The Atomic Attacks on Japan: Justified or Not?

American Thinker.com ^ | August 3, 2020 | Dale A. Fitzgibbons

[daltec]

Yup. Horrifying to think about. This is from the Wikipedia entry on Operation Downfall:

"Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals (awarded for combat casualties) were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan; the number exceeded that of all American military casualties of the 65 years following the end of World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock. There were so many in surplus that combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan were able to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to soldiers wounded on the field."

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Are you also counting the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor? (2008 Obama reference).

[Feckless]

No, the retaliation for Yoko breaking up the Beatles...

[minnesota_bound]

Some urban renewal was good for them.
Look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki today compared to Detroit...

[dfwgator]

Lest we forget - Hitler was close on the heels of developing the atomic bombs as well AND had the V2 rockets to deliver them to the US and the USSR was right behind us.

This is what Hitler did to Warsaw...

So again, don't ask me to shed any tears about Dresden.

[LauraJean]

The Japanese were not getting ready to surrender. It did save millions of lives both the American and Japanese.

[Rummyfan]

Had Olympic come about, the Japanese civilian population, inflamed by a national slogan - “One Hundred Million Will Die for the Emperor and Nation” - were prepared to fight to the death. Twenty Eight Million Japanese had become a part of the National Volunteer Combat Force. They were armed with ancient rifles, lunge mines, satchel charges, Molotov cocktails and one-shot black powder mortars. Others were armed with swords, long bows, axes and bamboo spears. The civilian units were to be used in nighttime attacks, hit and run maneuvers, delaying actions and massive suicide charges at the weaker American positions. At the early stage of the invasion, 1,000 Japanese and American soldiers would be dying every hour.

Wow.

[schurmann]

“Our demand, from President Truman...was for unconditional surrender...the Japanese were ready to make reasonable surrender...” [OVERTIME, post 118]

“The Japanese would have surrendered in June or July ...But, no, we had to demand unconditional surrender, until we could drop the bombs,...” [ScholarWarrior, post 132]

Criticizing the decision in 1945 of senior American leaders to use atomic bombs in combat is a form of virtue signaling.

Those who today deplore their use against the Japanese are also moral imbeciles; the rest of us already know that in war, first you win, then you worry about morality. To try it any other way is to court disaster.

Don’t set too much store by the claims of senior officers, that the Imperial Japanese “would have surrendered.” These objections weren’t voiced at the time of decision. Most of the commanders in the senior armed services were angry and jealous, because the advocates of long-range strategic airpower had displayed the worst imaginable manners by winning the war against Japan before they could one-up each other, so they attempted to argue (after the war) that they’d always been against using the bombs. US Naval and US Army officers still resent US Air Force’s very existence because of it.

Unconditional surrender was not President Truman’s whim. It was formal Allied policy, agreed on long before and set in place by treaty. Americans were not at liberty to
change it.

[2CAVTrooper]

Yep, there’s roughly 150,000 left in stock.

[Dennis M.]

“The fire bombing raid on Tokyo killed more civilians than the atomic bombs did. That raid was non-nuclear.”

I don’t think most people are aware of either the bombing that was going on before the dropping of the a bombs or aware of how vicious the war was up to that point. It is only in that context that the bombing makes sense. Too many see it as a toy war, not what it was.

[Rummyfan]

Seventy-Five Years Ago The First Atomic Bomb Was Dropped

[rfreedom4u]

Exactly. My uncle came home as well. He fought on Okinawa and to this day despises the Japanese. Two years ago was the only time I’d ever heard him talk about the war. All he said was, “Bad things happen in war and we have to get over them. After being on Okinawa for two days we had a pile of shells two feet high from firing so much (he was a machinegunner)”
He’s now 97, almost blind and can hardly walk. But he’s one hell of a man! Been married to my aunt since he came back.

[bert]

Justified?

Of course it was war. Killing the enemy is justified in order to win.

The problem with the world now is that dying Europe will not let you kill your enemies.

Peace is the interval between wars

[schurmann]

“...I don’t think most people are aware of either the bombing that was going on before the dropping...It is only in that context that the bombing makes sense. Too many see it as a toy war, not what it was.” [Dennis M., post 150]

An important insight. Your “toy war” phrasing is the best.

Seventy-five years have passed since the Allied victories in the Second World War. In human terms, that’s one generation longer than the interval of time between the end of the American Civil War and the start of the First World War. In a society as dynamic and forward-yearning as that of the United States, historical context cannot help but be lost as the years pile up: memories dim, survivors die off. The horror, urgency, and sense of looming threat fade.

A phenomenon has been growing: among our chattering classes and self-appointed moral arbiters those Allied victories take on an air of inevitability. Since we won, the outcome was never in doubt. Therefore, the violent acts the Allied forces did commit appear less and less justified with each passing year.

We might anticipate anti-Western, anti-military Left/Progressives to act this way. Critiques from the Right (broadly defined) are more troubling; condemnation of Allied air offensives from religious leaders, conservative-leaning philosophers, and the academics inclined toward a Right worldview (a dwindling presence) are problematic.

[bert]

That would be raids plural. Tokyo was obliterated except tor the Emperor’s palace that was not touched.

There are several very good videos on you tube showing the detailed planning and contingency targets. The hundreds of planes departed the bases at Guam, Saipan and Tinian in massed raids of unbelievable scope. The planning included rescue ships all along the way and detailed routes for P51 escorts.

I don’t remember the number but I cannot grasp mentally the amount of gasoline required for just one such raid. I can’t grasr the number of tankers it took just to transport gasoline much less all the munitions.

Those raids continued after the atomic bomb detonations pretty much up to the day of surrender