I know some arguments against using the atomic bomb like it would save millions of American lives but look how many Japanese got killed. I think it wasn't necessary.
Was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan necessary?
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 Yoma20 |
Was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan necessary? |
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Posts: 3 (12/19/03 15:15:37) |
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Dave AAA |
Re: Was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan necessary? | ||
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Posts: 315 (12/19/03 17:40:36) |
You would prefer that millions of Americans die rather than about a hundred thousand Japanese? That doesn't make much sense.
Actually, American casualties would have been high, but not over a million, if I recall correctly. The lives saved by ending the war this way were Japanese. Japan was not going to surrender anytime soon, if at all. The Army and Navy were determined to fight to the death, and they would have armed millions of civilians. with spears if nothing else, to fight Allied tanks. Considering the massive civilian casualties at Saipan and Okinawa, it can safely be expected that tens of millions of Japanese would have died during an invasion. As well, for every month longer the war lasted, an estimated three hundred thousand pople would die from the blockade and from Japanese atrocities still continuing in China, KLorea, and Southeast Asia. |
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USAFcop |
Re: Was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan necessary? | ||
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Posts: 136 (12/20/03 09:04:34) |
No it wasnt necessary militarily. America had the conventional forces available and Japan was prepared to surrender anyway. But what if they werent going to surrender? How many lives would have been lost invadeing Japan, on both sides? But most of all American ?
The revisionists now like to portray Japan, in Aug. '45, as a country that was positively going to surrender even without invasion and/or the A-bomb being used. Its true there were powerful voices, in Japan, working behind the scenes trying to arrange a surrender. But how do we know for sure Japan would have agreed to a unconditional surrender? We dont! To the Japanese the Emperor is the equivalant of Jesus Christ to christians. A unconditional surrender would have meant allowing their Emperor to be arrested,tried, and sentenced as a war criminal. Would the Japs have allowed the Son of Heaven to be shamed and hung in the gallows without a fight to the death on their shores? I dont think so! Of course it didnt work out that way. A certain genius, by the name of MacArthur, figured out that when one war was over the next was just starting. The cold war against the commies. He decided the eastern front for that war should be on the Japanese shoreline rather then Californias. He allowed the Emperor to keep his title, sheilded him from war crime prosecution, and thus got the Emperor to pass his Constitution, turning Japan into a democracy. The rest is history and the first cold warrior was D. MacArthur. Politicaly the A-bomb attacks were necessary. A powerful and triumphant Soviet military was a threat to all of Europe and the Far East as well as the free world. Americas arsenal of A-weapons held them in check for the first few critical years after the war. They were always afraid of Americas Nuclear Triad and eventually the Soviets attempt to match America in special weapons, and other military systems, bankrupted them. The bombs that incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki didnt just end WWII, they were also the opening shots of the Cold War. Thankfully they were the only nuclear releases in that war. Im sorry it had to happen, Im sorry all those people died. But who attacked who first ? And imagine if the same tribe that brought you the rape of Nanking developed A-bombs first? As terrible as they were they were not the most destructive attacks on citys in the war. Dresden and Tokyo were worse, useing incendiary bombs. Truman was correct to use those weapons. I dont think the Japs would have surrendered un-conditionaly without it. |
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 Jefffar |
Re: Was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan necessary? | ||
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Posts: 78 (12/20/03 11:35:52) |
But what we know now can't be used to make decisions then.
Did the American leadership know the Japanese were ready to surrender? If they did, would they be worried that it might be a trick? The Japanese had attempted to use deception earlier in the war, including the Pearl Harbour attack. Were they worried about about the USSR possibly occupying large sections of China, Korea and Japan if a protracted war occured? Today, looking back, we have access to information that the leaders at the time might not have. In judging their decisions, we must look at what they knew, not we we know. |
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WAGNER57 |
Re: Was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan necessary? | ||
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Posts: 14 (12/30/03 23:06:31) |
Not necessary but desirable. It shortened the war by permitting the Japanese leadership a face saving excuse for surrender. Without the bomb the ultimate outcome of the war would have been the same but with many more victims including Japanese and Allied troops and especially Japanese civilians.
I believe the shock of the effectiveness of these puny, by modern standards, nuclear weapons has contributed greatly to the reluctance since of any nation to engage in nuclear warfare. I believe it was inevitable that eventually there would be a live fire demonstration of nuclear weaponry. If it had not been Japan it would have been elsewhere at a later time. It was better to have happened at a time and place where more people were inevitably doomed to die in any circumstances and where there was at least a reasonable claim of justification. |
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SGM Maciborski |
Re: Was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan necessary? | ||
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Posts: 158 (12/31/03 20:54:00) |
I agree with W. If the US had invaded Japan. The "civilian" death toll would have been in the millions. Sure a 100,000 dead looks bad. When faced with the 25,000,000 already dead in the war, it is only a small cost. Reap what you sow.
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nigelfe |
Re: Was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan necessary? | ||
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Posts: 27 (01/03/04 03:53:44) |
The reality of whether or not the Japanese were ready/getting ready to be ready to surrender is probably somewhat speculative. No doubt there were some in Japan who decided enough was enough and they should seek a deal (despite the allied position of 'unconditional surrender'), although contemporaneous evidence is not exactly thick on the ground and the evidence that they were representative and/or influential is at best sparse. No doubt after the actual surrender there were those with a desire to convince the victors otherwise.
The reality is that the Japanese had planned to fight on, despite an invasion of Japan and the captured materiel in Japan gave a reasonable indication of the form this might take. Interestingly even when the Emperor had ordered surrender there was serious discussion in Southern Army HQ (Saigon, which commanded all ground and air forces in SE Asia plus the fleet in SW Pacific waters) as to whether or not they should surrender, it was not an immediately unanimous decision and they had planned and trained to revert to guerilla warfare. The reality is that a couple of A bombs killed a relatively small number (in the context of the total war - probably about the same number as the Japanese butchered in Nanking) of Japanese, saved rather more allied lives and a lot more Japanese lives. And not just in Japan, don't forget fighting across SE Asia and into southern China. |
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sonder |
A-Bomb? | ||
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Posts: 247 (01/05/04 21:17:09) |
Good Evening Guys I saw a bumper sticker a few days ago. that hits the nail on the head. Quote; IF THERE WERE NO PEARL HARBOR, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO HEROSHIMA!!!! Just thought I would throw that out and see what happens. sonder |
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Gohbhined |
Re: A-Bomb? | ||
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Posts: 55 (01/06/04 13:56:37) |
Well, hindsight is...well as they say. Nobody, and I mean nobody in the Unitied States knew what the Japanese were going to do, contrary to all reports. There was every indication that they would fight to the death for every scrap of land, as they had done on virtually every island battle leading upto Aug, 1945. There was no indication otherwise. The use of the A bomb forced Tojo and his militarists from power and not only saved thousands of Allied troops from death, but, tens of millions of Japanese civillians from certain death.
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Constantine |
Re: Hiroshima & Nukes... | ||
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Posts: 3 (03/01/04 20:43:10) |
Wow. Not that this' a new type of thread on the net, but here goes.
I recently saw the tv movie "Hiroshima". As a part of the movie, they have actual interviews from both Americans & Japanese. One of the interviewed was a Japanese woman, a young girl/civilian at the time of the war. She talked about how they'd been trained to fight the inavders using spears, swords etc. During her segment they also showed B&W footage, probably from Japanese propaganda reels shot in the latter days of the war. It showed girls practicing this sort of thing. Constantine |
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jade rat |
Re: Was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan necessary? | ||
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Posts: 10 (01/06/08 09:25:04) |
Operation downfall, the planned invasion of Japan that would have happend if the two atom bombs failed to force a Japanes surunder.
Operation Olympus was estimated to cause 456,000 allied casuties in the first 90 days. If coronet met with just as much resistance (as was expected) allied casuties where expected to be double, including 267,000 killed out of the total casuties taken. That's purely land based allied casuties. Sea based casuties, caused mainly by Kamikazes, and transfer German V2 rockets, sent from Germany to Japan and new Japanese jet technology also given from the Germans. Where thought to be 5,000 in the first 30 days. 5,000 may not seem like a lot, but when you consider the percentage of ships lost for every man lost in prior battles, would be several CVs, BBs and other smaller ships. That's what Nimitz thought when he was asked about his thoughts about the 2 part operation downfall. It was also believed that it would take 10 years of occupation for the main fighting to end, and another 30 years to pacify the Japanes people. Another thing we must look at is the Japanese culture. Japanes people followed Bushido, and believed that the Emperor was a god, and that dying for him was the greatest honor they could have. Not to mention the years of propaganda, the people heard for years that the allies would kill children, rape women, destroy pillage and the sort. This is why when Japan surrendered, the high class prostitutes where transported near US troop bases to "save the virtuous young women of the empire" from what they assumed would happen. This of course is groundless, but at the time Japanes thought it was fact, same as Americans thought Japanes would not make good pilots as there slanted eyes would offer them little visibility. We saw a lot of ignorance and groundless assumptions in WW2, but this must be taken into consideration when the allies predicted a fanatic hostile population. It was estamited that Allied casuties would run into the millions, and the Japanes tens of millions before the fighting finally stopped. The allies even had plans for a 3rd nuclear bomb strike on mount Fuji to demoralize the Japanes fighting spirit, and a bat firebombing of Tokyo, with hundreds of thousands- if not a million bats, each with a thermite grenade tied to it, to take up refuge in the buildings of To key (witch was a wood city at the time) witch would have caused more deaths than the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki. |
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