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 Freakazoitt wrote:
They dropped bomb because they had it.

This is actually an important factor. You don't spend about 5% of your total war effort developing a bomb, and then not use it.

Other things doesn't matter. Bomb itself was more evil than Japan, USA and whatever.

But this is ridiculous. Go read about Japanese war atrocities. The rape of Nanking, the massed deaths in forced labour camps, the use of 'comfort' women... and you're calling that less evil than a bomb aimed simply to end a war. Ridiculous.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:
A joint land invasion with the Soviets? Yes it would. Japan had pulled all of its forces to the south of the main island. A joint assault by the Soviets and Americans would have split that force in half and thrown their resistance into a mess.

Are the Soviet soldiers swimming across?

The USA had complete air and sea dominance, Japan was starving. Just wait a couple of months until they are literally to weak to fight and roll in.

So dropping a bomb that kills 100,000 is abhorrent, but letting a few million starve to death is much better.


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 whembly wrote:
Here's the key lesson from WW2.

1) don't fething do a sneak attack on America

2) in an all-out-war, just about anything is fair game

We will feth you up. End of story.

All these reflections on whether or not we were right to drop these bombs is just chickgak moral relativism.

I think that kind of amoral simplicity does a great disservice to the men who actually had to make those incredibly hard decisions.


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 Polonius wrote:
The real question is if we should have done more to try to secure a negotiated peace with Japan before dropping the bombs. But, even then, the bombs were terrible, but so were all the other bombs dropped in the war.

Yeah, the insistence on unconditional surrender was a very costly blunder. The US should have done it like Germany did to France, accept ceasefire and negotiation, knowing that once the war has halted Japan isn't going to start it again, and you can then put whatever conditions you want on them.


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 whembly wrote:
Besides, had we not dropped the bomb, you could argue the following:
1) a land invasion would be so bloody, Japan probably wouldn't exist as it does now. Heck, it may have become a US Territory.

The first part is a huge maybe - we don't know if Japan would have fought on, or if US troops on the mainland would have seen the teetering military rule collapse. The second part is an impossibility, the US would never have occupied Japan long term.

2) there probably would've been a nuke war soon afterwards, as the world didn't appreciate the reprecusion yet.

Nah. What made people realise the dreadful nature of nuclear weapons wasn't their use, but the return of peace to contrast against their destructive power.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I blame Americans. All of you. You Americans are just that evil

When you Freedom™ as hard as we do, it's easy to be misunderstood

 whembly wrote:
In Total War™... yes... yes it does dude.

You kill your enemies and their supporters until they stop.

Total War doesn't mean you're free to do any amoral, horrific gak you can think of. While total war expands the targets beyond the military and to civilian targets that support the war effort, you still have a moral obligation to consider if the harm done to the target is worth the gain.


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ChrisRR wrote:
I'm pretty sure if you look at history you will see that the Japanese army kill thousands upon thousands of civilians!

But they did bad things is a gak defense.

I have no remorse what so ever of dropping the bomb! A commander and Chiefs responsibility is to his people first and foremost and by dropping the bomb Truman saved thousands of AMERICAN lives that is the only people he has to worry about in a time of war.

The lives of his men and the preservation of his nation are certainly priorities, but they are not the only things to be considered.

The arguments some people make here do Truman a grave disservice.


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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I'm the first to criticise the USA's dubious foreign policy post WW2, but with regard to Japan in WW2, they brought that calamity upon themselves - Pearl Harbour, Bataan death march, China in the 1930s etc etc

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

- Sir Arthur 'bomber Harris, chief of RAF bomber command WW2

Seeing Harris call Nazi bomber command naive is comedy of the highest order. He spent the lead up to the war and it's duration in a cloud of naivety bordering on deliberate ignorance, first about the capabilities of his bombers, and later about their effect on the war effort.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
If that is how you want to react to the wholesale murder of civilians, then that is your right.

Don't be too hard on him. The US paid a heavy price (to them) in bodies to capture a lot of otherwise insignificant Pacific islands from the Japanese. The Japanese that had attacked them in their largest, most powerful naval base some time earlier and about totalled everything they had there. US forces in WW2 weren't always the most friendly but they did usually allow you to surrender. Japanese forces just weren't even conditioned to consider surrender.

Hey, I'm from the only Axis country to not be occupied at the end of that war... Stalin had more pressing concerns like conquering something that actually looked like it was worth something, as the Eastern European countries did. Costly doesn't begin to describe it (losing 10+% of your territory and having to settle the refugees) but at least we stayed free. We don't want to be caught between the big boys ever again. Aye - choose Stalin who you know has murdered millions of your relatives or try Hitler who so far hasn't done anything wrong by you and is offering you guns to stave off the Soviet hordes. Not a pretty place to be.

I don't understand why atmoic bombs occupy this special place of hate in people minds, especially the early ones, the modern ones are significantly more destructive, to be sure. The same effect can be achieved with lots of high explosive, Hamburg and Dresden copped city destroying bombings, as did Tokyo. What makes the bombing of Hiroshima so special?

EmilCrane, are you joking? This bombing will be remembered after thousands years. Reasons will be forgotten, but bombing fact - never. Its about humanity vs nuclear weapons

 Freakazoitt wrote:
EmilCrane, are you joking? This bombing will be remembered after thousands years. Reasons will be forgotten, but bombing fact - never. Its about humanity vs nuclear weapons

Why?

Hamburg and Dresden were firebombed and destroyed, Berlin was destroyed with high explosive, Tokyo was destroyed with napalm, Hiroshima was destroyed with a atomic bomb, why is one way of destroying a city more special than any other?

 sebster wrote:
I think what a lot of people fail to realise is the context in which the order to drop the bomb was given. Military and government leaders were giving orders on a daily basis that could or would result in thousands or tens of thousands of deaths. Of their own men, of the enemy, and of the civilians caught in the middle. We find it easy to seperate the atomic bomb from that because it is now seen as an unconventional weapon, unlike everything else used in the war. But at the time it was not seen as any different to the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo. It was another weapon, deployed to end the war as quickly as possible.

There were hundreds of such brutal decisions made during the war. The decision to indiscriminately sink all Japanese shipping starved millions of Japanese, but it was also probably the key strategic action in ending the war in the Pacific.

This is absolutely true. Let's remember that the USA entered WW1 in protest at German unrestricted U-Boat warfare. Almost the first order given by the navy on 8th December 2941 was for all submarines to carry out unrestricted warfare against the Japanese. This was done very successfully, but it was against the rules of war at sea. Everyone else was doing the same, of course, so you can't single out the USA for opprobrium.

Indeed, and such was the case at Nuremburg, when despite conviction of the charges Karl Donitz was rendered no punishment after US Admiral Chester Nimitz stated that the United States began Unrestricted Submarine Warfare from the moment it entered the war.

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:
EmilCrane, are you joking? This bombing will be remembered after thousands years. Reasons will be forgotten, but bombing fact - never. Its about humanity vs nuclear weapons

Why?

Hamburg and Dresden were firebombed and destroyed, Berlin was destroyed with high explosive, Tokyo was destroyed with napalm, Hiroshima was destroyed with a atomic bomb, why is one way of destroying a city more special than any other?

We can wipe human life off the planet with nuclear weapons. It'd be unfeasible at best to amass enough conventional explosives to do so, and that's not even taking the radiation into account.

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:
EmilCrane, are you joking? This bombing will be remembered after thousands years. Reasons will be forgotten, but bombing fact - never. Its about humanity vs nuclear weapons

Why?

Hamburg and Dresden were firebombed and destroyed, Berlin was destroyed with high explosive, Tokyo was destroyed with napalm, Hiroshima was destroyed with a atomic bomb, why is one way of destroying a city more special than any other?

One reason.
One plane, one plane flying over the city destroyed these cities. All those you mentioned required massive massive hordes of planes.
But a nuke, flown and dropped by a single plane, leveled these cities wholesale in a matter of seconds.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

One reason.
One plane, one plane flying over the city destroyed these cities. All those you mentioned required massive massive hordes of planes.
But a nuke, flown and dropped by a single plane, leveled these cities wholesale in a matter of seconds.

Poor reason. That one plane is a huge liability. The actual bombing run that saw the nuke used plenty of planes.

Plus, the one bomb on that one plane cost a lot more than the total cost for a good conventional bombing run.

Nowadays we've got different means of deployment and all. But that's not much of a reason IMO.

 EmilCrane wrote:
I don't understand why atmoic bombs occupy this special place of hate in people minds, especially the early ones, the modern ones are significantly more destructive, to be sure. The same effect can be achieved with lots of high explosive, Hamburg and Dresden copped city destroying bombings, as did Tokyo. What makes the bombing of Hiroshima so special?

Because within a decade of their use nuclear weapons had become powerful and numerous enough to potentially wipe life from the planet.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
This is absolutely true. Let's remember that the USA entered WW1 in protest at German unrestricted U-Boat warfare. Almost the first order given by the navy on 8th December 2941 was for all submarines to carry out unrestricted warfare against the Japanese. This was done very successfully, but it was against the rules of war at sea. Everyone else was doing the same, of course, so you can't single out the USA for opprobrium.

Yep. And WWII closely resembled WWI in terms of Atlantic strategy - Germany only restrained from open war on the seas until they realised that they couldn't inflict serious damage on Britain without it. Both times they underestimated the scope and effectiveness of the US response. Second time was only different in that they arranged for Japan to join in hopes they'd distract the US. It didn't really work.

Then the US did the same. Japan didn't, but only because they didn't really get the idea of total war, they thought their subs were more important working with the fleet to give them their final decisive victory over the US fleet. That also didn't really work.

Also, 2941?

History repeats itself.

Interestingly I read somewhere that the programme to develop, deploy and operate the conventional B26 fleet was more expensive than the programme to develop the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 sebster wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
A land invasion would have had LESS casualties?

I'm really not sure how you can say that. A land invasion would have included bombing more cities, destroying even more infrastructure, prolonged the war (which means things like disease and starvation kill more civilians) and so on. And then you have to consider allied losses. The Enola Gay didn't lose any one. An amphibious landing would have been pretty damned bloody.

A land invasion would have been a lot less bloody if it prompted a surrender, or Japanese resistance collapsed in spite of government. People like to theorise and claim those things would never have happened, but they're guessing. We don't know, though it is likely given the political changes in Japan's inner circle following the Soviet advance, that surrender was likely. But Truman likely knew little of that.

Probably the bigger issue was the insistence on unconditional surrender.

It may be speculation, but it is based on facts. The defenders of Saipan, Guam, Okinawa, Iwo Jima and many other places didn't up and surrender when it was clear they had lost. The Divine Wind that killed many US sailors was not the tactic of a people prone to surrender. Fighting for the home islands was not going to be easy. Yes that statement is speculation, but it is a lot more logical than 'they would have given up because the war was getting harder' which is basically the position you put forth.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:
EmilCrane, are you joking? This bombing will be remembered after thousands years. Reasons will be forgotten, but bombing fact - never. Its about humanity vs nuclear weapons

Why?

Hamburg and Dresden were firebombed and destroyed, Berlin was destroyed with high explosive, Tokyo was destroyed with napalm, Hiroshima was destroyed with a atomic bomb, why is one way of destroying a city more special than any other?

We can wipe human life off the planet with nuclear weapons. It'd be unfeasible at best to amass enough conventional explosives to do so, and that's not even taking the radiation into account.

As I said, I understand the importance attached to nukes now, but why does the act of destroying one city in a special way get so much attention attached to it in a war where cities were destroyed with alarming regularity.

 EmilCrane wrote:


As I said, I understand the importance attached to nukes now, but why does the act of destroying one city in a special way get so much attention attached to it in a war where cities were destroyed with alarming regularity.

Other cities were destroyed but by things and on a time scale humans can at least somewhat comprehend. Ancient sieges destroyed cities in a matter of months. You might wipe out a city with conventional explosives but it'll take a lot of planes, and days maybe even weeks of sustained effort to do so. There will be extended process than people can see and conceptualize. Fire consumes and spreads over buildings, it's something real.

With the nuke a city and tens of thousands of people were wiped out in an instant. Even earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis have been slower and less complete in their destruction at times. It was something beyond a force nature,a human act more destructive than those of god.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
In Total War™... yes... yes it does dude.

You kill your enemies and their supporters until they stop.

Total War doesn't mean you're free to do any amoral, horrific gak you can think of. While total war expands the targets beyond the military and to civilian targets that support the war effort, you still have a moral obligation to consider if the harm done to the target is worth the gain.


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ChrisRR wrote:
I'm pretty sure if you look at history you will see that the Japanese army kill thousands upon thousands of civilians!

But they did bad things is a gak defense.

I have no remorse what so ever of dropping the bomb! A commander and Chiefs responsibility is to his people first and foremost and by dropping the bomb Truman saved thousands of AMERICAN lives that is the only people he has to worry about in a time of war.

The lives of his men and the preservation of his nation are certainly priorities, but they are not the only things to be considered.

The arguments some people make here do Truman a grave disservice.


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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I'm the first to criticise the USA's dubious foreign policy post WW2, but with regard to Japan in WW2, they brought that calamity upon themselves - Pearl Harbour, Bataan death march, China in the 1930s etc etc

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

- Sir Arthur 'bomber Harris, chief of RAF bomber command WW2

Seeing Harris call Nazi bomber command naive is comedy of the highest order. He spent the lead up to the war and it's duration in a cloud of naivety bordering on deliberate ignorance, first about the capabilities of his bombers, and later about their effect on the war effort.

I think I sense another thread that needs to be started

 Chongara wrote:

 EmilCrane wrote:


As I said, I understand the importance attached to nukes now, but why does the act of destroying one city in a special way get so much attention attached to it in a war where cities were destroyed with alarming regularity.

Other cities were destroyed but by things and on a time scale humans can at least somewhat comprehend. Ancient sieges destroyed cities in a matter of months. You might wipe out a city with conventional explosives but it'll take a lot of planes, and days maybe even weeks of sustained effort to do so. There will be extended process than people can see and conceptualize. Fire consumes and spreads over buildings, it's something real.

With the nuke a city and tens of thousands of people were wiped out in an instant. Even earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis have been slower and less complete in their destruction at times. It was something beyond a force nature,a human act more destructive than those of god.

Also the way people die from the Atom bomb. From the moment of detonation and over next few days people die from burns, vomiting, flesh falling off, extreme loss of energy, fire storms, vaporization, melting eyes, buried in collapsed rubble, or being thrown around from the impact and probably more. It also brought about a darkness that apparently confused many of the people waking up after the blast. Pretty creepy weapon and it almost seems a blessing to die from vaporization rather than die from the above afterwards.

Now yes some of that stuff happens from napalm or explosives... but the Atom bomb sounded like a combination of all the methods used to bomb cities AND MORE in one small package Happening in what is described as a flash by survivors. Radiation sickness also effected people for a loong time, as did the burns.

Radiation deaths are very horrible. You saw ghouls in Fallout, it's not far from true (by what it looks like). We expirienced that in Chernobyl, when poor firefighters climbed on reactor roof.
Even survived always feel pain for years.

 Freakazoitt wrote:

But I wonder how people here say "bombing was good thing for Japan".

Not a single person said that. Not one.

 kronk wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:

But I wonder how people here say "bombing was good thing for Japan".

Not a single person said that. Not one.

"It saved more lives by preventing land operation" = "it's better to use bomb"

 Freakazoitt wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:

But I wonder how people here say "bombing was good thing for Japan".

Not a single person said that. Not one.

"It saved more lives by preventing land operation" = "it's better to use bomb"

Still doesn't mean "bombing was a good thing for Japan".

Maybe things are getting lost in translation here?

 whembly wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:

But I wonder how people here say "bombing was good thing for Japan".

Not a single person said that. Not one.

"It saved more lives by preventing land operation" = "it's better to use bomb"

Still doesn't mean "bombing was a good thing for Japan".

Maybe things are getting lost in translation here?

Most likely. Nothing about the bomb was "good" for anyone, other than ending the war earlier. That, or he's reading what his Russian overlords want him to read.

Don't drink the Flavor-Aid, man!

Flavor-Aid? No idea what's that

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Flavor-Aid? No idea what's that

Flavor-aid is the fruit drink made from powder packets.

"drinking the flavor-aids" means something totally different. It means, don't follow the herd. Here's the genesis of that phrase:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

Kool-Aid gets a bad wrap. Jonestown people were poisoned via Flavor-Aid. Leave the Kool-Aid man alone.

 kronk wrote:
Kool-Aid gets a bad wrap. Jonestown people were poisoned via Flavor-Aid. Leave the Kool-Aid man alone.

CORRECTAMUNDO!

My lifetime Kool-Aid consumption would fill a city reservoir. True story.

My wife says that if I get autopsied after I expire, they'll find my guts are colored Tropical Punch red.

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Freakazoitt wrote:
EmilCrane, are you joking? This bombing will be remembered after thousands years. Reasons will be forgotten, but bombing fact - never. Its about humanity vs nuclear weapons

Why?

Hamburg and Dresden were firebombed and destroyed, Berlin was destroyed with high explosive, Tokyo was destroyed with napalm, Hiroshima was destroyed with a atomic bomb, why is one way of destroying a city more special than any other?

Because Napalm and conventional explosives don't also affect the children of the survivors in the way atomic weapons do. You don't get someone who survived Dresden giving birth to a child with no eyes or limbs as a direct consequence of what happened to them.

Nuclear weapons should never have been made. They are possibly the greatest achievement of the 20th century and also the biggest mistake.

Who in here thinks that Japan wouldn't have drop an A bomb on US forces if they had it? There is no doubt they would have used it on us so just because we developed it and used it before them makes us the bad people?