# Sure the first A-bomb dropped was necessary. Why the second? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 2, 2001, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817 "2001-02-02T03:19:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Akatsukami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@Akatsukami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akatsukami)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2001, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/21 "2001-02-05T19:20:01Z")
**hapaXL** asks: > [@](#): > > question for anybody out there: how many people died significantly (1 year or so) after the bombing from cancer/effects of radiation, etc.? i know you can’t pinpoint the cause of a cancer, but couldn’t you establish a baseline and assume anything over it was caused by the bomb (it should end up to be a pretty decent approximation)? If you actually want to know the answer, it’s [here](http://www.rerf.or.jp/eigo/faqs/faqse.htm#faq2). ---
**Author:** ![Smith4506](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Smith4506](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smith4506)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2001, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/22 "2001-02-06T08:15:52Z")
> [@](#): > > the “one million US casulties” was pure propoganda. i think it was based on the idea that every single Japanese villager was a trained ninja. That’s certainly an inflammatory contention. And it’s wrong. Just looking at the casualties the Marines took at Iwo Jima and projecting the figures out would lead one to believe that heavy casualties would result from an invasion. You are also forgetting that the Japanese **military** was in no mood to surrender. See these links for more information. [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/giangrec.htm](http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/giangrec.htm) [http://www.cia.gov/csi/monograph/4253605299/csi9810001.html#rtoc8](http://www.cia.gov/csi/monograph/4253605299/csi9810001.html#rtoc8) [http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dyue/wiihist/hiroshima/ytruman.htm](http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dyue/wiihist/hiroshima/ytruman.htm) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2001, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/23 "2001-02-06T17:24:55Z")
The “one million” figure has been bandied about ever since an unsupported speech in 1947. It is possible that the U.S. might have incurred those casualties, but that is not the number that was projected in the summer of 1945. One of the things that has happened to the “one million” figure is that is has often been transformed from _casualties_ to _deaths_. Without minimizing the suffering involved in that number of _casualties_, the number of _deaths_ from 1,000,000 casualties would have been significantly lower. The human suffering involved with any invasion would have been tremendous. Extrapolating deaths from the Okinawa or Iwo Jima campaigns to an invasion of Japan, proper, however, is not realistic. The Japanese army began building extensive fortifications on their extended islands as soon as it was apparent that they might have to fight a defensive action. Iwo and Okinawa were, basically, fortresses that had to be taken one inch at a time. The home islands did not have similar networks of hardpoint defensive structures across their breadth. There were fortified locations, but the islands were not bristling with casements and weapons. The casualties expected on Japan should be better compared to the the fight for the Philipines, with the hostile population counting in favor of the defenders and the much more open countryside counting in favor of the invaders. (And we can probably have two or more threads arguing over which of those would give the defenders or the invaders the upper hand.) ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2001, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/24 "2001-02-06T18:25:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\*Iwo and Okinawa were, basically, fortresses that had to be taken one inch at a time. The home islands did not have similar networks of hardpoint defensive structures across their breadth. \*\* OK. But fighting for _your_ home, _in_ your homeland, is a psychological bunker that’s possibly harder to breach than a concrete one. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2001, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/25 "2001-02-06T19:15:07Z")
As I said about discussing those issues forever. . . . The civilians on Okinawa and Saipan did not stand next to the troops and fight. Many of them commit suicide in fear, due to Japanese military propaganda, but they did not fight. How much harder was it for us to conquer German territory (or Italian prior to the summer of 1944) than French? How difficult did the Germans find it to conquer France? Japan to conquer the Philipines? There was partisan activity and resistance, but nothing like “one million” casualties. Bushido was certainly a strong social force within the Japanese military. The Japanese are not the Borg, however. I am not discounting the possibility that the civilians would be willing to fight fiercely. On the other hand, the military had set up a really bad case of cognitive dissonance among the population. Radio reports were still declaring victories at a time when more and more cities were being bombed, not merely by long-range B-29s, but by Navy TBFs and SB2Cs. The people were not stupid. They knew that their leaders were not telling the truth. Would they have chosen to hurl themselves against an invading force in wild, suicide charges? It is possible. It is not _known_ and, without a view into an alternate universe where that happened, it cannot be known that that would happen. ---
**Author:** ![warinner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@warinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warinner)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2001, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/26 "2001-02-06T20:35:47Z")
tomndebb wrote: > [@](#): > > The home islands did not have similar networks of hardpoint defensive structures across their breadth. That is not correct. The Japanese had correctly deduced that Kyushu would be the next target for invasion and had worked hard to reinforce and fortify the island. US intelligence estimated that Kyushu had a garrison of 350,000 troops most of them in the north, away from the invasion beaches. In reality, there were 600,000 Imperial Japanese Army troops, (throw in Navy and Army Air Force personnel and the total rises to almost 900,000), almost all of them covering the invasion beaches in prepared positions. For the defense of Kyushu, the Japanese planned to use the same tactics as on Okinawa and Iwo Jima: fight from fortified positions, engage in attrional warfare and don’t waste troops in large counterattacks or banzai attacks. Another tactic the Japanese were relying upon in the defense of Kyushu was the kamikaze. In the Luzon and Okinawa campaigns, less than two thousand kamikaze attacks were launched in each. For the defense of Kyushu, at least 5,000 and possibly as many as 12,000 kamikaze sorties were planned. [And lest you argue that the Japanese didn’t have the aviation gasoline to launch those sorties, they did. The US Strategic Bombing Survey discovered after the war that the Japanese had stockpiled one million barrels of aviation fuel; only about 50,000 would have been necessary to launch 5,000 kamikaze attacks. Oh, as for the air superiority argument, 1405 B-29 counter-air sorties destroyed just 134 Japanese planes in a month’s worth of bombing. US strategic and tactical air would not have made a decisive impact on Japanese hoarded airplanes. > [@](#): > > The casualties expected on Japan should be better compared to the the fight for the Philipines, with the hostile population counting in favor of the defenders and the much more open countryside counting in favor of the invaders. Open countryside in Kyushu? Compare Kyushu to Luzon: Luzon has a central plain 40 miles wide and 120 miles long with a road network to support mobile operations. The Kyushu landings called for landings on three separate narrow plains bounded by mountainous terrain. The landing sites were unconnected by hard surfaced roads. The geography of Kyushu dictated a campaign of assaults against prepared Japanese positions in rough terrain, a situation that favored the defenders and guaranteed heavy casualties for the attackers. Andrew Warinner ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2001, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/27 "2001-02-06T20:39:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > You also have to remember that the people who dropped these bombs didn’t consider them the terror, end of the world, doomsday weapons we do. To them, they were just bigger bombs. Because they were just “bigger bombs.” We have devices now that really are near doomsday proportions, at (we, the public, think) in the hundreds of megatons. One bomb then took out a small city. One bomb now? Man. I _hate_ thinking about those suckers. ---
**Author:** ![warinner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@warinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warinner)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2001, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/28 "2001-02-06T20:57:58Z")
Emustrangler wrote: > [@](#): > > In fact (once again according to Howard Zinn) a message was intercepted from the Japanese Minister of Foreign affairs to his ambassodor in Moscow directing him to offer surrender to the Allies with the only condition being the presevation of the Emperor. Nope, even though Foreign Minister Sato was a member of the ‘peace’ faction of the Japanese cabinet, he understood well enough that peace based on the Potsdam declaration was unacceptable to the Japanese government as a whole: > [@](#): > > For instance, on the [July] 19th Captain Zacharias --although a member of the United States Office of War Information he broadcasts to Japan as a spokesman for the United States Government–disclosed the substance of surrender terms, saying that Japan had two choices to make. One was to submit to a dictated peace after the complete destruction of Japan; the other, to accept unconditional surrender and receive benefits under the Atlantic Charter. This is considered simple propaganda strategy. Although it is not definitely stated, this is to a certain degree understood to be a means of encouraging surrender. Nevertheless, special attention should be paid to the fact that at this time the United States referred to the Atlantic Charter. As for Japan, it is impossible to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we should like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter. The difficult point is the attitude of the enemy, who continues to insist on the formality of unconditional surrender. Should the United States and Great Britain remain insistent on formality, there is no solution to this situation other than for us to hold out until complete collapse because of this one point alone. > > Telegram #944, Togo to Sato [Japanese ambassador to the USSR], 7/25/45 As a result of the split in the Japanese government between ‘war’ and ‘peace’ factions, no formal reply to the Potsdam Declaration was made. Togo even quashed the tentative peace feelers being made through various parties in fear that it would provoke yet another military coup. > [@](#): > > Most likley scenario I’ve heard is that we wanted to let the Russians know we had them, and that we weren’t scared to use them, hence giving us an advantage in the Cold War to come. How do you explain the large amounts of US Lend-Lease aid demanded and received by the USSR at the Potsdam and Yalta conferences to stage the invasion of Manchuria? Why then did the US inform the USSR that it possessed atomic weapons at Potsdam? Andrew Warinner ---
**Author:** ![catmandu42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3ab097/32.png) [@catmandu42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catmandu42)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2001, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/29 "2001-02-07T01:03:00Z")
“Man. I hate thinking about those suckers.” You shouldn’t worry so much. If one of these things goes off, and you are anywhere relatively close, you’ll be a cloud of random atoms before you can say, “What was that light?” It’s actually fairly calming to know that at no time in my entire life have I lived less than one mile from a primary target… helped a lot during the 80’s. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2001, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/30 "2001-02-07T01:47:46Z")
As I said, we could wrangle over invasion scenarios for a long time. . . . 😉 ---
**Author:** ![panzermanpanzerman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9bcb4/32.png) [@panzermanpanzerman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panzermanpanzerman)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2001, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817/31 "2001-02-07T06:06:42Z")
Why drop the second bomb? Hmmm. Well, to improve fuel efficiency on the return flight would be a good enough reason for me! \ (I mean, do you really want to LAND with that thing on board? Or to fly around with people trying to shoot you?) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sure-the-first-a-bomb-dropped-was-necessary-why-the-second/52817.md?page=1)