Hiroshima & Nagasaki - On the 65th Anniversary of Nagasaki

[bush_cheney2004]

Revisionist my ass. They were transporting bombs out so they wouldn't use them right?

More revisionist crap...Operation Downfall was well underway and authorized by Truman because there was no certainty that A-bombs would work or force a surrender. That's why your story is bullshit.

And you're very welcome for the uranium I'm sure. Thats the major problem with this country. We are willing to do almost anything to get a pat on the head: Oh let us invade Dieppe! Oh let us defend Hong Kong! Oh Let us be your buddies! Pleeeease?

Sorry...can'r relate to your pathetic state of mind...even about Canada.

[capricorn]

Operation Downfall was well underway and authorized by Truman because there was no certainty that A-bombs would work or force a surrender.

The US tried to warn the Japanese authorities but they replied with gobbledygook. I'm certain they have since learned how to communicate with the outside world more effectively.

[ToadBrother]

By forcing a surrender.

There was no way the Imperial government was going to surrender post haste. We're talking about a matter of weeks here. The campaign you propose would have taken longer than that... except it wouldn't have, because the Soviets would have marched into northern Japan. They'd already taken Japanese territory.

Your "solution" would have ended up in, at best, a balkanized Japan, much as what happened in the Korean Peninsula. Hardly encouraging for the Japs, and no damned good for the West.

[ToadBrother]

There were only three weapons available or enough enriched material to make a few more in short order. Your ideas run counter to the actual experience in the Pacific and many Allied lives lost, not just the dead Americans you want to insult now that they are safely in their graves.

Using your logic, the Allies should have stopped at the River Rhine too.

The record shows that there was intense debate on what precisely to do. As you stated elsewhere, no one was quite sure what the yield of the bombs would be. As it was, even after the first bomb, the Imperial government didn't surrender. It actually took the second one to finally convince the Emperor that further delays or attempts at negotiating the nature of the surrender would lead, even if not to further atomic attacks, most certainly to conventional bombings that would kill and/or wound millions.

At the end of the day, I think Truman made the right call. He forced Japan's unconditional surrender, got an occupation government in there before Uncle Joe could capitalize on destruction of Manchukuo and the capture of the Kurils. I can appreciate the moral outrage of the time, and certainly no one should have been leaping up and down for joy, but I wonder if Dre had sons who were about to mount an invasion of Japan, whether he wouldn't have been happy and relieved.

The Japanese, to their credit, were dogged defenders. Iwo Jima, Okinawa, everything won in the Battle of the Pacific was won at incredible cost. Even after it was clear that there was no hope at all, the Japanese fought on. Most certainly the retaking of Okinawa directly informed Truman's decision. These people would not give up, not without a clear sign that not surrendering would lead to annihilation. And, like I have said so many times, for the Japanese it worked out well enough in the end. They received an enormous amount of American aid, their industries rebuilt, and they didn't end up under the Soviet thumb. One wonders if the East Germans, the Czechoslovakians and the Hungarians might not have been better off with high casualties in a couple of cities, and the Red Army not occupying their soil for half a century. The Japanese certainly had a better time of it after WWII than the East Germans or the Poles did.

[ToadBrother]

The US tried to warn the Japanese authorities but they replied with gobbledygook. I'm certain they have since learned how to communicate with the outside world more effectively.

The Potsdam declaration made it very clear. Either the Japanese unconditionally surrendered, or there would be an onslaught. The Emperor and His government (nobody is really sure who had more influence, but recent commentators seem to think Hirohito had a helluva lot more sway than the public fiction that MacArthur let out) seemed convinced, right up to Nagasaki that somehow or other they could insert terms in the surrender. The Japanese couldn't have known the precise nature of the coming attack, but they knew it was coming.

[Moonlight Graham]

I'm no expert on the exact situation Truman faced at the time he ordered the bombings. So i won't pretend to spout an informed opinion, though the civilian causalities were certainly horrific.

The dropping of the 2 bombs certainly changed the world forever. It's unfortunate that since man has begun to harness the power of the atom we have used it mostly for military purposes and those of destruction or threat of destruction and less for positive/constructive purposes.

[ToadBrother]

I'm no expert on the exact situation Truman faced at the time he ordered the bombings. So i won't pretend to spout an informed opinion, though the civilian causalities were certainly horrific.

The dropping of the 2 bombs certainly changed the world forever. It's unfortunate that since man has begun to harness the power of the atom we have used it mostly for military purposes and those of destruction or threat of destruction and less for positive/constructive purposes.

Last time I checked only two such weapons have ever been used in combat. By and large, the vast majority of nuclear technology is used to produce energy.

[jbg]

It is relieving to see your non-understanding of military matters and blind emotionalism extends to other conflicts besides your pet issue.

With that poster, savages good, West bad. It's that simple.

[jbg]

I still have not been able to form a personal conclusion on these incidents. Part of me understands that there seemed to be no other solution to end the bloodshed, but the other part cannot accept it as justification for vapourizing hundreds of thousand of people.

If Westerners die it's OK with you; if savages die it isn't.

[bud]

If Westerners die it's OK with you; if savages die it isn't.

did you seriously come up with that conclusion from her comment, mr. radical leftist lawyer?

i mean, seriously buddy. grow up.

[jbg]

And believe me, they were better off being beaten, even with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the Americans than by the Soviets.

I wish more Canadians would apply that logic to our own countries' relationship; we are highly lucky to have each other as neighbors (if not as neighbours).

[jbg]

did you seriously come up with that conclusion from her comment, mr. radical leftist lawyer?

i mean, seriously buddy. grow up.

Too much "BC bud" on your brain? Or just in your screen name?

[August1991]

Looking briefly through this thread, I am surprised how posters ignore that Truman made the decision, and understood well the consequences.

I'm no expert on the exact situation Truman faced at the time he ordered the bombings. So i won't pretend to spout an informed opinion, though the civilian causalities were certainly horrific.

The dropping of the 2 bombs certainly changed the world forever. It's unfortunate that since man has begun to harness the power of the atom we have used it mostly for military purposes and those of destruction or threat of destruction and less for positive/constructive purposes.

This is my thinking. Truman did this because first, it solved an immediate problem and second, he knew that all future presidents would have a stronger hand.

Let's be very clear about this....US popular opinion (after the fact of course) was to spare the life of even one more GI at the cost of thousands of Japanese if necessary, so deep was the hatred and animosity towards Japan. I don't think this was a major determinant in the decision, but it was part of the political calculation. To this day, the popular phrase "Nuke 'em" remains....I heard a project manager (from Winnipeg) use this term in a business setting. LOL!

I agree, and that's how I used to understand Truman's decision. But then I wondered about Nagasaki. b_c, there was more than fanatical Japanese or saving the lives of GIs.

After Hiroshima, why did Truman allow the second bomb drop on Nagasaki? It happened three days later - enough time for Truman to cancel the run. Yet, Truman approved the second bomb.

IMV, Truman was showing, like a good poker player, that this was no bluff. US presidents will, as Kennedy said, "bear any burden, meet any hardship". The US is no paper tiger; the threat is credible.

If targetting civilians is the moral way to fight wars then lets nix all the treaties weve signed since WW2. And remember all your assumptions, and post hoc rationalization when an ENEMY using those same rationalizations chooses YOUR city to make an example of. You can applaud their moral superiority the last moment before youre vaporized.

This is a far more critical question. Why kill civilians in Dresden or Baghdad or Hiroshima or Moscow when the true evil is a small coterie of men?

Why didn't Truman target the city where Tojo happened to be?

And how can we in the West claim that Mohammed Atta is a terrorist because he killed innocent civilians when Truman did the same in Japan in 1945?

----

My own response to this is to say that in war, there are no rules - except those that work. There are no just or unjust wars, and the Geneva Convention is a nice idea that probably won't work.

And second, we in the West are right. I don't agree with moral relativism or whatever the term is. Harry Truman was no Mohammed Atta and I am bothered that too many people in the West cannot make the distinction between these two men.

Edited August 11, 2010 by August1991

[dre]

but I wonder if Dre had sons who were about to mount an invasion of Japan, whether he wouldn't have been happy and relieved.

Nuking civilians and a full scale invasion were not the only options. Like I said the power of atomic weapons could have been demonstrated without bombing urban populations, and other efforts to force capitulation were already showing signs of success.

And I dont get happy when civilians die in large numbers.

We dont just have an argument about WW2 here... we have a FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT way of thinking when it comes to targetting civilian populations during war. You think its moral behavior if it might force an enemy to surrender, I think its terrorism.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree.

[August1991]

You think its moral behavior if it might force an enemy to surrender, I think its terrorism.

So dre, for you, Mohammed Atta and Harry Truman are the same.

I disagree.

And I dont get happy when civilians die in large numbers.

How can anyone disagree, but you fundamentally miss the point.

"...civilians die in large numbers?"

dre, what would you have done to stop the killing in Treblinka?

Edited August 11, 2010 by August1991

[Jack Weber]

Neither do I. But many others like to paint the US leaders as psychopaths who cared nothing for harms inflicted on the Japanese. I look at the conscious choice to exclude Kyoto because of its culture significance as evidence of a leadership who was honestly looking for the best way to end the war and set the stage for a lasting peace.

I don't think the US leader were bloodthirsty psychopaths...As has been previously stated,ending hostilities in Japan was imperative.After the invasions of Saipan and Okinawa,the US military and the political apparatus felt an armed invasion of the main islands of Japan would be extremely bloody.Remember,Japan was not just a Fascist empire...It was a Shinto-Fascist empire and Hirohito was not just a Fuehrer/Duce/Caudillo...He was seen as a sort of man god.The Japanese populous was more fanatical than even the hardest National Socialist.

There was also the coming ascendancy of the Soviet Union,and dropping the bomb(s) was more than a militaristic shot across the bough(sp).It showed the Soviets that the West was quite prepared to go all the way,if necessary,to stop totalitarianism in whatever form it took.

So no,the US military's dropping of the bomb(s) on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not a sign of bloodthirsty vengeance...

The firebombing of Dresden by the RAF,on the other hand,smacked of vengeance.Although,it has been loosely justified...

[Moonlight Graham]

Nuking civilians and a full scale invasion were not the only options. Like I said the power of atomic weapons could have been demonstrated without bombing urban populations.

This is my personal opinion as well. Although i'm not intimately familiar with the entire complex situation that Truman faced at the time. But i have always thought that showing the power of the weapon by bombing a military facility or other non-dense civilian target (at least with the first attack), followed by bombing an urban city like Hiroshima may have been enough to force surrender.

I don't understand why Truman bombed 2 urban civilian targets with the only 2 bombs he ordered dropped. Other options may have taken an extra bomb and a few more days to force surrender, but probably would be more ethically excusable.

[Bonam]

This is my personal opinion as well. Although i'm not intimately familiar with the entire complex situation that Truman faced at the time. But i have always thought that showing the power of the weapon by bombing a military facility or other non-dense civilian target (at least with the first attack), followed by bombing an urban city like Hiroshima may have been enough to force surrender.

I don't understand why Truman bombed 2 urban civilian targets with the only 2 bombs he ordered dropped. Other options may have taken an extra bomb and a few more days to force surrender, but probably would be more ethically excusable.

There was only a very limited amount of fissile material available. Enough to make those two bombs, and maybe a third. Making any more would take months or years, not a "few more days". The materials for the trinity test, fat man, and little boy, were the output of a vast secret project that had been aiming towards the goal of producing these weapons for basically the entire duration of WWII.

With such a limited stock of weapons (precisely 2 and no more), they had to go for targets that were likeliest to have the desired outcome: immediate surrender. Additionally, Hiroshima was a major military center in addition to being a city.

On target selection:

On May 10–11, 1945, the Target Committee at Los Alamos, led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and the arsenal at Kokura as possible targets. The target selection was subject to the following criteria:

* The target was larger than three miles in diameter and was an important target in a large urban area.

* The blast would create effective damage.

* The target was unlikely to be attacked by August 1945. "Any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb."[16]

These cities were largely untouched during the nightly bombing raids and the Army Air Force agreed to leave them off the target list so accurate assessment of the weapon could be made. Hiroshima was described as "an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focusing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target."[16] The goal of the weapon was to convince Japan to surrender unconditionally in accordance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The Target Committee stated that "It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released. Kyoto had the advantage of being an important center for military industry, as well an intellectual center and hence better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. The Emperor's palace in Tokyo has a greater fame than any other target but is of least strategic value."[16]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

[dre]

There was only a very limited amount of fissile material available. Enough to make those two bombs, and maybe a third. Making any more would take months or years, not a "few more days". The materials for the trinity test, fat man, and little boy, were the output of a vast secret project that had been aiming towards the goal of producing these weapons for basically the entire duration of WWII.

With such a limited stock of weapons (precisely 2 and no more), they had to go for targets that were likeliest to have the desired outcome: immediate surrender. Additionally, Hiroshima was a major military center in addition to being a city.

On target selection:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

There was only a very limited amount of fissile material available. Enough to make those two bombs, and maybe a third. Making any more would take months or years, not a "few more days". The materials for the trinity test, fat man, and little boy, were the output of a vast secret project that had been aiming towards the goal of producing these weapons for basically the entire duration of WWII.

With such a limited stock of weapons (precisely 2 and no more), they had to go for targets that were likeliest to have the desired outcome: immediate surrender. Additionally, Hiroshima was a major military center in addition to being a city.

There was another bomb set to be ready in the third week of August and 3 more to follow shortly after.

[Bonam]

There was another bomb set to be ready in the third week of August and 3 more to follow shortly after.

I did say "maybe a third". What are these other 3 that were to follow shortly after? How shortly would they be ready for deployment? Link?

Again, waiting weeks or months for these was not an acceptable option, for multiple reasons.

[TimG]

Another interesting tidbit:

Stimson was certainly a great American who was willing to offer his talents and abilities to his country. Throughout his life he made many difficult decisions that affected countless individuals. The decision to use the Atomic bomb was no exception as it was estimated to have saved over one million lives. His reasoning was morally legitimate, and aligned with his Presbyterian affiliation. Given the fierce island fighting of the last three years, he felt the atomic bombs would end the war with the least bloodshed on both sides. Thus the bomb was not dropped out of frustration with Japan and a desire to hurt the nation, but it was designed to benefit the Japanese nation. Indeed, the Japanese high command later called the atomic bomb, "a gift from God" to save the nation and exit with honor. All governing authorities are called to make great decisions but as Stimson showed, these decisions should be made out of concern for the people and respect for human life.

http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b4stimson-henrylewis.htm

[dre]

Heres some quotes.

~~~DWIGHT EISENHOWER

"...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson:

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63

~~~ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY

(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.

~~~HERBERT HOOVER

On May 28, 1945, Hoover visited President Truman and suggested a way to end the Pacific war quickly: "I am convinced that if you, as President, will make a shortwave broadcast to the people of Japan - tell them they can have their Emperor if they surrender, that it will not mean unconditional surrender except for the militarists - you'll get a peace in Japan - you'll have both wars over."

Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, pg. 347.

On August 8, 1945, after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Hoover wrote to Army and Navy Journal publisher Colonel John Callan O'Laughlin, "The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul."

quoted from Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 635.

"...the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945...up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; ...if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs."

- quoted by Barton Bernstein in Philip Nobile, ed., Judgment at the Smithsonian, pg. 142

Hoover biographer Richard Norton Smith has written: "Use of the bomb had besmirched America's reputation, he [Hoover] told friends. It ought to have been described in graphic terms before being flung out into the sky over Japan."

Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, pg. 349-350.

In early May of 1946 Hoover met with General Douglas MacArthur. Hoover recorded in his diary, "I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria."

Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 350-351.

~~~GENERAL DOUGLAS MacARTHUR

MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."

William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512.

Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

The funny thing is that the arm chair message board chicken hawks on here would be telling General MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, and Willian Leahy that they are all idiots that dont know shit about the history of WW2 like they did with posters in this thread who said the same things those guys did.

This whole thing was botched or worse. They ended up allowing Imperial Reign to continue anyways so why the hell wasnt it put on the table before hundreds of thousands of women and children were slaughtered?

All the US had to do was drop one of these bombs in Tokyo bay (or some other more sparsely populated target) to demonstrate the awsome power of the weapon, and the ease with which they could deliver it. Then issue a new surrender ultimatum this time one that allows the condition that imperial reign to continue.

If it didnt work... they still had the second bomb, the third was coming in a couple of weeks, and a fourth, fifth, and sixth within the next couple of months.

Edited August 11, 2010 by dre

[DogOnPorch]

I was doing some general reading on the history of these events and found this interesting tidbit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima

Can any of the history buffs here confirm this? It seems amazing that the US sacrificed 20,000 soldiers in order to make sure they could get the a-bombs to Japan. That is pretty compelling evidence that Americans truely believed that dropping the bomb was a strategic necessity.

Iwo was needed for the B-29s in general not just the 509th. Too many were crashing before getting back to Tinian et al. The mission profile was very exacting due to the extreme range and the demands of the Jet Stream. So any damage often resulted in the loss of a Superfort. As it was, the machine guns and ammo were often stripped from the plane to cut down on weight save for the tail guns.

[DogOnPorch]

Heres some quotes.

The funny thing is that the arm chair message board chicken hawks on here would be telling General MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, and Willian Leahy that they are all idiots that dont know shit about the history of WW2 like they did with posters in this thread who said the same things those guys did.

This whole thing was botched or worse. They ended up allowing Imperial Reign to continue anyways so why the hell wasnt it put on the table before hundreds of thousands of women and children were slaughtered?

All the US had to do was drop one of these bombs in Tokyo bay (or some other more sparsely populated target) to demonstrate the awsome power of the weapon, and the ease with which they could deliver it. Then issue a new surrender ultimatum this time one that allows the condition that imperial reign to continue.

If it didnt work... they still had the second bomb, the third was coming in a couple of weeks, and a fourth, fifth, and sixth within the next couple of months.

MacArthur had more than a few axes to grind with the choice of Nimitz and crew's plan rather than his own re: the advance to Japan. He'd have diagreed with the use of ships to move troops at that point. The invasion of the Philippines was his plum where he got to make the famous statement...almost a sideshow at that point. Ike, Hoover and the rest were either Washington men or involved in the War in Europe....you know Dresden and such...another raid that you'll no doubt squirm over. Oddly missing from your choice of quotes is anything in support of the American choice re the A-Bombs.

You also fail to mention the political situation facing Truman: you had these VERY expensive bombs that could have saved my son's life?? Not using them would have been total political death. As we know...it was his decision...not MacArthur's...not Hoover's...not yours.

[DogOnPorch]

Re: the demonstration of these rare, very, very, very expensive bombs. What would the results have been if this publically announced test was to fail? What would have been the Japanese response in light of Iwo Jima and Okinawa? Stalin's response?