toucana

20 hours ago, TheVat said:

Of course.  But that's not the issue being discussed in this thread.  That is the issue of is it okay to kill over a hundred thousand civilians to save soldiers lives, and to initiate the first use of a WMD to do so?

 

The title of the OP in this thread was “Why use the atomic bomb on Japan ?” which seemed to me to be about the strategic military thinking and realpolitik of using such a novel weapon to end WW2 in August 1945 - (as opposed to pursuing a devasting war of attrition that might not have ended until 1947). All of those points have already been answered in detail in this thread quite a while ago imho.

At some point the discussion then seems to have became a version of the thought experiment known as ”The Trolley Dilemma”. It might be instructive in this context to read a recent study by Exeter Business School which evaluates how different cultural groups - especially Asian ones -  evaluate sacrificial dilemmas of this type, and can come to markedly different conclusions and ethical judgements in doing so.

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-trolley-dilemma-sacrifice-person-culture.html

To me it seems that arguments about ‘Few’ or ‘Many’ deaths descend into a form of Sorites Paradox (Greek  σωρός  - ‘a heap’) which is a type of  [N-1] problem.  At what point does a ‘heap’ of sand stop being a ‘heap’ if you repeatedly remove one grain of sand from it ? It’s a type of argument that relies on vague predicates. At what point do ‘Many ‘ deaths  become “Few’, and when do you reach a moral tipping point which renders that value ‘acceptable” ?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/

Moral philosophers can pursue this type of debate almost indefinitely - but it’s rather different from the one raised in the OP.

8 hours ago, TheVat said:

It is the sort of point that dissolves like cheap toilet paper on scrutiny.  To offer a quick exposure of the absurdity, consider the situation of Palestinians especiallly those facing starvation in Gaza.  Clearly, dropping a high-yield nuke on Tel Aviv would save thousands in Gaza from the kind of death you describe.  They will likely be dead if Israel continues its present mode of warfare and obstruction of UN aid for another six months.  And most of them are not soldiers who have had some preparation for facing death - most of them are women and children with zero involvement in any aggression towards Israel.  

Generally, all of these "saving lives" arguments operate on the morally abhorrent principle that "our lives are of more value than their lives, so yeah, let's nuke a whole city full of noncombatants."  

 

Have you considered what would have happened if the allies had gone ahead with the alternative plan B of starving Japan into surrender by means of a naval blockade ? The 32,000 POWs and internees held by the Japanese were already on starvation diets - do you think the Japanese authorities would have made any effort to continue feeding those POWs when they were already making contingency plans to starve a significant proportion of their own non-combatant civilian population to death in order to continue the war ?

I take some issue with the Gaza analogy too. The Pacific war of 1941 - 45 did not take place in the Middle East in 2024. It took place in the context of a lethal struggle against a violent and well armed expansionist Japan whose military leadership systematically ignored every clause of the Geneva Convention, and exhibited a total contempt for any concept of the intrinsic value of human life - an aggressor that routinely murdered captured nurses and other medical staff (as they did in Singapore in February 1942) and whose soldiers murdered upward of 250,000 unarmed Chinese civilians during a six week killing rampage in the city of Nanjing in December 1937, and also murdered another 150,000 unarmed Filipino civilians in Manila during the Battle of Luzon in February 1945.

At a certain point when you are fighting a particular type of enemy, one (as previously noted) with no history of military compromise or surrender in its 2000 year history, then the finer points of moral argument become somewhat moot. You simply have to be prepared to take exceptional measures to break their will to carry on fighting you.

I also take some exception to the implied suggestion that the targets selected for the atom bombs contained nothing but non-combatant civilians. Hiroshima was a major military command centre for the Japanese Second General Army in southern Honshu. It also had a large seaport at Ujina that was used as an embarkation centre for Japanese troops, and housed the Army Marine HQ. The city of Nagasaki was likewise a military seaport, and also the home of the Mitsubishi company who were the principal manufacturers of the deadly ‘Long Lance’ (酸素魚雷) Type 93 torpedo used by the Japanese navy throughout WW2. The Mitsubishi Urakami Torpedo Works were in fact one of the military sites that was completely destroyed by the Nagasaki atom bomb.

https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/images/mitsubishi_image.htm

I came upon a passage  the other day which reminded me of an issue now mostly forgotten, but one which was very important to Allied military planners back in 1945 as WW2 entered its endgame - and that was the fate of allied POWs and incarcerated civilians who were in the hands of the Japanese throughout the Far East.

http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/liberation_photos.html

Over 190,000 British and Commonwealth troops were taken prisoner by the Japanese during WW2 - many of them when Malaya, Singapore, and Burma were overrun, and some 32,000 Allied POWs were subsequently repatriated directly from Japan itself after the end of the war.

The majority of these prisoners were kept in appalling conditions on starvation diets and and many were worked to death in slave labour camps, like those working on the Thai-Burma Railway at Kanu Camp Thailand, where 60,000 British, Commonwealth and Dutch prisoners worked on the railway, and 16,000 of them perished doing so.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-life-was-like-for-pows-in-the-far-east-during-the-second-world-war

There is some vivid testimony from two such prisoners who later became very well-known novelists. One was the Australian born James Clavell who wrote the screenplay for The Great Escape (1963) and later wrote the first of his ‘Asian trilogy’ novels Shogun (1975) partially around his war-time experiences at Changi prison in Singapore. The other was the British writer J.G. Ballard whose family was interned in the Lunghua internment camp near Shanghai in China, and based his autobiographical novel Empire of The Sun (1984) on childhood memories of life there.

J.G. Ballard incidentally claims that he and other occupants of the Lunghua camp actually saw the flash of the second atomic bomb when it detonated over Nagasaki 500 miles away across the East China Sea on the morning of August 9 1945.

Both of these writers make the point that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 probably saved their own lives and those of countless other POWs and internees, because many of them simply could not have survived the effects of chronic malnutrition they were experiencing at the hands of the Japanese for much longer. They might well have been dead if the war had ended 6 months later.

James Clavell who was living on 110 grams of rice per day, one egg per week and occasional vegetables in Changi prison camp was unable to talk about his wartime experience for 15 years, but later disclosed that for quite some time after, he kept a can of sardines in his pocket at all times, and had to fight the urge to forage for food in rubbish bins.

8 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone is a proverb that means we should not criticize others when we are not perfect ourselves12. It is a paraphrase of a quote from Jesus in the Bible (John 8:7), where he said this to the people who wanted to stone a woman caught in adultery32. The expression can also be used as let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her or to throw the first stone

The passage about “Jesus and the woman taken in adultery” (John 7:53-8:11) is an interesting and  problematic quotation, because it doesn’t appear in a number of early Greek texts; while some other variant texts place it in a completely different gospel - after Luke 21:38 instead.

https://www.gotquestions.org/John-7-53-8-11.html

It’s known as the pericope adulterae and is usually regarded as a pseudepigraphical interpolation into the text of John by a later scribe.

It was apparently regarded with some misgivings by early christian fathers who thought it could imply that Jesus was sympathetic to adultery.

One recent YouTube video about Trump’s ‘God Bless The USA’  bible that has gone viral in the last week or so is a factual review of the product by a man called Tim Wildsmith, a devout christian who actually reviews bibles for a living on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_6TVa7scKM

Tim Wildsmith makes the following points:

- This bible is advertised at $59.99, but actually costs $75 with tax and shipping.

- In his opinion a Walmart style bible like this should probably cost around $20.

- The website implies this bible is bound in real leather - but it’s actually bound in fake synthetic leather.

- The text used is the copyright free King James Version, but without any notes or cross-references.

- There is no copyright page or printer info - which usually means the bible was printed in China.

- The page stock is too thin, so you get substantial bleed-through of text from the other side.

- The gilt edge pages tend to stick together and tear easily.

Another well known political satirist called Tea Pain USA cites Tim Wildsmith’s review, and calls attention to a remarkable omission in the MAGA material found at the back of this Trump bible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB32CR7Zc9s

Although the Trump bible contains a copy of The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and The Pledge of Allegiance, it *doesn’t* include any of the amendments from the 11th through to the 27th. Tea Pain suggests that these conspicuously missing amendments provide a damning vade-mecum as to which parts of the US Constitution Trump and his fellow Christo-Nationalist Fascists would dearly like to expunge  - or at least pretend never to have existed - most especially:

12th Amendment  - “Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for the President…”

13th Amendment  - “Neither Slavery nor  involuntary servitude .. shall exist within the United States..”

14th Amendment  - “ No person shall… hold any office .... have engaged in insurrection or rebellion..”

15th Amendment  - “The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied … on account of race, color…”

19th Amendment  - The right of citizens  to vote shall not be denied… on account of sex…”

22nd Amendment - “ No person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice..”

Media coverage of Monday’s total solar eclipse took an unexpected and distinctly X-rated turn when a Spanish language Mexican TV station RCG incautiously began broadcasting video clips of the event that had been sent in by their viewers during the live coverage of the totality.

https://metro.co.uk/2024/04/10/news-channel-accidentally-airs-testicles-instead-eclipse-live-tv-20619945/

The RCG production team apparently didn’t examine the videos too closely, and succeeded in broadcasting one clip sent in by a prankster which shows the sun being eclipsed by a descending pair of testicles.

The omnipresent QR (Quick Response) codes found everywhere these days from restaurant menus, to adverts on bus stops, festival passes, or museum exhibits were first invented back in 1994 at a Japanese company called Denso Wave (デンソーウェーブ), a manufacturer of automobile parts based near Nagoya in Japan.

Masahiro Hara, the man who invented QR codes was an engineer at Denso Wave who also happened to be a Go player. One day he was playing a game of Go during his lunchbreak when he stumbled on the idea of using the 19 x 19 matrix of a Go board as a new way of encoding the information of the Kanban (カンバン ) system for tracking components and spare parts which is extensively used in the Japanese car industry. It occured to him that a 2-dimensional matrix system of encoding with inbuilt error correction could store and process information far more efficiently than the linear bar code systems currently in use.

A new YT video gives a concise explanation of quite how all those hieroglyphic symbols in a QR coding system work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb4wq2auXXk

It’s basically a formatted bit-stream of text. Version 1 is a 21 x 21 matrix that can store up to 17 UTF-8 characters when using low error correction. Version 40 is a 177 x 177 matrix that can store almost 3K of text.

The error correction system is based on Reed-Solomon Codes which is a method widely used in CD, DVD and Blu-ray disks  - it also allows you to place a trademark logo or image in the middle of a QR glyph without compromising the readability of the information.

The coloured image below gives a handy guide to what the different bits of of a QR code do -  The mauve #6 area is where the data is actually written. and the yellow #7 area is the Error Correction data.

He's also facing the wrong way, towards the back of the pew !

Clear skies and excellent  viewing in Dallas atm  -  (I'm watching live coverage on Sky/NBC)

Welp - Carbondale Illinois has been and gone, and we're still here. Guess they must have meant the next one ?- in 129 years !

7 hours ago, MigL said:

Goats ???

I was thinking sacrificing virgins ...

Not to be outdone by Nineveh and Carbondale Illinois, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the embattled MAGA Governor of Arizona has declared a 14 day state of emergency in Arizona on account of the total solar eclipse today 8 April 2024, and has released $100,000 from the state’s emergency Response & Recovery funds to ensure that the 2m of darkness during the totality doesn’t cause a collapse of Arizona’s transportation system.

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2024/apr/05/sanders-declares-state-of-emergency-in-arkansas/

Quote

Sanders' executive order declaring the emergency cites the expected influx of visitors and the "backlog of deliveries by commercial vehicles transporting essential items of commerce" that could result. Out of an abundance of caution, I've directed funds to be released from the Response and Recovery Fund ahead of the Great American Eclipse," Sanders said in a news release Friday night.

$100,000 would also be enough to cover the costs of another 5  ‘Lecterns’ should the former WH press secretary find herself running short during the eclipse.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/us/sarah-huckabee-sanders-arkansas-lectern.html

On 4/6/2024 at 3:11 AM, iNow said:

Lucky enough to live in the path of totality? Traveling?

Bringing special gear? Cool telescopes or lenses?

Any pinhole colanders or manually cut out shapes for crescent shaped shadows?

Convinced it’ll be cloudy, overcast, and raining?  🤣 ☀️ 🌙 

According to your friendly neighbourhood conspiracy theorists, the solar eclipse on Monday 8 April will also mark the end of the world, and it will all start in Carbondale illinois.

https://news.sky.com/story/armageddon-in-illinois-nefarious-scientists-warning-signs-from-god-marjorie-taylor-greene-alex-jones-and-influencers-peddle-conspiracy-theories-about-solar-eclipse-13110035

Why there you may ask ? Well it’s quite simple. The predicted path of the solar eclipse will pass over at least six places called Nineveh (modern day Mosul in Iraq), which is an ancient city mentioned in the bible where the prophet Jonah once preached against the wickedness of its inhabitants, and called for its total destruction.

When combined with the path of the US eclipse in 2017, the path of totality on Monday will form a cross with its centre located on Carbondale Illinois -  so If you live in Carbondale, that means you will be lucky enough to see the full eclipse twice in seven years. According to influencers on TikTok, it also means doomsday starts in your city - quite obvious really.

Part of the soundtrack to the film  'Perfect Days' (2023) by Wim Wenders.

3 hours ago, geordief said:

As an avid non reader of the Bible ,but having read that parts of the OT advocates some odious actions  can I ask if perhaps there are indeed some passages where rape is advocated, or described in an approving way?

Like the good lord I too am fishing ,but for evidence 

You could probably start with some of these:

Quote

 

Key texts for scholarship on sexual violence include the rape of Dinah (Genesis 34), the rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13), the gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine (Judges 19–21), Bathsheba and David (2 Samuel 11), the “marriage metaphor” in the prophetic books (especially Hosea 1–3, Jeremiah 3, and Ezekiel 16 and 23), and the rape of Daughter Zion (Lamentations 1 and 2).

https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0293.xml

 

Reader discretion is advised, especially for Judges 19-21 (it's rather graphic).

35 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

"The rapist Bible"? Where and who claimed this? 

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan did so in August 2023 while dimissing a counterclaim by Donald Trump for defamation in the E.J Carroll case.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/07/donald-trump-rape-language-e-jean-carroll

Kaplan had already outlined why it was not defamation for Carroll to say Trump raped her.

“As the court explained in its recent decision denying Mr Trump’s motion for a new trial on damages and other relief [in the New York case] … based on all of the evidence at trial and the jury’s verdict as a whole, the jury’s finding that Mr Trump ‘sexually abused’ Ms Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally – in other words, that Mr Trump in fact did ‘rape’ Ms Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood in contexts outside of the New York penal law.”

The title of my post was satirical - (one reason it was in quotes), and took aim squarely at the rampant hypocrisy of a grifter and moral imbecile like Trump attempting to wrap himself in the American flag while hawking overpriced GBA themed bibles in the middle of holy week.

Many unusual and curious versions of the English bible have been printed since the reformation. The ‘Wicked Bible’ of 1631 found its way into history by omitting the word ‘not’ from the 7th commandment (Exodus 20:14) and enjoining its readers, on the highest authority, to commit adultery.

Others include ‘The Treacle Bible’ of 1568 (Jermiah 7:24 - “Is there no treacle in Gilead”), The Printers Bible of 1702 (Psalm 119:161 - “Printers have persecuted me without a cause” -  [instead of of ‘Princes’], and ‘Rebekah’s Camels Bible’ of 1823 which gives Genesis 24:61 as “Rebekah arose, and her camels” instead of “her damsels”.

But few of them are quite as odd as the ‘God Bless The USA Bible’ currently being touted by former president Donald J. Trump for $59.99. This edition of the King James translation (conveniently out of copyright) also includes a copy of the US Constitution, The Bill of Rights, The Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance - along with a handwritten chorus to ‘God Bless America’ by Lee Greenwood. One thing that all of these have in common of course, is that Donald Trump has never read or paid the slightest attention to any of them.

The Lee Greenwood referred to is the person who first initiated this project back in 2021. At that time it was being marketed as a new bible “Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks”. This edition was meant to contain the NIV version of the English bible, but the NIV copyright holders Zondervan abruptly withdrew their consent, so the royalty-free King James text was used instead. That version incidentally cost only $49.99 back in 2021.

A Meidas Touch YT investigation reveals that this bible has a long history of negative reviews from purchasers who faced such problems as long delays, or complete non-delivery of the product, to struggling with gilt-edged pages that had glued themselves together, rendering the text unreadable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZp0zjobSK8

5 hours ago, TheVat said:

Given that politics includes moral philosophy,  I think one should consider that the actual use of a WMD tends to open up a tactical (and utilitarian) conversation that can drown out the moral one.  

For example, justification on the basis of saved lives is not always a compelling argument in other aspects of human life.  A worldwide totalitarian regime which forced contraception on every person on Earth could save billions of future lives.  Worldwide tobacco ban and death penalty for growers would save millions.  And so on.  Humans are not really utilitarians, for the most part.  

What is your moral sense of what America became, by using a nuke on civilians, and likely accelerating an international arms race?  And based on that, what should we do NOW?   

Oppenheimer has just been released in Japan.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-68691883

The BBC’s Japan correspondent Shaimaa Khalil spoke to residents in Hiroshima who had watched the film in a cinema located in the ground-zero area of the 1945 blast, and asked them what they thought of it. One young person responds to the question of  ‘Saved lives’ raised by TheVat.

7 hours ago, CharonY said:

Not entirely. They have been different factions and while the peace camp was arguably less influential, it is not a clear split between emperor and military leadership.

 

Yes indeed, but my point is that diplomatic solutions were considered before the bomb, including an uncharacteristic overture by the emperor himself. In fact, the official position since 44 was that they were willing to negotiate conditional surrender. The hope of Japanese leadership was always hat they could retain some of their occupied territories (from the onset of the war) while suing for peace after a series of conquests.

By 44 they were ready to broaden negotiations, with te exception of the position of the emperor. This was of course counter the Casablanca declaration.

 

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, the plan was to cripple the US Pacific fleet for just long enough to allow Japan to seize control of other southeast Asian countries such as British Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies, and consolidate them into their ‘Greater East Co-Prosperity Sphere’. The Japanese hoped they could force the USA to negotiate a political settlement from a position of weakness that would validate Japan’s seizure of these territories, and leave them in control on much more favourable terms than existed in the 1930s.

Perceptive Japanese strategists like Admiral Yamamoto who planned the Pearl Harbour attack knew full well that Japan could never defeat the USA in a prolonged war of attrition - so a negotiated diplomatic ending to hostilities with the allies was always a key part of the original Japanese war plan.

It went wrong from the outset because the Japanese failed to destroy the 3 main US aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbour (they were all at sea). The US carriers subsequently inflicted terrible damage on the Japanese fleet at the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Meanwhile the USA’s war aims became the total destruction of the Japanese military machine, and the unconditional surrender of their nation.

In the summer of 1943, Japanese Navy chiefs asked Admiral Sokichi Takagi who was one of their best strategists to carry out an independent survey of the course of the war. His report concluded that Japan must sue for peace if the USA captured the Solomon islands. The Japanese subsequently lost control of the Solomon Islands at the end of 1943, but the Japanese Army leadership defied all warnings from the Navy and carried on fighting  -  refusing to countenance any possibility of diplomatic negotiation or surrender.

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

A

I believe the timing is off a bit. The Japanese emperor sent a private message to Stalin before the Potsdam conference (in July)  asking him to act as intermediary. I.e. these attempts pre-dated the bomb, which is one of the arguments of historians who argue against the traditional narrative regarding the bomb.

There is an entire chapter devoted to this subject in The Fall of Japan (1968) by William Craig  [Ch.3 ‘The Diplomacy of Defeat’ ]. There were some covert attempts made by high ranking Japanese officials to initiate diplomatic contacts in great secrecy with the Soviet foreign minister Molotov by passing messages between Jacob Malik the Soviet ambassador in Tokyo, and Naosoke Sato - the Japanese ambassador in Moscow. The idea was first raised by Emperor Hirohito in person on 22 June 1945  within hours of the death of General Ushijima on Okinawa.

This initiative stalled when Malik the Soviet ambassador failed to respond. The Emperor Hirohito offered to send Prince Fumimaro Konoye to Russia as his personal envoy to meet with Molotov in July 1945, but the Soviet leadership who were preparing for the Potsdam Conference failed to provide any opportunity of a meeting with Molotov. Stalin had already privately decided to declare war on Japan at a moment of his choosing very soon after the conference ended, and he regarded the Japanese initiative as moot.

On Monday 6th August 1945, the very day that Hiroshima was bombed, Shigenori Togo the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs sent an urgent telegram to ambassador Sato noting that Stalin and Molotov had just returned to Moscow that very day. Togo instructed Sato to demand an immediate meeting with Molotov and seek a definitive reply from him as to whether the Soviet Union would help broker a peace deal with the allies. Before Sato could reply, Togo sent another even more frantic telegram - he had just received an eye-witness report that said “The whole city of Hiroshima was destroyed instantly by a single bomb”.

Ambassador Sato sent a telegram back to Togo on the 7th August to say that Molotov had finally agreed to meet the Japanese diplomats the following day at 17.00. This meeting duly took place on the 8th August 1945, and Molotov used it to declare war on Japan. [see The Fall of Japan ch.5 for the timeline and full texts of the diplomatic cables].

18 hours ago, Airbrush said:

 

Japan was totally cut off from all supplies by US submarines and air force.  Japan would grind to a halt within a few more months.  The US had plenty of incendiary bombs and B29s to systematically reduce Japan to totally helpless and starving.  There would never be a need for the US to attack Japan with amphibious landings and therefore no 1,000,000 dead US soldiers.  All the US would lose is a few more B29s.

There is a detailed discussion of most of the points you raise in an article by the military historian and Pacific War expert Richard B. Frank called ‘No Recipe For Victory” available on the website for the National WWII Museum New Orleans

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/victory-in-japan-army-navy-1945

There had been a long standing division of opinion since January 1943  between the chiefs of the  US Navy and the US Army over how best to achieve the unconditional surrender of Japan. The US Navy favoured a blockade that would have involved starving the Japanese population into surrender. The US Army favoured an invasion plan called operation Downfall subdivided into two parts: -

i. Operation Olympic to seize control of the southern island of Kyushu which was scheduled to begin in November 1945

ii. Operation Coronet to invade the Tokyo region on Honshu about 1 March 1946.

The argument over whether to go with a naval blockade or an amphibious invasion of the archipelago was settled in favour of the Army’s invasion plan at the Honolulu Conference in July 1944. Doubts then arose because of the massive casualties sustained during the invasion of Okinawa in May 1945 (49,000+ with 12,000 killed including the 4-star general in command of the operation). Admiral Nimitz privately said he could no longer support the invasion plan in the light of this, and even more concerns were raised by fresh military intelligence that Japan had moved such large numbers of troops and aircraft into Kyusuhu, that the US landing forces would be in a 1-1 combat situation with no numerical advantage there - a scenario described as “a recipe for a bloodbath”.

The main problem with a naval blockade was that it would have taken a very long time to complete. The US Navy’s own estimates suggested that the Japanese would not collapse until 1947 at the earliest. Critics pointed out that the high level of social control traditionally found in Japanese society along with the ruthless suppression of dissent by the Japanese military government would have led to the prioritization of feeding those involved in sustaining the war effort, while leaving millions of civilians to starve to death  - a prospect that even the most hawkish supporters of a blockade were reluctant to discuss in detail.

There was also considerable concern in the USA about a possible loss of will to carry on fighting an endlessly protracted war in the Pacific against an enemy with no history of military compromise or surrender.

Quote

The JCS identified two profound challenges to achieving unconditional surrender. First, no Japanese government had surrendered to a foreign power in Japan’s history— by Japanese count a span of 2,600 years. Second, no Japanese military unit had surrendered in the entire course of the war. Therefore, the JCS concluded that there was no certainty the United States could obtain the surrender of a Japanese government and even if it did, that Japan’s armed forces would comply with the surrender order. Thus, the JCS defined the ultimate American nightmare as not “the invasion of Japan,” but the even more dreaded prospect that there would be no organized capitulation of Japan’s government and armed forces.

Finally there is the question of the intense firebombings that began on 10 March with the 279 plane Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo which levelled 2 square miles of eastern Tokyo, and probably killed over 100,000 civilians. The Meetinghouse raid was quickly followed by similar raids against Nagoya on 12 March, Osaka on 14 March , Kobe on 18 March, and Nagoya again on the 19 March.  - These raids were deemed a military success by Major Curtis Lemay who was in command of the USAAF strategic bombing campaign - and yet these raids had had largely ceased by May 1945 - why ?

i. The USAAF had run out of incendiary ordnance. These raids had depleted their entire stock.

ii. From May 1945 onwards the USAAF had to urgently redeploy southwards to support the US invasion of Okinawa which had run into unexpectedly intense opposition including sustained kamikaze attacks.

iii. These fire-bombing raids had no discernible effect in weakening or deflecting the resolve of the Japanese leadership to carry on fighting to the bitter end - regardless of the civilian casualties sustained.

As a matter of fact the Japanese government did not begin to consider any diplomatic solutions to end the war until the morning of 6 August just after the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and when they did, the first Japanese diplomatic overtures were made towards the Soviet Union in the hope of enlisting their help in brokering a cease-fire - hopes that were promptly dashed when the Soviet Union belatedly declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria.

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Kelvin Klein. For your absolute unit.

If your absolute unit is at 0°K, then you should probably seek medical advice  ?

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Your link is about MDF. I wonder if the ship was burning that or RFO. (My comments about centrifugal separators relate to RFO.) 

A newly created Wikipedia page about MV Dali offers some more information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Dali

Quote

Dali is propelled by a single low-speed two-stroke crosshead diesel engine coupled to a fixed-pitch propeller. Her main engine, a 9-cylinder MAN-B&W 9S90ME-C9.2^[11] unit manufactured by Hyundai Heavy Industries under license, is rated 41,480 kW (55,630 hp) at 82.5 rpm.^[2] Her service speed is 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph).^[5] For maneuvering in ports, Dali has a single 3,000 kW (4,000 hp) bow thruster. Electricity is generated onboard by two 3,840 kW (5,150 hp) and two 4,400 kW (5,900 hp) auxiliary diesel generators.^[4]

I’m not sure exactly what type of marine fuel that suggests ? The auxiliary electrical generating capacity is large, because ships of this type may need to cater for ‘reefers’ or refrigerated container units.

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

What puzzles me is the loss of all power. There will have been a low speed main engine and a number of medium speed auxiliary generators. While they may all have used the same heavy fuel oil, it seems odd that all would have failed simultaneously due to fuel contamination, especially given there will have been several centrifugal separators on the fuel lines to the engines. Low speed engines are generally more tolerant to poor fuel than medium speed ones. Maybe loss of electrical power meant they could not control the main engine or the rudder.

 
No doubt the facts will emerge fairly quickly though. 

There is some interesting reporting written by people with relevant maritime experience in the Telegraph:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/27/baltimore-bridge-ship-captain-electrical-failure-pilot/

It seems that the auxiliary generators failed twice - the ships lights came back on, then went out again. Some eye-witnesses also reported seeing quantities of black smoke coming from the boat’s funnel after the initial loss of electrical power, which may have been a standby emergency generator kicking in.

The crew perhaps lost control of the steering system with the rudder stuck in the starboard position - there was also a 10 knot wind on the port bow which would have pushed the ship to starboard, and into the pylon.

Contamination of bunker fuel used in ships is most often associated with the presence of water which can encourage  the growth of microbial biomass that can block filters, injectors, and damage marine engines. The use of biodiesel and low sulphur marine fuels can exacerbate this problem apparently.

https://echamicrobiology.com/knowledge-hub/common-problems/marine-fuel-quality

According to the WSJ and NBC News reports, investigators are looking into the possibility that contaminated fuel may have contributed to the collision that caused the collapse of the 1.6 mile span of the Francis Scott Key bridge across the Patapsco River Baltimore just after 1.24 a.m Tuesday.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rare-mayday-preceded-baltimore-bridge-collapse-couldnt-think-worse-sit-rcna145212

A 1000’ long cargo ship called the Dali broadcast a rare Mayday call shortly after leaving harbour to warn shore authorities that it had lost power and steering control, before slamming into a bridge support column 4m later. There was just enough time to close the bridge to vehicle traffic, but not enough time to evacuate a team of maintenance contractors who were out on the bridge filling in potholes - 6 of them are now presumed dead.

Quote

 

“The worst sound you ever hear on a ship is dead silence, because that means everything’s gone wrong,” said Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime expert and historian. 

An engine conking out 3 miles out in the ocean is an aggravation and an economic problem, because you lose time,” said Henry Lipian, a retired Coast Guard lieutenant and founder of the Introtech accident reconstruction firm. “In a narrow channel at night, with a bridge in front of you, I couldn’t think of a worse situation to deal with.”

A ship can drop anchor in an attempt to avert a collision, but given the Dali’s size, speed and distance from the bridge, such a move most likely wouldn’t have helped, said Morgan McManus, an instructor at SUNY Maritime College in New York who has worked on cargo ships and tankers.

At 8 knots you need a couple thousand yards to do it,” McManus said.

 

Officials have now recovered the black box data recorders from the Dali, the USA Army Corps of Engineers has been mobilised to clear the wreckage, and President Biden has said the bridge will be rebuilt at the expense of the Federal government at a cost of around $600m.

It's widely believed to be an artistic prank up in Clifton Village. This was the back-story:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/mar/23/banksy-plaque-bristol-adulterer-banksy-artist-husband-roger?CMP=share_btn_url&fbclid=IwAR1ZNfDN7tK_aI2A_pIIRK9mcrug-1KZzaW3pZH7oqTNpTVO5OgA_1nIXOQ

Spotted this week in a very smart district of my hometown