I am incouraged by discussions like this. Even though it happened over 60 years ago, we today still debate the wisdom of the event with such passion. I hold out hope that history won't repeat itself.
Was the Atomic Bombing of Japan Really Necessarry?
by frankiespeakin 71 Replies latest jw friends
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badboy
EVEN AFTER THE 2 ATOMIC BOMBS WERE DROPPED, THERE WAS A MUTINY BY SOME JAPANESE SOLDIERS WHEN THE EMPEROR ACCEPTED ALLIES TERMS.
OBVIOUSLY SOME ELEMENTS WANTED TO FIGHT ON!
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lighthouse19something
The only thing I feel USA should have done differently was using the bomb on MILTARY targets, not civilian cities. Pearl Harbor Naval Base was a military target.
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jayhawk1
It would be fair to point out that the Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor because they would have ran out of fuel flying to the California coast. Their choices would have been bomb Alaska or Hawaii. Nothing much going on in Alaska...
See for yourself... Hawaii is those dots right below the word "Ocean." The Japanese people don't have anymore honor than Americans, they would have bombed the mainland if they could have reached it. I refuse to believe when they was attacking China that they stuck only to fighting the Chinese Army.
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badboy
DIDN'T THEY BAYONET BABIES IN CHINA?
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jayhawk1
... and raped Chinese women.
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Abaddon
Hmmm...
Even a USAF report on the bombing conceeded that with planned conventional bombing Japan would have surrendered by December.
However, after two nuclear bombs it was only the intervention of the Emperor himself that made the hardliners surrender.
In terms of lives lost, the death toll of c.200,000 was about would have died in one month of war. America saved the lives of 100,000 of its troops by not invading (equal to reducing WWII casulties by 1/3rd), and an additonal 100,000 POW's were saved by missing out on the executions that would have taken place if the Japanese mainland had been invaded.
One can't "morally justify" it but one can certainly see why the option was taken. It also had a nice side-effect of showing the Russians where the line in the sand was...
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Sad emo
Can I throw something else in here?
Had the Allies launched a conventional land invasion of the Japanese mainland, how many civilians would have comitted suicide (like they did on that island, can't remember the name) because they had been indoctrinated to believe that surrender was shameful and also that the allies would torture them? Suicide was more honourable than surrender to the Japanese mind.
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jayhawk1
All good points Abaddon and Sad emo.
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badboy
I BELIEVE THAT CIVILIANS KILLED THEMSELVE BY THROWING THEMSELVES OFF CLIFFS IN OKINAWA ANS SAIPAN.
YOU MAKE GOOD POINT, SAD EMO!