Campfire Chat - General DiscussionsThis is a forum for posting discussion topics, questions, current events, and anything else you'd like to chat about. Please post serious Civil War History threads in appropriate History Forums.
In a different thread a major tangent developed. Essentially it discussed whether the United States was justified in the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945.
Unfortunately the reference took the thread off track.
I suggest discussing the bombings here and letting the other thread remain on course.
In a different thread a major tangent developed. Essentially it discussed whether the United States was justified in the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945.
Unfortunately the reference took the thread off track.
I suggest discussing the bombings here and letting the other thread remain on course.
The atomic bombing of Japan was justifiable in many ways for one, it did avoid the invasion of Japan which would have cause greater death for both Americans and Japaneses that the two Atom bombs ever did.
Two, the two atomic bombs did cause civilian death and suffering but think of the civilian deaths and suffering an invasion of Japan would have caused. Think two cities compared to whole country in flames.
Brain Freeze....
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
All that maters is what the men on the transports thought when they found out they were not going to have to hit the beaches.
It ended the war and sent a very real message to the Soviets that the firepower to stop them existed... it worked for the next 50 years.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
All that maters is what the men on the transports thought when they found out they were not going to have to hit the beaches.
It ended the war and sent a very real message to the Soviets that the firepower to stop them existed... it worked for the next 50 years.
OK, I think that is fair, Truman certainely has a duty to obtain a surrender with a minimum of US Casualties. GIVEN a fixed number of US Casualties, do you think the US should've afforded Japan 'fair warning' (a demonstration of the potential of the weapon?) prior to actual use on an inhabited city?
AND given the first bombing, was the second bombing too close in time to permit a Japanese assessment of what had hit them?
OK, I think that is fair, Truman certainely has a duty to obtain a surrender with a minimum of US Casualties. GIVEN a fixed number of US Casualties, do you think the US should've afforded Japan 'fair warning' (a demonstration of the potential of the weapon?) prior to actual use on an inhabited city?
AND given the first bombing, was the second bombing too close in time to permit a Japanese assessment of what had hit them?
There were not actually all that many bombs in existence or planned for production over the next year. The idea between the rapid bombing / short interval was to impress the Japanese with the idea the US might be able to deliver such blows continuously, perhaps at a rate of 2/month or so. IIRR, the reality was that we might have been able to drop one perhaps every other month.
The problem with demonstrating a bomb was similar: 'wasting one" on a target that meant nothing when the bombs were in short supply. In addition, we weren't 100% sure the demo bomb would go off, which might have a bad effect, and some thought the Imperial Japanese Empire would disregard a demo as an American trick, or a staged event. They might even choose to deny the entire thing happened.
In effect, Hiroshima and Nagasaki became the demo, with an immediacy and horror that was undeniable.
I have never been able to see, however, where Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much different in horror than the earlier bombing of Tokyo that killed even more people.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Imagine the political ramifications to Harry Truman if the public found out that the United States had a weapon to potentially end the war and did not use it, or used it in any way other than to attack Japan.
The atomic bomb was a weapon. A very large weapon, but a weapon none-the-less. Was the decision to use the atomic bomb and cause 70,000 casualties worse than the decision to use incendiaries on Tokyo and cause 100,000 casualities? (As an aside, the estimate for the rape of Nanking by the Japanese is estimated at 270,000 casualties - Soviet civilian casualties at Leningrad estimated at 1,000,000).
Politically, there was no choice but to use the bomb. The Japanese had shown at Okinawa that the invasion of the home islands was going to be extremely bloody and American intelligence actually underestimated the number of the troops defending the chosen landing beaches and grossly underestimated the number of planes withheld for suicide attacks against American ships once the invasion started.
Every American soldier I have spoken to or read about who was detailed for an invasion of Japan has no doubt whatsoever about dropping the atomic bomb.
As to the use of a single bomb instead of both attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was apparently never any discussion of only using one. The decision was to use atomic weapons or not. Once the decision was made, they were going to be dropped as soon as available until the Japanese surrendered.
In retrospect, the decision was the correct one. Even after dropping the bombs, it took the direct intervention of the Emperor for Japan to surrender. Even then, there was apparently a plot by the reactionary elements in the military to kidnap the Emperor to prevent the surrender. There is even some conjecture that it was not the dropping of the bombs that led to the surrender, but the entry of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan - and the Soviets drug their feet in entering the war until after the bombs were dropped.
I have studied the question in depth and after doing so I have always argued that the use of the atomic weapons was necessary to avoid an invasion of Japan. Fewer Japanese died than would have died if there was either an invasion or a blockade/bombing campaign to force the surrender.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
I agree an invasion of Japan would have meant huge casualties on both sides. However, how close was Japan to surrendering? Experts said Japan was close to starvation and the major sticking point was the fate of the Emperor. Japan wanted the US to assure that the Emperor would not be tried for war crimes. The US would not assure this. Interestingly, when Japan finally did surrender the Emperor was not tried for war crimes.
From Wikipedia:
"By the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, the Japan campaign was underway as Allied forces closed in on the home islands. By the end of January 1945, some Japanese officials close to the Emperor were seeking surrender terms which would protect his position. Theseproposals, sent through both British and American channels were assembled by General Douglas MacArthur into a 40-page dossier and given to President Roosevelt on the 2nd of February, two days before the Yalta Conference. The dossier was reportedly dismissed by Roosevelt out of hand - the proposals contained all had the condition that Emperor's position would be assured, albeit possibly as a puppet ruler. At this time, however, the allied policy was to accept only an unconditional offer of surrender, although the eventual August settlement did keep the position of emperor in place."
Walter Trohan, BARE PEACE BID U. S. REBUFFED 7 MONTHS AGO, Chicago Daily Tribune, August 19, 1945.
__________________ "Those who forget to remember the past are condemned to repeat it", George Santayana.
I agree an invasion of Japan would have meant huge casualties on both sides. However, how close was Japan to surrendering? Experts said Japan was close to starvation and the major sticking point was the fate of the Emperor. Japan wanted the US to assure that the Emperor would not be tried for war crimes. The US would not assure this. Interestingly, when Japan finally did surrender the Emperor was not tried for war crimes.
From Wikipedia:
"By the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, the Japan campaign was underway as Allied forces closed in on the home islands. By the end of January 1945, some Japanese officials close to the Emperor were seeking surrender terms which would protect his position. Theseproposals, sent through both British and American channels were assembled by General Douglas MacArthur into a 40-page dossier and given to President Roosevelt on the 2nd of February, two days before the Yalta Conference. The dossier was reportedly dismissed by Roosevelt out of hand - the proposals contained all had the condition that Emperor's position would be assured, albeit possibly as a puppet ruler. At this time, however, the allied policy was to accept only an unconditional offer of surrender, although the eventual August settlement did keep the position of emperor in place."
Walter Trohan, BARE PEACE BID U. S. REBUFFED 7 MONTHS AGO, Chicago Daily Tribune, August 19, 1945.
One of the the things that often gets mentioned here is that Japan was making approaches through the the USSR for peace in 1945. One of the things that never gets mentioned is that the US knew because they were reading the Japanese diplomatic codes that the Japanese were approaching the Russians about abandoning the Allies and joining with them against the US and Great Britain. The Japanese diplomats did not wake up to the fact that their codes were compromised until 1946, when a Congressman revealed the information; MacArthur (who was still reading their transmissions) was much upset.
Moral: the US knew the Japanese could not be trusted on this. Since they knew the Russians were not telling them the truth about the Japanese approaches, they knew as well they could not trust the Russians.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Seems that the opinions on the use of the two bombs we had, doesn't vary all that much. Should've/could've is armchair generalship at its finest. Harry was sitting in the chair and he was hell-bent on finishing it, right goshdarn now! If he'd have had some believable overtures for peace, he might have delayed his decision, but ... I give him the benefit of knowing one helluva lot more about it than I do. Better 100,000 of the enemy than 10 of ours.
Yeah. Our parents and grandparents and their president started it because they wouldn't be nice and negotiate, hat in hand, with people who would promise anything with no intention of living up to their part of the bargain. But we still have people who figure that being nice will solve every problem. And we have people who want to commit the next generationto a never-ending war against everyone who has the temerity to disagree with us. When will we ever learn?
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Japanese Surrender WWII 
Linear Mode
