Would you have used the atom bomb on Japan in WWII if you were Prez?

That's a good point, I cannot use the same example on the US mainland under the same conditional position we put Japan in because we have Canada, and Central, and South America to flee to. We are not living on an Island (unless of course I limit the Question to just the inhabitants of Hawaii and pretend the Continental US doesn't exist).

 

And even the use of 12 or 20 nuclear weapons to achieve an unconditional Japanese surrender would have saved Japanese lives. The Japanese military was determined to throw their civilian population against the invasion force. They intended to commit a national demographic suicide - the US stopped them.

 

Fact. The vast majority of the military leaders at the time were against use of the bomb and felt Japan would have surrendered without an invasion

 

Bomb Number 1, definitely yes.
Bomb number 2 should have been delayed a little longer.
Japan needed a cultural shock or it was gonna go down fighting to the last human breath.

Considering the malnutrition, famine, epidemic typhus and tuberculosis
I do believe "the bomb" saved Japanese lives as well as hastened Japan's recovery from the war.


Moi

r > g

View attachment 47358
Never forget!
Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic,
regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.​

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It is unusual for Moi to ask this, really -
but, I would like to see your reference.

 

At the time we only had those two bombs... Fat Man and Little Boy.

 

True -- though more were in the works; the next was destined for Tokyo.

Still wondering why, given the damage inflicted on Japan with conventional weapons, the use of these weapons is an issue.
Had the USAAF destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with incendiaries, no one would have ever heard of them.

 

While Japan is certainly tiny compared to the USA, it still is a large country. It has large rural areas and many mountainous areas. The atomic bombs of that era were fractional to modern hydrogen bombs. They couldn't even totally destroy a medium size city. While we could have destroyed 2 or 3 cities a month, either by firebombing or atom bombs, destroying more than 1% of Japan's land mass in terms of bombing was impossible in the 1940s.

Just like all other war powers, Japan was improving its weaponry exponentially. Their war industries and war infrastructure was in their cities. Inherently, this made their cities legitimate war targets. In that context, all we could do was warn the civilians (something Japan did not do with it leveled Chinese cities) and if they stay or their government forced them to stay that is on them, not us.

That is no different than any other combat. If enemy soldiers were to line up their own family members as human shields claiming we then dare not fire the deaths of those family members is upon them, not us.

The Japanese government, Japanese military and Japanese civilians knew we had total air superiority and that we were, in fact, massively firebombing and bombing cities. Thus, flyers we dropped warning civilians to get out because we were going to bomb - meaning bombing their war industry factories - the Japanese knew 100% that was going to happen - because it always did happen. That the Japanese government kept their civilians there proved the Japanese government was willing to sacrifice unlimited numbers of civilian lives. That the civilians stayed meant they also agreed to this.

Part of the strategy of the Japanese in defense against invasion was their belief in our humanity and goodness, a humanity and goodness they did not share. They believed we were not willing to kill tens of millions of Japanese civilians that the Japanese military was going to have fight our troops with small arms - even if we killed 1,000 civilians for each American casualty.

The dropping of the atomic bombs - having tricked the Emperor into believing we had hundreds of them - was to convince the Emperor we would not be defeated by the Emperor sacrificing all Japanese. Simply, the atomic bombs, that killed no more than a mass firebombing raids, was to convince the Japanese that their strategy of sacrificing civilians en mass to cause any American casualties was a miscalculation. Instead, then we will kill militarized civilians without a single American lost - even if that meant killing every Japanese. When the Emperor surrendered, he gave that exact reason - that he believed we were imminently going to make the Japanese people "extinct." More firebombs would not have convinced him to surrender because they never had.

"Two is a ridiculous number and can not possibly exist. Something can never happen. Something can happen only once. But if it happens twice, it will happen again." (Kurt Vonnegut.) The dropping of the 2nd atom bomb convinced the Emperor the false info we had fed him that we had hundreds of atom bombs was true and convinced him that within weeks, if not days, we would make the Japanese "extinct" convinced him to surrender and immediately, figuring Tokyo likely the next target (and it likely was).

This is very simple. War was still going on all over the place, particularly in China. Americans, Allies, Chinese, Russians, Japanese, POWs - all were being killed every day. The war was not over. It had not ended. Those two atomic bombs totally ended the war(s) - EVERYWHERE. For that reason they were not only justified, but true life savers. Even numerous Japanese historians agree that the atom bombs saved Japanese lives because the military was never going to allow a surrender.

Why would Hideki Tojo, the top Army general and prime minister of Japan, surrender knowing we are going to hang him? Why would the Emperor surrender knowing we minimally would strip all his power if he did? If Japan was going to surrender once defeat inevitable they would have accepted our GENEROUS offer of surrender - and did not.

War is hell. But the worse hell of war is not ending it and allowing it to drag on and on when it could be ended by a decisive battle. Across the world history of war, when an inferior enemy facing inevitable defeat but continues to suicidally fight including militarizing civiliansjust to be able to kill any of you, the way proven to force surrender is to respond by announcing "then we will kill ALL of you" - and prove it by a slaughter. Realizing the reality they then would surrender. The alternative is a far more protracted and thus more deadly war fighting for months and years thru civilian populations with growing death counts for everyone - and disease and starvation is increasingly killing more people than even the fighting is.

Two atomic bombs ended the most deadly war in known world history. There has never been a world war or war between the major powers ever since, and the number of deaths in the world from wars continues to get smaller and smaller. Thus, they were justified to be used. War? End it with finality as rapidly as possible. In the long run, less lives are lost.

 

Everyone has a theory. My suggestion is that we should have listened to the people who had the BEST intelligence on the war, who knew the most about the military situation and who had a lifetime of experience in dealing with war. And they said the war was over, japan was ready to surrender and we did not need to drop the bomb.

 

Indeed.
Play with this website - it instructive as to the power of nuclear weapons.
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
In particular, detonate Little Boy over you house and see how far its effects extend toward known landmarks.

 

At the end of the day, the nukes worked. Killed tons of the enemy, and people thought "oh (*)(*)(*)(*), the US is for real! They have nukes!".

Win win.

Imagine the party everyone in the white house had after they dropped those big mommas.

 

At the end of the day nukes always work. Your job by that definition is redundant

 

So you agree that nuking works. Glad we're both on the same page

 

So you are agreeing your job is redundant. Glad we are on the same page

 

A job is just a job. Nuking lasts forever

 

Then go home. You are not needed

 

Imagine the party in the troop transports and marshaling areas when the soldiers/sailors/marines destined to land on mainland Japan found out there would be no invasion.

 

I am home.

Which nuke was your favorite? Hiroshima?

 

No, that is false despite how many times you post it. Japan was not "ready to surrender" because we had offered terms of surrender to Japan and It had been refused. Thus the war was not over. Americans, Allies, POWs, Chinese, Russians and Japanese all were being killed day and night in the ongoing war. You claim is absurd - since Japan in fact had REFUSED our offer of surrender with VERY generous terms. The Emperor, however, DID surrender to the EXACT same term AFTER the 2nd atom bomb - and said the atom bombs were "THE" reason he did in his surrender broadcast.

The highest ranking general of the Army, who also had to plan how to invade and defeat Japan, 100% supported dropping the Atomic bombs and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (do you even know what that means?) said the alternative was over 1,000,000 American casualties and MILLIONS of Japanese casualties.

 

Virtually every other military leader of every branch of service diagress with you. That is a fact you can not deny

 

Must have been an awesome feeling. So awesome

 

Crossroads/Baker test. Pure awesome.

 

Nagasaki would have been cooler if it were on target

 

Imagine that national outrage if as reports of American casualties continued to rise - and it learned we had atom bombs that could have ended the war - or at least cleared the beaches for landings? Truman would have been considered a traitor and been thrown out of office for his decision that Americans had to needlessly die to save Japanese lives.

Vietnam also taught us how quickly troops demoralize when they figure out we aren't fight to win, only fighting to maintain position endlessly. If it known we had atom bombs but were not going to use them, it would have been reasonable for every American in the military to mutiny. If your leader decides to sacrifice you because he favors the enemy's lives, it is time to say "the hell with this! I'm out of here!"

 

Precision bombing really wasn't.

Fat man
Plutonium Fuel: approx. 13.6 lbs; approx. size of a softball

That's one softball full of awesome!
.

 

If he wasn't lynched.