...and if the bomb wasn't dropped there would have been 100's of thousands perhaps millions more dead if we had to invade Japan. Blah Blah..etc etc.
These things should be remembered but this seems like the wrong place/wrong time for such a protest.

"They (Japan) started the war by bombing our servicemen in Pearl Harbor. They should go and stand on the deck of the Arizona,"

Exactly

That said, I can't wait to go see this exhibit.

There's no reason to deface a piece of history, even if it dropped an atomic weapon.

After reading about the crap that went on at Nanking, I think the Japanese really shouldn't biatch much when it comes to war atrocities. That stuff is just downright disgusting.

$12 to park. Parking is free pretty much everywhere in Northern Virginia (except Alexandria, Arlington) but for some reason you have to pay here.

That being said, apparently fat boy missed a few.

All the killing sucked. I say they dent the protester and get on with life.

Boy, activists sure know how to make a point by throwing fake blood on everything.

Yeah, and after reading a history just last night of the battle of Okinawa, I'm sure this person's extended family would have waited for US troops with open arms.

I mean, loaded arms...

I wonder if that Tamiko Tomonaga glows in the dark?

Why would they throw fake blood on Linburg's plane? What the hell did he do?

-scratches head-

Hard to believe, but we're one article away from the Enola trifecta. See the checkout rage post for proof.

exick - they started it, we ended it. Period.

I was thinking the exact same thing as familybmx.

"They (Japan) started the war by bombing our servicemen in Pearl Harbor. They should go and stand on the deck of the Arizona," said one man referring to a US ship sunk in the raid, now a memorial.

CarmelCod
A Smithsonian Institution intern told me that the SI doesn't own the parking ramp, thus the $12 fee.

These assh@les make me want to vomit. Where were their protests when they raped Nanking or killed countless civilian and military personnel in an unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor when the US was involved in peace talks with them?

Enola Gay! Hehehe... heh... *ahem*
/nothing

big surprise - war sucks. Wow, thanks for telling me that.

Yes dropping the atomic bomb may not have been the best thing ever, but there was a war going on. That being said, the US beat itself up (with international help) a few times every year over this. Sure, add some pictures of the results. We (the US) did it, we shouldn't forget, but we should not condemn ourselves.

I don't hear much about Japan doing much soul searching over the rape of Nanking, or Korean "comfort women", etc. Dropping an atomic weapon wasn't the worst thing that happened during the years 1938-1945...

Butchering bastards dissected American prisoners - WHILE ALIVE.

I had a great uncle who died in the Bataan death march.

Where the F*** are the protesters for THESE atrocities?

For farks sake! We were at war! Do you see the Chinese complaining about the death and torture that the Japanese subjected them to?

Wow, what a roller coaster. I read the headline and thought "asshat protesters". Then I opened the article and thought "Well, if anyone has a right to protest, *they* do." Then I read the whole article, thought about Japanese atrocities during WWII, and remembered that my Dad was waiting to be deployed to the South Pacific to take part in the invasion of Japan when the bomb got dropped. Now I have profoundly mixed feelings.

Still, denting the plane was kind of a crappy thing to do.

i believe this is an aircraft museum, not a history museum. they want to show the Boeing B-29, not what it has done.

They are right and wrong.

so much for closure.

sniff..sniff, uh huh uuuuhhhh, sniff....FARKING BABIES! Go cry a river and drown in it! Jesus farking Christ. So sick of all these cry baby losers who seem to think that we care about how they feel.

Boy, activists sure know how to make a point by throwing fake blood on everything.

They incite discussions on whatever they are protesting. As you can tell from this thread (and the hundreds of other discussions that are likely going on at the same time), the protestor was very, very successful.

As for my opinion, I guess I will never understand why we needed to murder all those thousands of innocent civilians. War is stupid and pointless.

Yeah, this was terrible, but the rest of World War 2 was just peachy.

Get a grip, lady.

Curtis LeMay was prepared to combine the European bomber fleet with the Pacific B-29s to rain incredible amounts of bombs and napalm onto the mainland.

Non-nuclear weapons that would have been far, far more deadly than the two a-bombs.

Did anybody see that show on the History Channel the other night called, I think _The Last Mission_ about the last bombing mission of WWII?

It was very interesting. To sum it up. There was a coup attempt by the Army designed to prevent the emperor's surrender order from being carried out. To put that another way, even after the Japanese were squarely and roundly defeated militarily, even after their country was fire bombed into a pile of ashes, even after hiroshima was nuked, even after nagasaki was nuked, even after they obtained what they thought was reliable information that the US had a hundred nukes and would hit every city in Japan, they *still* very nearly refused to surrender.

The lessons here are two-fold. 1. don't fark with the Japanese. 2. be thankful that nukes were used to end the war because otherwise they would have fought to the last man and there'd be no tenticlo wape pron for anybody.

More Japanese died from regular bombing in Japan then from both nukes combined. Get Over It!

Oh, and I could walk to the new museum from here, I can see it from the 5th floor. I'm right across RT. 28 from it. COOL!

i believe this is an aircraft museum, not a history museum. they want to show the Boeing B-29, not what it has done.

Yes, anytime there is a massive loss of life sad, like Nanking, Bataan, and yes, hiroshima, nagasaki, and tokyo (more peopel died in a single conventional bombing of Tokyo than in these two bombings combined). Japan started a war we weren't planning to get involved in, not only that their barbarism was comparable and possibly worse than that of Nazi germany in the east. The expected US casualty figures in Japan numbered in the millions. I think I remember hearing that none of the companies that were planned to land on d-day in japan were mentioned in the plans after d-day plus 4 or so, they were expected to be wiped out. I am convinced that at least the 1st bomb was justified, we had no other option.
Not only that, but the majority of Japanese were fanatically supportive of their aggressive tactices of their government. i['ll bet dollars to donuts one of tehm was this guy.
/I'm a leftist with strong antiwar convictions, but feel we have right to defend ourselves agains blatant attacks as Pearl Harbor.

Is being nuked somehow worse than dying from starvation, disease, or being killed by conventional weapons such as bullets, artillery, incendiary bombs, etc? The killing would've continued without the Bomb. We should remember that the Japan of 1945 was not the peaceful, tentacle-pr0n-addicted Japan of today. The army idiots in charge then still insisted that the war could be won, and even if not, it was better that the whole nation die instead of surrender. The Bomb was horrific enough to give the civilian leaders (including Hirohito) enough courage to tell the army that it was over. While the Bomb was horrible, conventional land combat in a heavily populated are would have been much worse - consider what happened on Okinawa, where about 150,000 out of 500,000 were killed, many of the rest wounded, and virtually all of them made homeless.

/Saw the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian years ago, it made me radiate with pride.

pearl harbor casualties were almost exclusively military personnel. what did they think that battleships and aircraft carriers were there for?

hiroshima and nagasaki casualties were overwhelmingly civilian, and we knew for a fact that was going to be the case.

whether the a-bomb saved lives in the long run is still debatable. but for people to compare a sneak attack on a military target to the nuking of a bunch of everyday people is just sad.

Damnit Haywood you beat me to it!

Still, two threads with the Enola in the same day doesn't happen every day.

Bottomline is: Don't start shiat you can't finish. Perhaps if their ancestors had the sack to stand up to their dictatorship they wouldn't have died a casualty of war.

It's best to view this plane and it's memories as a lesson, less we repeat history.

I don't want to get into the depressing "Was Hiroshima Right Or Not?" argument. But when I saw the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian in '96, being treated like it was the Wright Brothers plane or the Concord -- rather than being famous for dropping a bomb on people -- well, it was sort of a bizarre thing to exhibit, with no reference to the Bomb.

A bunch of kids were posing for photographs next to pictures of the pilots. It seems to me that even if Hiroshima was necessary, it should still be treated as a tragedy, and a lot more somberly than this.

Exick: "Should they be protesting by damaging the plane? No, but I agree that they should have mention of the results of the plane's most famous flight in the museum."

Yeah, I believe they do... the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought an end to World War II. The Japanese want pity. Yeah, pity for Nanking, or the Bataan death march, or any number of other atrocities. Save it for another museum, not one dedicated to the history and heritage of flight.

Better that the enemy loses the war on his home turf (especially when he started it) than lose on ours.

I hope they get restitution to fix the plane from that sonofabiatch. Attack an inanimate object, yeah, blame the plane for the bombing... that's like "guns kill people," not "people use guns as tools to kill people."

As a side note... Dec. 7, 1941 to that generation is Sept. 11, 2001, to ours. This is another game we're better off being the visiting team for.

Not dumbass.

Paulson

And if the U.S. hadn't dropped the bomb? How do you think the war would continue on? Island to island combat costing thousands and thousands of American lives.


And another thing to people complaining about bombing Japan. Japan could have surrendered after the first bomb. Stupid pride caused another bomb dropping.

An editorial I read last week said that we'll be glad to add that stuff to the Enola Gay exhibit just as soon as Japan adds all the grisly info from the Bataan Death March to their museums.

Was anyone else bummed out at the end of Wing Commander III when you blow up the Kilrathi home planet?

Enave: "The lessons here are two-fold. 1. don't fark with the Japanese."

Make that: "Don't fark with the US."

I think I'm gonna follow in this guy's footsteps, throw blood at anything I disagree with.

The first bomb wasn't needed, as the Japanese generals were actively trying to surrender to the Russians...the Americans were well aware of this. The first bomb was a successful grab for the official surrender...so, what exactly was the 2nd one all about?

people people people.....

Can't we just let bygones be bygones ?