The ethics of Hiroshima

[Durka]

^
Cheers for that. Interesting. Japanese are a very proud people, I guess their view internally of certain historic events are different to the Western view.

It would have been interesting to ask her view on the war in the Pacific and how Japan tried to invade Australia and see what justification she had, or how their best jungle troops were stopped in Kokoda by a bunch of barely trained Militia, not even real Army.

My understanding is that the current belief, based Japanese war documents, is that Japan did not intend to invade Australia - too big, too sparse, too hard to hold onto etc.

[stui magpie]

@think positive thanks for that, the tour guide sounds like a right dill. I've never done one of those guided tour things, I like to do stuff when I want to do it.

@Durka OK, I'll buy that, but WTF were they doing then? They bombed Darwin and were sending troops Island hopping to Australia, it sure as hell looked like they were planning to invade.

[Durka]

@think positive thanks for that, the tour guide sounds like a right dill. I've never done one of those guided tour things, I like to do stuff when I want to do it.

@Durka OK, I'll buy that, but WTF were they doing then? They bombed Darwin and were sending troops Island hopping to Australia, it sure as hell looked like they were planning to invade.

I am only repeating what I have read, which I assume is true. The Japanese wanted to do two things - cut off supply lines north of Australia by taking control of the islands to make it harder for the US/Australia, and to divert resources back to Australia to defend it. The Darwin bombing helped with that, as did the mini subs attacking Sydney. Whatever the truth, we certainly thought back then that we were in line to be invaded, relatives much older than I told me that that was the common belief, and there was the Brisbane Line which, if true, was where the Australian military were to retreat to if there was an invasion. That would mean that our military back then had the same belief as the current belief, that Australia was just too big, remote and hard to hang on to if invaded. The Japs landing would have thought, ok, WTF do we do with this now? How do we defend it from the south? They may have invaded Singapore on bicycles, but it's not that easy here.