I did never hear that Oppenhaimer protested against to use the A-bomb.
It was a comitte in Los Alarmos in head with Oppenhaimer/Groves who specially recommended to drop the bomb on Japane.
http://www.dannen.com/decision/scipanel.html
The Oppenhaimer, Fermi and Lawrence ALLtogether were for “immediate military use” of a-bomb.
Lucky Yankees.
Russkies have been massacred for long time before invasion to GErmany, immediately since june 1941.
My bad, you are, in fact, right about that. I was thinking about the Franck report, and somehow I imagined that Oppenheimer was a part of it.
He was not.
But several other important scientists were, such as James Franck and Leo Szilard.
I was going to say something like that in response to Nick’s comment, but today must be one of the special days they have the electricity turned on in Russia 
so Chevan got in first.
It is difficult to compare German and Japanese treatment of Russian and Western POWs respectively.
The Germans generally didn’t engage in the routine brutality towards their Russian POWs like the Japanese did with their Western (and Indians in British service) POWs once they were in camps.
While the Germans certainly worked some POWs and other prisoners to death in a manner not all that different to the Japanese, it was also the case that in many cases the Germans simply herded the Russians and other Slavs together in camps and pretty much left them to exist on less than starvation rations in conditions which ensured the spread of diseases such as typhus. In static camps such as Changi, as distinct from slave labour situations like the Burma railway and the coal mines in Japan, the Japanese were perhaps more benign captors.
However, there may be other factors which partly explain the different death rates.
The Australians were fortunate to have some outstanding, dedicated, skilful and brave army doctors among them in the Japanese camps and on the Burma railway. This was a consequence of most of a division and support elements being captured on Singapore. Their medical and surgical work saved many, but many more were saved by their attention to field hygiene.
I wonder if Slav POWs were in the same position? Did their military establishments have the same level of medical staff? Were medical staff captured in the same proportions? Did their medical staff have the same opportunity as the Australians to improvise medical equipment and drugs, and sometimes to trade with the locals for needed items?
you right , it were Szilard and Franck who ONLY care about radioactive and humanitarian consequences of using atomic weapon.
How can one to improvise medical equipment and drugs, mate?
Especialy if the even primitive food were the rarity.
The certain discipline among Russian POWs supported them, and if GErman commander was enough kind ( God, save his soul) not to order immediately execute all the POWs who can’t move- then i heard some of them got the chance to survive.
The Bataane Death march was exceptional in Asia, but it was a regular in East in 1941-42.
Many wounded POWs simply have been killed right on the road by guard.
Later Germans even had organized the something kinda hospitals for POWs right on Camps.
But again, i heard some of such hospitals has been later burned ( sometimes with all the personal inside) during the GErman retreat in 1943.
I never heard of his protests at that point. I believe it was well after WWII ended that Oppenheimer began decrying things. This was based on the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the escalating arms race and Cold War paranoia…
Everyday between 12:00am and 6:00am before the rolling blackouts begin.
It is difficult to compare German and Japanese treatment of Russian and Western POWs respectively.
…
I wonder if Slav POWs were in the same position? Did their military establishments have the same level of medical staff? Were medical staff captured in the same proportions? Did their medical staff have the same opportunity as the Australians to improvise medical equipment and drugs, and sometimes to trade with the locals for needed items?
I think the main death rates of Soviet POWs was that the initial camps in the winter of 1942-43 were basically pens or fenced in areas often with no shelter…
Later in the War, when the lucky Soviets POWs actually got to camps, their plight lessened somewhat. Though, I recall reading just recently that Western Allied prisoners of war were often appalled at their treatment and condition and sometimes attempted to throw them food over fences and faced punishment for this. But their punishments were still probably generally better than the Soviet POWs’ best days…
By using what’s available.
Australian doctors and their support staff on the Burma Railway cleaned out ulcers with sharpened teaspoons; distilled drugs from local plants in stills made of local materials;and made medical implements from local items such as bamboo and other scavenged things such as food tins. They worked with what they had, as Albert Coates did in just one of many examples of such conduct.
Coates reflected later that his interest and knowledge of the history of surgery, of Pare, Hunter and of Lister, enabled him to perform the surgery and minimise infection in such primitive conditions. He adopted the Listerian circular amputation, taught to him by Hamilton Russell, a circular cut around the leg, then coning out of remnant flesh and bone. A boiled piece of the patient’s pants was inserted into the hole and the skin stitched loosely with cotton. Ox-gut sutures were used for ligating arteries. This was surgery from the days of Nelson and Wellington, and the only effective method when asepsis was not possible. It was reputed that his fastest amputation was completed in 8 minutes.
At this camp, there was one other doctor to help, initially Dr John Higgin, then Dr Claude Anderson from Western Australia who assisted at 60 amputations. There were some other key people like the Dutch chemist, Capt Van Boxtel, who developed a cocaine local anaesthetic from some cocaine tablets given to Coates by a dentist POW, Capt Stewart Simpson in Tavoy. Van Boxtel experimented to make a form which could be given as a spinal, allowing good pain relief for the operation, but allowing the muscles to move. Many a patient helped during their own operations. He also contributed to the extraction of emetine, a drug used for treating amoebic disease, from ipecacuanha tablets. This saved lives too.
Saline was made with distilled water and some baking soda, and given to cholera cases through fine bamboo cannulae to prevent dehydration. In certain severe cases, intraperitoneal injection was used.
Australian sapper Edward Dixon proved to be very inventive and devised a range of medical tools and devices to allow the surgery to be done, including the still to make some alcohol for washing the skin, and the surgeon’s hands, as well as water for the saline infusions. Dixon also made the surgical needles from the darning needles.
In late 1943, 2000 of the worst cases from up the railway were sent back to a new camp at 50 kilo mark at Tanbaya, and Coates inspected. Two Australian doctors, Maj Bruce Hunt and Capt Frank Cahill were looking after these men and had no equipment at all. Of the 2000 men, one in three died. Many of these men were victims of the “speedo” period, when in a hurry to complete the railway, the Japanese increased the workloads and introduced a “no work-no food” policy. Those who could work gave up one third of their meagre rations to feed those who could not work at all. The Japanese strategy of working the POW to death was hastened by the denial of food, clothing, shelter or medical care. During his time at 55 kilo camp Coates had the opportunity to inspect a Japanese hospital nearby and noted it to be lavishly stocked with medical supplies and equipment. It was around this time that Coates met with another revered medico, Dutchman Capt Henri Hekking, KNL.When the 415 km of railway was joined in late 1943, moves began to shift the POW to a new camp to be made in Nakhon Pathom in Thailand. The Burma camps and hospitals were dismantled and the journey into Thailand was done by train. Coates recalled getting into a crowded railway truck and sitting on someone’s leg. On enquiring whose leg it was, the digger said “ It’s mine sir and that’s one leg your not going to take off!”
They traversed to Tamarkan camp where Coates met with Maj Arthur Moon, and then to Chungkai. Chungkai was just like 55kilo camp had been, and the hospital there was served by a British physician, Lt-Col Barrett, and Canadian surgeon, Capt Jacob Markowicz. At Chungkai, Coates first saw the blood transfusion method developed by Markowicz. Defibrination to prevent the clotting was done by stirring for 10 minutes with a bamboo switch, and proved to be very effective. The defibrinated blood was given through bamboo cannulae and rubber tubing taken from stethescopes.In Nakhon Pathom, Coates, was appointed Chief Medical Officer, and was charged with developing the new hospital, and with Krantz and Capt McNeally to help he supervised as many of the POW arrived and they constructed a hospital of up to 10,000 beds. By January 1944, 50 large huts for up to 200 men were built, and separate medical huts were constructed. There were 1500 in the dysentery block alone. A general purpose medical committee was formed by Coates as CMO, Lt-Col Malcolm (British), and Lt-Col Larsen (Dutch), to direct medical policy.
They developed the blood transfusion service on a large scale by May, a device connected to bicycle pedals was made for stirring the blood, and over the next fourteen months, 1500 transfusions were given. Blood grouping was checked by eye, rhesus groups were unknown, but very few reactions were noted. They commenced weekly medical meetings. At the first meeting, 18 POW doctors were present, and they were joined by the arrival of Dunlop and 3 others in June. Dunlop was in charge of rehabilitation and physiotherapy of the hospital in addition to his surgical duties. Throughout 1944 combatant officers were gradually separated. By early 1945, the doctors were the senior ranks and COs of the camps. At its peak in 1945, Nakhon Pathom camp had 7353 POW and 35 doctors. It is interesting that the Australians asked to celebrate ANZAC day in 1944 and were surprised to be given permission by the Japanese. It is 60 years since that very service conducted by those still incarcerated in honour of the sacrifices in WWI.The doctors now acted as a team and the burden of illness was still very great, as the men had survived to date more than two years of starvation and hard labour. Groups of survivors from up the line would arrive still in need of great care. The operating theatre remained busy, and a wide range of surgery was done, including 5 craniotomies, 3 laminectomies, 3 nephrectomies and 3 splenectomies. Some general anaesthesia was available with chloroform and an improvised mask, but all surgery below the nipple was done with spinal anaesthesia. This was not without potential problem too, and lessons were learned about this important technique. Red Cross ‘cutocaine’ was available from July 1944. Surgical alcohol was being made on a larger scale, sutures were still made from the gut of water buffalo. A suction device was made from an old Ovaltine tin, some leather from an ox and some stethescope rubber tubes. Instruments were still fashioned from bits and pieces, and rehabilitation equipment was devised under the guidance of Dunlop. Bamboo was used to make orthopoedic beds and even a dental chair. TB was treated with pneumothorax, and a laboratory for basic pathology work was developed. No x-ray was available so diagnosis relied on classical bedside symptoms and clinical signs.
Nakhon Pathom Hospital 1944.
Chief Medical Officer Lt-Col AE Coates operating on a POW, with Lt-Col EE Dunlop supervising the “anaesthetic”. Using spinal anaesthesia, the patient is awake. An interested POW looks on from outside. In total, 896 operations were performed here.
Photo courtesy of the Australian War Memorial CollectionThree important improvisations were of particular note, all with Sapper Dixon’s contributions. First, an autoclave, for sterilising instruments was made from an old petrol drum and proved effective. Second,
proctoscopes, for examining the rectum, were made from tin with a small attached mirror for shining the sun where it normally would not.
Thirdly, Dixon made a circular saw with a treadle machine, and this was put to use for craniotomy. Coates performed this procedure on an American POW who had signs of a brain tumour, using bits of spoons for clips and dental forceps for bone nibblers. The unfortunate soldier survived the war, had further surgery in the US, and had several weeks with his family before succumbing to his illness.
Of 896 operations done at Nakhon Pathom camp hospital, there were only 18 deaths.Of this time, Frank Foster described in his 1946 book about the railway, “Comrades in Bondage”:
“ The camp was commandered by a leading Melbourne surgeon, Lt-Col A E Coates, who had the happy knack of fusing medical men of all nationalities into a happy working clan. He was almost worshipped by the patients. Many of them with a leg or arm missing bore witness to his outstanding surgery in the Burmese jungle camps. …… his work stands as a monument to skilled surgery under primitive jungle conditions. His operations, together with surgeons like Lt-Col Dunlop, Major Krantz, and Capt McConachie (British), astounded laymen as well as doctors at Nakhon Pathom. Removal of tumours, colostomy, and many other complicated operations held the Japanese spellbound, and won a respect for their skill. So human were these surgeons that they were not averse to any of us who were interested coming into the surgery and looking on”
http://pows-of-japan.net/articles/37.htm
Coates returned to Australia after the war and resumed medical pratice.
I had a little knowledge of him when I was starting out as a lawyer. His history was well known to his generation, many of whom were senior lawyers and judges, and to many of us who were the next generation. If Coates gave a medical report in a court case that a man was unfit for work, and his standards for being unfit for work were based on harsher standards than most of his colleagues had ever experienced, his opinion was accepted by the court, without question.
That was pretty much it in some cases, on my understanding. Or just awful overcrowding in camps with huts, with the same result, albeit taking longer.
Some argue that the Germans couldn’t cope with the large number of prisoners. (Well, of course they couldn’t. They were flat out rounding up Jews and working up to getting rid of them at the time. :evil: )
There is a serious argument that the Bataan deaths came more from poor organisation and unpreparedness for the number of prisoners http://www.philippine-scouts.org/Articles/TheCausesoftheBataanDeathMarchRevisited.doc , but I think that while there is some validity in that argument (and ignoring the efforts of Col. Tsujii, the everywhereman of atrocities) it fails to explain why the Japanese did so badly in preserving POWs when the Allies (i.e. British at that stage) did so well in preserving Italian POWs in North Africa when they were captured in much greater numbers than the Allies could cope with.
The only difference is in the attitude of the captor to the prisoner.
Are you on the piss again?
I posted that somewhere recently.
Which, as I’m on the piss and have the mind of a cunning fox, occurred to me that it could be at #11 in this thread.
(Okay, it didn’t occur to me with that precision, but after trawling through a few threads for my pearls of wisdom I found them at #11. :()
Ha! Pissed on too much coffee!
It was really amazing.To clean out uncers with sharpened teaspoons.
I don’t know did the soviet doctors the same in Camps, but i hope yes, coz our so called “people’s medicine” know the recipes of a drug , made from local plants.
It’s all right with electricity.
I was a bit busy , wathcing as our cripples ( with help of God, though ) have
won the World Ice Hokkey champioship AGAIN.
They executed both North Americans ( US and Canada).
Canada fought to the most end. it was brilliant game.
Amazing, it seems the Red Machine is back:)
You can thank us for that, we gave you our boundlessly great coach Lindy Ruff which no doubt contributed to your victory.
Actually he’s been a pretty good hockey coach for the Buffalo Sabres, but he’s been here far too long and his style is stale on lost on the players (here). I sort of wish Canada would keep him…
Being a career US Soldier and spending some time with the British Army on the Rhine in the ‘70’s I observed differences between US and British NCO’s. Honestly, at that time, I think the Brits were more “professional” the we, and the enlisted men had a different attitude towards them (then the US GI’s had for us).
I would venture that this “professionalism” is a long tradition and the Brit. Leadership could explain much of the disparity between the WWII POW’s conduct.
Probably more to do with the fact that British NCOs tend to have been in the army for much longer than their US equivalents at the same rank.
It should also be said that NCO’s of the early to late 1970s would have been underpaid. I sure that this combined with the Vietnam hangover thereby thinned the ranks of some, though certainly not all, of the better qualified men who may have sought other careers…
For a Soldier there arn’t very many other careers.