Why do people misinterp the bombing of Japan.

[Donbett1974]

I keep seeing people refering to Fatman & Little Boy killed 150,000-250,000 but save countless millions.

1. The Japanese P.o.W. camps had standing orders to kill all prisoner if Japan was invaded that's over a 1,000,000 prisoners.
2. Soldiers on both sides would die.
3. Japanese civilian were order to defend Japan.
4. Russia was going to enter Japan for its strategic value .WWII Russia wasn't let say civilian friendly if you know what I mean.
5. If the Japanese military wouldn't allow Emperor Hirohito surrender after an Atomic bomb I doubt they would during an invasion.

 

[ChaoticKraus]

Yes, that's right. There's not really anything to discuss. That was the same calculation the american military leadership did.

 

[Plurralbles]

Someone argued that Russia wanted to invade Japan and the atom bombs got there first because the US had to subdue the nation extremely quickly to avoid the Russians from claiming japan.

A lot of people also believe that there was no reason for the bombs.

 

[Small Waves]

That would be a decent argument if you could prove that without the bombing any of those things would have actually happened. If they were invaded, they wouldn't be wasting their time killing prisoners if they could spend it fighting off the threat at hand. There's no way to determine if Japanese citizens that are strangers to the battlefront would have done anything but hide, retreat, or surrender. It also wouldn't have left a small portion of the country uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout and caused generic defects to the children and children's children to those exposed that will be around for God knows how long. The fact that Japan doesn't hold a tenth as much resentment for America as it should is unbelievable.

The bombing was nothing but a senseless slaughter with no regards for future consequence, and we didn't learn our lesson since we used chemical warfare in future wars that still have an impact on the land and people. There's a damn good reason why nobody uses nuclear weapons. Today, atomic bombs are only good for bluffing, as nobody would be stupid enough to use them.

 

[Calcium]

It's crystal ball logic of what-if's whenever someone argues what would have happened had they not unleashed weapons of mass destruction, irrespective of what side of the argument they are on.

 

[Lord Kloo]

It comes to a discussion I was having the other day with some friends..

US did it for a few reasons:

They didn't want to lose more men
They couldn't uphold the casualties back at home and needed to stop or risk political suicide..
They wanted to show the world who the big boy was..
They needed to stop Russia land grabbing Japan..

But also its lucky they did it almost because otherwise people would never had seen the destructive power and maybe they might have gone ahead in the Cuban Missile Crisis and just launched the nukes not really knowing the consequences..

 

[Shoelip]

It's crystal ball logic of what-if's whenever someone argues what would have happened had they not unleashed weapons of mass destruction, irrespective of what side of the argument they are on.

Thank you. It was horrible that it happened. There's little else about it that's worth discussing.

 

[DEAD34345]

That would be a decent argument if you could prove that without the bombing any of those things would have actually happened. If they were invaded, they wouldn't be wasting their time killing prisoners if they could spend it fighting off the threat at hand. There's no way to determine if Japanese citizens that are strangers to the battlefront would have done anything but hide, retreat, or surrender. It also wouldn't have left a small portion of the country uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout and caused generic defects to the children and children's children to those exposed that will be around for God knows how long. The fact that Japan doesn't hold a tenth as much resentment for America as it should is unbelievable.

The bombing was nothing but a senseless slaughter with no regards for future consequence, and we didn't learn our lesson since we used chemical warfare in future wars that still have an impact on the land and people. There's a damn good reason why nobody uses nuclear weapons. Today, atomic bombs are only good for bluffing, as nobody would be stupid enough to use them.

Actually, America had already drawn up plans for a full on invasion of Japan. The bombings were a last-ditch attempt to force them to surrender, and thankfully they worked. Right or wrong, the bombings DID prevent a full-on invasion of Japan, which America had already made plans to perform and were ready to do so if they still didn't surrender.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

That would be a decent argument if you could prove that without the bombing any of those things would have actually happened. If they were invaded, they wouldn't be wasting their time killing prisoners if they could spend it fighting off the threat at hand. There's no way to determine if Japanese citizens that are strangers to the battlefront would have done anything but hide, retreat, or surrender. It also wouldn't have left a small portion of the country uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout and caused generic defects to the children and children's children to those exposed that will be around for God knows how long. The fact that Japan doesn't hold a tenth as much resentment for America as it should is unbelievable.

The bombing was nothing but a senseless slaughter with no regards for future consequence, and we didn't learn our lesson since we used chemical warfare in future wars that still have an impact on the land and people. There's a damn good reason why nobody uses nuclear weapons. Today, atomic bombs are only good for bluffing, as nobody would be stupid enough to use them.

There is one place in japan that has the right type if coastline for a massive scale invasion, and only one place where it was feasible to deploy paratroopers in any significant numbers, where they were in a position to link up with the beach head or take strategic objectives. The Japs knew this, and any invasion of the mainland would have cost a far greater number of lives than were lost to the bombs.
Also, most pows captured by the japs were not held in japan, and japan had significant forces in both china (roughly 85% of japans forces were deployed in china), indochina and malaya. These were in a position to massacre pows, and i wouldn't put it past them either.
As to your point about the civillians, look at the island of saipan where the civilian population committed suicide en masse rather than be captured by the yanks. The people of the mainland were being given basic training in fighting with wooden sticks etc. We re talking about a highly militarised society with an unshakable faith in their emperor, and would not surrender.
This would lead to bitter street fighting in the cities, guerilla style attacks in the hinterland, and horrific casualties for both sides. There would also have been widespread destruction to all of japan and not just those two areas. War doesn't leave pretty green fields and woods behind it. It would have taken a massive effort to restore japans arable land and would have cost far more than the americans would be willing to give them, leaving much of japan, to all intents and purposes, uninhabitable.
WAs it right? No. Was it necessary? yes.
To paraphrase clausewitz, war should be total.
i don't know what is more total than nukes.

 

[Ladette]

People can come up with "What If's" to support whatever they want. Maybe Japan would have surrendered without the bombs amd before that many people died, then again maybe they wouldn't have the entire country would be wiped out.

From America's perspective it was the lesser of two evils, if forced to choose between killing a bunch of people in your enemies country or sacrificing thousands of your own people it's an easy call. The moral high ground means very little to the soldiers who die.

It did work as one hell of a deterent after the fact though, there's a reason nobody has used nukes since.

 

[LWS666]

the fact is it's not easy to have a reasonable discussion about something that happened 60 years ago in the middle of a world war. it's very hard to get into the mindset of everyone involved and impossible to undo that which cannot be undone.

 

[Pimppeter2]

No, people don't "misinterp" it. They just hold a different opinion.

Like, say, not using the deadliest weapon in history that caused nuclear fallout and generic defects against a nation that had long ago lost it's ability to carry out a full scale offensive war.

See, that's not a misinterpretation, that's just a different viewpoint.

 

[gh0ti]

I think the vast majority of people would agree that nuclear weapons are abhorrent and there are few examples where their use could be considered justifiable. But if ever there was a time and a place, it was Japan during the Second World War.

Remember, hundreds of thousands had already lost their lives, homes and family members due to 'conventional' civilian bombing - on both sides. Both sides also utilised every means at their disposal to make their weapons more deadly, more effective at killing. In such an environment, you can understand why unleashing nuclear weapons would have seemed a legitimate option in 1945.

That's without the practical calculations involved in planning an invasion of mainland Japan.

A more interesting question, for me at least, is:

Would a more contemporary US government make the same judgement call if they were faced with a similar problem? An entrenched enemy that will not surrender, but must be defeated. Would the Bush administration, for example, use nuclear weapons rather than risk the lives of a million American soldiers?

 

[Bloodyrose]

At least one upside to the bombs is that if no bombs no Godzilla lol.

 

[thiosk]

The "fuck america" crowd loves to rewrite history to make the united states the evil monster.

While I accept and support the many justifications for dropping the bombs, there is one fact that does stick out a little bit.

Hiroshima and nagasaki were not bombed prior to the atomic bombing. Nuking tokyo, one would have been hard-pressed to differentiate the damage from the firebombing vs the atomic bombing. By nuking two "fresh" cities, we learned about the practical effects of the weapons, and so did the japanese. This does make those cities in particular live testing labs for atomic weapons. Not a pretty thing to think about.

The war officially ended in days, however, and now Japan is one of the world's most peaceful and economically important states in the world.


Way better than shooting our way through there with an invasion force of millions, raping and pillaging for two years while the public at home tires of the endless death toll for a far flung island.

Would a more contemporary US government make the same judgement call if they were faced with a similar problem? An entrenched enemy that will not surrender, but must be defeated. Would the Bush administration, for example, use nuclear weapons rather than risk the lives of a million American soldiers?

Certainly not with all we've discovered about nuclear weapons now.

Put einstien off by fifty years and introduce them for the first time now, with a proper large-scale conventional war based on the production base of major world powers, then maybe it would be more likely.

Not even bush would have nuked baghdad over a couple thousand troops.

 

[Blind Sight]

Consider this: government polls in 1944 had over 15% of Americans saying that every single Japanese man, woman and child should be killed and the islands themselves should be bombed to glass. So let's just say Plan A (atomic bombs) beat Plan B (full scale invasion) but it was still a hell of a lot better then Plan C.

 

[Donbett1974]

That would be a decent argument if you could prove that without the bombing any of those things would have actually happened. If they were invaded, they wouldn't be wasting their time killing prisoners if they could spend it fighting off the threat at hand. There's no way to determine if Japanese citizens that are strangers to the battlefront would have done anything but hide, retreat, or surrender. It also wouldn't have left a small portion of the country uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout and caused generic defects to the children and children's children to those exposed that will be around for God knows how long. The fact that Japan doesn't hold a tenth as much resentment for America as it should is unbelievable.

The bombing was nothing but a senseless slaughter with no regards for future consequence, and we didn't learn our lesson since we used chemical warfare in future wars that still have an impact on the land and people. There's a damn good reason why nobody uses nuclear weapons. Today, atomic bombs are only good for bluffing, as nobody would be stupid enough to use them.

You may be right that the prisoner might not have been killed. If I'm fighting soldiers on shore I definitely want a million piss off enemy P.o.W.s behind me. And the Japanese civilians thought of the emperor as the living incarnation of their god plus turn on the history channel and you see footage of civilians combat training. If thing went differently chances are there may not be a Japanese people.