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I don't think anybody really benefitted from the actions of unit 731 directly. The scientists were repurposed, although they should have hanged instead.

I'm not sure what you're trying to do here EF. Are you justifying what the Japanese did, or are you just angry with America?

Polonius wrote:Emperor's Faithful: I'm not sure what you're point here is. that war is bad and we shouldn't do it? That killing civilians is bad and shouldn't be done?

Congratulations, you've made a nearly self evident point.

I'd like to thank my peers, my family, and also the academy...

But seriously, is it really that hard to admit that targetting civilians in a war is bad?

It ignores two things:
1) The axis, by and large, committed atrocities on a larger scale and due to top-down orders. Soldiers in the field committ atrocities, it happens (at least partially due to PTSD). Rather than judge the actions of mentally ill individuals, you should look at the attempts to restrain/encourage those behaviours in the organizations. I'm not going to say that American's that shot Japanese POWs were sanctions, but the Japanese institutionalized their atrocities.

The disturbing parallels between Allied and Axis prison camps aside...The US did blow up a freaking city.

And the Tokyo trials found that the Rape of Nanking was a result of failure to maintain discipline rather than any governmental policy. Does that make it okay?

2) Statecraft is not personal morality. It never has been. Very rarely does an invididual need to choose between the death of 10,000 and 100,000. States do.

I'm not comfortable with any moral code that makes it impossible to actually be moral.

I'm not comfortable with any moral code that justifies genocide.


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Medium of Death wrote:I'm not sure what you're trying to do here EF. Are you justifying what the Japanese did, or are you just angry with America?

Justify what Japan did? No.

Saying the allies (well, the US, since they dropped the bomb) did a pretty gakky thing by killing a ton of innocent people? Yeah.

I don't think I've ever said that the death of civlians was good. Killing anybody is bad, in absolute terms. I would, howver, be really leery about accusations of genocide, when the net results of the war was a democratic and independent nation.

Much of policy in the Pacific was based on notions of race. I mean, this was a time in which most of Europe didn't care about the Nuremburg laws and the US forces were segregated. Racial issues were different then, and not just because people were worse then.

What makes the A-Bomb attacks worse than actions commited by other countries isn't a question of morals, but one of capacity. we were the only ones that could nuke cities, so we did. We also firebombed cities, saturation bombed cities, etc.

A moral discussion of what is absolutely right and wrong more or less ends with Kant. The man did a good job of wrapping it up, and I read enough to realize that it's well written, and more or less utterly impractical for actual humans.

With morals in general, and certainly with the moral approach to statecraft, a question of "what is best" is more useful than "what is good."

There is no good. there isn't. there is only less bad.

Polonius wrote:I don't think I've ever said that the death of civlians was good. Killing anybody is bad, in absolute terms. I would, howver, be really leery about accusations of genocide, when the net results of the war was a democratic and independent nation.

What if the Holocaust had ended the war? Would that justify it? It's a stretch, but (unfortunately) not much of one.

Much of policy in the Pacific was based on notions of race. I mean, this was a time in which most of Europe didn't care about the Nuremburg laws and the US forces were segregated. Racial issues were different then, and not just because people were worse then.

Well, that does sort of support the whole "White Man's Bomb" thing.

What makes the A-Bomb attacks worse than actions commited by other countries isn't a question of morals, but one of capacity. we were the only ones that could nuke cities, so we did. We also firebombed cities, saturation bombed cities, etc.

The arguement of "they would have if they could have" doesn't by any means justify the person who actually did commit the act.

There is no good. there isn't. there is only less bad.

Is it really naive of me to think morals should be considered when making decisions that affect the state? I am just a young un'...




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Don't take me too seriously now, I'm way too tired to be coherent.

Nuking Japan was the way to go but its gakky nonetheless. There's also no way in hell that the allied forces would rather invade Japan either which would've been a more deadly and desperate conflict, think of Iwo Jima only much worse.

It took not one but two a-bombs and the Russians to invade the Japanese Empire's northern territories before they would come close to surrendering. And their Empire was already beyond crumbling by that point. Thats just how crazy their leadership was. The amount of crimes against humanity that their Empire did rivals that of the Nazis as well but since China's not exactly beloved by the West you don't really hear that too often.

I think the mistake you're making is that you attribute all arguments that "X is better than Y, so we'll do X even though it's bad" as being able to justify any action X.

By the time of the A-bombings, the projected death toll for continued war was very high, higher than the loss of the life in the two cities. Also, in a total war, the moral line between killing civilians working to support a war machine, and soldiers conscripted and fighting in a war machine, becomes blurry.

I'd agree with some of the arguments that the bombs were intended for Japan, if for no other reason than the war in Europe was decided by 43. The soviets, one way or another, were going to take out the Nazis. It wasn't garuanteed, but once the eastern front opened, the possibility of fighting the full might of Germany vanished.

There was plenty of propoganda protraying the Japanese as sub-human monsters. That said, the list of war-crimes commited does support some of the anger against Japanese soldiers that was not unleashed against germans. Is it moral to torture a person because somebody of his ethnicity tortured somebody of your ethnicicy? No, but it's more understandable. particularly, as I've noted, you have individuals in the midst of mental trauma.

It's not naive to think that morals should be considered, but it's also naive to think that the decision to drop the bombs was made with no regard to civilian life.


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Cane wrote:Nuking Japan was the way to go but its gakky nonetheless. There's also no way in hell that the allied forces would rather invade Japan either which would've been a more deadly and desperate conflict, think of Iwo Jima only much worse.

It took not one but two a-bombs and the Russians to invade the Japanese Empire's northern territories before they would come close to surrendering. And their Empire was already beyond crumbling by that point. Thats just how crazy their leadership was. The amount of crimes against humanity that their Empire did rivals that of the Nazis as well but since China's not exactly beloved by the West you don't really hear that too often.

The argument that's been raised, and is worthy of some discussion, isn't "how do you get to Japan to surrender" but rather "why did we need Japan to surrender at all?"

Meaning, why not, after liberating the phillipines, simply offer a cease fire. They keep their Islands, give back their conquered territory, and we end the war like gentlemen.

It's an interesting question, and I'd love to see if there is any writings on the possiblity of Japan simply pulling back to the Home Islands and ending the war. Based on what I've read, it seems unlikely, but who knows.

Cane wrote:Nuking Japan was the way to go but its gakky nonetheless. There's also no way in hell that the allied forces would rather invade Japan either which would've been a more deadly and desperate conflict, think of Iwo Jima only much worse.

It took two a-bombs and the Russians to invade the Japanese Empire's northern territories before they would come close to surrendering. And their Empire was already beyond crumbling by that point. Thats just how crazy their leadership was. The amount of crimes against humanity that their Empire did rivals that of the Nazis as well but since China's not exactly beloved by the West you don't really hear that too often.

Indeed, its a perverse testament to Allied appreciation of Japan. I mean we invaded Italy with two girl scout troops and a beat up Ford pickup with a spitwad gun on it...

I feel I must share my opinion on this topic.

We live in what would have been considered back then by some, a perfect world. Globalization and the decline of racism means that Englishmen and Germans are friends, and its NOT absurd for a black man to sit at the bar in a restaurant, its perfectly normal. Likewise, today I would not blame a Japanese man for World War II (or any part wherein) any more than I would blame myself for the killing of Aboriginals. Today is a time of knowledge and understanding.

But back then it wasnt. Especially in wartime, countries hated each other. There was racism, it did exist, it was real.

- Is it right to kill innocents? No.
- Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified and just? Yes. The war had to be stopped.
- Is it justified today, in this modern age? No. Dropping nuclear bombs today should be considered as the intent to destroy a specific race of human beings, to utter extinction.

It was war. Luckily these days there are rules to war, but war is the utter hate to the point of wanting to kill each other with knives. And Nukes. There is no pity, no remorse, there is only humanity, and what humanity deems is right, and what it sees fit to do. You cannot blame America for dropping those nukes. Japan, as other users have said, institutionalized atrocities. Getting shot was getting off good with the Japanese. America didnt know just what the nukes would do, and the war had to end. I have seen some people comment on how Japan was out of ammo, out of food, out of men, but for every man standing with a sharp blade and a beating heart, the Americans would have to kill. Japan was NOT surrendering. And how many did japan lose to the bombings in the end? I won't even bother googling the figures, but I bet it wasn't as many men as how many were killed at the D-day landings, or how many would have been killed if the war continued for another 5 years, until the entire population of Japan was ground into dust.

And I know it isnt as many as the losses humanity would have suffered if we didnt test those nukes in a Wartime situation when we did. Imagine if the cold war had gone hot. I doubt any of us would be here today. I would be surprised if there was still life on earth.


Hiroshima and Nagasaki stopped the war. Civilians were killed, but such is the cost of war, casualties are a must. I am thankful, not greatful or happy, but thankful it happened when it did. I do not advocate it, but it had to be done, and I show no disrespect to Truman because of it.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Leaving aside the issue of atrocities in China (which frazz is correct in pointing out) the real issues are these:

Was racism a major factor in using the bomb? Yes.

Was Japan finished as a military force? Yes

Were the Japanese ready to roll up the white flag? Yes.

Was the bomb used to lay down a marker to Joe Commie? Yes.

The evidence to support this is overwhelming. That's the moral issue here that those cities need not have been bombed.

Then they should have rolled up the white flag a few days sooner.

It's also worth noting that the Japanese were open to an alliance with the Soviets.

If there had been a called peace between the Allies and Japan, once the Cold War started (roughly six minutes later), the possiblity of Japan and the Soviets dividing up east asia becomes plausible. This is conjecture, but Japan was only helpless at that moment. They weren't saying "I shall fight no more forever."

Kilkrazy wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Leaving aside the issue of atrocities in China (which frazz is correct in pointing out) the real issues are these:

Was racism a major factor in using the bomb? Yes.

Was Japan finished as a military force? Yes

Were the Japanese ready to roll up the white flag? Yes.

Was the bomb used to lay down a marker to Joe Commie? Yes.

The evidence to support this is overwhelming. That's the moral issue here that those cities need not have been bombed.

Then they should have rolled up the white flag a few days sooner.

Couldn't have put it better myself. The counter argument is, why didnt they surrender after the first bomb dropped? Was the letter still in the mail to president Truman?

The Soviets at least knew about the manhatten project in detail. The Japanese knew enough about budiling a bomb to know it was difficult, and even if possible, would probably only result in a single device.

They waited, at least partially, becuase they didn't know that Hiroshima was already the second bomb.

My thoughts.

Why were the bombs dropped?
1. Iwo Jima and Okinawa were so costly in human lives (somethingl like 26,000 casualties on Iwo Jima alone with 6000 of those KiAs) that the US high command decided that an invasion of the Japanese main island would be asking too much of an already over stretched military.

2. After the first bomb, the Japanese military Supreme Coucil (The Big Six) declared that every man, woman and child in Japan would die to the last. When the Russians declared war on August 9 and invaded Manchukuo and the second bomb was dropped, only then did Hirohito step in and force the Big Six to accept any terms offered.

3. Even though they decided to surrender, there was an attempted coup, the Kyujo Incident, that if successful would have derailed peace and continued the war. One of the rebel leaders, Hatakana, left a death poem when he committed suicide, it read "I have nothing to regret now that the dark clouds have disappeared from the reign of the Emperor." It was a different culture, one that had a different view of life and death than Western ideals. Believe me, and all the scholars that have written on the subject (Edwin Hoyt and John Toland to name two), without something this extreme, the war would have continued.

Just think. It took two atomic bombs and a Russian invasion to get Japan to even think about peace and even then it was nearly derailed. No bombs would have only ended in forcing the allies to invade the Japanese main islands and resulted in exponentially greater death.

It was a different world back then, peopled by individuals of such mental strength that we are all pale shadows in comparison. I know it's hard for us, living in a comparatively pampered age, to believe but it really was necessary and actually saved more lives than it cost. That doesn't help the victims but it doesn't change the truth.


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Polonius wrote:It's also worth noting that the Japanese were open to an alliance with the Soviets.
If there had been a called peace between the Allies and Japan, once the Cold War started (roughly six minutes later), the possiblity of Japan and the Soviets dividing up east asia becomes plausible. This is conjecture, but Japan was only helpless at that moment. They weren't saying "I shall fight no more forever."

The Russians were just stalling the Japanese and were already maneuvering to invade Japanese controlled territory in coordination with American forces.

The Soviets were ready to invade Japan, but once the Japanese/US war ends, so does the Soviet/US alliance.

Polonius wrote:The Soviets were ready to invade Japan, but once the Japanese/US war ends, so does the Soviet/US alliance.

Not really. There was actually a great deal of good-will between the US and Russia at the time; in fact it's likely the UN wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for the post-war bliss. It actually took a couple of years for the shine to wear off the new relationship. That's not to say that there wasn't a bit of stress, especially when it came to dividing up spheres of influence in Asia but at the time I don't believe there was any duplicity in the alliance, at least none that I've read about or learned of when I took those WW2 classes in university (damn history degree).

It went south in a hurry though. The Iron Curtain speech was 1946 or 7, the Berlin airlift was 1948.

The US gave into a lot of Soviet demands during the war because Roosevelt wanted to see the US pass the UK as the leader of the western world. It also seems likely that Stalin and FDR personally liked each other.

Polonius wrote:It went south in a hurry though. The Iron Curtain speech was 1946 or 7, the Berlin airlift was 1948.

The US gave into a lot of Soviet demands during the war because Roosevelt wanted to see the US pass the UK as the leader of the western world. It also seems likely that Stalin and FDR personally liked each other.

Oh yeah, things did go sour pretty quickly, especially when FDR died in 1945 which might indicate that the two had good relations. It was probably more a relationship based upon necessity on both sides.
Here's a good read on the subject:
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/amdipl_6/stefan.html

Emperors Faithful wrote:

ArbeitsSchu wrote:@ Various people including Sebster: And when the American military leadership of 1945 developed its time machine and flew to the future of NOW and googled Japan's war effort then they would have known that Japan didn't actually receive anything particularly useful from Germany, that most German research was advanced but not immediately useful, and a host of other exciting things......

Far too many people in this thread are thinking in terms of what we know now, and not what was known in 1944/45, which makes most of the counter arguments completely void. What they actually HAD is not only irrelevant but unknown to planners at the time. What they MIGHT have had however, is very very important.

Taking action on a "maybe" can be understood. IF there was anything to suggest that it was a maybe. They DIDN'T have a nuclear program and the Allies DIDN'T suspect anything otherwise.

Because the only thing that would be worrying if shared is a nuclear program? No other research took place at all that might have bearing on the military effectiveness of the Japanese military. K.

And I already stated my reasons for why the attack was necessary. Everything else is a response to this ridiculous beleif that Japan was not a threat to the US because it lacked a Navy or effective Air Force. I seem to recall a big hole in the middle of Manhattan made by a group with no air force and no navy.

Under the circumstances would being in control of a plane that size count as having some sort of make-shift air force?

Regardless, trying to compare 9/11 to WWII is a bit off, donchathink?

Its a very simple example of how someone with no military to speak of can still be a threat to the continental USA. In other words, you don't NEED an organised military to attack the USA, thus not having one does not render you impotent.

And if nothing else, if Japan was not a threat as much as people in this thread seem to believe was the case, then why didn't the whole Pacific Fleet just pack up and sale home? Why carry on prosecuting a war against a nation that is "no threat"?

Because of US popular opinion. And popular opinion is hardly something you want to base your moral compass on.

Addendum: For those who seem to think that I'm stating opinion and not fact, here's a google for you. 30AU and T-Force. Then go and read up about what the Germans did or did not have, and the rest of it.

This is about Japan, not Germany. There is nothing to suggest that the Allies believed Japan and Germany were working on a nuclear program together.

Still stuck on the nuclear program? Because its the only thing they ever researched that might be bad for American health? Righty-ho. I trust you understand the difference between a single example of a possibility, and an exhaustive list of possibilities? Nuclear? Biological? Chemical? Technological?


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dogma wrote:

ArbeitsSchu wrote:
I seem to recall a big hole in the middle of Manhattan made by a group with no air force and no navy.

Right, and I can beat someone to death with a the keyboard I'm using right now. Clearly I'm a threat to US citizens, and therefore the US.

What a joke.

You keep saying that people arguing against you are reaching a conclusion based on knowledge developed after the end of the war, I have repeatedly shown why this is not the case. Either you are being willfully ignorant, or you cannot, by way of intellectual limitations, perceive this fact.

Clearly you didn't understand the comparison. Which is doubly ironic from someone who spends more time trying to think of ways of calling me stupid than he does of understanding the problem. A flame with long words is still a flame, and not an actual response.


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Ketara wrote:

sebster wrote:

Yes, they tasked schoolkids with building ballons, and they sent hundreds of thousands up over the gulf stream. For the total of one effective hit, killing a handful of people. Turns out the while a city is very big, the entirety the west coast of the US is much bigger, and the odds of a bomb landing successfully is so remote that it made the whole thing a very stupid idea indeed.

Actually, might not have been as stupid as you think. The American government considered it enough of a threat to morale to hush the whole thing up. Something about the whole 'being attacked on american soil' thing. They didn't think it would sit well with the masses. And they were probably right. It was never going to do substantial damage, by then again, neither were the V1&2's. That wasn't really their purpose.

ArbeitsSchu wrote:Everything else is a response to this ridiculous beleif that Japan was not a threat to the US because it lacked a Navy or effective Air Force.

Aaaaand.....I stopped taking you seriously there.

Wait.. so you demonstrate how Japan could threaten the continental USA in one breath, then decide I'm not to be taken seriously for saying that in the next breath? Nice double-think there. Explosives and incendiaries are not the only payload that can be suspended from a balloon, as should be patently obvious.


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On a slightly different angle: There seems to be some confusion about the difference between the act of bombing being "right" and "necessary", which are obviously two distinct things.

AvatarForm wrote:

Like many War-Histories, history is written by the victors.

Who says what you "learned" at school is the reality?

Would further atrocities committed by USMC and other Defence personnel change the US public's views of the present invasions? As they did in Vietnam and the US Govt decided to explain away by claiming it was only a single unit who committed them.

Any who take the time to investigate the other side of an opinion or "fact" would know that what you are taught to believe at school is only half-truths.

There were attrocities on both sides. War is never the correct choice or a method of vindication to decide who is in the "right".

War is in and of itself, an atrocity. Therefore in order to distinguish the difference between the atrocity level that is a constant in standard war (aka, killing people), and things actually are atrocities, a general rule of thumb is to judge how inhumane/unnecessary we would consider it to be.

The nuclear detonations were unnecessary, in that there were other options available, but not to the extent whereby I would consider it an atrocity (because most of those other options also included lots of people dying one way or another). Ultimately, it was a judgement call, and one that is impossible to suddenly declare an atrocity. Why? Because it was no different from the napalm bombing. A bomb dropped on a civilian populace is a bomb dropped on a civilian populace. Unless the two styles of bombing are radically disproportionate (so, dropping an ICBM after one night of light bombing for example), there is really no distinction. The nukes were no worse than the napalm. Both killed lots of people over large areas, in many horrible ways. Just because one was the effect of a single bomb does not suddenly make it an atrocity.

As for bombing civilians in general being an atrocity, as it was modus operandi of modern warfare by that stage, I would judge it part of the nature of warfare of the time, and thus, not an atrocity. It is not cruel enough, deliberate enough, unnecessary enough, or inhumane enough when compared to the real atrocities of the time, such as the Holocaust, the German, and then Russian exterminations along the Eastern Front, or the Death marches the Japanese subjected PoW's too. Claiming 'everyone did atrocities, we only get taught half truths, rabble rabble' is no better than raving about UFO's. If you have the proof to show that the US or UK committed atrocities equal to the ones I just named, show it.

Lack of proof is not necessarily a sign something happened, but is more often a sign that something did not.

Emperors Faithful wrote:I'm not comfortable with any moral code that justifies genocide.

Genocide doesn't mean "kills a lot of people". It refers solely to a concentrated effort to eradicate an ethnic group, and does not necessarily involve actively killing anyone. Attempting to replace a culture, for example, is technically "genocide", in that it is destroying the defining fabric of an ethnic category. Similarly, bombing the cities of an opposing nation, especially an aggressor, is not genocide, but an attempt to undermine their ability to wage war, and to serve as an example to others.


Further, accepting anything but an unconditional surrender at that point would have been extremely unethical. You have a violent aggressor nation that has maintained an institutional policy of flaunting the rules of war, that has fought fanatically every step of the way and been soundly beaten at every turn, their back's against the wall, and they want to get off with a nervous "ha ha, my bad"? Anything other than unconditional surrender would have been unacceptable, and the only options available involved pummeling them until they accepted it. The two nukes were the easiest, cheapest, most humane, and most politically advantageous option available. They demonstrated the potential to completely and utterly annihilate the entire country, and so terrified the leadership into surrendering on our terms. Nothing else could have accomplished that, because nothing else presented so existential and alien a threat.

The atomic bombs weren't necessary?

You are aware that the Japanese propaganda spread around rumors saying that Americans would rape, murder, kill, torture, and all sorts of other mean things to civilians they captured right?

This led to Japanese civilians on some of the smaller islands comitting suicide by jumping off of cliffs and throwing their children off as well. Now imagine that except on the main island of Japan, yeah that's a lot of people jumping off of cliffs because of rumors the Japanese government spread.

Japan also trained its civilians to fight in basic terms, they even trained women to fire weapons just in case the Americans invaded. If we invaded we would still kill civilians, its just that it wouldn't be all at once.

We could've fire bombed the city which you know, sucked all of the oxygen away from surrounding areas. Sure you could die in the fire, die due to lack of oxygen, die due to smoke inhalation, not to mention the fact that fire spreads even after the initial explsion. This would've killed more civilians than both nukes combined. Again, it just wouldn't do it all at once.

So we looked at all of our options and realized that fire bombing and invasion wouldn't be enough to stop the Japanese. A nuclear weapon was new so we thought they would be too scared to try to fight back if we had weapons that could kill 10,000 in one explosion instead of multiple bombs.

Unfortunately the first one didn't, the second one convinced them that this wasn't a one time deal and that we could keep doing it. This is what made them surrender.

So yes, it was necessary.

Polonius wrote:It went south in a hurry though. The Iron Curtain speech was 1946 or 7, the Berlin airlift was 1948.

The US gave into a lot of Soviet demands during the war because Roosevelt wanted to see the US pass the UK as the leader of the western world. It also seems likely that Stalin and FDR personally liked each other.

That's because FDR and Stalin were very similar, at least, FDR's personal views and Stalin's public views. Both were very socialist and progressive, which was very popular at the time.

I think Truman's change of direction with the USSR was mostly due to Stalin's refusal to leave occupied Eastern Europe.

I have already asked you to read the article on page 3. There was a fair amount of support for the idea of a conditional surrender, especially if the terms were favourable in regards to the status of the Emperor. Your arguement that they showed no inclination towards a favourable surrender is patently false.

Hmmm, I didn't know the conquered leaders of mass murdering thugs got to dictate the terms of their surrender? What a great policy! I must have missed that in history class! I'll remember that next time the police surround my house when I'm accused of mass murder. "I'll surrender, but only if you let me go and keep leading my cult anyway I want!"

Should have made that offer to Hitler in 44!



Was racism a major factor in using the bomb? Yes.
So what? The Japanese were racists. The whole world was racist at the time!

Was Japan finished as a military force? Yes
OK alls forgivin, tee hee! Thanks for the party!

Were the Japanese ready to roll up the white flag? Yes.
Their will was not broken until they agree to our terms. If their fear is that we will treat them as harshly as they treated others, well then they deserve it.

Was the bomb used to lay down a marker to Joe Commie? Yes.
So what, it this a problem? Two birds with one stone. We get to end the war and scare the gak out of the world, thus creating a time of relative peace the likes the world has never seen.

The evidence to support this is overwhelming. That's the moral issue here that those cities need not have been bombed.
Maybe, but the world is still much better of for it having been done.

As far as war crimes perpetrated by the US during world war II, these were rogue elements and were not institutionally accepted or sanctioned. The Japanese were monsters! They got off easy in comparison to how they would have treated any conquered people. The Japanese would never have thought twice about dropping nucs if they had the ability.

The US owned the morale high ground. Not because we were the pinnacle, but because we were closer to the summit!

Andrew1975 wrote:

I have already asked you to read the article on page 3. There was a fair amount of support for the idea of a conditional surrender, especially if the terms were favourable in regards to the status of the Emperor. Your arguement that they showed no inclination towards a favourable surrender is patently false.

Hmmm, I didn't know the conquered leaders of mass murdering thugs got to dictate the terms of their surrender? What a great policy! I must have missed that in history class! I'll remember that next time the police surround my house when I'm accused of mass murder. "I'll surrender, but only if you let me go and keep leading my cult anyway I want!"

Should have made that offer to Hitler in 44!

Actually, the Japanese were negotiating with the Russians to serve as middle-men for a favorable, conditional surrender. Little did they know that the Russians were planning to invade one of their puppet-states.

It's also not like the Japanese couldn't have made an offer of surrender on their own terms.

agnosto wrote:Actually, the Japanese were negotiating with the Russians to serve as middle-men for a favorable, conditional surrender. Little did they know that the Russians were planning to invade one of their puppet-states.

Huh? How did that work? Japan and Russia were in a state of war.

Communications between Axis and Allied forces generally went through Swiss emissaries.

Russia and Japan had a non-aggression pact. While russia explicitly announced that they wouldn't renew it when it expire (~1946), they didn't go to war with Japan until after Hiroshima.

It's also not like the Japanese couldn't have made an offer of surrender on their own terms.

They certainly could have tried I suppose if their code of ethics would have allowed it. I love how people think it was the Allies jobs to cater to everyone sensibilities and cultures!
The allied armies were not the embodiment of Jesus Christ. If so they could have walked to Japan, no need for LCACs.

Polonius wrote:Russia and Japan had a non-aggression pact. While russia explicitly announced that they wouldn't renew it when it expire (~1946), they didn't go to war with Japan until after Hiroshima.

In April 1945 the Soviets denounced the nonaggression pact. Whether this restarted the war ended in '41 may be debated, but non-aggression was gone before Potsdam.

Andrew1975 wrote:

It's also not like the Japanese couldn't have made an offer of surrender on their own terms.

They certainly could have tried I suppose if their code of ethics would have allowed it. I love how people think it was the Allies jobs to cater to everyone sensibilities and cultures!
The allied armies were not the embodiment of Jesus Christ. If so they could have walked to Japan, no need for LCACs.

it should also be put in as a further reminder, it was the Allies who had the war forced upon them, not the Japanese. The Japanese invaded country after country. The allies were the ones being invaded.

From wiki:

"At the Yalta Conference (February 1945), amongst other things, Stalin secured from Roosevelt the promise of Stalin's Far Eastern territorial desires, in return agreeing to enter the Pacific war within two or three months of the defeat of Germany. By the middle of March 1945, things were not going well in the Pacific for the Japanese, and they withdrew their elite troops from Manchuria to support actions in the Pacific. Meanwhile the Soviets continued their Far Eastern buildup. The Soviets had decided that they did not wish to renew the Neutrality Pact. The terms of the Neutrality Pact required that 12 months before its expiry, the Soviets must advise the Japanese of this, so on 5 April 1945 they informed the Japanese that they did not wish to renew the treaty.[9] This caused the Japanese considerable concern,[10][11] but the Soviets went to great efforts to assure the Japanese that the treaty would still be in force for another twelve months, and that the Japanese had nothing to worry about.[12]"

Also:

"On 9 May 1945 (Moscow time), Germany surrendered, meaning that if the Soviets were to honour the Yalta agreement, they would need to enter war with Japan by 9 August 1945. "

And

"The Japanese were caught completely by surprise when the Soviets declared war an hour before midnight on 8 August 1945, and invaded simultaneously on three fronts just after midnight on 9 August"