# The U.S. gets the bomb...a year early **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 8, 2005, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562 "2005-07-08T04:44:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [July 8, 2005, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/21 "2005-07-08T18:47:37Z")
> [@](#): > > I suspect that the industrial Rhine would have been a target. No, the heavy manufacturing was far too spread out to affect with two nukes easily. It would have been a major but very temporary setback for Germany. Some sectors of Berlin were absolutely critical to the war effort, however, and probably would have become huge targets whether or not they hit central Berlin. ---
**Author:** ![zega](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@zega](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zega)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2005, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/22 "2005-07-08T21:11:38Z")
Here is a very interesting article I just found. It argues that Germany was never considered a target, even in 1943. Here are two interesting quotes from the article, and the link. “The point of use of the first bomb was discussed and the general view appeared to be that its best point of use would be on a Japanese fleet concentration in the Harbor of Truk [an island in the Pacific Ocean]. General Styer suggested Tokio [sic] but it was pointed out that the bomb should be used where, if it failed to go off, it would land in water of sufficient depth to prevent easy salvage. The Japanese were selected as they would not be so apt to secure knowledge from it as would the Germans.(4)” “What began in the early years of the war due to fear of a German nuclear weapons program was completely transformed by the fall of 1944 to a project of using nuclear weapons as a tool of immense military superiority to be used to accomplish a variety of goals. In order to do that, successful use of the bomb as an instrument of power had, first of all, to be demonstrated.” > **[Special Hiroshima and Nagasaki Commemoration Issue (Vol. 4, No. 3) -...](https://ieer.org/article/science-for-democratic-action/volume-4-number-3/)** > > Contents 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference: Outcomes and Implications (Tessie Topol) "Always" the Target? (Arjun Makhijani) Radiation Turns 100 (Hisham Zerriffi) Retrospective on the Nuclear Age Atomic Puzzler Published July 17, 1995 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2005, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/23 "2005-07-08T22:26:31Z")
One possible target might have been the Pennemunde rocket site in Prussia. It would have clearly been a major military target, it would have delayed Germany’s ability to strike back at the allies, and there was a minimal civilian population (although there were prisoners working at the site). It would have been an effective place to make a “demonstration” attack. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/24 "2005-07-09T00:12:14Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I think a case could be made for Berlin, especially if Hitler and his henchmen were known to be there. The Third Reich was, at its root, a personality cult. Disorder and fascism are incompatible. I’d think Berlin would have been avoided precisely for the reason of not killing Hitler and his henchmen. Do that, and the German military could be tossed into disarray because they couldn’t figure out exactly who was in charge to surrender. The idea with using atom bombs is to do so in whichever way will produce the quickest surrender. ---
**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:** [July 9, 2005, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/25 "2005-07-09T00:17:04Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Ithey couldn’t figure out exactly who was in charge to surrender. Did they figure it out after hitler shot himself, or did he leave instructions for Donitz to run things? ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/26 "2005-07-09T00:23:04Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Did they figure it out after hitler shot himself, or did he leave instructions for Donitz to run things? But Hitler was just one man. Obviously the Germans always had chain of command that would take over if Hitler somehow died. The problem with an atomic bomb is conceivably all the top 10 or 20 in the German chain of command could be in Berlin at any one time. I seem to recall reading once this was one of the reasons why the US didn’t drop the first A-bomb on Tokyo. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/27 "2005-07-09T00:35:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Did they figure it out after hitler shot himself, or did he leave instructions for Donitz to run things? Hitler designated Donitz as his successor right before he killed himself. > [@](#): > > Obviously the Germans always had chain of command that would take over if Hitler somehow died. Actually most dictators do not set up a chain of command and Hitler was no exception. Most dictators realize it’s a bad idea to tell one of your henchmen he’s the Number 2 Guy in the set-up. All your other henchmen are going to be annoyed and even your favorite is going to be thinking the top spot is better than second place and all that’s holding him back is you being inconveniently alive. So like a Mom, you tell all of your kids you love them equally and none of them is your favorite. ---
**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:** [July 9, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/28 "2005-07-09T00:44:10Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > All your other henchmen are going to be annoyed and even your favorite is going to be thinking the top spot is better than second place and all that’s holding him back is you being inconveniently alive. That was very well worded. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/29 "2005-07-09T01:20:19Z")
The submarine pens, the drydocks, & the shipyards. ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/30 "2005-07-09T03:02:47Z")
## **Bosda:** I chose mid-September for my scenario because it was after Market Garden and it is clear at that point that the War won’t be over by Christmas – as it seemed it might possibly be for most of the late summer. But your timeline is obviously possible. ## I don’t disagree with the Dictator stuff or that it might be hard to find one guy to make a surrender stick. Still I state again – that the only way an A-Bombing would bring about a dramatic immediate German surrender would be the destruction of Hitler and the Nazi Leadership in Berlin. If someone like Ludwig Beck didn’t survive perhaps Rommel in the West and/or Heinz Guderian in the East would be in defacto control of the forces - at least in their theaters. I think it very likely that they would sue for some sort of immediate Armistice, with a complete and immediate (Semi)unconditional surrender to the West not out of the question. Add me to those with no doubts that a 2 billion dollar A-bomb would have been used ASAP (as it was) - Be that use on Germany, Japan or wherever. This is not saying that there wasn’t an ugly racial element (on both sides) to the Pacific war – there was. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/31 "2005-07-09T14:19:08Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Actually most dictators do not set up a chain of command and Hitler was no exception. Most dictators realize it’s a bad idea to tell one of your henchmen he’s the Number 2 Guy in the set-up. All your other henchmen are going to be annoyed and even your favorite is going to be thinking the top spot is better than second place and all that’s holding him back is you being inconveniently alive. So like a Mom, you tell all of your kids you love them equally and none of them is your favorite. Fair point. But in that case, it would have been even more important had the US had the A-bomb before Germany was defeated that they not nuke Hitler. With no obvious #2 guy, if Hitler was dead there wouldn’t be anyone who could quickly say “we surrender.” ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2005, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/32 "2005-07-10T13:14:05Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Actually most dictators do not set up a chain of command and Hitler was no exception. Except that Hitler did outline a chain of succession to cover the event of his death on a couple of occasions. From [his speech](http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/HITLER1.htm) to the Reichstag on the first day of the war: > [@](#): > > Should anything happen to me in the struggle then my first successor is Party Comrade Goring; should anything happen to Party Comrade Goring my next successor is Party Comrade Hess. You would then be under obligation to give to them as Fuhrer the same blind loyalty and obedience as to myself. Should anything happen to Party Comrade Hess, then by law the Senate will be called, and will choose from its midst the most worthy - that is to say the bravest - successor. Hess’s flight to Scotland obviously upset this arrangement and that, together with the rejigging of responsibilities prompted by Barbarossa, meant that there was a decree issued on 29th June 1941 reiterating that Göring was still the designated successor. It is however true that this had absolutely no bearing on Göring’s actual standing or influence at any one time. Thus when, in January 1945, Lammers later suggested to Bormann that the matter be reviewed, he agreed that Göring was now out of favour but doubted that Hitler would show this by issuing another decree. And in his political testiment Hitler explicitly retracts the 1941 decree before appointing Dönitz. Though this move probably has less to do with any concern for legal nicities and more to do with the fact that Göring has just tried to use it to declare himself Führer while Hitler remains alive. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/33 "2005-07-11T14:18:43Z")
Off the cuff, I was inclined to say “Bye-bye, Berlin.” Then I remembered that Hitler was spending most of his time in East Prussia by the end of war (that’s where the von Stauffenberg assassination attempt was, IIRC). He wasn’t moving around as stealthily as Saddam Hussein did before the 2003 U.S. invasion, but I don’t think the Allies knew exactly where Hitler was all the time, even if they’d wanted to kill him. I see some logic in the view that the Allies would’ve wanted him alive so that he could give the surrender order, but I also think they understood his mindset well enough to know that he was a to-the-bitter-end kind of guy. When all is said and done, if the Allies could’ve killed Hitler, they would’ve. If they had “actionable intelligence” that he was in Berlin or some other major city, or even at Wolf’s Lair, it very likely would’ve been nuked. Failing that, a major German industrial area or military concentration, such as during the Ardennes campaign, could be flattened. Peenemunde is also a good targeting suggestion - weren’t the V1s and V2s pounding Britain around that time? FDR might want to oblige his pal Winston by taking out the source of all those rockets. I strongly agree that the A-bomb would have been used against the Nazis had it been available in time. It wouldn’t have been “saved” for the Japanese. FDR and Churchill decided early on that the Nazis were a bigger threat than the Japanese were. Yes, there was a lot of ugly racism against “Japs” in that era, but from all my reading on the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and I’ve done a lot), that wasn’t a major factor. It was done to shorten the war, save American lives, and (to a degree) send a signal to Stalin. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/34 "2005-07-11T15:55:10Z")
If it was available and there was a good target, it would have been used. But… was there a good target, at the time? Japan was good, for two reasons. A: None of our troops or agents in place on the ground. B: Nigh-impossible to reduce by normal means. Even then, there was concern about using the bomb. There was also concern about fighting house to house through an entire island. I don’t think, in '44, we were looking at any battles of equivalent difficulty. If we were the Soviets, we would use it. Possibly overlapping our own troops. But I can’t see anywhere that it would have been significant enough to use in '44. '43, maybe. ---
**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:** [July 11, 2005, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/35 "2005-07-11T16:15:50Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > A: None of our troops or agents in place on the ground. There were American POWs at one of the targets. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/36 "2005-07-11T17:40:15Z")
Good point… but I think we missed our target on that drop. It landed on the wrong side of the hill. And they weren’t … uhm… active troops. Er. Effective military units. Do we even know if we knew they were there? I suppose C: is the logical “Plus, they’re not white.” It certainly must have been a factor of some kind. After all, the germans are, in many ways, relatives of ours. (The three great influences on the land… the Dutch, the English, and the German.) I find it hard to be convinced that, ca '44, there was a suitable target for a morally questionable, but exceptionally powerful, bomb, in Germany. Anyone care to grab a timeline and map and try to check points? I don’t think we _would_ bomb Berlin, for the same reason we didn’t nuke Tokyo: We need someone to negotiate _with_, after we prove our total superiority. ---
**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:** [July 11, 2005, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/37 "2005-07-11T18:15:01Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Good point… but I think we missed our target on that drop. It landed on the wrong side of the hill. And they weren’t … uhm… active troops. Er. Effective military units. Do we even know if we knew they were there? Missed with an atomic bomb? It was an air burst, far above any hills. Perhaps the presence of [POWs](http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2004/02/16/2003098965) wasn’t know. > [@From the link:](#): > > But the POWs are among the least remembered casualties – their fate wasn’t widely known until researchers digging through archives began to document the story in the 1970s. > An important clue came in 1977 when a professor from Hiroshima University found a Japanese list of 20 American POWs listed as killed in the atomic attack. > Some of those names were later found to belong to prisoners who had been killed elsewhere in grisly experiments that the Japanese military apparently wanted to hide. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/38 "2005-07-11T18:16:57Z")
Fully 30% of the United States military in WWII was of German descent, including its Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Yet that didn’t stop the Germans from declaring war on us, nor us from fighting them. It didn’t stop the previous war either, which really was a bunch of white people fighting each other, at least on the Western Front. Looking for racial motives in warfighting is a mistake, IMHO, and is even a mistake for an overtly racist regime like Nazi Germany’s. ---
**Author:** ![zega](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@zega](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zega)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/39 "2005-07-11T19:08:58Z")
I’m still not convinced that Germany would be bombed for the reasons suggested here. On top of the \article\ I mentioned earlier, there are several problems with bombing Germany. Getting Hitler is right out. How can the destruction of an entire city be justified in order to kill one man? I’m not talking about justifying it hypothetically or philosophically, I’m talking about justifying it to the commanders in charge, to the politicians in charge, and ultimately to the populace. Sure, the population could be fed lies, but would the politicians have agreed to perpetrate such lies, at considerable risk to their careers? Also, I see a problem with bombing cities that the Russians might have their eye on. In order to select a target in Germany proper, the Russians would have to be considered, since it wasn’t clear in mid-1944 where exactly the East-West split would occur. If the target is likely to be taken by Russians, the Russians may have to be consulted, which, considering the weapon, would not have happened. So, bombing an eastern city without consulting the Russians may inflame relations with Russia at a time when defeating Hitler was still going to be a tough job, and heavily reliant on Russian manpower. Bombing an eastern city (such as Berlin) would also allow the Russians to more likely examine the results of such a bomb, and deny that plum to the American scientists. If such a bomb produced surrender, German territory would still have to be split between the Allies. The US may have been able to bully Stalin into giving more to the Americans, but that would be an _extremely_ risky proposition when the US is only sitting on 2 bombs, dependant on Russia for overseeing the German surrender, and facing off against a Soviet army of gargantuan proportions and greater experience (since this is July 1944…). Also, considering the Russian mentality, and Stalin’s brutality, Stalin may have actually risked revolt and simply evacuated its major cities. A country capable of such brutal and self-sacrificing warfare could possibilty be driven to that, and it’s something the US would have be very nervous of testing. Selecting a western city or target would still pose problems. How fast would Germany capitulate? Would a German collapse let the Russians gobble up more of Germany than the Americans, given their extra manpower? I guess I could imagine Germany making a deal with the Americans to hand off most of their territory to them, given the German hatred and fear of Bolsheviks and Soviet cruelty. Then most German troops could be transferred to the eastern front to hold of the Russians, who may or may not decide to press on in the face of (limited) nuclear power. But once you start thinking about American and the Germany fighting Russians, you’re talking about maybe extending the war, or jumping from one war to another. This would be a drastic change in plans, and I don’t think the US was prepared to make that kind of decision, in political and social terms, despite Patton’s blustering. Ultimately I think the US preferred a predictable, gradual advance that would keep relations with Stalin relatively good, but still pressing on so as not to lose too much of central Europe to the Soviets. Throwing a nuclear weapon into the mix is a huge gamble. Clearly , not of these problems was present in Japan. Only the US was really fighting Japan, and certainly only the US was considering invading the mainland. So any post-blast research would be theirs, and any surrender would result to capitulation to them entirely (not counting small island grabs to the north by the Soviets). Killing one man in the Japan certainly wasn’t the concern, since I imagine it was generally considered that the death of any one Japanese leader would certainly not result in capitulation. One only needs to look to the fanatical resistance, suicide bombers, and the need for the Emperor himself to insist on surrender to be convinced of this. The political and strategic considerations of using the bomb on Japan were far simpler, and I think that was very important considering the unknowns in using an atomic bomb. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562/40 "2005-07-11T19:49:11Z")
Thought I remembered the bomb missing. [http://www.me.utexas.edu/~uer/manhattan/debates.html](http://www.me.utexas.edu/~uer/manhattan/debates.html) > [@](#): > > This did not help curb the decision to drop the bomb since the US seemed to want to end the war as fast as possible for political reasons. On August 6, 1945, “Little Boy” exploded about 1,750 to 1,900 feet above the city of Hiroshima. The target was the Aioi Bridge, but it missed by 550 feet. On August 9, 1945, “Fat Man” exploded about 1,650 feet above the city of Nagasaki. This bombed missed by over a mile, but it still destroyed half the city. Yep. Missed by a mile. Blast got blocked by a hill. Still did nasty damage. [http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/features/news/20050629p2g00m0fe089000c.html](http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/features/news/20050629p2g00m0fe089000c.html) Lost for decades, an eyewitness report, by George Weller, an American Newsman who snuck in. There’s four sections, search for the other three. When I am referring to racial motivations, I am simply pointing to the sense of ‘otherness’. It was possible to intern Japanese and Chinese-Americans. But not German-Americans, despite the presence of the Bund. The Japanese were ‘more foreign’. It made it easier to do something terrible to them. Not that, given a good excuse, we wouldn’t have done it to the Germans, but I think the barrier is higher. And I think it should be noted as a possible factor in the discussion. I agree with most of Zega’s post, as well. Welcome aboard, friend. And you make a good point about justification. That may well be what I’m getting at. The thing is, by '44, we were winning in Europe. Slowly, but surely. Japan was still an unexplored story by '45. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-u-s-gets-the-bomb-a-year-early/311562.md?page=3)