70th Anniversary Of The Hiroshima Bombing. A Few Factors Are Often Overlooked.



Jun 6, 2006
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The Empire of Japan had a nuclear weapons program. Evidence was discovered after the war and may have been known to Allied intelligence during the war.

They cooperated in some technological matters with Nazi Germany as well; the bomb may have been one of them. They obtained several examples of tanks and aircraft and sent much needed material and supplies to Germany via submarine. It was at least a possibility that nuclear technology had been exported to the East to speed up the Japanese nuclear program, perhaps when the Germans knew they would lose the war. It was not known whether this was the case. The Germans came closer to making a bomb than the world was told in 1945 but the information was classified at the time.

Japan had several functioning submarines at the end of the war. Most importantly, they had developed and built examples of an aircraft carrying submarine which could launch and recover three bombers which could each carry an 1800 pound weapon. They built at least two examples of these subs as well as smaller aircraft carrying subs which could carry two of the bombers apiece. The I-400 and I-401's capabilities are well known because they both surrendered at the end of the war. Their airplanes had been launched into the sea or pushed overboard before the surrender, ostensibly because they were not marked according to the rules of war. They had ostensibly been sailing to attack the United States naval base at Ulithi.

Japan also had a biological weapons program in Manchuria, the infamous Unit 731.

The bioweapons could have been delivered by balloon, as crazy as it sounds. Japan had a program of stratosphere-riding fire balloons with which they tried to ignite North American forests. They did not succeed but several balloons reached the United States and one made it as far as Detroit. Some of their remaining conventional subs may also have been able to launch and recover small observation aircraft. One such submarine-borne aircraft actually tried bombing Oregon in 1942 but caused little damage as the plane was too small. Once again, we will never know for sure what the aircraft aboard the I-400 and I-401 were armed with because they were at sea at the time of Japan's surrender and their airplanes were launched into the sea or pushed overboard.
 
Japan had also developed a manned cruise missile.

They did not prove a major threat to Allied fleets because they depended on a conventional bomber to take them within 23 miles of their target. They appeared near the end of the war when Allied defenses typically heavily outnumbered attackers.

Perhaps it would be possible to develop a version which could be launched directly from an I-400-class submarine.

Had such a plane been armed with a nuclear warhead, it could destroy any city near the coast and no air defence in existence at the time could have stopped it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokosuka_MXY7_Ohka
 
The "Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night" page may seem like scant evidence of a dangerous threat to the US but it does indicate that the IJN wanted to save the I-400 and 401 for another mission.

They still could have used bioweapons by other means than the Seirans such as sending their remaining conventional subs against the west coast to launch balloons after surfacing off major cities. It would have been simpler than sending balloons all the way across the Pacific through the stratosphere and might have worked.

The aircraft carrying subs may have been out to attack the US base at Ulithi with bioweapons. Or they may have had another mission in mind which is secret to this day. There is reason to doubt they were intent upon a conventional attack on Ulithi.

Six aircraft attacking a naval base with conventional bombs or torpedoes was not much of a threat. US ships had a lot of antiaircraft firepower at the time. Successful air attacks would depend on overwhelming defenses with large numbers of aircraft coming in from many directions.

Perhaps biological agents could be spread on a dark night with poor visibility but the US did have radar-equipped night fighters.

False markings can only go so far to protect aircraft when every ship had recognition posters. The Allied forces didn't operate any aircraft that looked like a Seiran.
 
Where was it supposed to go? I don't think anyone gets too worked up over events of 70 years ago.

Sure, Japan continues to unleash scourges upon us from time to time - Hello Kitty, J-Pop and Anime come to mind - but I foregive them since they also gave us suishi.
 
This is all subjective, we are looking at this way after the fact and trying to play armchair generals and president. Do I think they should have dropped those? I wasn't a general in the Pacific at the time so I don't know what they were dealing with or fearing that they would have to deal with. History gets distorted over time too, to the point where fiction and fact intermingle and we can't tell them apart. I do know from my dad that back then the Japanese were very brutal people, and my dad said that he would have fought tell they had to kill him vs surrendering and become a POW. A lot of people that lived around that area back then know all too well about the brutality of the Japanese people including China. Problem is, this brutality is now far behind them and China, needs to let it go, most of the WW2 era leaders and military people are now dead, the generations that succeeded them are not remotely into brutality, and China needs to understand this and not hold grudges for so long. Grudges held on like China holds on to their grudge against Japan will be the death of China.
 

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