Do you think the allies have any blood on their hands for Heroshima and Nagasaki ...

[Vesayen]

especially because they leaflited the cities first telling them to get the h eck out of dodge?

[SlowwHand]

None at all.

[Buck Birdseed]

Of course they do. All warfare not used to bring down your own government is evil.

[Q Classic]

yes, why?

[Sandman]

It's a pretty small drop of blood.

[Ned]

Re: Do you think the allies have any blood on their hands for Heroshima and Nagasaki ...

Originally posted by Vesayen
especially because they leaflited the cities first telling them to get the h eck out of dodge?

They leafleted virtually all targets of US bombing except for one:

Hiroshima.

Hiroshima was, prior to the bombing, completely unscathed. It had industry in the suburbs, but the bomb landed directly downtown on the civilian areas. Truman said to the American people that he had struck a "military base."

These are facts. You draw the conclusions.

[Dis]

Yes.

And the cities of Jacksonville, and Omaha should be nuked by the Japanese to make up for it.

Then things would be even. Oh I almost forgot, we'd have to firebomb Chicago as well.

[chequita guevara]

The Allies? No.
The US? Yes.

It was a war. Blood gets on your hands in a war. The purpose of war is to kill people.

Was it necessary? Probably not.
Did they know it at the time? Some say yes, some say no.

According to something I just saw on the History Channel (oh wonderful source that is . . . ), Japan waned to continue fighting even after the Atomic bombings. It was when the Soviets invaded Manchuria that the Emperor realized holding out was pointless and ordered the surrender of Japan.

[centrifuge]

They only did what they thought was necessary to bring an end to the war.

Looking back on it, there may have been other alternatives.

...but hindsight is always 20/20 as they say.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The Allies? No.
The US? Yes.

It was a war. Blood gets on your hands in a war. The purpose of war is to kill people.

Was it necessary? Probably not.
Did they know it at the time? Some say yes, some say no.

According to something I just saw on the History Channel (oh wonderful source that is . . . ), Japan waned to continue fighting even after the Atomic bombings. It was when the Soviets invaded Manchuria that the Emperor realized holding out was pointless and ordered the surrender of Japan.

Che, AFAIK, the Japanese were trying to surrender, conditioned on the maintainance of the Emperor, long prior to Hiroshima. The came the two bombs and the Soviet invasion. The Japanese still did not alter their insistance on the Emperor.

What the bombs did is alter the view on our side that we should accept a Japanese conditional surrender. I think many on our side were appalled and sickened by what was going on and simply demanded that Truman call a halt. Among them were both MacArthur and Eisenhower.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Che, AFAIK, the Japanese were trying to surrender, conditioned on the maintainance of the Emperor, . . .

According to many here, this was a minority position in the government. MtG, DF, and others have argued, persuasvively IMO, that the more fanatical elements of the Japanese government would have mounted a coup had the government tried to surrender. Apparently, even with the Atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion, these elements wished to fight on and only the direct order of the Emperor made them lay down their weapons.

It should be kept in mind that the USSR captured Manchuria in days, slicing through the IJA as if it were warm butter. This, not the Atomic bombings (which were really no more damaging than the fire bombings, though those were pertty terrible) were what convinced the Emperor that resistence was futile.

[JCG]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The US? Yes.

It was a war. Blood gets on your hands in a war. The purpose of war is to kill people.

Was it necessary? Probably not.

Yeah, you're probably right. Pretty much what I think about this matter...

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


According to many here, this was a minority position in the government. MtG, DF, and others have argued, persuasvively IMO, that the more fanatical elements of the Japanese government would have mounted a coup had the government tried to surrender. Apparently, even with the Atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion, these elements wished to fight on and only the direct order of the Emperor made them lay down their weapons.

It should be kept in mind that the USSR captured Manchuria in days, slicing through the IJA as if it were warm butter. This, not the Atomic bombings (which were really no more damaging than the fire bombings, though those were pertty terrible) were what convinced the Emperor that resistence was futile.

Not the Emperor, but probably many higher ups in the military. I agree that the bombs and the Soviet invasion made a coup all but impossible. However, this does not change the fact that Emperor was looking for a negotiated surrender long prior to that. It also does not change the fact that we accepted a conditional surrender after the bombs where before we demanded unconditonal surrender.

I think the horror of the bombs did sicken a lot of higher-ups in the US administration. Just look what happened during the first Gulf war when the highway of death was shown on TV. It sickened people so much that Powel and others called for a halt.

[flash9286]

i remeber hearing somewhere that more people who have died in the invasion of japan than the atomic bombing

[lord of the mark]

Caveat:You can immediately discount my objectivity : had there been a land invasion of Japan, I would likely not be here to post - my father was an officer in the US navy, and was designated to act as naval gunfire artillery spotter in the event of an invasion of the home islands - IE he would have been landed BEFORE the initial barrages and landing, in order to guide the gunfire to soften the defensive positions. The expected chances of survival for such spotters was quite low. Needless to say, the use of the A bomb was NOT considered a bad thing in my house.


Points
1. How you evaluate the use of the a bomb depends on the alternative. If you think a negotiated peace was a real possibility, thats one thing. A land invasion would certainly have meant more Japanese civilian casualties than the A bombs did, and so would a continued submarine blockade.
2. At the time the allied bombing campaigns against German and Japanese cities had taken far more civilian lives than the A bomb did. While there was a sense of the scale and horror of the A bomb, I do not think there was as much of a sense of an ethical firebreak between conventional city bombing and the A bomb as developed in retrospect, after the H bomb was developed, and eventually arsenals capable of ending civilization on the planet.