History: Atomic bombs.

[ra]

How many of these quotes were made after the war?   Hindsight is not of much use.  It's easy for these guys to wash their hands of the bombing after the war - "If it had been up to me, we wouldn't have nuked Japan".

The same kind of things are now said about the allied bombing of German civilian areas, raids which were sometimes more deadly than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.  Bomber Harris is looked upon as a killer.  But during the war, enough people thought it was a good way to bring victory sooner, so it was adapted as a strategy.  

ra

[miko2d]

AKIron: No need to get yer panties all in a wad there miko. I'm just stating the obvious. If they were ready to surrender then 3 days was more than long enough to do so after losing a city.

 I am not trying to be offensive. Maybe funny beyong my ability but not offensive. I've read an account of japanese actions on acertaining the damage from Hiroshima.

 It took them a few days just to realise that the connecttion with the city is not being restored and send someone by car to find out why the hell it takes so long to fix a damn cable, bombing raids or no.
 When the low-level functionary came back with the stories by deranged survivors that the city was obliterated by one bomb - which he had trouble believing himelf, a some kind of commission was formed and sent to investigate and after a few days to report to the brass which in turn passed it to the top command and emperor.

 By the time Nagasaki happened they just learned what they were dealing with.

 As Rear Admiral Lewis L. Strauss said. "it was a mistake to drop the atom bombs, especially without warning".

BTW, anyone that says there no such thing as "truth" in my book is an "idiot".

 The issue is not whether there is truth. The problem is how does one know that he finally knows the truth.
 Anyone who says he is sure which piece of knowlege is truth is as much an idiot as a person who denies the existance of truth.


kappa: btw Miko... Have you ever read anything by Gore Vidal?


 No. I only started to get seriously interested in social studies three years ago when my first son was conceived. With children, my reading dropped from few hundred pages a day to just few hundred a month.
 I have a few feet of books from Aristhotel to Mises and Rothbard on my shalf that I have not read yet. I will probably get to Vidal by the time I retire...


Ripsnort; If you had only 2 bullets,...

 The point those gentlemen were asserting was that US had Japan utterly defeated and could take time to end the war without much bloodshed.
 Even using the "bullet" coudl have been more productive if the japanese were told what to expect or geien more time to acertain the damages. Also, US had about 17 nukes by the end of 1945 from what I've read. Once you get the hang of it, they are not difficult to make when you have billions of dollars and hundreds of thousand people wroking on it.


kappa: Excellent post Miko..
 ...making me rethink my learned History

 That's the attitude!
 You deserve a bonus. Watch my thread on Galileo.

 miko

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Lance
There are a lot of historians that believe a major factor in the decision to drop the bomb was to end the war with Japan before Russia got involved.  Truman had by this time seen the iron curtain falling in eastern Europe and wanted to end the war without the same thing happening in Asia.  It is obviously still debateable whether the dropping of the bomb was justified, but it is something that should be considered beyond the purely military reasons that you are trying to debunk.

Iron Curtain in Europe in July-August 1945?! You mean during the Potsdam conference?...

If they wanted to end the war berore USSR interfered - then why did they force Stalin to promise to start a war against Japan no later then the Victory in Europe?

There is a point of view that the last straw that made Japanese surrender was the Soviet Manchutian operation. I doubt that "allies" could defeat Quantung army without Soviet help.

And another point, used by Soviet propaganda, but never used in "official" history: the Bomb was dropped to scare Stalin and make USSR agree on some vital things in Potsdam.

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by miko2d

kappa: Excellent post Miko..
 ...making me rethink my learned History

 That's the attitude!
 You deserve a bonus. Watch my thread on Galileo.

 miko

Awwww! A liberal and a "liberaltarian" getting all saucey! Isn't it wonderful?

[Wanker]

Of course, all of this would be moot had Pearl Harbor never happened.

[miko2d]

banana: Of course, all of this would be moot had Pearl Harbor never happened.

 And that would not have happened if FDR did not sign the Smoot-Hawley tariff act which propmpted world-wide curtailment of trade and left Japan unable to trade for resources it critically needed to survive.

 "When goods are not crossing broders, armies do."

 miko

[Maniac]

Miko makes a point here. One of the reasons stated for dropping the bomb was to show the Japanese the power of the weapon we had. Now why not drop it away from the population, but close enough to see what the weapon could do?

[Frogm4n]

The choice of citys was questionable. They picked hiroshima because it was built in a natural crater so it would make the damage even more impressive in order to scare the russians. The thing was hiroshima had about 10k reserve troops stationed. Its main draw for people was the fact that is was a historically renouned city for education(like oxford), so they sent their children there in order to avoid the firebombings in the major citys that had military targets.
So we ended up nukeing a town half full of children and the rest were women. with about 8k troops going up with them.

I still think we should have dropped the bomb in order to end the war, but i question where and how we used it.


If you ever get the chance to visit japan make sure you stop by hiroshima and check out the memorial.


And rip, its more like you have 2 bullets but your oppenent that has arrows already has most of his bones broken and is lieing on the floor bleeding to death.

[Wanker]

Miko, since you obviously know a little about this, surely you're aware that the real catalyst was the cutting off of crude oil shipments to Japan in retaliation for their invasion of China.

The IJN navy only had reserves for about another 6 months, and it was a case of "Now or never" that they presented to the government as the reason to head south into the rich oil regions of Dutch South East Indies.

Of course, the Japanese could have withdrawn from China and the Emperor could have broken his traditional silence and spoken out against the aggressive plans of the Imperial Army General Staff. Instead, he remained silent, and left Prime Minister Konoye be the one to (unsuccessfully) try to avert the war.

For someone so smart and knowledgeable, I'm disappointed that you're blaming the victim in this case.

[Otto]

At that time there were three factions in the Japanese Government.   The Emperor, the Military and the Civilian.   Trumping each other in that order.   The Military WAS NOT ready to surrender and it was only through the intervention of the Emperor AFTER the bombs were dropped that it was brought about.  

Even then, in the last days, there was an attempted coup by the Tokyo Military District to stop the announcement of surrender and continue the war.

[Charon]

And that would not have happened if FDR did not sign the Smoot-Hawley tariff act which propmpted world-wide curtailment of trade and left Japan unable to trade for resources it critically needed to survive.

The Smoot-Hawley tariff act (signed under President Hoover in 1930, btw) was a procetionist tariff approach to the depression that backfired -- but what does that have to do with WW2? The 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act had already started to undo the damage.

FDRs embargoes, etc. of 1937 over Japan's brutal invasion of China did apply this pressure, but then, about as many (or perhaps even many more) civilians died in the Rape of Nanking as did in both atomic bombings so...

Charon

[Dune]

Mitsuo Fuchida, IJN Pilot who led the Pearl Harbor attacks, told Paul Tibbets
"You did the right thing.  You know the Japanese attitude at that time, how fanatic they were, they'd die for the Emperor...Every man, woman, and child would have resisted that invasion with sticks and stones if necessary...Can you imagine what a slaughter it would be to invade Japan?  It would have been terrible.  The Japanese people know more about that than the American public will ever know."

Secretary of State James Byrnes
(the atom bombs did not cause) "Nearly so many deaths as there would have been had our air force continued to drop incendiary bombs on Japan's cities"

NOTE: In March 1945, Curtis had dropped 13,800 tons of incindairy bombs on Japan, he had planned for more than 115,000 by September

"Evacuate Now!"
Message on leaflets dropped on Hiroshima on August 4th

Curtis LeMay
"Hiroshima brought no instantaneous prostration of the Japanese military.  We were still piling on the incendiearies.  Our B-29's went to Yawata on August 8th, and burned up 21% of the town, and on the same day some other 29's went to Fukuyama and burned up 73.3%.  Still there wasn't any gasp and collapse when the second nuclear bomb went down above Nagasaki on August 9th.  We kept on flying."

William Manchester, Marine veteran and historian
"You think of the lives which would have been lost in an invasion of Japan's home islands - a staggering number of Americans but millions more of Japanese - and you thank God for the atomic bomb."

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey
"The atomic bomb at Hiroshima was the equivalent of 220 fully loaded B-29's.  Accordingly, a single atomic explosion represented no oder-of-magnitude increase in destructiveness over a conventional air raid."

General Yoshijiro Umezu, on August 10th, after the Nagasaki raid
"With luck, we will repulse the invaders before they land."

General Anami, refering to the Potsdam Proclamation, on August 10th
"Who can be 100% sure of defeat?  We certainly can't swallow this proclamation."

Paul Fussell, WW2 veteran
"The degree to which Americans register shock and extraordinary shame about the Hiroshima bomb correlates closely with lack of information about the Pacific War."

[miko2d]

banana: Miko, since you obviously know a little about this, surely you're aware that the real catalyst was the cutting off of crude oil shipments to Japan in retaliation for their invasion of China.

 Right. But the reason why Japan became expansionist and went grabbing the resources instead of trading for it like it did before was the breakdown of trade initiated by US.

 Britain introduced tariffs which made it impossible for Japan to trade with it's neighbours - which were british colonies.
 Japan was encouraged to buy stuff but without being able to seel them manufactured goods - which they really needed - it did not have money. By that time japanese population and industry grew enough (under the coercive influence of foreigners that broke its 200-year isolation) that it could not sustain itself.

 So they started foreign agression which in turn promted more trade sanctions etc.

 From teh Japanes point of view, if chinese or malayans or vietnamese had to be someone's colonies, they could be colonies of similar asian people next door in a so called "co-prosperity sphere" rather than belong to europeans hald the world away - being forced to sell their respources cheap for overpriced european goods while japanese stuff was right here.

For someone so smart and knowledgeable, I'm disappointed that you're blaming the victim in this case.

 I am not blaming a victim. I am explaining what sequence of logical steps necessarily brough the same result in Japan as it did with many other countries ove rthe course in history.

 At some point you cannot use a collective label "Japan" and make any sence - though on other more general levels it is quite reasonable.

 Japan is not a single mind and never was. Once the europeans cut trade to their colonies, not only did Japan started losing it's economic lifeblood, the industrialist/merchant peacefull trade-oriented faction of japanese started losing its influence in favor of military aggressive clique.

  Establishing free trade with Japan on the part of europeans and americans would have likely caused the downfall of the military faction and an end to Japans aggresiveness.

 miko

[miko2d]

Dune: Paul Fussell, WW2 veteran
"The degree to which Americans register shock and extraordinary shame about the Hiroshima bomb correlates closely with lack of information about the Pacific War."

 Those guys I quoted did not seem particularly misinformed. So their disagreement must have been caused by some other reason.

You know the Japanese attitude at that time, how fanatic they were, they'd die for the Emperor...

 So why did they surrender after the atomic bombings? Here was a great chance for them to die if they wished.
 You see - he specifically says they are ready to die, not "die if it helps to defeat an enemy or even kill some". That is very consisten with a japanese culture of the time.

General Yoshijiro Umezu, on August 10th, after the Nagasaki raid
"With luck, we will repulse the invaders before they land."

 Where did I hear that recently? Oh, yeah, that iraqi guy....


 You brough valid points but I find the autority (and sincerity) of my quotees to exceed that of yours.

 miko

[Wanker]

Actually, doesn't this all go back to whomever steamed into Tokyo Bay in the late 1800's thus ending Japan's isolation from international affairs?

On second thought, without that, I wouldn't be able to watch "Iron Chef" every Saturday night.