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 gorgon wrote:

Would a land invasion of the Japanese island have caused more or less damage to and for the Japanese citizenry than 2 atomic weapons?

Honestly, I believe it would have been even worse if they didn't use the A-bombs, based on all the accounts we know from the war in the Pacific. If the Emperor said "fight 'till the last" once the US invaded, it would have been a massacre in both US troops and Japanese civilians.

 gorgon wrote:
While I think dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagaski should be something to reflect on and not celebrate, a few questions come to mind after reading the last few lines in that article.

Who were the aggressors in that war?

Japan.

Would a land invasion of the Japanese island have caused more or less damage to and for the Japanese citizenry than 2 atomic weapons?

Probably less. There's this American myth that the Japanese population were all frothing at the mouth extremists, just waiting to swarm any American landing en masse with Grandads katanas. It's also just that, a myth.

If Japan or Germany had developed the A-bomb first, would they have refused to drop it, or have dropped it in a 'safe', out-of-the-way location?

They would have dropped it. I'm not sure that Imperial Japan/Nazi Germany are good people to take as an example of moral virtue though. Generally speaking, in situations like this, you want to do the opposite thing to them. Otherwise, you're not really any better (since you're doing the same things).

Did the Japanese quietly reflect on or celebrate the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor?

Post-war? I think they did a lot of reflecting. I don't see many PH Day celebrations over there.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

Honestly, I believe it would have been even worse if they didn't use the A-bombs, based on all the accounts we know from the war in the Pacific. If the Emperor said "fight 'till the last" once the US invaded, it would have been a massacre in both US troops and Japanese civilians.

See my previous comments on the myth of the Japanese extremist. There's also the fact that such a view splits the options into a) nuke Japan, and b) invade Japan. In reality, there's option c) blockade Japan, and d) Leave Japan to the Soviets or do a combined assault with them.

Japan had had something like a quarter of its cities levelled and countless casualties already from American napalm bombing when the nukes were dropped. Most of its population was starving, and its military was so low on resources that the last battleship was sent out to fight without enough fuel to get back again. Japan has very few natural resources, it relies primarily on imports to run its industry and produce the corresponding goods. The fact is, when those two nuclear bombs were dropped, Japan had lost all ability to threaten America, or indeed, anyone. They had token military resources left, and the population was starving and homeless.

To make an analogy, it was the equivalent of kicking someone in the head when they're lying unconscious on the floor for fear they might wake up. Sure, that person was the one who attacked you. But does it really make it the right thing to do?

The American myth to date is that nuking is cheaper than invasion, so it was the logical thing to do to spare American lives. When you point out that there was a third option though, that of blockade, the reaction is normally one of , 'Well, they shouldn't have started it then!' as if the Japanese initiation of hostilities and atrocities gave America carte blanche to initiate them right back at any scale and come out morally unblemished.

And if you believe it did, then that's your point of view, and I respect your right to have it. I just disagree. The reason the Americans dropped the one bomb wasn't to spare American lives, but for geopolitical reasons with regards to the Soviet Union.

Every country tends to be in denial about some of the more unsavoury parts of it's past. If not in outright denial, at the least, they do not like to acknowledge the nasty parts. It's completely normal.

I mean, I see British people doing a bit of backslapping on here, but really, it's not like there isn't a fair bit of historical blindness prevalent in Britain on a lot of the dirty business of Empire. I'm sure it's somewhat similar in Japan, with some extremely well informed people and then a lot of people who sort of shy away from the worst of their nation's historical actions.

(Not German but) I think Germany is somewhat of an exception in this regard, as they have been pretty thoroughly hit over the head with the Nazis til they have pretty thoroughly accepted it.

 Da Boss wrote:
Every country tends to be in denial about some of the more unsavoury parts of it's past. If not in outright denial, at the least, they do not like to acknowledge the nasty parts. It's completely normal.

This is the thing. I personally think Hamburg/Dresden was a bit OTT, although there is some minor moral justification for it (primarily that there was still a belief in the RAF that it would work to end the war quicker against an opponent that could still fight back). I acknowledge though that the BE did several unsavoury things across the Empire postwar, but I don't feel that acknowledging that fact in any way makes me personally culpable (how could it?) or that it makes any of the better things it did worse.

History is history. Its viewed through the lens of the examiner, and it only ever seems to become problematic for people when nationalism or current politics intervene. It's hard to declare your country is the best when you have to acknowledge the past follies of that nation.

 Ketara wrote:
It's hard to declare your country is the best when you have to acknowledge the past follies of that nation.

We were complete dicks to the Native Americans.

We're still #1, though!

America, feth yeah!

 kronk wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
It's hard to declare your country is the best when you have to acknowledge the past follies of that nation.

We were complete dicks to the Native Americans.

We're still #1, though!

America, feth yeah!

Once again, Kronk Kronkington breaks all rules. Although note I said 'hard', not 'impossible'.

 Ketara wrote:


And if you believe it did, then that's your point of view, and I respect your right to have it. I just disagree. The reason the Americans dropped the one bomb wasn't to spare American lives, but for geopolitical reasons with regards to the Soviet Union.

While I agree with most of your view, I think you apply a little too much of what has come to be known in hind sight. At the time, military planners were frantic about how bloody a mainland invasion would be after the very brutal Okinawa Campaign. We can examine that possibility objectively in 1946, but in 1945 things were far less certain and military planners (at least in the Pacific generally) tended to plan for the worst and oiten found themselves to be correct so they ran with it.

The primary motivations for the bomb were a) mainland invasion is gonna be bloody (finding out this was false later is not really relevant to the decision making at the time), and b) the fear that a Soviet invasion of China and Manchuria would be just as brutal as the war had been with Japan, and as with Europe before, a profound fear that once there the Soviets would never leave.

Does that justify dropping the bomb? Morally I'd say the dropping was wrong, but that's on a level where I'd argue war is inherently wrong in itself. From a practical perspective, the bomb was probably prudent, but that's cold heartless realpolitik for you (EDIT: Though, even then hindsight says that China became Communist anyway... So... mission failed?)

It was a brutal and horrible thing to do, but that is only really a huge problem if people are fixated on seeing "their side" as the "good guys".

Actually its worse than a moot point. Operation Olympic called for MULTIPLE nuke strikes (on the order of fifteen!) as part of its invasion plan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
"Nuclear weapons

On Marshall's orders, Major General John E. Hull looked into the tactical use of nuclear weapons for the invasion of the Japanese home islands, even after the dropping of two strategic atomic bombs on Japan (Marshall did not think that the Japanese would capitulate immediately). Colonel Lyle E. Seeman reported that at least seven Fat Man-type plutonium implosion bombs would be available by X-Day, which could be dropped on defending forces. Seeman advised that American troops not enter an area hit by a bomb for "at least 48 hours"; the risk of nuclear fallout was not well understood, and such a short amount of time after detonation would have resulted in substantial radiation exposure for the American troops.[39]

Ken Nichols, the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District, wrote that at the beginning of August 1945, "[p]lanning for the invasion of the main Japanese home islands had reached its final stages, and if the landings actually took place, we might supply about fifteen atomic bombs to support the troops."[40] An air burst 1,800–2,000 ft (550–610 m) above the ground had been chosen for the (Hiroshima) bomb to achieve maximum blast effects, and to minimize residual radiation on the ground as it was hoped that American troops would soon occupy the city.[41]"


EDIT: interesting planning. Nimitz was thinking of loading his carrier fleet with just fighters, using B17 as radar pickets, and sending in a feigning action first to draw in suicide attacks against the fleet weeks before the real invasion. The Japanese had 10,000 kamikazis ready vs. 2,000 at Okinawa, plus suicide boats and troops. It would have been a bloodbath and then a counterbloodbath when the allied forces effectively went "Russia into Berlin" style as a result.

Not sure why we started talking about nukes. People may argue about the necessity of dropping the bomb, but no one in America denies it happened.

The Japanese seem to be increasingly denying that many of their worst atrocities even occurred. If you are looking for something to compare it to, compare it to holocaust denial.

I suppose it's on people's minds since the anniversary is around now.

It's pretty comparable to holocaust denial, but also generally to denial of historical atrocities. "Japan" as a whole is not denying, there are elements within Japan that are. The current government is pretty nationalistic and by Japanese standards is fairly warlike, but they're not representative of all opinion on Japan or anything.

That said, I'm sure more could be done in education in schools about these topics, but that's almost always true in all nations.

Some of the Japanese have always denied it. There isn't a growing movement to support that view.

What would people have the Japanese nation (acting through its government) do?

Regarding the atomic bombing...was it really necessary to target a city? Could they not have just obliterated an unpopulated or low population Japanese island as a demonstration of its power and a threat to drop more bombs on Japan's cities?

"See that island over there? Yeah, it doesn't exist anymore. We have X more of these things. Surrender now."

Same outcome - Japan is intimidated into surrender - but with a dramatically reduced loss of life.


I suppose the obvious answer is that those who gave the orders to drop the bombs on cities were bloodthirsty sadists who wanted to test the effects on a human population.

There certainly was some experimentation on victims to understand the effects of radiation exposure and so on. And the results of radiation sickness and so on were kept under wraps for a while, so survivors didn't all get decent treatment.

I dunno though. I guess it was a demonstration of willingness as well as power.

 Da Boss wrote:
There certainly was some experimentation on victims to understand the effects of radiation exposure and so on. And the results of radiation sickness and so on were kept under wraps for a while, so survivors didn't all get decent treatment.

I dunno though. I guess it was a demonstration of willingness as well as power.

Well it seems like a case of immediately jumping to the last resort.

Step 1 should have been...inform Japan of the existence of this terrible new weapon you've made.
Step 2...demonstrate its power. Obliterate some small low population island off the coast but within sight of mainland Japan. Demand immediate surrender.
Step 3...and only THEN begin dropping these bombs on cities if Japan refuses the demand to surrendur.

I don't know a great deal about the Pacific Theatre in WW 2 so idk, but did the US give Japan a warning first that they possessed the ability to delete entire cities in an instant? Or did they just go "Surprise mother fether!"

Because the full power of the weapon wouldn't sink in unless there was a massive casualty list to go along with it. It took two obliterated cities to make Japan surrender. An island wouldn't have reduced that.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

I don't know a great deal about the Pacific Theatre in WW 2 so idk, but did the US give Japan a warning first that they possessed the ability to delete entire cities in an instant? Or did they just go "Surprise mother fether!"

I think it was more the latter, because there were great fears that if the "cat got out of the bag" then Germany and Russia would suddenly be able to build them by the dozen and start tossing them like hand grenades about Europe.

IMO, I kind of agree with some here, that the first bomb could easily have been dropped somewhere that held less civilian population, with the second bomb being dropped on one of the cities (as it's basically an escalation of force at that point)

We did issue a threat to bomb Japan off the face of the earth. But even if we had been explicit saying ''we have a bomb that can destroy an entire city by itself'' they wouldn't have believed us. They didn't even believe Hiroshima had been totally destroyed at first, it really took the second bomb to make them realize what was happening.

And the bomb did save Japan. Even if they wouldn't have all fought to the death like was originally thought, it would have been extremely bloody. Far more than the bombs killed.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
There certainly was some experimentation on victims to understand the effects of radiation exposure and so on. And the results of radiation sickness and so on were kept under wraps for a while, so survivors didn't all get decent treatment.

I dunno though. I guess it was a demonstration of willingness as well as power.

Well it seems like a case of immediately jumping to the last resort.

Step 1 should have been...inform Japan of the existence of this terrible new weapon you've made.
Step 2...demonstrate its power. Obliterate some small low population island off the coast but within sight of mainland Japan. Demand immediate surrender.
Step 3...and only THEN begin dropping these bombs on cities if Japan refuses the demand to surrendur.

I don't know a great deal about the Pacific Theatre in WW 2 so idk, but did the US give Japan a warning first that they possessed the ability to delete entire cities in an instant? Or did they just go "Surprise mother fether!"

The only way to show people you're willing to do a thing is to do that thing.

LordofHats wrote:
While I agree with most of your view, I think you apply a little too much of what has come to be known in hind sight. At the time, military planners were frantic about how bloody a mainland invasion would be after the very brutal Okinawa Campaign. We can examine that possibility objectively in 1946, but in 1945 things were far less certain and military planners (at least in the Pacific generally) tended to plan for the worst and oiten found themselves to be correct so they ran with it.

Such reasoning only applies if you run with the idea that an invasion was a necessary evil. The paucity of natural resources in Japan was a known fact, the desolation wreaked by American napalm bombing was a known fact (damage done could be seen on most subsequent runs and was recorded to plot future targets amongst other things) and by the time the bomb was dropped, the inability of the Imperial airforce/Navy to fight back was also a known fact. Under those circumstances, a blockade is an obvious option.

It is possible to say that it was not seriously considered, but if that is the case, it says much about American military planning of the day. Primarily, that the American perspective was one of complete domination/victory at any human cost, be it of their own lives, or those of their opponents.

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:Regarding the atomic bombing...was it really necessary to target a city? Could they not have just obliterated an unpopulated or low population Japanese island as a demonstration of its power and a threat to drop more bombs on Japan's cities?

"See that island over there? Yeah, it doesn't exist anymore. We have X more of these things. Surrender now."

Same outcome - Japan is intimidated into surrender - but with a dramatically reduced loss of life.

I suppose the obvious answer is that those who gave the orders to drop the bombs on cities were bloodthirsty sadists who wanted to test the effects on a human population.

It was more about demonstrating the bomb to the Soviets, and forcing the Japanese to capitulate before the Soviets could get involved. Which are perfectly legitimate geopolitical reasons. The question is whether or not such reasons were worth the cost borne by the Japanese. From an American viewpoint (as it had no cost to them) probably so. From a moral/humanitarian one, not so much.

 kronk wrote:

The only way to show people you're willing to do a thing is to do that thing.

Germany definitely showed everyone that quite well

^Yup.

Ya'll forget... Japan didn't surrender until AFTER the 2nd bomb dropped. So, dropping it 1st on an uninhabited island wouldn't do gak.

 whembly wrote:
^Yup.

Ya'll forget... Japan didn't surrender until AFTER the 2nd bomb dropped. So, dropping it 1st on an uninhabited island wouldn't do gak.

They had three days after Hiroshima before Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. That's not a whole lot of time to come to terms with what just happened.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 whembly wrote:
^Yup.

Ya'll forget... Japan didn't surrender until AFTER the 2nd bomb dropped. So, dropping it 1st on an uninhabited island wouldn't do gak.

They had three days after Hiroshima before Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. That's not a whole lot of time to come to terms with what just happened.

Should have debated faster!

 kronk wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 whembly wrote:
^Yup.

Ya'll forget... Japan didn't surrender until AFTER the 2nd bomb dropped. So, dropping it 1st on an uninhabited island wouldn't do gak.

They had three days after Hiroshima before Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. That's not a whole lot of time to come to terms with what just happened.

Should have debated faster!

You must be kidding. Everyone knows it takes three days just to get the committee through the first few boxes of doughnuts and powerpoint presentations!

 Ketara wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 whembly wrote:
^Yup.

Ya'll forget... Japan didn't surrender until AFTER the 2nd bomb dropped. So, dropping it 1st on an uninhabited island wouldn't do gak.

They had three days after Hiroshima before Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. That's not a whole lot of time to come to terms with what just happened.

Should have debated faster!

You must be kidding. Everyone knows it takes three days just to get the committee through the first few boxes of doughnuts and powerpoint presentations!

Around here three days is just enough time to appoint people to the task force in charge of creating a committee...

I think dropping it on an island somewhere and then escalating is a pretty dangerous approach- it increases the risk of the weapon being shot down and potentially falling into enemy hands. I think that can't be forgotten as a consideration.

Ketara you forget the ideological element to the military strategy in combination with the practicality. America was aiming for a "hard surrender" as this is the most optimal result if one is to achieve long lasting results. An armistice or surrender due to blockade would not be significant. Contrast the Armistice in 1918 with the utter defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, equally compare the Korean war with the Vietnam war. Both roughly contemporaneous and yet completely different outcomes due to the lack of spectacular definitive outcome in Korea.

My point is that America needed to utterly defeat Japan for it to start to rebuild as a new nation rather than just to carry on doing what it was doing before. Thus the only comparisons are Marines flying the Stars and Stripes over Tokyo a la Russians in Berlin or the Atomic Bomb. Blockade would not have seriously been considered as an alternative and would not have had the same positive long term effects

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Regarding the atomic bombing...was it really necessary to target a city? Could they not have just obliterated an unpopulated or low population Japanese island as a demonstration of its power and a threat to drop more bombs on Japan's cities?

"See that island over there? Yeah, it doesn't exist anymore. We have X more of these things. Surrender now."

Same outcome - Japan is intimidated into surrender - but with a dramatically reduced loss of life.


I suppose the obvious answer is that those who gave the orders to drop the bombs on cities were bloodthirsty sadists who wanted to test the effects on a human population.

There was an attempt to discuss the surrender apparently, but America made no budge on it and Japan saw it as a loss of culture to be assimilated completely as was the assumption. The nukes actually weren't needed, it was the threat of Russia joining in with America for a land based assault that did it in the end. The threat there they saw was chance losing that cultural identity with America or have it guaranteed to be replaced when Russia steps in and they become a socialist country.

The nuke in the end was more America flexing to Russia as they felt threatened by them at the time too, basically handing them the resources from a joint invasion on Japan felt like sort of a backfire hence the pressure they put for the surrender to come before the 15th. The nukes did it for most of the party in charge of keeping the war going, but others wanted to keep going until the Russian threat was apparent.

 Frazzled wrote:
Agreed but going way OT methinks.

Yes, I'm sorry that the civil war discussion dragged things OT for a page. My intent was only to illustrate that I imagine it's a pretty natural instinct to want to downplay the awful things that our forebears did. I think there are only a handful of countries that have really owned up to their past unpleasantness, right? Germany, Australia, South Africa come to mind.

Also, didn't Japan apologize at some point in the past? I could swear they made an apology, formally, for Nanking. Perhaps I am misremembering.