Was Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Ned
Sir Ralph, I don't know if it was mentioned in this thread or not, but US fighter pilots strafed fleeing civilians! Every time I think of this, I can hardly imagine that this was my country doing this.

I know, I read that too. Still, Dresden is reconstructed and almost as beautiful as it was now, and people keep no hard feelings, well at least the most. We only don't like people, who shrug it away or even say it was justified.

[Ramo]

Nagasaki was absolutely unjustified. And the bombing of Hiroshima should've happened only after a failed demonstration of the bomb for the Japanese, although I can see how it wasn't as clear-cut.

[Ned]

And to you, Sava the Barbarian, I give you the words of Truman's own chief of staff:

In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words:

[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . .

[I]n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. (See p. 3, Introduction)

[Sava]

Sava the Barbarian, I like the sound of that.

Sorry Neddy, it was the right call. But it's easy to argue otherwise 60 years later when all sorts of revisionist versions and hypothetical what if's come out. And if one or two top officials opinions is all you can find to muster support? Well, sucks to be you.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


I know, I read that too. Still, Dresden is reconstructed and almost as beautiful as it was now, and people keep no hard feelings, well at least the most. We only don't like people, who shrug it away or even say it was justified.

As you can see from this thread, it is very hard for some Americans to admit they we were wrong.

Just as an aside, I was listening to a talk show some months ago. Newt Gingrich, ex Speaker of the House and a Congressman from Georgia, almost went ballistic when someone mentioned General Sherman. He said he and most Southerners did not even want to talk about Sherman.

The Civil War ended 140 years ago, but the bitterness remains.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Sava
Sava the Barbarian, I like the sound of that.

Sorry Neddy, it was the right call. But it's easy to argue otherwise 60 years later when all sorts of revisionist versions and hypothetical what if's come out. And if one or two top officials opinions is all you can find to muster support? Well, sucks to be you.

Sava, read the link. All the top military were very much against the use of the bomb. All of them.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Ned


Sava, read the link. All the top military were very much against the use of the bomb. All of them.

Yeah, a bunch of desk jockeys... or REMP's... as MtG would put it.

[monkspider]

Geez louise, what's become of this place? MtG, Floyd and Ned are acting like lefties and Sava has become the righty? I leave for a couple days and it becomes bizarro world here.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
I recommend everyone reading that link I gave two posts earlier. It is amazing how history seems to have been rewritten to protect the reputation of Truman. The military leadership at the time were aghast at the use of the bomb - including MacArthur - whose carreer was later trashed by our barbarian president Truman.

If there was anyone who should have been tried for war crimes at the close of the war, it should have been Truman.

Bull****. MacArthur was the rabid SOB who stated publicly that he wanted to use the bomb all over Manchuria if the Chinese interfered with American advances to the Yalu, who suggested following up the offensive into the DPRK with an offensive into Manchuria, and MacArthur was the rabid right-wing SOB who later pilloried Truman for not going along with him and for not giving him control of the bomb.

Magic intercepts were frankly not nearly as important as they have been made out to be, except when the Japanese were careless enough to rebroadcast highly sensitive military info on multiple codes. Many operational codes used by the Japanese, including those used by the IJGS, were never broken. In all cases, the magic intercepts broke down into code phrases, which were the subject of interpretation, and which were not universally agreed upon

"Higashi kaze, ame" being the first real biggie. On December 8, there was unanimity as to the meaning, but there sure as hell wasn't before that.

Truman's reputation has been trashed from both sides, but most particularly the right related to Korea, China and communism.

The revisionist history regarding FDR and Truman in WW2 has come from three general directions - the conspiracy theorists and the whole "we had exact knowledge of what the Japanese were doing leading up to Pearl Harbor and we let them do it" being the first, the Dugout Doug fanclub idolization of MacArthur being the second, and the "evil US slaughtering the poor yellow Japanese for (insert reason of your choice here)"

The simple facts are that most of these "histories" use a limited and carefully culled selection of source material, and interpretations of that source material that later turned out to be correct, regardless of whether they were the generally accepted view or interpretation.

The facts from Japanese sources, themselves culled to protect the emperor (edit - the emperor's reputation) from his knowledge of atrocities such as Nanjing and the biowarfare experimentation on prisoners, show the emperor did not authorize any offer of surrender, or negotiations for such. No cease fire was requested, no stand down made, ongoing preparations for home island defense, etc. etc.

Something along the lines of saying "sure go ahead" when a junior member of the imperial household staff says something along the lines of "should we communicate through this channel and ask them what they mean by this, and would they be willing to talk about blah blah blah" is bull****.

You must have been one of those guys who thought every time the North ****ing Vietnamese wanted to "negotiate" the shape of the conference table, we should sit on our asses and give 'em time to resupply and reorganize their air defenses.

Monky - all I said was we should have waited a bit longer before frying the second city.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sava
Yeah, a bunch of desk jockeys... or REMP's... as MtG would put it.

REMF, you moron.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
And to you, Sava the Barbarian, I give you the words of Truman's own chief of staff:

In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words:

[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . .

[I]n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. (See p. 3, Introduction)

And from your own link, right above the part you quoted from:

"MILITARY VIEWS

The Joint Chiefs of Staff never formally studied the decision and never made an official recommendation to the President. Brief informal discussions may have occurred, but no record even of these exists. There is no record whatsoever of the usual extensive staff work and evaluation of alternative options by the Joint Chiefs, nor did the Chiefs ever claim to be involved. (See p. 322, Chapter 26) "

So, gee, where the hell was Leahy at the time? Where were his pangs of conscience? And how did "all" the top military leadership oppose something your own link claims they never even discussed?

[Kramerman]

the Dugout Doug fanclub idolization of MacArthur being the second

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

I know, I read that too. Still, Dresden is reconstructed and almost as beautiful as it was now, and people keep no hard feelings, well at least the most. We only don't like people, who shrug it away or even say it was justified.

Now, there are no hard feeling against the Americans,
but among the Survivors there are hard feelings against Harris, who was the Father of those Terror Bombings.

I Remember that there were Demonstrations back in 1992 when the Queen inaugurated a Statue of Arthur Harris in London.
It also resulted in Protesters throwing foul tomatoes at the Queen, as she visited Dresden a year later, in 1993

You´d better not imagine, what the Protestors would do to Haris, if he were still alive and would have the audacity to visit Dresden

[Joseph]

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.

We can make debates all day long about how many lives were saved or not. The Japanese were not going to surrender unconditionally unless their was a suceessful invasion and the US was not going to give terms. The war had raqed too long and people wanted total victory. They didn't want to leave anything around to come back against them as Europe did in WWI.

The dropping of the bombs shortened the war, of that their can be no question.

Don't try to color the choices made then with your personnal feeling now. You have to look at the picture as they saw it and not as it would be viewed today.

I was born in 1944, and how many time, have I said the above. My brother was in the War, fighting the Japanese in the P.I.

[Q Classic]

ned, if you want to say revenge, that's fine by me.

i still say that it's karmic in a sense.

the atrocities were visited upon civilians by the japanese military.
the atrocities of hiroshima and nagasaki were visited upon civilians by the american military.

it doesn't make it right, but it such things happen. things have a nasty way of coming back to haunt you.