Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Was it Necessary ? (1 Viewer)

[Fenton]

Personally I agree with Truman's justification for bombing Japan.

The liabillity for the potential of millions of causulties that would have ensued by invading a Country who literally thought their emperor was a god was justification enough for the bombing but Japans assault on America and it's many war crimes needed to be answered for.

Its a benefit also of having a President that used to be a soldier.It was a war fought by soldiers and conducted by an administration with a military background.

I think it saved lives , both American and Japanese and ended a extremely bloody war.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

I have heard all my life how we had to bomb Japan in order to save all the lives we would have lost invading. I say BS! We had air superiority and could have bombed military bases and any government or military target whenever we wanted as long as we wanted. No invasion was necessary. We could have blockaded the island country and starved them into submission. I don't mean starve as in food either, Japan has virtually no natural resources and with no raw materials coming in and us bombing targets at will they would not have lasted a year.
EDIT: Not to mention the fact we would not have killed tens of thousands of innocent women and children.

 

[Fletch]

Necessary? Who knows? And who cares? They had it coming. And we gave it to them. And look how good it worked. They have behaved themselves ever since.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

Necessary? Who knows? And who cares? They had it coming. And we gave it to them. And look how good it worked. They have behaved themselves ever since.

Thousands of baby's and children had it coming huh. Have you ever seen dead babies bodies bloated in the sun covered with flies? Ever smelled that smell? If not you should really STFU with your macho talk, if so, seek therapy.

 

[Medusa]

Necessary? Who knows? And who cares? They had it coming. And we gave it to them. And look how good it worked. They have behaved themselves ever since.

maybe iranians think this way......who knows......

 

[Davo The Mavo]

Different time . . . different world . . . different paradigm for all. Had I been Truman . . . Nagasaki would have happened. As I said earlier tonight . . . hindsight is a perfect science. We would have never bombed them into submission. A Ground invasion would have had to happen . . . how many Americans would have died? I know the estimates . . . and Nagasaki was worth it. Time and place.

 

[wolfman24]

For many years I was against what Truman did. Today I am not so sure. I don't think the second one was necessary but thats just me. We could have continued to bomb them to the stone age after the first and perhaps eventually the people or the Emperor would have cried enough.

I would not have invaded though. Why attack with a knife at close range when you can use a bow and arrow from far off.

 

[hfd]

Stuff happens when you bomb Pearl Harbor. 12/7/1941. Remarkable generation.

 

[Tonawanda]

Today is the day we need to honor and remember our Americans lost in the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The base was attacked by 353[13] Japanese fighters, bombers and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers.[13] All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four being sunk. Of these eight damaged, two were raised, and with four repaired, six battleships returned to service later in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship,[nb 4] and one minelayer. 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,402 Americans were killed[15] and 1,282 wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 65 servicemen killed or wounded. One Japanese sailor was captured.


We should also remember the catastrophic effects of the bombs that ended the war.


Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. The Hiroshima prefecture health department estimated that, of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In a US estimate of the total immediate and short term cause of death, 15–20% died from radiation sickness, 20–30% from burns, and 50–60% from other injuries, compounded by illness. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizeable garrison.


I do agree that the bombings were justified as a necessary evil to end the war.


Attack on Pearl Harbor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[rathi]

Its a very grey area, I'd say the first nuclear attack was definitely reasonable, the second not so much. In any case, the firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden and Hamburg killed far more civilians and lack the same kind of war-ending justification. Lemay and Harris would have been on trial at Nuremberg if the standards for war crimes were applied equally.

 

[DashingAmerican]

Yes, it was necessary, it reduced the war effort to virtually one front and, if I'm not mistaken, the Japanese had been asked to surrender before the first bomb dropped and they refused and they were asked again before the second one and yet, they still refused.

 

[Goshin]

It was a terrible thing, but it served certain purposes.

1. It got Japan to surrender without a ground invasion.

2. It demonstrated to the USSR what we could do, and probably kept them from pushing even more aggressively in the decade post-war than they might have.

3. It demonstrated to everyone how terrible nuclear weapons really are, and how much we should work to try to avoid having them used in the future.

Before anyone waxes too maudlin about the suffering of the Japanese, remember the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, and their general treatment of captives and subjugated peoples in that era.

 

[hfd]

Its a very grey area, I'd say the first nuclear attack was definitely reasonable, the second not so much. In any case, the firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden and Hamburg killed far more civilians and lack the same kind of war-ending justification. Lemay and Harris would have been on trial at Nuremberg if the standards for war crimes were applied equally.

They won.

 

[Peter Grimm]

I would frame the question as follows: As a result of dropping the bomb, did the world endure greater human suffering than it would have otherwise?

Suffering, in this case, refers to deaths and injury, but also lack of shelter, food, and economic viability.

The answer is that we don't know for sure. Like many big decisions, this one was made with uncertain outcomes in mind. For that, it is difficult to fault Truman for the decision he did make.

I can say this - had the war continued for another year, or perhaps longer, then wartime conditions would have prolonged in both countries. History shows that wartime conditions often involve starvation, rape, murder, theft, and lawlessness. These things can scar a nation for multiple generations.

Against a motivated opponent, often the only path to quick resolution is to display vast superiority in strength. Otherwise, a stalemate ensues. In the case of war, a stalemate can be the most damaging option, in terms of human cost.

Personally I agree with Truman's justification for bombing Japan.

The liabillity for the potential of millions of causulties that would have ensued by invading a Country who literally thought their emperor was a god was justification enough for the bombing but Japans assault on America and it's many war crimes needed to be answered for.

Its a benefit also of having a President that used to be a soldier.It was a war fought by soldiers and conducted by an administration with a military background.

I think it saved lives , both American and Japanese and ended a extremely bloody war.

 

[ThirdTerm]

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have been avoided if the Japanese leadership had shown more flexibility to surrender but the emperor was too preoccupied with preserving his status as a living god and he refused to succumb to American demands until the second atomic bomb was dropped and it saved millions of lives which could have been sacrificed to defend the Japanese mainland. Emperor Hirohito was rehabilitated in the post-war era and it's hard to imagine from his Gandhi-like image but he was the "decider" in the entire course of the conflict from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and he always agreed with the fascist faction of the army but his apologists claimed that he was mentally too weak to understand what was going on around him and he was misled by his evil advisers to perpetuate a myth that he was a pacifist who only wanted peace and non-violence.

 

[winston53660]

Before anyone waxes too maudlin about the suffering of the Japanese, remember the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, and their general treatment of captives and subjugated peoples in that era.

I can't do the equivalence thing. It was a god awful thing to do and sometimes we have to do god awful things.

 

[ecofarm]

I can't do the equivalence thing. It was a god awful thing to do and sometimes we have to do god awful things.

I didn't think of it as an equivalence thing, but as understanding the enemy. They were not going to surrender easily.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

As per usual I find myself in the minority in here.:lol: People like to think there were two options and two options only, nuke em or invade. There was a third option that I outlined in my first post on this subject but it fell on deaf ears or in this case blind eyes. I believe we nuked Japan for two reasons. One, we spent lots of time and money on this new weapon and were itching to use it. Two, we wanted to show the rest of the world, mainly Russia, what we had and what we could do with it.

 

[jamesrage]

Personally I agree with Truman's justification for bombing Japan.

The liabillity for the potential of millions of causulties that would have ensued by invading a Country who literally thought their emperor was a god was justification enough for the bombing but Japans assault on America and it's many war crimes needed to be answered for.

Its a benefit also of having a President that used to be a soldier.It was a war fought by soldiers and conducted by an administration with a military background.

I think it saved lives , both American and Japanese and ended a extremely bloody war.

I believe it was necessary. It saved lots of American lives and that is what counts. When it comes to protecting the lives of our troops and the protecting the lives of enemy civilians, protecting the lives of our troops should always come first.

 

[jamesrage]

As per usual I find myself in the minority in here.:lol: People like to think there were two options and two options only, nuke em or invade. There was a third option that I outlined in my first post on this subject but it fell on deaf ears or in this case blind eyes. I believe we nuked Japan for two reasons. One, we spent lots of time and money on this new weapon and were itching to use it. Two, we wanted to show the rest of the world, mainly Russia, what we had and what we could do with it.

Wouldn't Japanese just attack the blockade thus endangering the lives of those involved in the blockade? They were at the time not above doing kamakazis.

 

[Flagman]

The firebomb attacks onTokyo were more damaging than the nukes. Their is a feeling tha you can do things to survive conventional bombing i.e. shelters etc. When 2 cities are vaporized the feling you might survive is gone. In fact it is my belief that because the Emporer could be vaporiized they surrenrered. Their whole commitment to the Emporer was he was a supreme being and if he was vaporized it would have caused such a blow to the whole society, who knows if they would have all commited Hari Kari (besides that the emrorer himself wanted to live)

 

[CalGun]

And I suppose your expert opinion would have killed fewer Japanese people and fewer American service men? Seriously? You wanted to surround them for a year and wait for them to capitulate and don't think masses would have starved, hundreds if not thousands of Americans' would have died imposing your game plan - you don't know - I do know this. They were preparing to invade - right or wrong - they were preparing for it. My dad survived the invasion at Okinawa barely; I doubt I'd be here today if he'd have been part of a Japanese invasion. I am thankful they dropped em.

Thousands of baby's and children had it coming huh. Have you ever seen dead babies bodies bloated in the sun covered with flies? Ever smelled that smell? If not you should really STFU with your macho talk, if so, seek therapy.

 

[Dooble]

I have heard all my life how we had to bomb Japan in order to save all the lives we would have lost invading. I say BS! We had air superiority and could have bombed military bases and any government or military target whenever we wanted as long as we wanted. No invasion was necessary. We could have blockaded the island country and starved them into submission. I don't mean starve as in food either, Japan has virtually no natural resources and with no raw materials coming in and us bombing targets at will they would not have lasted a year.
EDIT: Not to mention the fact we would not have killed tens of thousands of innocent women and children.

Who said we had air superiority? My understanding is that we had to scramble to get up to speed with Germany and Japan, and were we even capable of laying down massive blockades like you speak of?

 

[mac]

I have heard all my life how we had to bomb Japan in order to save all the lives we would have lost invading. I say BS! We had air superiority and could have bombed military bases and any government or military target whenever we wanted as long as we wanted. No invasion was necessary. We could have blockaded the island country and starved them into submission. I don't mean starve as in food either, Japan has virtually no natural resources and with no raw materials coming in and us bombing targets at will they would not have lasted a year.
EDIT: Not to mention the fact we would not have killed tens of thousands of innocent women and children.

We didn't have long range bombers capable of bombing mainland Japan like we do now. Air superiority was far less capable then than what you are thinking. Have you heard of the Doolittle raid?

 

[Fenton]

I have heard all my life how we had to bomb Japan in order to save all the lives we would have lost invading. I say BS! We had air superiority and could have bombed military bases and any government or military target whenever we wanted as long as we wanted. No invasion was necessary. We could have blockaded the island country and starved them into submission. I don't mean starve as in food either, Japan has virtually no natural resources and with no raw materials coming in and us bombing targets at will they would not have lasted a year.
EDIT: Not to mention the fact we would not have killed tens of thousands of innocent women and children.

You have the luxury of not experiencing that war or the absolute hatred that American service men shared for their Japanese counterpart. You have the luxury of not being witness to or a victim of their horrible war crimes on American POW's and Chinese citizens.

Look into the Nanjing Massacre and the proven reports of the Japanese doing surgery on live and awake Chinese hostages without anesthesia, female hostages and not too heal them, until they died of shock or bled out.

They also committed atrocities in Korea the Philippines and Malaysia.

So your hind sight is lacking any notable perception of the American sentiment and the sentiment of Japan's neighbors as they ran rough shod over their neighbors visiting upon them mass suffering and death.

I don't think anyone at the time gave their defeat by way of 20,000 tons of TNT on two cities very much thought. It was a barbaric imperial government that wouldn't surrender and waiting meant possibly more American dying or more war crimes on their surrounding neighbors.

Had Truman waited and one more American died because of it, it would have been for no reason because we had the means to force their surrender.

So pardon me if I cry crocodile tears for Japanese babies and women. Japanese baby boys grew up in the 1920's 1930's to be Japanese soldiers intent on killing Americans.

I also don't have a problem with Hamburg or Dresden or Tokyo either.

Arm chairing Truman's decision 60 years later without true context seems a little intellectually lazy to me.