veteran’s corner

Tom Krabbenhoft

Greetings one and all. Last week I wrote about Russians switching tactics in Ukraine. I also reflected about previous articles recalling the Russians taking control of Chernobyl and Ukraines largest nuclear plant. I wrote about what they may do with the plants and theory turned to facts. The Russians have set up at one of the facilities and are basing communication equipment, command post and stashing its very deadly rocket launchers.

The rocket launchers can scurry out and deliver their deadly rockets to a target. They can rapidly reload and re-shoot, then scoot back to safety hiding between the reactors. All this before the Ukrainians can launch a counter strike.

Hiding high value assets and personnel at a nuclear plant makes it impossible to strike back. A counter barrage could release a nuclear disaster.

If the nuclear plants are to be retaken it’ll have to be done with ground forces and a large scale counter offensive. Even then a nuclear event is very possible. To further hamper efforts to retake the plants, minefields have been set up and pre-registered artillery points established. Defense always has the advantage. It will be interesting to see what develops. The longer the war drags on the greater advantage to the Ukrainian people.

Writing about nuclear reminds me of August 6th and 9th, 1945. These are the dates the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hiroshima was a city of industry and was headquarters to several Japanese army groups. One of them was in charge of mainland defense. Hiroshima was left relatively free of any aerial bombing during the war. Many speculated the city was to be used for allied headquarters in the event an invasion was executed. Others guessed it was left intact to gauge the destructive power of nuclear weapons. Hiroshima suffered 66,000 deaths and another 69,000 injured.

Nagasaki proves “if you aren’t first you are last.” Nagasaki was bombed 2nd, and Nagasaki was not even the primary target. Kokura was the intended target where a large arsenal was kept. Due to heavy cloud cover over Kokura, Nagasaki was the next pick.

Nagasaki had no substantial military assets but it was used after the Japanese refused to surrender after Hiroshima. It was also used to send a deterrence message to the Soviets and their leader Stalin. The Soviets declared war on Japan on August 8th, 1945, two days after the Hiroshima bombing. Thanks for the help guys.

In the aftermath, Nagasaki suffered 39,000 dead and 26,000 injured. Nuclear weapons use is awful. What may have been even worse would’ve been a full scaled invasion of Japan. It was estimated 1,000,000 would be lost taking Japan.

The dropping of the atomic bombs kept the US from invading. They also kept the Soviets at bay and prevented a large land grab like what happened in Europe. It could have also kept Japan free, an East Germany, West Germany scenario from happening in Japan.