Can the dropping of two atomic bombs by the Americans on the Japanese be justified?

[Sanscizo]

The Americans and the Japanese were at war ever since the brutal and horrific attack on the American Pacific fleet in the port of Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.

The tide had turned more and more in favour of the United States of America following initial Japanese successes as it sought to expand it's empire throughout South-East Asia.

The American policy of "Island-Hopping" between the small islands of the pacific was slow and costly to American lives, and those captured by the Japanese were put through unspeakable tortures.

The Americans wanted to end the war in Asia, just as the war had been ended in Europe. They wanted to do it quickly, and by continuing their island hopping policy this would have been impossible.

The Americans had a new weapon up their sleeves, that had been developed over the years of the Second World War at a great cost to the government. Following a test in the Nevada desert of the atom bomb, the decision was made to offer Japan an ultimatum at the Potsdam Conference in late July, 1945.

The Japanese Empire ignored the threat from the United States, and the "Enola Gay" deposited the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August the sixth early in the morning.

Was this action necessary by the United States? Here is a list of my arguments for and against: -

Arguments for

• The United States would force Japan into submission through the use of the atomic bomb.
• The bomb had cost a fortune to develop. It would be wasted money if it was never used.
• Revenge factor - the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour had been unprovoked and unexpected.
• The length of the war could be reduced considerably. By doing this, millions of American lives could be saved. In war time, it would be the preference of the US to have the enemy's people killed rather than their own, and the few hundred thousand that would die because of the blast would be relatively few in comparison to the numbers that would fall should the fighting rage on for any longer.
• It would strike fear into nations that might think to pick a fight with America in the future.

Arguments against

• Hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians would be killed.
• The injuries that would come about as a result of the blast would continue to show up for decades after the bombing of the city, even when the two nations had signed their peace treaty. The radiation sickness was a horrible thing to have to suffer, and many would be left disfigured if they survived.
• Japan could have been defeated by force of other means. It was obvious that the Americans would emerge victorious in the long run anyway due to their superior equipment and also because they had allies to help them.
• Not all of the American government, even some of the president's personal advisors supported the decision to use the atomic bomb.
• The environmental factor - tremendous amounts of pollution would be emitted into the atmosphere.

I think that the bombing of Hiroshima can be justified. I believe that it was the right decision to make, even though it did result in a large number of lost lives.

However, the second attack on the city of Nagasaki cannot be justified in my opinion, as the Americans had already shown the Japanese just what their weapons were capable of doing to their cities.

I'm not saying that it was a good thing to do, but I believe that it was the right decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

What do you think?

 

[Greadius]

History discussions, one forum south

All of the 'arguements against' were either unknowns or completely acceptable methods of conducting warfare at the time. I find applying modern morals to days gone by only leave you jaded, unless you manage to capture the perspective of progress on behalf of (most) of the human race.

 

[EzInKy]

Japan had used chemical and biological weapons against the Chinese. They had even tried to deliver them to America with balloons. In addition their soldiers fought very nearly to the last man in most of their battles. Civillians were being trained to defend the beaches. Deaths from a land invasion would have numbered in the millions. If Hiroshima had been enough, the Japanese would have surrendered immediately.

EDIT: Gradius is right. The wrong sign is on the door B-)

 

[Grille]

Originally posted by EzInKy
In addition their soldiers fought very nearly to the last man in most of their battles.

What's wrong about that, during war time?
Ok, if the US had fears about too high casulties for an invasion of main islands, one bomb would have been ok. But before dropping the second, kind of ultimatum should have been sent (the delay wasn't adequate).

 

[pi8ch]

Let's see this way:

Out of the militaric point of view (to win the war) it was defenitely not neccesarry, becuase Japan had surrendered anyway. Without any US-invasions of Japan btw...

Of the longer-range point of view I think it was good that a A-bomb was dropped then - simply becuase it prevened a A-bomb - rain between West and East some years later...


War is ugly anytime... The A-Bomb may be a most ugly weapon, but in fact it's not more ugly than aynthing else...

And war-making powers usualy made weird things in wars...

The napalm bombardemennts were somehow even more terrible because the people were still alive while burning...

I say: Today it's not important anymore... The worls has changed... Don't think if it was ok then.. Lets think what we can do to prevent such things in the fututre...

 

[EzInKy]

Originally posted by Grille

What's wrong about that, during war time?
Ok, if the US had fears about too high casulties for an invasion of main islands, one bomb would have been ok. But before dropping the second, kind of ultimatum should have been sent (the delay wasn't adequate).

Tsuia Etchu, a Japanese army officer at the time, disagrees....

http://archive.tri-cityherald.com/BOMB/bomb15.html

In the first days after the Hiroshima attack, Japan's government tried to keep the awesome destruction a secret from the rest of the nation.

"The Japanese military did not want people to know about the atomic bomb," said Tsuia Etchu, founder of Nagasaki's Atomic Bomb museum. Etchu was an army officer in the city of Fukuoka when the bomb fell.

Vague newspaper accounts were published Aug. 8, describing a new bomb inflicting "considerable" damage on Hiroshima. Nagasaki Prefecture's governor learned about the true extent of Hiroshima's devastation Aug. 8 from an eyewitness.

Uchida criticizes the speed of the second bombing. "Three days was not enough time to make the decision to surrender."

On the afternoon of Aug. 9, after learning of Nagasaki's destruction, Japan's supreme war council remained split 3-3 on surrendering.

That evening, Hirohito persuaded the die-hards on the council to accept surrender.

"If the bomb was not dropped on Nagasaki, the military would have continued the war," Etchu said. "I think dropping the atomic bomb shortened the war."

 

[zulu9812]

If the Holocaust was the worst thing that one group of people did to another, then dropping an atomic bomb is surely the second worse.

What makes it so appalling was the sheer lack of need for it. Japan had lost it's only remaining source of oil and, being an island nation and thus relying on ships and plans for aggression, could no longer attack anyone. By July of that year, US planes could fly over Japan and drop bombs with impunity.

In fact, Japan was desperate to surrender. A May 5 cable, intercpeted between Japan and Germany read: "Since the situation is clearly recognized to be hopeless, large sections of the Japanese armed forces would not regard with disfavor an American request for capitulation even if the terms were hard."

At the Potsdam talks of July, the Japanese government sent several radio messages to its ambassador, Naotake Sato, in Moscow, asking him to request Soviet help in mediating a peace settlement. "His Majesty is extremely anxious to terminate the war as soon as possible", said one communication. "Should, however, the United States and Great Britain insist on unconditional surrender, Japan would be forced to fight to the bitter end."

By "unconditional surrender", Japan was referring to the US demand for the removal of the Emperor system. This was a great shame and dishonour for Japan, and there wasn't even any need for it. In fact, when Japan finally got the chance to surrender the Americans didn't remove the Emperor, who stayed in power for several more years.

So if Japan's desire to keep an Emperor system wasn't preventing American accepting a surrender, what was? Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson had always regarded the project as 'his' bomb. On June 6, he told the President that he was "fearful" that before the A-bombs were ready to be delivered, the Air Force would have Japan so "bombed out" and that the new weapon "would not have a fair background to show its strength".

quote from http://members.aol.com/bblum6/abomb.htm

On July 25, while the Potsdam meeting was taking place,
Japan instructed Sato to keep meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Molotov to impress the Russians "with the sincerity of our desire to end the war [and] have them understand that we are trying to end hostilities by asking for very reasonable terms in order to secure and maintain our national existence and honor" (a reference to retention of Emperor Hirohito).

Having broken the Japanese code years earlier, Washington
did not have to wait to be informed by the Soviets of these peace
overtures; it knew immediately, and did nothing. Indeed, the
National Archives in Washington contains U.S. government documents reporting similarly ill-fated Japanese peace overtures as far back as 1943.

Thus, it was with full knowledge that Japan was frantically
trying to end the war, that President Truman and his hardline
secretary of state, James Byrnes, included the term "unconditional surrender" in the July 26 Potsdam Declaration. This "final warning" and expression of surrender terms to Japan was in any case a charade. The day before it was issued, Harry Truman had approved the order to release a 15 kiloton atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima.

Is it any coincidence that the US didn't give Japan a chance at surrender before dropping the 2nd one? Is it any coincidence that one bomb was made of plutonium, and the other uranium - i.e. they wanted to test which one was more devestating?

In any event, we can surely regard the bombings as not so much the last act of WWII, but as the first act of the Cold War. Nuking one country to scare another into an arms race - that's pretty sick if you ask me.

 

[SunTzu]

All i have to say is that the estimated casualties for both American and Japanese if the US invade Japan was in the millions..

 

[D' Artagnan]

IMO, it could have been avoided W/O the million casualties.
If the Americans had warned the Japanese by dropping a bomb in a desert island to make them see the effects of the bomb, the Japs would have probably surrendered.

BUT, at least we all know now the cruel and devastating effects of the nuclear bomb, and this might have prevented bigger conflicts ( USSR...)

 

[pi8ch]

BTW: A crime it was!
Like nearly everything that is made in a war is a crime.... (At least according to our moral standarts)

 

[SunTzu]

i doubt the japanese would've surrendered if we dropped the bomb on a desert island, remember they didn't surrender after the first bomb was dropped, it took 2 of them

 

[zulu9812]

SunTzu, the Japanese weren't given the chance of surrendering after the first bomb was dropped. America only started listenig when they'd dropped two.

 

[SunTzu]

Got a credible source?

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Greadius
History discussions, one forum south

All of the 'arguements against' were either unknowns or completely acceptable methods of conducting warfare at the time. I find applying modern morals to days gone by only leave you jaded, unless you manage to capture the perspective of progress on behalf of (most) of the human race.

Actually, no. Attacking civilians was against the rules of war even in 1945, rules codified and agreed to by the United States after WWI. The Atomic Bomb was a terror weapon, meant to force the surrender of the enemy by threatening even more horror against their civilian population. The Americans were quite aware that most of the dead would be women and children.

As a terror weapon, it was very effective.

 

[Zcylen]

no matter who would have used the bomb, the target were civilians, both sides did terrible things.
today is justified since US won the war and the winner are always "the good guys"
its been that way since ancient times.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

I would not have authorized the dropping of such weapons into population centers, depsite the official target points being valid targets (an army group HQ in Hiroshima, and a warwar prodution facility in Nagasaki {that was the secondary target by the war, the primary was a factory in Kita-Kyushu}) I would have dropped them a a military target outside but in veiw of large population centers, say the remenats of the fleet off Kure.

 

[Thadlerian]

I cannot see anything justifying the second bomb (over Nagasaki). The reasons for the first one may be discussed.

Queer how that bomb was simply 'forgotten' (compared to the Hiroshima one). Never seen any in-depth articles about 'Fatman'. It's always Hiroshima when talking about nukes. Nagasaki only appears in subordinate sentences.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

To save the POWs in Japan, yes, it was. This issue seems to come up every month.

 

[WillJ]

Originally posted by D' Artagnan
IMO, it could have been avoided W/O the million casualties.
If the Americans had warned the Japanese by dropping a bomb in a desert island to make them see the effects of the bomb, the Japs would have probably surrendered.

BUT, at least we all know now the cruel and devastating effects of the nuclear bomb, and this might have prevented bigger conflicts ( USSR...)

I disagree about Japan surrendering after dropping a bomb on a desert island. They still could have thought that the U.S. wouldn't dare to use it on civilians, and that a desert island would be as far as we would go.

With your second point, though, I agree. The fact that no one used any nuclear weapons in the Cold War is probably strengthened by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

IMO, dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was justified. But I think we should have given them a good amount of time to think about surrendering before dropping the second bomb on Nagasaki. Only if they still refused to surrender would the second bombing be justified.

 

[Kentonio]

I think a number of people are being naive. As Greadius so rightly put it, applying modern morals to days gone by only leave you jaded. When you you sit talking about how they should have given Japan a few more days please bear in mind that they had all just lived through YEARS of devestating war that had left millions dead. I think people have a tendancy to think of war these days very much in the modern sense, the troops bugger off abroad somewhere and sort out a problem. In this case you have to remember we are talking about a war where our own countries were at dire risk and people had lived under the threat of invasion and bombing for years.

To be quite honest back then I very much doubt people gave too much of a rats ass about the health and safety of the Japanese people who started the pacific war. Yes it is obvious that the Japanese man on the street didnt start it but under those wartime conditions Japan is seen as the enemy, not just a few Japanese rulers.

Quite frankly none of us have a right to judge the people who made that decision back then under the pressures of war. It was not made lightly and those men had to live with their consiences for the rest of their lives. To imagine that we could put ourselves in their position without having experienced first hand the events that lead upto that point is simply naive.