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My grandpappy was a Brigadier General in the Quartermasters closely following the front line troops. It was his opinion that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to shorten the war. That was what I learned from the best teacher I ever knew, and I will continue to believe it despite revisionist views.

Another book that will reaffirm your convictions that Truman made the correct decision to use the bomb is Operation Downfall.

I read somewhere that one of the propellers from the Enola Gay is being used in a wind tunnel at Texas A&M.

Does anyone know if that is true?

Because the Manhattan Project was kept a secret there were people that planned for the ground invasion of Japan. They ordered half a million Purple Hearts. Even with all the wars and military action since then we have not run out of them.

They fully expected half a million American men to be injured in some way shape or form in taking Japan.

ddstuder wrote:I read somewhere that one of the propellers from the Enola Gay is being used in a wind tunnel at Texas A&M.

Does anyone know if that is true?

Now THAT sounds like an urban legend.
Why would they use aircraft props? And if they did, why the Enola?

On the other hand...

The propellers that were used on the bombing mission were later shipped to Texas A&M University. One of these propellers was trimmed to 12½ ft for use in the university's Oran W. Nicks Low Speed Wind Tunnel. The lightweight aluminum variable pitch propeller is powered by a 1,250 kVA electric motor providing a wind speed up to 200 mph.[18]

From here

sjfcontrol wrote:

ddstuder wrote:I read somewhere that one of the propellers from the Enola Gay is being used in a wind tunnel at Texas A&M.

Does anyone know if that is true?

Now THAT sounds like an urban legend.
Why would they use aircraft props? And if they did, why the Enola?

Swords to plowshares?

Charles L. Cotton wrote:Sixty seven years ago this morning at 8:15 am local time, the ambient temperature in Hiroshima suddenly spiked to about 10,000 degrees F, vaporizing approximately 70,000 of the Emperor’s soldiers and subjects. It took 3 ½ years, many thousands of American lives, but the payback for Pearl Harbor finally came. Sadly, as the years go by fewer and fewer people understand what and why this happened, many believing the revisionists version of history.

Chas.

After reading what they did to our POWs in the book "First Into Nagasaki," and other histories of the war with Japan, and Japan's savage depredations in China and Korea, I can't help but feel like it's too bad we didn't have a dozen or so bombs for them.

The people that cry buckets of tears over this do not seem to cry for the million slaughtered by Mao, Stalin, and other communist leaders. It was a terrible thing to have to do, but in war terrible things are going to happen, so all you can do is try to lessen it some. It killed 70,000, that is terrible, but it likely saved millions. It stopped an enemy that would not capitulate no matter how severe the beating they were getting. We were most kind to Japan after the war and attempted to rebuild their country. No apologies.

VMI77 wrote:After reading what they did to our POWs in the book "First Into Nagasaki," and other histories of the war with Japan, and Japan's savage depredations in China and Korea, I can't help but feel like it's too bad we didn't have a dozen or so bombs for them.

Since we had only two and no one knew that, I wish we'd dropped the second one on Moscow. We could have avoided Cold War I and the emerging Cold War II.

Chas.

I read somewhere that one of the propellers from the Enola Gay is being used in a wind tunnel at Texas A&M.

Does anyone know if that is true?

Yes it is true. I have conducted testing in that tunnel. Apparently the prop was a spare originally assigned to the squadron that the Enola Gay was part of. I don't think it actually flew on the Enola Gay.

Gig 'Em ('88, '93)