The Atomic Question?

[MrPresident]

If you were in President Truman's position would you order the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan? Would you do something else such as show the Japanese the power of the bomb before you dropped it? Would you never have dropped the bomb? If so how would you have ended WWII? Do you think Truman was right in dropping the bomb? What would you do?

 

[philippe]

japan was almost destroyed so it was just a little more pressure

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Yes, I would have done the same thing in his position, and he was justified in doing so. The Japanese still have not been punished for their aggression and war crimes, and neither have the Germans.
It was necessary to avoid the casualties that Operation Olympic would have caused primarily to the American troops, and secondly to the Japanese civilians, and to punish them for the war.

 

[Lt.Col. Kilgore]

Absolutely not. I would have made it clear that the emperor would retain his position like should have been done in the Potsdam Decleration, only they would give up all territories gained through conquest(including Manchuria). The Japanese were willing to do this, but were not gauranteed the allowance of the emperor to remain in place. If this were made clear Japan might have surrendered and ceded its wartime annexed territories.
The only reason I see that the bombs were dropped was to create a notion of a decisive victory. This led Japan to let U.S. soldiers occupy the mainland and help rewrite a national Constitution based on Democratic principles. This would insure that the agression of WWII Japan would not manifest itself once more. It seemed to have worked and U.S. troops are still stationed in Japan as was the agreement.

 

[Hamlet]

Ultimately, it was a terrible act, but a necessity in those circumstances. An invasion would have rendered the Japanese mainland and it's civilian population in tatters.

Originally posted by Simon Darkshade
The Japanese still have not been punished for their aggression and war crimes, and neither have the Germans.

What do you suggest, The Treaty of Versailles Mach 2?

Oops. We found out the problems that arise from imposing a 'victors peace' in the shape of WW2, didn't we?

 

[Simon Darkshade]

No, nothing that soft.

World War 2 came about from many causes, not just the failure of the Versailles Treaty.
If you are going to do something, do it properly.
The Japanese to this day do not acknowledge the aggression and guilt, and gloss over it in their education system, and society. They have not been punished for what they did.
The Japanese emperor got off easy, as did a lot of other guilty parties.

 

[Hamlet]

Originally posted by Simon Darkshade
World War 2 came about from many causes, not just the failure of the Versailles Treaty.

Indeed. Versailles never helped though.

Originally posted by Simon Darkshade
The Japanese emperor got off easy, as did a lot of other guilty parties.

I believe those responsible should be punished, and that The Japanese should acknowledge one of their worst hours. However, I do not equate this with punishing an entire country for the actions of a few. It's illogical, and ultimately self-defeating, as has been shown by history, which should, hopefully, guide our actions in the present so we can avoid the idiocies of the past.

 

[Lt.Col. Kilgore]

Originally posted by Simon Darkshade
No, nothing that soft.
The Japanese to this day do not acknowledge the aggression and guilt, and gloss over it in their education system, and society. They have not been punished for what they did.
parties.

Where is it you get your information from? The Japanese majority don't condone the war. Most people who fought in the war were fed lies and propaganda as to the purpose of the war. Most of the people alive today that were alive during WWII didn't even fight the war. Who is it you want to punish?
Its like the silly ass argument of several negro orginisations suing companies involved in slave trade or the U.S. apologising for slavery. Complete bollocks! No one around today has been or even owned a slave. Let bygones be bygones. Japan got hit a lot harder than we did not to mention aprox. 120,000 people who had nothing more to do with the Jap war effort other than being Japanese were killed by two bombs.

 

[dannyevilcat]

It seems a terrible thing to say, but the world should be glad that it was dropped.
It ended the most devastating war we've ever known, but even more important is this:
We are reminding of the enormous danger of these weapons everytime we see those bombs dropped in documentary footage, images which have affected us all, showed us a glimpse of nuclear holocaust.
The footage of testing doesn't have near the same impact on our psyche.

Better to have dropped it before other countries got their hands on them too, and before we developed these weapons with even bigger payloads.

This is not to justify the deaths of so many Japanese, but I feel that perhaps Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have saved us all from the same fate later on.

 

[Lt.Col. Kilgore]

Originally posted by dannyevilcat

This is not to justify the deaths of so many Japanese, but I feel that perhaps Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have saved us all from the same fate later on.

I disagree since I think logistics alone are enough to show the effects and, therefore, deter their use. Though I will concede that the immense effects of radition due to fallout was only observed after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Originally posted by Hamlet


Indeed. Versailles never helped though.


I believe those responsible should be punished, and that The Japanese should acknowledge one of their worst hours. However, I do not equate this with punishing an entire country for the actions of a few. It's illogical, and ultimately self-defeating, as has been shown by history, which should, hopefully, guide our actions in the present so we can avoid the idiocies of the past.

The failure of the enforcement of the Versailles treaty did not help.
The weakness of the League, and the failure of the Western powers to react to the rise of Hitler were important.
He was quite worried about the reaction to the reoccupation and re-militarization of the Rhineland, specifically from the French Army. Military action then by Britain and France would have set hims back.

My version of proper punishment is this: Those guilty, discredited and executed, and not interned as national heroes. The public forced to confront the reality of what they did, and to keep confronting it, and to be reminded of it. There is an ignorance of the true course of the war in Japan, and a revisionist refusal to acknowledge its guilt and atrocities.
The account of hostilities is glossed over in textbooks, and Japanese exchange students have been known to express utter suprise and horror at learning what actually happened.
There is a refusal to acknowledge the debt of guilt towards the Korean comfort women, or the victims of their atrocities in China, or the Allied POWs. There are disturbing signs emerging, particularly in certain actions of Koizumi.
Furthermore towards just punishment, recompense should be made towards those it made war on, more so than was done.
Several more bombs would not have been out of the question.

"Where is it you get your information from? The Japanese majority don't condone the war. Most people who fought in the war were fed lies and propaganda as to the purpose of the war. Most of the people alive today that were alive during WWII didn't even fight the war. Who is it you want to punish?
Its like the silly ass argument of several negro orginisations suing companies involved in slave trade or the U.S. apologising for slavery. Complete bollocks! No one around today has been or even owned a slave. Let bygones be bygones. Japan got hit a lot harder than we did not to mention aprox. 120,000 people who had nothing more to do with the Jap war effort other than being Japanese were killed by two bombs."

I am not arguing for retrospective punishment, or extra bombings now, but rather an official and thorough acknowledgement of guilt, throughout the society. Just because time has passed does not mean "let bygones be bygones". The truth must be known, and accepted.
And don't compare me with those who call for recompense for slaves- I am their opposite and antithesis.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not completely innocent bystanders from the Japanese war effort.

 

[MrPresident]

I disagree since I think logistics alone are enough to show the effects and, therefore, deter their use.

Why do the France need to still do tests if though they have the logistics?

Let bygones be bygones.

I am all for this. However the Japanese are yet to fully acknowledge their terrible treatment of Allies PoWs. In their history books there is little or no mention of this. Until that is admended bygones will not be bygones.

Personally I think that the war could only be ended if the Japanese mainland was captured. To do this America and the Allies would had to launch a massive D-Day style offensive which it was estimated would kill 2 million Allied troops. That is just Allied troops. The number of dead Japanese is too hard to estimate but would be a lot higher than 2 million. So ultimately dropping of the bomb can be justified and Truman was right.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Originally posted by Lt.Col. Kilgore


I disagree since I think logistics alone are enough to show the effects and, therefore, deter their use. Though I will concede that the immense effects of radition due to fallout was only observed after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

Sure, the effects and blast radius, etc, etc, could be documented, and on paper it would be quite frightening, but what I mean is the mass-consciousness of "the bomb" in us all. It's like war in general: we all know it's terrible, but we don't really grasp how terrible it is until we see the dead, the effect their loss has on their families, hear the stories.
Unless the senselessness of war or nuclear weapons actually affects us, let's us all empathize it, it's little more than empty words. This is just my opinion, anyway.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

The French needed to test their new warheads as they were in the process of overhauling, modernizing and downsizing their nuclear arsenal. It was not just for the hell of it, but to ensure their countries strategic deterrent would work.

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

Originally posted by MrPresident
If you were in President Truman's position would you order the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan?

Yes - because IMHO not Japan was the target but U.S.S.R. - a psychological effect of course !!

Regards

 

[Vrylakas]

A terrible choice indeed, but I would have done it.

Reasons:

1. The creeping invasion (by "island-hopping") of the Japanese Empire that began after the defeat of the Imperial Navy at Midway was showing that the Japanese were increasingly fanatic in their resistance the closer the Allies got to the home islands. It didn't take much imagination to figure out what an invasion of Kyushu or Honshu islands would be like: massive casualties both among Allied soldiers, Japanese civilians and the Japanese military.

2. While the Americans probably didn't have this information at the time, they did guess as much: The Japanese military was indeed equipping and training civilians - women and children as well as old men - how to fight the invaders, including incredibly the formation of bamboo stick battalions with no guns. This information comes from a recent history I read, Japan in Defeat. The civilian population was very enthusiastically taking to the initiative, although most military and civilian leaders in Tokyo knew these efforts were futile and would lead to widescale bloodhsed. The intent (of the Japanese nationalist fanatics) was for the country to commit national suicide rather than ever admit defeat.

3. As has often been pointed out, far more Japanese civilians died in the conventional bombing raids by American bombers on Tokyo than died in both atomic bomb blasts. I'm not sure whether there's much to quibble between dying in a firestorm caused by incendiary bombs dropped on a paper-walled city or in a single massive blast.

4. The atomic bombs did play a significant role in convincing the military diehards in Tokyo to acquiesce to surrender. They envisioned dying romantically on the beaches, fighting in hand-to-hand combat with American soldiers but the thought of being anonymously incinerated by a single bomb - along with women and children - didn't suit their definition of an honorable death. After Hiroshima was dropped, several scientists were dispatched to verify whether the damage really was from an atomic bomb as the Americans claimed, and after a day when it became clear it had, the Japanese military tried to suppress the results, claiming it was "merely" a conventional bombing raid. Nagasaki refuted that lie...

5. As for Hirohito, he has been painted as a peace-loving hero since the war because of the way he heroically stood up to the nationalists (at one point even being taken prisoner by them) and made his famous radio address admitting defeat ("The war hasn't quite gone as planned...") but the Americans were ambivelent about him because until his turnaround in August 1945 he had been a staunch supporter of the nationalists and their expansionist agenda. To us now he looks like a trapped emperor wanting peace but being forced by extremists in the military government to carry out crimes (an image the post-war Japanese governments carefully cultivated) but in reality he did support the expansion, the war against China, the ill-treatment of Allied POWs, the enslavement of peoples from across the empire. It is verifiable that he knew of these things and supported them. He did have qualms about the post-1931 military government, but only because it might limit his own perogatives. His actions in August 1945 derived not out of a love for peace but out of a realization that this was the only way to save Japan. His actions since the war until his death were admirable and a great example for the world, but his actions before and during the war show that he too had the nationlist bug and had some blood on his hands. The Americans of 1945 had little reason to trust him and lots of reasons not to, and as well Washington was under a lot of political pressure from allies in the region - the Chinese, the Thais, the Koreans, the Australians, etc. - to put the emperor on public trial for war crimes. That they did finally accept a post-war Japan with the emperor was based exclusively on practicality, as a way to help the over-radicalized Japanese population accept defeat.

BTW, Truman personally ordered the drop of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima but then gave control over the remaining bombs to the American military, and it was they who decided to drop the 2nd bomb on Nagasaki. After Nagasaki Truman (traveling in Europe) finally saw pictures of the devastation in both cities and he took back control from the military. The thought originally was that the atomic bomb was merely a military weapon, a bigger bomb. Only after seeing the devastation did Truman realize that it was much more than that and required strict political control.

I agree somewhat with Ioan that Hiroshima was also a light show for the Soviets to show them (and the world) what the American military was capable of. I don't think that was the primary goal because while for most Europeans the war effectively ended in early May, for Americans and those in southeast Asia it dragged on until September. American military estimates at the time projected that the Japanese war would last well into 1946, so that was still their primary focus. If you read the FRUS (Foreign Relations of the United States), a collection of all documents relating to U.S. foreign relations, for 1945 you will only see the occasional reference by a disgruntled American diplomat in Budapest or Warsaw raising questions about the Soviets. In fact, many historians complain that the Americans were very naively not focused on the Soviets in 1945, and perhaps should have been. The real change for American foreign policy comes in mid-1946 when Washington started to become suspicious of Soviet intentions. The official and oft-repeated policy in Washington was that during the war only purely military issues should be discussed between allies, and that all border and political issues should be settled after the war at some peace conference. For Washington, the war was still on in August 1945, so while it didn't hurt that the post-war world got a glimpse of American military power (the atomic bombs) I don't think anyone in Washington was frothing over the Soviets just yet. Joseph Davies, the extremely pro-Soviet former American diplomat was still working as an advisor in Washington in 1945, and he had a lot of influence. It would be 1946 before he was shown the door...

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

Originally posted by Vrylakas
for 1945 you will only see the occasional reference by a disgruntled American diplomat in Budapest or Warsaw raising questions about the Soviets. In fact, many historians complain that the Americans were very naively not focused on the Soviets in 1945, and perhaps should have been.

Well - I agree with this.
But also IMHO nor the Soviets ( Stalin ) nor Americans had no clear perspective in 1945 of a future "cold war".
Probably the only one who had a forecast of this was Wiston Churchill - and he spoke in 1945 at Fulton about a "Iron Courtain".

Regards

 

[Panda]

It's argued that the dropping of the A-Bombs was necessary to break the Japanese will to resist, thus saving tens of thousands of American's lives, so I could understand if one bomb had been dropped.

However, there's no justification for the second bomb. Japan would have surrendered if they had been threatened with a second bomb.

Hiroshima might have strategic purposes, but Nagasaki was pure genocide by a vengeful nation.

 

[basher]

Maybe I'd first have sent them a film containing footage on the A-bomb testing to convince them.

 

[MrPresident]

Maybe I'd first have sent them a film containing footage on the A-bomb testing to convince them.

Might as well have sent them a note saying "can you please surrender". The only way to demostrate the power of the bomb was by dropping it on Japanese terrority. Even then they didn't fully appreciate its power, hence another one was dropped. Finally they decided that there was no way they could withstand further attack.