There was no good reason for dropping Nukes on Japan during WW II

Originally posted by daaskapital
They had kick arse submarines which could launch planes which were equipped with biological weapons. They were going to his the US with them, but didn't in the end. They instead destroyed their submarines, so the US would not find out.

Why do people post such rubbish? 3 I-400's were completed, all 3 captured by the yanks, and all 3 used as targets and sunk.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by H1ght3chHippie


Partially correct. Hirohito did record a surrender speech, but factions of the military tried to suppress it and even tried to assassinate their own Emperor - a man considered to be God incarnate in their culture. The Japanese military was based upon Bushido which expressly forbade surrender to an enemy. Additionally the prospect of any foreign army setting foot on Japanese soil was not just impossible for most Japanese in the military - it was utterly morally repugnant to them.

Here is a fair overview of the reality through western eyes.

Also of interest.

~Heff

reply to post by FortAnthem


Star and Flag for an important subject. One that I have debated many times before, here and on other forum's.
This subject deserves close scrutiny and a sincere desire to search out truth no matter where it leads.
No better source for an acurate assesment in my opinion than the people who were involved in the decision making process:
www.doug-long.com...

reply to post by lunarcartographer

So your saying airpower alone could have won the war?

Even though it has yet in all the wars or bombings since yet to achieve a victory, I and history both disagree most enthusiastically.

You all forgetting one very important reason to end the war before Russia got a single soldier on the ground in Japan.

Name just one city they gave back or turned over after the war, before the soviet union fell.

It is simple, they wuld have occupyied Japan just like east germany, poland, uekrain, georgia etc.. and not let go of their iron grip.

We wanted to stop them from doing the same in japan as they did in eastern europe after germanies defeat, pure and simple, we aved the japanese from a far worse fate at the hands of the russians tender mercies.

call be naive, but could the US not have dropped the A-bomb into the ocean off the coast of Japan... a proverbial warning shot across the brow?

is that too civil a gesture in war?

reply to post by mythos

They're polluting the hell out of it now. Is that good enough for you?

I believe this had a lot to do with it.
The Russians had just recently declared war on Japan, at our urging.
The US wanted to finish it up before the Russians could put troops in Japan, so that after the war, they couldnt make any claims to any Japanese territory.

if they were ready to surrender before the first one, they really should haver surrendered after the first one

there was no good reason to bomb pearl harbor either

reply to post by Juggernog


Indeed sir, however I beat ya to that particular punch by 2 posts.

Star for your clear and rational thinking on the matter.

The nukes were necessary to enter a new age with a new super power.

What... you think it was about the japs? Nope... its all about power. Everything is about power.

Think of the united states before and after - the mighty USA were born, to the world, in that day.

Originally posted by Catacomb

Originally posted by lunarcartographer
We owned the seas surrounding Japan, and the skys above. We clearly would have won without dropping the atomic bombs using conventional weapons, such as the big naval guns, along with bombers high above. Ground troops would not have been necessary as all military targets could have been taken out without the indiscriminate mass killing of the population, which consisted of a high percentage of childern and women.

What war has ever been won without ground troops occupying another country it is at war with?

edit on 17-10-2012 by Catacomb because: (no reason given)

For the same reasons already stated, the war was already won. Macarthur was not consulted, and knew the insisted terms of surrender would never be agreed on, and was against it, Eisenhower too was of the opinion that Japan was wholly defeated. Japan had no oil, no infrastructure, after the conventional blitz, and they had wanted to surrender.

Originally posted by inverslyproportional
reply to post by Juggernog

 

Indeed sir, however I beat ya to that particular punch by 2 posts.
Star for your clear and rational thinking on the matter.

Ahh, sorry man. I have a habit of replying after barely reading past the title of the thread.
Glad someone else thinks like I do though.

Some have already beat around this, But I want to make a few points.

1. The fighting on Okinawa (a Japanesse Island) was of a brutality and fanatisicm that the 1 million US/Allied Casualty mark was taken very seriously at the time, and was in part based on this. As were estimates of several million Japanesse civillians, who also fought, or committed suicide and infanticide rather then be occupied.

2. How close the Japanesse were to surrender is a matter of debate. Someone already mentioned the military was about to overthrow the Emperor just to keep fighting.

3.Even with a blockade and/or invasion, some estimates had up to 10 more years of guerilla war would be required to subdue Japan.

All three very good, researched and factual reasons we dropped the bomb.

NOW:

As far as the following:

We wanted to warn the russians
We wanted to show the world what we could do
We wanted to punish Japan
Etc...

I would say all of those WERE TRUE.....but they were very secondary to finishing the war, quickly.


I think , revisionist history has turned this into (LOOK, US WAR CRIME,LOOK! US ONLY ONES TO USE WMD) etc. But in the context of the time....those that even KNEW about the bomb didn't view it as we do today. It was just another weapon. In fact, the fire bombing raids on Tokyo, Yokahama, and other major Japanesse cities caused far worse damage and killed far more people (directly, I am not counting radiation, which incidently, bomb effects of fallout and radiation were not well understood at the time) It's just those raids took 300+aircraft vs 1 aircraft. There was debate about using it and it's well documented. But for most it came down to simple numbers, it's going to cost X amount in lives, treasure, money and time to invade, but we can end it RIGHT NOW with these two bombs.

We look at nuclear weapons differently now....

The consequences of radiation are well understood,
The weapons are far bigger today. The WWII bombs were about 14 kilotons, that's a realtively small bomb by today's standards.
Retaliation is a threat, an almost instant threat by ICBM. No one could have done that then and even a retalitory strike could have been shot down or negotiated out before the weapon arrived.
All of those really did NOT factor into the discussion back then. Had they of, the decision MIGHT have been different.

But trying to look at this and discount the VIEWPOINT and CONTEXT of the time is intellectually dishonest.

If there was another factor at the time it is the President Truman (D) was afraid that if he invaded Japan, and it came out he had a "superbomb" he didn't use, how was he going to explain to a million dead boys' mothers their sons could have been alive. He would have not only been impeached, but maybe prosecuted. That may sound like to much of a "political" reason, but it indeed was very real then.

One other interesting point. The invasion plans were SERIOUSLY considering the use of Chemical Weapons just to keep casualties down. Other invasion plans looked potentially at using one of the atomic bombs tacticaly. So even if we hadn't dropped the bombs on the cities, they or Chem weapons would have almost certainly been used.

Operation Downfall:

en.wikipedia.org...


Also to note, the Japansese were also working on an atomic bomb of their own, and some reports (although widely debated) suggest a small device was actually tested.

If we had invaded, or blockaded, if you don't think they would have used one as soon as they got one, you are crazy.

en.wikipedia.org...

It's a different world now, and your looking at this through those eyes.......not the eyes of a generation thathad taken on the burden of preventing Nazi and Fascist take over.

The development of the atomic bomb was a joint British, US and Canadian venture. The agreement to develop the bomb was know as "The Quebec Agreement" A clause in the agreement stated that " We will not use it against third parties without each others consent" Therefore when the atomic bombs where dropped on Japan it was with the joint agreement of Britain, US and Canada. Here is the Quebec Agreement:-

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by SrWingCommander

Thank you for bringing some sanity and historical fact to this thread. My mind isn't what it used to be. I was waiting for someone like you to come along and tell the truth.

Millions of Japanese died needlessly to send a message to a nation that was still our ally at the time. The atomic bombing should be seen as one of the greatest war crimes in the history of mankind.

You made a pretty good case until right there. "Millions" is an exponential over-statement. There were about 90,000 to 160,000 casualties at Hiroshima dn about 60,000 to 80,000 at Nagasaki. Nobody really knows the exact figures, or even close to exact.

As a total, Japan lost between 500,000 and 1,000,000 civilians during WW II and 2.1 million military. In contrast, Germany lost 1.1 to 3.1 million civilians and a whopping 5 million military dead. Here's a list of casualties by country.

From today's perspective nearly 70 years later it's easy to proclaim how horrible an atomic weapon is. And indeed, there was controversy even at the time. And while you quote Admiral Lehey's stance against its use, there were plenty of people with the opposite point of view. General LeMay, for example, basically said, "You got any more of those?" as he was actually in charge of the air campaign itself.

If you are going to take the stance that war is bad, then I think it proper to take that stance universally and not single out a particular weapon as being more bad than another. A million (really a million--not an exaggeration) German civilians died in the war as a result of fire bombing German cities like Dresden, which also had no particular value as a military target. I don't think it makes much difference if you die as the result of a 500 pound conventional bomb or one that uses a different technology. You're still just as dead.

Of course, this debate is not new nor are any of the points made here.

I can think of about 3.2 million reasons to have dropped the atomic bombs on Japan.

1.2 million Allied casualties and 2+ million Japanese casualties. There was a good chance one of the Allied casualties would have been my Father. He was a Marine on a troopship heading that way when the war ended.

Originally posted by Juggernog
I believe this had a lot to do with it.
The Russians had just recently declared war on Japan, at our urging.
The US wanted to finish it up before the Russians could put troops in Japan, so that after the war, they couldnt make any claims to any Japanese territory.

The Russians declared war against Japan on August 9, 1945. Potsdam declaration was in July 1945, (the day after the first nuclear test) That the west may have known about Russian intent, is not a valid consideration, they were already cock-a-hoop. The Russians did go on to a turf war which they easily won, and did occupy some areas. But the, (revised) carve-up was decided under Macarthur's implementation, although it's not sure why it was revised, but most likely because of the Russians, but that was post nuclear bombing.

I don't care what the reason is, there is no justifiable reason what so ever to drop a nuke. Whether it's to show might, for human experimentation or to kill your enemy. Those responsible for doing so were immoral psychopaths.

I don't understand why the bomb wasn't dropped on the leaders of the Japan instead of on the regular people. I guess you are allowed to kill all the pawns but not the kings and queens. Notice in chess, the king is never killed. We are conditioned from young, and so were our ancestors, that we cannot kill the main character. Notice we didnpt bomb Hussein. We destroyed the army and civilians. The people of Iraq took it upon themselves to kill him when he was found. That was never allowed in the past, the ruler usually went into asylum somewhere else.

I guess the rules are changing. Now the leaders of the countries will have to worry about getting punished for their actions once again.