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

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Episode 2 of James Burke's most well-known series "Connections" which explores the surprising and unexpected ways that our modern technological world came into existence. Each episode investigates the background of usually one particular modern invention and how it came into being. These explorations are an attempt to locate the "connections" between various historical figures who seemingly had nothing to do with each other in their own times, however once connected, these same figures combined to produce some of the most profound impacts on our modern day world; in a "1+1=3" type of way.

It is this type of investigation that is the main idea behind the Knowledge Web project; whereby sophisticated software is used to attempt to discover these subtle connections automatically. See http://k-web.org.

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[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.

[eveningtsar]

A fascinating series. Thank you for posting.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.