Nagasaki A-bomb plane co-pilot dies at age 88

[Whatwedobest]

Okay so I read the news everyday and pick up on interesting things, and this morning, this is what I came up against. I'm going to enclose the whole article, so you don't think I'm just picking out parts.

Look at the bold parts



"ORLANDO, Fla. – Charles Donald Albury, co-pilot of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, has died after years of congestive heart failure. He was 88.

Albury died May 23 at a hospital, Family Funeral Care in Orlando confirmed.

Albury helped fly the B-29 Superfortress, nicknamed "Bockscar," that dropped the weapon on Aug. 9, 1945. He also witnessed the first atomic blast over Hiroshima, as a pilot on a support plane that measured the magnitude of the blast and levels of radioactivity.

The Hiroshima mission was led by Col. Paul Tibbets Jr. aboard the better-known "Enola Gay."

"When Tibbets dropped the bomb, we dropped our instruments and made our left turn," Albury told Time magazine four years ago. "Then this bright light hit us and the top of that mushroom cloud was the most terrifying, but also the most beautiful, thing you've ever seen in your life. Every color in the rainbow seemed to be coming out of it."

Three days later, Albury copiloted the mission over Nagasaki. Cloud cover caused problems for the mission until the bombardier found a hole in the clouds.

The 10,200-pound explosive instantly killed an estimated 40,000 people. Another 35,000 died from injuries and radiation sickness. Japan surrendered on Aug. 14.

Albury said he felt no remorse, since the attacks prevented what was certain to be a devastating loss of life in a U.S. invasion of Japan.

"My husband was a hero," Roberta Albury, his wife of 65 years, told The Miami Herald. "He saved one million people ... He sure did do a lot of praying."

Gwyneth Clarke-Bell, Albury's secretary at Eastern Airlines, where he worked for most of his career after World War II, told the Herald that Albury "felt he was doing his job, and that lives were saved on both sides."

Albury was born in 1920 at his parents' home, now the site of the Miami Police Department. He enlisted in the wartime Army before graduating from the University of Miami's engineering school. In 1943, Albury joined Tibbets' unit: the elite 509th Composite Group. They trained at White Sands, N.M., where FBI agents tailed them night and day. At the time, the participants were clueless as to the scope of what they were training to do.

After the war, he settled in Coral Gables, Fla., with his wife and flew for Eastern Airlines. He eventually co-managed Eastern's Airbus A-300 training program.

Albury told the Herald in 1982 that he deplored war but would do what he did again if someone attacked the United States.
"Everyone should be prepared to fight for liberty," he said. "Our laws give us our freedom and I think that's worth fighting for.""





I mean what the freak?! How can you not feel remorse for killing 75,000 innocent people, and causing their friends and relatives, if they weren't already dead ,to grieve! You have to be one heartless b*stard to do that! And he was describing the bomb as some pretty light show! I'd like to see him down there and see what he'd think of it then! And how the freak were lives saved on BOTH sides?! I mean I'm not against our government (that much, I like the current President :) ), but seriously, how can you make a statement like that?! And then he said he would DO IT AGAIN! OMFG seriously with all due respect to the dead, did this guy have heart?!

Okay, sorry for the rant but seriously, what do you guys think of this?

[davious]

You seriously don't understand how lives were saved? If you knew anything about Japanese culture during the 1940s, how they still maintained aspects of their Bushido Samurai code, that instructed them never to surrender, never give up, you would understand. The A-bombs gave Japan a way out of the war they started with America, a way to save face, to surrender honorably. Had the A-bombs not been dropped, Japan would not have surrendered when they did, and combat would have continued. It would have only intensified after August.

You probably aren't aware of Operation Downfall, scheduled to begin that October. It would have seen Allied troops invading the Japanese mainland, which would have led to far more than 75,000 deaths. The Japanese were fighting to the death, refusing to surrender when they were fighting away from Japan, when they were the invaders...imagine how fiercely they would have fought when they had to defend their own country, instead of invading someone elses?

Further, Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were valid military targets, they weren't peaceful villages, they were active parts of Japan's war effort. Hiroshima was a major manufacturing center for Japan's military, and Nagasaki was an important Naval port.

You complain that he said he never felt remorse. Perhaps he should have felt remorse, but, how much more remorse would have been needed for the millions of additional lives that would have been lost? How many more letters to families would have to have been sent informing them their son was killed in action would have satisfied you?

Honestly, look at the choices.

1. Drop an A-bomb, kill 75,000 people, and end the war immediately.

2 Don't drop the A-bomb, see more than 1,000,000 additional people killed, and see the war get prolonged.

Sorry, but, the choice is clear to me. You end the war when you have the opportunity to do so. You would ask the pilot to feel bad that the US traded 75,000 lives lost for over 1,000,000 lives on both sides saved?

[xoxSugah]

I agree with Davious. The longer a war goes on the more people are going to die. They had an alternative to sending men to fight on the ground and they used it.

This man probably DID feel some remorse for it. Just because he didn't shout it to the world doesn't mean he never felt bad.

[Zoxell]

Sorry, but, the choice is clear to me. You end the war when you have the opportunity to do so. You would ask the pilot to feel bad that the US traded 75,000 lives lost for over 1,000,000 lives on both sides saved?

I also have to agree with davious here. War is Hell, as Sherman put it. A prolonged war would have killed thousands more. The atomic bomb was being developed by the Germans, and some suspect, the Japanese. A second Pearl Harbor with Japanese nukes could have been a reality, had the war continued.

[slipknot93]

I think it's racist, thousand of innocent people blown up just for living in a country that got in some war
why would you be so proud of doing that

[Safyre420]

wow lulz totally not racist. Many times in times of war, circumstances call for extreme measures, the A-bombs were an extreme measure that was taken.

[xoxSugah]

I think it's racist, thousand of innocent people blown up just for living in a country that got in some war
why would you be so proud of doing that

lolracist.
You can always tell when school's out for the summer. Shame it doesn't go year round. You can tell it's needed.

[Whatwedobest]

Before I make another statement I just want to say this: I AM AGAINST WAR! I am a pacifist everyone, so don't look at me like I'm some war-crazy fiend.

Perhaps you guys are missing my point. I am not saying I was against the A-bombs! I know they were needed and all but it's this guy I have a problem with! I mean look at him! No remorse for the deaths of people (yeah,yeah they might have been military spots, but that doesn't mean no civilians were there!), acting as the bomb was a light show, and simply saying he would've done it again!

Btw, this has nothing to do with racism... I don't know how that even fits in here.

So may I ask again! Who agrees with what I think about THE MAN! NOT THE A-BOMBS!

[Zoxell]

So may I ask again! Who agrees with what I think about THE MAN! NOT THE A-BOMBS!

Ah, I misunderstood.
Yes, to say there is no remorse for killing a city filled with inncoents is pretty vile. And maybe a touch of racist, I suspect. In fact, WWII was rife with racism. The Germans hated the Jews, the Americans hated the Germans and the Japanese, and the Japanese were ruled by an Emperor who considered himself a god. I'd say everybody was pretty much sociopathic.

...well except maybe the Russians, more Vodka comrade?

[Phoeberg]

It was not racist, they didn't drop the bombs because they hated the Japanese people as a race, they dropped them because they believed it was their only way to end the war. I can see this point, but I can't bring myself to agree completely with what they did. They killed so many innocent people, and I know that of course so did the Japanese themselves and every country who fought in the war, and when compared to the number who died in the holocaust (approx. 6 million) it wasn't an overwhelming number, but it was a horrific way to die and often not quick. Many died from radiation poisoning afterwards. Has anyone read John Hersey's Hiroshima? I will never forget the descriptions from that book of people who were walkng around after the bomb with their eyeballs melted down their faces.

I don't think he was remoarseless over the deaths he caused, but as he said, many lives were saved on both sides. I can completely understand his comment that he would do it again if he felt that the liberty of his country was threatened. The US went to extreme measures, yeah, but it paid off. The mindset of the Japanese troops was to fight to the death, and that's what would have happened without the A-bombs. Japan would never have surrendered otherwise.

[davious]

Whatwedobest, look at the alternative. You think he should feel remorse for dropping the A-bomb, but, what if he had never dropped the A-bomb, and then found out that had he done so, it would have saved millions of lives? Which is worse to have on your soul, the deaths of 75,000, or the deaths of over 1,000,000? There is little doubt that prolonging the war would have resulted in far more casualties on both sides.

Let me ask you this...lets say you have a time machine, and had the chance to kill Hitler before WWII, saving the lives of over 6,000,000 Jews, completely preventing the holocaust. Would you do it? Would you justify taking one life, to save 6 million? Would that weigh on your soul as much as not assassinating Hitler, thus condemning 6 million to their deaths? Would you feel remorse for assassinating Hitler, knowing that because you assassinated him, millions of Jews were still alive that wouldn't have been?

I know for me, if I could go back in time and wipe out Adolf Hitler, thereby saving millions of lives, that would be some of the most peaceful sleep afterward ever in my life.

[xoxSugah]

So may I ask again! Who agrees with what I think about THE MAN! NOT THE A-BOMBS!

I don't. I also think you're wrong in saying that he saw the bomb as a "light show". He said it was terrifying and not just beautiful. It's like you completely tuned out the "terrifying" part and concentrated solely on the "beautiful" lol.

He was doing his job and his job saved thousands. Even if he never did feel sorry for it, I've got no problem with the man.

[Safyre420]

Let me ask you this...lets say you have a time machine, and had the chance to kill Hitler before WWII, saving the lives of over 6,000,000 Jews, completely preventing the holocaust. Would you do it? Would you justify taking one life, to save 6 million? Would that weigh on your soul as much as not assassinating Hitler, thus condemning 6 million to their deaths? Would you feel remorse for assassinating Hitler, knowing that because you assassinated him, millions of Jews were still alive that wouldn't have been?

The more important question, if one had a time machine and could go back to kill Hitler before WWII, is should you kill Hitler? How would the world be changed because Hitler was killed before WWII? While it's very possible someone else would've just filled the void Hitler left, it's also very likely that the world would be very different to what we have now, could be better could be worse, hard to tell what that one small act could change since it undoubtedly would change history.

[davious]

If you had a time machine, theoretically, the question would be irrelevant, because the existance of the time machine gives you the power to change anything altered. If you drastically changed history by killing Hitler, you still have your time machine, so you could go back to the present, figure out the changes, and determine if the world is better or worse off. if it becomes worse off, you go back in time in your time machine, and stop yourself from killing Hitler. Assuming the time machine is more than a one way ticket, you could simply go back and stop yourself from changing history. (I am assuming that someone with the intelligence to create an actual time machine would also be smart enough to ensure that it could go both ways)

[Phoeberg]

If you drastically changed history by killing Hitler, you still have your time machine, so you could go back to the present, figure out the changes, and determine if the world is better or worse off.


You wouldn't know how drastically the future would be changed, perhaps hundreds of years ahead from now. You could never work out all the links. For instance without Hitler starting WW2 I would never have been born because my grandfather met my German grandmother just after the war when he was posted in one of the four parts of Germany, and for all we know one of my descendants hundreds of years from now might find a cure for cancer or save the life of someone who would one day cure cancer hence saving many millions of lives.

[davious]

For all you know, he could have ended up meeting her anyway. You simply don't know. But, what is known, is that far fewer Japanese and American lives both were killed during WWII because the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki than would have been killed had they not been dropped. Truman didn't decide to drop the bombs because he wanted to kill the Japanese, he dropped them in order to bring a swift end to the war, rather than drag it on and have millions more dead.

Think of it another way...I am a fierce loan shark, and you owe me 75 thousand dollars. You are also in possession of that 75 thousand dollars. I give you two choices.

Choice #1: You pay me the entire 75 grand now, and the debt is considered settled.

Choice #2: You pay me back bit by bit, over time. However, there is a catch. I charge wicked interest...By the time you get done paying me back in installments, you will have paid me well over a million dollars in interest.

Is it worth giving up the entire 75 grand that you have right here and now, or do you keep it, and pay me back over time, accruing over a million dollars in interest along the way?

[willwrightfan]

You're right. This guy doesn't have a heart. How can you kill thousands of innocent people and FEEL NO REMORSE? You have to be crazy not to feel guilty about bombing innocent citizens. It killed God only knows how many people, and that isn't something you should do.

[Doc Doofus]

If you could go back in time to 1920, wouldn't it be easier to give Hitler a scholarship to art school or a pound of weed or a ticket to Hollywood or something else benign that would set him on a different course? Why limit yourself to killing him?

I would have dropped the bomb. It was World War II. They didn't have smart bombs. Whenever they dropped bombs, innocent people were likely to be killed. They hadn't had decades to theorize amongst themselves about the overarching moral implications of such weapons.

[slipknot93]

lolracist.
You can always tell when school's out for the summer. Shame it doesn't go year round. You can tell it's needed.
Right, well I just gave my opinion and you just come back with a plain insult.

[xoxSugah]

Right, well I just gave my opinion and you just come back with a plain insult.

I surely did. That's what happens when you throw the word racist around where it doesn't apply. Some people respond wondering where that came from and other people will make fun of you.
I chose to make fun. Mostly because it was the first thing to come to mind.

[Nekochanpurr]

It was not racist, they didn't drop the bombs because they hated the Japanese people as a race, they dropped them because they believed it was their only way to end the war. I can see this point, but I can't bring myself to agree completely with what they did. They killed so many innocent people, and I know that of course so did the Japanese themselves and every country who fought in the war, and when compared to the number who died in the holocaust (approx. 6 million) it wasn't an overwhelming number, but it was a horrific way to die and often not quick. Many died from radiation poisoning afterwards. Has anyone read John Hersey's Hiroshima? I will never forget the descriptions from that book of people who were walkng around after the bomb with their eyeballs melted down their faces.

I don't think he was remoarseless over the deaths he caused, but as he said, many lives were saved on both sides. I can completely understand his comment that he would do it again if he felt that the liberty of his country was threatened. The US went to extreme measures, yeah, but it paid off. The mindset of the Japanese troops was to fight to the death, and that's what would have happened without the A-bombs. Japan would never have surrendered otherwise.

Thank you for mentioning that book.. I haven't read it, but i will look for it.

Personally.. i have been to Hiroshima. I've seen the last standing building, and went to the museum.. Its horrifying. :( My friend just sat on the stairs and cried, he could not stay in the building.
That said and done, i do believe we did the right thing. War is war.

[Doc Doofus]

I read John Hersey's book when I was a teenager. The thing that I remember best about the book is that each chapter about an eyewitness began with the distance they were from ground zero of the bomb blast. And there was a chapter near the end about an eyewitness only 100 feet (or yards? meters?) from ground zero. I didn't think that kind of things was possible, that somebody would live to testify from a nuclear blast at such short range. As it turns out, the bomb is actually detonated overhead to create maximum damage. Also, the physical destruction from the shockwave is actually smaller at ground zero than it is a bit further away, because the convection currents from the blast are canceled, to an extent, directly beneath the bomb. The same thing was seen after the Tunguska Comet blast of the early, 1900s, where trees directly under the point of impact were left standing upright, while those all around the center were flattened and pointing away.

[Whatwedobest]

Okay I'm going to voice my opinion once again.

A. Time-machine: Okay yeah let's all kill Hilter. No that's not going to work. He was just a freaking figure that the Nazi party used. If he wasn't there then someone else would've stepped up and become known as bad as Hitler is, it would just be with a different name. Seriously, think outside the box guys.

B. Okay, how about you go drop atomic bombs on a country and see how good YOU feel after doing it. Don't act like I'm some un-patriotic b**ch, or something, cause I'm not, I'm just saying that it is cruel and heartless to kill all those people.

C. Money is different than humans, the shark analogy isn't gonna work.

D. We don't know how many people would've died without the A-bombs. Look at it this way: You are a normal japanese person just walking around Nagasaki or Hiroshima, your choice, and you get killed by an A-bomb, or worse you suffer radiation poisoning diseases you're whole life. Let's go drop another A-bomb to that.

E. Yes, and he did say MOSTLY that it was a light-show with rainbow colors. He said terrifying once, and how the f*ck would he know, he say the freaking cloud, not the bomb when it was killing thousands of people.


Those are my opinions, and if you want to counter them, you better have some good ones.

[davious]

Hitler was a pawn of the Nazi party? Back this statement up with evidence.

We actually do know, at least an estimate, of how many more would have died. Look, it is fairly obvious that you don't really know much about World War II, at least the Pacific theater, you don't know what the Japanese were like, and until you read about that, until you educate yourself more, it is fruitless to have a discussion about it. Further, you miss the point...I wasn't countering your opinion with opinion, I was countering your opinion with FACT. We know the estimates of casualties on both sides that Truman heard before making the decision to drop the bomb, they are a matter of public record. Every estimate was well beyond the 75 thousand that did die.

In addition, it is really fitting that yesterday was the 65th anniversary of D-Day, because split among 27 war cemeteries are the remains of over 110,000 dead from both sides: 77,866 German, 9386 American, 17,769 British, 5002 Canadian and 650 Poles. The Normandy campaign killed more soldiers conventionally than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Should those soldiers be riddled with guilt too?

How about this...if you want to have opinions, fine...but, when someone challenges them, be prepared to counter them with FACT, something a little more than what you have done so far.

[Xunixeon]

First of all, Hitler did rally up the Germans and created the Nazi party with his associates. Second, it would be fruitless to change time because now Japanese are friends with us. If we stop the bomb, there would be war that would go on into 1950's. If we killed Hitler, it would fall apart but we would be killed by his associates and the whole time would change. Would you risk that to get rid of the present we're in?

It was morally wrong but a lot of Japanese were pro-war back then and most of them were anti-American patriots. That doesn't mean they're bad, it's just we're in the war with them and we bombed the hell out of them because they were threatening to take over Hawaii and the US by force. I'm pro Japanese nowadays but if I was living in the US in 1940's I would have condemned them to hell. That is what time does to us.

[Synthesis]

(I'm basing this off my own research, so take that for what you will.)

If the United States' true intention was to save lives, they wouldn't have used two nuclear weapons. The US wasn't stupid, they knew what they were capable of (naturally, they were banking on it). If they wanted to save lives, they would have continued the blockade of the Japanese islands, further starving the population, and presented the country with something besides complete and total unconditional surrender.

It's no secret that, even if the Japanese population was gung-ho on the subject, ministers in the government and even in the military knew the war was lost, and were open to something amenable. Their obligation was to protect their Emperor, and it was not crazy to think that unconditional surrender would mean his forced abdication or even execution for complicity in the war against the United States. This was not an acceptable outcome. Think of it as "Peace with honor" in a desperate fashion. We knew this as well, since we could not only intercept Japanese communications, but we received overtures from their government on the subject.

It's not too surprising. For the huge losses it sustained, Japan had still millions in the way of reserves in Manchuria, essentially bomb-proof stores of crude but effective military weapons, not to mention underground aircraft factories, to fall back on. Could they have won the war? Duh, no, but they could have certainly kept fighting. They didn't think they should surrender unconditionally, and given the Allies' reputation in the past, I wouldn't have agreed to it either if I had been Prime Minister.

Of course, there is a downside to this. I'm not saying the US was some sort unreasonable monster for not considering this. Maybe short-sighted, but there were good reasons, from the American perspective.

1) The war was damn expensive. If Japan wouldn't entire capitulate, effectively ended its sovereignty if we so decided, what was the point? Similarly, an conditional truce would have likely protected the aggressive right-wing militarists who had murdered their way into power in the 1920s and 1930s, starting the Pacific War in the first place--as personified by Prime Minister and General Heideki Tojo. We remembered the Allies' mistakes in Germany--essentially screwing the Germans at every turn, but doing nothing to stop those who might point it out--what good would it do us if Japan became aggressively hostile in another 20 years? And you can forget about prosecuting Japanese war criminals--we let off a bunch of them too, even with the surrender, because of our concern about the coming Cold War. Better some than none.

2) The military necessity--the weapons, while horribly inefficient from a financial standpoint, were intended to save American lives (as Davious pointed out). They may have saved some Japanese lives, too, but let's face it, this was NOT a priority of ours at the time--if we were concerned about Japanese lives, we would not have sunk their merchant marine or firebombed their cities at the cost of hundreds of thousands of noncombatants. The firebombings did far more damage that two mere atomic bombs. Of course, not doing that is no way to fight a war. And, as Davious mentioned, an invasion and occupation (which was planned) would have likely cost even more lives--the Japanese were down, but hardly out, even at this point, having prepared for this eventuality for years. Returning to point one, the B-29 Bombing raids themselves were hardly perfect--the Japanese kept shooting down B-29s with their own air defense forces until right up to the end of the war, costing us countless pilots and, perhaps more problematically, huge quantities of money--it cost approximately $1 billion to do the equivalent $1 billion damage to Japan, an astronomically bad ratio for us, a consequence of the distances and logistics involved (see Michael Adams' The Best War Ever).

3) We wanted to scare the shit out of the USSR. This did not work entirely, since it relied on the rather foolish (in retrospect) belief that the Soviet Union would never develop an atomic bomb, and that the largest country in the world geographically had no uranium reserves in it. But it did get the point across, and the USSR did not contest our occupation of Japan. Honestly, this probably did some good for the USSR, and later Russia, too, in respects to Japan--ensuring better diplomatic relations than if they'd engaged in a brutal, prolonged war. The USSR did not explode an atomic bomb until 1949, so it wasn't really an option for them.

So, from the standpoint of an insistence on unconditional surrender, yes, it was probably a good, if not the best, decision. Certainly from an American standpoint (if I were Truman, I would have likely done the same). But it was by no means the only option for the United States. I'm sorry for going off on a long tirade like this, it is just that this topic appears every few months for some reason--I should really just copy and post my response, since it's always the same.

My personal stake in this manner is that, as a Taiwanese person, Japan's surrender meant my homeland being returned to China, and than becoming the seat of the KMT fascist government (it was at the time, don't delude yourself) when they lost the civil war against the communists. Personally, I think this was a bad thing, as it meant almost 40 years of martial law, the 228 Incident, and the White Terror that followed, which put Japan's often-brutal occupation to shame by comparison. Japan's unconditional surrender meant its first colony, Taiwan, was to be seized by the Allies (of which China was included)--indeed, it was thought about handing over Okinawa as well. But that's another topic.

[Whatwedobest]

Okay let me ask you, do you have facts that he wasn't? All you have is what historians put in the history books. They only put in what they WANT in there. So think of ALL of the possibilities here, not just the history books.

Okay you know what? D-day was needed, just as the A-bombs were, but I'm not AGAINST THEM! Okay? You need to know that MANY innocent people died during the bombings, and sure maybe some civilians were killed during D-day, but not as many as the bombings. Yes I do believe that ALL PEOPLE (not just soilders) should feel guilt for killing people, unless those people wanted to die or were trying to kill them. So the soilders are justified, all those people were trying to kill them. But the bombings, nope, some of those people just wanted to go home that night.

Don't look at the whole japanese population during the 1940's as a stereotyoe. Sure most of them were probably pro-war, but really there were some people who weren't. And some of those people were killed.

And Davious, don't act as if I am inferior to you! I may not major in history/WWII, but I freaking know enough about it to state my opinions. And while we are on that, let's take a look at those so called "facts". Fact is a very misleading word, since it can change over time. I mean look way back, they used to think the world was flat and that was a "fact". Who know, it could turn out 100 years from now that Hitler was a pawn, or maybe that he was actually leader. You see, we don't know these things.

And next time you want to counter me, please state your OWN opinion, not something you read out of a high-school history book.

[Lauren]

And next time you want to counter me, please state your OWN opinion, not something you read out of a high-school history book.

Stuff he's saying wouldn't be found in a high school history book. Its found in adult history books.

[Xunixeon]

And in real adult history books they dabbled into things like the Bell (google it), UFOs, and other stuff including medical studies by them (this is why the Jewish person got pissed at the medical establishment).

Nazis are just mean people, but we got their info through project paperclip to develop more weapons and advances in technology.

[Doc Doofus]

How silly can you get? (I can hear Val Kilmer singing it in my head.)
And next time you want to counter me, please state your OWN opinion, not something you read out of a high-school history book.

Okay, now, I'd just love to leave that to stand alone to speak for itself, but, no, I'll explain in plain English why that is wrong.

It's backwards. People aren't really entitled to their own opinions; that's just a saying. Having an opinion is like having a turd. A loving mother might think her baby's first turd is precious in and of itself, but the rest of the world knows, it's just another turd. If you want your opinion to actually be listened to, you need to back it up with some logic and/or fact. Just presenting it out there and saying, "That's my opinion," is as pointless as showing us your personal turd and expecting us to coo over it.

Fact gleaned from history books:

Hitler's Nazi Membership card number was 555. The numbering started at 500. As large movements go, that puts him in the party at a time when everybody could fit into a beer hall with room to spare. That's significant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party

[Whatwedobest]

Ok with the research I was talking to Davious.
I have to say I almost completely agree with what Synthesis has to say, he has a good opinion that makes sense and doesn't repeat what everyone else is saying here.]

And by the way, Wikipedia isn't a source sinc anyone can go in there and edit it.

[Xunixeon]

You do know that even though Synthesis has some good points, we just end up on the impulse. Many Americans hated Japanese and a lot of Japanese hated Americans. But I'm not being stereotypical. There are some pro-Japanese Americans and some American loving Japanese just to rephrase that. But people don't think straight in war so that what bugs people about wars. If you listen to the hill-billy in Southern Missouri, then he said that if there is no war the Chinese or the terrorists would take over. But people are into bombing the Japanese because of the prejudice against the Japs. And calling someone a Jap is like calling someone a Beaner. Skin color and Nationalities over common sense.

[davious]

How silly can you get? (I can hear Val Kilmer singing it in my head.)


Okay, now, I'd just love to leave that to stand alone to speak for itself, but, no, I'll explain in plain English why that is wrong.

It's backwards. People aren't really entitled to their own opinions; that's just a saying. Having an opinion is like having a turd. A loving mother might think her baby's first turd is precious in and of itself, but the rest of the world knows, it's just another turd. If you want your opinion to actually be listened to, you need to back it up with some logic and/or fact. Just presenting it out there and saying, "That's my opinion," is as pointless as showing us your personal turd and expecting us to coo over it.

Fact gleaned from history books:

Hitler's Nazi Membership card number was 555. The numbering started at 500. As large movements go, that puts him in the party at a time when everybody could fit into a beer hall with room to spare. That's significant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party

OOOH! Top Secret reference, NIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE.