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is one of the most famous men of the 20th century. Perhaps even flirted with greatness.Īlthough not one American in 10,000 can place it, a good case can be made that, absent the name, Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. He has the countenance and bearing of a man who has spent time on fields of high adventure and great achievement. Only his hearing betrays him: He is as close to stone deaf as one can get and still hear. His walk has slowed, but he remains erect and dignified. He does look like an old man, but not a 90-year-old man. His gaze, even with the heavied lids of age, is intense. In 1945, the Japanese military still had plenty of men an materiel- far more than the Germans had had by that stage of the war.ġ60,000 dead is tragic, but it was the only thing that made the Japanese surrender while they still had some fighting capacity left.Today, in his nineties, Paul Tibbets is still a handsome man. The behavior of Japanese forces in previous battles was used to extrapolate and predict the behavior of their forces in the future. We know this from the analysis of the island hopping campaigns done at the time. Civilian casualties would have been in the millions, aside from the millions of military casualties on both sides, which is better than the ~160,000 casualties from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Kokumin Giyū Sentōtai, unlike the Volksturm, who surrendered when it was rational to do so, would have forced the Allies to fight house to house, resulting in destruction far more complete than in the European theater, even on the Eastern Front. Unlike German civilians in areas liberated by the allied forces, Japanese civilians were armed, trained, and, when defeat seemed inevitable, committed suicide en masse. Not only that, but Japanese civilians fought as well.
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The Japanese were far more reluctant to surrender. Please also read the site-wide Reddiquette. Please avoid reposting TILs that have already made the front page in the past on YouTube)Īdd or tags to your posts, as necessary. Link to the appropriate start time when referencing videos (e.g. Link to the appropriate heading when referencing an article (particularly on Wikipedia) If you are interested in reading about the TILs on this list use the search box feature and enter the keywords to pull up past TILs.Īvoid mobile versions of websites (e.g. The purpose is to keep content fresh on /r/todayilearned as requested by its members. The titles have been abridged for the sake of brevity, however the context remains the same. If your TIL is found on this list, it will be removed.
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instead, or be more specific (and avoid the word "about"). " and other broad posts don't belong on TIL. Starting your title with a why/what/who/where/how modifier should be unnecessary.