I was more talking about the belief that the bomb was a positive good because it saved lives (which is not clear in my original post). In his book, Paul Boyer argues that American opinion immediately after the war showed significant fear of the bomb as a "dread distroyer" that should never be used again and should even be turned over to the russians. Various psychologists found widespread guilt and shame over its use (I'm talking 1945-1948 here). At best, people saw it as a necessary evil. Stimson and others essentially embarked on a pr campaign to change the bomb's image within American opinion. Stimson wrote a famous article, I want to say in the Atlantic, praising the bomb as a positive good that saved American lives, an article which set the number of American deaths for a homeland invasion at one million, which was significantly higher than military estimates during the war. By the time the Russians exploded their bomb, Americans had come to see the bomb as an entity that protected the republic as well as a dangerous weapon. On the atomic diplomacy thing, it's clear from his papers that Truman wanted to take a harder line with the Russians after Potsdam (and Russian actions certainly drove this decision). Intimidating the Russians, displaying US power through the bomb, certainly was a nice side benefit, and they did drop either the first or second bomb the day the Russians invaded Manchuria. Was this the reason the bombs were dropped? No, Gar Alperowitz is way beyond his evidence when he argues this, but I do think that the bombs as a display of power was aimed at the Russians as well as the Japanese. (And not to prevent a Russian invasion of Japan if I seemed to imply that in my post).
Touche. My source was a guy who wrote a book who supported the argument I had to make in the project. At the time his point of view was the one I needed to make the argument so I took it. Given some time and real desire I could probably go out and find more convincing backers, but I currently have neither.
Operation Olympic was supposed to be a three pronged attack of the Japanese mainland. The first wave, IIRC was to involve the ENTIRE US Marine Corps. One of the other waves was to include the Soviets attacking Japan (not sure whether it was by aerial bombardment or thru an amphibious assault). That was from an older issue of Military History, was the same issue that commented on Rorke's Drift in South Africa.
No they aren't, I check out that site pretty much every day and you're lying. Freerepublic.com is my favouritist, bestist site on the net, I shall hear no more of your scurrilous slurs. A few do however have their eye on nuking Mecca should WMD be used in the US, the photoshop pictures of this are really rather nice.
The Soviets had entered the war on August 9th - six daye earlier then they promised at Yalta and Potsdam. Dropping the bombs was clearly a warning to the Soviet Union. The Allies had called for unconditional surrender but eventually accepted a conditional surrender from Japan. This was done because Truman did not want a divided Japan. Dropping the bomb really had to do with post-war matters not winning the war itself. Byrnes in a June, 1945 memo to Truman also justified the use of nuclear weapons because of the billions of dollars spent on the Manhattan Project.
OK, but "keeping Russians out of Japan" sounds like a pretty stupid objective after you ASK for their help. This isn't the European theatre scenario, where D-Day was largely an attempt to keep Western Europe from Russia. Here, Russia was invited to help. Seems a bit strange, no?
I think the main problem here is that there was no cohesive, clear cut policy in Japan, by it's leaders in how to deal with the inevitable. There is clear evidence of desperate efforts from Japanese Generals to stop the surrender after the destruction of Hiroshima and to fight on, training of the civilian populace and both women and children for suicide missions and basic combat was overwhelming according to numerous reports I've read. The problem to me, is that it's clear that elements of Japanese society and even the government desired a surrender (though far too often it appears to have not been the "unconditional surrdener that we demanded), but quite a few powerful elements wanted a fight to the death period. The discussion of the military merits of further conquering the already conquered Japanese military doesn't take into account the fact that what needed to be conquered was Japan. Period. Even w/their military, w/their navy in a disastrous state, there were still quite a few leading Japanese officials who wished to fight on, regardless of the state of their military effectiveness. Reminds me of how in the Civil War, it wasn't the Verdun-like battle between Grant and Lee that won the war, but the destruction of the Southern will to fight by Sherman's march through the South and sacking of cities. That broke the will to fight. In the end, it required an absolute message of total destruction to convince the necessary leadership in Japan (particularly Hirohito-spelling?) that the absolute annihilation of the entire culture and it's people were at hand barring a complete surrender. A quick perusal of Iwo Jima and Okinawa reminds on a smaller scale what awaited an American Invasion of the Home Islands themselves. IT's a horrible thing, and for a long period of my life I wondered if it went just too far, but I don't really believe that anymore. Giving more time after Hiroshima seems potentially reasonable although the desperate machinations of a military junta at the time to forestall surrender at all costs suggests that time may not have solved the problem. Still, in that specific case, I think a little added time might have made a difference.
OK, that makes sense. I thought you WERE implying that, which is silly, of course. There were many considerations for dropping the bomb, of course. The geopolitical game of cat and mouse was certainly a factor. I wouldn't argue that.
Go to Hiroshima and then you'll know the answer. People still suffer today from radiation poisoning. Children in the 1950's and 1960's were still dying from leukemia from the radiation they received in their mother's wombs. People died horrific deaths in Dresden and Tokyo but they died from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs long after the war had ended.
Hiroshima was the headquarters of the 5th Division but it was also full of young students aged 8 to 13. THe students were constructing fire lanes when the bomb dropped. You can see the burnt remains of their school uniforms at the Hiroshima Peace Museum.
If we never dropped the bomb and WW2 ended using conventional weapons, that wouldn't have changed the fact that the pandora's box of atomic energy had already been opened. The Nazis were relatively close to building a bomb themselves. After the war, nations probably would have each tried to develop atomic weapons covertly. The problem with this is that one of the nations would have eventually used one in a localized conflict (Korea? Vietnam?). Without the spectre of mutually assured distruction, NATO and the USSR probably would have had a hot war conflict in the 1950's or 1960's. The weapons are obviously horrible, but since they exist, I consider the timing of their first use to be a blessing. Their detonations were the explanation point the the most horrific war in human history. Ever since then, the general public has equated nuclear weapon usage with world war and not with local conflicts. The true danger is that this mindset may be changing. Dubya has mentioned the possible development of smaller "tactical" nukes and lets not forget the missing Russian suitcase nukes which may or may not be in the hands of terrorists. Looking at it by the numbers, I think that the Atomic bombings saved lives overall. If we would have had to invade, Japan's infrastructure would have been decimated. I have also read previously that the invasion most likely would have been a joint USA/USSR venture. Japan would have likely ended up divided like modern day Korea.
Fair enough, but when you point that out, you have the benefit of hindsight and knowledge of the effects of radiation poisoning. It is my understanding that those effects were not known at the time and would not be know for another 10 or so years. All the decisionmakers at the time knew was that these new bombs would create an explosion unlike anything they had seen before. They were merely deciding whether or not to level a city with one superbomb, as opposed to a massive firebomb attack. I cannot judge those people for being oblivious to the aftereffects of a nuclear attack, simply because they didn't know those effects. If they had known, who knows if they would've made the same decision? Now, you could argue that they were willing to unleash forces that they did not fully comprehend, and I'll grant you that. But I'm not going to judge those people any more harshly for Hiroshima and Nagasaki than I judge them for Dresden. Both were situations where the goal was to kill as many civilians as possible, destroy as much infrastructure as possible, and demoralize the population as much as possible.
Pearl Harbor was the Headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet but it was also full of civilian nurses completing medical training, many of who were killed during the 12/07/1941 sneak attack by the Japanese! Legitimate military targets frequently have civilians within! What else you got? IntheNet
Ok, many posters here are making solid arguments. I admit I haven't really tried, I just stated my opinion. I have also learned a little bit from reading so far. YOU, on the other hand, are making terrible arguments. How many civies died at Pearl Harbor? How many died in the atom bomb attacks? Pearl Harbor was a huge military target, and was primarily a military installation. Not a large city, or even 2 large cities. The fact that some military targets were taken out by the atom bombs does not make these two events even remotely similar. They ARE similar in the fact that both can be argued to have had the same end, to finish a war. The Japanese wanted to finish a war with the U.S. before it began, arguably. And obviously the U.S. wanted to finish a war that seemed to have potential to go on and on and on, arguably.
Assuming you are right (did I really just type that? ), those were civilians on a military base. We are talking about destruction of a civilian city that happens to have a military base. If Honolulu were destroyed in the Pearl Harbor attack, your analogy might be a little closer to making sense. This is actually a pretty fascinating discussion. I am learning a lot. Here is a question for anyone that might know. Did we have a third bomb teed up in the event that the Japanese did not surrender after Nagasaki?
Thank you for your point but I respectfully disagree. Read the following chapter. . .http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/intro_3.html The Manhattan Project managers were taking safety measures long before the bombs were dropped. I grant you that our policy makers and scientists did not know the full extent of the danger but they knew radiation exposure was dangerous to the human body.
Excellent post. Look, the atomic bombs killed about 250,000 Japanese civilians together. Conservative estimates of a US invasion of the home islands were that ONE MILLION American Marines and soldiers would be killed. Probably including my grandfather, who was scheduled to ship to the Pacific a month or so after what turned out to be V-J Day (insert some clown quipping about how we definitely should'nt have dropped the bomb because then ol' Axis Alex's granddaddy probably would've been offed). Not to mention the fact that the Japanese were, by many accounts, preparing to fight to the very last man, woman, and child, which means that several million Japanese civilians would've been killed if we'd had to invade. Were there people in the Japanese government who wanted peace? Of course, but they didn't have the reins of power. Now, was the outcome of the war already decided? Yes--even if we'd had to invade the home islands, we certainly would have won the war--but the cost would have been devastating. If you're up 4-1 in the 80th minute the game is pretty much over, but that doesn't mean your best player can't still suffer a career-ending injury. On top of this, we didn't want the USSR in Japan. Sure, we asked them to invade Manchuria, that's a hell of a lot different from facing the proposition of racing them to Tokyo the same way we were racing them to Berlin until Ike decided at the last minute to let them take the capital. We know what happened with West/East Germany and North/South Korea, did we really want a North/South Japan as well? With the Soviets (and, soon, Red Chinese) in the neighborhood? No fvckin' way. There's a good chance there would've been civil war, which would've killed millions of Japanese and thousands of Americans; and, given the fact that while the European Communist governments collapsed the late 80's and early 90's the Asian Communist governments (with the exception of Mongolia, which was virtually a Soviet colony) did not, there's a good chance that a Communist government, probably one less repressive than Pyongyang but more repressive than Beijing, would still be in power in part of Japan. That's what would have happened if we hadn't dropped the bomb. Anyone who, ESPECIALLY with the benefit of hindsight, thinks that dropping the bomb was a bad decision is either a pacifist (in which case you would have to agree that we shouldn't have gone to war against the Nazis and Japanese, even after Pearl Harbor, in the first place), unabashedly anti-American, or just a fvcking moron.
Forget image it was reality. It's difficult to imagine dying in a worse way. A visit to Hiroshima is a sobering experience but I am thankful that I went. Hiroshima is also a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. The people are wonderful and the food is great. Got a Sanfrecce jersey while I was there.
These three options, huh? No wonder you suck. I was wondering if a standard blockade of Japan might have worked. Starve 'em out. I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have been worth a try, just one chance at avoiding the obliteration of a quarter of a million people, just in CASE it wasn't necessary after all. Of course, this might have killed even more people. Who knows? I've heard some argue we should have taken on the Soviets right away, defeated their military, and possibly change the course of history throughout the 20th century. Would we have had to face the Soviets if we had not dropped the A bombs? Would we have been able to defeat them? WOULD it have changed anything?
I happen to be a pacifist but please explain to me why the American demand for unconditional surrender became an acceptance of a conditional surrender. The Japanese military was fighting for the Emperor. The American demands pre August 14 was for unconditional surrender. The Emperor accepted the surrender after being told that he would remain in power. His War Minister crushed a military coup designed to continue the war on August 14. The Japanese military did not subsequently resist the American occupation. Things would have been much easier if our leadership accepted the Japanese peace overtures in June, 1945 which demanded retention of the Emperor. Instead we incinerated hundreds of thousands of civilians with nuclear weapons. Last time I checked. . .the Japanese still have an Emperor.
How many military personnel were killed during the Hiroshima bombing? How many civilians? Can you name any locations in 1945 Japan that did not constitute military targets. If you can't, do not make distinctions between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" targets.
Rubbish. Almost all numbers one million and above emerged from attempts after the war to reshape American opinion about the bombing. See Stimson's article in Harpers from 1946 for one of the prime examples (I'm sure its out on the web somewhere). No one in the military was estimating anywhere near that high while the war was being fought. If we look to the Enola Gay controversy for historical estimates on the range of American soldiers that would have been killed, estimates range from 63,000 (Gar Alperowitz) to 225,000 (American Legion officials). The "millions and millions" numbers are a part of a campaign to make dropping the bomb a positive good for all involved. I can understand the logical reasons the bomb was dropped, but military estimates of millions killed in a home invasion are not borne out by the evidentiary record.