dropping the bomb on japan? yes or no?

[Casimir_Effect]

Completely necessary. America had all but lost the will to keep on fighting after heavy losses in both theaters and incurring massive debt. It is my understanding that if the war was to go on any longer they would have called for a truce and offered Japan basically anything they wanted. The Japanese were not the nice, albeit fucked-up people they are today. If you think they were, google the Rape of Nanking. They were massive dicks to all the countries they occupied.

The bomb saved many lives in the long run, and also gave a demonstration of its power at a time when it was only a new tech. Imagine if they had left it a decade then dropped a few of the ones which are several hundred times more powerful. Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave people a reference point as to the destructive power of the nuke. Without that the Cold War could have been very different. Or the Korean war. Or Vietnam.

 

[silver wolf009]

Yes. A projected mortality rate of 1 million American lives, thats not including other allied nation casualties. It would have been to costly a campign. I do think though that we should have personally demonstrated to the emperor though.

 

[Aur0ra145]

as we know nuclear bombs were dropped on japan in the 40's to end the war in the pacific and mark and end of WW2. when we ask "was this right?" normally the answer is an immediate "no it killed too many people and still is killing people who were radiated".

Actually, my common answer is... "Yes, nuke them. Twice."

For all those saying, "oh but we shouldn't have killed civilians." Seriously? It's total war, can you honestly justify allowing MORE OF YOUR CITIZENS TO DIE because you don't want to end a WORLD WAR as quickly as possible.

 

[Megalodon]

Actually the three days between Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hardly enough time for the Japanese to comprehend what actually happened in Hiroshima, so we cannot be sure that statement is accurate.

Snip

However, I also aware that this is a useless discussion because no one here is going to change their mind based on this discussion. People who think it was a good idea have a set of "facts" in the head that make it all justifiable, if terrible. Likewise, people who think it was inexcusable have their own "facts" that lead them to believe it was based on the abi8lity to think of the Japanese as subhuman and the desire to show the world how powerful we were.

The Japanese high command knew that a single plane had destroyed a previously intact city, but they refused to surrender because the were basically insane with their bushido dishonourable to surrender mindest.

I have never heard the argument that the nulcear attacks were justified due to America regarding the Janpanese as subhuman.
that said, I can't say that proving a point to the Soviets didn't feature in the reasoning.

 

[Nifty]

Yes. It saved millions of lives of Americans and Japanese for that matter, who all would've been prepared to fight to the bitter end.

It was a travesty for sure but the alternative was perhaps much worse.

 

[manaman]

I don't believe the killing of innocent people is ever justifiable.

You are trying to apply a modern notion of innocent to a different time then judge the actions of that time. Hindsight isn't always 20/20 no matter what people say.

What happened happened. The best thing we can do now is prevent anything like that from ever happening again.

It's not like a bunch of teens posting on an internet forum that can't even be bothered to look up the facts about surrounding the issue they are debating when it only takes thirty seconds to do so are ever going to come up with a resounding revelation on this subject anyway.

 

[Andreas55k]

Absolutely not!!!!!!...
The japanise emperor had actually told his people to surrender... Their infrastructure had been totally destroyed... They had no industry to Work with... and Japan is a Island!...

The americans could have waited it out a month or so, then they would have surrendered...

but no... instead they dropped 2 bombs that killed over 750 000 CIVILIANS!!!!!

Its just so stupid!

 

[Staskala]

Americans always like to forget that Japan was also fighting a losing war against Russia, so there never was any need for an American invasion.
One might even say that America only dropped the bombs to make Japan surrender to America and not lose to Russia.
There also is the thing about Japan wanting to surrender anyway, though it should be noted that historians aren't in agreement over this.

 

[WorldCritic]

Why do people keep debating about this? It happened 65 years ago, what happened happpened. Why can't people just accept that? Even if it's decided that ivasion would have been better, it still isn't going to change what happened.

But to answer the question, if invasion had happened a lot more people would have died and the Japanese weren't going to accept surrender at the time so ironically dropping the bomb was the "safest" way to end the war.

 

[WanderingFool]

I don't believe the killing of innocent people is ever justifiable.

I share the same thoughts, but also suffer from a case of the "realistic". WWII was a Total War, that means that there were no innocent civilians. In total war, the single goal is to prevent you opponent from conducting war, by any means. If that means destroying half of their cities with air raids or killing whole cities with nukes, if it defeats their will to fight, than its open to use. Thats why I feel war is an ugly and horrible thing.

Also, I had a conversation with someone awhile back about the idea of dropping one of the bombs on a desert island to show the Japanese what it can do. We both pondered the idea, but agreed that it would have done nothing. One of several things would have occured:
1) they see the power we are capable of and surrender (we both agreed this was not likely, because...)
2) they see the power we are capable of, BUT, also see that we do not want to use the bomb on them unless necessary. They than beleive we dont have the guts to do it, call us out on a bluff, and than we still bomb them, but because we only had two bombs at the time, now we pissed them off like a hornets nest.

What the bomb did was show them that we dont want to fight anymore, but we were not going to just quit. I quite sure w told them that we were making more, and would keep dropping them until they surrendered. Was it a horrible thing to do, yeah... but it was only half as bad as it would have been if a land invasion was used.

 

[KeyMaster45]

This topic seems to pop up every few months here (for the life of me I can't figure out why) I'll save the forums a flame war and detail how it usually ends

*clears throat*
Hippie: The military are bunch of murdering meat heads!

Angry Vet: Fuck you hippie!
*end scene*

Here's my opinion on the topic. The debate over dropping the bombs were raging even before the order was given and the general consensus has and still is a resounding "Yes". At this point I don't see any point in further debate over it because it is something that already occured and if people are looking for some kind of apology or retribution over it they're a little late because most involved are already dead or soon will be and apologizing for it would just be a slap in the face to the memory of those who died in both detonations.

The world long ago came to grips with the gravity of the consequences brought about by the atomic age, it is the reason why there are memorials built in both cities so that the world never forgets the death and devastation such a weapon brings about. Regardless of whether they ended the war or not what they did do was give the world a perspective on where we now all stand. Frankly the fact most first world nations still have stockpiles of nuclear shows that while Hiroshima and Nagasaki keep the world from ever using those devices they weren't enough for us to get rid of them. I think that says volumes about the mentality of the human race despite how much we say we have advanced beyond the barbaric ways of old.

 

[MBurner 93]

I know it stopped the war and countless US losses (hardly spared both sides did it), but, I cannot say this was justifyable, civilians arn't supposed to be targets in war, yes they are constantly and there was only one place during WW2 where this rule of engagement was obeyed (North Africa, the Afrika Cors and the Brits both maintained an excellent standard of combat, both tactically and ethically, when the Germans surrendered the Brits even clapped them to their cells). But dropping a nuke on a city is just wrong, on a smaller town with a large military base, more acceptable. As far as I'm aware the nukes target had no real military force, I may be wrong, if I am, let me know.

I may be wrong here, but if my sources are correct, Hiroshima, at least, had taken on a pretty strong military character. War factories were everywhere, along with military training facilities. http://www.hiroshima-spirit.jp/en/museum/morgue_e11.html Not sure i made that a link. I suck at the internet

OT: While I am against attacking civilians, i think the bombing was justified. Based on Japanese civilian reaction to American soldiers, I dont think it is too outlandish to think that most of them would sacrifice themselves to try and stop the Americans. There probably would have been bloody fights for every town, every street corner, eventually leading to much greater casualties than the two bombs combined.

 

[Megalodon]

The Japanese weren't gonna stop. We gave them a warning, they refused, we dropped the bomb. We let them look at what just happened, we asked them again and they did not listen. So we dropped another one.

You can't say we didn't give the Japanese ample warning to surrender and while I don't condone mass killings like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I can see how it saved countless lives on both sides of the fighting.

Both sides? You make it sound like the Americans did something noble lol. Were they takin a shortcut to end the war faster,yes. While genocide is never the right thing to do, i'd say this is a morally dark grey zone tbh. Its right in one way but so horribly fucking wrong at the same time.

Well, more than a quarter of a million Japanese would have died if the Home Islands were invaded. I'd also say that Hiroshima/Nagasaki were not genocide, because the deaths themselves weren't the objective of the attacks, they were a means to the end of forcing a surrender and ending the war (not a nice means by any stretch of the imagination).

 

[stompy]

I have never heard the argument that the nulcear attacks were justified due to America regarding the Janpanese as subhuman.
that said, I can't say that proving a point to the Soviets didn't feature in the reasoning.

It's one of the arguments put forward by historians who disagree with the decision, since the Americans (not just the Japanese) were fed with propaganda. It wasn't too hard considering the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and treatment of American POWs were still fresh in the people's mind (even in 1944, 1 in 3 Americans reckoned that Japan shouldn't exist as a nation).

As for me, I'm not too sure. Though, I would like to mention that one of the major reasons why the Japanese refused to surrender was that the Potsdam Declaration demanded 'unconditional surrender' lest Japan face "prompt and utter destruction".

Two problems: the Japanese would never have surrendered if the Emperor was going to be harmed, something the Americans were aware of since they did not charge the Emperor with war crimes in the Tokyo Tribunal; and it was reasonable for the Japanese to assume the threat would result in more fire-bombing, something which had already decimated Tokyo.

While I can see why people argue the A-bomb was justified (the cost of the project also a very important, albeit very cynical, justification), the Americans (possibly) had the chance to surrender without the need for an invasion or the A-bomb. They didn't use it.

 

[Staskala]

Can't we all put this behind us?

Interestingly enough this topic always gets started by Americans themselves (sometimes by Europeans for whatever reason, since Europe did far more shit in its history, but whatever). Aside from the die-hard nationalistic geezers (and Futaba...) the Japanese generally don't blame America. After all, if they start pointing their fingers at others they would also have to acknowledge the fingers pointed at them.

 

[C95J]

You sound like you have already made up your mind. However, I will suggest a hypothetical: iimagine a scenario where we contacted the Japanese government and told them "please observe this small uninhabited island over here." Then, BOOM. "Now, you have 24 hours to surrender or that will happen to several undisclosed locations within your country."

Had this argument with a mate a few weeks ago. Comes down to the combination that there was no guarantee it would work, and America didn't have the bombs to spare at the time. It still took two cities being leveled to convince them to surrender, I don't really think a "warning shot" would have been anything other than a "wasted" bomb.

I agree with both of you in a way, bombs needed to be dropped, but some of the destruction could have been avoided.

 

[the clockmaker]

Just by way of referance, the United States, in preperation for operation downfalll (the invasion of the home islands) manufactured a number of purple hearts to give to their wounded after they hit the beaches. In the years after, through Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and both gulf wars, they have not used all of those medals.

At the time, the military of Japan was training every man, woman and child to defend their homeland, using everything from outdated military equipment to sharp sticks. A conventional invasion of the home islands would have been a sort of unholy hybrid between the last stages of the eastern front, (Jan-May 45) and the Vietnam war.

By the time the bomb was completed, they had a total of two war shots ready. To use one on an uninhabited island as a warning shot would be unwise as it did take two to convince Japan to surrender. The allies had also, by that point, reduced every signifigant military target to rubble and had heavily damaged many civilian targets as well. Part of the reason for choosing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that they had escaped mostly unharmed compared to the rest of the home islands.

And finally, try to see this from the allies point of view, they had been attacked without warning and without a rational cassus belli, they had seen their own tortured, starved and killed when taken prisoner, they had seen genocide to rival the holocost take place in china, tehy had seen unit 731, they had seen biological warfare used against the Chinese, they had seen the survivors from a sunked hospital ship strafed in the water, they had seen the 'competetition to behead one hundred prisoners', and they had seen the so called 'comfort houses. They had not seen any sort of resistence to the government, no massive outcry at these actions and while the majority of it may have been covered up, that sort of thing always filters home. No one in Japan seriously tried to stop this. No I ask you again, look at this from the allies point of view, no matter how horrible the thing you were about to do was, how forgiving would you be?

 

[Warped_Ghost]

That depends. America mass killed civilians. They prevented the loss of their own soldiers. I can respect that they were protecting their own men but they didn't do it honorably. That all said I'm at maybe.