# On the 58th Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2003, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428 "2003-08-06T21:27:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Optihut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/edb3f5/32.png) [@Optihut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optihut)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/61 "2003-08-08T02:34:28Z")
**elucidator** is right on. Furthermore I don´t see what´s wrong to indeed condemn the use of the atomic bomb from our sensitive point of view of today? Sure, one could always say “But Hitler and Stalin were worse” or “It was just the sign of the times” and be right about it. However, we have a responsibility to the present and the future and excusing past actions, just because we (well, actually I don´t, but that is beside the point) happen to coincidently share the same home country (which isn´t even true as the USA of today are not the same USA of the 1940s, as I daresay there isn´t only a technological, but also a sociological progress) is a very dangerous path to tread, imho. After all, the repitition of past mistakes can only happen, if we are willing to actually learn from history. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/62 "2003-08-08T02:46:12Z")
Speaking as a time traveler from the year 10,500, Optihut, I can say with assurance that by my society’s standards, you should be hanged as a blasphemer and a disfigurer of the human soul. Using thinking machines for work and leisure! We got rid of _your_ ilk during the great Butlerian Jihad. Thank the Great Mother we can see clearly enough to condemn you traitors to the human race. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/63 "2003-08-08T02:50:31Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s clear, elucidator, that it won’t be possible to reason you out of a position that you didn’t use reason to arrive at in the first place… _Ad hominem_. Tsk. > [@](#): > > …First, you said that the invasion would be a cakewalk. When it was demonstrated to you that this was patently not the case,… Tell you what, **Doggy** You show me where I said anything like “cakewalk”. Take your time. Read reeeeeeeal slow. If your lips get tired, I can wait. > [@](#): > > …If they could have held on without starving, what makes you think they would have surrendered?.. Don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. If a bit of patience might have saved a couple hundred thousand lives, I suggest it would have been worth it. > [@](#): > > …And now your rhetoric has started putting out feelers down yet another avenue, namely that “all we had to do was let them keep their emperor and they would have surrendered”. An entirely plausible outcome, I do believe. Which is, in fact, pretty much what we did, isn’t it? And since thats what we did _anyway_ I fail to see what harm would result from offering it. > [@](#): > > …that you don’t know what Versailles was about and why it was so important in Allied leaders’ minds. You lost me there. Do you mean Potsdam? To me, following the lead of much more gifted readers of history, the lesson of _Versaille_ is not to stomp on a defeated enemies face, unless a revenge scenario is your goal. > [@](#): > > In short, you’re a historical ignoramus … The late lamented **Coll** didn’t get away with this sort of thing. You won’t either. Word to the wise. ---
**Author:** ![Optihut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/edb3f5/32.png) [@Optihut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optihut)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/64 "2003-08-08T02:54:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doghouse Reilly \* > **First, you said that the invasion would be a cakewalk. When it was demonstrated to you that this was patently not the case, you did a Rosanne Rosanna-Danna and said, “nevermind, I’m not talking about invasion, I’m saying invasion wasn’t necessary”.** Actually **elucidator** said right away that an invasion was not necessary. Then he said that dropping the bomb to avoid an invasion was nonsense (to spell it out for those who don´t understand why: Because he stated before that the invasion wasn´t necessary in the first place.). **Doghouse** , while it is always a nice twist to simply make up stuff when one is lacking real arguments, please don´t insult everyone´s intelligence by making up stuff in a 2 page long thread. We all can read and we all have longer attention spans, thank you very much. > [@](#): > > **Now in the breath you say that you doubt that the Japanese people would have starved . . . and that we should have waited six months. Waited six months for _what_?!? If they could have held on without starving, what makes you think they would have surrendered?** Look… This may be hard to understand, but there is something called reading in context. He wasn´t doubting that if (and that´s a BIG IF) the Japanese had insisted on fighting on by sitting on their island and suffering, they would have starved. He was doubting the claim that he would be now complaining about starving them to death. What a lot of people here - including you - fail to see is the other possibility that Japan actually would have surrendered (they tried, but since it wasn´t “unconditional”…). It´s really amazing that pro-atomic bomb debaters say “Ah, the Japanese would never ever ever surrender! They were so fanatical and kept fighting, even when they had already lost!”, but aren´t in the least surprised that after the a-bomb all that unbreakable will just evaporated. Look at the troop movement of the allies in Germany before their surrender, look at Japanese attempts at a conditional surrender and then reach your own conclusion about a government hell bent on testing their newest toy. > [@](#): > > **And now your rhetoric has started putting out feelers down yet another avenue, namely that “all we had to do was let them keep their emperor and they would have surrendered”.** It can be concluded from historical evidence, yes. Of course not, if you just blindly subscribe to the “we (and again I cringe at that ‘we’, as it has nothing to do with present day people) had to drop the bomb!” propaganda. > [@](#): > > \*\*In short, you’re a historical ignoramus determined to project his present-day agenda onto issues of the past that he doesn’t understand very well in the first place. \*\* Where is the next mirror? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/65 "2003-08-08T02:54:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jackmannii \* > \*\*Really? No more Japanese fleet anchorage by the time of the first A-bomb dropping? No military bases of any kind? > > Avoiding _any_ civilian casualties may well have been impossible. Making first use of a terrible new weapon in such a way as to minimize those casualties sounds worth the risk, to my postwar sensibilities. \*\* To postwar sensibilities, yes, but at the time civilians were targets. The point that was being made is that “precision” bombing was impossible with the technology of the time, though the myth still survives somewhat today. In Europe, the US conducted daylight bombing of cities where the declared target had some military value - a factory, a rail yard, etc. That was _not_ where most of the bombs would end up though, and everyone knew it, excepting perhaps the public which was still fed propaganda about the wonders of the Norden bomb sight. In Japan, this paper thin fiction was abandoned and the US switched to low altitude night bombing of Japanese cities with incendiaries, which due to the paper and wood construction of Japanese housing, was even more effective than the bombing of Germany. The attitude of the US public at the time was far different than it is today, as was that of the soldiers involved. Polls during the war were consistent with 10-13 percent of the US public favoring the extermination of the Japanese people. The collection of gold teeth, bones and skulls of dead Japanese soldiers as trophies was fairly common practice amongst Allied soldiers. I don’t intend this as an indictment of Allied actions, Japanese atrocities during the war are legion and well known. **elucidator** : During those six weeks or six months delay, the strategic bombing of Japan wasn’t going to come to a halt, Japanese civilians would still be burning to death or obliterated by high explosives. Even if the US were to quit the conventional bombing, deaths would still have occurred through starvation. Japan’s position was militarily hopeless, and had been for some time. Japan’s aim during the war was not for victory over the US, but to take a string of bases in the Pacific upon which the US would bleed itself until the (in their eyes) decadent American public could stand no more, allowing Japan to continue its war in China. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, however, laid this strategy futile if there was ever truly any hope of it working. From mid-1944, when the Japanese navy was soundly defeated in hopelessly lopsided battles and bases for the bombing of Japan had been taken, the writing was on the wall to all but the blind. Continued resistance was an exercise in protracted suicide, but the Japanese leadership chose to keep at it. I see nothing wrong with being offended with the concept of total war, I am myself, but sorting out the atomic bomb from the rest of it ignoring how brutal the rest of it was. Total war has receded into the background since World War II, but it still exists – if the cold war had gone hot, the US and the USSR would have carried total war out to its logical conclusion: mutual annihilation. ---
**Author:** ![Optihut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/edb3f5/32.png) [@Optihut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optihut)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/66 "2003-08-08T02:59:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doghouse Reilly \* > \*\*Speaking as a time traveler from the year 10,500, Optihut, I can say with assurance that by my society’s standards, you should be hanged as a blasphemer and a disfigurer of the human soul. Using thinking machines for work and leisure! > We got rid of _your_ ilk during the great Butlerian Jihad. Thank the Great Mother we can see clearly enough to condemn you traitors to the human race. \*\* I object to this! I never used thinking machines. And if in the year 10,500 you got rid of distorted national pride clouding your judgement, I´ll face your trial there. But going by your posts here, I fear that my worst suspicions about the present and the future, the year 10,500 in particular, will come true. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/67 "2003-08-08T03:01:10Z")
> [@](#): > > But again, your scenario insists on invasion. In return, I posit the same question: what could we have lost simply by waiting? Hundreds of soldiers were being killed daily. The Indianapolis was sunk AFTER it delivered the bomb. No one knew where the next attack might come from. Plus, you just don’t give the enemy the chance to catch its breath, regroup, plan new attacks, or just regain their composure and decide to fight on. Total war is about hammering away until one side capitulates. Your opinions, elucidator, are hopelessly naive, and betray a lack of understanding of what that war was all about. You think the Americans should have stopped and just _waited_ while thousands of POW’s rotted in camps, while Japanese subs patrolled the seas sinking all targets of opportunity, while daily kamikaze attacks were occuring? No serious scholar of that war would agree with you. But if you want to make a case for waiting… How about Germany? Germany was in far worse shape than Japan. Germany had taken a hell of a beating. It was in full retreat. It was drafting 12 year old boys because of a manpower shortage. But the allies pressed on until that country had _unconditionally surrendered_. Not just negotiated a cease-fire, or withdrawn into its borders and said uncle. Total, unconditional surrender. Its’ army disbanded, its leaders dead or in prison. ---
**Author:** ![Optihut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/edb3f5/32.png) [@Optihut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optihut)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/68 "2003-08-08T03:13:03Z")
**Sam Stone** , to believe that an economically crippled Japan (Hint: Island. Resource shortage) could still muster a super effective counter attack makes even less sense than invading some desert country for an alleged fear of a non existant nuclear threat. As for Germany, the USA had no choice but to press on and accept a surrender there or else the GDR would have been much bigger. I guess in that light I should be grateful that the bomb was dropped there, rather than here. It still doesn´t make it right though 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/69 "2003-08-08T03:14:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > Tell you what, **Doggy** You show me where I said anything like “cakewalk”. Take your time. Read reeeeeeeal slow. If your lips get tired, I can wait. How else are we supposed to interpret this statement: “The Black Knight out of Monty/Holy Grail (“Come back here, I’ll bite yer legs off!”) was a more effective and credible enemy. The Japanese were preparing to resist an invasion with sharpened bamboo, fer Chrissake!” Sure does sound like you thought–at that particular moment, anyway–that resistence to an American invasion would be ineffectual. > [@](#): > > Don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. If a bit of patience might have saved a couple hundred thousand lives, I suggest it would have been worth it. Maybe, maybe not. :rolleyes: And what kind of position would the allies have been in if Truman took the advice of sage advisor elucidator, and it turns out that hundreds of thousands starved and/or burned to death anyway? Just shrug and say “oh well, we meant for the best”? > [@](#): > > An entirely plausible outcome, I do believe. Which is, in fact, pretty much what we did, isn’t it? And since thats what we did _anyway_ I fail to see what harm would result from offering it. You do understand that there’s a difference between being magnanimous in victory vs. hesitant in _achieving_ victory? > [@](#): > > You lost me there. Do you mean Potsdam? To me, following the lead of much more gifted readers of history, the lesson of _Versaille_ is not to stomp on a defeated enemies face, unless a revenge scenario is your goal. Bravo, you know enough to parrot other people’s verdicts of [_Versailles_](http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/menu.htm). But the verdict I implied–it’s better to make a clean sweep in victory and make sure that your enemy is never in a position to threaten you again–hardly conflicts with the one you mention. Stomping on a defeated enemy’s face presupposes that his face is still intact enough to be stomped on. > [@](#): > > The late lamented **Coll** didn’t get away with this sort of thing. You won’t either. Word to the wise. Along with accusations of sock puppetry and discussions of “ignore” lists, I really don’t think threats of banning by a non-Mod have any place here. If a Mod or Admin feels that I’ve erred in pointing out your irrationality and historical revisionism in this subject, I’ll listen to them. But not you, twinkle toes. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/70 "2003-08-08T03:18:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by E-Sabbath \* > \*\*Nagasaki, for the heck of it, was dropped on a… was it munitions plant? The main body of the city was shielded by a mountain. \*\* nagasaki was the alternate site for the bomb to be dropped , it was one of a select group of citys that was left untouched to gauge the bda of the a-bomb. Declan ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/71 "2003-08-08T03:25:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Optihut \* > **Sam Stone** , to believe that an economically crippled Japan (Hint: Island. Resource shortage) could still muster a super effective counter attack makes even less sense than invading some desert country for an alleged fear of a non existant nuclear threat. You might want to reflect on the fact that even now, after Japan’s total defeat and after a peace clause has been inserted into its constitution for the past half century, its neighbors _still_ live in dread of Japanese militarism. If Japan’s government of the time had been allowed to sustain its existence under the terms of a negotiated surrender, how much of a long-term threat to peace and stability would it have been then? Hell yes, Japan would have been a threat after it had been allowed to catch a breather, if not in six months then certainly within six years or more. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/72 "2003-08-08T03:28:45Z")
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were major industrial centers and key to Japan’s warmaking capability. No one knew if Japan would surrender, and the U.S. was months away from having another bomb. If Japan hadn’t surrendered, the U.S. wanted to make sure that its warmaking capability was crippled. This stuff about using those cities as an experiment has no basis in fact. It’s just conspiracy theory. Of course, I am willing to be proven wrong - please offer some credible cites. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/73 "2003-08-08T03:30:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Declan \* > **Actually I was thinking of when you got the news that the war was over, movie reels of new york city with all those sailors and girls ,and I imagine everywhere else.** Movie reels? We were in tents in Florennes, Belgium. As I remember it, someone in another squadron about half a mile away shot off a flare and my friend and I went back to our checkers game, but there was a great load lifted off us. > [@](#): > > **Did you go into an imediate standdown, or did your squadron continue normal ops till you were de mobbed.** We hadn’t been really active in anything except make-work since a couple of weeks before the war ended in Europe. During the war there was a thing called the “bomb line” which marked the place where our forces could get to under the most optomistic scenario. Bombs weren’t dropped on our side of that line. For the last two weeks of the war, the German collapse in the west was so rapid that no one knew where to draw the line and so air operations came to a complete halt. Our training in A-26’s were’nt yet organized and things were sort of haphazard. We flew regularly but were mostly just sightseeing and putting in time. > [@](#): > > **And if you would not mind a personal question , did you find the next couple of years boring , after going through so many combat hours.** Not a bit and I didn’t really put in all that many combat hours. I got to the ETO late, in early December 1944. Actually, by the time I arrived a medium bomb group was the perfect spot for a lazy guy. You flew maybe two or three times a week and the rest of the time was your own. You could play cards, checkers, read, go to town or whatever suited your fancy. > [@](#): > > **Glad ya made it through alive though** Well, in spite of everything the odds were on my side by quite a margin. That’s why the GI insurance was so cheap. Declan \*\* [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/74 "2003-08-08T03:49:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Optihut \* > It´s really amazing that pro-atomic bomb debaters say “Ah, the Japanese would never ever ever surrender! They were so fanatical and kept fighting, even when they had already lost!”, but aren´t in the least surprised that after the a-bomb all that unbreakable will just evaporated. Where do you get this notion? After they had two atomic bombs dropped on them and Tokyo had been firebombed into ashes (killing more people than in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki I might add) not to mention that their navy was essentially gone the military attempted a coup to depose the emperor and came close to pulling it off. Certainly there were people in Japan ready to surrender but there was a strong contingent that didn’t want to surrender under any circumstances. > [@](#): > > Look at the troop movement of the allies in Germany before their surrender, look at Japanese attempts at a conditional surrender and then reach your own conclusion about a government hell bent on testing their newest toy. It has already been posted right here in this thread (not to mention a bunch of similar threads) that Truman wrestled with this decision. “Hell bent” is not a word I would apply to the decison. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/75 "2003-08-08T04:25:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were major industrial centers and key to Japan’s warmaking capability. No one knew if Japan would surrender, and the U.S. was months away from having another bomb. If Japan hadn’t surrendered, the U.S. wanted to make sure that its warmaking capability was crippled. > > This stuff about using those cities as an experiment has no basis in fact. It’s just conspiracy theory. Of course, I am willing to be proven wrong - please offer some credible cites. \*\* As a quick cite,_The Oxford Companion to World War II:_ > [@](#): > > Much discussion by a Target Committee had preceded the decision to make Hiroshima the first target. To be able to assess the damage it caused, and to impress the Japanese government with the destruction it was expected to wreak, it was necessary to choose a city that had not yet been touched by the USAAF’s strategic air offensives. Kyoto was also considered but its unveiled beauty ruled it out. I still defend that if the atomic bomb program had been a wash, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been burned to the ground in conventional bombing, but they were picked as cities that had not (yet) been firebombed. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/76 "2003-08-08T04:46:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wang-Ka \* > \*\*And we had a neat new toy to try out, and who knew when we’d have this opportunity again? > \*\* In the book **War and Peace in the Nuclear Age** , the author suggests an interesting reason, aside from those advanced already, that went like this: The government had spent million of dollars and years developing an atomic bomb. Suppose they don’t drop it and the war ends after a bloody invansion of Japan. How do you think that’s going to look to the average citizen of the times when news of the existance of the bomb becomes news. “Okay, let me get this straight, Mr. Truman, You spent a lot of taxpayer money to develop a weapon that could have ended the months ago with far fewer American lives lost and you didn’t use it? What the hell were you thinking?” That and I’ve also gotten the impression from various sources that in 1945, the Atom bomb was not considered to be an “End of the World” weapon it is now, but rather a really big bomb(as far as I know, the radiation effects were not known at the time. Not sure if it would have mattered to Truman). Considering you’re already destorying cities with fleets of firebombing B-29’s, why not use this weapon to make the job easier? As the American President in 1945, you want to end the war as soon as possible. So, from that mindset, why not? ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/77 "2003-08-08T05:00:17Z")
Having said the above, I feel that what was known at the time, the Atomic bomb was no more immoral then firebombing entire cities into oblivian. Give the choice between an Atomic Bomb and an Invasion, based on what was known in 1945, I would say the Bomb was the lesser of 2 evils. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@Dave\_D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_D)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/78 "2003-08-08T06:21:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were major industrial centers and key to Japan’s warmaking capability. No one knew if Japan would surrender, and the U.S. was months away from having another bomb. If Japan hadn’t surrendered, the U.S. wanted to make sure that its warmaking capability was crippled. > \*\* Well this link seems to indicate the next nuke was a few weeks away. [http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq8.html#nfaq8.1.5](http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq8.html#nfaq8.1.5) Not too sure how accurate it was but it makes it sounds like the only reasons we did make a few more nukes was that we weren’t at war anymore. ---
**Author:** ![CyberPundit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@CyberPundit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CyberPundit)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/79 "2003-08-08T06:30:50Z")
Those who defend the dropping of the atom bombs (and the fire-bombing of civilian areas) by invoking “total war” and “unconditional surrender” are missing the point. The debate is about the moral legitimacy of those concepts not about whether the bombings would have been justified assuming them. Any principled analysis of war must start with the idea that it is wrong to deliberately target and kill civilians especially in the hundreds of thousands. The maximum possible care must be taken to fight war without huirting civlians. The US clearly did nothing of the sort; on the contrary it dropped fire-bombs on residential areas with the express purpose of killing civilians. That is a war-crime and it has been admitted as such by the likes of McNamara who was involved in planning the strategic bombing campaign. As for alternatives to full-scale invasion, the US could easily have reversed Japan’s aggressions in East Asia and destroyed most of Japan’s navy without invading Japan itself. Since Japan was heavily dependent on overseas resources (one of the reasons it started the war in the first place) it was not a plausible long-term threat without its empire and in the face of the vastly greater naval capacity of the US. As for WW1 and Versailles I think the main lesson was that the US needed to be actively involved in preserving the balance of power in Europe and Asia and that the democracies needed to be united and vigilant in preventing any hostile power from destroying the peace. You didn’t need “unconditional surrender” and the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians to apply this lesson after WW2. BTW anyone who wants to get a sense of what these bombings meant to actual people should watch the great animated film Grave of the Fireflies. It is not a propoganda film at all but a stark look at the lives of two Japanese children who are orphaned by the fire-bombings. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428/80 "2003-08-08T09:46:22Z")
Strange: I seem to be writing in invisible ink, and almost no one in this thread seems interested in reviewing the historical facts on this issue. For those here who have argued that the US had “no alternative” but to unleash the A-bomb, may I ask how you respond to Eisenhower’s and MacArthur’s assessments to the contrary, which I posted earlier? **xtisme** : > [@](#): > > _Where does this idea that the Japanese were on the verge of collapse come from? I don’t have a cite, but I remember reading years ago that the US was projecting horrific casualities based on how the Japanese fought for Okanawa. Casualties both from our own forces and from the military/civilian population of Japan as a whole. If memory serves, it was well over a million projected deaths at a minimum._ There were a number of different casuality estimates floating around at the time. The most well-known is the “1 million” estimate, which no one took seriously, although estimates of up 500, 000 _were_ seriously considered. But most believed even those were well over the top, and I’ve seen estimates as low as 50,000, which I’ve not been able to relocate thus far. These estimates assume that the US would be invading on its own, and fail to take into account the fact that Russia had also declared war on Japan and opened up a front in Manchuria. But first things first: regarding the belief that Japan was on the verge of collapse. Here are a few citations: > [@](#): > > \*\* Careful scholarly treatment of the records and manuscripts opened over the past few years has greatly enhanced our understanding of why the Truman administration used atomic weapons against Japan. Experts continue to disagree on some issues, but critical questions have been answered. The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. IT IS CLEAR THAT ALTERNATIVES TO THE BOMB EXISTED AND THAT TRUMAN AND HIS ADVISERS KNEW IT. \* – J. Samuel Walker, Chief Historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission\* > _y far the easiest [question] to answer, is whether it was ESSENTIAL to use the bomb in order to compel the Japanese to surrender on our terms within a few months. It was not … There can hardly be a well-grounded dissent from the conclusion reached by the members of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey … “that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” \* – Herbert Feis, JAPAN SUBDUED: THE ATOMIC BOMB AND THE END OF THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC > “The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air….it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.” \* – Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces_ > LEMAY: The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb. > THE PRESS: You mean that, sir? Without the Russians and the atomic bomb? > LEMAY: The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all. > _—Major General Curtis E. LeMay, Twenty-First Bomber Command_ > The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war. . . .The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan. _– Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet_ > The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it. . . . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before. – _Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander U.S. Third Fleet_\*\* That’s just a small sampling. So, in answer to your query: > [@](#): > > - What I would like to know is, where does this notion that the Japanese were on their last leg come from? Or that they were on the verge of collapse? I know that as an offensive military force they were done…but on the defensive they seemed to be continuing the fight. Is there anything to back it up this notion or is it head in the clouds wishful thinking or revisionist history?\* It is, in all probability, revisionist history that has led you to believe the opposite. Regarding this: > [@](#): > > - Also, where does the notion come from that the Americans dropped the bomb just for the fun of trying out a new toy come from? That the administration KNEW that the Japanese were about to collapse, but wanted to test the bomb out first just for the fun of it?\* Well, anybody who believes that the US dropped the bomb “just for fun” is seriously out to lunch. But there are strong arguments that alternatives to dropping it existed and that Truman knew this; naturally, the question then arises, “If not for military necessity, then for what reason was it dropped?” I don’t have an answer to that question, as I am personally undecided as to whether or not Truman (and many on his staff) believed it to be necessary. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-58th-anniversary-of-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/193428.md?page=5)