I watched a fascinating documentary on Harry Truman, his life and what not. But then it came to the matter of the A-Bomb and I was wondering if you guys thought that it was the right decision or not?

All's fair in love and war. Of course, we're left with the legacy of being the only nation in history to use a nuclear weapon against other people. Let alone civilians. Women and children. Kind of like what we're accusing that crazy Iranian guy with the impossible name of wanting to do. Of course, it's not a completely fair comparison, because the Japanese had tried to surrender before we used atomic weapons on them. To save a million people, mostly our service men in the Pacific Theatre, we had no choice but to either use a nuclear weapon on the enemy, or accept their surrender.

The Bomb was mostly about intimidating the Ruskies for the post war era we were going into. And, to a lesser extent, getting to appreciate all the money we'd spent on the Manhattan Project.

A true humanitarian. I'm surprised they didn't give him the Nobel peace prize for it. Then again, after Gore got one, I hear you can get them from Pez dispensers nowadays.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

because the Japanese had tried to surrender before we used atomic weapons on them.

This theory usually revolves around the decision to force an unconditional surrender vs prolonging the war to arrive at a negotiated surrender.. I haven't seen any documentation showing that Japan was willing to present an unconditional surrender until after the bombs were dropped..

It is quite possible that Russia entering the war against Japan may have forced them to surrender at some point reasonably soon after, but it may not have been unconditional.. The bomb made it unconditional and made it happen now.. And yes, it did make a rather well stated political statement..

I think that dropping the bomb was probably the right decision at the time. Invasion of the Japanese home island would have cost many, many American lives and, as president of the US, Truman had to think about that. It had to be his main concern. Seeing as the bomb forced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally without an invasion, thus saving 10s or 100s of thousands of American lives, it probably has to go down as a good decision.

Not to mention the 250,000 lives per month being lost in Manchuria(China) every month Japan continued to fight. Some estimate the move saved nearly 1 million lives.

so do you consider the victims of the A bomb necessary deaths?

Originally Posted by robertjordan

so do you consider the victims of the A bomb necessary deaths?

No they were extremely unnecessary. The Japanese should have surrendered and none of that would have happened.

but how can you surrender when you fervently believe in a cause.
if the japanese had threathened to bomb a major US city if she didnt surender, do you think america would have surendered or faught?

War at that level tends to be more about ideology than resources.. And when you are fighting for an ideology it's pretty hard to give up without being shown that your only other option is total and complete destruction.. Unless you've been raised from birth to believe that your death is the ultimate goal..

Death before capture was the Japanese way as well. Japanese soldiers who didn't commit sepuku and kill themselves prior to capture were shunned.

Robert, if you were the president, and you have a choice to make, one that would either end up killing roughly 200k of your citizens as well as allow the deaths of roughly 750k others, or kill 250,000 citizens and combatants of the enemy who attacked you, which would you choose? Or what other option would you exercise?

Originally Posted by Feydakin

I haven't seen any documentation showing that Japan was willing to present an unconditional surrender until after the bombs were dropped..

They offered a surrender with a single (and seemingly reasonable) condition, that they get to keep their religion, which holds that the emperor is God. The atomic bomb wasn't used to prevent a million deaths - that's pure bunk. Two civilian cities were leveled with Ahmadinejad's favorite weapon, to ensure regime change. According to the theory.

We were posturing with Russia in Eastern Europe at the same time we dropped the bombs. They had almost everything to do with intimidating Stalin in the post war era, and very little to do with Japan itself.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

They offered a surrender with a single (and seemingly reasonable) condition, that they get to keep their religion, which holds that the emperor is God.

Their preconditions went from four to one after the dropping of the first bomb. You have some inside information that says otherwise?

Interesting question, I think dropping an a-bomb served a lot of purposes, it prevented loss of live from an invasion of Japan, it stopped the deaths in China, and made a strong statement to Russia.

Another aspect, it educated the world very quickly about the power of nuclear weapons, if the weapons hadn't been used so abruptly on such large population centers.. imagine if they hadn't been used for the first time until Korea, Vietnam.. you might have seen nuclear carpet bombing of entire countries..

The one bad thing that really kind of scares me about the end of ww2 in Japan is that they never had to face their crimes. In Germany people had their noses rubbed in it, so to speak, the holocaust was right in everyones face.

But how many people know as much about the Rape of Nanking as they do the holocaust? A lot of Japanese see themselves as victims in ww2 because of the a-bomb. It's a dangerous attitude, I don't want history to repeat itself.

Originally Posted by ECSuite_Russell

Interesting question, I think dropping an a-bomb served a lot of purposes, it prevented loss of live from an invasion of Japan, it stopped the deaths in China, and made a strong statement to Russia.

It made a strong statement to the USSR, to be sure. Accepting Japan's surrender would have accomplished everything else on the list.

Originally Posted by ECSuite_Russell

Another aspect, it educated the world very quickly about the power of nuclear weapons, if the weapons hadn't been used so abruptly on such large population centers.. imagine if they hadn't been used for the first time until Korea, Vietnam.. you might have seen nuclear carpet bombing of entire countries..

This makes the (flawed) assumption that the USA couldn't help but drop nukes on some "bad people" at some point or another.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

It made a strong statement to the USSR, to be sure. Accepting Japan's surrender would have accomplished everything else on the list.

I was under the impression that Japan didn't give unconditional surrender until after the bombs were dropped, does history record it differently? Or just conspiracy theorists?

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

This makes the (flawed) assumption that the USA couldn't help but drop nukes on some "bad people" at some point or another.

Not just the USA, but yeah I think eventual use of nuclear weapons was inevitable. It likely would have been done by the US or Russia, and that it happened while the technology was in such an infant stage is the best of a bad situation. Didn't the original nukes have 5-10 mile radius? And now we can build them with a 100 mile radius?

Originally Posted by ECSuite_Russell

I was under the impression that Japan didn't give unconditional surrender until after the bombs were dropped, does history record it differently? Or just conspiracy theorists?

They didn't give a Sears Tower or a Great Pyramid, ether. Japan offered to surrender, with a single condition that nobody has argued should have been unacceptable. I'm sure it's fun to play games with language, but the fact remains.

You seem to conveniently forget the fact that Japan invaded us, and had they had "the Bomb" they would not have hesitated to use it. Had an A-bomb been dropped at our naval base at Pearl Harbor, there would have been more civilian casualties than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Those were military targets as well. Have you ever been remotely near a military base to know how many civilians are around them? But it wasn't the immediate blast that was the big killer; it was the fallout afterwards. Bottom line: Japan invaded us, we wanted unconditional surrender, they didn't give it to us, we used all we had at our disposal to ensure they did. That's war. It's brutal, it's ugly. It's too late to cry foul once you've started the war.

tim

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

They didn't give a Sears Tower or a Great Pyramid, ether. Japan offered to surrender, with a single condition that nobody has argued should have been unacceptable. I'm sure it's fun to play games with language, but the fact remains.

Gee, and here I thought you were going to quote your source of this revision in history. Even if your version were correct, which it is not, their condition was the prevention of regime change. Let me ask you this. If Hitler had surrendered on condition that we not change regime, do you think we should have accepted?

You also need to take in to account the very real issue of morale at home.. The war in Europe had been over roughly 4 months and civilian life was already starting to be converted to a less military role.. Quotas were being missed and more and more people were sending mail to their congressmen demanding that the troops be brought home now.. (Sound familiar?) An extended war in Asia would have been a tough thing for Americans to agree with, especially if it were found out later that the war could have been ended by simply dropping 2 bombs..

While that is an incredibly simplified version of the action taken, the opinion Americans had of the Japanese at the time left very little room for sympathy for anyone.. Pearl Harbor, Bataan, Kamikazes, etc., really left the vast majority of the people at the time looking forward to ending the war and possibly inflicting some punishment in the process..

Thirteen percent of the respondents wanted to "kill all Japanese"; another 33 percent wanted to destroy the Japanese state.

Then you have to look at the morale of the troops themselves.. Our very best were tired of fighting..

General Maxwell Taylor tried "to stir up enthusiasm for new worlds to conquer" in the 101st, one of only two Army divisions to have won a Presidential Unit Citation. "We've licked the best that Hitler had in France and Holland and Germany. Now where do we want to go?" The heroes of Bastogne and Normandy all screamed: "Home."
Maxwell Taylor, Swords and Plowshares: A Memoir (New York: Norton, 1972)

The biggest condition that the Japanese had was that of leaving the Emperor in place.. As has been said, that simply wasn't an option to the people or the military.. It's easy to look back 60 years with a modern perspective on what is acceptable and what is not and suggest that an action was right or wrong.. It's less easy to make that same decision in real time with only the information at hand..