GameBanshee Forums

Not just any A-bomb explosion, of course, though there have been a raft of controlled tests (and the occasional uncontrolled accident, like the one in Chernobyl that has already killed an estimated 5 million people). I'm referring to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This topic was touched upon in our recent discussion of Afghanistan, and it seems a good issue.

Was there any other solution to that aspect of WWII besides dropping the A-bomb, do you think? Why drop two? What have been the effects, not just locally, but on a global scale, politically, over time?

Have at it.

Killing innocents is not right.
I have said this before.
As for another option - i have no clue.
But 2 was over kill.
Heck 1 was over kill.

There could have been other options.
I read somewhere that the japanese had actually surrendered before the bombs.
Not sure about this at all.

I have never read that the Japanese surrendered before the bombs were dropped. Whatever else may be true, the Japanese were not planning to surrender at that time, and the orders to the troops to surrender were actually placed on a recording that was delivered to radio stations throughout the extended Japanese Empire significantly after the bombs fell.

I was in Cairo for this news.
I was in english class and our weird lesbien teacher - complete freak her name was cur or ker - hands out this poem to us to analysis.

It was on a japanese word - which has a dual meaning, i have no clue what the word is.
It means something like we accept and get lost.
The translation was buggered and they ended up bombing.
I don't if this is true or not.
Just something i have come across.

But those nukes were overkill.

Any form of warfare that primarly target civilians are most objectionable.

Fable, do you think SYM has lacked action lately?

I am certainly not an expert at WWII history, but from what I've read and heard about the subject, my conclusion is that the A-bombs were not necessary to end the war, even if Truman most likely believed so.

The US had uncoded the Japanese messages to Soviet, asking them to negotiate not unconditional peace, already in the summer. Truman stated that Stalin had told the Japanese emperor had asked for peace.

The Potsdam proclamation some week before the first bomb was dropped, demanded unconditional Japanese surrender. Unconditional is a core word here, since the US had previously demanded that Japan also gave up their constitutional monarchy.

The question about the US neglecting the central Japanese worries about what would happen to their emperor, has been debated by many historians and war analysts. The very cynic believe the US consciously neglected the issue to get an opportunity to test these bombs, who they had spent so much money on developing. Some also view the choices of targets in line with this.
Other (and myself included) are more inclined to think the US simply did not understand the vast importance of the emperor's position to the Japanese. Even though Truman had recieved reports already in early summer that the worries about the fate of the emperor was the main obstacle for the Japanese surrender, I think he believed vast bombings or a land invasion, was needed. He didn't realise there were other choices, and that the diplomatic way might have ended the war swifter than the A-bombs. If the US had said: sure, keep you emperor but surrender militarily, the Japanese would likely have agreed to this even before the 1st bomb. But we will never know.

What we can know however, is that it took as long as 30 hours for the news that an atomic bomb what was hit Hiroshima, to reach many leading people in Japan. Then, 2-3 days after the 1st bomb, the Soviet union invaded Japan. So why drop a 2nd bomb at Nagasaki 3 days after the Hiroshima bomb? So far, I have never encountered any information that even come close to motivating why this was needed

I have to add what I think is the only benefit from the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The world learned to fear nuclear weapons. They haven't been used since, and one can speculate whether somebody would have used them sooner or later anyway in other, future conflicts, and the devastation would have been even larger.

However, to me, this does not legitimise the use of the A-bombs, IMO nuclear weapons should never have been used ever, by anyone.

Originally posted by C Elegans:
<STRONG>
However, to me, this does not legitimise the use of the A-bombs, IMO nuclear weapons should never have been used ever, by anyone.</STRONG>

IMO too.
Nothing can legitimate A-bombs.
Something for imagination:
The USA inteligence(organization) suspect that some of the Pakistan nuclear cientist were in a reserch pro-taliban. Nothing is confirmed by the media yet. But if I remember clearly two cientist were fired in Pakistan because of the speculations.
Can imagine if Taliban get A-bomb.

----------------------------------

A,H,N-Bombs.
I don't remember clearly where I read this, even if it is true or just a joke, anyway is interesting:
Someone ask to Einstein how is going to be the WWIII. He said:
"The 3rd I don't know, but the 4th will be with Stones and Clubs."

This kind of mass destruction weapon must be vanished from the face of the planet.

I know Minerva does not like discussing this topic and I sincerely hope she retains her wise stance and remains aloof from it (no offence fable).

I, on the other hand, am a low down scuzz-bucket. To quote Gene Hackman in the movie "Crimson Tide". "Yes, by all means, drop that f***er. Twice."

I'm afraid the only other option was an invasion that would have

a)Killed millions more on both sides.
b)Strenghtened the Soviet position in Asia - potentially killing even more in the long term.

What option was there? With no surrender in sight, those in control of Japan had to be *strongly reassured* that America could destroy their cities 1 by 1 from afar without loss of Allied life. Thus defeating any notion of making an invader pay a high cost in lives.

Grunt's comments were very pragmatic from where he is coming from...

... then there were repercussions, an opening of Pandora's Box as every nation realized the potential and power of atomic weapons.

Then came the Cold War. A Nuke Sword hanging from a thin fragile line of diplomacy. Thank God the Sword never fell.

What would happen had the US not bomb Japan twice? Must a "few" die to save the rest?

Initially I would say that killing the innocents is never justified...

...but the pragmatic person in me would think that one ground zero was enough to reach the objective.

To further ellucidate my answer.

Any other solution? None that would result in less casualties - remember, the fire bombing of Tokyo was far worse than either of the A-bombs.

Two? To show they had more than one. 1 ellicited no response. 1 bomb - so what? "Now invade us". More than 1 - the threat of total annihilation without the possibility of retaliation.

Effects? Japan, as a nation, has experienced the shocking effects of atomic attack. I admire Japan as a nation that is pacifist to its very core, even in its constitution. If only the rest of the world could empathise with these horrors, there'd be few Mr Laden's eager for death and destruction.

Global politics? Aside from the Cold War (and that's a big aside ) I think the biggest effect has yet to be realised. The US is the only country to have ever used atomic weapons in anger. This has left the US to defend this (shameful?) position - no other nation has approached this position (a necessity).

An interesting paradox methinks.

Originally posted by Gruntboy:
<STRONG>Any other solution? None that would result in less casualties - remember, the fire bombing of Tokyo was far worse than either of the A-bombs.</STRONG>

Certainly - I think the horror of the fire bombing of Tokyo is sometimes unfairly overshadowed by the A-bombs.

What do you think about the suggestion the Scientific Committe came up with, that the US should demonstrate the A-bomb at an unihabited island, and threat Japan? IMO this would have been a better solution. Truman and his gang declined this because they believed they had to attack Japan without prior warning.

Dropping the bomb was the right thing to do.

First the pragmatic reasons:

We had spent a lot of money on the Manhattan Project and its oversight people wanted to use their new toy.

It put the Soviets on alert that the west had a weapon they could not counter at the time and slowed Eastern bloc expansion.

Truman believed that he was saving lives, both American and Japanese, by not invading Japan.

Now the underlying reason:

The bomb provided the Japanese a face-saving way to surrender. Remember that for three years the Americans and Japanese had been slugging it out in the Pacific. The Japanese of the time believed that if they died in the service of the Emperor, they would go straight to Heaven in the Shinto equivalent of martyrdom.

If you read the letters, memoirs, and reports of Marines who served in the Pacific (one of the best books is [url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440329078/qid=1005139103/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_10_1/103-8276495-7000632"]Goodbye, Darkness[/url] by William Manchester), you hear about mass banzai charges in which the Japanese soldiers basically commit suicide by charging American soldiers with bayonets.

You also hear that Japanese soldiers simply didn't surrender. They'd booby-trap themselves with grenades, commit ritual suicide, or simply keep fighting until an American killed them. When the Marines got to Japanese soil, Okinawan civilians also killed themselves to avoid capture. In part, the civilians did it because they had been told false stories about what Americans did to their prisoners, but it also shows that they were willing to die before surrendering.

To the bushido mindset, it is better to die than suffer the dishonour of surrender. Death in battle (and its one-way ticket to Heaven) brings honour while capitulation brings disgrace to the individual, the family, and one's ancestors. If a warrior could take an enemy (or two or ten) with him, his honour only increased.

When the Americans unleashed the bomb, they showed the Japanese that their masses of kamikaze planes and kaiten submarines would never see use. We could kill them by the tens of thousands and never give them the chance to shoot back. Instead of honourable warriors deaths, the Japanese would be exterminated by our doomsday weapons. That we only had three bombs was our little secret.

When the Emperor came on the radio and declared that the Japanese people must "bear the unbearable" it was because he could claim with confidence that the Americans could deny the Japanese the glorious deaths they desired, enabling the government to save face by surrendering.

To everyone who believes that the bomb started the Cold War and the arms race:

Hogwash. The Cold War started the minute the tide turned against the Nazis. Given the leaders of the world's superpowers (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin), the Cold War was inevitable. Each side was paranoid of the other for a variety of reasons, Stalin most of all. Nuclear weapons or no, the West and the Soviet blocs would have squared off.

There is considerable weight behing the argument that nuclear weapons and mutally assured destruction was a greater deterrant than anything else during the Cold War. Sure we waged our war with the Soviets through proxy states because we feared the other's ICBMs, but that was far preferable to a massive invasion by one side across the plains of eastern Europe.

Since the Cold War was inevitable, so was the arms race. If we did not use the bomb in 1945, the Soviets would still have gotten nuclear technology; the theory is actually pretty simple, it's getting the material and building the device that's complicated. The Germans were also working on the bomb and were actually pretty close at the end of the war (some of those German scientists were kidnapped and taken to Siberia to help advance the Soviet nuclear program), so it wasn't like other people than the Americans were working on the bomb.

Was dropping the bomb on Japan desirable? Of course not. But it was the best course of action for Truman given what he knew about the situation (which wasn't much). In addition to ending the war, it was also the best decision for the long run.

There is no excuse for using any kind of weapon agianst civilians. If US at the time felt that a surrender from Japan was the only way to go they should have chosed to invade.

This may have cost more lifes but it would be soldiers lifes, not civilians.

You might think that a life is always a life but:
Everyone is responsible for thier own actions, a soldier have choosed to kill other people for a cause. Any soldier who does not think the cause he is fighting for is good enough reason for giving up his own life shall not fight for that cause.

Personaly i cant see that the pride of a nation is enough reason for either killing or dying.

So Japan should have been invaded by the soldiers that thought it were important enough to die for.

Originally posted by HighLordDave:
<STRONG>
We had spent a lot of money on the Manhattan Project and its oversight people wanted to use their new toy.
</STRONG>

Want to use their toy.
Do you think this is an argument?
Kill an entire population over years and years because they want to use the new toy.
If the Germans drop the Toy over your country, it is OK, they spend a lot of money.

HighLordDave:
It put the Soviets on alert that the west had a weapon they could not counter at the time and slowed Eastern bloc expansion.

Again, one thing cannot justify the other.

Seems like you are talking of a diferent bomb, a diferent event. Especially in this Pragmatic purposes. What happen in WTC is only a fraction of the chaos and the pain ocured in Japan for along term.

HighLordDave:
Truman believed that he was saving lives, both American and Japanese, by not invading Japan.

Do you believe so?
You say Trumam believe, and you?
If you believe that the A-bomb saved lives, explain your logic. Because, is dificult for me to understand how something who Kill can Save lives.

HighLordDave:
To the bushido mindset, it is better to die than suffer the dishonour of surrender. Death in battle (and its one-way ticket to Heaven) brings honour while capitulation brings disgrace to the individual, the family, and one's ancestors. If a warrior could take an enemy (or two or ten) with him, his honour only increased.

When the Americans unleashed the bomb, they showed the Japanese that their masses of kamikaze planes and kaiten submarines would never see use. We could kill them by the tens of thousands and never give them the chance to shoot back. Instead of honourable warriors deaths, the Japanese would be exterminated by our doomsday weapons. That we only had three bombs was our little secret.

"Instead of honourable warriors death, the Japanese would be exterminated by our doomsday weapons"
I start to question about your humanity. Do you see the way you put these words. "Our little secreet". This is far beyond nacionalism, it is cruel. End their lives, the ones who still alive have their Honor crashed; and the ones who are even born, now will born deformated. Do you think about the "Toy" consequences?
Seriously, you scare me a little. Put the A-bomb as a Toy!
I cannot understand.

look at it this way.

if the US military had not dropped the bombs we would've been forced to invaid ala euro-style against the bulk of the jap military based on the main island. the jap's had 1/3 of their battle fleet left, although understaffed. they also had at least 3 armies on the main island and i think 2 others spread out. the civilian population was given mass amounts of propaganda and told to fight to the death or to kill themselves. when we took one of the smaller japanesse islands there were mass suicides of civilians jumping off the cliffs.

so what you would have is a US military beating down the islands with bombings, bombardments and then a long, blood invasion that would leave a lot more than just two cities in ruin. it would've completely destroyed the entire island and its people.

i don't condone any corse of action that puts anyone at risk, but when your faced with a complete no win situation with the safety of the world in the balance, you can't just walk away and say "let them do whatever they want, we got our islands back" so they can rebuild. you have to finish the job you started.

nobody asks if we were right to dismantle the entier german economy, from either war. or that we left a continent in ruin. hell, we almost ran off with all of europe's gold and precious metal supply to fund the US military. eisenhower said no though.

i think the defeat enough, and the feelings tword asian people because of the war, is bad enough. the fact that we had to use a single stroke action like the a-bomb was horrid. but the deaths of thousands upon thousands of US GIs and the entier civilian population would be an even bigger tradegy. look how the japs defending their islands in the pacific. its admirable. hell, its heroic what they did, or tried to do. they're an ingenious people, and they faught like wolves. to fight through their own backyard with people like that would've left the island still red today.

as far as the time difference between the two the statement by the US command was basically "we're going to destroy one of your cities. if you don't surrender, we'll do it again in 3 days. if you don't surrender we'll keep doing it every 3 days until we've done it to all of them or you've surrendered".

given the facts, and the appauling aspecttaht no, it wasn't a fluke... it was an american attack... the japanese had no choice but to accept surrender, or watch their people die.

just my opinion...

I agree with Dottie--we should have invaded with soldiers, even if it meant losing a lot of them. I've always thought there was a lot of racism in the thinking that it was okay to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki--would people feel so comfortable with it if it had been Paris or Berlin or London? Could be--since we don't seem to feel bad about the fire-bombing of Dresden.

What I always hated was that in my history classes in grade school and high school, I was taught that Truman "didn't know" what radiation poisoning did to people. What a crock!--Madame Curie died of it many years before--they knew perfectly well what radiation would do. My father had me watch a film on the aftermath of the bombs when I was about 11 years old--it left an indelible image in my head. Horribly burnt children peeling their own skin off...

Originally posted by VoodooDali:
<STRONG>What I always hated was that in my history classes in grade school and high school, I was taught that Truman "didn't know" what radiation poisoning did to people. What a crock!--Madame Curie died of it many years before--they knew perfectly well what radiation would do.</STRONG>

Not to imply a stand one way or the other, but Curie was poisoned by constant exposure to radioactive isotopes over several years. Isn't it possible that in the mid-1940s it was thought the halflifes of the radioactive isotopes released by the A-bomb might have been much shorter than proved the case?

Dropping A-bomb ? Cool ! I can see enemy base got cleared in seconds.....

Seriously, A-bomb is no toy IRL Using it will definately cause another chaos which led to more innocense massacre. Not to mention the radiation which take time to clear This is not good move.

A-bomb Launch detected

Warning Nuclear Misslie launch !

Originally posted by Ivan Cavallazzi:
<STRONG><snip>Kill an entire population over years and years because they want to use the new toy.<snip>
</STRONG>

@Ivan, "Kill an entire population"??
Just a little overstated dont ya think. I thought I was the only one who didi that.
If you havent noticed the Japanese are alive and well with one of the most important economies in the world.

Sure dropping the bomb killed bunch of people. Thats what people do in wars. Until the Japanese offerd up the demanded unconditional surrender, the war was on.

I think one of the primary reasons to speed the end of the war was to keep the Soviets out of Japan.

I would like for Ivan to speculate what the current status fo Japan would be if it would have been divided between US and Soviet control?

Originally posted by Dottie:
<STRONG>There is no excuse for using any kind of weapon agianst civilians. If US at the time felt that a surrender from Japan was the only way to go they should have chosed to invade.

This may have cost more lifes but it would be soldiers lifes, not civilians.</STRONG>

We in the United States have never cared about sparing civilians and non-military targets except as a PR tool. What's the difference between firebombing Kyoto or Dresden or dropping a nuclear weapon on the same city? The level of destruction is the same. The death toll is the same. The target is the same: civilians.

Bombing cities not only destroys industrial centers and infrastructure, but it does something more crucial: it destroys the will of the opposition to fight. In a declared war, everyone is a potential target. Some targets are more desirable and a higher priority than others, but everyone is contributing to the war effort. How about that woman who works at the textile mill that makes uniforms for soldiers? What about the 16 year old who will one day be old enough to fight? Is the guy who seals the packages of c-rations that go out to soldiers a civilian? No, they're not combatants, but they are part of the opposition's war effort.

Americans have waged psychological warfare and shot at civilians in all of our wars. Whether it is Sherman's March to the Sea or a B-29 raid on Kobe, non-combatants have always been in our crosshairs at some point, either down the barrel of a gun or as the objects of a terror campaign.

Let's go through another scenario. You're Harry Truman. Okinawa has been captured and your warplanners are telling you that the next step is an invasion of the Japanese mainland. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, the CNO, and the Army Chief of Staff are telling you that it will cost one million allied casualties to defeat the Japanese.

George Marshall pulls you aside and reminds you that there's this little black project that we've spent three years and $2 billion developing that could bring the war to a quick end.

Fact: You (as Truman) are an elected official.

Fact: Your electorate is not tolerant of high American body counts.

Fact: In 1945, a Japanese life is not worth an American life. This is a world of segregation, overt racism, anti-semitism and concentration camps in the United States.

Fact: The Cold War was coming and Truman knew he'd have to deal with the Soviets. By denying them a power bloc in Asia (China was controlled by Chaing Kai-Shek and the Nationalists), he was strengthing the West's position in the East. Say what you will about using the Japanese to manipulate the Soviets, but the decision to drop the bomb was not made in a vacuum; Truman meant the bomb to be a message as much to the Stalin as the Japanese.

I do not believe for a second that any American politician or military senior officer (of today or yesteryear) will trade their soldiers lives to spare someone else's civilians if another means is available. In August 1945 that other means was available. And it worked.

Would the Japanese have surrendered otherwise? Maybe, maybe not. I have never seen any documented evidence to lead me to believe that they were pursing avenues of peace. The American invasion of Okinawa was on 1 April 1945 and the fighting lasted for about two months. So you have from the beginning of June until August when the Japanese could have capitulated. They didn't.

If you're Harry Truman and you've got a number of different options on your desk (invasion, the bomb, blockade the islands and let them starve, etc.) and you also know that you've got to control the situation in Europe, what are you going to do? Do you tie up valuable warships and divisions in the Pacific by invading Japan or do you move them to Europe for a possible showdown with the Soviets?

People want to think of the bomb in a single context: it's use against the Japanese populace. But you can't do that. You must consider the situation in Europe and our relationship with the Soviets and how the bomb played a role in that, both in ending the war with Japan and getting the Soviets to sit back a second and re-examing their policies in Europe.