Posted on 08/08/2020 9:47:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It was horrible to deliberately target civilians. Then again, the whole damn war was horrible. It is estimated that throughout the Asia/Pacific theater, about 10,000 people were dying every day the war continued. 140,000 killed at Hiroshima? Thats the same as the war lasting another 2 weeks.
However horrible they were, the bombs ended the war a lot earlier than it otherwise would have ended and this saved many lives.
I would suggest a new book, by Robert Wilcox...’Japan’s Secret War’. Very insightful over the Japanese and German nuclear bomb development programs. A lot that the US has said in the past...has not been historical fact, and some of the nuke program for the Japanese was probably fairly close to being ‘done’.
Was it ‘moral’ for the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor?
They started it. We finished it.
A good friend of mine was in the invasion force of about 500,000 men that were planning on invading Japan but didn’t because we dropped the Bomb on Nagasaki. We saved many lives.
No!
Tokyo should have wiped off the face of the Earth!!!
A poll of former residents of Nanking shows 100% saying no. Sampling error of +- 0%.
Tarawa island. Japan had 4500 troops, 17 were captured alive.
Other places civilians were encouraged to jump off cliffs to avoid captivity because they had been convinced Americans were cannibal monsters.
They were not going to give up.
The bombs were compassionate.
Anyone who asks that question has to first answer one: “Do you know the full extent of the tenacity and ferocity of the Japanese Imperial Army?” If not, shut up.
They were going to fight to the death.
One of the comments is from a metrosexual who says he’s married to a Japanese woman (well, he did get that part right), and how painful it is for her family to think about our nukes hitting them.
One question I’d ask him to covey to her family: Why did something like half of the US POWs under Japan die before being released, whereas only around 5% of US POWs under Germany died?
In fact, just those added POW deaths may have exceeded the number of those killed by the nukes.
Was it immoral for the japs to bomb Pearl Harbor?
Was the bombing of London immoral?
Was the starvation of 20 million Russian/Ukrainians immoral?
NO! In fact it is immoral (a violation of the Commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor") to assert that dropping atomic bombs on Japan during WWII was immoral.
No
Any conclusion that uses news or information gained / gathered after 8/8/45 is invalid.
The answer must be reached using information and data available at the time the decision was made.
As far as I’m concerned the atomic bomb, in August, 1945 was just another tool in the toolbox. It would’ve been wrong NOT to use it.
Period
It was, basically. (Look up, "Operation Meetinghouse".)
USAAF B-29 crews spent the night of March 9-10 dumping napalm on the city. Their guns (except for those in the tail turrets) had been stripped from the planes to reduce weight and increase the bomb payload. Flying at three thousand feet or less, the aircrews could actually smell burning flesh inside the planes. The loss of life in this raid was greater than that of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki; some 16 square miles of the city were incinerated.
Japan could have surrendered long before atomic bombs were dropped. They chose death instead.
Exactly.
By the time of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Japanese Imperial navy was effectively incapable of defending the main island. Same with their air force, they couldn't produce enough planes or pilots fast enough to replace their losses. And the military knew it, advising the civilians to make spears for the impending invasion, rather than admitting surrender was the only remaining option.
In stand off operations US Naval and Air power could have hammered the islands day and night destroying whatever infrastructure was left along with the civilian population. Tokyo fire bombings repeated in every major city, town, and manufacturing complexes. In that scenario Japan would have been left huge losses especially among those of reproductive age above the already huge military losses. This without even mentioning mass suicides such as occurred on Saipan. Lost generations with drastically reduce manufacturing and agricultural capabilities would have set them back to at least the 19th century levels. A backward insignificant island with just a sustenance economy, ripe for a Red Army invasion, which they justly deserved.
Im alive today because of it. I sincerely believe that.
The militaristic (at the time) leaders of Japan led their people down the road to ruin. The blame for the pain their people endured must be laid at the feet of their leaders, who stubbornly clung to the outmoded code of Bushido even after it became clear that doing so would only end in disaster. And perhaps their pain can be somewhat assuaged by the knowledge that America as the victorious power pursued an altruistic policy of rebuilding and establishment of an enlightened and modern nation that has been able to recover in a remarkably short time from a disastrous war and become a world economic power. Certainly a better fate than many defeated societies in past eras have endured.
And the Soviets were greatly rewarded for doing pretty much not doing anything in the Pacific theatre. FDR at his advanced age/illness compounded by his leftist politics, should be a lesson for all the stupid people who would vote for Biden. FDR did great damage to the US, and many people died and suffered behind the Iron Curtain.
My Dad was also in North Africa and Italy. In May of ‘45 he and buddies were sent to Camp San Luis Obispo, California to get ready to be shipped to the Pacific. He stayed in California until September and was discharged.
He told me on VJ Day everyone stationed at Camp San Luis Obispo celebrated and stayed drunk for days.
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