Was the USA right to drop the Bomb on Japan to end WW2? (page 6)

avishai

I should say, 13 million died as a direct result of the Japanese occupation. That's about as many as hitler killed in the death camps.

:As a side note. Were the allies right to bomb the living crap out of Dresden in 1945?

SixofNine

"I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds."
Ellis Zacharias, How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender, Look, 6/6/50, pg. 19-21.

My own personal feeling is It was right on strategic grounds, because Japan wanted out of the war, but wanted/needed to save face. They needed a serious excuse beyond that they were stretched beyond their limits and had used up all of their gasoline and oil. It is widely believed the bomb would allow for that.

Didn't Zacharias address that? And Eisenhower? And Grew? And Einstien? And MacArthur?

Does anyone on this board challenge any of their own cherished notions more than once in their lives?

onacruse

Simon:

Claiming that you needed to do it to 'show the russians' just makes you the biggest bunch of terrorists that the world has ever seen. Enjoy the moment. You must be so proud.

So let me ask this:

If the UK had the "bomb," would Churchill have dropped it?

I think he would have.

imho

Why does it tend to be a "which was worse" sort of debate? The main counter-argument seems to be the other atrocities committed by the Allies (in this case Britain).

War sucks and world war sucks real bad. Minimus phrased the question in a very unfortunate way. Maybe that was intentional to provoke more responses, I don't know.

It's never "right" to kill thousands of civilians with a nuclear bomb. It may be argued if it was the best way of ending the war or if it helped save more lives. If you know such arguments, present them. Don't explain the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by quoting other/worse loosely related atrocties.

Pole

stillajwexelder

Minimus phrased the question in a very unfortunate way. ??????????????????????

Pole

Sorry minimus, I thought it was minimus. I got it wrong, because I think the issue was first brought up on minimus's thread.

Pole

fleaman uk

Fleaman,

You are correct in questioning the info. I should have provided references.

I've been interested in ww2 history for most of my life and most of my information comes from non-internet sources. The planned use of more atomic bombs is something I learned just recently on a History Channel International documentary. I'm certain the info. is available online so I'll do a little research and provide link(s) in a day or so. If I'm not mistaken, the entire invasion plan is now available on the net.

Was it the A bomb info or the coup attempt that you weren't familiar with?

chappy

Chappy i too am extremely interested in WW2 (part of my Job is in the teaching of modern History,though admittedly from a more Eurocentric angle)and must admit im not too familiar with the coup attempt.I would love to know more? The dropping of the Bombs on Japanese cities was in my opinion just a ruse to flex muscle in front of Uncle Joe.The war in the Pacific was coming to a close.Very unecessary to drop the Bombs.Did Japan really have any Soldiers of a high standard left,complete with decent Weapons?I would say japanese forces were more like the wermacht in 1945.I.E Totally spent.

Simon

If the UK had the "bomb," would Churchill have dropped it?

I think he would have.

And what has that got to do with the price of fish?

We didn't have it so he didn't drop it. I think it would have been wrong if he had just as the targetting of civilian cities such as dresden was wrong. To say otherwise means that we must also say that the bombing of Coventry and London was also justified.

Gee ... if all these things become so 'justified' we're going to have a hard time labelling the enemy as monsters aren't we? Weren't they just doing what we did?

Simon

The number who would have died that are waived about in these arguments are way overblown and overhyped as part of the whole justification of the bombing.

Official documents and quotes by the people in charge show that they are much, much lower and that they inflated the figures after the bomb was dropped and they realised that they had done **a bad thing**.

eljefe

I would like to point out 3 things.

1. Germany was trying to make their own A-Bomb as well as other intercontinental weapons. These included planes that had enough fuel to reach New York drop the bomb, fly to the ocean, ditch the plane and get picked up by a U-Boat. I realize that was Germany and not Japan. However, both countries shared plans for war machines.
2. Imagine that the US didn't drop the bomb and had to invade Japan island by island incurring millions of Allied casualties. Would we be talking about how dumb Truman was for not using a bomb that immediately end the war?
3. Truman didn't have beatnicks or hippies to contend with and to demonstrate against him. Are they the vocal minority or the majority?

Was the USA right to drop the Bomb on Japan to end WW2?

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