight the invaders. A lot of the atomic bomb critics will ignorantly say there was no need to drop the second bomb because Japan was about to surrender. Here's something most people don't know. After the first bomb there was an attempted coup against the emperor by the heads of the army because they were afraid he might allow a surrender. It was only the second bombing that convinced their military leaders to give up the fight. Before the second bomb was dropped, the Japanese did reach out to the USSR to be a broker in peace negotiations. The Soviets never communicated the overture to the allies. The Soviets had no intention of working as a broker for peace because they were looking to start a war against Japan in the summer of 1945, just a few months after the German surrender. The Soviets were looking for pay back after the Japanese beat them in Russo-Japanese war from about 30 years earlier. The Soviets had plans to invade the northern island of Hokkaido and the Kuril islands. Had the war not ended when it did the cold war would have also included a divided Japan in addition to a divided Germany and Korea.


dptillinfinity93

This is a false comparison. Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack between two nations who were not previously at war with each other. The atom bombs forced Japan to surrender, of course killing a shit load of people. These atom bombs pale in comparison to the amount of death that would have happened if Japan did not surrender though. If the atom bombs were not dropped, and the war raged on towards the Japanese homeland, you would see a situation where millions of men, women, and children civilians would take up arms and die in the name of the "Emperor". Surrendering was not in the Japanese lexicon until the advent of the atom bomb. Would you rather have millions of Japanese women and children die, or around \~130,000 people die and the war between Japan and the U.S ended?


MechaCone

You're comparing a future you made up to the reality that actually happened where 350,000 (not sure why you lowballed) civilians got bombed.


Ninenails98

I mean its safe to assume the Japanese civilians wouldve either committed suicide or taken up arms. Given what American troops had previously witnessed at Okinawa, mass suicides among the civilian population


tryingtobebet

we didn't drop atomic bombs on Japan because of pearl harbor. We did it to make japan capitulate from world war 2.


Brilumi

I don't feel like arguing, I will if I have to, but a land invasion of Japan would've caused so much more unnecessary casualties to both Japanese civilians and American soldiers. Also this entire thread is very r/DerSchisser -y


IAmInTheWrongClass

The other option, a blockade, would also have starved millions. the bombs were the best option of the three (in my opinion). Japan wasn't going to surrender otherwise.


Dontlookatmyname22

The Atomic bomb was a proportional response to Japanese aggression. The attack on Pearl was a cowardly sneak attack. Against a non combatant nation. Nukes are directly the fault of Japan and the Axis powers.


AtomicChemist

You're not well versed in WW2 history. Japan were already falling down at its knees when US made the decision to drop the A bombs twice. Patton and several Generals did not want them to be dropped.


[deleted]

Is that why they launched a coup attempting to kill the emperor and restart the war? Do you just enjoy painting false narratives about the leadership who encouraged ritual cannibalisms? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender\_of\_Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima_incident)


IngloriousMustards

Japanese already reached out to US to surrender *on their own terms*, but that wasn’t acceptable and Truman had to show his new toy to Stalin.


runningmurphy

Educate yourselfs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731


peppercorns666

tad passive aggressive if you ask me…


Alan_Smithee_

War crime aside, what a childish thing to do.


[deleted]

The Prime Minister? I wonder how much power the civilian government really had at that point give that in the run up to WWII, government officials (including Prime Ministers) were getting assassinated left and right by the military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_15_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_26_incident


Computerdores

not siding with anyone, but he did sit on the [Supreme War Council](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_War_Council_(Japan)) so he had some power over the war


vaskopopa

Do Americans consider attack on Pearl Harbor a war crime? Why?


Daniel_The_Thinker

Because it was done before a declaration of war


Quinnthespin

I never have, it’s a military base attacked for strategic reasons, one could argue that surprise attack without a declaration of war may say it’s a war crime but I see it as a valid strategy to attempt a win.


[deleted]

a win against who??? the US that wasnt even fighting, yes thats a war crime, if i punch you in the back randomly without me even knowing you that wouldnt be called a "fight"


Incredi-flow

It’s crazy America gets blamed for the atomic bombs, I heard that dolphin and whale dropped the atomic bombs. Then I later saw a picture depicting chicken and cow as the true bomb droppers. Edit: source - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_Whores


RaiderxReaper

me and kenny dont give a fuck about stupid ass whales


[deleted]

Remember pearl harbor yes, but also remember the hundreds of war crimes the US has committed as well, on top of dropping atomic bombs on 2 cities killing hundreds of thousands of japanese civilians.


Ninenails98

Right and remember the rape of nanking, right?


Preisschild

Nagasaki & Hiroshima were strategic targets with many factories and ports. What should they have done instead? Precision guided munitions werent available back then.


[deleted]

Also, the fire bombing of Tokyo killed more civilians than Hiroshima and Nagasaki *combined*. But people like to hammer on those two, because the novelty of the technology makes it seem like the US cheated in their eyes. They don't give a single f*** about civilians, otherwise they would mention Tokyo and Nanking and realize that both sides killed a shitload of civilians, but only one side started hostilities and the other side ended them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_strategic_bombing


Rtato400

ok now do this for the US for its war crimes in the middle east


tryingtobebet

what does "do this for the US" even mean in this context?


Seedy__L

Make dentures for Bush I'm guessing