# Hiroshima in memoriam



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Hiroshima is best remembered as the first city targeted by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on the city at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. Most of the city was destroyed, and by the end of the year 90,000-166,000 had died as a result of the blast and its effects. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) serves as a memorial of the bombing.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Hiroshima, Dresden, now Beirut. We have an amazing capacity for destruction. If we don't send out a large fleet of space probes in all directions, broadcasting Beethoven quartets into the void to tell others we were once here, before we self-destruct, it wiil have been an awful waste.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Ikuma Dan * Sinfonia n. 6 "Hiroshima"


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Do you think the Japanese would have been different if they had nuclear capabilities?










The Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing (alternately written as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking) was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Imperial Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. During this period, soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants who numbered an estimated 40,000 to over 300,000, and perpetrated widespread rape and looting.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

hammeredklavier said:


> Do you think the Japanese would have been different if they had nuclear capabilities?
> 
> The Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing (alternately written as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking) was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Imperial Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
> The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. During this period, soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants who numbered an estimated 40,000 to over 300,000, and perpetrated widespread rape and looting.


Well, I guess we're even now. Served 'em right? Saved lives? etc. This was intended as a memoriam thread for the Hiroshima victims, not a contentious debate/conflict, so please be cognizant of that intent and stay on topic. Yeah, sure....


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

MarkW said:


> Hiroshima, Dresden, now Beirut. We have an amazing capacity for destruction. If we don't send out a large fleet of space probes in all directions, broadcasting Beethoven quartets into the void to tell others we were once here, before we self-destruct, it wiil have been an awful waste.


No need, they are better informed than the average person.

Former Canadian Minister of Defence Paul Hellyer said: "Decades ago, visitors from other planets warned us about the direction we were heading and offered to help. Instead, some of us interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after."


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> Do you think the Japanese would have been different if they had nuclear capabilities?


I took a college course on Japanese history. Near the end of the semester, I went up to the professor after class and asked if he personally felt we had been right to use the atom bomb.

Obviously, he was a man with a greater-than-usual understanding of and sensitivity to Japanese culture. His father might have fought in the Pacific, for all I know.

He said, "The more I've thought about it, the more I've felt that I don't know the answer."

This much is clear to me:

1) Imperial Japan, no less than Nazi Germany, would only be defeated through complete destruction. And whether that destruction was carried out by bombing or starvation, there would be mass civilians deaths.

2) The Allies had long since abandoned any scruples about inflicting civilian casualties. The unique cruelties of death by radiation poisoning notwithstanding, there is no moral distinction between the atom bombing of Hiroshima and the fire bombing of Tokyo or Dresden.

3) America has recklessly over-developed its nuclear arsenal, poorly secured it, and still refuses to commit to a no-first-use policy.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> Hiroshima is best remembered as the first city targeted by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on the city at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. Most of the city was destroyed, and by the end of the year 90,000-166,000 had died as a result of the blast and its effects. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) serves as a memorial of the bombing.


I was unpacking and shelving some of my LPs last weekend, and happened across this very good one. Of course, Bruno Maderna, the conductor here, was himself an important composer. I included Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima in my contribution in a thread here asking for lists of the most important works after 1950. (I think).


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