How Silent Fall the Cherry Blossoms
- Thread starter Geon
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Geon
Donor
A little bit of both actually. I am doing a day to day description but also as you may note including footnotes indicating how "future," historians see this.
Also, I trust you saw the footnote on the film Unit 731 starring Boris Karloff and James Arness. I am trying to show how this incident affects U.S. culture down through the years.
Geon
I was thinking the Germans might want to release them - in Britain. Anthrax released in Wiltshire...
Geon
Donor
Brooklyn
Date: November 9, 1944
Location: Brooklyn, New York (a tenement)
Time: 11:00 p.m.
As the meeting in Washington was getting underway PFC David Lewis* was settling down for the night at his home in Brooklyn. Home was a small two bedroom tenement where he and his five brothers and sisters lived. The oldest of five children David had been drafted eight months ago barely 7 months after his 18th birthday. His unit was preparing to ship out for the Pacific in another 6 weeks but David had been granted a one week leave to return home for his mother’s funeral. Mom had died of heart failure a week before and David’s dad had wired him to let him know. David had been able to get a leave for one week to attend the funeral and help to settle the family’s affairs. It was also a good time to reconnect with his younger siblings, the youngest being 7 the oldest being 16.
One thing he had definitely not missed was this place that the rest of the family had called home for the last several years. His mom and dad had always admonished him and the other kids that they should be thankful to have a home given how many people had been homeless during the depression, but this place made the barracks he normally occupied back in Los Angeles look spacious by comparison. He and six other families shared a common bathroom at the end of the hall on this floor. In addition, the landlords hardly bothered to fix things here and no one wanted to go in the cellar to fix a fuse when the building’s old electrical system overloaded because of the rats that took up residence there. If the building were ever inspected by an honest building inspector David suspected it would be condemned.
David had already resolved that he needed to try and find a better place for his dad and siblings to live. Maybe after the war he could get a decent job with the film industry or something and set them up in a house out in Los Angeles.
Despite the problems he was still happy to be home. There had been a big party for him given in the large “social” room on the ground floor that was used for such affairs. Afterwards he and his oldest brother, Graham*, had gone out for a walk before turning in. Tomorrow he and the family would pay their final respects to his mom and then receive visitors at the church. For now, despite the bad conditions, he was still happy to be home.
As he prepared to fall asleep on the couch he felt a trifle warm. He shrugged it off, probably just a bug he picked up on the train, a night’s rest would cure that. But a night’s rest wouldn’t. PFC Lewis had been among army personnel called in to cordon off one of the impact areas in LA four nights ago. Now he was experiencing first stage symptoms. The plague had come to Brooklyn.
Date: November 9, 1944
Location: Brooklyn, New York (a tenement)
Time: 11:00 p.m.
As the meeting in Washington was getting underway PFC David Lewis* was settling down for the night at his home in Brooklyn. Home was a small two bedroom tenement where he and his five brothers and sisters lived. The oldest of five children David had been drafted eight months ago barely 7 months after his 18th birthday. His unit was preparing to ship out for the Pacific in another 6 weeks but David had been granted a one week leave to return home for his mother’s funeral. Mom had died of heart failure a week before and David’s dad had wired him to let him know. David had been able to get a leave for one week to attend the funeral and help to settle the family’s affairs. It was also a good time to reconnect with his younger siblings, the youngest being 7 the oldest being 16.
One thing he had definitely not missed was this place that the rest of the family had called home for the last several years. His mom and dad had always admonished him and the other kids that they should be thankful to have a home given how many people had been homeless during the depression, but this place made the barracks he normally occupied back in Los Angeles look spacious by comparison. He and six other families shared a common bathroom at the end of the hall on this floor. In addition, the landlords hardly bothered to fix things here and no one wanted to go in the cellar to fix a fuse when the building’s old electrical system overloaded because of the rats that took up residence there. If the building were ever inspected by an honest building inspector David suspected it would be condemned.
David had already resolved that he needed to try and find a better place for his dad and siblings to live. Maybe after the war he could get a decent job with the film industry or something and set them up in a house out in Los Angeles.
Despite the problems he was still happy to be home. There had been a big party for him given in the large “social” room on the ground floor that was used for such affairs. Afterwards he and his oldest brother, Graham*, had gone out for a walk before turning in. Tomorrow he and the family would pay their final respects to his mom and then receive visitors at the church. For now, despite the bad conditions, he was still happy to be home.
As he prepared to fall asleep on the couch he felt a trifle warm. He shrugged it off, probably just a bug he picked up on the train, a night’s rest would cure that. But a night’s rest wouldn’t. PFC Lewis had been among army personnel called in to cordon off one of the impact areas in LA four nights ago. Now he was experiencing first stage symptoms. The plague had come to Brooklyn.
Artatochor
Banned
This is going to get ugly, and uncontrollable. How much of an epidemic would it take to paralyze the American war effort?
Otis R. Needleman
Banned
More than you think. 1944 America was a different place. Believe things will get under control fairly quickly.
This is still within living memory of the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918. This is also during a time when Americans were fighting hard to curtail tuberculosis.(That's where the American Lung Association came from) America knows how to deal with a deadly airborne infection. Despite killing over 600,000 Americans in 1918, output for the year is estimated to have only dropped a fraction of a percent. I wouldn't expect this to be that much different.
Torqumada
IIRC, wouldn't the various sulfa drugs they have in 1944 be a semi-efficient treatment for plague?
In fact, if the wiki is to be believed, Streptomycin was invented in 1943 and has been used as a first-line treatment for plague for many years afterwards, so the big question is whether they can ramp up production of the drug.
This isn't going to end well for Japan.
Iwo and Okinawa are going to be gassed. Period.
If you drag Germany into this insanity, it's a step too far. The Germans are already quite aware they are fucked by this point, even if Hitler doesn't. He's going down the junta highway if word gets out he's planning on giving such an order.
Unless, of course, the villain you mentioned who plays hero here is Goering, who, when he hears about plans to use bio/chem weapons- ON EITHER FRONT- is broken out of a drug induced stupor, has a moment of lucidity and shoots Hittler in the face...with a Panzerfaust.
Iwo and Okinawa are going to be gassed. Period.
If you drag Germany into this insanity, it's a step too far. The Germans are already quite aware they are fucked by this point, even if Hitler doesn't. He's going down the junta highway if word gets out he's planning on giving such an order.
Unless, of course, the villain you mentioned who plays hero here is Goering, who, when he hears about plans to use bio/chem weapons- ON EITHER FRONT- is broken out of a drug induced stupor, has a moment of lucidity and shoots Hittler in the face...with a Panzerfaust.
It's not production that you have to worry about, it's the testing phase that takes such a long time. As the story states, they had barely started testing animals, let alone human beings in November 1944. The plague would burn itself out, more than likely, before adequate testing could be done and then drug production ramped up to meet the demand.
Now, depending upon which sulf drug you are talking about, they could be 90% effective. That is the same study that noted the effectiveness of streptomycin against bubonic plague. It's from 1953, a decade after it was discovered.
Torqumada
Ah. Thank you. I am glad to see theres something that can work. I imagine theyll try every thing theyve got, and if sulfa drugs work, great.
Otis R. Needleman
Banned
I just don't see us gassing Iwo and Oki. Gas can easily blow back on the users and some gases can be persistent, just when you don't want them to be. I see tons of napalm being used, instead.
Believe we'll go for the BIG punishment after the war with a long occupation, reparations, and war crimes trials.
You can use gas on Okinawa & Iwo without too much danger to the troops, gas in caves, or used on the defense lines in the south of Okinawa for example, will be very effective and US troops really won't need to be going through a lot of the territory that has been gassed. In addition, many of the available gasses are NOT persistent, and can be used easily. Remember that the US had experience using these weapons during WWI. These are not the persistent nerve agents available now.
You know what might be a neat scene? If a camp guard was on leave in LA during the attack, and brings plague back with him. With the cramped barracks population, it would spread through the Japanese-American internees quickly. A bunch of people, killed because of an evil Japanese attack and an unjust American imprisonment... It speaks about how little people get caught up in wars, I think.
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That was pretty much what I figured: Naval artillery shells and gravity bombs with chemical agents used to bombard the islands, then, after it cooks off, the Marines and Corpsmen go ashore (with masks on, as a precaution) and from that point on, it's fairly conventional, with satchel charges and flamethrowers being used to mop up the dug in positions.
Read this far and YOU BASTARD, I know what those are. This is not going to be fun for LA...
I assume this episode has been brought to us by the numbers 7, 3, and 1.
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