Hiroshina and Nagasaki -- Speak Out

[amadeus]

As you all well know your history, the United States, under President Truman, dropped two atomic weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over 140,000 people.

I'm staunchly pro-military, but our bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, in my opinion, as horrific as the things Hitler had done to the Jews (and others) in Europe.

Innocent, average, decent, hardworking people were slaughtered by this single opening of a cargo door. Innocent men, women, children died because of that decision.

It was morally wrong and barbaric to release a world of hell by using the atomic bomb on Japanese civilians.

As well, I have extreme anger and fury towards President Franklin D. Roosevelt for locking up the Japanese citizens in America (many of them being born in America themselves.) That was as sad of a chapter as the people that were forced into slavery by European settlers and many African warlords.

It may shock everyone as I type this, due to my nationalistic stand of the United States, but there have been great atrocities committed by F.D.R. and Truman, the racial demagauges of World War II.

The Japanese are good people, and I am sickened by the barbarism committed by people that had recieved great support of America.

 

[DinoDoc]

Truman had three choices due to Japanese refusal to surrender.

1) Invade. Would have made the causualties from D-Day look small in comparison.

2) Blockade. Would have taked to long and you'd only have to look at the effects of the siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War to see the effects that would have had on the civilian population, ie mass starvation and death.

3) Use the "Bomb" End the war fairly quickly.

Which would you choose. The neccessity of the second bomb can be argued but the first one can not be.

 

[Umask077]

Alright, they were atrocitiys. But they were one that were acceptable by the days standards. Rember that japan attacked without warning at pearl harbor. Not only sinking boats but coming back to strafe swimmers. I didnt make the decision to drop the bombs, it was a different eras wars and I wont apologize for it. The bombs killed alot of japanese true but it saved alot of americans and ended the war in japan much earlier.

If you want a pretty war with flowers and happiness you will have to go to another planet. Atrocities are part of war. How many captured foreign workers are you using in your current game. Wouldnt that be slavery?

The japanese armys were proud and fierce. Excellent warriors, They would have lost but it would have cost us 100's of thousands of our people. Comparing it to hitler is a little different. Hitlers geocide was a personal prefrence. He didnt start killing jews cause they shot at him first. Japan shot first. It was war. In war bad things happen and people die.

 

[atawa]

I agree, if the US has anything to apologize for its the Vietnam conflict, where they invaded a country during a civil war to save some dictators ass.

And do you think that the Japanese wouldnt have used nukes on Pearl Harbour if they had the chance?

guess again......

 

[Ohwell]

Oh boy, another Pearl Harbor mention.

The Japanese wouldn't have used atomic weapons on Hawaii because they were planning to make peace just after. The attack was a political and acceptable attack, not an atrocity, it's goals was to eradicate a US naval prescense which threatened their campaign over Pacific. They only wanted to destroy the ships, and cause the US to make peace.

In my opinion it was a perfect plan. I would have done the same thing. But they wouldn't, and I would't. have used nuclear weapons. That would have made them angrier.

 

[Knowltok]

Actually it can be argued, but I not going to do it because I think it was the right decision.

The invasion was estimated to result in 1,000,000 Allied causulties. It also likely would have resulted in the near destruction of the Japanese race. The Japanese were training their civilians, including women and children, to resist at all costs, often with bamboo spears. The Japanese people also had a misconception that the Americans would kill them if captured. A prime example of this is the Japanese civilians on Saipan who threw themselves off of a cliff to avoid capture. A further example of Japanese resolve is that they did not immediately surrender after the first bomb. They were a beaten nation and one of their cities had just gone up in smoke, and still they delayed.

RM a couple of things to keep in mind.

1. Their were worse bombings than the two atomic bombs. The most destructive was the incideary bombing raid over Tokyo.

2. WWII was a total war, and everyone in Japan at that point was part of the war effort. Whether it was making kamikaze plane parts in their homes at night, or making bombs in a factory during the day. If you want to define civilians as innocent, you can, but they were not uninvolved in the war.

3. The Internment of Japanese Americans was a horrible thing. But I don't think it compares to slavery. It may have been racism, and extreme paranoia, but it was not the ownership and use in servitude of another human being.

 

[Knowltok]

In my opinion it was a perfect plan.

A perfect plan for committing national suicide. Had they known their enemy at all they would have had a radically different plan. All's fair in love and war, but just because that is true doesn't mean that the enemy won't get pissed off if you sneak attack them.

 

[kobayashi]

But did they really have to drop them on cities? I'm sure they could have achieved the same effect by flattening one of the smaller islands with a smaller population and then threatening to do the same to Tokyo.

 

[VoodooAce]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Truman had three choices due to Japanese refusal to surrender.

1) Invade. Would have made the causualties from D-Day look small in comparison.

2) Blockade. Would have taked to long and you'd only have to look at the effects of the siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War to see the effects that would have had on the civilian population, ie mass starvation and death.

3) Use the "Bomb" End the war fairly quickly.

Which would you choose. The neccessity of the second bomb can be argued but the first one can not be.

Here's a fourth one, Dino.

I agree with RM.

My fourth option would have been to use the bomb, but not over such populated cities. I agree that its about as horrific as anything in history.

I understand the logic.....invading japan would have produced.....well, no matter what word i use, it would be an uderstatement. Hell.

Each bomb, all told, killed roughly 100,000 people....pick any city in america with 100,000+ pop, including all the children, women and elderly.....everyone.....and imagine them all killed. Most of them immediately vaporized, the rest to die slowly and painfully.

And I don't dispute you Knowltok, fact is I don't know, but was the damage that bad in any of the Tokyo bombings? Or are you talking about all of the Tokyo bombings combined?

BTW, I don't know about Pearl Harbor, but I don't think there can be ANY doubt that the Japanese would have used nukes on us as a last resort. Heck, I believe it might be possible they'd have set one off THEMSELVES in Japan once we'd landed....the ultimate kamikazee.

Which is irrelevant when we're talking about what is right or wrong for the US to do. We should have our standards, period.

 

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by VoodooAce
My fourth option would have been to use the bomb, but not over such populated cities.

They were still defiant after seeing the devestation of Hiroshima. Of what effect do you think a detonation over an uninhabited island would have had?

 

[VoodooAce]

Originally posted by DinoDoc


They were still defiant after seeing the devestation of Hiroshima. Of what effect do you think a detonation over an uninhabited island would have had?

Do you not know the history? They were still defiant because they fully believed that we had only one bomb.

Once we proved the existence of another one, they surrendered. Remember?

Don't get me wrong.....I think it PROBABLY had to be in an area with some....well, people. Buildings. Something to give the destruction perspective.....as cold as that sounds. I think this can be argued...

Knocking off nearly a quarter million people with the two bombs was just excessively cruel.

 

[damunzy]

I feel bad about what my country did to civilians in Japan by dropping nuclear bombs on two cities, killing children (the adults don't bother me as much) but their whole economy was set to war mode and it would have been costly, so costly we might still be recovering and if we would still be recovering then we sure as hell couldn't have helped to whip their economy back into the shape it is in now. The worst thing we did, IMO, was locking up our own citizens. I wouldn't be able to stand such an act by our own government. That is one situation that I could justify fighting against my own government.

 

[PinkyGen]

The sky must be falling, I am arguing against rmsharpe in favor of military escalation.

I did a paper on this in Junior year in High School, and came to the conclusion that the bombings, combined with the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria, is what finally convinced Japan to surrender.

Even after being firebombed, having their merchant marine sunk, Japan was stilling willing to fight. They were willing to accept a peace a treaty, a la treaty of Versailes, that would result in no US occupation and a chance for them to rebuild. The plan for defending the homelands was to make it so bloody that the US would have to accept this. I've seen their plans, it included a lot of men and divisions, civilians training to fight, suicide boats, and over 7,000 Kamikaze's. MacArthur's intelligence underestimated the amount of Japanese troops, and had a conventional battle been fought, I have no doubt the casaulties would have been enormous. (However, when MacArthur learned of the bomb, he wanted to use 6 of them for the actual invasion).
Also, had the war continued, the eventual food shortages due to the bombing of the Japanese rail network and merchant marine would have caused more deaths than what happened as a result from the bombing.

The real question is whether Japan would be willing to surrender to allow occupation of Allied troops, and signifigant changes in their governmental structure (and this is not just the issue of the emperor). While the civilian side of the government might have been willing to consider this, both the army and the navy were also part of the cabinet, and could kill any plan they wanted to.

After the first bomb, at first the generals were not willing to accept it could be just one bomb. (They thought it might have been some trick with sprayed magnesium chemicals and such). Even after accepting it was an A-bomb, they believed the US could only build one of them. Nagasaki disproved that.

However, even after the two bombs, and the Soviet invasion (they were hoping to withdrawl most of the Manchurian army to help fight on the mainland), the cabinet was still deadlocked and debating until the emperor sent his crown prince to personally interfere and announce the surrender. Even after this, lower echelon troops tried various coup attempts and capturing the emperor's palace, and if memory serves me correctly, the chief of the army committed suicide.

I think the bomb had to be used on a city. If used on a desolate area (and Japan didn't have many of these), the affects of the devastation would not be as well pronounced as in a city, and thus the message wouldn't have been as strong, and the military could deny the threat of the bomb with more plausibility. Not to mention they might consider it "American weakness" not to use their weapons.

In conclusion, it was war, and the question was how to save the lives of US troops, and end it quickly. The A-bomb offered the best solution, as a way of guaranteeing peace and saving US lives. To this day, my grandfather (who had served in Europe since the St. Lo breakout in an independent tank destroyer battalion) is thankful he did not have to fight in Japan.

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

All arguments on this are useless IMO, because of one simple fact:

Japan would have surrendered only two ways:

1)After a brutal campaign that would have killed millions of Japanese in the home islands.

2)Showing that the allies had a super weapon and were willing to use it.

A "demonstration" would have been useless, it seems, from the writings of the particpitents of the time.

This was no atrocity, but needed to save both allied servicemen and Japanese people from further horrors in a war their government started, and their government was refusing to end.

To say it's a crime is to take a simplistic and one-sided view of events.

Put yourself in Trumen's postion:

One bomb cost millions, millions of USA citizens would be killed in an invasion.
Would you waste it in the hopes it would make an impression?

75% of Japan's cities had been flatened by firebombing at that point, yet Japan was not giving in.

Ask yourself, "what would I do?
Could I sleep at night knowing all those men would die because 60 years from now some might not understand? "

 

[Kefka]

Ya know Iv'e always wanted to find out the Jap's take on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what the Japanesse history books say about it.
cause personally I always wonder about the "other persons story".

 

[Hamlet]

The decsion, although ultimately a very sad, disturbing one, was the right one. Look at Okinawa if you want to get a good idea of what an invasion of The mainland would have been like.

Ultimately, invasion would have killed thousands upon thousands more Japanese than the two bombs collectively did.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

I concur with those who argue that the use of the bomb was necessary. A great human tragedy, yes, but still necessary and justified in a total war.
The enemy had shown no compunctions whatsoever about using any means of war and destruction, and only the use of nuclear weapons ended the threat. Regretting the matter is quite erroneous; feeling sorry that the casualties were necessary is another.

 

[Ohwell]

I am in favor of all who say it was nessecary.

Combined with the Italian invasion, the Normandi invasion, and bombing raids, enough lives were already lost. A Japanese invasion would have totally ruined the Japanese nation. Those japs were willing to fight to the death, and deaths is waht they would have got.

The bomb saved time, lives, and made the Japanese surrender. However, it also was a goal, though not a defined one, that the US government wanted to use the bomb to show the Soviet Union they had developed fission before them.

 

[Blackadder]

The only consolation about the bomb is:

a) it was used, thus the money needed to make it was justified.
b) It temperarily scared the U.S.S.R. (or at least, they claim the Americans attempted to scare them)
c) The Japanese army had little regard for other nation's civilians anyway. The rape of Nanking and The Siam-Burma railtrack incidents, where the gravest of torture was used. (okay, the last one is not just civilians, but did break the Geneva act in my mind)

Let us face it, few nations were innocent. Although it is sad that it had to be civilians, it was necassary.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by Ohwell
The Japanese wouldn't have used atomic weapons on Hawaii because they were planning to make peace just after. The attack was a political and acceptable attack, not an atrocity, it's goals was to eradicate a US naval prescense which threatened their campaign over Pacific. They only wanted to destroy the ships, and cause the US to make peace.

I never thought I would have to take a shot at a guy in Frankfurt for his americocentrism, but Hawaii wasn't the only thing the Japanese were attacking. Perhaps a japanese atom bomb wouldn't have been used against the Americans - although it's a stretch, since an atom bomb at Pearl on Dec. 7th would have met their needs perfectly. But they might have used it on, say, the Chinese, who had been suffering through Japanese atrocities for over a decade.

Which leads nicely to why I grudgingly support Truman's decision, however hideous and difficult it should have been. My grandfather was sitting in a landing craft, training for the assault on Singapore when he got the news that the first bomb had been dropped. And his CO turned the exercise back, and the tommies sat back and waited. And you know what happened between that first bomb and the second? Nothing. There is ample, ample evidence from Japanese sources to suggest that a large part of the Japanese government and military were even ready to continue fighting after the second bomb, let alone the first. And if blockades had been pursued as the alternative, what did that do to deal with the fact that Japanese troops still occupied vast swathes of Indonesia, Indochina, and China itself, holding hundreds of thousands of prisoners on the brink of death? And that's just the nice part.

So I'm usually opposed to all random bombing of civilian targets, but by the s%#%$y standards of the time, the priority was to end a half-decade of slaughter against a foe who was quite prepared to keep fighting, and still was fighting across a third of the globe. I don't like the fact that Truman did it. I'm not even sure I would have done it. But I sure understand why he was in a hurry when he did, and I think a lot of people are blind to the realities he faced when they look back with "20-20" hindsight.

R.III