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Hiroshima (1946)

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Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#101

Post by timuckun »

throw0101d wrote: post #41

If anyone thinks that dropping the bombs was unnecessary, I would recommend reading Barrett's 140 Days to Hiroshima: The Story of Japan's Last Chance to Avert Armageddon : * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51089656-140-days-to-hir... * https://www.nationalww2museum.org/about-us/notes-museum/140-... It documents, using Japanese source material including interviews with the principals involved, the decision making…

AFIK they were looking for ways to surrender while saving face. They were using the Russians as the negotiators. The US didn't want that so they bombed instead.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#102

Post by timuckun »

>A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb. Survivors wonder why they lived when so many others died.

People will say the same thing about Gaza one day.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#103

Post by timuckun »

karlgkk wrote: post #30

The atrocities that the Japanese military committed, consistently and repeatedly and combined with their attack on pearl harbor, meant that Americans of the time on the front lines had few qualms or issues with dropping the bomb. Truman famously called Oppenheimer a "cry baby" when Oppenheimer expressed doubt. Truman had spent the past decade dealing with the war in his capacity as senator and vice president - seeing…

The problem is that the Americans saw no difference between soldiers committing atrocities and old people and children living in a city (fight aged men were out fighting).

They were targeting old people and children because it was easier to kill them than the soldiers.

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#104

Post by sneak »

slg wrote: post #97
jandrewrogers wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t like they were sitting on a pile of nukes. They had to make the maximum concrete, visceral impact with the couple they had such that there would be minimal second-guessing on the part of Japan. You are suggesting that they should have selected a target that was virtually guaranteed to have less impact and leverage with a very scarce resource. They couldn’t afford to take that risk with American lives.

>They had to make the maximum concrete, visceral impact with the couple they had such that there would be minimal second-guessing on the part of Japan. And yet they didn't decide to bomb Tokyo or Kyoto. There was clearly a calculus done in selecting the targets to find the right balance of all the various factors involved. I don't see the problem in questioning whether they came to the right decision. Too often the t…

They did decide to bomb Kyoto, for exactly that reason. The secretary of war, Henry Stimson, objected to it, due to cultural significance, and convinced Truman to choose an alternate, which was Nagasaki.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33755182

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#105

Post by refurb »

cryptonector wrote: post #76
userbinator wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the me that exists right now thinks that our military shouldn't have done what it did. It's worth remembering that if it weren't for them doing what they did, you might not have the life you do now.

Not really. The war was practically over, and we could just have blockaded Japan until it surrendered without invading. And the Soviets' entrance in the war did as much, if not more to push the surrender as the atomic bombs.

You say “blockade” without thinking about the consequences.

The US blockades Japan causing food shortages. The military prioritizes what little food is available for themselves. The know the population will starve, but it’s necessary to defend Japan against the foreign Invaders. As long as there is enough food for the military, the war can continue.

Now you have a mass famine where millions of women and children slowly starve to death. Japan uses it for propaganda showing how cruel the West is and how if the West would just sign an armistice leaving the military junta in charge, all these people could be saved.

Is that better?

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#106

Post by yard2010 »

nelox wrote: post #84
throw0101d wrote: post #41

If anyone thinks that dropping the bombs was unnecessary, I would recommend reading Barrett's 140 Days to Hiroshima: The Story of Japan's Last Chance to Avert Armageddon : * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51089656-140-days-to-hir... * https://www.nationalww2museum.org/about-us/notes-museum/140-... It documents, using Japanese source material including interviews with the principals involved, the decision making…

Yes, actually try and put yourself in the shoes of American leadership responsible for making the decision to continue with an invasion of Japan without using nuclear weapons. American casualty estimates exceeded 500,000, and Japanese fatalities were expected to be in the millions—with some projections placing them between 5 million and 10 million depending on the length and scope of the conflict. The U.S. had limite…

Where goes the line?

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#107

Post by yard2010 »

petermcneeley wrote: post #57
throw0101d wrote: post #41

If anyone thinks that dropping the bombs was unnecessary, I would recommend reading Barrett's 140 Days to Hiroshima: The Story of Japan's Last Chance to Avert Armageddon : * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51089656-140-days-to-hir... * https://www.nationalww2museum.org/about-us/notes-museum/140-... It documents, using Japanese source material including interviews with the principals involved, the decision making…

Under which conditions is nuking a city not a horrific warcrime?

This is a fallacy, not that you're not right, but what is the alternative? The alternative is never "just do nothing and everyone lives"

Life isn't about choosing the best option but choosing the lesser evil imo

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#108

Post by kbouck »

slg wrote: post #97
jandrewrogers wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t like they were sitting on a pile of nukes. They had to make the maximum concrete, visceral impact with the couple they had such that there would be minimal second-guessing on the part of Japan. You are suggesting that they should have selected a target that was virtually guaranteed to have less impact and leverage with a very scarce resource. They couldn’t afford to take that risk with American lives.

>They had to make the maximum concrete, visceral impact with the couple they had such that there would be minimal second-guessing on the part of Japan. And yet they didn't decide to bomb Tokyo or Kyoto. There was clearly a calculus done in selecting the targets to find the right balance of all the various factors involved. I don't see the problem in questioning whether they came to the right decision. Too often the t…

Tokyo was (fire) bombed a few months earlier causing ~100k deaths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194...

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#109

Post by bee_rider »

wat10000 wrote: post #55
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe? We can go around in circles on this but there were so many other options the Allies could have tried: - Drop the first bomb in the ocean in front of an envoy of observers and give Japan a week to deliberate their response - Blockade the island, threaten land invasion, and wait for the emperor to call for surrender as they gradually run out of fuel - Drop a bomb on Hiroshima but give more than 3 days for the go…

Keep in mind that every day the war continued meant thousands of innocent lives being lost under the brutal Japanese occupation that still covered vast areas of east Asia. Blockading Japan and waiting for them to starve might have been the best thing to save American lives. I think it’s unlikely to have been the best thing to save innocent lives overall.

Blockading Japan would have probably killed countless Japanese civilians via starvation, right? At least, I don’t think the island could sustain itself at that population level, particularly without fuel…

Re: Hiroshima (1946)

#110

Post by slg »

snickerbockers wrote: post #98
slg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this discussion always a binary choice between a land invasion of Japan or dropping the bombs exactly how we did? For example, there is rarely any discussion of whether another target with fewer civilian casualties could have accomplished the same result.

The same result as what? The OP just explained how the bombs being deployed in the manner they were barely led to a surrender. Anyways, the battle of Okinawa alone killed as many people as both atomic bombs combined and that's the most remote part of (what is today considered) Japan.

>The same result as what? The OP just explained how the bombs being deployed in the manner they were barely led to a surrender.

The result of surrendering. What makes you think they wouldn't have surrendered if other targets were bombed?

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