James Burke : Connections, Episode 2, "Death In The Morning", 5 of 5 (CC)

[mintchocolatebear]

I choked up and shed tears the moment Ernest Rutherford's name was mentioned. Rutherford = atomic theory. Atomic theory + B29 = atomic bomb. I had to pause the episode to blow my nose and wipe my eyes. Right or wrong, dropping that "other child" was a tragic moment. And that so many curious scientific minds through the years unknowingly helped to created 'The Bomb'? Heartbreaking. -- That a TV show from 33 years ago tugged so strongly on my heart is a testament to how awesome this series was.

[grperc]

@sdewolfe The music at the end when the plane is taking off is the first movement of Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem.

[EJ160E]

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds!

[Rickyrab]

I wonder if that B-29 was some other B-29 that got made to look like the "Enola Gay". According to Wikipedia, the Enola Gay itself was disassembled and in storage between 1960 and 1984.

[AdeptPaladin]

Whatever reason you come up with to justify the first bomb... how the heck you do justify dropping a SECOND one. Japan was in the process of finding a way to surrender without too much loss of face when it was dropped.

[sdewolfe]

Could anyone tell me the name of the classical piece heard at the end of this video? While the plane is taking off?

[stevebritgimp]

The atomic bomb is an appalling invention, and one we would still have invented, made, used. We're lucky it's been used so little. Conventional bombing did massive damage in Europe and Japan, as did land combat. Not too interested in an argument over whether it was 'right'. The decision was made. Also the fanatical resistance of the Japanese factors in - if US casualties were high, Japanese ones would have been higher. A question to be asked there when the US army took few prisoners.

[ChorltonBrook]

Japan was fucked with or without the bomb. There was no need other than to show the Russians.

[raptic]

@mballzhari I still choose the lesser evil. I still believe the wisest choice in this case is that which results in far fewer human deaths, "civilian" or otherwise. We disagree on the fundamental ethics of the situation; I think you (and many others) are wrong to think that humanity must always act nobly. Again that's to say because we really should hold the highest values possible...but what else would have happened? I can't see it playing out any better any other way. sucks

[raptic]

@mballzhari Do some research! Yes the bomb is horrible, death and destruction horrible, all of it just bad bad bad...but it was easily the best choice. It's hard to say that because it's so terrible, but it's true. Trying to see the bright side, besides bringing a tired world war to an end, it forever changed our perspective of humanity's capacity for sheer destruction which we continue to rightfully fear.

[92greenmonster]

7:42 The official theme of Enola Gay's historic flight over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[TheSpiritof1969]

Shame the recent comments here seem to have descended into debate about Hiroshima, they miss the entire point of the series.

[cartread]

These comments are overlooking the state of Japan during the war. They were under a fanatical ruler, very similar to North Korea today. Hirohito refused unconditional surrender because it would remove him from sovereignty. A bomb off the coast would not have persuaded Hirohito. He wanted war even after Hiroshima, and only surrendered after Nagasaki and the end of Soviet neutrality.

[jaymoe67]

The fact that Russia was getting involved into the CBI theatre of ww2 operations had a great influence on the U.S. decision to drop the A bombs on Japan. Yes, indeed, the most destructive terror weapon to date ever used on a civilian population. Japan was sacraficed as an example. In the hopes of the succesful use of "Nuclear Diplomacy" with what was to become the USSR in order to avoid the problems resulting from the Yalta Conference.

[M4ruta]

Fascinating stuff. There's so much to discover in science and history. :)

[luridplanet]

Perhaps you or I will invent something trivial that will cause world chaos in 50 years

[ryoushii]

And if you haven't guessed what death in the morning is yet at 2:57, you just aren't paying attention, not to mention at 7:09.

Death in the morning - Aug 6, 1945, 8:15 am - Hiroshima Japan

[domvasta]

for when this was produced, 1978, nuclear annihilation was thought to be a serious threat, now we are at relative peace with other nuclear armed nations and weapons stockpiles are way down, though they were never big enough to wipe out all life, neither side wanted to let the other know that that was the case. but this documentary represents quite a reasonable case for the general sentiment of the time, neither condemning or condoning the attack on Hiroshima, merely recognizing it's impact.

[Greorgy]

Thanks you for this video, it's an addictive watch

[Mrluisao17]

very nice.and an intersting story

[eveningtsar]

A fascinating series. Thank you for posting.

[Bolrof]

Didn't the japanese have a super weapon of their own, an aircraft carrier that was a submarine? they were going to bomb cities on the west coast of america the same week as hiroshima as i understand it.

The americans did not know this though so what they did was still horrendous, but they did stop civilian deaths on american soil at the very least.

[rangeclerk]

The Japanese were planning an air raid over the canal in Panama and the four aircraft and crew were expendable.

[AlIord]

The Japanese navy was more or less wiped out by the Americans a few battles into the war, that's why the nature of the campaign was island hopping, because the naval fleet was decimated.

Even if the Japanese had a submarine aircraft carrier they would have had to deal with the full strength of the US navy.

[Jcolinsol]

How many civilian deaths in the U.S. where there?

[mrpossibilities]

Oh man... I just came from reading Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World", in which he talks about Nuclear War.... and now I watch this and right at the end it brings it back at me again. Hmmm... beginning to ponder about mankind.

[SFTor1]

The decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki came after Okinawa, where the U.S. took over 50,000 casualties. It was then simple to calculate that taking Japan through an invasion probably would cost over 300,000 casualties, an unacceptably high number.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Yes, perhaps.

However neither have you done this calculation, nor have you shown that a ground invasion was the one *and only* alternative to dropping A-bombs on peasants.

btw. The US already had infinitely reproducible bombs of equal ballistics to the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (called "Pumpkin bombs"), so they could have chosen to drop those bombs on peasants instead if they so pleased.

Hence, by logic:

~(A-Bomb on peasants) => (Ground Invasion)

is false.

[Hiraghm]

@JamesBurkeWeb

Not getting into politics, however...

The firebombing of Tokyo did more damage and cost more lives than both a-bombs.

Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets as defined even in the ETO; manufacturing and port. It was not dropping bombs on peasants.

1,500 plane flights were common during the war. If we could do that much damage with one plane, they could imagine 1500 times the damage. 1500 cities wiped out in an afternoon.

[LadyDeirdre]

@JamesBurkeWeb Except that the conventional bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have had the psychological impact that the fission bombing produced. Conventional bombing was something known and understood; wiping out a city with a single plane dropping a single bomb was something entirely unprecedented and utterly terrifying. Remember that in warfare, one does not win by destroying one's enemy. One wins by destroying the opponent's morale, or his means of waging war. The fission bombing

[LadyDeirdre]

@JamesBurkeWeb of Hiroshima was designed to serve both ends, both delivering a massive blow to Japanese morale, and delivering an equally great blow to their manufacturing industry. Hiroshima was and is a major industrial city, as is and was Nagasaki.

[harmon92]

@JamesBurkeWeb Perhaps the U.S. could have dropped the a-bomb on an empty field somewhere and show the Japanese what it could do. But if you consider the colossal amount of time and money poured into developing them, that's obviously not very practical when you could scare the bejesus out of your enemy and observe what your new weapon would do to a civilian population.

Cold, brutal, yes, but at that time, under those circumstances, there isn't much else the U.S. could do.

[vonzeke]

@JamesBurkeWeb I think the inhabitants of Hiroshima might not appreciate being called peasants.

Also remember that the raid on Tokyo of March 9-10 1945 caused more deaths - estimated at 120,000 people killed immediately - using boring old-fashioned incendiary and explosive devices.

[TommiFoolerie]

@JamesBurkeWeb the port cities where the largest military ports, all of japan was rallied to keep out invaders, their own government made their people targets killing the war machine thats run by the civilians is the best way to halt any countries ability to wage war, just cause they didn't have uniforms on doesn't make them any less of military targets

[RedwoodTheElf]

@JamesBurkeWeb

Um...no. the so-called Pumpkin bombs were NOT equal in power to the atomic bomb. the POINT was to show the Japanese that we had a single bomb that could level a city, thus forcing a surrender.

Go learn some history please.

[akylae101]

@JamesBurkeWeb

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were industrial cities building military equipment, no peasants.

Carpet-bombing civilians is an atrocity even with conventional weapons.

Pumpkin bombs don't equal A bombs, only modern MOABs do.

Bombing precedes any ground invasion. It's not one or another, it's one after the other.

Ground invasion from the sea is a slaughter.

Arguably, the second bomb was excessive.

It was horrible. Everything about WW2 was. Alternatives would have been horrible too.

[ScottfromTexas]

The Japanese leadership was trying to make peace before the bombs were dropped.

[bannor99]

@SFTor1 Why invade Japan? With all their allies defeated and with the hatred they'd earned in China and Korea, the US and its allies could have blockaded the country and demoralized them into submission with lightning raids against their infrastructure and cherished institutions with very low casualties.

[PlatinumGordon]

Nicola Tesla inveted Radio.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Well... sorta. A lot of people invented apparatus that you might call "radio". If you mean the completed marketable product, and systems for broadcasting, again it would be difficult to pin it down to one man.

A better definition of what you mean when you use the word "radio" would clarify it's inventor (of any). For one thing "radio" also means electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those which can be detected with the human eye. Radio then, would have been "discovered", not "invented".

[JamesBurkeWeb]

oops "if any" not "of any" ... my bad :(

- JBW

[rampantandroid]

First time I saw the Enola Gay on display at the new Smithsonian museum, I got a good laugh, since I'd also seen it in this episode (though I knew what it was long before I saw connections.)

Bockscar is also worth seeing...

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Jeez, is it stored inside a building? Must take up a lot of space... Can you go inside? Check it out?

I find it strange that such an object would be found at the Smithsonian institute... since, in a sense, it represents a really shameful American act of pointless aggression. On the other hand, its also very much a part of the history of science and America.

- JBW

[rampantandroid]

I disagree with you...consider the alternative: an invasion by US soldiers onto Japanese soil...it would have cost MANY more lives. There was a reason we did not drop two bombs on the same day...we gave them a chance to surrender. I strongly feel - as do many others - that it was the right action. Either way, I imagine it was a decision that Truman did not take lightly.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

So you think that dropping atom bombs on a couple of civilian cities was the only alternative to a ground invasion?

- JBW

P.S. Incidentally that would be an invasion against an already defeated army that was all but throwing up the white flags... something like the Iraq "war".

[rampantandroid]

I think that an invasion would have had just as many civilian deaths as we bombed their cities (with conventional bombs) and caused as much damage - albiet we may not have leveled 2 cities, but we would have damaged more cities. And we can't forget how many soldiers would have died. Had we invaded, the Japanese would have had a second win for defence. The war would have streched on. The atom bomb avoided that. It let the war end, and let everyone get on with recovering.

Thats my view at least

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Well I can only speculate. I'm not convinced of that.

Just take one of the proposed alternatives: if they wanted to show off the kind of destructive force they were ready to unleash *on their army* they could just as easily have dropped the bombs on unpopulated areas to exactly the same effect. Either in Japan or the US with Japanese observers. I think they'd get the point.

Call it a "warning shot" if you will. That's what police do before actually *aiming* and shooting. Same reason.

- JBW

[rampantandroid]

We had 3 bombs, and no more - the one dropped at the Trinity test site, Fat Man and Little Boy. Had the first "demonstration" not worked - which I would argue would be the case: we did after all bomb Hiroshima, a city first. That should have been as effective, if not more so, than a demonstration, no? I mean, a demonstration costs no life...Hiroshima was a demonstration that did cost life...yet they didn't surrender. I feel that no matter what, we needed to bomb their cities to have any effect.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

I disagree.

First point: You *never* lay down your cards in a poker game. The Japanese would have no clue how many more there were to come. So you just tell them you have 20 more. Would they gamble on that being a lie? Would you?

Second: People dying from being bombed is no more effective than bombing an uninhabited island and witnessing the death and destruction of the animal life there. It's not that much of a logical step to substitute people for animals. In fact people *are* animals.

[ScottfromTexas]

War is terrorism. The fact they are treated separately is a testament to propaganda.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Like I said before, no politics please.

I realize I'm already guilty by allowing myself to be pulled into this debate and I apologize about that.

But if you read below (the sorting order is a little fucked up) you will find that I've requested to discontinue this discussion and just stick to things that can be demonstrated one way or the other. If it makes you happy, we'll define "War" as "Terrorism". Fine.

- JBW

[spectre111]

So what we should string up every american who ever served in the US military?

That people like George Washington, Robert E. Lee, Bernard Montegomery or Daulle are just a bunch of mass murderers who should hang from their neck till their feet quit kicking?

Is that what your saying? This country is a bunch of cold blooded killers who idolize more efficient cold blooded killers?

[misterarkadin]

@ScottfromTexas

It's ironic that a program about properly identifying ideas so that "connections" can be drawn between them should draw such an ignorant comment as this, conflating war and terrorism. That's not a political point, it's just inaccurate. A category mistake.

Oh well. As Dorothy Parker said, "You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think."

[idster7]

@misterarkadin I agree with Scott only because "terrorism" isn't used with any consistency. It's a term of propaganda used to discredit an adversary. Adversaries refer to actions as "terrorist" what allies refer to as "guerilla". The U.S.' surreptitious, School of the Americas military activities all over the world have been called "guerilla"& "low intensity warfare" by U.S. sources, but "terrorist" by those they are directed toward. If "terrorism" means anything objective, what does it mean?

[misterarkadin]

@idster7 Terrorism traditionally means the specific targeting of civilians in violent action as a means toward achieving a political end. Civilians deaths in the course of open war is distinctly different. The firebombing of Dresden? An act of war. Anarchists sending bombs through the mail? Terrorism.

[idster7]

@misterarkadin Well, by that definition, the U.S. has committed many acts in the last 60 years which would be considered "terrorist", but which were not referred to as "terrorist" by the US Government, and, by extension, the U.S. media. (See the history of the CIA, as well as the School of the Americas; as well as the U.S. bombing of Panama, Iraq during the 1990s, and many other activities in Latin America, Europe & Asia.

[idster7]

@misterarkadin There is also a question of what constitutes "open war". Just cause a war isn't publicized by the U.S. media because of the inferior ability of the adversary does not mean it's not war. 

[dangthatscool1]

JBW,

I do not know where you get the idea that the Japanese were at this time "an already defeated army that was all but throwing up the white flags." Please look into Operation Ketsugo, the Japanese plan to counter the Americans' Operations Coronet and Olympic. Casualty estimates from both sides ranged into the millions, and the Japanese plan called for arming every able bodied person, man or woman, with whatever was at hand. The idea seemed to be that if the Americans could not be defeated --

[dangthatscool1]

--- then at least they could make Japan so painful to take that it would not be worth taking, and some kind of conditional surrender or armistice could be arranged.

Second I am constantly confused by the fixation on the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yes, they were spectacular shows of human brutality. Yes the thought of death by nuclear fire -- or worse, radiation poisoning -- fills one with terrible dread. Yet is dying in the firestorm of a firebombing any better? Please recall that

[dangthatscool1]

-- a far greater number perished in conventional fire bombings of Japanese cities. Being burned alive is hardly more humane, and the fellow who ordered the bombings (his name I think was Lehay?) even admitted that if his side hadn't won, he probably would have been rightfully convicted of war crimes.

[dangthatscool1]

All that said, thank you for putting up this show! It's great.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Well, I'm not going to get any further into a political discussion, which is what this is.

If my statement was incorrect (about the Japanese having already been defeated as well as being aware of it) was false, then this is something that can be answered definitively.

Plans, strategic options, proposed operations etc. are always on the table. In fact they are required to be. So that carries no information.

A detailed internal strategic assessment from advisers / field commanders could.

[spectre111]

I remember reading that by the start of 1945 the government new it was over and wanted to make piece but the military(which was more or less in control) didn't want to hear of it and several officials were killed for talking about piece.

It wasn't until the second bomb fell that even the die hards could see there was no hope. When the russians began invading japanese held territory in the north they accepted the US's peace deal.

[Hiraghm]

@rampantandroid

More importantly, it would have cost many more *American* (and British and Australian) lives.

The thinking in the U.S. generally was, "They started it, this is how they like to fight, why lose our own countrymen needlessly?"

[rampantandroid]

As for the plane, you can't go in it. It's shielded by plexiglass that is inches thick, because people have an irrestable desire to deface it. The amusng thing though, is while I was visiting the museum, I found a japanese couple looking at the plane...they showed no hatred, and viewed it just as history...they certainly didn't hate the US for it. Their attitude seemed to be that it ended the war.

Bockscar - the plane that dropped the second bomb, is in the USAF museum in Dayton Ohio.

[Hiraghm]

@rampantandroid

Maybe they showed no hostility because Japan won the war.

In the 1970s...

[rampantandroid]

Oh, also - about the plane - if you watch the new Transformers movie, you'll see Enola Gay there...as part of the movie takes place in the Udvar Hazy museum...they actually show some really nice shots of the museum, including the Enterprise shuttle, the SR-71 (before it becomes a transformer...) and the assortment of other planes there.

Also, the Egyptian artifacts they show in Transformers are amazing - such as the Pillars at Karnak shown in another Connections episode.

[Hiraghm]

@JamesBurkeWeb

It wasn't pointless, it wasn't shameful. Before you damn us, look at what kind of monsters we were fighting.

Murdering Chinese peasants, raping and forcing Korean girls into prostitution, torture, deprivation and murder of P.o.W.s, sneak attack on Pearl Harbor (the timing was just as treacherous had the declaration of war been translated in time).

It was a sick culture that needed a wake-up call. We gave it to them. Then we rebuilt their society in our image.

[Aneurysm06]

I have to say that I much prefer JBs 1st series. Not to say his the later 2 series are poor in any way.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

I'm half and half for Connections and Connections³...

The Connections series is certainly one of the finest documentary series ever produced, and on it's own merit I suppose is the better of the two.

But Connections³, to me anyway, is much more enjoyable because of the comedic element. He's outrageously funny in that series and, even though it has the feel of being "overly polished", I just can't help but laugh out loud and some of his characterizations. Especially of the British! ;)

[Aneurysm06]

Haha that is true, the gin and tonic episode was particularly hilarious :)

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Connections³ : "Life is no Picnic" (E05) is probably my favourite when it comes to pure comedy. In less than 10 minutes Burke trashes Lord Byron, Islam, the British navy, the American Revolution together with it's resulting Anthem and author, an ancient Greek poet and probably even more I've left out.

Great episode!

- JBW

[Aneurysm06]

Wow, great episode.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Ya, one of my favourites too. Hey, could you (or anyone) do me a favor and see if you notice any choppiness when the captions are on? I've been captioning these videos but cannot anymore because, for me, the video becomes unwatchable with captions on (after the last YT upgrade). If so, please send a bug report to YouTube because they won't fix this bug without enough complaints.

Thanks in advance.

- JBW

[bearwrassler176]

No problems at all here. Perhaps try watching on another computer?

[JamesBurkeWeb]

It seems that problem has been fixed. I've noticed that several other problems have gone away recently (for instance the mouse hiding bug) and at the same time the videos are running much smoother. I've also noticed, at least under Firefox, that *everything* is coming in as .flv files (with embedded video / audio formats). I have to try IE and see if they're doing the same thing over there too. I'll paste an example below...

- JBW

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Format Flash Video

Video

Format AVC

Format/Info Advanced Video Codec

Format profile Main@L3.0

etc

[samandal007]

I hope there is no need for the a-bomb again

[JamesBurkeWeb]

I think I would add, or rephrase...

I hope that if the a-bomb is ever used again that an actual need to use it exists.

- JBW