Article: the American use of the atomic bombs

[Stolen Rutters]

Dropping the bomb on a lightly populated part of Japan is actually a disservice to the aims of the war, which is quick and total victory. A demonstration detonation carried the risk that the enemy would try to delay, and delay the surrender, playing the fake surrender for all it's worth for political gain in the aftermath.

If you are going to expend resources on destruction, you do it where it gives you the most impact. Hiroshima was an industrial center, and Tokyo was actually considered as one of the targets, too, before the final targets were chosen (I suspect the complete destruction of the individuals who are actually authorized to surrender in the name of Japan put Tokyo further down on the list). The short list of targets were essentially some of the most valuable cities in Japan's ability to wage war.

This is the proper use for a new high-value weapon. You use it to effect. It's only in hindsight that we would have had issues, knowing the real long term impact and devastation of using that particular weapon. It was mainly thought of as a really, really big explosive, but experience showed otherwise. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

 

[Adler17]

That does not justify the action. Indeed all actions have to be propositional- even and especially in times of war. So if you have something in which you know it is lethal also for civilians you have to think twice if the use is necessary. And as a nuke is ultima or better in bad Latin ultissima ratio you have to do other things before. This did not happen. Also it was not really clear if the Japanese did not surrender also if an uninhabited island was bombed. Also the US were not totally unaware about the consequences due to their tests. If there were no tests you could have a point here. (Although admitted that not all consequences were seen, but they really wanted to anhiliate a whole city).
Albert Einstein was very critical and asked something I want to ask you: If Japan launched such a nuclear strike on LA or SF and still lost the war you would cry it is a warcrime and punish the responsibles. That's why you have to think twice before justifying it.
I know the national pride in the US about saving liberty in ww2 and so on. But although that's true to at least a certain degree, it does not exclude them for their responsability of committed warcrimes.

Adler

 

[El Justo]

it's very true that had the US lost the war, those responsible for the bomb (and the firebombings, too) would've been prosecuted as war criminals. no doubt. however, in this case, to the victor go the spoils and charges of war crimes imo are irrelevant.

 

[luiz]

There is unfortunately one point not discussed. I for myself strongly disagree with a justification of a bombing war against civilians in general and the dropping of nukes especially. So was it really neccessary to drop the bomb on a populized area? Wasn't it better to attack an uninhabitant place in Japan first, a small island for example? Would that lead to an end of the war, too? Was it really neccessary to drop the second bomb just two days later, in a time no real government can really act as not all figures could be available? What was the justification for such an action in the light of international law, especially the Hague conventions?
I know it is difficult to write 3.000 words and to fill in all. But these points has to be discussed, too for a complete picture.

Adler

A fair point, of course. It is undeniable that the atomic bombs killed large number of civilians, and we might question the need of doing so, specially of the second one.

But what I do no understand (and this is not directed to you but rather at opponents of the dropping of the bombs in general), is why they are singled out in the context of WW2. Bombing civilians was the norm at WW2. The Brits did it, the Russian did it, the Germans and Japanese sure as hell did it. As did the americans much before the use of the A-Bombs, in firebombings that caused way more death and destruction than Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together.

Today nuclear weapons became a taboo and politcally incorrect, but what they do is no different than what other weapons do. If we are to consider the dropping of the A-Bombs as major crimes against humanity, I'm all for it. But let's also include the coutless attacks aimed on civilians carried out by the british, russian, german, japanese and also americans. An attack on a civilian is an attack on a civilian, period.

 

[Traitorfish]

But what I do no understand is why they are singled out in the context of WW2.

A very good point. I can only assume that it's because of the individual power than an atomic weapon represents- while, as you said, conventional bombing killed far more people than either atomic bomb, the a-bombs did all their damage in a single, colossal blow. That sort of thing tends to stick in human minds
You could also say that the additional effects of atomic and nuclear weaponry, such as radiation, make them more significant, although, really, that's just an extension of the initial issue, and, as in this thread, tends to be relatively forgotten compared to the actual explosions.

 

[luiz]

A very good point. I can only assume that it's because of the individual power than an atomic weapon represents- while, as you said, conventional bombing killed far more people than either atomic bomb, the a-bombs did all their damage in a single, colossal blow. That sort of thing tends to stick in human minds
You could also say that the additional effects of atomic and nuclear weaponry, such as radiation, make them more significant, although, really, that's just an extension of the initial issue, and, as in this thread, tends to be relatively forgotten compared to the actual explosions.

Certainly the colossal power of a single atomic bomb makes them scary, but if we are to make a moral judgement there is no difference between dropping two nukes or two thousand fire bombs.

And while the nukes do have nasty effects that last long after the bombing, conventional bombs also leave behind a horde of cripples, orphans, and so on, that will continue to suffer much after peace is signed.

 

[Traitorfish]

Certainly the colossal power of a single atomic bomb makes them scary, but if we are to make a moral judgement there is no difference between dropping two nukes or two thousand fire bombs.

Quite true- I just meant that human minds have a hard time taking an objective stance like this when dealing with atomic weapons. We live in a world that spent half a century under threat of nuclear Armageddon, which seems to have left us with a slightly skewed view towards nukes. People unconsciously assume that killing people with nuclear weapons is somehow worse than killing them by any other means.

 

[Adler17]

The nuke is a WMD. Period. It is the worst kind of weapons, like chemical and biological weapons. IIRC the use of chemical and biological weapons was banned also before. So the use of nukes had to be included too. Anyway you asked me why to single out this even. I agree. However the question was at the very beginning only about the nukes. Also knowing the problems from the last discussion I was reluctant to start a discussion about the general warfare of aerial bombings in ww2.
However the attacks on civilians were never justified. Thus I agree the firebombings of cities as well as the nukes were warcrimes, too. IMO Harris and also Churchill, who later tried to hide his guilt with his orders, were warcriminals as well! He should have been hung at Nürnberg as well. Stalin not to speak about. But Nürnberg was victor's justice (although I agree with the sentences mostly). That does not make that right.

Adler

 

[Simon Darkshade]

It is quite telling that some are not able to discuss issues without bringing out their pet hobby horses, without any actual support.

The practice of strategic bombing was not a warcrime. It was not seen as such. It was not codified as such under any laws. No one was charged with bombing civilians after the war.

One would have to include the entire British government, the entire command of the RAF and most of the officers in such a category if one tars Sir Arthur Harris and Churchill of all people with the odious, unjustified and foul brush being bandied about with no support. Not to mention the US Army Air Force, and their political masters. It may be in the interests and view of some to do so, but there is little to no serious backing from those who properly consider the issue without the taint of chauvanism.

There was no law applicable to nuclear weapons at the time. It is all well and good to look back with severely impaired judgement about historical affairs, but the past is the past.

Staging a demonstration attack is out of the question. What, after all the foreboding threats and warnings, the bomb fizzles. Such an occurence would have the opposite effect on Japanese determination. There was also not the stock nor scheduled production to afford such demonstrations, particularly if they needed to use them over the Olympic and further beach heads.

The preservation of enemy life - in this case Japanese - was at no time a factor in Allied considerations, and neither should it have been. The cities and towns of Japan were not worth the bones of a single American, British, Australian or New Zealand soldier if there were other means of finishing the war. This was the important calculation, not the quite perverse alternate calculation offered.

The ball was in the Japanese court in order to surrender. They failed to do so after Hiroshima, so the second blow was necessary. If Nagasaki did not bring any response, then the bombings should have continued until they did. Such is total war.

The Axis powers sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. The most effective form of Western Allied attack prior to 1944 was strategic bombing from the air; there was no other means of hitting the Germans where they lived, in their industrial heartland. The same applies at different stages for Italy and Japan.

With the technology of the time, there was no other means of destroying factories and production effectively than burning them to the ground and destroying their workers to boot; machine tools are hardy things. The introduction of nuclear weapons allows strategic bombing to work much more effectively and in line with all the theories and strategy of the time - to win decisively and quickly from the air in a few massive blows.

The use of mass bombing using incendiaries was most effective over Japan, and worked very well over Germany, particularly in terms of secondary and tertiary effects.

A nuclear bomb is nothing more than a large explosion with some interesting side effects - this was the thought of the time.

There is no such thing as a civilian in a total war.

 

[Adler17]

Simon, your post is full of denying the pride of man of civilians. You say there is no civilian in a total war. With this consequence you have to justify the Holocaust as well. Thus you are argueing like Nazis! I know about from other discussions about your opinion of fighting the enemy to the eradication of him.
However you are also wrong that there was no law forbidding such attacks. The Hague conventions still protected civilians and undefended cities. Thus the attacks on these cities were already a warcrime. Does that mean that the command of the RAF was guilty? Yes. Does that mean Churchill was guilty? Yes. Does that mean Truman was guilty? Yes. Does that mean the US command was guilty? Yes, to a certain degree. Attacks on industrial targets with collateral damages are excluded. Tokyo and Nagasaki and Hiroshima and other attacks only to terrorise the civil population not.

There is no justification to attack civilians. Even not in a so called total war.

Adler

Moderator Action: Infraction given for the Nazi name-calling which is a rather far stretch from civilian bombing.

Pls watch it. Thanks. - KD
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Actually, it is far from any such rather quaint suggestions. What precisely is the 'pride of man of civilians'?

I am not justifying nor supporting the Holocaust here, and the very imputation of such vile ad hominem attacks is both uncalled for, and evidence of the bankruptcy of the case you put forth; it is yet another example of fallacious over use of emotive empty rhetoric in the place of any proof or argument. My grandfathers and relatives fought against the perpetrators of the Holocaust and war crimes, and were on the side that beat them and bought them to justice. I find such drivel repugnant, unnecessary and the lowest form of insult. I will concentrate on your points, limited as they are.

Other discussions related to fictional matters are most irrelevant, and have no bearing on this REAL issue. The issue is what is being discussed here in regards to the deployment of atomic bombs by the United States against Japan.

Undefended cities is an interesting issue. Virtually no cities can be said to be undefended in terms of AA defence, civil defence and military installations. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne - none of these were undefended.

It is a jump from the Hague conventions of pre-WW2 to what was a warcrime; war crimes are those which were codified by the judgement at Nuremburg. No one was charged with the bombing of civilians, nor with strategic bombing. If we apply all parts of the Hague and subsequent conventions, then there are going to be a lot of war criminals.

The articles in both 1899 and 1907 regarding the bombardment of undefended 'towns, villages, habitations or buildings' would definitely make war criminals of most involved on all sides, even if we limit it to its sense of artillery. By extension, a shell from Warspite that accidentally hit a farmhouse in Normandy was a warcrime.

I refer to a 1998 article on the History of Air Warfare:

"In examining these events in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property, as the Conventions then in force dealt only with the protection of the wounded and the sick on the battlefield and in naval warfare, hospital ships, the laws and customs of war and the protection of prisoners war" 'The Law of Air Warfare', Javier Guisández Gómez, 1998 International Review of the Red Cross no 323,

It is only in 1949, after the fact, do we get to the meat dealing with the protection of civilians. If we take a position that Nuremberg was victors justice and ex post facto, then this position applies to all parties, not simply the Germans.

There is a more reputable case to make in favour of applying the label of war criminal to all those involved in the U-Boat offensive than the RAF and USAAF Bomber Offensive, let alone the civilian leadership in both countries, and by extension the Empire.

It is not a matter of attacking civilians. It is a matter of destroying infrastructure, factories, machine tools and seriously impeding the enemy war effort. It was simply impossible to delineate the difference between industrial and civilian targets using the technology of the time even in the case of Germany, and certainly so over Japan, given its particular circumstances. This is something you conveniently fail to address in your eagerness to cast mud.

What is the difference between an 'attack on industrial targets with collateral damage' and an undefended city?

The bombing of Tokyo was certainly not intended as a terror bombing, but as a strategic attack on the industry, morale and war making potential of the Japanese Empire. Conventional iron bombs would not have been at all effective, given the dispersal of industry. Account, if you can, for the characterization of its only purpose being as a terror bombing. Provide evidence from the USAAF and the Strategic Bombing Survey.

As previously pointed out, and conveniently ignored, the purpose of deploying the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that these were relatively untouched military targets; that the impact of the bomb was to act as the necessary shock to force Japan into ending the war; that the bombs regardless of their impact were to also destroy a portion of the war making potential of the Empire of Japan; that a quick end to the war was required.

It is not a matter of attacking civilians. They are not a factor. They cannot be effectively separated from targets in a total war using the methods available in the 1940s. To pretend otherwise is to avoid the facts.

 

[qwert]

Well, i think there are some errors. The US did never agree to maintain the emperor of Japan.
After the uncondiotional surrender of Japan, the question about if the emperor was to maintain its post or not was democratically decided by the japanese by a referendum. This was since the begining the idea that the americans had of inconditional surrender.

About the bombings on civilians in WWII:
Many people forgets that the idea had never been to attack civilians, but military and industrial infraestructure essential for the war effort. If the civilians would have left the cities and all factories would have worked alone, there would have been wery few civilian casualties. But because this wasn´t posible, civilians had the bad luck of being in the midle. And there was no way in which you could try to destroy these targets without collateral damage, the necessary technology didn´t exist.

There was no alternative, if the industrial capabilities of the enemy couldn´t be destroyed, the enemy would produce weapons that are going to be used against our civilians and soldiers.
In fact, Germany could have won the war if England hadn´t made use of its strategic bombing. In such a case Germany could have employed all of its Luftwaffe against the USSR, decimating the red army before winter.
Next target would have been the UK and, without a base from which to attack Germany, the US would have probably signed a peace treaty.


In Japan the situation was similar, it was necessary to destroy Japans capabilities to wage war and it was done using strategic air bombing.
The nuclear bomb was only the continuation of this strategy.
While one of the strongest reason to use the bomb, was to cause a fast ending of the war, there was always the posibility that Japan wouldn´t surrender.
If that happens, then it would be necessary to cause the most posible damage to Japans war machine. We must remember that the US only had two nuclear bombs and it could take months or even a year before another was avaiable. In such a case it was necessary to take all necessary measures in order to cripple Japans war effort in order to end the war as soon as posible and to save as many lives as posible.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

There were more than two available, and more were scheduled for production. It was only later, post-Crossroads, that the arsenal was rather dry, given a change over of production lines to an improved model.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Hiroshima was a major military depot and shipyard and also the headquarters of two Japanese armies. The dry docks at Nagasaki built half the imperial fleet. Claiming that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "civilian targets" is stretching the truth.

 

[Che Guava]

Hiroshima was a major military depot and shipyard and also the headquarters of two Japanese armies. The dry docks at Nagasaki built half the imperial fleet. Claiming that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "civilian targets" is stretching the truth.

Maybe not civilian targets, but perhaps 'civilian heavy targets' (although I'm sure there's a more appropriate term for that...). If we were going for military targets pure and simple, then why not go for the gusto and drop a bomb on Tokyo? I suspect that the reasons for not doing that would be that even if it managed to wipe out a major industrial centre, military commanders and building, as well as the central government of Japan, the civilian cost would be too high to justify. I guess the question comes down to how many civilians lives are justifiable as a loss?

 

[Bugfatty300]

Maybe not civilian targets, but perhaps 'civilian heavy targets' (although I'm sure there's a more appropriate term for that...). If we were going for military targets pure and simple, then why not go for the gusto and drop a bomb on Tokyo? I suspect that the reasons for not doing that would be that even if it managed to wipe out a major industrial centre, military commanders and building,as well as the central government of Japan, the civilian cost would be too high to justify.

Nuking Tokyo decided against for that reason. If the Japanese central government was wiped out, the fanatical hard line Japanese generals would have taken over and the war would have gone on. Even conventional bombing raids stayed far away from the imperial palace. Also there was very little military and industrial targets left in Tokyo to bomb.

I don't think civilians were factored in that much considering what the B-29 firebombing did to Tokyo. (100,000 dead in one night). There was just not a lot of military resources left in Tokyo to justify using the a-bomb and the risk of killing the Emperor was too high.

 

[QBurrito]

I'd just like to butt in to say that I don't see how you can call linking killing millions of civilians with an atomic bomb, to killing millions of civilians in deathcamps a 'stretch'.

If, as was said, 'there are no civilians in total war' then the holocaust could not have been called a warcrime. It was a warcrime because there are still civilians in total war. If you are to devalue all civilian life because it is enemy, then you must also devalue the holocaust. Which it is clear you will not do. So, what makes the lives of millions of Jews more valuable than those of millions of Japanese?

 

[Bugfatty300]

I'd just like to butt in to say that I don't see how you can call linking killing millions of civilians with an atomic bomb, to killing millions of civilians in deathcamps a 'stretch'.

The a-bombs didn't kill "millions"; but, yeah it is quite a big stretch to compare the two.

Industrial and military centers (unfortunately also mass civilian centers) were viable targets and destroying them was in fact vital to the war effort.

And I don't think nobody can convince me that rounding up and gassing 10 million people was useful to Germany's war effort. Would you like to give it a try?

 

[QBurrito]

I just looked it up, and you're right, it wasn't millions killed. I've been lied to!

And okay, so the holocaust wasn't vital to German progress. But it was a big rallying force, and it helped rise the Nazis to power. And so it was useful, without it they would have had almost nothing.

And I would dispute that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vital to the war effort. They helped speed it up, but victory could have been obtained without dropping the a-bombs

 

[Traitorfish]

And okay, so the holocaust wasn't vital to German progress. But it was a big rallying force, and it helped rise the Nazis to power. And so it was useful, without it they would have had almost nothing.

Actually, the Holocaust was actively damaging to the German war-effort,as it drew men and resources away from the fronts and wasted them on a "final solution" with no actual benefits.
Besides, while anti-Semitism was a major factor in the Nazis' rise to power, the Holocaust itself was not. The Holocaust- the genocide of the Jews- only began in 1941, and the exactly what occurred was not truly known to most Germans. While the Nazis had always expressed the most extreme contempt for the Jews, they had never actually suggested genocide in any of their propaganda, before or after their rise to power, until the late 1930s when their power had already reached near-absolute levels. Even then, the official plan was usually some form of deportation- Madagascar was the usual candidate- rather than outright genocide.
If any of that sounds like apoligism for the Nazis, I really do apologise with the utmost sincerity, I just wanted to get the historical facts right.

And I would dispute that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vital to the war effort. They helped speed it up, but victory could have been obtained without dropping the a-bombs

True, but the "speeding up" of victory is the justification given for the bombs, and so cannot be dismissed like that- an invasion of Japan would have been long, brutal and bloody, costing more civilian lives than both a-bomb attacks put together, not to mention the colossal losses to military personnel on both sides.