# It's 1945 and you're Harry Truman **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 28, 2016, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486 "2016-03-28T21:14:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/41 "2016-03-29T09:55:22Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If “drop the bomb” means “drop it on a major metropolitan area,” no. If “drop the bomb” means “drop it two miles offshore, and tell the Emperor that the next one lands on Tokyo,” probably. Dropping a nuclear bomb 2 miles offshore would have caused much more death & destruction than was done by dropping it on a city in the middle of a valley. You do recall hearing about damage to Japan from a recent Tsunami, that was hundreds of miles offshore? ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/42 "2016-03-29T11:03:49Z")
Why is this still debated?!? Of course it was necessary. One bomb didn’t do it. Two bombs almost didn’t do it. The Japanese govt still deadlocked on voting to surrender or continue. The Emperor had to take the unprecedented action of breaking a tie and voting for surrender. And even then the military still tried to arrest him and stage a coup to avoid surrendering\*!\* The entire population was mobilized to throw back an invasion. Vast kamikaze-type weapons were built to fight to the last man, woman and child. If they hadn’t surrendered there is an absolutely 100% chance that they would have done this. As I said they nearly did it anyway. At the time they were just big bombs. The full implications of nuclear weapons and an apocalyptic WWIII was not grasped, nor did it come into play, until after the Soviet bomb and then the H-bomb appeared. Even the Manhattan Project scientists didn’t predict how significant radiation deaths would be as part of the weapon. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/43 "2016-03-29T11:15:13Z")
I once read a quote in which a Japanese general compared the impending suicide of the Japanese people to beautiful poetry. Does anyone have a cite for that? > [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](#): > > One thing I’ve always wondered about - if the bomb hadn’t been used in 1945, would it been used later on in some other war? There’s a large anti-nuke sentiment these days partly because of what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a world where those events never happened, the history of how we think of nuclear weapons would’ve been different. Thanks for making this point, often overlooked. If the A-bomb had not been used against Japan, it would have been used later, probably against North Korea. Seeing is believing. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/44 "2016-03-29T13:09:20Z")
My father was a Marine training to be a part of the invasion of Japan. If the bombs weren’t dropped I probably would not exist. So if I was back in 1945 I would drop it. But if I was in 1945 how could my 17 year old father be a Marine at the same time? ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/45 "2016-03-29T13:47:48Z")
People wonder if the bomb really mattered, but the answer is in [Japan’s announcement of surrender:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_Voice_Broadcast) > [@Wikipedia](#): > > Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/46 "2016-03-29T13:48:51Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > My father was a Marine training to be a part of the invasion of Japan. If the bombs weren’t dropped I probably would not exist. So if I was back in 1945 I would drop it. But if I was in 1945 how could my 17 year old father be a Marine at the same time? That is one of them there pair of ducks. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/47 "2016-03-29T13:57:50Z")
IMO not only did using the bombs save massive numbers of lives on both sides, it was probably good they were used for another reason. Lets say we didn’t use them. A few years go by. Russians make the bomb as well. Now both sides have a handful of them. Then the US and Russians get into a skirmish somewhere. Somebody finally decides to use one in battle. Chances are that it would spiral out of control and a fair number on BOTH sides end up getting used. End result, way more than 2 atom bombs get used before the military and public fully realize the enormity of using these things. One of my professors used to celebrate with bubbly in the department on bombing day. Man I wish he was teaching at Emory these days 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/48 "2016-03-29T14:13:18Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Dropping a nuclear bomb 2 miles offshore would have caused much more death & destruction than was done by dropping it on a city in the middle of a valley. > > You do recall hearing about damage to Japan from a recent Tsunami, that was hundreds of miles offshore? ISTM we’d be seriously misestimating the difference in power between a 16-20 kT nuke and a magnitude 9 earthquake that moved the whole island 8 feet to the East. Wouldn’t want to be on the waterfront those 2 miles in, for sure, but you would not be wiping out that much up and down shore. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/49 "2016-03-29T14:26:35Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > ISTM we’d be seriously misestimating the difference in power between a 16-20 kT nuke and a magnitude 9 earthquake that moved the whole island 8 feet to the East. > > Wouldn’t want to be on the waterfront those 2 miles in, for sure, but you would not be wiping out that much up and down shore. Indeed. That earthquake released more than 20,000 times as much energy as Fat Man. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/50 "2016-03-29T14:33:06Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > My father was a Marine training to be a part of the invasion of Japan. If the bombs weren’t dropped I probably would not exist. So if I was back in 1945 I would drop it. But if I was in 1945 how could my 17 year old father be a Marine at the same time? There was an episode of **The Time Tunnel** about this back in 1968. Pearl Harbor instead of Hiroshima, though. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/51 "2016-03-29T16:54:35Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > IMO not only did using the bombs save massive numbers of lives on both sides, it was probably good they were used for another reason. > > Lets say we didn’t use them. A few years go by. Russians make the bomb as well. Now both sides have a handful of them. > > Then the US and Russians get into a skirmish somewhere. Somebody finally decides to use one in battle. Chances are that it would spiral out of control and a fair number on BOTH sides end up getting used. > > End result, way more than 2 atom bombs get used before the military and public fully realize the enormity of using these things. > > One of my professors used to celebrate with bubbly in the department on bombing day. Man I wish he was teaching at Emory these days 🙂 I totally agree. In terms of ‘alternate history’ the only place I can picture an atomic bomb being first used in war and it _ **not** _ spiraling out of control is at the end of WWII. Plus if the Japanese hadn’t surrendered and the invasion of Japan went forward two things would have been true: [ul][li]We would have had 3-6 more A-bombs ready to support the invasion and we \*would \*have used them.[/li][li]We compelled the Soviets to help us against Japan three months after the defeat of Germany, so they would have been invading from the north (even though after seeing their occupation of eastern Europe we didn’t want them in Japan).[/li][/ul] Even if it hadn’t resulted in war breaking out between the US and the USSR at the time it would have meant partitioning Japan into North & South like Korea so, there’s that. Not to trivialize the actual bombings, but using it against the island nation of Japan as the ultimate WWII-era secret weapon was the perfect ‘control-group’ scenario to show humanity nuclear weapons’ potential with just enough death & destruction but not too much nor too little (i.e. in only a test). ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/52 "2016-03-29T17:07:00Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > A demonstration first. > If no surrender, _then…_ The 1st bomb was dropped and no surrender 2nd bomb was dropped and they still did not want to surrender. 1000 planes over Tokyo and they surrendered before the planes landed. NO the bombs should have been dropped. ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/53 "2016-03-29T17:18:23Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Yes, there is a failure to understand here. > > I asked if they had immediately grasped the enormity of Hiroshima. It seems to me that any people that _did_, would have surrendered on that basis. How could they not? That they did not, in those first few days, suggests that they did not grasp it. > > Maybe another week or two after Hiroshima was all it would have taken in any case, without Nagasaki. > > Allied forces were dying by daily thousands in August 1945? Where? How about in China. Bomber pilots. POWs. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/54 "2016-03-29T18:08:11Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Allied forces were dying by daily thousands in August 1945? Where? On the mainland. China, Burma, Korea, etc. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/55 "2016-03-29T18:22:48Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Or Fleet Admiral Leahy? Absolutely, we could have starved the Japanese out. Would have cost untold suffering and millions of Japanese civilian lives, not to mention all our POWs too. Dropping the Bomb saved millions of _Japanese_\* lives. It was the best solution for the Japanese people. You guys dont seem to get it- there was no reason NOT to drop the Bomb.\* It was just another weapon\*. It’s only later, after we realized that Nuclear war could destroy the Human race that use of atomic weapons became such a horrible sin. - and of course thousands of American lives, too. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/56 "2016-03-29T18:35:22Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Quick math: They save the lives of over 100,000 Allied POWs as well as over a million others: Japanese soldiers, Allied servicemen, Japanese civilians and Allied civilians. > _Civilians_, Allied and Japanese, were dying daily by the thousands in August 1945. Yep. The navy’s plan to starve them out would have cost 7 Million civilian deaths. > **[JAPAN TARGETED FOR STARVATION - World War II Day by Day](https://ww2days.com/japan-targeted-for-starvation-2.html)** > > Tinian, Mariana Islands · March 27, 1945 An island nation, Japan was vul­ner­able to a block­ade of essen­tial food and stra­tegic mate­rials. On this date in 1945 the U.S. Army Air Forces and the U.S. Navy, hoping to put the final nail in the... Not to mention the firebombings. More died at Tokyo than Hiroshima. Altho the A-Bombs killed around 120K , more than twice that had died from conventional bombings. The Japanese were starting to execute American POW’s and use them in horrific experiments: > **[Air raids on Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan#Treatment_of_prisoners_of_war)** > > Second Sino-Japanese War > During the Pacific War, Allied forces conducted air raids on Japan from 1942 to 1945, causing extensive destruction to the country's cities and killing between 241,000 and 900,000 people. During the first years of the Pacific War these attacks were limited to the Doolittle Raid in April 1942 and small-scale raids on military positions in the Kuril Islands from mid-1943. Strategic bombing raids began in June 1944 and continued until the end of the war in August 1945. A... ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/57 "2016-03-29T18:39:49Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Not at the cost of tens of thousands of civilians it wasn’t. You seem to be laboring under the misguided assumption that not using the atomic bomb would somehow have saved Japanese lives. Even had we not used it, there’s every likelihood that we’d have hit Hiroshima with a conventional bombing raid every bit as destructive. Look at what we’d already done to Tokyo five months before Hiroshima got bombed. You also seem to forget that in the eyes of the people of the time, the Japanese weren’t deserving of mercy, having attacked Pearl Harbor, murdered POWs, and perpetrated all the other war crimes that they were responsible for (comfort women, Mukden POWs, Unit 731, etc…) Plus, they weren’t seen as obeying what were thought of in the US as the conventions of warfare, which didn’t exactly endear them to the troops. Unconditional surrender wasn’t something open to negotiation- the US was definitely war-weary at that point, but still had a grim resolve to see the war through, and using the atomic bomb was seen as a way to speed that along and save American lives. They’d already LONG since got over caring about killing Japanese civilians, so why NOT use the atomic bombs? ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/58 "2016-03-29T18:42:37Z")
If the Japanese had the atomic bomb first and dropped them on Seattle and Omaha, that would have ended the war too. I’m sure we would all be agreeing it was necessary, just in a different language. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/59 "2016-03-29T19:06:35Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > If the Japanese had the atomic bomb first and dropped them on Seattle and Omaha, that would have ended the war too. I’m sure we would all be agreeing it was necessary, just in a different language. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486/60 "2016-03-29T19:09:27Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > If the Japanese had the atomic bomb first and dropped them on Seattle and Omaha, that would have ended the war too. I’m sure we would all be agreeing it was necessary, just in a different language. Does everyone in Japan speak English now? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-1945-and-youre-harry-truman/750486.md?page=4)