What ordinary men can do: The bombing of Hiroshima

[luiz]

From everything I've read, Japan was not talking about surrender before the bombs.

 

[von_Seydlitz]

Why should they feel remorse? I doubt the Japanese or the Nazis would feel much sorrow if one of them had been the first to develop a nuke and used it on two American cities. But we were the first to develop them, and naturaly we used them.

This point of view implies that there is little difference between the Nazis and the US. Bit astonishing to me...

"We had our orders..." .. "We just did what we were told to.." .. "We were doing it because we were ordered to and thought it would be for the benefit of..."
That's all the same arguments Nazis like Eichmann gave for his crimes.

 

[Strider]

The bomb didn't need to be dropped: Japan was already defeated by then, and it was a matter of days or weeks before it'd surrender: just read/be informed by Japanese officials/documents and learn that they planned to surrender very soon.
The only thing to do is the US could have kept bombing the Japanese military targets. The bomb didn't save "thousands of soldiers' lives", that's a myth.

Actually, no what your saying is a myth.

The Japanese Cabinet was having a fight between the Civilian Leaders and the Military Leaders. The Military was refusing to surrender, while the Civilian Leaders were trying to talk the government into surrendering.

After WWII, the Civilian Leaders said that the bombs aided there cause greatly, and that if we had not dropped the bombs they would not have surrendered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

According to Japanese historians, Japanese civilian leaders who favored surrender saw their salvation in the atomic bombing. The Japanese military was steadfastly refusing to give up, so the peace faction seized on the bombing as a new argument to force surrender. Koichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest advisors, stated: "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945. called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war." According to these historians and others, the pro-peace civilian leadership was able to use the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince the military that no amount of courage, skill and fearless combat could help Japan against the power of atomic weapons. Akio Morita, founder of Sony and Japanese Naval officer during the war, also concludes that it was the atomic bomb and not conventional bombings from B-29s that convinced the Japanese military to agree to peace.

 

[King Alexander]

Yes, the few die-hard military leaders were willing to die than surrender, but most of the army/country didn't want the war to continue. Anyway, that's not an excuse to use such a bomb to 2 cities. The US could just keep the bombardment of military targets for a while longer.

As I've already said, the bomb SHOULD been tested, no matter what, before the war was over.

 

[Bugfatty300]

The Japanese were specifically rejecting envoys until the Americans and British invaded.

When that happened they planned to kill every POW in captivity and then sacrifice millions of Japanese in massive bonzai charges in order to kill large numbers of allied soldiers.

The Japanese believed the Americans couldn't stomach such losses and would then sue for peace which allowed Japan to keep its government and territory in Korea.

Russia, America and Britain all agreed that was not going to happen.

There is no doubt Japan was defeated by August 1945.

There is no doubt that there was going to be an invasion which would have dwarfed Normandy and cost the lives of millions and millions of Japanese troops, civilians and allied soldiers.

That said, there is no doubt the 2 A-bombs saved much more lives in the long run.

HOWEVER. The fact that they were used on civilian populations makes the usage of bombs questionable, even by me, a staunch supporter of the usage of the A-bombs.

 

[Alpine Trooper]

I don't care about the facts concerning Japan's state of affairs prior to the dropping of the atomic bomb. The only fact that I care about is Japan initiated a war against the United States and subsequently her allies. For that, we retaliated.

 

[feline_dacat]

... then sacrifice millions of Japanese in massive bonzai charges in order to kill large numbers of allied soldiers.

I know this is a serious thread but....
That's the little miniture trees!
edit: Wiki link! Bonsai trees

You mean Kamikaze - "God's wind"

 

[Bugfatty300]

I know this is a serious thread but....
That's the little miniture trees!
edit: Wiki link!

You mean Kamikaze - "God's wind"

Indeed, a bonsai is a little tree. Thinks for pointing that fact out

Im talking about Bonzai Charges. But Banzai Charges are more correct.

Banzai Charge

 

[Damnyankee]

War criminal. He should be executed, as well as those who helped him and those who gave that order.

Please no nonsense about that it was necessary etc. It wasn't. US gov. hasn't even tried to show the Japanese the destructive power of the new device, for example on some purely military target or in safe distance from a big coastal city. They used it twice, they attacked civilian targets and they killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It was a war crime and nothing can change that.

War criminal? They saved hundreds of thousands of American and Japanese lives. Also, you can't just "show" Japan the effect of the bomb, either the bomb would be a dud, or they would see the effect, and evacuate there cities and move military assests away from cities, and Millions, thats right MILLIONS would die anyway from the invasion. It is irresponsible of you to wag your finger at America for using this weapon. What would we tell our people, we had a weapon that would have ended the war, but we didn't use it, instead costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, not to mention that a massive amount of japanese civilians, more then the Atom Bombs and fire bombing casulaties COMBINED. Also, what would the future be like? If we invaded? It is very possible that the Soviet Union might have taken the whole of Japanese occupied Manchuria, all of Korea, and the Northern Parts of Japan. The future would be different and for thw worst, not to mention the stigma attached to a long, violent occupation, because it would be violent.

 

[Mise]

Banzai Charge

Yup, that's still a little tree.

EDIT: Ok they're not little trees anymore

 

[Bugfatty300]

Check again, mise.

 

[feline_dacat]

Indeed, a bonsai is a little tree. Thinks for pointing that fact out

Im talking about Bonzai Charges. But Banzai Charges is more correct.

Oh, and I did mean Banzai Charge, not Kamikaze Charge.

Banzai Charge

Oh *giggle* Poppet, I think your link should point to Banzai charges. *patpat*

Edit: Ahh, you are no fun! You edited it now!

 

[King Alexander]

The Japanese believed the Americans couldn't stomach such losses and would then sue for peace which allowed Japan to keep its government and territory in Korea.

Russia, America and Britain all agreed that was not going to happen.

Of course, it couldn't happen! Keep the same warmongering goverment Japan had?

HOWEVER. The fact that they were used on civilian populations makes the usage of bombs questionable, even by me, a staunch supporter of the usage of the A-bombs.

The bomb HAD to be used first, even if Japan wanted to surrender.

Without supporting the 2 droppings of the A-bomb, I'm just glad the US developed it first, and not Hitler or Stalin.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Oh *giggle* Poppet, I think your link should point to Banzai charges. *patpat*

Yeah I copied your stupid wiki httm by mistake

I fixed it though. Check again.

 

[von_Seydlitz]

I don't care about the facts concerning Japan's state of affairs prior to the dropping of the atomic bomb. The only fact that I care about is Japan initiated a war against the United States and subsequently her allies. For that, we retaliated.

Don't want to offense you, but that opinion seems a bit naive to me.

 

[The Yankee]

War criminal. He should be executed, as well as those who helped him and those who gave that order.

Please no nonsense about that it was necessary etc. It wasn't. US gov. hasn't even tried to show the Japanese the destructive power of the new device, for example on some purely military target or in safe distance from a big coastal city. They used it twice, they attacked civilian targets and they killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It was a war crime and nothing can change that.

How could they have been war criminals if there were no laws concerning that area? Or anything about civilian targeting for that matter.

 

[Mise]

Strangely enough, I dont blame these men for the actual act of dropping the bomb. They were military men with orders. Pilots in war or peace time dont get the option to veto missions they dont agree with. What really troubles me is that all these years later, they still feel no remorse. How is that possible? How can ordinary men commit such horrific acts, and feel nothing? If the world is filled with ordinary men like these, is their any hope for humanity?

I think that when you have killed so many innocent people in such a horrifying way, the only way to come to terms with it and get on with your life is to justify it to yourself.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Well, I personally explain the allies bombings over Europe and Japan pepetrated on civilian targets as being done because of an overproduction of bombs and military materials. One may debate about how significant those purely civilian-targetted bombings have been in order to achieve victory, but I personally believe such a debate is pointless today. Events made it happen this way, and we can't go back. So now, I guess we could all agree that it's really sad History has followen such a path.

It's true that allies regular bombings made more victims than the nuclear bombs which exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, I would simply like to point out that there's a big difference between a nuclear bombing and a regular bombing : radiations. The terrible effects radiations had, killing people day after day, month after month, year after year, gives a new atrocious dimension to the nuclear bombings which goes, in my own eyes, even beyond the horror of regular bombings.

 

[The Yankee]

Hmm...but perhaps the silver lining, if you don't agree with the notion that it ended the war and avoided a costly final battle, is that it's effects on the two cities have made people more scared of the bomb. Yes, they keep producing it, but none have been used on a city since...sad that a guinea pig in the two cities would prove that point, but that's another outcome.

 

[JtheJackal]

Hmm...but perhaps the silver lining, if you don't agree with the notion that it ended the war and avoided a costly final battle, is that it's effects on the two cities have made people more scared of the bomb. Yes, they keep producing it, but none have been used on a city since...sad that a guinea pig in the two cities would prove that point, but that's another outcome.

I was thinking that, where would the bomb have been used if they hadn't dropped it on Japan? Would it have been used in the Korean War instead?