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Comment by evo_9 | Hacker News Reader

I went to Hiroshima about 15 years ago with my ex-wife when we toured Japan (she is Japanese).

I was struck by a few details I'd never heard before growing up in the US:

1) The center of the detonation was a hospital. It's unlikely they tried to hit the hospital, but the fact remains it was 'ground zero'.

2) A good portion of the hospital's metal frame was still standing and was a focal point of a monument; grass was growing and generally speaking it didn't match up with what I expected to see as 'ground zero' (aka a crater, nothing growing, nothing standing).

3) No active US President has ever visited Hiroshima or the museum there dedicated to the atomic bombings; Carter visited after he was no longer president.

If you have a chance to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum it's well worth a visit. Quite humbling.

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

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> 3) No active US President has ever visited Hiroshima or the museum there dedicated to the atomic bombings; Carter visited after he was no longer president.

To add to that, Japanese leaders aren't so keen on visiting the Pearl Harbor site either. Though their emperor has now spent a visit there: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/4918516... Neither country has come up with a formal apology.

Considering all the bad things Japan did during their wars, it seems strange that you would bring up Pearl Harbor as an equivalent of Hiroshima. Pearl Harbor was a major military target and almost all casualties there were military (only ~100 civilians). All in all, the attack seems like a legitimate military action in every other way, but for the fact there wasn't a formal declaration of war first (at least as far as I know; I haven't studied the pacific war that much).

That likely was unintentional. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Japan...:

"The attack took place before any formal declaration of war was made by Japan, but this was not Admiral Yamamoto's intention. He originally stipulated that the attack should not commence until thirty minutes after Japan had informed the United States that peace negotiations were at an end.[citation needed] The Japanese tried to uphold the conventions of war while still achieving surprise, but the attack began before the notice could be delivered."

on the other hand, making the schedule that tight increases the risk that your message doesn't get delivered in time.

From what I have read the declaration of war took longer to decode at the Japanese Embassy then was expected, and thus was delivered late.

Yes, that's the next sentence on that Wikipedia page. However, it also says the message wasn't that clearly a declaration of war, and adds:

"In 1999, however, Takeo Iguchi, a professor of law and international relations at International Christian University in Tokyo, discovered documents that pointed to a vigorous debate inside the government over how, and indeed whether, to notify Washington of Japan's intention to break off negotiations and start a war, including a December 7 entry in the war diary saying, "our deceptive diplomacy is steadily proceeding toward success." Of this, Iguchi said, "The diary shows that the army and navy did not want to give any proper declaration of war, or indeed prior notice even of the termination of negotiations ... and they clearly prevailed."

I don't see how one can conclude that "clearly prevailed". The message apparently wasn't 100% clear, but there was a message.

Wikipedia also says the U.S. had broken the code used to encrypt that message. That makes it unlikely that there was a second super-secret message "make sure the next message arrives late"

(Of course, this is all playing historian from a single Wikipedia page, the occasional TV program, and a tiny bit of other reading over the years)

The problem with Japanese is that it possible to talk all day and say nothing of substance, its the perfect language for bullshitters (and politicians).

Even a simple sentences can be translated to have may different meanings. This came up again when the Americans had trouble translating the statements the Japanese made after the Hiroshima bombing.

I don't think apology is warranted. You apologize for atrocities and war-crimes, not for "trying to win".

I heard somewhere that Obama wanted to do an apology for Hiroshima, but the Japanese government advised him not to.

According to wikipedia:

"Due to crosswind, the bomb missed the aiming point, the Aioi Bridge, by approximately 800 ft (240 m) and detonated directly over Shima Surgical Clinic"

it's not like it would have mattered... that hospital didn't stand a chance either way...

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