Was The Dropping Of The Atomic Bomb On Japan Justified?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
https://legionmagazine.com/en/2014/09/face-to-face-was-the-dropping-of-the-atomic-bomb-on-japan-justified/
NO
We know that the saying, “all is fair in love and war,” is not true. There are limits to what is acceptable in war because it is in all our best interests.
As United States Senator and former Vietnam prisoner-of-war John McCain has stated, we treat prisoners of war humanely to preserve our own humanity and in the expectation that our captured soldiers will be treated in kind. Weapons of mass destruction are banned for similar reasons.
In the final days of the Second World War, on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite U.S. claims to the contrary, these actions were neither justified nor decisive in Japan’s surrender.
For centuries there have been generally agreed principles on when a war is just and how that war can be fought. The use of atomic bombs violated these principles: excessive force was used to defeat the enemy; the direct targets were civilians and non-military installations; and the damage caused by radiation poisoning at the blast site and in the surrounding environment was neither limited nor contained.
Even before the bombs named Fat Man and Little Boy were dropped on Japan, the devastating blast effects and radiation poisoning were understood. Joseph Rotblat, a physicist on the Manhattan Project that created the first atom bombs, resigned in protest prior to the successful test detonation.
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the previous carpet bombing of 66 other Japanese cities, were not the reason Japan surrendered.
Moral and legal prohibitions against the use of weapons of mass destruction in war existed before the Second World War because of their indiscriminate and lasting impact on soldiers and civilians caught downwind.
The First World War, “the war to end all wars” ended in 1918. The military use of chlorine gas, mustard gas and other chemical weapons caused nearly 100,000 deaths and left as many as a million victims, who suffered from physical and emotional trauma for the rest of their lives. When these soldiers, devastated by these and other poisons, returned to their homes in Europe and North America, they shocked the conscience of the general public.
Efforts begun in the 1800s gained traction in the 1920s when members of the League of Nations signed and brought into effect the Geneva Protocol, which banned the use in war of chemical weapons. The United States acted against this protocol when it subjected Japan to the known effects of widespread radiation poisoning.
Some still argue that the use of these atomic weapons, even if regrettable, was justified because it shortened the war in the Pacific and saved the lives of many U.S. servicemen. When Japan surrendered after the bombings, the need to invade and take Japan by force ended.
This argument is no longer valid, if it ever was.
Documents written by high-ranking Japanese military and political leaders in early August 1945 convincingly show that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the previous carpet bombing of 66 other Japanese cities, were not the reason Japan surrendered.
Rather, the Soviet Union’s declaration of war against Japan and its invasion of Japanese-controlled territory on Aug. 8 was the chief factor. Japan could not successfully fight on two fronts. Ward Wilson, Senior Fellow and Director of the Re-thinking Nuclear Weapons project, sums it up this way: “Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union entered the war. Japanese leaders said the Bomb forced them to surrender because it was less embarrassing to say they’d lost to a miracle weapon. Americans wanted to believe it. And the myth of nuclear weapons was born.”
The myth continues to this day. The military utility of nuclear weapons persists, in part, because of the misplaced belief that their use ended the war in the Pacific in 1945.
YES
Somebody had to stop the killing —but who and how?
Since 1937 Japan had been continuously at war, first with China and eventually with Britain and the United States. It had been a war of many atrocities and reprisals, from the Rape of Nanking onwards.
By July 1945, Japan had been beaten back on most fronts, but her military leaders refused to surrender. Instead, they planned to confront an American invasion, inflicting such casualties that peace would be made on their terms—no occupation, no disarmament, no war crimes trials, and much of the Japanese empire still intact. They envisaged suicidal national resistance, driven by a conviction that the purpose of life was to die for the Emperor.
Leaders decide with what they know, what they think they know and, if they have any humility, the knowledge that they do not know everything. The militarists who had murdered and misled their way to power in the 1930s were untroubled by doubts. President Harry Truman was. Settlement on enemy terms was unthinkable. Other options were indefinite blockade and bombing, and outright invasion—but at what cost?
The atomic bomb, successfully tested on July 16, 1945, provided the ultimate “shock and awe” tool.
Truman knew Russia would enter the Asian war in mid-August 1945, but the scale and objectives of that intervention were unknown. He knew that each Pacific island taken had entailed increasing casualties. The Battle of Okinawa had cost U.S. forces 12,520 killed, 38,916 wounded (many maimed) and 33,096 non-combat injuries, including the highest rate of combat fatigue in any campaign. The readiness of Japanese soldiers to fight hopelessly was a given, but the willingness of civilians to do the same was unnerving (estimated civilian casualties run from 42,000 to 150,000 dead from battle and suicide).
An invasion of the Japanese home islands was set to begin Nov. 1, 1945, with the southern island of Kyushu. If necessary, Honshu would be invaded in March 1946. Projected casualties were all over the map—American General Douglas MacArthur, to encourage invasion, tried to low-ball the figures for Kyushu (25,000 dead, 105,000 wounded, he suggested). Others were more sanguine; the Army Quartermaster General ordered 370,000 Purple Hearts in anticipation of the final campaigns. MacArthur did not weigh the fate of 300,000 Allied PoWs, much less potential enemy civilian casualties, but the Battle of Manila—February 1945 with more than 100,000 Filipinos dead—is instructive as to the horrors of urban warfare.
The atomic bomb, successfully tested on July 16, 1945, provided the ultimate “shock and awe” tool. The Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945—not quite the “unconditional surrender” that had been demanded of Germany—offered one more chance. The Japanese government declared they would ignore it altogether. They tried negotiating through Russia, even offering alliance benefits, without considering such neutrals as Sweden, Switzerland and Portugal.
Truman delegated the use of the first two bombs to United States Army Air Force commanders, who dropped them on Hiroshima, Aug. 6, and Nagasaki, Aug. 9; the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria on the latter day.
Incredibly, the Japanese militarists still resisted. The cabinet was at an impasse. On Aug. 10, the Japanese Prime Minister appealed to the Emperor himself. Through most of his reign Hirohito had been a passive onlooker, going along with his murderous and duplicitous advisers, expressing any doubts in private. He had seen Tokyo burn to the gates of his palace. The militarists’ final excuse to fight—the preservation of the god-emperor—collapsed when he, citing the “new and most cruel bomb,” accepted the Potsdam Conference’s terms, even at personal risk. With channels opened, the Allies agreed to allow continuation of the Imperial office. On Aug. 14 there was formal acceptance of the modified Potsdam Declaration. A subsequent military coup, intended to silence the Emperor, failed. It had taken both Truman and Hirohito to end the war.
Use of the atomic bomb was justifiable.
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As commander in chief of the US forces, Truman had a duty to end the war as soon as possible and to use any legitimate weapon at his disposal. Although he knew the atomic bomb was a terrible weapon and would kill a lot of innocent people, I think you have to place his decision in the context of the war, which had already killed tens of millions of people around the globe. Hiroshima and then Nagasaki would only be another in a series of horrible attacks on population centers, (the US was already fire bombing other Japanese cities) and when placed in the context Truman was faced with, it was justified. How would he face the families of American soldiers sailors and airmen who died after the day he was supposed to order the a-bomb dropped, if he did not use whatever weapons were at his disposal? This was "total" war.
It was justified considering Japan was prepared to fight on indefinitely. It saved the lives of thousands of US soldiers that would have been sacrificed. It also prevented the Soviet Union from joining us in the Pacific War when the war was all but won. Uncle Joe would have then looked for a sphere of influence and Japanese territory. Japan eventually came totally under US control after the surrender and that was for the good of all especially Japan.
I also think we should have used the atom bomb on North Korea to end that war. We were the most powerful nation on earth at the time with an almost total monopoly on atomic weapons. Those history books that taught us all how Truman was so right about the Presidential control of the military, may now need an additional chapter on the advice of General MacArthur - which turned out to be 100% right - and would have saved us all so much agony today.
Actually, Russia did declare war on Japan after Germany surrendered. But by then, the war was all but won.
Gen. MacArthur did advocate that on China when they entered the war, but pres. Truman refused that option. The concern was that if China was nuked, then Russia would enter the war against the US. North Korea was close to defeat when China entered and pushed the UN forces back to the 38th Parallel. Don't forget, the USSR successfully developed its own nukes around 1950. Drawing and alienating the USSR in the Korean conflict meant the USSR might have used its own nukes against the US and/or its allies. In other words, World War III.
I didn't forget. They were the newcomers to the club that we owned. They were far from ready for WWIII:
"America’s nuclear monopoly was largely intact. The first Soviet bomb test had been conducted in August 1949; the first Soviet air drop would not be made until 1951. China was years away from its first test. Intercontinental ballistic missiles were still a gleam in the military eye. For the moment, the United States remained the only nation capable of delivering an atomic bomb to a distant target."
I don't know about that. They already had quite a sizeable military, even if it was rather nuclear deficient. But they weren't too far behind us.
We were bombing the shit out of Japan for weeks before we dropped the nukes. By the time we dropped the nukes the Japanese leaders were already in negotiations amongst themselves on how to approach a surrender. Once the bombs dropped the Japanese only knew that the US bombed Hiroshima with a very large bomb, the impact was still not completely known. Russia declared War on Aug 8, we bombed Nagasaki on Aug 9. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally on Aug 15, 6 days later, still not enough time in that era to get a full report on the devastation of the nuclear weapons. The conclusion is, that the series of carpet bombings preceding before the nuclear attack had softened the Japanese resolve but did not break it and the use of nuclear weapons had no direct effect on their surrender as they were already in war council negotiating surrender terms and were unaware of the complete devastation that occurred. It was a majority fact that Russia entering on the side of the allies that swayed the Japanese to ultimately surrender.
"historian Gar Alperovitz argued that, although the bombs did force an immediate end to the war, Japan’s leaders had wanted to surrender anyway and likely would have done so before the American invasion planned for Nov. 1. Their use was, therefore, unnecessary. "
"About a week after V-J Day, I was one of a small group of scientists and engineers interrogating an intelligent, well-informed Japanese Army officer in Yokohama. We asked him what, in his opinion, would have been the next major move if the war had continued. He replied: "You would probably have tried to invade our homeland with a landing operation on Kyushu about November 1. I think the attack would have been made on such and such beaches."
"Could you have repelled this landing?" we asked, and he answered: "It would have been a very desperate fight, but I do not think we could have stopped you."
"What would have happened then?" we asked.
He replied: "We would have kept on fighting until all Japanese were killed, but we would not have been defeated," by which he meant that they would not have been disgraced by surrender.
that's nice opinion full of fight and vigor for the homeland, truth really is though, the war council was already preparing for surrender. History cannot change because someone whom is not connected to the politics or leadership involved in making the hard decisions has a differing opinion.
Yes.
I really don't know how to answer this, I mean on the one hand if we had continued the way we were going not only civilians but, our own service men would have died long before the empire surrendered to us, it could have gone on for another year or, more with the street to street fighting that would have been required in the city's and, the fighting in the wooded areas as well, we would have been not only fighting the Japanese soldiers but, Japanese civilians as well.
Absolutely. The Japanese civilians were trained and prepared to fight the invaders of the Empire of their holy Emperor to the last standing. America had little choice - invade and have many more American soldiers killed, or keep conventional bombing, losing planes and soldiers being shot down, or make a decisive move.
To top it all off, Japanese propaganda told the civilians that the Americans would kill them if they made it to the island, no civilian would be safe, their women would be raped and, their children killed by the Americans.
The Japanese thought the Americans would be savage animals like THEY were - as in The Rape of Nanjing.
Exactly.
Where is the upset for what the Germans did to London and several other cities across the continent.
Would be nice to see people holding all to the same standards.
better yet where is the outrage about unit 731 of the Japanese military? Mengele was a piker compared to them. look up what happened to them because they "made a deal deal" as crapgame said.
Not only did the a-bombs save American lives, they likely saved at least a million Japanese lives.
It's very sweet and civilized to envision war that takes place only in open fields and only between soldiers, and hopefully all these soldiers are all volunteers, as well, right? This is a romantic, unrealistic vision of war. WWII, in particular, represented a transition to a battlefield that existed everywhere. It was a time when war moved out of the fields and into the cities, but it also predated the modern age of smart bombs and drones that allow more precise killing. Expecting WWII to conform to the kind of discrete enemy kills we see on the evening news is not realistic.
The enemy - particularly Japan - had a well established pattern of fighting to the very last. On island after island, a handful of Japanese soldiers in concrete bunkers held off and killed a staggering number of American marines. Additionally, before the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US had already been dropping conventional bombs on Japanese cities and were blockading the islands. Japan had already lost close to 3 million people, military and civilian. About 400,000 civilians had already been killed in conventional bombings. Still, they were assembling civilian militia to defend the home islands.
It was clear to everyone involved that Japan would have to be forced to surrender and that it would take overwhelming force to compel that surrender. Their vacillation and debate after the a-bombs dropped is maybe the best evidence of all. Even faced with that horrific destruction in one blow, the generals did not want to surrender and the emperor had to force the issue.
"Was The Dropping Of The Atomic Bomb On Japan Justified? "
YEP !
Big problem with "Stupid" questions like this is, Folks want to put their "moral" two cents in based on what is considered todays thinking. They have no clue how to put themselves in the shoes of the folks that were dealing with issues and thinking of the time.
America, F**K Yeah !
that is the way it should always be
Yep.
damn right it was justified.
but keeping them from having an offensive military for 60yrs after while they built stereos for us? priceless.
As disagreeable as it was i believe it was warranted. As noted above ..... in the end it most likely saved many lives on both sides. From a "total" human loss standpoint it was the humane thing to do.
Ask my Uncles who fought them on Iwo Jima and Peleliu and you will get a much more "focused" answer ....
Yes i think it was justified and in the long run saved more lives than both bombs took.
The US had 2 choices to end the war: drop the A-bomb and force a surrender through the sheer (psychological) terror of the level of destruction it caused (in addition to the casualties), or engage in a land invasion of Japan. A land invasion would have prolonged the war, cost more military casualties for troops on both sides, and require additional resources, equipment, and personnel. Given Japan's penchant for fighting ferociously as they did in the Pacific islands campaigns, they probably would have fought even harder or "to the last" as it were since they would fight on home soil (and defend the Emperor). It's arguable whether a land invasion would ultimately have caused more civilian casualties than use of the A-bomb or not. A land invasion would also require naval and air bombardments on Japanese cities as a prelude to invasion and in support of one, including strategic cities such as those with factories, refineries, raw goods, ect.. So who knows how many cities would become involved. Tokyo would be a certain target. Taking all these factors into consideration, using the A-bombs was the right call. Remember, Japan attacked the US first. The US simply retaliated and fought back, gloves off.
I once heard the WW2 historian Stephen Ambrose say in an interview that he had been told that the a-bomb had been dropped as revenge for the Bataan Death March and other Japanese atrocities against allied prisoners of war.
I'm sure there was more to the dropping of the bomb than that but it is an interesting speculation given that while the bomb was being tested and so forth was the time frame when the US high command was learning the extent of the Japanese mistreatment of POW's.
Japanese atrocities towards American POW's or allied civilians (the Philippines) would only encourage or justify the use of the A-bomb.
Sort of like cutting the livers out of captured American pilots and eating them.
With some fava beans and a nice sake? Sorry, couldn't resist. LOL
Use Chianti instead of Sake and you will have the meal Hannibal Lecter said he was going to eat, when he had a friend for dinner.
Yes, but I was keeping in the spirit of the discussion.
I once read where Sec of War Stimson (?) would have called for articles of impeachment against Truman if he didn't use the bomb
...drop a couple bombs that would incinerate 200,000 civilians or risk what would have likely been several thousand of our soldiers lives putting the finishing blows on a defeated retreating enemy force.
I think that is the ultimate reality, we opted to kill the civilians rather than risk our soldiers lives finishing off an enemy. In doing so we also set the stage for a new era of cold war, peace through ultimate terror and fear of global annihilation. Without being used on a populated city proving its efficacy the bomb would have been a hollow threat until ultimately used by someone, and I suppose if it had to be used against someone I'd rather that someone not be western democracy and our own country.
It was a terrible thing, but terrible things always happen in war.
You mean several hundred thousand American troops.
Some of the estimates stated that we could expect up to 1 million troops to die in an invasion of Japan. The vast majority of the estimates were around 500,000 troops dying with up to 10 million Japanese dying in an invasion.
I would say tens of thousands of our soldiers lives would be risked. Just a small piece of trivia here: did you know there is one Japanese man (now deceased I think) who survived both atomic attacks on Japan? Talk about luck-good or bad depending on your perspective.
World War II was significant in that civilian populations were specifically targeted in combat on a large scale, such as with bombing runs on various cities. Civilian casualties were deemed acceptable , whether specifically targeted or as collateral damage.
This is true.
"Death. Destruction. Disease. Horror. That's what war is all about. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided." ---Capt. James T. Kirk, ST: TOS, "A taste of Armageddon" (s1. ep.23).
Okinawa was home soil for Japan and look how hard that battle was.
Indeed. So imagine how much harder an invasion of the mainland itself might have been, where a larger civilian and military population might have fought against allied troops.
This is plausible, as the Japanese were ferocious fighters and would not surrender. Even civilians were known to commit suicide if they thought they would become allied prisoners or under allied control. The situation would not be helped either if civilians took up arms and/or actively resisted against the allies.
Yes, they attacked us and deserved it
As one of their generals said "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve"
I could be wrong, but I think it was Adm. Yamamoto who said something to that effect.
I think you are right
I think you are right that I am right.
It was actually a line by his character in a movie. There's sadly no evidence that he actually said it
Well, he was thinking it. Lol
But thanks for the clarification.
If the bomb had been ready before Operation Overlord commenced should it and would it have been used on Germany?
It probably would not have been dropped on Germany; because of one simple reason: Germany was accessible by land which is easier to maneuver on and as such allows for much fewer casualties. Japan is an island nation, so any invasion of Japan would require amphibious landings, which reduces mobility and is why the battles with the highest casualties were the amphibious assaults. All you have to do to see this is look at Okinawa as it ended up being a microcosm of an invasion of the other main Japanese islands.
First off, Operation Overlord began as and success absolutely depended on a success amphibious landing in Normandy so that blows that theory out of the water. But the fact that Japan being an island nation would have obviated the need for an invasion. By the beginning of 1945 Japan had really lost its war-making capability and was being forced to retreat on all its fronts. It's navy and air force were decimated. A total blockade of Japan with minimal loss for allied forces would have been feasible although lengthy and not politically popular.
I was making a point about the difference between Germany and Japan and the relative ease that Germany was defeated compared to Japan. If you remember, at the time of Operation Overlord, the US was marching on German troops through Italy, Russia was pressing in from the East and we had landed and not long after that we landed in the French Riviera. None of the amphibious landings occurred on Germany itself, they essentially occurred in neutral territory where neither side knew the terrain all that well. (The only place where any of the sides knew the terrain was the Italians in Sicily and Italy). The Russians never made any amphibious landings on their march into Germany. Okinawa was a microcosm of what would occur in any landings in Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, or Kyushu. The reason Overlord was wildly successful was because of the miscommunications and delays that the Germans had in moving their defensive forces around to meet the landings. If the Germans had moved their tanks out of Calais before or early on in the landings, then the landings would have most likely failed. The Japanese were quite clear in how to defend their territory, all you had to do is look at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa to know that they would respond rapidly and rabidly.
Wow, tom, just....WOW. "Relative ease?"
I don't know which would be worse to charge you with: your being completely ignorant of what a sacrifice of lives and bodies that invasion cost or complete callous disregard of it. If you ever get to France, I challenge you to visit the cemeteries of Normandy. Pay particular attention to the placement of the beach side German batteries and the water's edge and then imagine the men coming off those landing crafts into the teeth of the firing from those batteries and the hours it took just to advance 100 yards.
* oh, and by comparison to the total allied killed/missing in the entire Pacific war (~ 127,000) this one invasion came to nearly half of that.
A little piece of trivia: James Doohan (Scotty on Star Trek) was one of the allied soldiers on D-Day. He lost his right middle finger to a bullet.
First, I point out that anphibious landings were where the most casualties occur, then I point out that invading Germany was easier than a potential invasion of Japan, and you are calling me completely ignorant for pointing out exactly what you are saying I am ignorant of. I think you need to go through and reread every one of my comments and look at the time stamps.
Well gee Tom, it seems like it should have been one of the easiest things on earth to do then doesn't it? If that is the case why did it take SIX DAYS for the allies to establish a beach head at three of the targets.
And, it took until July to capture towns that were important to the allies so, that they could link up with other groups to push the Germans back to Germany.
My Dad was there, he came in to the fight in a glider, he landed in a hedge row area. What folks like you don't realize is that the Germans had years to set up defenses in the area along the coastline, remember the Germans had taken over Europe in the 1930's so they had plenty of time to learn the layout of the land.
You know, you really need to learn context. My point was comparing invading GERMANY to invading Japan. As I said, compared to invading Japan, invading Germany would be easy as there is land access to it as shown by the Russian offensive after Stalingrad. I, also, stated that the heaviest casualties occurred at the amphibious landings. Nowhere did I say that it was easy, just easier between attacking Germany compared to attacking Japan. I, also, stated that neither side had an advantage in the landings at Normandy; because neither side had full knowledge of the terrain. This is shown by how often each side stumbled upon each other during the Allied advance inland.
Nice way of completely avoiding the point that an all out invasion of Japan would not necessarily been necessary. And that's not just me using hindsight:
So, the decision to opt for the bomb as opposed to the slower less destructive blockade was based more on political calculus than a military one. In fact, many of the most senior military commanders of the war had very different views about the use of the bomb:
So, Germany never bothered to learn the terrain of France after conquering it in 1940, they just took it for granted and, stayed in one spot. Got it. All those concrete pill boxes that were built were already there, got it. No body had any troops already in place in certain areas, got it. JEEZ, learn some history.
Germany did not know the land much better than the Allies. Remember, the French Resistance was helping the Allies and were instrumental in helping negate what little the Germans knew better than the Allies. 4 years is nowhere near enough time for the military of an invading country to know the layout of the land. Remember in Afghanistan we are still finding caves that we knew nothing about and we have been operating militarily there since 2003 and we aren't occupying the country. So, again, the knowledge of the Germans of the French terrain was about equal to the Allies knowledge, so again no real advantage for the Germans unlike the Japanese should we have invaded and as shown by what happened in Okinawa, which was home territory.
The decision to drop the bomb was not made by scientists or by the military, it was made by Harry S. Truman. And, he stated he weighed the American losses of an invasion against using the bomb. As for a blockade, it wouldn't have done much to Japan to break their will. Just look at how effective blockades have been over the years. The majority of the time, a blockade only affects the local area making it take longer to get supplies to the area under blockade. Bombing in World War II was sometimes ineffective, because industry can be moved underground and the bombs were wholly inaccurate since they had no guidance systems for them once they were released from the plane carrying them.
Right, tom: a political, not military decision. And yes, when offered the false choice between an invasion vs. dropping two bombs and calling it a day of course the American people (having really no idea what these weapons were capable of at the time) would go for the latter. But that's how the politics of war works.
You mean all those American commanders and veterans from WWI (who got to know a fair bit about France in 1918-19) forgot it all? Or did French geography complete change in those 20 years?
Yes, it did. Or did you forget that most Americans in World War I didn't even get to see Normandy as the trenches were far to the East and Normandy was WAAAAAAYYYY behind the lines. When Americans were in France, there was no Maginot line but there were hundreds of trenches in Eastern France.
And, the Vichy government was helping the Germans.
Normandy was not part of Vichy France. Northern France was occupied by Germany, it was Southern France that was Vichy France.
The Vichy government operated all through France, yes, the Vichy government had their headquarters in southern France but, they acted as the "police" through all of France, the only difference was that in northern France they worked under German orders. The point here is this, the Vichy government worked with the Germans from 1940 to 1944 so, the Germans in France were fully aware of the land that they occupied because the Vichy government would have supplied them with whatever information they needed during that time.
No, on paper the Vichy government was supposed to run all of France, but the reality is they had no control over anything. It was very similar to what is portrayed in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back with the deal between Darth Vader and Lando Calrissian. The deal kept being altered by the Germans to the point where the entire country was essentially run by the Germans. I don't recall any Vichy French units being mentioned in any battles.
Christ, tom. You've got WWI and WWII confused. There was no trench warfare in WWII. And how could you think that the trenches changed basic geography? Trenches didn't change where the rivers, mountains, valleys and towns were. And I can't begin to fathom why you'd bring Normandy into a discussion about WWI. In fact, I can't figure out what the hell you're talking about in that comment. What does the Maginot Line have to do with anything involving Normandy or for that matter the entire war? Do you think the man-made Maginot Line was some kind of secret or that it altered the basic geography of France? Not to mention that it had become an irrelevant relic long before Allied forces began pushing the Germans back after Normandy. In a word that comment was simply "Amazing!"
READ the comments, ESPECIALLY your own. You were talking about the officers who served in World War I. I pointed out that they never saw Normandy in World War I.
They were busy rounding up "undesirables" like the Jews and, sending them off to be killed,
if I'm not mistaken, originally the plan was to drop it on Germany. But Germany surrendered before that could happen. So Japan was the new target.
Funny that you put it that way. I think they just wanted to test out "Fat Man" and "Little Boy", but those in the know are gone.
Here is an interesting sidelight
Military Policy Committee : Wikis ( The Full Wiki )
The Military Policy Committee of the Manhattan Project had ultimate responsibility over the project's direction. Its members included: Its members included: Vannevar Bush - Head of (OSRD) Office of Scientific Research and Development
===================================
Don't forget in France we had support from the locals, Japanese would have fought us until we killed them all
And the German army was already significantly weakened from their campaigns in Russia. Production and fuel shortages also hampered their fighting effectiveness.
Never underestimate the power of imaginative thinking.
For real though, the casualties would have been extremely high for both sides. The Japanese military was prepared (for the most part) to fight until the very end, and do you really think they would not have been pressing civilians into combat roles? If the Germans made old men and children fight do you really think the Japanese wouldn't have done the same?
WW2 In Europe was won/lost on the Eastern Front. That is where the Germans took the vast majority of their losses. By the time The Americans, and British I guess, invaded France they were fighting a significantly depleted German military.
Eh sure, but their losses were incurred in Russia, plain and simple.
And it most certainly helped the Allies that the US was untouched during the war.
Again, that's predicated on a full-scale invasion. That was not necessarily the military's plan. In fact, it was most definitely not their recommended plan. Japan's entire fighting capacity had been destroyed. A complete blockade of Japan could have been done but politicians overruled the military commanders.
And yet it still managed to fight effectively enough to kill nearly 100,000 more US military after D-Day as it took nearly a year before Germany finally surrendered. That's nearly as many deaths of US personnel in the entire Pacific War. The German Army was even able to launch the nearly successful surprise counter-attack that became the Battle of the Bulge in the Winter of 1945. That alone cost nearly 20,000 American lives. Even after that offensive was turned back it still took the Allies another 3 months (Feb-Apr 1945) to finally break through the Siegfried lines of defense despite the fact that the battle took place hard along a big stretch just west of the German border. By the way, the German army was able attempt this because the Russian offensive had stalled. If saving American lives was the justification for using the bomb in Japan the case for using it on Germany would have been vastly stronger.
Dropping the bomb on Germany was considered. But Germany surrendered before any such plan could be implemented.
They would have dropped an atom bomb on us without blinking an eye. We gave them warnings, I doubt they would have done the same. No warning was issued for the attack on Pearl Harbor and was later judged to be a war crime.
Actually, there was to be a warning issued by the Japanese Ambassador before the attack took place but, the Japanese didn't understand the difference in time zones and, the ambassador delivered the warning a day after the attack had begun.
and the rest of the story...
But they didn't have so it didn't happen. But, again, thanks for inventing yet another non-existent pretext. By early Summer 1945 Japan's military capacity had been destroyed and its home islands captured. The war was effectively over apart from some minor desperation skirmishes.
FDR never told his Vice President we had the atom bomb
For Truman to not use it would have been inexcusable
It's a moot point. Once the technology was developed, it was inevitable that it would be used. If not in Japan, then in Korea. It was the aftermath that led to the resistance to use it again except for existential reasons.
Just so you all know, my grandfather was a tailgunner in VMB-611 during World War II and served in the Pacific Theatre:
Okay, tom. Thanks for that information.
Eh, that is debatable. Sure Japan was done by that point, but the Japanese military was not even close to willing to surrender. It can be seriously argued that the Japanese Emperor really had very little say in the affairs of the state by this point and that the military under control of Tojo was calling the shots. From what the US could tell at the time the Japanese were preparing to defend the home islands with every available resource, up to and including civilians wielding spears. Casualty estimates for just the first month of an invasion of those islands put the American wounded and dead in the hundreds of thousands, and the Japanese wounded and dead in the millions.
Sure the result of those bombs was terrible, but odds are many of those civilians would have been killed anyhow when American bombers leveled those cities as a part of the invasion of the home islands. We killed 70,000+ when we fire bombed Tokyo one time earlier in the war.
I am not saying the US was right or wrong, but those people and many, many more were probably going to die anyways. The bombs may have actually helped save lives.
Up until the end of World War II, the Japanese Emperor had very little say in government. He was mainly a spiritual guide. Tojo was essentially the Shogun of Japan throughout World War II and called the shots.
There really was no effective Japanese military left or the ability to rebuild it at least 2 months before the bombs were dropped.
Well, that's a stretch. Not saying that that wouldn't have been possible but it's a pretty big "maybe."
Why all this concern about a country that attacked us?
It has to do with the US ideal -- if not practice -- for not committing retributive slaughter of our vanquished enemies, especially civilians. Otherwise, it could be argued that we should have put all members of at least the Nazi party "to the sword" after conquering that country--which killed far more of our soldiers than Japan. Personally, I'm not sure it wouldn't have been an idea worth considering but cooler heads prevailed.
We were too nice to our enemies and what has it gotten us?
Over 70 years without another world war count?