The residents of Hiroshima had nothing to do with the Shanghai killings. That sort of excuse is not only inaccurate, but immoral.
Actually, there was no excuse for using nuclear weapons on civilians in Japan. The Japanese were defeated, and near starvation. There was no urgency to invade Japan — except in the plans of Stalin.
Stalin’s agents encouraged us on high own behalf. He then swooped in to seize Manchuria and give Mao this region. Then he began a huge “bring the boys home” propaganda drive to get us out of the picture. Being a democracy, with no staying power in war, we eagerly began to dismantle our military.
But we never needed to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why those cities? One of them just happened to have the highest proportion of Christians of anywhere in Japan. How did that help end the war?
Why those cities?
I believe there large munition factories in both.
I'm sorry, but this is simply nonsense.
The military clique in charge of Japan had no intention of surrendering, and was fully prepared to have an Okinawa-type resistance across all of Japan. Their hope was that the horrendous US casualties would force the US to allow the clique to remain in control of Japan. Barring that, the entire Japanese population was expected to die in a glorious if futile defense of the Emperor.
The atomic bombings made it clear that the US possessed both the means and the will to annihilate Japan with no opportunity of resistance: i.e., no glory.
With no possibility of an "honorable" resistance, surrender became-- for the first time-- an option.
And even then, we made a huge breach of our unconditional surrender goals by promising to allow Hirohito to remain as Emperor.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both left untouched by earlier bombing raids precisely to impress the Japanese with the destructive power of atomic weapons.
Eugene Sledge (author of the Pacific War memoir, "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa") was slated to be in the first or second wave of the first planned assault on the main islands. There were to be five waves: the planners expected the first three to be utterly annihilated. Millions of Japanese civilians would have died as well.
I refuse to second guess Truman. A relative was onboard a ship headed for the Japanese invasion the same day the first bomb was dropped. His CO lined them up & said, “Look at the man on your right & on your left. Two out of the three of you will die in this invasion. Fight it like your life depends on it; because it does.” When they heard Truman had dropped the bomb; their ship turned around & they went back home. - My Daddy had fought the Germans in N. Africa, Sicily, Italy & at last in Germany. As a hardened combat veteran he would have been sent to Japan.
Japan started something they couldn’t finish. Their leadership should have counted the cost.
Yeah, well, you have the luxury of making that observation with 70 years of hindsight and not having your butt on the line in case they decided not to use the bombs.
What rot - the residents of Hiroshima would have cut off just as many Chinese heads as the Japanese soldiers did in Shanghai, without a single resistor.
Your understanding of the national Japanese character of WWII is beyond naive.
you suffer from the European disease that infected the 60’s hipppies now in control and are going to get us killed
you are a peace monger like them and will get us all killed
You seriously need to read some history. Start with the some island hopping death tolls (both Jap and American) and then read about the invasion plans for the main islands of Japan. Yeah, the Japs were beat, but.they were not surrendering. Also a point in fact, the US gave the Japs notice when civilian areas were to be targetted.
True - but they didn't acknowledge it yet. We had their harbors mined. If it weren't for the Soviets, we could have just waited it out, let a few million of them starve, and then, maybe, just maybe, they would have surrendered. Although the starving masses in N. Korea don't seem to have any effect on their leaders.
> But we never needed to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why those cities?
Both were actually military targets. Nagasaki was shipping and ship building. Hiroshima was home to Japan’s largest military boot camp.
“The residents of Hiroshima had nothing to do with the Shanghai killings.”
Bullshit. Absolute bullshit.
L
It ended it. That's how.