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

Originally posted by SrWingCommander

Originally posted by smurfy
reply to post by SrWingCommander

 

Where is the revisionist history so much in full swing, or what do you mean by revisionist might be more to the point. Did you know that 'Little boy' had a target, the Aioi Bridge, which it says missed by only 800ft say, WTF it was an airburst explosion, no crater.

I am not even sure what your saying.

Revisionist as in, "oh, the US is the Bad Guys, they shouldn't have dropped a big ole' bomb". It was TOTAL WAR, WWII......not Vietnam, not Iraq...but TOTAL WAR...They had ample reason, it wasn't taken lightly, it wasn't just to "test' it.They did it to end the war and save lives of both sides.

Yes it had a target, yes it was airburst, and no there was no discernable crater.....what's your point?




Some one brought up civillian casualties in the Iraq war. there are numerous numbers of civillian death, and what you brought up is the highest number I recall.

Most of those deaths are due to sectarian violence.

I'm not sure what you are saying, the Manhatten project started circa 1939 was collaberative and involved other countries. Japan was allready but defeated, and Hiroshima devastated by conventional bombing already, as was Nagasaki to a lesser degree, (and only a secondary target for Fat boy).

As for total war, Germany was already and officially defeated. As for testing, it surely was.

reply to post by FortAnthem


Monday morning arm chair quarterback.

reply to post by smurfy

You may want to brush up on your history. The Manhattan Project was multi-national in that there were men from many countries on its teams, but almost all of them had been recruited from within the United States. They'd emigrated from Europe in the 20's and 30's for academic purposes or to flee the Nazis.

Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb will point you in the right direction.

Los Alamos did build on the work of people like Rutherford. THAT I will give you.

Originally posted by slugger9787
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

Monday morning arm chair quarterback.

Sure, you can call me that. There is probably even a good amount of truth in that assertion.

However, if you read the story at the link, a lot of people who could never fit that categorization seem to agree. It is their testimony that I would trust more than any other.

The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan

General (and later president) Dwight Eisenhower

Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949

General Douglas MacArthur

Assistant Secretary of War John McLoy

Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bird

General Curtis LeMay, the tough cigar-smoking Army Air Force “hawk”

Vice Chairman of the U.S. Bombing Survey Paul Nitze

Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence Ellis Zacharias

Brigadier General Carter Clarke – the military intelligence officer in charge of preparing summaries of intercepted Japanese cables for President Truman

U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz

General Sir Hastings Ismay, Chief of Staff to the British Minister of Defence

Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew

BLN

They all agree that Japan was beaten well before the bombs dropped and many thought the bombings were immoral.

The bomb beat Japan.
It also beat the USSR.
You know why the Soviets never started a nuclear war? Because they knew we'd shoot back.

Right or wrong, it's history now.

Does it even matter to the naysayers in this thread that thousands of Americans might have died in an assault on the Japanese homeland, or does covering your own butt in war not count anymore?

Originally posted by PrplHrt
Does it even matter to the naysayers in this thread that thousands of Americans might have died in an assault on the Japanese homeland, or does covering your own butt in war not count anymore?

What matters to me is that thousands of people died needlessly. Japan was ready to surrender to the Allies long before the bomb was dropped.

American officials, having long since broken Japan's secret codes, knew from intercepted messages that the country's leaders were seeking to end the war on terms as favorable as possible. Details of these efforts were known from decoded secret communications between the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and Japanese diplomats abroad.

In his 1965 study, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (pp. 107, 108), historian Gar Alperovitz writes:

Although Japanese peace feelers had been sent out as early as September 1944 (and [China's] Chiang Kai-shek had been approached regarding surrender possibilities in December 1944), the real effort to end the war began in the spring of 1945. This effort stressed the role of the Soviet Union ...

In mid-April [1945] the [US] Joint Intelligence Committee reported that Japanese leaders were looking for a way to modify the surrender terms to end the war. The State Department was convinced the Emperor was actively seeking a way to stop the fighting.

It was only after the war that the American public learned about Japan's efforts to bring the conflict to an end. Chicago Tribune reporter Walter Trohan, for example, was obliged by wartime censorship to withhold for seven months one of the most important stories of the war.

In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)

This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor.

Was Hiroshima Necessary?

What I wonder about is why the allies continued their aggression long after the Japanese had signaled their intent to surrender? How many soldiers died needlessly in the months after Japan had offered unconditional surrender?

If America had invaded the mainland and thousands of soldiers on both sides had died, the ones who had ignored the offers of surrender would have been complicit in all those deaths, just as they are complicit in the deaths from the atomic bombs.

Well, it's likely that such documents have been shredded. I believe we can at least agree on that.

I'm no fan of war. We were led to believe by our government that the bombs were necessary.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
Japan was ready to surrender to the Allies long before the bomb was dropped.

Revisionist claptrap. If Japan had really wanted to surrender they would have. After the first bomb they did not surrender, after the 2nd bomb they did not want to surrender, there was even a attempt at a military coup, and only after the emperor stepping in and making a public radio broadcast for the first time did Japan surrender.

You either surrender or you dont, it is not a matter of "wanting" to surrender.

It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to "Live Test" and compare the deployment and efficacy of two different types of bomb. It was also only a matter of time before someone else would develop similar weapons and steal the lead if not the War.They took that opportunity with both hands.

There is still no justification for it. They could have easily demonstrated the awesome power now at their disposal without murdering hundreds of thousands.

But they wanted to see how it affected real people in a real environment, and they are still taking field notes to this day.

We must ask ourselves what other weapons have been live tested down the years.

reply to post by FortAnthem


First commenter stated why, i'm just backing him up. It was a time of war, anything could have happened, if Japanese had nuclear weapons they would have launched them at us in a heartbeat, the Japs had many many chances to surrender but they didn't. The result being Hiroshima. There was good reason. As first commenter also stated, it was us, or them.

I remember being told in HS, that we had to massacre the civilians to end the war before the Russians destroyed the Japanese like the Germans.....and that the Japanese wouldn't quit until a certain amount of people were dead.....Apparently our govenment was worried about the domino effect of Japan falling to Communism....and of course Korea...and Vietnam....later on

To me it seemed like a bogus excuse to use the bomb on a civilian population, however it was wrong...but Japan today would be worse off as a nation if Russian planes got to them first....

I remember reading 'Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes' as a kid....it was so sad to read about all the people who suffered the effects or radiation, not to mention the "shadows" where people were present when they burned up...that was horrific.

reply to post by FortAnthem


The U.S. could have, in my opinion, just as easily got the point across, and ended the war, by dropping two Nukes on the outskirts of the cities, with the hope that there would be no casualties, but enough of a devastating and awe inspiring effect, combined with the U.S. immediately making a statement claiming "We have just dropped our weapons on your country, but we have dropped them without incurring civilian casualty out of good will. Please accept surrender and treaty, and we may end this war, once and for all."

It's really unfortunate our leaders, at times, didn't have the benevolence and strength of heart to come up with alternative solutions, that involve NOT killing thousands of innocent persons.

Originally posted by Soloro
It's really unfortunate our leaders, at times, didn't have the benevolence and strength of heart to come up with alternative solutions, .

The simplest "alternative solution" was for Japan to surrender, but they were not interested in doing that.

reply to post by FortAnthem


I don't think Japan was entirely unified. I believe another posted said there was an attempt at a military coup; that alone should show that their was a lot of diverse opinions even within the upper levels of the Japanese military/political organization.

If the hardcores in Japan had won out, and they hadn't surrendered, I don't think it would be a stretch to say the US would have killed more Japanese invading the island. Read a book a while back about a guy that got shot down over Japan, and, if my memory serves me correctly, he said they were training the women with spears. Perhaps that was another source...anyway, it goes to show the lengths that the Japanese people would go to defend their homeland.

Dropping A-bombs was pretty hideous, but I think war is pretty much one long monstrosity. Since when is it more humane to kill a million men slowly with lead and steel?

I think you're stating the obvious, of course there has never been a good reason to launch nukes to anybody. And there probably never will be, unless they find the entire population of a country has turned to zombies.

reply to post by FortAnthem


Don't care one way or the other; a stronger argument would be that there was no excuse for the sanctions the US imposed on Japan that led to WWII.

Roosevelt and his subordinates knew they were putting Japan in an untenable position and that the Japanese government might well try to escape the stranglehold by going to war. Having broken the Japanese diplomatic code, the Americans knew, among many other things, what Foreign Minister Teijiro Toyoda had communicated to Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura on July 31: “Commercial and economic relations between Japan and third countries, led by England and the United States, are gradually becoming so horribly strained that we cannot endure it much longer. Consequently, our Empire, to save its very life, must take measures to secure the raw materials of the South Seas.

www.independent.org...

The Japanese hit the USA first - below the belt. IE: Pearl Harbor

Karma is a B****.

War is Hell.

Period

Only option at the time.

That is all.

Imperial Japan would never give up ever.