# Hiroshima & Nagasaki **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2007, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603 "2007-08-06T08:56:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/141 "2007-08-07T18:24:25Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Personally, I find the notion of collective or racial guilt too repugnant for serious discussion. Are we Americans collectively guilty for the massacre at My Lai, or the genocide of the American Indian? [/QUOTE] Collective guilt or responsibility has nothing to do with it. We would have been morally justified in using even more extreme measures to stop the Japanese than the ones we actually did use, and I see little point in blubbering about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/142 "2007-08-07T18:36:44Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme] and north to Parts of Alaska (the Allusions certainly) [/QUOTE] Aren’t those the islands where everybody speaks in metaphor? [sub]Darmok![/sub] ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/143 "2007-08-07T18:43:15Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme] …I didn’t brush by it quickly…I felt that Cpt Amazings explaination was sufficient. If you were curious you could simply type in ‘synthetic fuel coal Japan Germany’ into Google and get a couple of hundred thousand hits on the subject… [/quote] Splendid idea! And what do we get, very tippy-tip top of the google pile? > **[Abstract%2080d%20Stranges%20japan.pdf](https://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/presentations/AIChE%202003%20Spring%20National%20Meeting/Abstract%2080d%20Stranges%20japan.pdf)** > > 4.36 KB \*\* “Synthetic Fuel Production in Prewar and WWII Japan: A Case Study in Technological Failure”\*\* Oh, dear. (This is a .pdf and doesn’t lend itself to cutting and pasting, please avail yourself to whatever comfort you may find there…) > [@](#): > > …I’d say both are apt. IMHO you simply didn’t take the time to understand the arguments. I think the analogy to Saddam and the sanctions in Iraq were close enough to be meaningful. Dismiss it if you like, but perhaps you should at least try and understand what I was getting at before handwaving it away? Or not. As you like… Your opinion is duly noted. > [@](#): > > …Well, it would be if you HAD presented a case…so your assertion I made your presentation an ‘extremest absurdity’ is kind of silly. All I’ve seen is sniping from the shadows thus far. What IS your contention? Whats your estimation for how long a blockade would have to be kept in place? And what do you base it on? … Don’t know. However long it may have taken it remained a viable alternative. Clearly, however, your insinuation of death by old age is _reductio ad absurdum_. Its rather an old rhetorical dodge, which is why it is so ragged and threadbare. And, keep it mind, the invasion alternative is not pre-empted, if the blockade did not work, the invasion might still be mounted, perhaps even better having more time for preparation and a further weakening of Japanese resources. > [@](#): > > …Its sort of like the coal thingy. Don’t worry about it… Thanks, I won’t. > [@](#): > > …Maybe I misunderstood when you said “With what? Bamboo submarines?”…because that SOUNDS like you are calling the Japanese primitives incapable making anything better. In fact the Japanese all the way up until their surrender were innovating some very interesting weapons, being quite ingenious with their limited resources. They had even developed a jet air craft that could be mass produced even with their limited resources, as well as some interesting small naval craft to be used during an invasion… Cites will, no doubt, abound. > [@](#): > > As for the [Japanese cargo type subs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Navy_submarines) of WWII: > > A few things to note here. Look over all of the types of subs the Japanese had (including an air craft carrier version!). Another thing to note is…none of them are made of bamboo. > [@](#): > > …The Japanese constructed only three of these during World War II (I-52, I-53 and I-55), although twenty were planned… From your cite. Three? > [@](#): > > …Also, those cargo subs might not have the capacity of a regular ship, but they could carry more than a box or two… No doubt. But tons upon tons of raw materials? Hardly likely. I mean, _three_? > [@](#): > > …I suppose we’d need to get into some basic assumptions as to how this blockade would work. Would we continue active conventional bombing missions over Japan indefinitely? Or would this be a passive blockade, just a defensive posturing of the fleet?.. Either. Both. If the boats can’t get in or out, it hardly matters. > [@](#): > > lol…I don’t even know where to begin with this one. … JUST LIKE SOME OF THEM DID ANYWAY DESPITE JAPANS SURRENDER! Uh, yeah. So? > [@](#): > > …Like with many things you simply don’t understand what I’m saying because you don’t know enough about this subject. Most people aren’t interested in WWII enough to dig deeper into the subject, and though I’ve read a lot about it and DO have an interest in the subject I’m no expert either. You however are less so… Oddly, with all your vast expertise and citations at your very fingertips, you have neglected to offer many. And there may be a cheaper rhetorical trick that asserting your own knowledge of the subject, and you opponent’s ignorance, without any substantiation beyond your insistence that it is so. I just don’t happen to know what that cheaper trick might be. > [@](#): > > …I’ll leave it there and not get into the political realities of the US. You obviously feel that its reasonable to discuss things in a theoretical way, completely divorced from the realities of the political situation in the US at the time. Thats fine as long as you realize its pure fantasy unless you talk about it in the contexts the times… It may be as you say, it may not. Conjecture. I have offered no argument about the mind set of the American people, I am arguing, as I have been all along, strictly about the military necessity. You offer an interesting discussion, but a very different one. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/144 "2007-08-07T18:45:59Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Maybe coulda might have. With a huge helping of maybe. You have evidence to offer that such a plan was in the works? [/QUOTE] In terms of actual plans, the Soviets only ever intended to invade Hokkaido, since they assumed the the US would be invaded Honshu from the south. The following is from the book by Frank which I have mentioned in previous posts: > [@](#): > > The Soviet strategy of the [East Asian] campaign also featured a two-pronged thrust to Hokkaido… They believed only three Japanese infantry divisions and a brigade… defended the entire island. Given the vast size of Hokkaido and its mountainous terrain, the Soviets expected that the Japanese could oppose their landing with only one division. The seizure of Hokkaido would confer important military and political rewards: a springboard for attacks on Honshu and a right to participate in the occupation of Japan. > > The Soviets overestimated Japanese strength, as the Fifth Area Army defenses on Hokkaido comprised only two divisions and one brigade. They were oriented toward the American threat from the east, not the Soviet plan to land on Western Hokkaido. Japanese airpower in this region was very weak, as was the Imperial Navy’s capability. The Soviet Navy’s amphibious shipping resources were limited but sufficient to transport three assault divisions in several echelons. The Red Army intended to seize the northern half of Hokkaido. If resistance proved strong, reinforcements would be deployed for the capture of the rest of Hokkaido. Given the size of Hokkaido, the Japanese would have been hard pressed to move units for a concerted confrontation of the Soviet invasion. The chances of Soviet success appeared to be very good. > > A combination of stiff Japanese resistance and diplomatic action by President Truman saved Hokkaido from otherwise certain Soviet invasion… On August 15, Truman provided Stalin with a copy of MacArthur’s General Order Number One, setting out procedures for the occupation of Japan. The next day, Stalin proposed that Soviet forces accept the Japanese surrender on northern Hokkaido, on the grounds that Japanese occupation of Soviet territory in 1919-1921 justified it and Soviet public opinion demanded it. Truman shot back a terse message on August 18, rejecting the proposal as a change in the Potsdam Agreement. This same day, Soviet theater commander Marshal Vasilevsky sough authorization from Moscow for the seizure of Hokkaido. (The continued resistance of Japanese units provided a rational for further Soviet operations.) When no immediate reply was forthcoming, Vasilevsky sent a second message on August 20, stating that he planned to land on Hokkaido on August 22. Staliin finally replied but only to sanction preparations. Vasilevsky directed his subordinates to be ready in all respects to attack on his personal order no later than the end of August 23. At midday on August 22, Stalin abrupty ordered the operation suspended indefinitely. In retrospect, it appears that Japanese resistance on Sakhalin would have precluded readiness before August 24 or 25 in any event, but Truman’s firm replay on August 18 was crucial. Moreover, events soon showed that Truman’s refusal to permit Soviet advances to Hokkaido saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese from death. Whether a Soviet invasion of Hokkaido would later be followed by a Soviet invasion of Honshu and how the US would have reacted are, of course, up to debate. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/145 "2007-08-07T18:57:28Z")
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat] Collective guilt or responsibility has nothing to do with it. We would have been morally justified in using even more extreme measures to stop the Japanese than the ones we actually did use, and I see little point in blubbering about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [/QUOTE] Well, you know how us lefty types are, **LP** , a few thousand dead women and children, and we get all blubbery. Happily, you are made of sterner stuff. Wherever would we be without such hard-headed and realistic people? One shudders to think. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/146 "2007-08-07T18:59:13Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] And, keep it mind, the invasion alternative is not pre-empted, if the blockade did not work, the invasion might still be mounted, perhaps even better having more time for preparation and a further weakening of Japanese resources. [/quote] As well as further time to harden Japanese resolve, add more layers of Japanese coastal defenses and indoctrinate Japanese civilians to charge at marines wearing bomb vests and whatnot. You’re greatly underestimating their ability to improvise and innovate and with the demonstrated willingness to engage in suicide attacks, a blockade followed by an invasion would just make them more desperate and determined. > [@](#): > > I am arguing, as I have been all along, strictly about the military necessity. A possibly years-long blockade and massive invasion against steep resistance vs. a quick nuclear resolution? The optimal choice is obvious. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/147 "2007-08-07T18:59:41Z")
That is certainly very interesting, **cckerberos**. I cannot offer any comment, having never heard anything of the sort before. Who is this fellow, and what are his _bona fides_? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/148 "2007-08-07T19:02:01Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] …A possibly years-long blockade and massive invasion against steep resistance vs. a quick nuclear resolution? The optimal choice is obvious. [/QUOTE] Except, of course, we were bluffing. We didn’t have any more nukes to throw at them, if they had held out a bit longer, that would have become obvious. And then where might we be? ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/149 "2007-08-07T19:03:21Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Well, you know how us lefty types are, **LP** , a few thousand dead women and children, and we get all blubbery. Happily, you are made of sterner stuff. Wherever would we be without such hard-headed and realistic people? One shudders to think. [/QUOTE] You would have died in somebody’s extermination camp. That’s where you’d be. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/150 "2007-08-07T19:14:14Z")
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat] You would have died in somebody’s extermination camp. That’s where you’d be. [/QUOTE] Yeah, right. And your evidence that the Japanese or Germans would have conquered Minnesota without us nuking Japanese cities is ? And without “hard headed” people who think nothing of killing, there wouldn’t ever be any extermination camps in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/151 "2007-08-07T19:23:29Z")
[QUOTE=cckerberos] In terms of actual plans, the Soviets only ever intended to invade Hokkaido, since they assumed the the US would be invaded Honshu from the south. [/QUOTE] Thanks…I missed his, um, question there. [QUOTE=elucidator] “Synthetic Fuel Production in Prewar and WWII Japan: A Case Study in Technological Failure” [/QUOTE] I don’t have access to a PDF view here at work so I’ll have to wait to look this over tonight. It will be interesting to see WHY they call it a failure however, since the Germans certainly used it extensively. My guess? That it was a ‘failure’ because they simply stopped developing the technology until resources got scarce…and then the war ended. I find it hard to believe that the Japanese were too stupid to figure out what the Germans did. Since you do no analysis of what was said I’ll just move on. [QUOTE=elucidator] Don’t know. However long it may have taken it remained a viable alternative. Clearly, however, your insinuation of death by old age is reductio ad absurdum. Its rather an old rhetorical dodge, which is why it is so ragged and threadbare. [/QUOTE] I said it would take years…maybe decades. In fact, I don’t believe the Japanese would EVER have surrendered…they would have simply kept hammering away for the peace settlement they wanted…i.e. one that left them in control of their government and as much of their former empire as they could hold onto. I don’t think the US has the attention span for a blockade that goes on year after year with no end in sight…I think that eventually (read within a few years) there would have been a clamor to resolve the issue (if the Russians hadn’t simply resolved it by launching their own invasion while the fleet tooled around blockading things). As for a rhetorical dodge, I said pretty much all of this in earlier posts. YOU have yet to say much of anything, even to speculating. Who’s dodging here? [QUOTE=elucidator] And, keep it mind, the invasion alternative is not pre-empted, if the blockade did not work, the invasion might still be mounted, perhaps even better having more time for preparation and a further weakening of Japanese resources. [/QUOTE] How long do you suppose you could keep that large of an invasion force just standing by with their thumbs up their asses, waiting for the word to invade? How long would our allies have stayed on board for that? Everyone wanted to get the war over with so they could get back to the rebuilding and living part. No, once you decided to do an extended blockade you would have to stand down your invasion force and send them home. Sure, if you wanted to spend massive amounts MORE you could eventually get em all back out there again, put the logistics back in place, etc (in theory anyway). But the reality is that there is probably no way that would happen once we stood down…not for us, not for our allies. With one exception…the Soviets. [QUOTE=elucidator] From your cite. Three? [/QUOTE] Well, also from my cite they were building 20 hulls. In addition, did you read the rest of the cite? They had a lot of other classes (like those air carriers) that could have easily been converted to carrying cargo. Is it your speculation that the 3 they had built was all they would ever be able to build? That whatever they had when we started the blockade would be it, with nothing more possible?? Otherwise, well, your point is silly…if they already had the class built what would stop them from building more? Especially if they needed them? [QUOTE=elucidator] No doubt. But tons upon tons of raw materials? Hardly likely. I mean, three? [/QUOTE] Perhaps its your contention that the Japanese were too stupid to see the problem and take steps to correct it? Or maybe you are contending that they simply couldn’t do anything about it except sit around in shock and fear at the US Navy blockading their nation? Its funny that you think because they only built 3 that was all they COULD build…especially since you are essentially giving them the time to do so with a blockade, even if you keep up the strategic bombing (which I don’t think you could do for more than a year or so…the continued cost would be huge). [QUOTE=elucidator] Either. Both. If the boats can’t get in or out, it hardly matters. [/QUOTE] How are you going to pay for it for year after year? Are the American people (let alone, say, the Brits) going to continue to foot the bill indefinitely? Strategic bombing costs money. Blockades cost money. Who’s going to pay for it with no end in sight? Or is this another of those ones you like to just handwave away? [QUOTE=elucidator] Uh, yeah. So? [/QUOTE] LMAO! Never mind 'luci. [QUOTE=elucidator] Oddly, with all your vast expertise and citations at your very fingertips, you have neglected to offer many. And there may be a cheaper rhetorical trick that asserting your own knowledge of the subject, and you opponent’s ignorance, without any substantiation beyond your insistence that it is so. I just don’t happen to know what that cheaper trick might be. [/QUOTE] I don’t need to resort to cheap rhetorical tricks to show you are ignorant of this subject 'luci. I’m sorry, but its pretty evident. And I already said that I’m no expert on this subject, though I’m interested in it. I just find it ironic that the rhetorical cheapshot artist and content/cite free Master is calling the kettle black in this fashion. I wonder…do you REALLY think that the peanut gallery out there don’t see right through you, one of the most well known posters on this board? At any rate, I’ll see about reading your PDF cite and seeing whats there. If I’m wrong and the Japanese really had no clue (despite having worked on it since the 20’s) as to how to make synthetic fuel out of their coal reserves then I will concede the point as gracefully as possible. I think there are other ways they could have fueled at least a minimal war machine anyway, but I’ll have to think about my basic premise that Japan could hold out as long as I THINK they could have, if true. -XT ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/152 "2007-08-07T19:34:35Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Yeah, right. And your evidence that the Japanese or Germans would have conquered Minnesota without us nuking Japanese cities is ? And without “hard headed” people who think nothing of killing, there wouldn’t ever be any extermination camps in the first place. [/QUOTE] Say what you please, it wasn’t Gandhi who stopped Hitler and Stalin. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/153 "2007-08-07T19:38:54Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Except, of course, we were bluffing. We didn’t have any more nukes to throw at them, if they had held out a bit longer, that would have become obvious. And then where might we be? [/QUOTE] Really. [This table from a decidedly not pro-nuclear source](http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab9.asp) implies otherwise, saying the U.S. had six warheads in 1945 (figure three were expended, leaving three) and 11 in 1946. Nuclear arsenal growth was slow at first, but let’s say three more Japanese cities were destroyed in the last third of 1945, then one a month after that. In fact, had the war continued, I’d expect A-Bomb production to be even _faster_, once it was demonstrated that a single plane could do the work of an entire bomber squadron. Such squadrons, I assume, would continue conventional bombing in the meantime. Japanese civilian casualties could easily have been in the millions, punctuated by isolated nuclear attacks that took out 50,000+ in one shot. So, sure, the arsenal was at zero on August 10th. Are you assuming this was a permanent state? Heck, once the secrecy around the Manhattan Project was lifted, large-scale uranium mining and refinement could (and did) take place openly in multiple locations. Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn’t a demonstration of the U.S. throwing out its last, desperate effort. They showed they could build and deliver mass destruction. By September or October, they could easily have shown it again, and again in December, and again in January, and again in February, and maybe twice in March… There’s no “bluff” here to call. If the Japanese claim the U.S. can’t do that _again_, they need wait only a month or two to be proven wrong. The only bluff, and it’s fairly trivial, was that the U.S. couldn’t follow-up immediately. Anyway, let’s assume there was no such thing as Uranium and the U.S. used purely conventional bombing to destroy one Japanese city after another. Is this preferable to blockade/invasion? Is it the use of nukes or the bombing of cities that you object to? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/154 "2007-08-07T19:43:48Z")
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat] Say what you please, it wasn’t Gandhi who stopped Hitler and Stalin. [/QUOTE] Neither was it the mass slaughter of civilians. Bombing Dresden didn’t break Germany any more than the Blitz broke Britain. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/155 "2007-08-07T19:53:03Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] That is certainly very interesting, **cckerberos**. I cannot offer any comment, having never heard anything of the sort before. Who is this fellow, and what are his _bona fides_? [/QUOTE] Richard Frank is an “independent scholar”, not an academic. He has, however, been accepted as an equal by academics studying the topic. For example, a few years ago while I was working on my MA in Japanese Studies I took a course on the history and historiography of the Hiroshima bombing. Frank’s book was introduced by my professor as being, in his opinion, the best book on the end of the war. He also participated in [a very interesting academic roundtable](http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/) for UC-Santa Barbara Professor Hasegawa Tsuyoshi’s book Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. In Hasegawa’s response to Frank’s comments he mentions that he agrees with Frank’s assessment of probable Soviet success. (BTW, I haven’t read all of the roundtable yet, but as the main argument of Hasegawa’s book is that the primary cause of Japanese surrender was the Soviet entry into the war rather than the Hiroshima bombing and the participants are the leading scholars on the topic, it would likely be of major interest of anyone interested in the bombings.) Doing my best to look through his endnotes (using the Amazon search inside feature), it looks like the writings of [David Glantz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Glantz) are his main sources for the passage I quoted. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/156 "2007-08-07T19:58:54Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Well, you know how us lefty types are, **LP** , a few thousand dead women and children, and we get all blubbery. Happily, you are made of sterner stuff. Wherever would we be without such hard-headed and realistic people? One shudders to think. [/QUOTE] This lefty wonders how many children would have to starve to death to make you admit that the Hiroshima bomb, at least, was a more humane alternative. I’d expect conventional bombing of military targets, at least, would continue, with collateral damage, as well as bombing of the transportation infrastructure to increase the effectiveness of the blockade. Do you think the warlords would surrender because of civilian casualties? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/157 "2007-08-07T20:16:50Z")
I’m getting really confused here. The arguement is that the soft-hearted kindly leftists with their baskets full of flowers would have disarmed Japan and forced its surrender… by manufacturing a mass starvation and leaving the few survivors in ruins, poverty, and hunger for a generation. Which is much better than, say, taking out two city cores. Not even the whole city. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/158 "2007-08-07T20:29:23Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] :dubious: [/QUOTE] …but…but… _nukes!_ I mean, _ewwwww!_ ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/159 "2007-08-07T20:35:45Z")
I don’t think it would have worked regardless. I seriously doubt those in charge would have cared how many civilians died…and honestly most of those civilians would have accepted it as well. I think the analogy between Iraq pre-invasion and what is being proposed here, while not exact, at least offers a guildline to what MIGHT have happened, and how that change in history could have progressed. I think its safe to say that a LOT more people (men, women and children) would have died in Japan had we decided to go the blockade route than died with the two atomic bombs. But then, we know that more people died from the fire bombing attacks on cities like Tokyo than died in those atomic strikes and that never seems to penetrate the anti-nuke crowd either. At a guess a blockade would have killed more people than even a forced entry assault (though I suppose it might be cold comfort that some of those dead would be American and allied soldiers instead of all Japanese citizens). -XT ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2007, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603/160 "2007-08-07T20:37:05Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Neither was it the mass slaughter of civilians. Bombing Dresden didn’t break Germany any more than the Blitz broke Britain. [/QUOTE] Kindly explain how you would have stopped Hitler without killing anybody. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiroshima-nagasaki/414603.md?page=9)