Nuke Japan?

[Cardinal]

It's an interesting theory.

I think you have to consider the question, "What prompted the decision to use the first atomic weapons?" Was it existential? No. Japan was beaten. We were in no danger of being being beaten by them, let alone invaded. We used the weapons because we were exhausted by war and just wanted it to be over already. Sure, there were probably peripheral benefits, like sending the message "Don't **** with us" to other nations. But exhaustion from war was the leading cause.

The point is that nuclear weapons are much too tempting. Like it or not, they were going to be used eventually. So as I see it, you can see two tiny atomic bombs used then, or many more megaton-style weapons used later.

I'm more than happy to entertain a plausible alternate scenario.

 

[vegas giants]

The experiment took place @ the Trinity site in New Mexico. The plutonium bomb worked.

[the scientists] had this toy - The Manhattan Project scientists & engineers & staff across the country worked out the physics & materials science & designed the weapons, & built the prototype for the test shot. They never considered it a toy, & the bomb was not in their keeping, nor in their control. The scientists would have preferred a test shot on say - an island near Japan - to demonstrate the weapon, without killing anyone. They were turned down by the military & the Truman administration.

& of course the scientists didn't fly the bombers nor release the bombs. That wasn't their task.

If Imperial Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor & the Philippines & all around the Pacific @ their targets without warning, mistreated, looted, raped; & killed POWs, civilians, & anyone else who got in their way, & had followed the Geneva Conventions on treatment of POWs & civilians, they might have gotten some consideration when it came time to deploy nuclear weapons.

Geneva Conventions (see Page Not Found

"White Flag and Red Cross
"In 1864, representatives of thirteen nations met in Geneva to discuss the plight of people wounded in wartime. On August 22, 1864, they signed the first Geneva Convention, agreeing that those wounded in war, as well as the people and facilities catering to the wounded, would merit non-belligerent status. Further, they agreed that prisoners should be returned to their native countries. The white flag and red cross would serve both hospitals and ambulances as symbols of neutrality.

"Japan's Agreements
"Over the course of the next century, more qualifications and rules were added to the conventions. Standards for the "humane treatment" of POWs were established in 1907 at an International Conference at The Hague, Netherlands. In 1929 the Geneva conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War was signed by 47 governments. Japan signed the 1929 convention but failed to ratify it. However, in 1942, Japan indicated it would follow the Geneva rules and would observe the Hague Convention of 1907 outlining the laws and customs of war.

"Japanese Violations
"That Japanese forces did not strictly follow the Geneva Conventions is hardly a matter of debate. According to Dr. William Skelton III, who produced a document entitled American Ex Prisoners of War for the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs, more POWs died at the hands of the Japanese in the Pacific theater and specifically in the Philippines than in any other conflict to date. In Germany in WWII, POWs died at a rate 1.2%. In the Pacific theater the rate was 37%. In the Philippines, POWs died at a rate of 40%. In total 11,107 American soldiers captured in the Philippines died. Some died in the Philippines. Others were transported and died in places like Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, or the Japanese home islands. Still others were killed in the "Hell Ships" en route to Japan, ships that were bombed by American planes or torpedoed by American ships whose crewmen did not realize their countrymen were in the transport holds."

IJ adopted state terror as a method to deal with POWs & civilians. They treated their own civilians like Go game pieces on a board.

Is your argument....the japanese were really bad so let's nuke a bunch of women and children?



Wow....just wow

 

[Casper]

Nothing horrible about dying instantaneously. I just wish we had had more to drop.

We dropped two. But yes would have taken a little time to make more. Could have just dropped one, the message had already been delivered and the Japanese were already getting ready to surrender when we dropped a second bomb.

 

[bearpoker]

The experiment took place @ the Trinity site in New Mexico. The plutonium bomb worked.

[the scientists] had this toy - The Manhattan Project scientists & engineers & staff across the country worked out the physics & materials science & designed the weapons, & built the prototype for the test shot. They never considered it a toy, & the bomb was not in their keeping, nor in their control. The scientists would have preferred a test shot on say - an island near Japan - to demonstrate the weapon, without killing anyone. They were turned down by the military & the Truman administration.

& of course the scientists didn't fly the bombers nor release the bombs. That wasn't their task.

If Imperial Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor & the Philippines & all around the Pacific @ their targets without warning, mistreated, looted, raped; & killed POWs, civilians, & anyone else who got in their way, & had followed the Geneva Conventions on treatment of POWs & civilians, they might have gotten some consideration when it came time to deploy nuclear weapons.

Geneva Conventions (see Page Not Found

"White Flag and Red Cross
"In 1864, representatives of thirteen nations met in Geneva to discuss the plight of people wounded in wartime. On August 22, 1864, they signed the first Geneva Convention, agreeing that those wounded in war, as well as the people and facilities catering to the wounded, would merit non-belligerent status. Further, they agreed that prisoners should be returned to their native countries. The white flag and red cross would serve both hospitals and ambulances as symbols of neutrality.

"Japan's Agreements
"Over the course of the next century, more qualifications and rules were added to the conventions. Standards for the "humane treatment" of POWs were established in 1907 at an International Conference at The Hague, Netherlands. In 1929 the Geneva conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War was signed by 47 governments. Japan signed the 1929 convention but failed to ratify it. However, in 1942, Japan indicated it would follow the Geneva rules and would observe the Hague Convention of 1907 outlining the laws and customs of war.

"Japanese Violations
"That Japanese forces did not strictly follow the Geneva Conventions is hardly a matter of debate. According to Dr. William Skelton III, who produced a document entitled American Ex Prisoners of War for the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs, more POWs died at the hands of the Japanese in the Pacific theater and specifically in the Philippines than in any other conflict to date. In Germany in WWII, POWs died at a rate 1.2%. In the Pacific theater the rate was 37%. In the Philippines, POWs died at a rate of 40%. In total 11,107 American soldiers captured in the Philippines died. Some died in the Philippines. Others were transported and died in places like Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, or the Japanese home islands. Still others were killed in the "Hell Ships" en route to Japan, ships that were bombed by American planes or torpedoed by American ships whose crewmen did not realize their countrymen were in the transport holds."

IJ adopted state terror as a method to deal with POWs & civilians. They treated their own civilians like Go game pieces on a board.

They were pretty much monsters out of a nightmare in the territories they occupied. It's something they've never come to grips with. They've never acknowledged why the rest of Asia still holds a grudge.

 

[vegas giants]

I think you have to consider the question, "What prompted the decision to use the first atomic weapons?" Was it existential? No. Japan was beaten. We were in no danger of being being beaten by them, let alone invaded. We used the weapons because we were exhausted by war and just wanted it to be over already. Sure, there were probably peripheral benefits, like, like sending the message "Don't **** with us" to other nations. But exhaustion from war was the leading cause.

The point is that nuclear weapons are much too tempting. Like it or not, they were going to be used eventually. So as I see it, you can see two tiny atomic bombs used then, or many more megaton-style weapons used later.

I'm more than happy to entertain a plausible alternate scenario.

I doubt truman was thinking this. Many blame the arms race, the cold war, korea and Vietnam on that decision

 

[vegas giants]

We dropped two. But yes would have taken a little time to make more. Could have just dropped one, the message had already been delivered and the Japanese were already getting ready to surrender when we dropped a second bomb.

We didnt need to drop one.

 

[Casper]

We didnt need to drop one.

Possibly but there were still factions within the Japanese leadership that wanted to continue to fight, the first bomb ended most support for that.

 

[Cardinal]

I doubt truman was thinking this. Many blame the arms race, the cold war, korea and Vietnam on that decision

Truman's farewell speech was almost certainly inspired by his revulsion at the use of atomic weapons.

 

[vegas giants]

Possibly but there were still factions within the Japanese leadership that wanted to continue to fight, the first bomb ended most support for that.

Not according to every 5 star officer at the time except one and a us army study right after the war.


They said no bomb was needed

 

[KevinKohler]

Its impossible to determine a Forrest size from inside that Forrest.

Perspective is everything.

 

[vegas giants]

Truman's farewell speech was almost certainly inspired by his revulsion at the use of atomic weapons.

Because he knew he should not have done it

 

[bearpoker]

I think you have to consider the question, "What prompted the decision to use the first atomic weapons?" Was it existential? No. Japan was beaten. We were in no danger of being being beaten by them, let alone invaded. We used the weapons because we were exhausted by war and just wanted it to be over already. Sure, there were probably peripheral benefits, like, like sending the message "Don't **** with us" to other nations. But exhaustion from war was the leading cause.

The point is that nuclear weapons are much too tempting. Like it or not, they were going to be used eventually. So as I see it, you can see two tiny atomic bombs used then, or many more megaton-style weapons used later.

I'm more than happy to entertain a plausible alternate scenario.

I'm not sure that it's inevitable that the huge megaton bombs would have been developed had we not dropped the ones on Japan.

The US believed, rightly or wrongly, that an invasion would have met bitter resistance from civilians as well as the Japanese military and so cost even more lives on all sides than were lost due to the bombs.

 

[Cardinal]

Because he knew he should not have done it

He was more horrified by the decision to mass produce them...and possibly use them...by a financially-motivated institution outside the constraints and motivations of a tempered decision-making process. He knew that if the mass production and use of weapons was weighed by profit rather than need, there would be war motivated almost exclusively by profit. And largely speaking, he was right.

 

[vegas giants]

In the documentary*The Fog of War, former U.S. Secretary of Defense*Robert S. McNamara*recalls General*Curtis LeMay, who relayed the Presidential order to drop nuclear bombs on Japan,[118]*said:

"If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?[119]

 

[Casper]

Not according to every 5 star officer at the time except one and a us army study right after the war.


They said no bomb was needed

There were a total of six at the time, so which said we should not have dropped the bomb?

 

[vegas giants]

He was more horrified by the decision to mass produce them...and possibly use them...by a financially-motivated institution outside the constraints and motivations of a tempered decision-making process. He knew that if the mass production and use of weapons was weighed by profit rather than need, there would be war motivated almost exclusively by profit. And largely speaking, he was right.

He still never needed to drop them. The war was essentially over.

 

[vegas giants]

There were a total of six at the time, so which said we should not have dropped the bomb?

The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.

— Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet,*[89]

The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons*... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

— Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman, 1950,*[99]

The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.

— Major General*Curtis LeMay,*XXI Bomber Command, September 1945,*[100]

The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment*... It was a mistake to ever drop it*... [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it.*

— Fleet Admiral*William Halsey Jr., 1946,*[100]

I also have quotes from eisenhower and macarthur

 

[Gaius46]

There was a third choice: Naval blockade. The Japanese were defeated. They had no effective Navy or ability to project power. The bomb wasn’t necessary to end the war it was already over.

 

[vegas giants]

There was a third choice: Naval blockade. The Japanese were defeated. They had no effective Navy or ability to project power. The bomb wasn’t necessary to end the war it was already over.

We already had a naval blockade. Japan was effectively cut off from the world

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Possibly but there were still factions within the Japanese leadership that wanted to continue to fight, the first bomb ended most support for that.

Arguably, they would have surrendered before the Russians got to them anyway.

 

[Gaius46]

By the time of the atomic bombing Japan was effectively ruled by the War Council, also known as the Big Six. Following the Postdam Declaration, a division formed between the Big Six, split down the middle.

Prime Minister Zuzuki, Foreign Minister Togo, and Admiral Yonai wanted to sue for peace under the condition that the Emperor would be allowed to reign. They were opposed by General Anami, General Umezu, and Admiral Toyoda, who wanted to continue fighting at least until the the expected American invasion occurred, since they were hopeful that a Japanese victory there or at least heavy casualties would allow Japan to negotiate a better position. Specifically, they wanted to avoid Allied occupation of Japan and allow Japan to try her own war criminals, not before an Allied tribunal.

This division remained until 9 August 1945, even after the atomic bombings and the Soviet entry into the war, when Togo again suggested surrender General Anami responded with "“I oppose the opinions of the Foreign Minister...If not, we must continue fighting with courage and find life in death. I am quite sure we could inflict great casualties on the enemy, and even if we fail in the attempt, our hundred million people are ready to die for honor, glorifying the deeds of the Japanese race in recorded history!” (Source:Toland, John. The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 (Modern Library War) . Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Unable to come to an agreement, the Prime Minister asked the Emperor to weigh in, who declared his desire for Japan to surrender. Among the Emperor's arguments in favor of surrender was the fact that the atomic bomb effectively eliminated the possibility of a climactic final battle, since the Americans could simply drop atom bombs on Japan until there was nothing left.

The rest is history. The US certainly could have not dropped the bomb, and instead focused on a blockade or strategic bombing campaign, but at this point there were still millions of Japanese soldiers in China murdering Chinese civilians, by some estimates of 100,000 a month. In addition, Japan was facing imminent starvation as a result of the American submarine campaign. A sustained bombing campaign would have destroyed Japan's transportation network and brought mass starvation. In real life that was only narrowly avoided by emergency food imports from the United States. Without those millions of Japanese would have starved.

Were the bombs morally right? IDK. Were they the quickest way to end the war? Yes.

How much longer do you suppose the army could have held out in China with the Home Islands effectively contained? I’d always figured the army would have been done relatively soon and so I tend to think the bombs served no strategic purpose - outside of maybe as a warning to Russia - but I could certainly be wrong about that.

 

[Cardinal]

He still never needed to drop them. The war was essentially over.

What I'll agree with is this: if he had known before what he learned afterward, he wouldn't have dropped the bomb. I think he was still in the same mindset as everybody else during that war, which is that bombing civilian populations back to the stone age just for demoralization was the way to go. While the radiation theory was certainly there, the leap from theory to real life was an extraordinary one. I suspect he thought it would be Dresden with fewer planes and bombs.

 

[Lucky 1]

Whatever way WW2 ended it was going to be bad. It's difficult to say whether dropping the bombs was the right decision or not, given the context. Was it an act of evil, to kill so many at once? Possibly. But you have to balance that against the weight of all the evil that had come before, all the human lives already lost to the conflagration of war. In that context, individual suffering has a way of losing its meaning amid statistics. And wiping an entire city off the face of the earth in an instant can start to seem like a rational decision.

The repeated fire bombings with regular ordinance of Tokyo killed waaay more people then both atomic bombs (also Dresden)

 

[vegas giants]

What I'll agree with is this: if he had known before what he learned afterward, he wouldn't have dropped the bomb. I think he was still in the same mindset as everybody else during that war, which is that bombing civilian populations back to the stone age just for demoralization was the way to go. While the radiation theory was certainly there, the leap from theory to real life was an extraordinary one. I suspect he thought it would be Dresden with fewer planes and bombs.

All he had to do is listen to his military leaders. He did not want to. He wanted to send a message to Russia first

 

[Lucky 1]

How about telling Japanese: 'Hey, we got the bomb - we'll drop it over here in the ocean tomorrow for you to see. If you don't surrender within 24 hours after, next one goes on you.'

A demonstration was in fact considered but ruled out as unworkable