Vj Day

[Flora MaDonald]

Can someone please advise me as to where Prince Edward obtained his vast aray of medals?

Thank you.

[swifty's cakes]

Can someone please advise me as to where Prince Edward obtained his vast aray of medals?

Thank you.

eBay.

[wheres the pies]

wiz it no the barras

[Duncan Blackheart]

He's just re-negotiated their lease from the Germans.

[hunchy]

Instead of having a dig at the royals can we instead remember the guys who caught and got captured there and the women who were interested by the japs. The horrors the men suffered will never be fully understood by us. The tortures they suffered were inhumane and many of the people who survived still carry those mental scars that will never heal. And before anyone goes on about the atomic bombs being dropped if they had not how many more years would the war have gone on and how many more people would have suffered the borders of Japanese torture

[Flora MaDonald]

Instead of having a dig at the royals can we instead remember the guys who caught and got captured there and the women who were interested by the japs. The horrors the men suffered will never be fully understood by us. The tortures they suffered were inhumane and many of the people who survived still carry those mental scars that will never heal. And before anyone goes on about the atomic bombs being dropped if they had not how many more years would the war have gone on and how many more people would have suffered the borders of Japanese torture

That is the whole point of the post. There were soldiers at that Church service who went through utter hell, and this clown turns up with a chest-full of medals.

[Charlie Endell]

Borrowed from the wardrobe department of Ardent Productions.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Charlie Endell

[Toepoke]

Can someone please advise me as to where Prince Edward obtained his vast aray of medals?

He thought it was BJ day...

Edit...oops thought you were talking about his faither

Edited August 15, 2015 by Toepoke

[Stapes]

That is the whole point of the post. There were soldiers at that Church service who went through utter hell, and this clown turns up with a chest-full of medals.

This.

To find out what they actually did go through there are some great books out there. Unbroken, The Forgotten Highlander, and The Railway Man, amongst others.

[Bannannan]

That is the whole point of the post. There were soldiers at that Church service who went through utter hell, and this clown turns up with a chest-full of medals.

[ParisInAKilt]

Commemorating these events would make a lot more sense if we weren't engaging in our own acts of war abroad. Seeing Cameron and co acting somber while their decisions are killing people results in these things bringing mixed emotions.

[phart]

And before anyone goes on about the atomic bombs being dropped if they had not how many more years would the war have gone on and how many more people would have suffered the borders of Japanese torture

No more years. The Japanese had tried to negoatiate surrender while Roosevelt was still President let alone Truman.

Japan was getting firebombed into submission months before any atomic bomb. they lost much more lives and homes in the firebombing than they did from the two nuclear bombs over cities. They were in contact with China and Russia in late 1944 talking about negotiating.

[aaid]

No more years. The Japanese had tried to negoatiate surrender while Roosevelt was still President let alone Truman.

Japan was getting firebombed into submission months before any atomic bomb. they lost much more lives and homes in the firebombing than they did from the two nuclear bombs over cities. They were in contact with China and Russia in late 1944 talking about negotiating.

And of course, the Americans wanted to demonstrate the power of the bomb to the Russians.

[phart]

And of course, the Americans wanted to demonstrate the power of the bomb to the Russians.

One night bombing raid killed 100,000 people(that's the LOW end estimate), Operation Meetinghouse. Folk forget that by end of July 1945 the Americans were struggling to find viable targets. So in the next two weeks they dropped the two bombs, and shifted over to Korea for some of the same.

[giblet]

I'm sure I read that the Japanese were ready to fight man, woman and child to the last person as long as their emperor told them to. There were reports of mass suicides in the outlying Japanese islands when the Yanks landed.

The Japanese emperor had the chance to surrender and didnt. Horrific use of weapons designed to inflict damage on civilians, but probably did actually save more lives than they took based upon what could have happened.

[Eisegerwind]

Wars are really best avoided, lots of shit things happen, but lets not try and justify the incineration of civilians, children,men,women.

[Robroysboy]

eBay.

[Robroysboy]

What concerns me is they still parade around Japan in WWII uniforms to commemorate the war and their devotion to their emporer.

Shocking considering the atrocities the Japs committed.

Can you imagine the uproar if a bunch of germans dressed up as Nazis had similar events.

The lady who owned my house before me recieved compensation from the japanese government as her husband was a POW under them.

Their treatment was barbaric and against the geneva convention which the japs did not recognise.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Robroysboy

[ThistleWhistle]

No more years. The Japanese had tried to negoatiate surrender while Roosevelt was still President let alone Truman.

Japan was getting firebombed into submission months before any atomic bomb. they lost much more lives and homes in the firebombing than they did from the two nuclear bombs over cities. They were in contact with China and Russia in late 1944 talking about negotiating.

Did you watch Oliver Stone's series? According to him US knew that the Japanese were up for surrendering and dropping the bombs was more to do with sending the shiters up the Russians - I always foolishly thought the Russians started the Cold War. He said why would dropping one bomb from one plane make any difference than dropping thousands from hundreds - pretty much anywhere with a decent sized population had been firebombed to cinders apart from the two they were saving for the bomb.

He argued the Japanese were up for surrendering because of the speed the Russians had taken Manchuria and South Sakhalin in under a fortnight - if they took the Japanese mainland then they were concerned the Russians would do away with the Emperor.

Interesting thing on Truman was he was essentially an eejit (not much of an education/various failed businesses) and was about fifth choice to contest for the Vice President for a big hitting group in the Democrats who needed a puppet. Wallace, who'd been Roosevelt's Vice President since 1940, was to romp it but his socialist leanings had made him unpopular with the top dogs. By the time he came to get re-elected in 1944 Roosevelt didn't have the health to help his campaign and even though he was polling 60% compared to Truman <5% Truman won after some shenanigans with when the vote took place. In less than 100 days Truman was president and pretty much f**ked up relations with Russia from day one.

Interesting to contemplate how the world would have turned out had Wallace been President at the same time Attlee was Prime Minister.

[Robroysboy]

Did you watch Oliver Stone's series? According to him US knew that the Japanese were up for surrendering and dropping the bombs was more to do with sending the shiters up the Russians

Interesting theory, what was the time scale from the 1st and 2nd bomb. You would think they would have surrended after the 1st bomb if they were on the verge of surrendering.

[Ally Bongo]

Interesting theory, what was the time scale from the 1st and 2nd bomb. You would think they would have surrended after the 1st bomb if they were on the verge of surrendering.

Exactly

Oliver Stone is a fantasist albeit an entertaining one as his JFK proves

The last Japanese troops to surrender did so in 1974 for those that think they were "definitely about" to surrender before the first bomb was dropped

Not that i'm advocating the bomb being dropped - but there are a hell of a lot of revisionists about these days which will sadly only increase as those that were actually there are no longer here

People seem to forget what it was like taking the islands off Japan - Peleliu, Okinawa and Iwo Jima in particular

Its not a hard argument to suggest that the casualties on both sides of an assault on the Japanese mainland would have been far worse

Edited August 15, 2015 by Ally Bongo

[phart]

Did you watch Oliver Stone's series? According to him US knew that the Japanese were up for surrendering and dropping the bombs was more to do with sending the shiters up the Russians - I always foolishly thought the Russians started the Cold War. He said why would dropping one bomb from one plane make any difference than dropping thousands from hundreds - pretty much anywhere with a decent sized population had been firebombed to cinders apart from the two they were saving for the bomb.

He argued the Japanese were up for surrendering because of the speed the Russians had taken Manchuria and South Sakhalin in under a fortnight - if they took the Japanese mainland then they were concerned the Russians would do away with the Emperor.

Interesting thing on Truman was he was essentially an eejit (not much of an education/various failed businesses) and was about fifth choice to contest for the Vice President for a big hitting group in the Democrats who needed a puppet. Wallace, who'd been Roosevelt's Vice President since 1940, was to romp it but his socialist leanings had made him unpopular with the top dogs. By the time he came to get re-elected in 1944 Roosevelt didn't have the health to help his campaign and even though he was polling 60% compared to Truman <5% Truman won after some shenanigans with when the vote took place. In less than 100 days Truman was president and pretty much f**ked up relations with Russia from day one.

Interesting to contemplate how the world would have turned out had Wallace been President at the same time Attlee was Prime Minister.

Not seen it, will have to check it out.(I'm pretty sure i read about Japan in MacArthur's or Eisenhower's autobiographies). Japan was already at war with China when the US cut off their oil and coal supply, in a not so subtle attempt to start a fight so they could enter the war. So for Japan it was in for penny in for a pound. Of course Japan at the time was following the European lead by carving out a wee empire. They'd sat and watched what had happened to almost every other Asian nation in the preceding century and thought Feck that.

As said above wars bring out the best and worst extremes of humanity so of course loads of shit things happened. Also in one night of firebombing Tokyo the US bomber command killed the same amount of folk as the middle estimate for first 4 months of Hiroshima. 60 Cities were Firebombed out of existence between late 1944 and the surrender. With something like 350k direct deaths from the bombs and over 500k in the aftermath (starvation, injuries, dehydration,exposure) etc. It wasn't like nothing was happening to them , on any chosen night any city could be firebombed out of existence Nuke or no Nuke.

[Robroysboy]

Exactly

Oliver Stone is a fantasist albeit an entertaining one as his JFK proves

The last Japanese troops to surrender did so in 1974 for those that think they were "definitely about" to surrender before the first bomb was dropped

Not that i'm advocating the bomb being dropped - but there are a hell of a lot of revisionists about these days which will sadly only increase as those that were actually there are no longer here

People seem to forget what it was like taking the islands off Japan - Peleliu, Okinawa and Iwo Jima in particular

Its not a hard argument to suggest that the casualties on both sides of an assault on the Japanese mainland would have been far worse

[phart]

Exactly

Oliver Stone is a fantasist albeit an entertaining one as his JFK proves

The last Japanese troops to surrender did so in 1974 for those that think they were "definitely about" to surrender before the first bomb was dropped

Not that i'm advocating the bomb being dropped - but there are a hell of a lot of revisionists about these days which will sadly only increase as those that were actually there are no longer here

People seem to forget what it was like taking the islands off Japan - Peleliu, Okinawa and Iwo Jima in particular

Its not a hard argument to suggest that the casualties on both sides of an assault on the Japanese mainland would have been far worse

1991 actually, but why would that fact be causal to the intent of the government of Japan in surrendering? The Spartans had fought to the death for centuries but they still surrendered at the Battle of Sphacteria. How hard was Thermopylae defended?

[phart]

Can't get MacArthur's Autobiography but here is the story from Chicago tribune front page (2nd column to right of the picture.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1945/08/19/page/1/article/bare-peace-bid-u-s-rebuffed-7-months-ago

and here is the actual text of it.

Chicago Tribune, August 19,1945

JAPS ASKED PEACE IN JAN. ENVOYS ON WAY -- TOKYO
Roosevelt Ignored M'Arthur Report On Nip Proposals
By Walter Trohan

Release of all censorship restrictions in the United States makes it possible to report that the first Japanese peace bid was relayed to the White House seven months ago.

Two days before the late President Roosevelt left the last week in January for the Yalta conference with Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin he received a Japanese offer identical with the terms subsequently concluded by his successor, Harry S. Truman.

MacArthur Relayed Message to F.D.

The Jap offer, based on five separate overtures, was relayed to the White House by Gen. MacArthur in a 40-page communication. The American commander, who had just returned triumphantly to Bataan, urged negotiations on the basis of the Jap overtures.

The offer, as relayed by MacArthur, contemplated abject surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. The suggestion was advanced from the Japanese quarters making the offer that the Emperor become a puppet in the hands of American forces.

Two of the five Jap overtures were made through American channels and three through British channels. All came from responsible Japanese, acting for Emperor Hirohito.

General's Communication Dismissed

President Roosevelt dismissed the general's communication, which was studded with solemn references to the deity, after a casual reading with the remark, "MacArthur is our greatest general and our poorest politician."

The MacArthur report was not even taken to Yalta. However, it was carefully preserved in the files of the high command and subsequently became the basis of the Truman-Attlee Potsdam declaration calling for surrender of Japan.

This Jap peace bid was known to the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald shortly after the MacArthur communication reached here. It was not published under the paper's established policy of complete co-operation with the voluntary censorship code.

Edited August 15, 2015 by phart