Guilt and the Murder of Innocents.

[Chairman Miaow]

I was recently doing a bit of research into the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, simply for curiosity's sake. While doing this research, I discovered that out of the 12 members of the crew flying the bomber responsible for bombing Hiroshima, none of them seemed to show any kind of remorse. I can understand saying it was needed or maybe even justified, but I cannot understand how you could live with yourself after being directly responsible for the deaths of 90,000?166,000 innocent civilians, let alone not feel guilt.

Basically the point of this thread is to ask, what about you?

If given the order, and the circumstances were exactly the same, could you have done it?
Would you have felt it was needed? Justified?
Would you feel guilty? Could you live with it?

I personally do think that it was better than letting the war drag on and needing a mainland invasion, but I just don't think I could do it, or if I did do it, I couldn't live with myself afterwards.

EDIT: Part of the criteria for target selection was "The target was larger than 3 miles (4.8 km) in diameter and was an important target in a large urban area." so they intentionally chose a target which would cause a great number of civilian casualties. I cannot understand why they didn't target exclusively military bases, the message of power would have been understood regardless.

 

[Melon Hunter]

I'm pretty darn sure that the log of the rear gunner on the Enola Gay had the single entry of "My God; what have we done?" Sounds pretty remorseful to me. In fact, I think the entire crew spent the rest of their lives coming to terms with what they'd enacted.

As for doing it myself? Well, it's easy to distance yourself from the horrors of the blast when you're just flying over it. Given the circumstances, I think, if given the order, I'd go through with it, but probably never get over it.

Finally, on the civilian target thing; this was exactly what the Americans needed. Not the destruction of military bases. The message they wanted to send was "We now have bombs capable of destroying entire cities. How many must die before you concede defeat?". Atomic bombing was, of course, a horrific course of action. But arguably, it was preferable to Operation Downfall, which was estimated to have caused upwards of 3 million American casualties and something like 30-50% of the Japanese population in the ensuing insurgency had it been enacted.

 

[Hazy992]

They probably saw it as saving lives. Even by conservative estimates the number of casualties caused by Operation Downfall would have been far higher.

EDIT: worded it a bit better

 

[Chairman Miaow]

snip

That's one man, out of 12.

Another said "I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it, and have it work as perfectly as it did .... I sleep clearly every night." In March 2005, he stated, "If you give me the same circumstances, I'd do it again."

Jacob Beser, who took part in both bombings said "No I feel no sorrow or remorse for whatever small role I played. That I should is crazy."

And that message could have been sent without bombing two cities. It could have been sent without bombing any. The destruction caused by one of these bombs could easily have been seen without targeting so many civilians. If that didn't work, then sure, bomb one of those targets.

 

[Total LOLige]

Well, they weren't innocents in the eyes of the crew, they were the enemy. You wouldn't have any remorse after killing an enemy.

 

[Melon Hunter]

snip

That's one man, out of 12.

Another said "I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it, and have it work as perfectly as it did .... I sleep clearly every night." In March 2005, he stated, "If you give me the same circumstances, I'd do it again."

Jacob Beser, who took part in both bombings said "No I feel no sorrow or remorse for whatever small role I played. That I should is crazy."

And that message could have been sent without bombing two cities. It could have been sent without bombing any. The destruction caused by one of these bombs could easily have been seen without targeting so many civilians. If that didn't work, then sure, bomb one of those targets.

You did say none of them. Not meaning to nitpick, but there were definitely some of the crew members who felt remorse, hell, even apologised to the Japanese people after the war. Of course some would be jingoistic asses about it, but such is the way of the human race. As I said, when you have the level of disconnect from the suffering you cause these men did, it's easy to mentally erase the guilt of your acts.

As for bombing cities... it was a case of revenge, in a way. By that point, America had been at war with Japan for over three and a half years. Hundreds of thousands of American troops had come home dead or wounded thanks to the Japanese forces in the Pacific. As horrible as it is to say it, I doubt the American military or government particularly cared about the welfare of Japanese civilians by that point; they just wanted to end it without a messy, lengthy and casualty-heavy invasion of Japan. Hiroshima was designed to shock the Japanese emperor into surrendering. When that didn't work, the Americans also destroyed Nagasaki to get their point across. And it worked. Destroying a city has far more of a psychological impact than any military base.

If you recall, the Japanese had a very unyielding mindset in war. If they saw the destruction of an atomic bomb visited upon a military base, that would not deter them from continuing to fight. Hell, the firebombing of Tokyo didn't either. Using the atomic bombs was horrific, but it did bring about the unthinkable; a Japanese surrender, which is all the Americans really wanted by that point.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

snip

Because three days is plenty of time to consider surrender.

EDIT: sorry for being rude, but it just seems completely incomprehensible that people could ever not feel remorse for it. It has also been debated whether or not the Japanese would have surrendered anyway.

 

[Melon Hunter]

snip

That's one man, out of 12.

Another said "I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it, and have it work as perfectly as it did .... I sleep clearly every night." In March 2005, he stated, "If you give me the same circumstances, I'd do it again."

Jacob Beser, who took part in both bombings said "No I feel no sorrow or remorse for whatever small role I played. That I should is crazy."

And that message could have been sent without bombing two cities. It could have been sent without bombing any. The destruction caused by one of these bombs could easily have been seen without targeting so many civilians. If that didn't work, then sure, bomb one of those targets.

You did say none of them. Not meaning to nitpick, but there were definitely some of the crew members who felt remorse, hell, even apologised to the Japanese people after the war. Of course some would be jingoistic asses about it, but such is the way of the human race. As I said, when you have the level of disconnect from the suffering you cause these men did, it's easy to mentally erase the guilt of your acts.

As for bombing cities... it was a case of revenge, in a way. By that point, America had been at war with Japan for over three and a half years. Hundreds of thousands of American troops had come home dead or wounded thanks to the Japanese forces in the Pacific. As horrible as it is to say it, I doubt the American military or government particularly cared about the welfare of Japanese civilians by that point; they just wanted to end it without a messy, lengthy and casualty-heavy invasion of Japan. Hiroshima was designed to shock the Japanese emperor into surrendering. When that didn't work, the Americans also destroyed Nagasaki to get their point across. And it worked. Destroying a city has far more of a psychological impact than any military base.

If you recall, the Japanese had a very unyielding mindset in war. If they saw the destruction of an atomic bomb visited upon a military base, that would not deter them from continuing to fight. Hell, the firebombing of Tokyo didn't either. Using the atomic bombs was horrific, but it did bring about the unthinkable; a Japanese surrender, which is all the Americans really wanted by that point.

Because three days is plenty of time to consider surrender.

Not to the Japanese, at least not at that point in time. Although, frankly, I don't think the Americans were willing to give them that much of a grace period. I'd be amazed if the military even tried to consider the situation from a Japanese standpoint. All they saw was that they'd wiped a Japanese city off the map, and the Japanese had just kept on fighting. I'm not justifying their actions; I'm simply explaining why the Americans did what they did.

 

[GistoftheFist]

People sure love to point out how horrible it was that America bombed Japan, nobody ever seems to remember just how brutal the Japanese were to POWs. Anyone else notice this?

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

They did their jobs. You can't really expect them to feel that bad about that. We have this idea that soldiers should feel guilt or remorse for the things they are ordered to do by powers that are largely outside of their control and in defense of all of us. We desire that they would not be able to sleep at night, just so that we can feel certain that war is something that is meant to be alien to us. We want them to have nightmares about what they did to protect the country and the people they loved. Usually they don't though. Usually they just go on living, knowing that they only did what they had to do. That scares us, that horrifies us, and to some degree I suppose it should. War should be scary, if only because the alternative, war not being scary, is all the more horrifying to those of us who have no will to fight. But it isn't scary sometimes. It isn't painful sometimes. Sometimes it just is. And sometimes those who lived through it pretend it just is, because the alternative, that they should feel tremendous personal guilt for the things that they have done, that they are responsible for the loss of so many lives, is all the more horrifying to them.

Spoiler: now for something less depressing

 

[Chairman Miaow]

People sure love to point out how horrible it was that America bombed Japan, nobody ever seems to remember just how brutal the Japanese were to POWs. Anyone else notice this?

Or that many american soldiers scalped their victims, took their skulls, or sent a letter opener out of a japanese soldier's arm to president Roosevelt.

 

[Jedoro]

You can live with yourself after killing that many people because you never saw any of their faces. You didn't walk up with 200k rounds of ammo and start introducing bullets to brainpans, you dropped a big bomb on a city from a plane in the sky. Physical distance is a hell of a factor for reducing guilt.

Would I do it? If I knew how hard all of Japan would fight to continue the war, yes. Better they die, than the guys in my uniform who have to invade if I don't drop the damn thing.

Could I live with myself? Every night, I would sleep soundly after hitting a bar with some infantrymen who would likely be wounded or dead if I hadn't.

 

[Total LOLige]

People sure love to point out how horrible it was that America bombed Japan, nobody ever seems to remember just how brutal the Japanese were to POWs. Anyone else notice this?

Or that many american soldiers scalped their victims, took their skulls, or sent a letter opener out of a japanese soldier's arm to president Roosevelt.

Scalping was proof of a kill, plus they're already dead.

All's fair in love and war.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

People sure love to point out how horrible it was that America bombed Japan, nobody ever seems to remember just how brutal the Japanese were to POWs. Anyone else notice this?

Or that many american soldiers scalped their victims, took their skulls, or sent a letter opener out of a japanese soldier's arm to president Roosevelt.

Scalping was proof of a kill, plus they're already dead.

All's fair in love and war.

So atrocities are fine as long as they are committed by Americans?

 

[Total LOLige]

People sure love to point out how horrible it was that America bombed Japan, nobody ever seems to remember just how brutal the Japanese were to POWs. Anyone else notice this?

Or that many american soldiers scalped their victims, took their skulls, or sent a letter opener out of a japanese soldier's arm to president Roosevelt.

Scalping was proof of a kill, plus they're already dead.

All's fair in love and war.

So atrocities are fine as long as they are committed by Americans?

I'm not American. The Japanese committed atrocities to according to wikipedia

"Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese."

I'd rather have the Americans kill 90,000 - 166,000 innocent civilians than let Japan kill 30 million more people.

 

[Esotera]

Admitting that you feel remorse is quite different from whether they do regret their actions.

That said, dropping a nuclear bomb on someone from miles away is very far removed from physically stabbing thousands of people, and you can't really comment on whether you'd feel remorse until you've actually done it. Not feeling anything when killing seems to be quite common from the recollections of soldiers I've read, but it's the retrospect afterwards that brings PTSD etc.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

People sure love to point out how horrible it was that America bombed Japan, nobody ever seems to remember just how brutal the Japanese were to POWs. Anyone else notice this?

Or that many american soldiers scalped their victims, took their skulls, or sent a letter opener out of a japanese soldier's arm to president Roosevelt.

Scalping was proof of a kill, plus they're already dead.

All's fair in love and war.

So atrocities are fine as long as they are committed by Americans?

I'm not American. The Japanese committed atrocities to according to wikipedia

"Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese."

I'd rather have the Americans kill 90,000 - 166,000 innocent civilians than let Japan kill 30 million more people.

I was saying that the American soldiers were committing atrocities too.

 

[Soviet Steve]

If I could fly the plane then sure. You aren't down there snapping their necks, you're several kilometers above them pushing a button. Plus if you're aware of the strategic and political situation you know it isn't really optional.

Plus back in the day there was serious racism and nationalist rage directed at them. In total war it's very common to dehumanize your enemy.

 

[orangeban]

People sure love to point out how horrible it was that America bombed Japan, nobody ever seems to remember just how brutal the Japanese were to POWs. Anyone else notice this?

So the actions of Japanese soldiers justified the deaths of thousands of civilians?

By your logic, if you're American, can I come over and shoot your family because of Guantanamo Bay?