Week 2

[step...@brpsk12.org]

#2-the historical view//  On page 205 the tone of the words is not supporting the historical view of ending the war and not having more lives lost.  "The scientists were delighted" says volumes to the reader.  It makes the scientists  sound as if they were gloating about the power of the bomb.  Also, the comment of the man in the hat in the last frame indicating that the US is ready to bomb Japan more; it sounds as if they want to destroy Japan totally, without regard to the Japanese lives lost.  On page 206 there is also the comment about the possible "annihilation of the Japanese Army and the destruction of the country."  as the frame says is in the Potsdam Declaration.  I would have students look at both sides, pull primary documents and read the Declaration.  This is a good place for students to see how words can shape ideas, as well as be twisted to paint the picture desired.  There is more than just the atomic bomb to consider...and everything needs to be taken into account.  Point:  the Japanese army was looking at this as a battle to save their home, although the common people evidently did not have a say in the fight.  

#5- Here I do believe that the author is speaking to the reader.  I think possibly that Gen had heard these words from his father before and if he had been able to speak he would have said them.  I also feel that boxes 3,4,and 5 continue his father's beliefs and what he has said to them many times.  

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Stephen

I think it is interesting that you used pages from the book to support your statement.  I was surprised at first when I saw page 205 since it is way beyond week two, but I think it would be an interesting thing to include in the debate with your students.  

As far as the scientists being proud, I'm sure many of them would have been ecstatic and celebrating the successful test and, if not them than certainly the US's war hegemony, at the success of Little Boy.  They were working for years on the problem (the same problem the Nazi's were unsuccessful in solving and the Nazi's invented the balistic missle, jet planes and all sorts of other things the Allies marveled at, so this would have been a major mental victory).  Now did that initial feeling last is the real question.  How many destructive inventors like Nobel were excited by their invention only to later feel differently?

As I stated in one of the videos on this site, the US government had changed their invasion plans to include the use of more than a dozen atomic bombs.  So you are right in pointing out those pictures on 205+ that there were people who were expecting to drop multiple on Japan and possibly destroying the whole country and its army before the war would end.  We know the destructive force of 2 atomic bombs, my brain refuses to truly envision what Japan and the US would have looked like after a US invasion involving 14 atomic bombs to walk US troops across Japan.