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

As much as I like disagreeing with you, you are just being honest here.

The bomb was dropped exactly for those reason you cited - not to "save billions of lives" like some "humanitarians" here drink as conscience Kool-Aid.

 

The fact that we used the nuke demonstrated to the Soviet Union that we weren't afraid to use it.

 

Not at all. Had Japan continued to refuse to surrender, there would have been an invasion horrific beyond description.

That would have resulted in 10 million Japanese civilians starving to death, as well as the deaths of another half-million other Asian civilians, as well as the deaths of countless American POWs.

And if Japan still refused to surrender, the horrific invasion would still have gone ahead.

No. The reason why we attack countries that we are at war with is because we want to force them to surrender.

Facts are hardly ridiculous. The invasion would have been horrific.

A more likely result of Karma will be that because you wish harm on us for merely defending ourselves, your country will suffer the sorts of atrocities that we were defending against.

I find that international whining is easy to ignore.

Yes. Attacking us before war was declared was a horrible crime.

Given the absence of a declaration of war, there was nothing decent about it.

And it was also a horrible crime for Japan to murder all those American POWs.

And if non-Americans count, it was a horrible crime for Japan to commit genocide by murdering 30 million Asian civilians.

It doesn't matter. They had a legal responsibility to ensure that they delivered the declaration of war before they attacked.

Your tendency to wish harm on us just because we dared to defend ourselves is charming.

Wrong. Japan had 2 million well-armed and well-trained soldiers waiting to fight to the death when we invaded.

The invasion was predicted to kill up to a million American soldiers, with millions more maimed and crippled.

It feels pretty good actually, when I consider all the outrageously unfair condemnation that non-Americans heap on America.

What about it?

If Japan was vanquished but stubbornly refused to surrender until after we had nuked them twice, that was a pretty dumb move on their part.

Your description of the targets is untrue.

Hiroshima was a huge military center filled with tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers. It was also the military headquarters in charge of repelling any invasion that we made in the southern half of Japan.

Nagasaki was an industrial center filled with huge weapons factories.

No it isn't. The Nazi Holocaust was genocide and targeted innocent people.

That is quite different from the US targeting enemy soldiers and weapons factories.

No. The reason I posted facts to contradict your untrue statements was because I believe that the truth is important.

Because that was the actual estimate.

My goal isn't to lie though. I prefer to post the truth. And the truth is that the invasion of Japan was predicted to kill up to a million Americans, with millions more maimed and crippled.

Correct. At the time the bombs were dropped, no one had any idea what it would take to make Japan surrender.

The figures came from the scientists and military experts who were tasked with investigating the cost of the invasion.

They didn't know what it would take to make Japan surrender.

You have two facts wrong here. First, the A-bombs were dropped on military targets.

Second, he was talking about saving people who were still alive. Letting the war drag on and then invading Japan would have resulted in the deaths of about 100,000 US POWs and millions of Asian civilians.

The quick end to the war without an invasion saved those lives.

No. Had Japan continued to refuse to surrender, we would have had to invade them, and it would have been brutal beyond comprehension.

Had Japan continue to refuse to surrender, we would have been.

Your conclusion is flawed. We didn't see any resistance after capitulation because they capitulated.

Okinawa showed quite clearly what the fate of Japanese civilians would have been in an invasion (had any civilians been left by then after all the starvation).

But even if we had overestimated Japan, all that we had to base our decisions on were the best available estimates. If the estimates had actually been wrong, that would be one more tragedy of war, but no wrongdoing on our part.

It had been reliably estimated that the invasion of Japan would have killed up to a million Americans.

It had been reliably estimated that the invasion of Japan would kill millions of Japanese.

It has been reliably estimated that had the war continued just a few months longer, 10 million Japanese civilians would have starved to death before we even invaded.

It has been reliably estimated that Asian civilians were dying under Japanese occupation at a rate of about 200,000 a month.

No. Three things that are based on hard facts.

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because we refused to allow them to use our resources to perpetrate genocide against their Asian neighbors.

It didn't look that way during the war when the bombs were being dropped.

It didn't look that way during the war when the bombs were being dropped.

It didn't look that way during the war when the bombs were being dropped.

The military experts did not oppose dropping the A-bombs.

No they didn't.

His claim was true. The Japanese military nearly did continue the war after the Emperor decided to surrender.

Once again, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets, and he was talking about all the Chinese who didn't die because the war ended, but who would have died had the war continued.

Asian civilians under Japanese occupation were dying at a rate of about 200,000 a month.

No. The reason why we attack countries that we are at war with is so we can force them to surrender.

There were a lot of pitfalls to mentioning the Emperor in the Potsdam Proclamation. Some feared that offering a guarantee for the Emperor would be seen as a sign of weakness, and would make Japan less likely to surrender. Some of the advocates for mentioning the Emperor were proposing language that could actually be interpreted as threatening the Emperor. Plus it could have resulted in a political backlash in the US. Or a backlash from Stalin. It was just too messy of a subject to include in the document.

Plus we did say that Japan would be free to choose their own form of government, and it could safely be presumed that they'd choose to keep their Emperor.

And actually, the status of the Emperor wasn't much of a key point in the continued resistance to surrender.

Before the A-bombs, Japan was refusing to surrender even if we'd offered a guarantee for the Emperor. They were only willing to end the war in a draw (much like the way that the Korean War later ended).

 

Ultimately, looking at things with the advantage of hindsight, I think what made Japan decide to surrender was our capture of Okinawa.

Our capture of Okinawa coincides closely with Japan's change of policy from "keep trying to win the war" to "enlist Soviet help in getting out of the war".

It is likely that the Soviet declaration of war on Japan was instrumental in Japan abandoning their policy of trying to get the Soviets to help them.

But I think the ultimate factor was their realization that if we could overrun Okinawa, we could also overrun Honshu.

 

And thus the bombs were not needed

 

Iraq and Vietnam as examples do not work because we were already at war with Japan because Japan had attacked USA territory directly and had declared formal war on the United States.

 

Who surrendered was the Emperor without knowledge of the military and he cited exactly ONE reason - the atom bomb. He didn't even mention Russia and Russia was not attacking Japan, we were and now with atomic bombs. If Russia entering the war was the reason, the Emperor would not have explained that he was surrendering because of the atomic bombs by the USA.

 

What in the world are you talking about? Here is official documentation of the third A-bomb being nearly ready for use on Japan:
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/67.pdf

Here is official documentation of the increasing numbers of A-bombs on the way in subsequent months:
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/45.pdf
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/...and-the-End-of-World-War-II/documents/087.pdf

There were still large areas of Tokyo that were still standing and could have been destroyed by the third A-bomb. Also the Imperial Palace at Tokyo could have been targeted, as it as well was still standing.

However dropping the third A-bomb on an already destroyed section of the city could still have been useful, by serving to provide an ominous threat to Japanese officials even without destroying any buildings.

Oh nonsense!

We placed the embargo on Japan because the world's media was reporting that they were using our resources to commit genocide against their Asian neighbors.

So if hypothetically the US started committing genocide, and Saudi Arabia announced that they would not sell us any more oil until we stopped our genocide, we could invade Saudi Arabia and call it self defense?

Uppity?

They were committing genocide against their Asian neighbors!

 

The third atomic bomb was far from ready and it was nicknamed the “demon core” after killing two atomic scientists at Los Alamos. Considering that, manufacturing the two atomic bombs was almost a miracle.

 

I'm fine with dismissing any attempt to take opinions that were expressed only long after the end of the war, and pretend that they were opposition to the bombs expressed during the war, when they weren't.

I'm also fine with dismissing any attempt to take a statement that was not actually opposition to using the bombs (say for instance a suggestion that we offer generous surrender terms before bombing) and portraying it as opposition to using the bombs.

And I'm fine with dismissing any quote that makes claims that are flatly contradicted by the historical record.

No. Comments made only years after the war (made with the advantage of hindsight that was not available during the war), are in no way a reflection of what it was like during the war when people had to fight without the advantage of hindsight.

And that is without taking into account that many of these quotes were made with an axe to grind. Military services were promoting themselves and deriding the A-bombs because they wanted to preserve as much of their budget as possible in the face of massive post-war defense cuts.

Ike expressed his opinion to only one person (Stimson). After Stimson called him an idiot, Ike didn't bother to express his opinion to anyone else.

Even if Ike had been convincing to Stimson (and he clearly wasn't), he only expressed himself shortly before the bombs were dropped when it was far too late to stop them. The final orders to drop the bombs had already been sent out to the field, and Truman had already departed Potsdam and was headed back to Washington. Truman was still at sea when Hiroshima was bombed.

Nothing in this quote challenges the reality that the US government believed that a terrible invasion might be necessary if Japan couldn't be made to surrender some other way.

Leahy only said this years after the war when he had the advantage of hindsight that was not available during the war.

The only thing that Leahy had to say about the A-bombs during the war was "I'm an expert in explosives, and I assure you that these contraptions will never work".

Leahy also had an axe to grind. He was talking up the Navy's role in the war to try to minimize the impact of massive post-war budget cuts.

Nothing in this quote challenges the reality that the US government believed that a terrible invasion might be necessary if Japan couldn't be made to surrender some other way.

It's nice that he had an opinion, but history shows that Japan was not willing to surrender "just with a guarantee for their emperor" until after both A-bombs had been dropped.

Gar Alperovitz is a fraud who deliberately takes quotes out of context.

A good example is the above. Hoover did not even know the A-bombs even existed until after Hiroshima, yet Alperovitz is offering this after-the-fact quote as if it were somehow opposition that was made to the bombs back when Truman was deciding whether or not to drop them.

The claim here is patently untrue. Japan was not willing to discuss surrender with us until after both A-bombs had been dropped.

Anything sourced to Gar Alperovitz can't be relied upon, but even if they did say it, historical records are very clear on the fact that Japan was simply not willing to surrender even with a guarantee for the Emperor until after both A-bombs had been dropped.

Untrue claims simply do not trump reality. Sorry.

To start with, this mischaracterizes the Potsdam Proclamation, which was a list of generous surrender terms.

It also mischaracterizes the surrender. The condition requested was that Hirohito retain unlimited dictatorial power. And we of course rejected that request outright.

It also glosses over the fact that Japan was only willing to surrender with this "guarantee for the emperor" after both A-bombs had already been dropped.

It insinuates that MacArthur had given some sort of advice, advice which would have made the A-bombs unnecessary. MacArthur in fact was not consulted about the matter, and was never in any position to offer any such advice.

Here at least one thing is finally factually correct. MacArthur did not offer advice on the matter because he was never in a position to offer it.

His commentary about "what his advice would have been" shows that people were right to not consult him. Historical records are very clear on the fact that Japan was not willing to surrender under such terms until after both A-bombs had already been dropped.

Grew's opinion about what should have been in the Potsdam Proclamation is not in any way opposition to the use of the bombs.

Some people felt that if his language were included and Japan interpreted it to be friendly towards the Emperor, they would see it as weakness on our part and would be less likely to surrender.

Other people felt that Grew's language about preserving Hirohito's dynasty (as opposed to Hirohito himself) would be taken as a sign that we meant to kill Hirohito, and would thus stiffen Japanese resistance.

Other people felt that being too generous towards the Emperor would cause backlash among Americans who were justifiably angry at Japan, especially if Japan did not take up the surrender offer after we presented it.

In the end, wiser heads prevailed, and Grew's language was not included.

And like I said, Grew's opinion about what should have been in the Potsdam Proclamation is not in any way opposition to the use of the bombs.

Of course, historical records show that the Japanese government would not have considered such an offer until after both A-bombs had been dropped.

Factually untrue claims do not trump reality.

And, of course, musings offered long after the war, with the advantage of hindsight not available during the war, have no bearing on what it was actually like during the war when people had to make decisions without the advantage of hindsight.

He was advocating that the Potsdam Proclamation be created. And it was in fact created.

Hardly opposition to the use of the bombs.

 

That certainly was a nice hope on his part. Unfortunately as it turned out, Japan was not nearly as ready to make peace as he'd hoped.

"Hoping that surrender will come and make the A-bombs unnecessary" is not in any way "opposition to using the bombs when that surrender isn't forthcoming as was hoped".

Unfortunately Japan's approaches to the Russians didn't lead to any surrender offers.

Japan did not approach anyone else, or make any surrender offers, until after both A-bombs had been dropped.

Advocating a demonstration is not opposition to using the bombs.

Other people felt that a demonstration would be taken as a sign of weakness and actually make Japan less likely to surrender.

And ultimately Japan still refused to surrender after Hiroshima. So the idea that a mere demonstration would have swayed them was clearly wishful thinking.

There is of course nothing wrong with wishful thinking. But it is wrong to pretend that wishful thinking is opposition to the use of the bombs.

I hope that no one is going to argue that "one Army Air Force guy's belief that air attacks alone will win the war" was a reason to step down all other avenues of attack.

Air Force guys still think that air power alone can win wars. For some reason though it always seems to take more than just airstrikes.

Reports written in hindsight have no bearing on what it was like to make decisions in real time.

This report also had a sizable axe to grind. It was hyping conventional air power to protect the Air Force from steep post-war budget cuts.

More hindsight. Now statements from 1989 are supposed to represent thinking in 1945?

I guess we can dispense then with any notion that these quotes reflected on the actual decision to drop the A-bombs.

Although this guy clearly opposed using the bombs, it should be noted that he did not voice his opposition to officials when the decision was being made to drop them.

It also seems clear that he was wrong about Japan, as it is pretty clear that they would not have been willing to surrender before being forced to give up on their Russia gambit.

Postwar musings with the advantage of hindsight are no reflection on what it was like during the war without the advantage of hindsight.

During the war, Spaatz was one of the military leaders (along with Nimitz, LeMay, and Twining) who reacted to Nagasaki by advocating that the next A-bomb be dropped on Tokyo to see if that would better grab the attention of the Japanese government.

History shows that he was quite wrong. When the A-bombs were dropped, no one in the US government had any idea what it would take to make Japan surrender.

 

If we can not take VIRTUALLY every military leader for their word about their beliefs about the bomb at the time then we should never have trusted them with anything

 

This is a false statement. In his radio broadcast to the Japanese people the Emperor provided two reasons for surrender.

The first reason:

This was the acknowledgement of the eventual military defeat of Japan that provided the foundation for Japan's acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.

The Second Reason:

Not only would Japan eventually lose the war, that the Emperor had already acknowledged would happen militarily, but in addition to that the use of nuclear weapons would result in the extinction of all human civilizations.

This was not unique thinking because the scientists working on the development of nuclear weapons in the United States were well aware of this. It was calculated that it would only require between 10 to 100 "super atomic bombs" (that we were technologically capable of building) to bring about mankind's extinction.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/hirohito.htm

 

I don't know if that's an accurate statement. White the Japanese attempt to negotiate a surrender through Russia in July was rebuffed by the Russians was the United States completely unaware of the attempt? That seems unlikely considering the extent of the US intelligence services capability of reading the top secret Japanese codes.

The only motivating factor I'm aware of militarily that lead to any consideration for using the atomic bombs was the prediction of high US loses if the US invaded the Japanese home islands but there was never any urgency to do that. The Japanese were incapable of mounting any defense against the conventional ("fire") bombing campaign against Japan that could have continued unabated for months to secure surrender without an invasion. .

 

We can, of course, continue to make our own decision based upon hindsight as to whether we could have justified using the atomic bombs against Japan but there will never be a right answer. It happened and for good or bad it's simply a fact of history that cannot be changed.

There are two things we can do.

First is that we should use every means at our personal disposal to influence our government to do everything possible to prevent any nation, including our own, from ever using nuclear weapons again. We need to do all that is possible to force compliance with the NPT by all nations regardless of whether they're a treaty member or not.

1) The rogue nuclear weapon nations of N. Korea, Pakistan, India, and Israel must dismantle their nuclear weapons and every possible avenue short of war must be used to make this happen.

2) The five authorized nuclear weapon nations under the NPT must reduce their stockpiles to virtually no nuclear weapons. The Pandora's box of nuclear war has been opened and there must be enough nuclear weapons to retaliate against an country that might use a nuclear weapon, including the United States, but that doesn't require massive stockpiles. The entire world's supply of nuclear weapons could and should be reduced to less than 100 total nuclear weapons.

The second thing we should do is to demonstrate our desire for peace and opposition to the use of nuclear weapons in remembrance of the only time nuclear weapons were used in war. The City of Hiroshima, once the target of a nuclear attack, provides us a means to demonstrate that commitment that most people are unaware of.

How to fold a paper crane:
http://www.wikihow.com/Fold-a-Paper-Crane

Just a few minutes of our time and a few cents for postage. No, it won't change the world but it will change each of us.

 

Your reply was to my factual observation that the U. S. cut off nearly the entire supply of oil to Japan while we were completely AT PEACE with that country. Frankie Roosevelt did this with a personal pen-stroke on July 26, 1941 . Link: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-freezes-japanese-assets . You can bluster about "genocide", etc., and there was indeed a war going on between China and Japan, which Japan was winning. But (and I will repeat this for emphasis), the United States was completely AT PEACE with Japan. Moreover, in 1941, most citizens of the United States had no stupid delusions about being "the world's policeman"....

Thus, faced with economic and functional strangulation, the Japanese struck back, at Pearl Harbor, over three months later... and you cannot deny one word of what I've said unless you want to sink even deeper in denial....

That much can be proven as a matter of recorded fact. What cannot, strictly speaking, be proven is that Churchill and Roosevelt deliberately conspired to provoke Japan into attacking the U. S. in order to force the U. S. into Britain's European War with Hitler (because Japan and German were allies per the Tripartite Pact). United States citizens wanted nothing to do with a "World War Two" after the country's disastrous experience with the big fun of "World War One" which resulted in the deaths of over 320,000 American military personnel.

But, according to this plausible theory, Winnie and Frankie brainstormed the "embargo" ploy, and it worked. Total U. S. casualties in World War "Two" -- over a MILLION. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war

 

Unfortunately it did not appear that way during the war when the bombs were being dropped.

Most military leaders did not say they opposed the bombs at the time.

Of the small handful who did say that they opposed the bombs at the time, most kept completely silent about it until after the war.

Only one military leader says that he actually expressed opposition to the bombs during the war. And he says he only told a single person, and failed to make a convincing argument even then.

We did know of their contacts with the Soviets, but we were not clear on the exact nature of what Japan was trying to achieve.

We didn't have much of an opportunity to pursue the matter. We couldn't just reveal that we had broken the Japanese codes in the middle of the war.

Another motivating factor is the mere fact that Japan hadn't yet surrendered, and thus we needed to keep attacking them, with the A-bombs being such an attack.

If bombing and blockade failed to make them surrender, the only alternative was invasion.

Except it might not have secured surrender.

Why would we not use the A-bombs if their use would make surrender more likely?

What wasn't factual was the claim that there was no justifiable reason at all for the embargo.

Opposition to Japan's genocide is an outstanding reason for such an embargo.

As a sovereign nation we have the right to embargo our own resources for whatever reason we want.

And we certainly have the right to embargo resources that are being used to perpetrate genocide.

I don't recall the US ever committing genocide in China. But Japan did (and does) have the right to stop selling their goods to us if they ever decide to do so. It's a basic right of any sovereign nation.

Being ready for use "within a week or so" isn't all that far from being ready.

Aside from Ike expressing that view to only one other person, none of our military leaders said any such thing.

If they thought that, they kept it a secret. As far as actual conversations went, no one had any idea what it might take to make Japan surrender.

Nope. Aside from Ike's lonely conversation with a single person, there is no evidence that any of them advised against using the A-bombs.

Nonsense. Genocide is an attempt to extinguish a race or culture.

The A-bombs were wartime strikes against military targets.

No. Genocide is an attempt to extinguish a race or culture.

The point of the A-bombs was to destroy military targets.

That's not what it looked like during the war when the A-bombs were dropped.

It didn't look that way during the war when the A-bombs were being dropped.

 

There was no food or medicine coming into Japan. Had the war continued just a couple more months, 10 million Japanese civilians would have starved to death.

Also, Asian civilians were dying at a rate of about 200,000 per month under Japanese occupation.

And American POWs were not faring all that well under Japanese "care" either.

And there is no reason to think that this blockade was ever going to induce Japan to surrender (which is why we planned to invade later that year if Japan still hadn't surrendered by that point).

Indeed. There was no limit on the number of A-bombs we were justified in using. The reason that two was used is: Japan surrendered between the second and third bombs.

They actually came perilously close to having the third bomb dropped on Tokyo before they surrendered. But the surrender came just in time.

Japan was the one who created the situation where we felt that we had no choice but to use A-bombs on them.

It has been noted before. I'm not sure why you think it significant though.

If Japan kept refusing to surrender no matter what, invasion was indeed the only way to force them to do so.

That page has a fraudulent headline. No military leader advised Truman against using the bombs.

Aside from Ike, all of the military leaders who expressed opposition to the bombs, expressed their opposition only after the bombs had already been dropped and the war was over.

Ike only expressed his opposition to a single person (not to Truman). Ike failed to make a convincing case, and thereafter kept quiet about his views.

Even if Ike had been convincing, he expressed his opposition just before the bombs were dropped when it would have been too late to stop them. The orders to use the bombs had already been sent out to the field, and Truman had departed Potsdam for home. Truman was still at sea when Hiroshima was bombed.

Wartime strikes on military targets are not in any way murder.

Bard was calling for the creation of the Potsdam Proclamation.

Truman followed Bard's advice. We issued the Potsdam Proclamation before dropping the A-bombs.

 

I will contribute one other thing for Vegas Giants to consider as he uses the "genocide" leverage to explain how the U. S. was justified in bullying Japan into what was for America an unnecessary war.

If "genocide" was important enough for the U. S. and Britain to declare a total embargo on vitally necessary oil and other raw materials, forbidding Japan access to them, then why during the "genocide" that began in Europe in the 1930's did we never provoke Germany in the same way?! And remember, even after Pearl Harbor, the Nazis had to declare war on us first -- if we had been "chewing at the straps" to provoke a war with the Germans over "genocide", surely we would done that at the first convenient moment....

Fact: The great majority of U. S. citizens wanted nothing whatsoever to do with anybody else's "genocide" or their wars! The U. S. was cold and largely responsive to even the idea of refugees from Nazi oppression from immigrating to this country! But suddenly it was perfectly fine and proper for Frankie Roosevelt to deliberately issue a peacetime embargo against Japan that was guaranteed to provoke a hostile reaction?

Interesting afterthought -- if "genocide" in China was of such paramount importance to the United States and Britain that we had to start war with Japan over it, then why is it that after the Communists took over that country and began their own genocide, against their own people, did we sit back on our contented, victorious asses (and in virtual sole possession of the atomic bomb) and DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT IT...?!

 

It looked like the war was over to almost every military general and admiral at the time. They had a much better view of the situation than you or anyone else has now. And they said the war was over and the bombs were not needed.

 

We had the time to wait and find out. There was no real rush to drop the atomic bombs. Japan no longer represented a threat of waging a counterattack against the US and it sure as hell wasn't going anywhere.

The US had become very good at hiding the fact that it has broken the JN-25 code. I don't know how much of the details of the Japanese delegation to Russia was known but we knew of the contact and needed to know what it was all about. We had the time to do that if we wanted to.

We remain locked in hindsight and we're can never truly second-guess decisions based upon hindsight. Right or wrong it is what it is and unfortunately what it is turned out to be the threat of extinction of all mankind.

Continuing the attack did not necessitate the use of the atomic bombs. Continued conventional bombing was the primary option.

Why?.

If Japan was completely immobilizes and isolated, unable to become involved in world affairs, then the formal surrender has no real value or meaning. Only if Japan wanted to rejoin the world of nations as a participate was the surrender necessary.

 

No, we weren't. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(cryptography)#How_secret_was_Magic.3F

"How secret was Magic?[edit]

"Public notice had actually been served that Japanese cryptography was dangerously inadequate by the Chicago Tribune, which published a series of stories just after Midway, starting on 7 June 1942, which claimed (correctly) that victory was due in large part to the U.S. breaking into Japanese crypto systems (in this case, the JN-25 cypher, though which system(s) had been broken was not mentioned in the newspaper stories). The Tribune claimed the story was written by Stanley Johnston from his own knowledge (and Jane's), but Ronald Lewin points out that the story repeats the layout and errors of a signal from Admiral Nimitz which Johnston saw while on the transport Barnett. Nimitz was reprimanded by Admiral King for sending the dispatch to Task Force commanders on a channel available to nearly all ships.[11]

"However, neither the Japanese nor anyone who might have told them seem to have noticed either the Tribune coverage, or the stories based on the Tribune account published in other U.S. papers. Nor did they notice announcements made on the floor of the United States Congress to the same effect. There were no changes in Japanese cryptography connected with those newspaper accounts or Congressional disclosures."

(My emphasis - more @ the URL)

I remember reading that IJ did change their codes after Congressional announcements - & consequently we lost our best source of IJ intel. IJ also destroyed (or hid) all paper logs, documentation, war orders, & etc. before we invested Japan. Which is one reason we didn't try many IJ officers for war crimes.

Our best source - as I recall - was the IJ State Dept., which frequently coded & radioed very long, nearly verbatim transcripts of conversations, meetings, etc., including delicate diplomatic maneuvering with Germany, Italy, the USSR from the field back to Tokyo.

 

Pearl Harbor made WWII 100% necessary for the US.

The notion that an embargo is a provocation of war is silly.

The genocide started in 1941, and we didn't really understand that it was happening at the time. Most of the genocide happened after we were already fully at war with Germany.

Before Pearl Harbor, the US populace didn't want to go to war.

That doesn't mean that they had no objections to genocide.

As a sovereign country, we have every right to issue a peacetime embargo for whatever reason we want.

We didn't start any war. Japan started the war.

Embargoes are not, nor have they ever been, an act of war, or a justification for going to war.

I was not aware that we had a lot of commerce with Communist China in the period when they were exterminating their own people.

If we had had a lot of commerce with them at that time, and were we aware of the exterminations, we'd likely have put an embargo in place.

No it didn't.

No they didn't.

No they didn't.

We didn't have a way to find out without crippling our intelligence gathering.

It would be a bad idea to stop attacking before we had a clear indication that they were near to surrender.

We wanted to keep it that way.

If we'd announced to them that we knew of their contacts with the Soviets, the fact of our codebreaking would no longer have been hidden.

We knew that it was about some unspecified plan to help Japan get out of the war.

We had no details of the actual plan.

But we didn't have the means to do it. Letting people know that we were aware of these secret contacts would have blown a vital source of intelligence.

We could have continued to attack without using bullets too. Or without using tanks.

But the wisest option is to not cripple your warfighting by withholding weapons.

Formal surrender was necessary because the United States demanded it, and we were not going to accept anything less.

This is all wrong. Japan only made this offer after both A-bombs had already been dropped.

Japan's condition was that Hirohito would retain unlimited dictatorial power.

We expressly denied that condition.

That is incorrect. Ike expressed opposition to a single person, failed to be convincing, and let the matter drop. That was just before the bombs were dropped, when it was too late to stop them even if he'd managed to be convincing.

No other military leader tried to oppose using the bombs.

The claims made in this article are fraudulent. The author, Gar Alperovitz, is a known fraudster on this issue.

Genocide is an attempt to extinguish a race or culture.

The A-bombs were wartime strikes on military targets.

Russia had enough navy to invade Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, and was seriously contemplating the invasion of Hokkaido.

Strange how the Soviets managed to invade Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.

Was Stalin ignorant of his own naval strength when he contemplated invading Hokkaido?

Yet they successfully invaded Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, and seriously contemplated an invasion of Hokkaido.

Must have been news to Stalin. He thought he'd be capable of invading Hokkaido.

Then why did they in fact attempt to make such a claim?

Not so impossible that they couldn't successfully invade Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, and contemplate the invasion of Hokkaido.

The good guys are allowed to conduct wartime strikes against enemy military targets.

The A-bombs were wartime strikes against enemy military targets.

No. The war was only over when Japan surrendered.

Japan didn't offer to surrender until after both A-bombs had been dropped.

At the time the A-bombs were dropped, no one had any idea what it take to make Japan surrender. All we knew was that so far they were refusing to surrender.

Wrong in so many ways.

The condition they requested was that Hirohito retain unlimited dictatorial power.

They only made this request after both A-bombs had been dropped.

We outright denied their request.

And we used the A-bombs to try to make Japan surrender, something that Japan refused to do until after both A-bombs had been dropped.

Wrong. Their request that Hirohito retain unlimited dictatorial power (which they only asked for after both A-bombs had already been dropped) was expressly denied.

Japan did not make any requests until after both A-bombs had been dropped.

We expressly denied their request that Hirohito would retain unlimited dictatorial power.

 

Invasion was the only way to force Japan to surrender had they continued to resist.

No. We killed to force the enemy to surrender, something that at the time they were refusing to do.

Unconditional surrender is surrender without any terms. We had already promised Japan a list of generous surrender terms in the Potsdam Proclamation.

We dropped the A-bombs because Japan was still refusing to surrender under any terms.

World War II was very much a reality. And if Japan had continued to keep refusing to surrender, we would have invaded.

There were no surrender negotiations. Therefore there was no "part" of the surrender negotiations.

The reason for dropping the A-bombs was because Japan was refusing to surrender, and we wanted them to surrender.

Firebombing was not guaranteed to make Japan surrender.

If the war had continued, there would have been a horrible invasion.

Bombing wouldn't secure a surrender if they'd kept refusing to give in. Invasion would secure a surrender.

That is incorrect.

A single month before the A-bombs, Japan considered trying to end the war in a draw (much like the Korean War later ended).

Japan only considered surrender after both A-bombs had already been dropped on them.

The main reason for trying to win the war quickly is that if you let up, you may not win the war.

However, I think that all of the people who were dying were a pretty good reason to try to end the war quickly.

Aside from Ike expressing opposition to only a single person (after it was already too late to stop the bombs from being used), there is no evidence of any military leaders opposing the use of the A-bombs.

The fact that they recommended launching the first phase of the invasion later that year would seem to be pretty good evidence that they supported it.

Unfortunately that was not guaranteed to secure surrender.

Invasion was guaranteed to secure surrender.

It is also hard to see how mass starvation and deaths from conventional bombs is preferable to dropping A-bombs.

That attack was a horrible crime. They attacked before declaring war.

They also murdered countless numbers of our surrendered soldiers.

And if non-Americans matter to you, Japan killed 30 million people in their genocide against their Asian neighbors.

Wrong. The A-bombs were dropped on military targets.

Wrong. It was necessary to attack Japan in order to force them to surrender.

No. Terrorism involves targeting civilians. The A-bombs were dropped on military targets.

And wartime strikes against military targets are not in any way murder.

No. Terrorism involves targeting civilians. The US was attacking military targets.

No. Wartime strikes on military targets do not constitute terrorism. Terrorism involves the targeting of civilians.

That would be a waste of bombs. If they didn't surrender after Hiroshima, they would not have surrendered after a fireworks show.

The Soviets successfully invaded Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. They seriously contemplated an invasion of Hokkaido.

Stalin thought that he might follow up his successful invasion of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands with an invasion of Hokkaido.

The military leaders made no such recommendation.

Japan did not get the condition that they requested. We denied it outright.

We were a week away from dropping a third A-bomb on Japan when they surrendered.

The declassification shows that Japan was a week away from getting nuked again when they surrendered.

And we had a lot more A-bombs coming in subsequent months.

After dropping the third A-bomb on Tokyo, we would have started saving A-bombs so we could use them in large numbers to destroy concentrations of resistance in the path of our invasion beachhead.

 

Japan surrendered because of the Soviets declared war, eliminating their plan to negotiate favorable terms via the Soviets and catching them unprepared in the West. They thought they could bleed America into favorable surrender terms as Plan B. But Stalin was about to simply conquer them. The bombs only served as an excuse for the emperor to save face. The bombs were nothing special compared to the destruction by conventional bombing.