Should the atomic bombs been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[Jimmyjames]

GUESS WHAT, they SHOULD'VE killed the Germans, but since many, many Americans had relatives that were in Germany, and Germany never directly attacked the U.S. It seems that Japan became the more imminent threat

How do you figure THIS? That is B.S. Germany hadn't even secured Europe yet, and it was a fact that they had submersibles collecting intel on the US right off our shores. If they had taken Europe, the continental U.S. would have been next.

 

[hansg]

Yes.

...but consider this: would USA have dropped the Atom bomb on Germany if the war in Europe had lasted longer than the war in Japan? Because Germans are white, and Japanese are not, and considering the racism in '40s America, I think using it against white people highly unlikely.

Actually, the atomic bomb was developed specifically with the intention to drop it on Germany. Fortunately for the Germans, the war ended too soon and the bomb could not be used in Europe.

As far Japan, they were preparing to fight to the death, to give swords to men, women, and children and have them fight american soldiers everywhere they went. Dropping the first bomb shocked them into surrendering, and thus in the end saved lots of lives (both American and Japanese). However, one should have been enough: the second bomb showed a distinct lack of civility on the part of the Americans. It would have been better if they had said "we now know what this weapon does, lets not use it again".

 

[l33tabix]

there wasn't exactly a 'war in japan' but there sure as hell was a 'war in germany'. If they dropped the bombs there, then all the allied forces in the radius would have died, and it would have affected loads more. There were essentially only japanese people where they dropped the nukes.

also, they are pushing out loads of bad ass tech these days, maybe the bombs mutated them to be good at that kind of shit, haha i kid i kid.

Oh yeah and in reply to the post above this one, no only does it show the american lack of civility, but it was like 3 days later! All the people would have been like you know, just fucking getting used to the first one going off. They probably moved loads of people to Nagasaki and what not...just wrong.

 

[Gerazzi]

GUESS WHAT, they SHOULD'VE killed the Germans, but since many, many Americans had relatives that were in Germany, and Germany never directly attacked the U.S. It seems that Japan became the more imminent threat

How do you figure THIS? That is B.S. Germany hadn't even secured Europe yet, and it was a fact that they had submersibles collecting intel on the US right off our shores. If they had taken Europe, the continental U.S. would have been next.

I was being sarcastic, but your point is still valid, although I'm not sure why they didn't attack Germany... perhaps there was some sort of lack of judgment during world war 2

 

[Jimmyjames]

... although I'm not sure why they didn't attack Germany... perhaps there was some sort of lack of judgment during world war 2

Germany was in the middle of getting it's ass handed to it. Germany had basically retreated, and were being pinned down by the British, US, and Russia. Japan was still strong, determined, and a danger.

 

[Sarukin]

first, i don't see why it wouldn't work, the nukes had that fancy "Air-burst" mechanic in them, that would of vaporised the IJN fleet.
plus, Hiroshima was a MINOR (as in NOT major) supply and logistics base for the Japanese military, thats hardly a statigic target, so you need to get your facts straight.
I'll give it to you that Nagasaki had one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan so in had value, but still not worth nuking.

Test on Bikini [http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq76-1.htm]. Sure it sinks a few ships in case of near-direct hit and causes the ships to be radioactive for a while but surely you dont go waste your nukes for so patchetic results. There is absolutely no psychological effect involved when firing at ships. Also I find your claim about Hiroshima weird as it had headquarters for the whole defense of southern Japan and had many other purposes such as communication center, storage and some industry. It must have been a pain to reorganize after such loss.

Well it would be a pain when 70,000 civilians die in a blink of an eye, and even more pain were 200,000 more die from the after effects 5 years later.
and i have no idea where you got that information from, sure it isn't from some American army offical trying to justify the attack? Hiroshima was never a priority target.

 

[goodman528]

Yes.

...but consider this: would USA have dropped the Atom bomb on Germany if the war in Europe had lasted longer than the war in Japan? Because Germans are white, and Japanese are not, and considering the racism in '40s America, I think using it against white people highly unlikely.

You need to study your history a little better if you honestly believe that crap.

lol. Only ignorant people think they understand something.

 

[Epic_Rocker]

Why the hell would my ancestors be ashamed of my view on this? As far as I know, my ancestors are not monsters who liked to drop Atomic Bombs on small island nations. So many lost their lives because of it. And don't give me crap about how it was a tactic to end the war. The Americans were just pissed off about Pearl Harbour.

 

[bookboy]

It was a war crime if you ask me.

So no it shouldn't have.

So you would rather invade and start fighting that would have killed far greater number people then the atomic bombs did? Well aren't you smart......

Who the fuck said that was the only other option?

I just said I thought it was the wrong thing to do!

Beddo said it better than I could...

This was a crime against humanity on a massive scale.

No consideraton was taken of the innocent civilians that were killed by the bombs. This is by definition a war crime.

It's digusting and the US should be ashamed of these actions for the rest of its existence. Given that the US is the ONLY country in the world that have used Weapons of Mass Destruction in a conflict directly against civilians shows what a destructive force it is in the world.

The US lost all moral ground to criticise human rights violations the second that bomb was dropped. This was compounded by the McCarthy trials, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war and the War on Terror. As a result the US has done more damage to the cause of human rights ever since than any third world dictatorship could.

It is nearly impossible for the UN and international criminal court to bring any meaningful action against the atrocities carried out in the third world because without treating the US the in the same way their actions are somewhat hypocritical.

However, the UN and Criminal court should do more to condemn the US. They should also issue a warrant for the arrests of those in the US involved in torture, George Bush and Tony Blair for blatant disregard of the Geneva Convention. Even if they would not be able to follow through with the trial the issuing of a warrant would be a damning condemnation and hugely daming to these criminals.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I'm amazed the US is even allowed to be a part of the UN after that. Maybe it's because they're like the friendless child who's stronger then everyone and forces his way into the group? xO Idk. Just a huge war crime commited there.

i would like to point out the the original version of the UN, called the league of nations. was set up after the first world war by the U.S. but it brutally failed (do i even need to explain the consequences?) because the U.S. refused to become a part of it after the LON was formed.

 

[TopHatTim]

No it shouldnt have, even though that area was a target. the whole city of hirosshima though?
uncalled for death and destruction of innocent lives and lifestyles.
but in a good sense it ended a war that could have gone on for years.

 

[bookboy]

[/quote]We?..as in the US?. No contrary to reports we are not achieving what we set out to do. That is not the definition of winning!. We haven't won a war with or without a coalition since the US-Mexican war. Every engagement since then has either being a "withdrawal" or a defeat. "We" never finished anything in Afghanistan (which is why NATO is there now, cleaning up the mess we left), Iraq is still in a rut and half our troops are still there, dying.[/quote]
you seem to have forgotten about WW2 and both gulf wars...

 

[Mathew952]

I actually watched a history channel Special on this. The alternative was an X-day, where we stormed across Japan, and would have to single handedly kill every Japanese citizen. Due to EPIC PROPAGANDA, they trained pretty much every Japanese person to want to fight to the death. They trained school children to kill people with bamboo spears. It would have been bloody, brutal, and completely destroyed our world reputation.

 

[Sparkiesmakemesmile]

Yes

We had to test the bomb somewhere and Lord knows we weren't gonna blow our own ass up.

Oh hey look a wide open area just overseas. ^_^

 

[oralloy]

No. The atomic bombs were unnecessary and according to reports released by the government a year later, we knew this at the time.

Actually, we had no inkling as to what would make Japan surrender until they actually asked to surrender (which only happened after both A-bombs).

Actually, the National Archives in Washington contain documents reporting our rejection of Japanese peace attempts going back to 1943.

That's very unlikely, since Japan did not make any peace attempts until after both A-bombs.

Do you have any sort of reputable cite for that?

US war planes were going unmolested over the skies of Japan and had effectively run out of military targets. The army of Japan was, at the time, looking to surrender in whatever way allowed them to "save face," and according to the report, even if we had done absolutely nothing, would have surrendered unconditionally.

A few days before the bombs were dropped, the Japanese Army showed interest in ending the war in a ceasefire (like the way the Korean War later ended), but even if they had had time to pursue that, it isn't terribly likely that we'd have seen that as a reason not to drop the A-bombs.

Actually, in July, the Japanese government sent requests to Moscow, requesting Soviet help in establishing a peace. They hoped their ambassador would impress upon the Russians "the sincerity of our desire to end the war [and] have them understand that we are trying to end hostilities by asking for very reasonable terms in order to secure and maintain our national existence and honor." That's not a ceasefire. That's an end. We didn't have to wait for Russia to tell us this either. That quote is from an intercepted Japanese transmission to Russia.

Those Japanese transmissions did not indicate what exact terms they wanted, but they made it clear that the Japanese government wanted a lot more than just a guarantee for the Emperor.

Our intelligence analysts concluded that Japan was trying to end the war before they lost it (i.e. a ceasefire).

And now that we have, in hindsight, records indicating the terms that Japan actually was trying to secure (Japanese army return home without surrendering or being disarmed, no occupation of Japan, no war crimes trials, etc) it is pretty clear that a ceasefire is exactly what Japan was aiming for.

The first time the Japanese Army was willing to consider surrender was when Hirohito ordered them to, which was only after both A-bombs.

Actually, according the official Survey I linked to, shortly before the bombs were dropped, there was a meeting between the Emperor and the leaders of the Japanese military. All the leaders pressed on him their desire to surrender. Now, that's the government's official position. Should I trust you, or the official position. Think I'm going to stick to the official position.

"All" the leaders did not press the Emperor to surrender at this meeting. Some of them advocated conditional surrender, and others advocated holding out so that millions of Japanese soldiers could repel our invasion in a massive bloody battle after which Japan would request a ceasefire.

The position that Japan should hold out for a massive bloody battle carried the day at the meeting.

The notion that the USSBS is "the official version" is a little silly. It was an Air Force propaganda piece designed to promote the idea that conventional air power is all that is needed to win wars. The main goal was to maximize the Air Force's portion of the defense budget after the war when congress was dramatically ramping down defense spending.

While the bombing of civilians to prevent the deaths of soldiers is the essence of terrorism, and therefore unjustifiable, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not necessary on any grounds. It has been suggested, and I think quite correctly, that these were not military bombings, but political, meant to send a strong message to the growing power of the USSR. Don't mess with the US. We're insane.

Hiroshima was a huge military center and Nagasaki held important weapons factories.

These were not attacks on civilians. They were overt strikes on military targets.

Actually, according to the official Survey, conventional bombing and destroyed all military targets on the island. And when I say all military targets, I mean that, according to our own account, we had destroyed every plane the Japanese had made, every factory. According to the official account, there was nothing left to bomb. Again, do I trust you, or the official position. Yeah, hmm... I still think... yeah, official position for me.

That so-called "official position" says nothing of the sort. We certainly did considerable damage to Japan, but there was still plenty left over (for instance the primary target of the second A-bomb: Kokura Arsenal).

And the plane that was trying to drop the second A-bomb on Kokura Arsenal was chased off by Japanese fighter planes.

And besides that, there were thousands of kamikaze planes in position to sink US troop transports when we invaded.

And while the factories of Nagasaki were not quite of the magnitude of Kokura Arsenal, they were pretty significant in their own right.

No, actually, what's going on here is that I'm talking to a bunch of gamers here who really, really, really wish that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been one of those cool hard choices you have to make in a video game like Mass Effect. See... that's fiction. Reality is a lot more simple. The fact is, according to our own documents, according to our own official Survey, we did not need to drop those bombs and we knew it at the time.

Nope. The USSBS says nothing of the sort. We didn't have any such knowledge "at the time".

Hindsight is nice, but Truman didn't have a time machine.

 

[Enigmers]

I had to answer this question for a 10th grade History exam, so here's more or less the answer I gave:

From the American perspective, I think that the U.S. were justified in dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because if a ground invasion were to take place, the projected casualties would be well over a million, it's said that the Japanese actually got kids, mothers, and elderly people as suicide bombers in case of invasion). Thus, less life would have been lost due to these bombs (even considering Radiation, birth defects, etc.)

Obviously since it was an exam question I had to give a bunch of other answers too, like "The U.S. had spent a lot of money developing these bombs and had to drop them to feel justified" or something, and "They had to show the other world powers, especially Russia, how big their nuclear penises were" but honestly the only one I think holds any water is the first one (Loss of life)

 

[oralloy]

First off, a civilian city is not a military target.
An example of a military target is an army barracks, a radio post, a camp, or the location of enemy command AWAY from a population center.

Placing a large military target in a population center does not change the fact that it is a military target.

Hiroshima was a huge military center, with tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers, and with the most important military headquarters in Japan.

Also, the Japanese strategy would not work as well on the mainland. We can use air support to attack positions, but as a moving, invading force, we had nowhere for Japan to bomb.

The thousands of Japanese kamikazes would have been able to sink a good number of troop transports. And the Japanese strategy of digging in tunnels and then fighting to the death would have been just as effective in Japan as in Iwo Jima and Okinawa, especially given the huge numbers of Japanese soldiers that would have been there fighting to the death.

Let me make it clear: we did not have the means to produce more nukes.

Yes we did.

We were about a week from dropping another A-bomb on Japan (this time Tokyo) when they surrendered.

And we were going to produce another three A-bombs in September, another four in October, another five in November, and another seven (or even more) in December.

It was incredibly expensive and time-consuming, and as a tactical weapon they are flawed, as the close range aerial radiation would endanger nearby allies, and you could not occupy the area taken.

The idea is to use the nuke from a safe distance. Wait an hour or so and you will have no problem occupying the area.

A massive bombing campaign before the invasion would prove effective in diminishing troops, morale, and resources. The Soviet Army would assist in taking mainland Japan, as they intended to launch a full-scale invasion of the mainland. Also, a blockade would force a desperate attack, which would be futile, and leave the mainland open.

The massive bombing campaign had been going on for some time.

The Soviets' agreement with the US did not involve them invading Japan. They did plan to invade and capture Hokkaido against our will, but did not plan to invade further than that.

We didn't have time to wait for a blockade. It was time to get the war over with.

 

[Jimmyjames]

lol. Only ignorant people think they understand something.

You're calling me ignorant because I disagree that dropping the A-bomb had racist motives?

I'm telling you you need to look at the facts before you make an off-the-cuff bullshit statement like that.

 

[slxiii]

This discussion is a bit of a moot point, don't you think? The fact is that the bomb was dropped, ending the war at the cost of a few hundred thousand lives. I think it's a bit obvious that dropping the bomb was inhumane and wrong, but at the time the Americans were facing what they perceived to be an enemy that would never surrender, and would probably only be angered by a land invasion. The Japanese army, and even their civilians, had commited suicide instead of surrendering because they were so loyal to their emperor.

The A-Bomb threatened the Japanese with the total destruction of their culture and country, and a death without honor. I think this is what ultimately forced them to surrender.

 

[Naeberius]

yes. based on knowledge at the time (which now seems rather lacking) the Americans believed the only end to the war with japan would be either:
Japanese Surrender
Complete Invasion of Japan
Massive Overpower New Weapon

the first one was unlikely due to Japanese honor which the Americans would have accepted in most cases. the second would have drained the US of money men and resources (same for Japan) so was a last case scenario. their only realistic hope was their new (untried) super weapon and they hoped it would force the Japanese to bow out to the new tech.

Yes is was a massive waste of life, but the alternatives were no better. the Japanese do have to take some responsibility for it for their stubbornness not to surrender when they had no chance of winning.

i do also think that if the Allies had the bomb earlier they would have used it on Berlin because they were DESPERATE to end the war.(and they had little idea of the side effects)