[svcw]

Want to end a war quickly?
Kill civilians and break stuff, not breaking stuff and not killing civilians extends any war

[blueunicorn6]

Nanking.

[driftless2]

The Japanese and Germans were the ones who started the "total war" strategy. Japan deliberately killed millions of Asian civilians in their quest to rule Asia. Don't tell me about Germany. They forfeited any moral rights long before the bomb was dropped.

Nevertheless, if I didn't think the a-bomb was necessary to force Japan into submission, I wouldn't have been for it. Everything we've read about Japan at that time leads to the conclusion that without the bomb, a full-scale invasion would have been necessary to defeat them. That would have meant a minimum of 100k dead Allied soldiers.

How would you like to be the person who ordered the invasion because we didn't drop the bombs, and have to look into the eyes of 100k plus American parents who lost a son in the invasion and tell them we could have won the war earlier without their sons' deaths, but we didn't want to kill a lot of Japanese civilians? Who would have died by the hundreds of thousands or million anyway if we had invaded

[SueRae]

Wonderful...such Monday-morning armchair quarterbacking from someone from these times.

It was absolutely the right thing to do. I wonder if he ever read “Unbroken” or interviewed anyone from Pearl Harbor or anywhere in the Pacific theatre before penning this tripe?

While growing up, I spent a good many summers in Narragansett, R.I. They were the last state in the union still celebrating VJ Day (Victory over Japan). I believe they finally caved a few years back.

[ConradofMontferrat]

The destruction at Nagasaki and Hiroshima was NOTHING compared to the destruction of Tokyo, Kanto, and Chiba regions.

Everyone seems to forget Gen Curtis LeMey’s FIREBOMB CAMPAIGN. The firestorms he created made moonscape of all areas that were so bombed.

Hundreds of thousands were burned to death.

These campaigns were indiscriminate and deliberately targeted the civilian population.

Bellyaching about two small cities that got pommeled when compared to the horrific destruction of other parts of the country, is just selective outrage.

I think the thing that upsets these crybabies is that it only took two planes and two bombs, not whole squads.

AND A BIG BTW: Even after LeMey laid most of central Honshu to waste, the militarists had no motivation to surrender.

[Popman]

When we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, why didn't the Japanese surrender since they were so ready to do so according to the article ?

It took a second bomb dropped on Nagasaki to get them to capitulate...

[ealgeone]

There were several reasons we dropped the bombs:

1) The invasion of Japan was estimated to have inflicted upwards of 500k - 1,000k cascualties. If you were the president in ‘45, or a general or admiral for that matter, and it came out after the war that we had a super incredible bomb that could have shortened the war and saved the lives of a lot of 18-22 year olds and didn’t use it.....there would be you know what to pay. After the invasion of Tarawa in ‘43 and the casualties that happened there was a public outcry. Nimitz records he received letters asking how could you have killed my son? Imagine the outcry over the invasion of Japan and the casualties we would have incurred.

2) Experience with Japanese kamikazie attacks and their no surrender policy experienced during the island hopping campaign indicated the invasion would be brutal.

3) Political considerations: We knew after the war we would demobilize...the Russians wouldn’t. We wanted to send a message to the Russians...we have the bomb and you don’t. Well, at least we though they didn’t have it.

4) Money: we spent 2,000,000,000 on the Manhattan Project. It was felt at the time there would be a public outcry of 2b spent on something we didn’t use.

The comment by Admiral Leahy about not being taught to kill women and children in war is in my opinion political posturing to cover his backside. I’m sure the good admiral was aware we were fire-bombing Japanese cities and a good number of civilians were being killed.

The decision to drop the bombs was correct then and still remains correct today.

[Venturer]

Ask yourself this question:

If the Japanese had an Atomic bomb or two and the means to deliver, would they have done so?

I believe after knowing the way they treated Nanking, and our prisoners, there is no doubt they would have.

Should we feel bad about using the bomb? hell no.

Actually more people were killed in conventional bombing than when the Atomic bomb was used.

Our men had been exposed enough to war in the previous battles, like our men have served enough terms in Afghanistan. It’s time that was over too.

[Temujinshordes]

I lived in Hiroshima for a few years and visited ground zero “Peace Park” numerous times. Most interesting to me was the comments visitors wrote in the guest book in the museum. Those comments ranged from “Such an atrocity, we must never let something like this happen again” to “the little yellow bastards had it coming”.

[Rummyfan]

All this examination in hindsight is ridiculous. President Truman made the right decision for many reasons, but first and foremost why should one more American die if we, the US, had the means to end the war, no matter how Many Japanese military or civilian lives that cost.

[CrazyIvan]

One universal fallacy of these “historians” is that we considered a nuclear bomb as anything other than just a larger version of a conventional bomb. It was just “more bang for the buck”. It was not until much later that nuclear took on such a sinister reputation. I am old enough to remember when we openly tested in our own country and Operation Plowshares talked about creating lakes and canals with nuclear blasts.

[Oztrich Boy]

It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”

If only there had been some factor that the Japanese could use to validate a decision to surrender

The enemy, moreover, has begun to employ a new most cruel bomb, the power which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would only result in the ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation . . . but would lead also to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are we to save millions of our subjects, or ourselves, to atone before the hallowed spirits of our Imperial ancestors? This is the reason we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the joint declaration of the Powers.

Imperial Surrender Broadcast by Emperor Hirohito of Japan

[Flag_This]

"But I think it was the wrong one."

Thanks, Timmy - glad you have an opinion, too... but you know what they say about a-holes and opinions.

I wonder if Tim remembers how, in Dec. 1944, Germany was bound to surrender by Christmas. Unfortunately, that was when that whole Battle-of-the-Bulge thing occurred and the war dragged on for several more months with thousands more American deaths and casualties.

I wonder why Tim is so concerned about the civilian deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not apparently concerned about the 100,000 civilians killed during the firebombing attacks on Tokyo or Dresden. And if he's so concerned about the civilian deaths, I would point out the Japanese military started that tradition with their attacks on Manchuria, Burma, the Philippines, and China - see "Rape of Nanking."

I wonder if Tim is aware of the deaths of the Japanese civilians at Saipan, where entire families, after years of propaganda by the japanese military, hurled themselves from cliffs rather than suffer "abuse" at the hands of the "barbaric" Americans. An invasion of the Japanese home islands would have seen that reenacted over and over.

I would also ask why it took a second strike for Japan to finally figure out the war was over for them. Maybe they thought the first bombing was just a fluke.

The atomic strikes occurred less than two months after some of the bitterest fighting in the Pacific at Okinawa - nobody told the Japanese they were on the verge of surrender, I guess. I'm glad Tim's sanctimonious conscience could have been salved by letting the war drag on for another 3 or 4 months, but then his life was never in jeopardy during that time.

[Wizdum]

Like trying to justify the rape of Nanking, it can't be done.

The bomb saved a million American casualties an invasion would have cost.

"What if's" do not change history.

[Real Cynic No More]

Revisionist history. Monday night quarterbacking.

Sacrifice hundreds of thousands to save millions? I maintain it was the correct thing to do.

[nathanbedford]

There is one on irrefutable justification for Hiroshima:

Nagasaki.

It took two.

[RouxStir]

Let’s have the House of Representatives conduct a full investigation...that’ll take several years...at the end of which they will probably conclude that the US really lost the war and begin negotiating an immediate retroactive surrender.

[Flag_This]

"It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”"

Well, two atomic strikes illustrated emphatically, to all of Japan, that they had absolutely no alternative but surrender.

You're welcome.

[Trentamj]

Every August 9, for the last umpteen years, we have been treated to the impossible to prove and libelous charge that "Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary because the Japanese were 'ready' to surrender" trope. During August of 1945, Japan was governed by a military dictatorship, and even after two nuke hits, many military leaders were not deterred from fighting on, rightly-sensing that the US did not have very many of these weapons to whip-out right away; rather, they argued that the Americans were engaging in high-tech psy-ops on both the Emperor and the Japanese Cabinet. The Japanese military was not happy that the Emperor appeared to buckle in the face of (not so) cheap pyrotechnics, and at least one of the older officers committed seppuku out of both frustration and anger, while the younger officers staged an almost-successful coup to stop the Emperor's "It's time to bear the unbearable (and surrender)" first-time broadcast to the nation. If an NHK Radio producer had not well-hidden the recording of Hirohito's surrender broadcast, at least another half-million American and Japanese would all-too-likely have faced death and dismemberment during both Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet, especially since their plans included nuclear carpet-bombing of the invasion beaches.

[ThunderSleeps]

Hindsight is 20-20 as they say. The problem with this theory is that in 1945 our military intel people couldn’t sit down and interview Japanese leaders. There was a war on, remember? So what these Japanese leaders believed is completely irrelevant. Completely. The only thing that mattered was the intel we had, the beliefs we had based on years of hard fighting in the island hopping campaign to get there. That showed us the Japanese were incredibly hard fighters who did not give up. Admirable, and a bit daunting as an enemy. We had seen far too many kamikaze attacks, far too many garrisons fight literally to the last man. There was no reason to believe the Japanese would surrender, particularly when you realize they would be defending their home soil. If anything, there was good reason to expect them to fight harder, if that were possible. So yes, we hit them with weapons to demonstrate the utter futility of continuing, that we would be able to destroy them without incurring unacceptable losses ourselves.