Was Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
what do yall think of the theory that the nagasaki bomb was only dropped to show american dominance in the post-war world and scare the **** out of the soviets?

It's pure bull****. Operational control of the bomb drop was with Curtis LeMay, who didn't give a damn about the political ramifications of his orders - he was just a hard assed bomber weenie who went for maximum damage in minimum time.

If we'd given him three bombs, he probably would have used all three if the Japanese hadn't responded quick enough.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
And it certainly bothers me that they made sure to pick pristine cities thus far unaffected by the intense firebombings that most of the other Japanese cities were subjected to. Like it or not, there was some sick puppies in the military (as there are in every military), who wanted to see how much damage these bad boys could do.

It makes no sense to target what's already flattened and leave standing what's still standing (and producing stuff to use against you.)

And also... there WAS a huge amount of racism towards the Japanese. It was a racist war on both sides. Take a look at the cartoon "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" and you'll see what I'm talking about... a study was done on US troops, and it was discovered that on average, an American soldier in the European theater felt bad about killing his enemy. In the Pacific theater, it was just the opposite. Every time one was killed, the soldier wanted to kill more. On the average... this is not to say every soldier was like that. But this also has a lot to do with the ferocity of the fighting in addition to racist opinions of the day.

Of course. From the surprise attacks at Pearl and the Phillipines, making 200 civilian construction workers on Wake Island come out in groups of 20, dig their own mass grave, then stand in front of it to be executed, to what we knew of Japanese conduct in China, to the Bataan death march, on and on, everything we knew about the way they fought, and especially the way they treated prisoners, led us to hate and fear them. Wounded Japanese soldiers would try to kill unarmed medics who tried to help them, so pretty quickly the only thing you gave a wounded Japanese was a .45 to the head.

If you'd been there, fighting them the way they fought, it wouldn't be long before you'd cheer every one of the bastards dead, as that was one less that would be coming after you.

[JCG]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
If we'd given him three bombs, he probably would have used all three if the Japanese hadn't responded quick enough.

That's the main problem I have with this issue...one bomb was bad enough, but you can sort of argue for it, I agree, in the long run....but two, or three, or X, just because "the Japanese hadn't responded quick enough"? Can't honestly support that.

A row of to that, and to the dropping of the second bomb too, of course.

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
All of war consists of immoral acts, but the most immoral act of all in war is prolonging it's conclusion unnecessarily.

I think this is worth highlighting once again ...

Gatekeeper

[Ned]

Originally posted by gunkulator

war = mass murder

Self defense is not murder. Besides, by taking up arms, you consent to being shot at and killed by the enemy.

The same is NOT true concerning civilians.

[Jack_www]

I think more lives were saved in the end with the bombs being droped then if they were not. YOu have to rebmember that the Millitary of Japan was not going to give up, and even after the two bombs were droped tryed to take the government over but failed. Also the millitary was getting the people of Japan as a whole to fight off any invasion, even little kids.
If the US invade Japan with ground troops millions on both sides would have died.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Meldor
Yes, it is always interesting to watch people debate the choices of the past based on the thoughts of today.

At the time the bombs were dropped, atomic power was considered the great technology that was going to turn the planet into a paradise. There were no worries about radiation (we had really done any studies, so most things were guesses). There was no cold war with nuclear brinkmanship to make us fear the weapons.

Everyone keeps mentioning Dresdon, but the same thing was occurring in Japan as well. Prior to the invasion, the Japanese cities would have been "prepped" by constant and relentless bombing. The thread yesterday about using "firebombs" on military targets is nothing. We were dropping them on cities we knew were built in a large part out of wood. The idea was to inflict as much damage and as many casualties as possible. Civilians weren't considered off limits. They contributed to the war efforts and so were legit targets.

The big question about the bombs wasn't to use them or not because they were nuclear,, no one at the time gave a royal rats rear about that (although some thought that the explosion could start a chain reaction). It question was the amount of fissible material on-hand and if this would waste what little we had. The Japanese also had some intel on how much we had as well. Some factions didn't think we had enough for more than the test bomb and one other. The fact that the US dropped two bombs in quickly, indidcated to them that we had a lot more material than they thought.

This is bull. Americans even then were not monsters. We very reluctantly bombed German cities - only at the insistence of the Brits. According to Marshall, we agreed to bomb Dresden because the Soviets insisted.

But, when the news of what happened at Dresden leaked out, Americans were appalled. Even Churchill began to doubt Bomber Harris's strategy.

In Japan, we firebombed cities, yes. But ONLY after dropping leaflets days before warning that we were going to do so.

We did the same thing at Hiroshima. I am not sure about Nagasaki, as that was a secondary target. However, our targets were infrastructure, not civilians. We did our best - especially after Dresden - to avoid civilian casualties while conducting strategic bombing.

Now to the necessity of the bombing, clearly it was not necessary. The Japanese were trying to surrender even before we dropped the bomb and even before the USSR declared war. The supposition that the Japanese would not have surrendered without using the bomb is false.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Jack_www
I think more lives were saved in the end with the bombs being droped then if they were not. YOu have to rebmember that the Millitary of Japan was not going to give up, and even after the two bombs were droped tryed to take the government over but failed. Also the millitary was getting the people of Japan as a whole to fight off any invasion, even little kids.
If the US invade Japan with ground troops millions on both sides would have died.

If we used the bomb, we should have it a military target that would have minimized civilian casualties. Truman's speech to the American people emphasized that we had struck a miltary-industrial complex. He did not mention that this was in the middle of a heavily populated city. It is clear that even Truman could not admit the truth of what we were doing to the American people even considering the true hatred we had at that time toward the Japanese.

Our behavior in 1945 borders on the bizzare. We bombed Dresden which was not a military target. Until that time, we had not conducted terror bombing except on two limited occasions at the insistence of the British.

As I mentioned before, we firebombed Japanese cities - but only after fair warning through dropped leaflets. But, the way we dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki seemed more intended to kill civilians than to knock out industry.

If the choice is between dropping the two bombs and an extended war where millions would have lost their lives on both sides, the choice seems clear. But, I still maintain that the Japanese would have surrendered prior to an invasion - particularly after the USSR had declared war and made their position in China, Manchuria and Korea untenable.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
Now to the necessity of the bombing, clearly it was not necessary. The Japanese were trying to surrender even before we dropped the bomb and even before the USSR declared war. The supposition that the Japanese would not have surrendered without using the bomb is false.

You're kind of conveniently ignoring the fact that what overtures were made were made without authorization by people without adequate authority to speak for the government.

And you're also ignoring the fact that even after two atomic bombings, a large and hardcore element of the IJGS and goverment was still so opposed to surrender under any conditions that they assassinated surrender advocates, and commenced a conspiracy to kidnap the emperor and assassinate anyone they suspected would consent to surrender.

It was only some accidents of timing and inept execution that prevented the success of that coup, which would have delayed surrender indefinitely, especially in the absense of the ability to follow up Nagasaki (another reason I think that bomb ought to have been held in reserve for longer).

Surrender prior to use of the bombs in any quick time frame was not only not assured, it was extremely unlikely.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Using nuclear weapons on civilians is a crime tenfold worse than, say, flying a plane in a building, and its cruelty is topped only by the crimes of the nazis themselves.

But even the Nazis could not beat the atrocities of the IJA.

[Ned]

How does the success of lack of success of any coup critically depend upon the use of the Atom Bomb?

[MichaeltheGreat]

I think you mean couldn't beat the IJA.

Like the newspaper account in Japan of the impromptu beheading contest by two IJA warrant officers in Nanjing.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
How does the success of lack of success of any coup critically depend upon the use of the Atom Bomb?

The only people discussing surrender before the A-bomb were at too low a level, and had no authority. They would have been summarily executed without any sweat.

Even after the A-bomb, this one faction still was prepared to kill a fairly small portion of the leadership that discussed surrender.

It was ONLY because of the threat to the emperor himself, and loyalty on the part of one general, a couple of junior officers, and a handful of enlisted troops to the person of the emperor (i.e. not to any other government ministers), that the assassinations and kidnapping failed overall.

The attackers didn't view what they were doing as a coup (a la Ni-Ni-Roku), their view was that they were saving the emperor from the bad advice of a few cowards.

Had the emperor not been personally involved (which occurred because of the atomic bombings, that was a "detail" which couldn't be kept away from the emperor), there would have been no resistance of note to the idea of removing a few "weak" members of the government who were showing disloyalty.

[Ned]

Unless my history is incorrectly understood, the peace initiative through Moscow, prior to bombs dropping, were from the Emperor himself.

[MichaeltheGreat]

No, that is incorrect.

In order to get taken action from the Japanese ambassador in Moscow, he had to be led to believe that the Emperor approved the diplomatic instruction, but it was a mid level foreign ministry type, with a mid-level imperial household staff type who kept the emperor's seal, and some communication types. All of the actual meetings with the emperor in attendance were recorded with very careful minutes by the imperial household staff, and especially any meetings in which the emperor spoke or gave directives.

Some advisors argued to the emperor of the need to approach the allies about seeking peace, but this was in the form of routine meetings and setting forth views. They were (a) counterargued by war faction members, (b) marked as possible traitors by the Kenpeitai, and (c) marked for elimination.

The emperor himself normally never did more than preside in a nominal way at such meetings, and rarely even spoke. He was, after all, a god, and not in charge of anything at all except in name.