Was the Atomic Bombing of Japan Really Necessarry?

by frankiespeakin 71 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  james_woods

  Just some points from that book "now it can be told" -

  First, as an aside on the issue of whether or not to "warn" Japan - General Groves relates that this was not done because of a number of quite obvious reasons:

  1. The Japanese (probably by design, but at least by mistake) did not declare war on the U.S. before bombing Pearl.

  2. The distinct possibility that the enemy would make a much greater effort to shoot down the bomber. (Given the premise that "warning" would also name the target. Otherwise, the warning would be pretty worthless...).

  3. The limited possibility that the bomb might fizzle and then the warning itself would be taken as a reason to extend the war.

  4. The fact that the Japanese were in fact so fanatical (in their military leadership) that a warning was not thought to be practical.

  The idea of "firebombing" almost all of Japan was, of course, presented as a way to avoid the Abombs. It was strategically decided that this was in itself at least as inhumane as the Abomb, and would result in an inordinate loss of American air crews. It is also true that many of the scientists who worked on Manhattan were deeply troubled about the effect, and lobbyied to avoid its use.

  The "notification" of the British was really quite limited, but they did in fact concur with Truman on the use of the weapon.

  Anyway, this was a horrible event in anybody's eyes, and I for one trust the U.S. far more than say, Iran or North Korea, to keep these weapons out of use again.

  James
• 

  fleaman uk

  imo the Bombing Of Japan was primarily a warning to Uncle Joe and the rest of the politburo."Lookey what we got".

  The Soviets had overrun All of Europe East of Germany and who knew their future intentions with regards to the West.

  Im not certain the use was justified.I guess all the what ifs in saving American lives if an invasion was necassary,is just that..a huge what if?

  It certainly made the next 45 years rather scary.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  James<

  First, as an aside on the issue of whether or not to "warn" Japan - General Groves relates that this was not done because of a number of quite obvious reasons:

  1. The Japanese (probably by design, but at least by mistake) did not declare war on the U.S. before bombing Pearl.

  Revenge eye for an eye tooth for a tooth, the bible's way is insanity.

  2. The distinct possibility that the enemy would make a much greater effort to shoot down the bomber. (Given the premise that "warning" would also name the target. Otherwise, the warning would be pretty worthless...).

  Given the premise that a warning would name the target, hey they could have just given advance warning without naming the target if that really was a concern, dah.

  3. The limited possibility that the bomb might fizzle and then the warning itself would be taken as a reason to extend the war.

  Come on they already tested it, they knew it would work.

  4. The fact that the Japanese were in fact so fanatical (in their military leadership) that a warning was not thought to be practical.

  What would the fanaticalness of the japanese military have to due with not warning them?
• 

  Forscher

  Just to throw another twist or two into the mix:

  For the folks hung up on Christians dropping the bomb, the second bomb was dropped on the largest group of Christians in Japan as Nagasaki had been the one port alllowed ofr foreign trading for centuries and was the center for Christianity in Japan. Ironic, isnt it.

  Another thing people don't think about in connection with how costly an invasion would've been was that all the bombing had not destroyed Japanese manufacturing capacity by any means. They had successfully scattered their industry into protected place which the bombers couldn't reach. The result was that when our troops went ashore after the surrender they discovered thousands of aircraft, which intelligence knew nothing of, waitng under cover for the invasion fleet. Many of them would've been kamikazes, but many were planes of comparable performance to allied types which would've made life ugly.

  Our forces also found hundreds of Jets and other more advanced types on production lines which they'd had no idea Japan actually had. Imagine what would've been waiting when invasion forces landed a year or more later!

  Probably the best kept secret I know of from the war is that Japan also had the Nuclear capability. For a short time during the nineties some records were declassified from the period. Several historians stumbled onto documentation of a nuclear program which the US dismantled after the war. I've seen pictures of cyclotrons which were taken out to sea and dumped overboard. And there was documentation of a successful nuclear test conducted by the Japanese on a Korean island which I understand is off-limits to visitors to this day. One TV documentary was made which included solme information on this which I happened to catch. Shortly after the documentary aired, the archives were reclassified and I've seen the program only obliquely refered to in several other documentaries. Their plans had been to makes some more bombs and drop them on our invasion fleet.

  Another little tibid. When we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, two of their largest submarines were on the way across the Pacific loaded with planes equipped with small dirty bombs. The plan had been to drop those bombs on San Francisco later in the month we struck them. That was mentioned in another documentary which still occasionally airs in the US. Despite all their protestations about how immoral and inhuman we were to drop the bomb on them, they were on the way to drop a form of it on us. So they didn't think it was all that immoral back then. We just beat them to the punch.

  Of course, our government has worked hard to keep how close the race to use the bomb really was and the Japanese government for its own hypocritical reasons has been all to happy to cooperate in the effort. So feel sad for the poor victims of those bombs, and all the victims of that war which both Germany and Japan started, but don't demonise us for following Musashi's dictum "to die with a weapon sheathed is most unfortunate." Those folks need to blame their governments which led them into war with us than us for winning it as expediciously and with as little loss of life on both sides as we could.

  Forscher
• 

  undercover

  The Allies would have won the war without the bomb...but there would have been heavy Allied casualties. Who better to have die in a war, your people or your enemies people? It's a cold hard approach to the problem, but that's how it is. The goal is to kill more of them than they of us and to the victor go the spoils.

  I find it amazing that the Japanese didn't surrender immediately after the first bomb but had to wait until the second one was dropped.

  I agree, however, that the US had ulterior motives for using the bomb. First, it can shorten the war by bring the Japanese to their knees. Secondly, and maybe more importantly for the years to come in their thinking at the time, it shows the Communists the power that the US now held, hopefully keeping them in line.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  UC,

  The Allies would have won the war without the bomb...but there would have been heavy Allied casualties. Who better to have die in a war, your people or your enemies people? It's a cold hard approach to the problem, but that's how it is. The goal is to kill more of them than they of us and to the victor go the spoils.

  The Japanese were already defeated, an invasion was not even necessary, all the president had to do is not demand a unconditional surender and let the emperor stay in place witch they did btw anyway even after getting them to sign an unconditional surrender.

  I find it amazing that the Japanese didn't surrender immediately after the first bomb but had to wait until the second one was dropped.

  They only waited 3 days before they dropped the second bomb hardly enough time IMO.

  I agree, however, that the US had ulterior motives for using the bomb. First, it can shorten the war by bring the Japanese to their knees. Secondly, and maybe more importantly for the years to come in their thinking at the time, it shows the Communists the power that the US now held, hopefully keeping them in line.

  Finally something we agree on.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  For,

  Probably the best kept secret I know of from the war is that Japan also had the Nuclear capability. For a short time during the nineties some records were declassified from the period. Several historians stumbled onto documentation of a nuclear program which the US dismantled after the war. I've seen pictures of cyclotrons which were taken out to sea and dumped overboard.

  Wow, this is a new one, please provide some documentation since you say it is now declasified. WHich I doubt has an once of truth to it.
• 

  Forscher

  I mentioned that the documents were reclassified, by the bush administration I think.

  Documentation online is hard to find and about all one can find is that the extent of Japan's program is much debated since official documentation is now back out of reach. There is a review of online of a book which is rplete with phrases such as "he (the author) speculates" etc. which can be found here:

  http://alsos.wlu.edu/information.aspx?id=1903&search=Japanese+Atomic+Bomb+Project+

  An Amazon customer's review of another book provides an interesting tibid which touches on the subject:

  http://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-Invasion-Japanese-Documentary/dp/0936738855

  just about everything online runs along the lines of the follwing:

  http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/

  As you can see, there isn't much. The tibid about the submarines and the dirty bomb was on one of History Channel's secret weapons of WWII programs. I can't recall the specific one. One kind of has to watch for it to catch it.

  Forscher
• 

  james_woods

  First, as an aside on the issue of whether or not to "warn" Japan - General Groves relates that this was not done because of a number of quite obvious reasons:

  1. The Japanese (probably by design, but at least by mistake) did not declare war on the U.S. before bombing Pearl.

  Revenge eye for an eye tooth for a tooth, the bible's way is insanity.

  Remember, this was war. It was not Sunday School. The general public & press in the US were quite outraged at the sneak attack. Surely you are not saying that we should not have gone to war with Japan after Pearl Harbor?

  2. The distinct possibility that the enemy would make a much greater effort to shoot down the bomber. (Given the premise that "warning" would also name the target. Otherwise, the warning would be pretty worthless...).

  Given the premise that a warning would name the target, hey they could have just given advance warning without naming the target if that really was a concern, dah.

  What good would a warning do without naming the target...the humanitarian purpose would have been to let them get their people out of harm's way. They were not going to give up on a possible bluff, nor move everybody out of every city! This is why a warning was felt to be unfeasible.

  3. The limited possibility that the bomb might fizzle and then the warning itself would be taken as a reason to extend the war.

  Come on they already tested it, they knew it would work.

  Not in entirety - remember, we only tested the more complicated implosion bomb, not the gun type. And it was only tested once, which is not a very strong sample set. We only had the three assembled bombs at the time - the alamagordo, the fat man, and the little boy. Notice I said this was considered as a limited possibility.

  4. The fact that the Japanese were in fact so fanatical (in their military leadership) that a warning was not thought to be practical.

  What would the fanaticalness of the japanese military have to due with not warning them?

  We pretty well knew that these guys were determined to fight to the death and ignore any warnings given. Tarawa, IwoJima, and the suicide planes would kind of give you their real state of mind, eh?
• 

  jayhawk1

  Forscher, wow that is some good stuff! Thanks for sharing. We was lucky Hitler never understood the power of the atom, or he would have had the Bomb first. As far as Japan having the potential for the bomb, maybe. One thing is certain, they was more than willing to do whatever their Emporer that they worshipped like a God commanded. The A-Bomb, in my opinion, was the lesser of two evils.