"My God, what have we done?"

[bbodb1]

All of this is what makes war something to be avoided. We remember the battles and and incidents that fit neatly on a calendar each year as we move a bit further away from accurately recollecting the circumstances that gave rise to them. The Japanese committed numerous human atrocities throughout their push for Imperialism throughout the Pacific. Were there factors that pushed Japan into a corner? Certainly. You cannot be an empire without access to the resources needed to build and sustain it. And yes, the United States (and others) played a role in the squeeze of resources.

I understand and agree with the points e.bram is making - it seems present day America (at least certain segments of it anyway) leaves no stone unturned when pointing out what they see as America's failures while conveniently forgetting the many actions this country made to make this world safer.

Ask the Chinese their opinion of the American efforts to save them prior to World War 2.
Ask a survivor of the Bataan Death March about the treatment prisoners endured.
Show me any other country in the world that has put forth as much effort in the name of peace and stability as the United States.
I am so tired of hearing from people who consistently and vigorously want to tear this country down.

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

U.S. Secretary of State and former JCS chairman, Gen. Colin Powell

 

[bbodb1]

yes, let it go. some people are completely locked in their thinking

Yes. They are.

 

[jme]

What about Sweden? What did they do?

 

[Brett]

What about Sweden? What did they do?

As a neutral country they sold war materials to Japan, Germany and the US
Blame Sweden for the Atomic Mess

 

[e.bram]

As a neutral country they sold war materials to Japan, Germany and the US
Blame Sweden for the Atomic Mess

Blame Germany. The forced the Jewish Physicists out to the USA to develop the Abomb.

 

[Country Roads]

yes, let it go. some people are completely locked in their thinking
.... or blame covid

Take your own advice... let it go.

 

[easyrider]

Does not have to be private.
My problem is that every August the Japanese portray themselves as victims of a war they they started with no mention of the many more deaths the Japanese caused in the Japanese Conquest of Asia. They are the victims of Japanese aggression.
Never mentioned!!! Dead is Dead nuclear or otherwise.

*****************

Bill

 

[e.bram]

Nothing said about the Korean comfort women.

 

[rhonda]

Within the story you'll find this. It's animation is quite interesting.

Nuclear annihilation:See what would happen if a nuclear blast hit your ZIP

What would happen if a nuclear bomb went off in your backyard?

Experience the power of a low-yield nuclear weapon in your area

outrider.org

193 fatalities, 94 injuries using the defaults: W-87, Surface Blast

 

[am1]

It is disappointing that the Axis powers never had to pay for their sins but in 2020 countries are having to pay for sins based on the color of the majority of citizens for things that happened in other countries hundreds of years ago. Germany, Austria and Japan should have been paying war reperacions and war pensions for ever. I guess Russia got in the way and a power play developed where others were tossed aside.

 

[DrQ]

It is disappointing that the Axis powers never had to pay for their sins ... Germany, Austria and Japan should have been paying war reperacions and war pensions for ever. I guess Russia got in the way and a power play developed where others were tossed aside.

That was done after WWI, it didn't work, dude. The extreme poverty imposed on Germany led to extremism and Hitler.

 

[Tank]

40 plus years ago in high school I did some work clearing a lot to build a house for a friends parents.
Mr O , a big burly Short man , lead us barking orders what to do working right along with us. Learned a lot of practical lessons on this job.
We would take a break And talk, had a natural spring he kept some pop for us cold, end of the day he would give us a beer, said “we earned it”

He was a marine WW2 veteran and would tell us stories. The one that I will never forget was he said he was on the first wave of marines dropped off after the “Bomb” was dropped. He said that he would never forget the devastation it caused, for as far as you could see , leveled flat, except a cross that stood out by itself all alone.
He had sparked my love to talk to old timers to hear stories of those days.
We were friends for life after that summer, visited often, respected forever!
Dave

 

[easyrider]

I understand and agree with the points e.bram is making - it seems present day America (at least certain segments of it anyway) leaves no stone unturned when pointing out what they see as America's failures while conveniently forgetting the many actions this country made to make this world safer.

I understand but do not agree with e.bram or you regarding Japanese placing blame on anyone for the nuke. Their entire statement is peace , friendship and no nukes. How is the celebration of peace in Japan a problem for some people is something I don't understand.

Bill

 

[bluehende]

I do not believe that agreeing with the decision to drop the bomb and recoiling at the horror unleashed are mutually exclusive.

 

[bbodb1]

I understand but do not agree with e.bram or you regarding Japanese placing blame on anyone for the nuke. Their entire statement is peace , friendship and no nukes. How is the celebration of peace in Japan a problem for some people is something I don't understand.

Bill

What Japan became after the end of World War II serves as an example of how to rebuild a country. Through the efforts of the Occupation and the Japanese people and government, a prosperous and peaceful country emerged from the ashes. That is always worthy of remembering and celebrating.

History must be recalled as it occurred (with accuracy) in order to avoid repeating mistakes and missteps. Not a revised or sanitized version. But in recalling that history, it should not be used to punish those who came after the fact - those who did not play a part in the events that occurred before they were even around.

I've read a good number of stories about soldiers from both sides meeting the opposition years later (after the war). There are many lessons to be learned from those interactions.

I would submit the best way to summarize this is I want to remember the Japan that was so we can be sure that does not repeat itself.
I want to remember the Japan that is to celebrate what is possible from the darkest of circumstances.

 

[bbodb1]

That was done after WWI, it didn't work, dude. The extreme poverty imposed on Germany led to extremism and Hitler.

Emphatic agreement on this point.
Thankfully, those lessons learned paved the way for the Marshall Plan and the Occupation of Japan.

 

[Sea Six]

In the eighties our local newspaper wrote about the bombing, but changed the name to Enola Homosexual in an attempt to be politically correct. I believe Enola Gay was the pilots mothers name

Enola is Alone spelled backwards. But you are correct, Enola Gay Tibbets was the mother of the pilot

 

[am1]

That was done after WWI, it didn't work, dude. The extreme poverty imposed on Germany led to extremism and Hitler.

Part of the reason. But the people of Germany allowed Hitler to come to power. What about all of the suffering during and after the war in other countries? The eastern bloc countries never were made whole as Russia took over.

 

[vacationtime1]

It's easy to be a revisionist historian. You get to second guess dead people and you get to use 20/20 hindsight in doing so.

A better historian will study the situation that then existed -- the facts and factors Truman had available in arriving at his decision. The battle for Okinawa had ended only six weeks earlier; about 20,000 American troops had died (plus about 75,000 Japanese soldiers and about 40,000 - 150,000 civilians, many by suicide). The culture of Japan in 1945 was still samurai culture -- surrender is dishonorable; fight to the death.

Okinawa is a flyspeck; the Japanese home islands were larger, had larger civilian populations, and would be defended even more vigorously. Truman was advised that invading the Japanese home islands would likely result in 1,000,000 (yes, one million) American casualties.

The atomic bomb was "shock and awe". Not only did Japan immediately surrender, but samurai culture died. The bomb not only ended the war but it also terminated the Japanese culture that perpetrated the war, committed atrocities on conquered peoples, and lacked any perspective on when to stop.

(Note: this is about the decision to drop the bomb. It isn't necessarily the same decision as to build a bomb. Even Einstein later regretted his 1939 letter to Roosevelt, saying that if he had known that Germany wouldn't be successful in building its own bomb, he wouldn't have spearheaded the American effort to build a bomb. My point is only that Truman's decision to use the bomb was one any American president would have made and should have made.)

 

[Brett]

It's easy to be a revisionist historian. You get to second guess dead people and you get to use 20/20 hindsight in doing so.

A better historian will study the situation that then existed -- the facts and factors Truman had available in arriving at his decision. The battle for Okinawa had ended only six weeks earlier; about 20,000 American troops had died (plus about 75,000 Japanese soldiers and about 40,000 - 150,000 civilians, many by suicide). The culture of Japan in 1945 was still samurai culture -- surrender is dishonorable; fight to the death.

Okinawa is a flyspeck; the Japanese home islands were larger, had larger civilian populations, and would be defended even more vigorously. Truman was advised that invading the Japanese home islands would likely result in 1,000,000 (yes, one million) American casualties.

The atomic bomb was "shock and awe". Not only did Japan immediately surrender, but samurai culture died. The bomb not only ended the war but it also terminated the Japanese culture that perpetrated the war, committed atrocities on conquered peoples, and lacked any perspective on when to stop.

(Note: this is about the decision to drop the bomb. It isn't necessarily the same decision as to build a bomb. Even Einstein later regretted his 1939 letter to Roosevelt, saying that if he had known that Germany wouldn't be successful in building its own bomb, he wouldn't have spearheaded the American effort to build a bomb. My point is only that Truman's decision to use the bomb was one any American president would have made and should have made.)

sure, no one at the time except some Los Alamos scientists said don't drop the bomb. All the the decision makers in the US government agreed and even the Japanese emperor in his radio speech blamed the surrender on a "most cruel bomb". The "revisionist history" always comes later with more information, e.g. what if we did a naval blockade of the Japanese islands or first dropped a "demo" bomb, etc. Of course no one will ever know if alternatives were better.
It's like everything in history, say for example slavery - it seemed perfectly reasonable to those living in the 1600's ..... now, not so much.

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

It's easy to be a revisionist historian. You get to second guess dead people and you get to use 20/20 hindsight in doing so.

A better historian will study the situation that then existed -- the facts and factors Truman had available in arriving at his decision. The battle for Okinawa had ended only six weeks earlier; about 20,000 American troops had died (plus about 75,000 Japanese soldiers and about 40,000 - 150,000 civilians, many by suicide). The culture of Japan in 1945 was still samurai culture -- surrender is dishonorable; fight to the death.

Okinawa is a flyspeck; the Japanese home islands were larger, had larger civilian populations, and would be defended even more vigorously. Truman was advised that invading the Japanese home islands would likely result in 1,000,000 (yes, one million) American casualties.

The atomic bomb was "shock and awe". Not only did Japan immediately surrender, but samurai culture died. The bomb not only ended the war but it also terminated the Japanese culture that perpetrated the war, committed atrocities on conquered peoples, and lacked any perspective on when to stop.

(Note: this is about the decision to drop the bomb. It isn't necessarily the same decision as to build a bomb. Even Einstein later regretted his 1939 letter to Roosevelt, saying that if he had known that Germany wouldn't be successful in building its own bomb, he wouldn't have spearheaded the American effort to build a bomb. My point is only that Truman's decision to use the bomb was one any American president would have made and should have made.)

It was even more complex that this. Consider the following:

1. Momentum. We knew, via MAGIC, that the Japanese War Cabinet was willing to surrender on one term; to wit: That the Emperor not be treated as a war criminal. (Which we ended up decinding to do anyways.) That didn't alter the attack planning. Nothing did. The US momentum was unstoppable. See the next point:

2. Japan was already cut off from virtually all supplies. Our Air and Naval forces, particularly the submarine corp, had sank virtually all the Japanese merchant fleet. Shucks we were sending submarines into the Inland Sea between the 3 main islands, and sinking junks, for lack of targets. Our senior staffs knew this, they also knew they could just stand off and let Japan starve. It only produced 17% of its food at the end of the war. 6 more months and half the Japanese people would have starved.

3. Russia had just entered the war against Japan, and had seized several small islands (the Kuriles), and might have invaded to seize the northernmost of the 4 main Japanese home islands.

4. Truman didn't even have a clue about the A-Bombs, until after FDR died. Truman was treated like a mushroom, he was only VP to help swing a couple of states.

5. We knew (although to what extend we didn't know) that the bomb building information was being leaked to the Soviet Union. (See Operation Veronica).

6. We only had 2 bombs, each an untested prototype. There were no more in the pipeline for a minimum of 6 months, and probably longer.

7. No one, other than those weird whacko science fiction writers (and readers) had any clue about the aftermath of an A-Bomb. (and those people were, at the time, considered only one brick away from the nut house, anyways.) Which led to:

8. The actual blasts were not as bad as some of the massed firebombing raids, already done before. The March 9-10 raid of Tokyo killed more people (estimated) that both A-bomb initial killed - combined.

and

9. Despite all the above, members of the War cabinet planned an attack on the Emperor, to capture him, and destroy his surrender proclamation (after the A-bombs), before it was announced. (It fell through.)

One should sort though ALL theses facts before second guessing.

 

[Country Roads]

sure, no one at the time except some Los Alamos scientists said don't drop the bomb. All the the decision makers in the US government agreed and even the Japanese emperor in his radio speech blamed the surrender on a "most cruel bomb". The "revisionist history" always comes later with more information, e.g. what if we did a naval blockade of the Japanese islands or first dropped a "demo" bomb, etc. Of course no one will ever know if alternatives were better.
It's like everything in history, say for example slavery - it seemed perfectly reasonable to those living in the 1600's ..... now, not so much.

Yes, hindsight is 20/20 and from what I've read, you're very good at it.

 

[DrQ]

Another point to consider:

The fact that the bombs were used when we only had TWO gave us a picture of the horror that would be unleashed. I like to think, that the destruction and suffering of those two cities stayed the hands when we had more to deploy.

 

[Country Roads]

What were the alternatives that Truman faced had he not dropped the bombs?

One, Truman could have allowed Japan’s wounded military government to stop the killing and stay in power. But the Japanese had already killed more than 10 million Chinese civilians since 1931, and perhaps another 4 million to 5 million Pacific Islanders, Southeast Asians and members of the Allied Forces since 1940.

Two, Truman could have postponed the use of the new bombs and invaded Japan over the ensuing year. The planned assault was scheduled to begin on the island of Kyushu in November 1945, and in early 1946 would have expanded to the main island of Honshu. Yet Japan had millions of soldiers at home with fortifications, planes and artillery, waiting for the assault.

Three, the U.S. could have held off on using the bomb, postponed the invasion and simply kept firebombing Japan with its huge fleet of B-29 bombers. The planes soon would have been reinforced with thousands more American and British bombers freed from the end of World War II in Europe.

Four, the U.S. might have played rope-a-dope, stood down and let the Soviet Red Army overrun China, Korea and Japan itself — in the same fashion that the Russians months earlier had absorbed eastern Germany, the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

Five, Truman could have dropped a demonstration bomb or two in Tokyo Bay to warn the Japanese government of their country’s certain destruction if it continued the war.

By August 1945, six years after the start of World War II in Europe, some 70 million had died, including some 10 million killed by the Japanese military. Millions more starved throughout Asia and China due to the destruction and famine unleashed by Japan — a brutal military empowered by millions of skilled civilian industrial workers.

In the terrible arithmetic of World War II, the idea that such a nightmare might end in a day or two was seen as saving millions of lives rather than gratuitously incinerating tens of thousands.

It was in that bleak context that Harry Truman dropped the two bombs — opting for a terrible choice among even worse alternatives.

Victor Davis Hanson: 75 years ago US used atomic bomb in Japan — here are 5 alternatives Truman rejected

Each day in early August 1945 that the Japanese war machine continued its work meant that thousands of Asian civilians and Allied soldiers would die.

www.foxnews.com

 

[Brett]

It was even more complex that this. Consider the following:

1. Momentum. We knew, via MAGIC, that the Japanese War Cabinet was willing to surrender on one term; to wit: That the Emperor not be treated as a war criminal. (Which we ended up decinding to do anyways.) That didn't alter the attack planning. Nothing did. The US momentum was unstoppable. See the next point:

2. Japan was already cut off from virtually all supplies. Our Air and Naval forces, particularly the submarine corp, had sank virtually all the Japanese merchant fleet. Shucks we were sending submarines into the Inland Sea between the 3 main islands, and sinking junks, for lack of targets. Our senior staffs knew this, they also knew they could just stand off and let Japan starve. It only produced 17% of its food at the end of the war. 6 more months and half the Japanese people would have starved.

3. Russia had just entered the war against Japan, and had seized several small islands (the Kuriles), and might have invaded to seize the northernmost of the 4 main Japanese home islands.

4. Truman didn't even have a clue about the A-Bombs, until after FDR died. Truman was treated like a mushroom, he was only VP to help swing a couple of states.

5. We knew (although to what extend we didn't know) that the bomb building information was being leaked to the Soviet Union. (See Operation Veronica).

6. We only had 2 bombs, each an untested prototype. There were no more in the pipeline for a minimum of 6 months, and probably longer.

7. No one, other than those weird whacko science fiction writers (and readers) had any clue about the aftermath of an A-Bomb. (and those people were, at the time, considered only one brick away from the nut house, anyways.) Which led to:

8. The actual blasts were not as bad as some of the massed firebombing raids, already done before. The March 9-10 raid of Tokyo killed more people (estimated) that both A-bomb initial killed - combined.

and

9. Despite all the above, members of the War cabinet planned an attack on the Emperor, to capture him, and destroy his surrender proclamation (after the A-bombs), before it was announced. (It fell through.)

One should sort though ALL theses facts before second guessing.

yes -
I believe Los Alamos had fuel for an additional third plutonium bomb
And there was no paper executive order from Truman to drop the bomb - it was a foregone conclusion