Dropping the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was

  • The ultimate crime against humanity

    Votes: 12 30.8%
  • A serious war crime because US had other options

    Votes: 10 25.6%
  • An unethical act of war although US needed to check USSR

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • An inferior choice although US had few other options

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Justified because it saved many US & Japanese lives

    Votes: 8 20.5%
  • Entirely justified because Japan would not surrender without it

    Votes: 9 23.1%

  • Total voters
    39
The dropping of the bombs continue to be a hell of a thorny issue to this day, especially since it inadvertantly led to nearly fifty years of terrifying fear of Mutually Assured Destruction afterward, thanks to the Cold War. While 150,000 lives were lost, and that can never be forgotten, the death toll could've been many times higher if Allied forces had invaded the home islands while the Japanese Army was intent on fighting to the death. Such a battle might've made Okinawa look like a back alley brawl by comparison. Even though I'm retired military (Navy), I wish the bombs hadn't been dropped. While I don't excuse the decision to have done so, I can understand the terrible rationale.
 
What did you feel about the lady, mad pierrot?

Depressed. Really, really depressed. She was practically in ground zero, actually, and only barely survived. (She was rescued by her mother from under a pile of rubble.) Her neck had melted into her shoulder, and her fingers were stuck together. She's had surgery over 8 times, I think, to repair the physical damage, she's part blind, also deaf in one ear, and has malignant cancer. She spoke in Japanese (there was a translator) and I was just starting to learn Japanese when I went to see her, but I understood some. I'll never forget when she said "Jigoku mita." ("I saw hell.") She went on to describe bodies clogging the rivers, people with their guts falling out, etc. (She also said she can't eat sausage anymore after seeing what she saw.) All in all, I felt like sh*t for days after hearing her talk. On the other hand, it was inspiring to hear her say she doesn't hate America or hold anything against the US for dropping the bomb.
 
sabro said:
Japan had already been given ultimatums and had refused to surrender in spite of hundreds of thousands of civillian deaths. The potsdam declaration, leaflet drops and radio broadcasts calling for surrender were all ignored-- and dozens of Japanese cities were firebombed- killing far more civillians than the atomic bomb. If burning Tokyo to the ground didn't work, then why would bombing some deserted island work?


This is arse. Japan was already seeking to surrender when the first was dropped, and the second was dropped out of scientific curiosity. Both were not needed. Japan already knew the war was lost at this point. As for the fire bombing of Tokyo, that was another horrific act by the Americans at the time. But it was also a lot earlier in the war, when there was still a chance of, if not victory, of a favourable peace treaty.

To say the massacre of hundreads of thousands of civillians was in any way justified is horrific.
 
I also hear that Japan had already tried to surrender before the first bomb was dropped, and the second was dropped out of scientific curiousity. That and the fire bombing of Tokyo were horrendous things to do. There is no justification for it. Japan was finished, even if it wouldn't surrender, it had lost the means to fight in any meaningful way.
 
bossel said:
I don't think carpet bombing of cities helped the war effort very much. For what I know, it may have even strengthened morale of the population. Industrial production didn't really suffer that much, either. In the 2nd half of 1944 German production of war related materials was higher than ever.

Indiscriminate carpet bombing was not really effective. Selective bombing of eg. railroads & oil refineries was much more efficient.

In fact, it did. In Europe, an RAF squadron accidentally droped thier bombs on a civillian city after becoming lost. This led to the Germans bombing civillians in England as retaliation. The fact that many more bombing raids attacked citys rather than military targets actually helped the industrial/millitary infrastructure survive. Without this, Britain would have been defeated.
 
NagoyaIan said:
I also hear that Japan had already tried to surrender before the first bomb was dropped, and the second was dropped out of scientific curiousity. That and the fire bombing of Tokyo were horrendous things to do. There is no justification for it. Japan was finished, even if it wouldn't surrender, it had lost the means to fight in any meaningful way.

I will check sources, but I don't know of any serious surrender discussions before the 1st bomb. In Hirohito's writings he tells of being in his garden when a US bomber dropped leaflets warning that Tokyo was going to be bombed the next day. He new then that the war was lost, but it was more than a month before Hiroshima. According to my sources it wasn't until the second bomb that the Emperor offered "unconditional" surrender.

Ending the war ASAP: There is a justification for the bombings of all of Japan's major cities (it may not be a great one, but it is a justification). And if Japan was finished militarily, but they still were killing allied soldiers and civillians daily. Entire suicide units were being organized to use planes, boats, subs, and any other means possible to kill the invading Americans. A plan to launch bombers from three large submarines to attack the Panama canal was in the works. The killing continued.

I don't mean to minimize the suffering of the nation, but Japan continued to fight on well after any hope of winning was gone. Japan could have avoided the whole thing by not starting the war. They could have surrendered in 1943, or 1944, or earlier in 1945. It may have been meaningless, but Japan still had millions of soldiers, and still presented a significant threat. If Japan had not surrendered when it did, the US bombing campaign would have been stepped up, and the shelling of coastal areas by battleships would have began. Millions of Japanese soldiers and civillans stranded around the Pacific by the destruction of the Imperial Navy were starving.

I'm certain that scientific curiosity played a role- why else did we choose previously untouched cities? Racism also played a role. I think in the Pacific we saw the Japanese people- the entire race- as the enemy unlike with Germany and Italy where it was Hitler, the Nazi's, and Mussolini that were the personification of the enemy. Checking the Soviet expansion was probably another reason.

In 1945, my father was in Italy waiting to be redeployed for the invasion of Japan. My uncle was in the Pacific clearing caves and bunkers as an engineer. Three of my other uncles were in Japanese language school waiting to be deployed as interpreters. I doubt that all of them would have survived an invasion of Japan.
 
Help me out. I need a source on Japan seeking to surrender before the first A-bomb.

What Bossel said about the ineffectiveness of the strategic bombing campaign in Germany is pretty persuasive.

The firebombing of Tokyo and most of the rest of Japan began six months before Hiroshima.

I will never say that bombing civillians is good, nor will I try to say that it was not horrific. I think it is too easy to place our comfortable modern perspectives on the decision to drop the bomb, and forget the terrible context in which horrific things seemed justified.
 
This article is pretty good:
The Great Tokyo Air Raid - An Enormous War Crime
By Hiroaki Sato, JapanTimes.co.jp 10-1-2
http://www.rense.com/general29/asdi.htm

"...one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of noncombatants in all history."
Gen. Curtis LeMay, the man responsible for the bombing campaign.

He also said "I am glad that we won the war...if we had not, I should be tried as a war criminal."
 
sabro said:
I will check sources, but I don't know of any serious surrender discussions before the 1st bomb. In Hirohito's writings he tells of being in his garden when a US bomber dropped leaflets warning that Tokyo was going to be bombed the next day. He new then that the war was lost, but it was more than a month before Hiroshima. According to my sources it wasn't until the second bomb that the Emperor offered "unconditional" surrender.

.

Unnconditional surrender, maybe. But that dosn't mean that they wern't trying to surrender on slightly more favorable terms before that.

Ending the war ASAP: There is a justification for the bombings of all of Japan's major cities (it may not be a great one, but it is a justification). And if Japan was finished militarily, but they still were killing allied soldiers and civillians daily. Entire suicide units were being organized to use planes, boats, subs, and any other means possible to kill the invading Americans. A plan to launch bombers from three large submarines to attack the Panama canal was in the works. The killing continued.

Which justifies wiping out two cities? I notice that you only mention invading Americans, I take it you have forgotten about the British, Australian and Kiwi troops? And all the other nationalities involved?


I don't mean to minimize the suffering of the nation, but Japan continued to fight on well after any hope of winning was gone. Japan could have avoided the whole thing by not starting the war. They could have surrendered in 1943, or 1944, or earlier in 1945. It may have been meaningless, but Japan still had millions of soldiers, and still presented a significant threat. If Japan had not surrendered when it did, the US bombing campaign would have been stepped up, and the shelling of coastal areas by battleships would have began. Millions of Japanese soldiers and civillans stranded around the Pacific by the destruction of the Imperial Navy were starving.

However, the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima didn't start the war or seek to continue it. But they are the ones that suffered.

How can an island nation without a navy be a significant threat to anyone? Given that the Allies had almost complete control of the air.

In 1945, my father was in Italy waiting to be redeployed for the invasion of Japan. My uncle was in the Pacific clearing caves and bunkers as an engineer. Three of my other uncles were in Japanese language school waiting to be deployed as interpreters. I doubt that all of them would have survived an invasion of Japan

Which is justification for nuking 2 cities? My fiancees grandfather faught in the pacific in WW2, and he is from Hiroshima. Her Grandmaother was there the day the bomb was dropped. Luckily enough they live far enough away from the main city for her not be affected (he was away fighting at the time).

War is bad, but why is it justified that one group of people die so that another group don't have to? Would it be worse if your family members or my future family members were killed?

And, strangly enough, Gaijin like me arn't to popular with my fiancees Grandfather. Even though I'm not American.
 
NagoyaIan said:
Unnconditional surrender, maybe. But that dosn't mean that they wern't trying to surrender on slightly more favorable terms before that.



Which justifies wiping out two cities? I notice that you only mention invading Americans, I take it you have forgotten about the British, Australian and Kiwi troops? And all the other nationalities involved?




However, the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima didn't start the war or seek to continue it. But they are the ones that suffered.

How can an island nation without a navy be a significant threat to anyone? Given that the Allies had almost complete control of the air.



Which is justification for nuking 2 cities? My fiancees grandfather faught in the pacific in WW2, and he is from Hiroshima. Her Grandmaother was there the day the bomb was dropped. Luckily enough they live far enough away from the main city for her not be affected (he was away fighting at the time).

War is bad, but why is it justified that one group of people die so that another group don't have to? Would it be worse if your family members or my future family members were killed?

And, strangly enough, Gaijin like me arn't to popular with my fiancees Grandfather. Even though I'm not American.

I appreciate your opinion. Although I disagree, I whole-heartedly embrace the sentiment. I hate the "ends justify the means" rationale. I wish I had something better.

Significantly higher numbers of Japanese would have died had the A-bombs not been dropped. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of Japanese would have died in the next few months of that war. That bomb may have saved both of your fiance's grandparents. But that thought was probably never in Truman's mind.

War is horrible. (Every one should stop. Civilllians should never be targeted) Truman had in his posession a device that could possibly end the war with little risk to any of his own people. To pursuade him to not use it because innocent enemy civillians would die is not entirely realistic. I think we always need to place the event into the proper historical perspective.

Japan, even as an island nation, continued to be a threat even after the destruction of its navy and most of its cities. Although its people were starving, the economy was still geared to produce planes and bombs and bullets. Whatever they could get in the air, on the water, or across land was meant to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy. Japan still had in its control millions of Chinese who were suffering and hundreds of thousands of civillians from other countries as well as POW's. These people were being starved, beaten, overworked and killed. I'm not certain that the US would simply stop at the coast, declare victory and then go home. I'm not sure this is logical. The terms were unconditional.

Although the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not start the war, their government did. This government willing entered into war and was the first to target civillians and to bomb areas indiscriminately. Even as the war turned, this government would not surrender and should bear most (but not all) of the blame for the suffering of their own people.
 
I understand the opposition to the "ends justify the means" theory (I don't necessarily subscribe to it either), but I'm not sure that there was an alternative to dropping the bombs. If there was, I'd like to know about it. From what I've read, Japan did not offer to surrender before the bombs were dropped, and even after the second one was dropped, there were those who wanted to continue fighting so that they could possibly surrender on better terms for Japan. The Japanese government refused the Potsdam Declaration, which would have ended the war, and the dropping of the second bomb is attributed to the lack of a prompt response by the Japanese government.

It has seemed to me for a while now that the situation is analogous to one in the movie Crimson Tide, in which there is a leak in one of the submarine compartments, and the people trying to fix it get stuck in the room as it fills with water. It comes to a point where the decision has to be made to lock them in there and let them drown, or lose the enitre submarine and crew. Yeah, it's cruel and coldhearted, but what would you do? The anology may not hold up completely, but it seems to me to be valid for this discussion.

My source for the historical facts is Kenneth G. Henshall's A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower.
 
Domo Arigato Glenn. I agree with you, and I kinda' get the analogy. However in your anology the decision is harder because you actually want to save the crewmen. They are not your enemy nor are they trying to harm you. If you want to get into the mindset of a war, you have to get into that kill or be killed survival mode. It may also help to convince yourself that your enemy is different, evil, or subhuman.

My friend gave me the analogy of two boxers, one that is out on his feet, but refuses to give up. The ref doesn't stop the fight. Do you hit him again?

About Truman's decision: When a nation's leader is at war shouldn't he consider the lives of his own citizens and soldiers more important than those of his enemy?
 
Well, a lot of that is at odds with what I have read, but I'd be hard pressed to find the sources. And it's quite an emotive issue, one on which it would be hard to change peoples minds. I know it would be almost impossible for someone to change my mindset on this topic. But I will say one thing, and thats that there was a element or racism involved. Basically, the Japanese were seen as less than human, and thus it was acceptable to do things to them that wouldn't have been done to Europeans.
 
I can agree with most of what you say. I have actually changed my mind on this topic twice- once after my HS history teacher had us write position papers on the bombing and then held a "Truman Trial." Although my paper condemned the bombing, I was selected as the chief defense attorney. I was so upset when I won. Through college and teaching history during the last 18 years, I have arrived at what I argued here. (But I hate it. Gandhi would not approve. Jesus would not have dropped the bomb.)

Although I agree that racism played some role, I don't think Truman would have hesitated to incinerate a pair of german cities.

We always have to remind ourselves how horrible it was (like the holocaust or rape of Nanking) and dig into how humans can do these things to each other. It helps keep us from repeating them.
 
I would say that the US atomic bombing of the two cities served two main purposes. 1) a a revenge for what the Japanese did to the Pearl Harbour.
2) a deterrent to the Soviet Union.
 
NagoyaIan said:
In fact, it did. In Europe, an RAF squadron accidentally droped thier bombs on a civillian city after becoming lost. This led to the Germans bombing civillians in England as retaliation. The fact that many more bombing raids attacked citys rather than military targets actually helped the industrial/millitary infrastructure survive. Without this, Britain would have been defeated.
You are right insofar as that the distraction of the German bombers helped the British military. But that only proves the point I made: the Luftwaffe was rather successful only as long as they targeted military objects.

AFAIK, you're wrong about the RAF bombing Berlin accidentally. It was the other way round: the Luftwaffe accidentally bombed the London docks (on Aug. 24,1940), which incensed Churchill so much that he ordered Berlin to be bombed (on Aug. 25). The utter destruction of an arbour in a Berlin suburb in turn incensed Hitler so much that he ordered the bombing of British cities. Which led to the German defeat in the "Battle of Britain."


Hanoi said:
I would say that the US atomic bombing of the two cities served two main purposes. 1) a a revenge for what the Japanese did to the Pearl Harbour.
That may have been one of the purposes, but does that justify it?
 
Hanoi said:
I would say that the US atomic bombing of the two cities served two main purposes. 1) a a revenge for what the Japanese did to the Pearl Harbour.
2) a deterrent to the Soviet Union.


Wiping out two cities of civilians was revenge for dropping conventional bombs on a military target? How do you work that one out?
 

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