Why Use Atom Bombs on Civilans Barely 3wks after 1st Test Detonation?

If remember (and Googled) correctly, first atom bomb in all modern history ever, was tested by US on July 16, 1945

then a couple of them hastily dropped by US on Japanese civilian populations (Hiro,Naga) just a couple weeks later.

Pearl Harbor was like 4yrs before that so don't see an imminent reason there.

So why? And more importantly, what WOMDs will likely follow suit, next? MOAB & MERS-H1N1-rabies trihybrid??

Simple.

They pi$$ed us off.

a reply to: Artesia

the big problem is they didn't have enough bombs

The largest Christian church in the orient?

It's like the US was taking orders from the Vatican, then, in that case

a reply to: Artesia

To make the Soviets think twice about invading Japan and the rest of Europe to be honest.

The Japanese were defeated but Stalin was not.

Unfortunately, a point had to be proven, repeatedly no less.

You can go there today. No radiation.
People have been living there the whole time. No radioactive ghost town.
Maybe it wasn't really nuclear?
Maybe nukes don't exist?
I'm just making things up and asking questions.
But, my gut, my gut says maybe everything's not what we think it is and usually it's the exact opposite?

Why Use Atom Bombs on Civilans Barely 3wks after 1st Test Detonation?

The end the war in the Pacific.

a reply to: Artesia

Sadly, the British convinced the Americans to build the Atomic bomb during WW2 , as a final solution, using British technology.

It was an Australian Nuclear Physicist who went to Washington to convince the Americans.

A decision he regretted for the rest of his life.

America had the time, money and space to develop it, something Britain didnt have.

a reply to: roadgravel

Japan had already surrendered before we dropped the bombs.
LINK

originally posted by: EmmanuelGoldstein
a reply to: roadgravel

Japan had already surrendered before we dropped the bombs.
LINK

No they didn't.

a reply to: Artesia

War is hell and it's better to be the Devil and walk freely in and out of it than end up one of the poor souls tortured for eternity.

I can understand looking back with horror and sadness at how WW2 ended up, what I can't understand is apologizing or feeling any degree of guilt over it. The bombs ended the war with fewer deaths than would have been seen had we stuck with conventional methods. It took us becoming the Devil to put enough Japanese pressure on Hirohito to force him down. We should never forget that and, honestly, we should never become so callous to the costs of lengthy wars that we're unwilling to do it all again if it means a brief display of unspeakable horrors versus months or years of less unspeakable warfare that takes an even greater toll on both sides.

a reply to: roadgravel

Could have pretty much high altitude bombed their wooden cities with incendiaries, from the B-29 bombers, without them being able to offer up much if any resistance.

The war in the Pacific was already won.

Japan was on their arse and in there death throes, ready to surrender anyway, as long as they could keep there Emperor.

The US did that to prove a point to the Soviets and to a lesser extent China.

a reply to: roadgravel

semantics

originally posted by: roadgravel

originally posted by: EmmanuelGoldstein
a reply to: roadgravel

Japan had already surrendered before we dropped the bombs.
LINK

No they didn't.

But they should have.
We told them about the bombs...
link

I won't apologize for it.

My grandfather was slated to be in the first wave of a ground invasion. He almost certainly would not have survived the experience given casualty predictions, meaning I almost certainly owe my existence to the bombs.

The ship he was on saw the flash.

originally posted by: EmmanuelGoldstein
a reply to: roadgravel

Japan had already surrendered before we dropped the bombs.
LINK

Not unconditionally, they had not.

a reply to: lordcomac

The Allied UK intelligence agencies told you about Pearl Harbour in advance, and that still happened.

Carriers were well out the way all the same.

Suppose we will never really know what transpired in its entirety but only the way that history recorded the events.

Because to win the war we would have had to invade and occupy Japan, at an estimated cost of another million American soldiers lives. While we can argue a few degrees here and there this would have likely been the truth. Along with Russia expecting a slice of Nippon once they invaded as well. Got to look how fiercely the Japanese fought when invaded elsewhere, earlier on in the war a failed landing on a Japanese held island led the Japanese beheading wounded Americans on the beach as the rest retreated, swords glistening red

But they should have.

We told them about the bombs...

Might have been a better move for Japan.

I wonder how the cold war would have been different, if it even happened, had the bombs not dropped.

a reply to: putnam6

The Japanese would have fought to the last civilian. It was their mindset at the time. It was what they had been told and brought up culturally to do.

The bombs broke them. You can't fight that.