Was Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?

[Frozzy]

The US theory at the time was "Drop one, Japan will think it's just a stunt and will fight harder. Drop two, the Japs will think we have a thousand".

[mrmitchell]

Why do people point out Nagasaki and Hiroshima as ultimate major atrocities? The Allies firebombed Dresden using conventional means and killed more innocent civilians. In terms of atrocities in WW2, Nagasaki and Hiroshima are low on the list.

The atom bomb did, and still, scares the **** out of everyone. It can simply ELIMINATE anything in a large radius. It gives cancer. The general consensus is that you don't **** with the a-bomb. Never before could one pack such a destructive punch in one weapon, and the ratio of destroy to cost makes it even more amazing.

[Nubclear]

We should've nuked Helsinki

[DinoDoc]

Why would we have cared how many Russians the Finns killed?

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by Ned


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.

What millitary targets where there that would have had a major impact? Also the Millitary wanted to fight to last man, untill everyone of them was dead and they killed as many Americans and Soviets they could in the process.

[Dis]

I love making these thread.

It's so funny how some people cannot seem to get out of the present. They seem to have no clue how the world operated even a scant 58 years ago.

atrocities were unheard of back then. And terrorism didn't exists back then either. Stop using these words in your arguments.

The war was taking its toll even on the victor countries such as the U.S.

someone mentioned a dirty bomb. Dirty bombs would have been ineffective back then. The objective of a dirty bomb isn't killing, but to install fear in a civilian population who is sheltered from war and other bad things (ie Americans in 2003)

[Dis]

one other point to make.

It may be because of the use of relatively small nuclear weapons in 1945, we prevented the use of larger, more destructive hydrogen bombs in 1962.

did you guys ever think of that? Granted Truman didn't know the events of the future back then. So this couldn't have influenced his decision to use the bomb.

[Zylka]

My laziness prompts me to ask (or possibly repeat) - what if the first bomb was dropped in the mountains, say just in view of Tokyo or Osaka? Not my own question, but I'd like to hear what y'all around here think of that scenario

[Dis]

that has been posed. one person suggested using it on the water outside Tokyo.

They would have seen a nice big mushroom cloud. But they wouldn't be able to determine the radius of it, and wouldn't be aware of the destructive capability of it (it could be just an illusionary device)

Using it in the mountains would be better though. because in that case you would see the flattenned trees. That would get their attention a little more.

But the Japanese were hardcore fanatics. I'm not sure that would have worked.

[Kramerman]

hiroshima - definately
nagasaki - probably, but not entirely sure

[Zylka]

Although absolutely adorable and beyond kind today - Indeed, the Japanese were batsh*t insane scumbags back then.

The US could probably have magically lifted a major unpopulated island out of the ocean and sent it crashing down in the mountains without convincing them. Perhaps smaller cities were in order to be hit (ethically), but then you're not really getting much bang for your buck out of an extremely limited supply of new technology - against a populace that were seemingly eager to fight it out until the last mother and child

[Kramerman]

well said

[Dis]

out of curiousity, does anyone know when we would have had a new bomb available?

and btw they did test a bomb in the New Mexico desert before Nagasaki and Hiroshima. So they did know what the thing was capable of. I heard someone mention they feared a chain reaction etc with hiroshima. Actually they did fear a chain reaction the first time they detonated one in New Mexico, but the math showed that wasn't really possible.

[Kramerman]

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.

was this totally serious?

[Zylka]

Yes. He thinks the US should have politely asked the Japanese armed forces to settle into a single industry rich area which they could drop the bomb on, instead.