Anniversary of the Hiroshima Bombing

[GMantis]

Today being the anniversary of the first usage of Nuclear Weapons, I think it will be interesting to see what people think.
You might want to see this link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson7.html
I think that it wasn't the right think to do and there were several better alternatives

       

[dazzleman]

Today being the anniversary of the first usage of Nuclear Weapons, I think it will be interesting to see what people think.
You might want to see this link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson7.html
I think that it wasn't the right think to do and there were several better alternatives

       

Such as?  Losing 1 million American soldiers?

We even saved Japanese lives by using the atomic bomb, because the Japanese surrendered faster.

It was without a doubt the right decision.

[afleitch]

I am in complete agreement with dazzleman. While it is horrible to think that by killing as many as the allies did at Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually saved millions more lives on both sides, it is pretty accurate. We know, now of course, the Japanes game plan; and it would be bloody, long and relentless to the extent we would have been bogged down in the Pacific until at least 1947.

If that had happened, and US military and economic attention was drawn away from a defeated and ruined Europe, while Soviet attention was focused on Europe, it would have given communism a much needed boost and the Iron Curtain could have been much further west with Germany, France and Italy at a greater risk of communist interference.

[David S]

Remember who started this war and the manner in which they did it. We didn't attack the Japs. They attacked us, and they did it using a sneak attack. Also remember that the Japs were not noted for their humanitarian acts with other countries. "The Rape of Nanking" details some of the barbarous acts they committed against civilians in China.

If in fact they would have surrendered earlier under the same terms that they ultimately did surrender, then Truman should have taken that option. But did that option really exist? Remember these are the same folks who used kamikaze pilots to attack US ships. They seemed to exhibit an attitude that they would not surrender under any circumstances. The bomb changed their mind.

Yes its horrible to think of women and children getting incinerated by the bomb. But if the alternative was to launch an invasion that would have cost the lives of many thousands of US soldiers then it was the right thing to do.

[??????????]

It was without a doubt the right decision.

[Boris]

It wasn't the "right" thing to do, morally, but unfortunately, it was quite necessary.

Unless the Japanese would've surrendered when the Soviet Union declared war on them, but alas, that is all speculation.

[Jake]

Better options?

1. Invade. Estimates of casualties were fairly high. The fall campaign certainly would've cost each side more than 200K casualties.

2. Don't Invade. Let the oncoming famine utterly destroy Japan. Pick up the pieces the next spring, and watch the USSR add Hokkaido and more to their sphere.

There really wasn't any "good" option, just a clearly better one.

[Michael Z]

Morally it was the wrong thing to do, but, from a pragmatic/Realpolitik viewpoint there was little choice, I fear. Had the Americans invaded Japan by land it probably would have come to the Honorable Death Of The Hundred Million in which most Japanese would have committed mass suicide (or at least that was the plan should Japan suffer defeat or the "ignominy" of foreign invasion - it was precisely Japan's fear of being invaded -the way China was by the British- which caused it to turn itself into an agressive militaristic state).

It's very likely that the bombing of Hiroshima avoided further bloodshed; and it has to be said that, in some way, the stubbornbess of the Japanese generals in refusing to make a deal with Truman is just as much to blame. They thought the Americans were bluffing and that Japan could still win the war. They were clearly just as deluded as Hitler was in his last days, moving armies on the map that no longer existed. So in a way I'm divided on this. As Jake said, there wasn't a "good" option, it was a question of choosing the lesser of two evils.

On another note, I wonder whether FDR would have made the same choice as Truman in nuking Hiroshima.

[Flying Dog]

It was without a doubt the right decision.

[dazzleman]

On another note, I wonder whether FDR would have made the same choice as Truman in nuking Hiroshima.

We'll never know.  But it's hard to imagine that Roosevelt wouldn't have made a similar decision when faced with the same facts that Truman was faced with.

Politically, it would have been impossible not to use it.  The American public was in a rabid mood toward the Japanese, and if it was ever discovered,  after we took a million casualties during a conventional invasion of Japan, that we had a superior weapon that could have forced an easier surrender but hadn't been used, the political consequences for the president who made that decision would have been catastrophic.

[nini2287]

I used to say no, but now reading what the war outcome might have been otherwise--yes

[GMantis]

Well, the responses have been utterly predictable. No one (with small exceptions) considers any other option other than bombing or invasion. And there were other options:
- Changing thus policy from unconditional surrender to surrender with the condition that emperor would be permitted to remain and would not be tried. Large parts of the Japanese government were prepared to surrender under these conditions and had actually communicated that to the Americans. Considering that this is what eventually happened, it could have been accepted before 150 thousand people had been killed.
- The Japanese were deadly afraid from communism and would probably have surrendered after the entrance of the Soviet Union into the war to avoid Soviet invasion of the Home islands.
- The bomb could have been demonstrated first - perhaps to representatives of the Japanese government or dropped near Tokyo so that everyone could see its power. If this wasn't enough, it could at least be thrown on a military target.
- Most military advisors of Truman actually believed that Japan would surrender soon anyway: their sea shipping vital for the economy had been practically destroyed at this point and the railways were also being destroyed.
It seems to me that if all those options are considered, the atomic booming was not done for a quick end of the war but for other reasons.
The disheartening response of this forum seems to indicate that the Hiroshima myth described by gar Alperovits has been very successful.

[Colin]

- Changing thus policy from unconditional surrender to surrender with the condition that emperor would be permitted to remain and would not be tried. Large parts of the Japanese government were prepared to surrender under these conditions and had actually communicated that to the Americans. Considering that this is what eventually happened, it could have been accepted before 150 thousand people had been killed.

Huh? That is what we gave them. Hirohito remained in power until 1989. The only thing he gave up was his status as a God or as a descendent of a God.

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Possible but probably would not have happened until a Soviet invasion of the Home Islands had taken place with the possibility that Japan might have been split up like Korea.

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The Japanese would have known about its power they and their German allies also had nuclear weapons programs and they knew in theory how devastating these were. Also, unknown to most Westerners, the Japanese had the most advanced stockpile of biological weapons in the world, the problem was that they just didn't use them. It was possible that if we didn't drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki then America may have gotten bombed with biological agents by the Japanese probably using airplanes launched from submarines. The Japanese were close to using this in 1945 but the Navy wanted to keep these submarines in reserve for the upcoming defence of the Home Islands from attack.

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I have not seen one piece of evidence for this. If they truely thought that than why did they plan and begin preparing for Operation Downfall and its first landing Operation Olympic? Why would an invasion of the Home Islands be necessary if the Japanese were about to surrender? The problem was the Japanese would not surrender and their leaders and Hirohito had made that clear. Most have stated that we would have to take every piece of ground in an intense ground war in order to finally subdue and achieve a surrender from the Japanese. They weren't planning to surrender anytime soon.

Look at the relative positions of Germany and Japan when they surrendered. When Germany surrendered her entire land mass had been taken over by the Soviets, British, and Americans leaving only small amounts of resistance left. In August 1945 the Japanese still held Manchuria, Korea, the Home Islands, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Basically their entire land mass in about 1934 was still part of the Empire. It was in a much more stable and dangerous state when it surrendered than the German were when they surrendered.

[Wakie]

War is always ugly and should be avoided.  However, the use of the Atomic bomb on Nagasaki was absolutely necessary.  Even after its use the Japanese still hesitated in their surrender.  Some of their military leaders tried to stage a coup to prevent a surrender.  I would be willing to accept an argument that we could have waited a little longer before the Hiroshima bombing, but ultimately it was probably necessary.

[MODU]

Yes.

[NewFederalist]

Well, the responses have been utterly predictable.

Perhaps if we had used one or two on the Soviet Union your nation could have been spared 50 years of domination and repression.

[Jake]

Well, the responses have been utterly predictable. No one (with small exceptions) considers any other option other than bombing or invasion. And there were other options:

I outlined the choices. Let Japan rot from famine through the fall and winter, invade to force a settlement (with the accompaning problems that brings), or demonstrate the bomb. Sure, the US could've devestated some rural area or dropped it off the Tokyo coast, but we can never be sure that would've forced Japan to capitulate.

[nini2287]

Well, the responses have been utterly predictable. No one (with small exceptions) considers any other option other than bombing or invasion. And there were other options:

I outlined the choices. Let Japan rot from famine through the fall and winter, invade to force a settlement (with the accompaning problems that brings), or demonstrate the bomb. Sure, the US could've devestated some rural area or dropped it off the Tokyo coast, but we can never be sure that would've forced Japan to capitulate.

I thought you would have favored more bombings.

[AuH2O]

The problem is that you cannot really answer the question without looking at the conflict in a much broader context. Trying to answer this question alone is like equipping a rocket with only it's third stage... the necessary preconditions for a proper response are simply absent.

For example, killing is immoral under normal circumstances. This is often amended greatly in war-- 'war' being the context in which the killing occured. So moral determinations are usually context-driven.

Much of the "blame" for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such as it is, lies many years earlier when poor decisions began an inevitable series of events leading to WW2. The true immorality lies with those people that made the war, rather than those who fought in it or decided how to fight it.

[Jake]

I thought you would have favored more bombings.

No! Even using the second one was waisting a bomb that should've be detonated over Zhukov's HQ.

[Serenity Now]

Such as?  Losing 1 million American soldiers?

The figure of 1 million wasn't backed by anything, it was practically pulled out of the air, there wasn't one consistent estimate shared among US officials, still it would of course have been a lot..

However it was known that Japan were in a state of near surrender, just not unconditional surrender: US intelligence had been cracked messages of the Japanese instructing their ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the allies, month before the bombing foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired him saying "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace.."

In terms of conditions, keeping the emperor in place was suffice, they could've granted them that, let them have them if they want, who cares..

I think the US government were more preoccupied that the USSR were due to declare war on Japan of August 8th, creating the risk that the Japanese would surrender to the latter rather than the former, giving the Soviets occupier status of Japan. (Which of course would have been terrible).

Still, I don't see why the US government didn't at least tell the Japanese of their new offensive capability, then maybe dropping the bomb to prove they were not bluffing would have been more justified, with the other options clearly exhausted..

I'm also concerned by the fact that rather than bombing a more strategic location they went for a town that was pretty well preserved and not altered by conventional bombing in the way Tokyo was.

At best it was an extreme (possibly to much so) measure to stop the advance of Stalin's USSR, at worst it was a sick form of nuclear test that was the only one to show that the bomb "worked".

Then again, making judgements on the righteousness of historical events is pointless, I wouldn't change any of history, for it would be impossible to tell how things would be different as a result..