The options were to the USA (and the Allied powers- which didnt know about the Bomb of course)-
Invasion- lots of casualties-
Depending on the scope and context, casualty estimates for American forces ranged from 220,000 to several million, and estimates of Japanese military and civilian casualties ran from the millions to the tens of millions… Operations against Japan subsequent to Formosa" (JCS 924), to reflect the experience gained. Taking into account the stiff resistance of the Japanese 31st Army at Saipan, they concluded that if U.S. forces had to defeat all 3.5 million Japanese soldiers who could be made available, “it might cost us half a million American lives and many times that number wounded.”[94] Despite the high numbers, by the spring of 1945 a figure of 500,000 battle casualties for the projected invasion was widely used in briefings, while totals of closer to a million were used for actual planning purpose.
Naval Blockade- many Japanese casualties- tens of millions, plus most if not all Allied POWs.
Continued Strategic Bombing- Most or less the same as Blockade- plus it wouldnt work.
Every option considered by the Allies would cause ten times or more Japanese civilian casualties, compared to the two Atomic bombs. Taking that into consideration the Atom Bomb seem to be the best (but very bad) choice to save lives.
Now of course some thought of other options, waiting for the Soviets (still more casualties), Some sort of peace short of Unconditional surrender, and more.
My dad was professionally thrilled for the bomb, and personally horrified by the destruction. His armored unit was shipped back from Europe to California and was within weeks of getting on a ship to Japan. Bomb = no odds of dying to a Japanese insurgent.
In the bigger picture, the atomic bombings of Japan served as a “vaccination” to prevent the rest of the world from using nukes in warfare ever since.
If the A-bombs hadn’t been dropped on Japan, then we’d just see A-bombs getting used in the Korean War, Vietnam, maybe Europe, somewhere else. One way or another, humans weren’t going to be dissuaded from nuclear use without a real-life usage of the thing.
Was this thread necessary? We, and including you the OP, did the same topic 11 months ago to the tune of ~200 posts. As cited in post #2 of this thread.
There is no significant new scholarship since then.
The combined coastlines of the four main islands of Japan is more than 18,000 miles. The idea that the U.S., even with the aid of Britain and the Soviet Union, could effectively blockade that entire area, was wishful thinking.
If Japan didn’t surrender after the fire bombing of Tokyo in March 1945, it’s pretty clear that it would take more than conventional bombing.
As for waiting for the Soviets, they declared war and sent 1.5 million troops into Manchuria the day after Hiroshima. Japan didn’t surrender then. It was only five days after Nagasaki that the Emperor personally broke a deadlock in the war cabinet and pushed for surrender. Even at that, there was an attempt to kidnap the Emperor before he could personally announce the surrender.
I can argue that not only was Hiroshima necessary, but Nagasaki was also necessary.
Yeah, and I hope Bomber Harris rots in Hell for that insane idea that if we purposely kill enough civilians- their morale will fail. I mean, he is British for fuckssake, he had to know the Blitz did nothing of the sort. He just wanted to kill civilians. Same with our Firebombing of Tokyo.
Sad but true. And at least those targets were selected for some degree of being miliary targets.
And as for that Surrender-
Many elements of the Imperial Japanese Army refused to accept that Hirohito was going to end the war, believing it dishonourable. As many as 1,000 officers and army soldiers raided the Imperial Palace on the evening of August 14, 1945 to destroy the recording. The rebels were confused by the layout of the palace and unable to find the recordings, which had been placed in a safe in a small office used by a member of the empress’s retinue and later hidden in a pile of documents. The two phonographs were labelled original and copy and successfully smuggled out of the palace, the original in a lacquer box and the copy in a lunch bag. In the early hours of 15 August, rebellious soldiers led by Major Kenji Hatanaka attempted to halt the broadcast at the NHK station, but was ordered to desist by the Eastern District Army.[7][8] They had seized the building, detained the NHK staff and attempted to broadcast a message urging continued resistance. An officer even threatened announcer Morio Tateno at gunpoint in an attempt to take over the morning broadcast, but Tateno refused. The engineers were then forced to disable all radio transmission. With the coup suppressed, NHK engineers, holding out in the palace for the entire night safely transported recordings of the emperor’s rescript to the station.[5]
I heard they really wanted to nuke Kyoto, but the Secretary of War vetoed that, having actually spent some time there. Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura were all on the target list.
Somehow I forgot this thread from almost a year ago. But in a recent thread one poster claimed it wasnt necessary, and at least one poster agreed. IIRC.
The answer, to me, is that it doesn’t matter.
When two countries engage in total war and one of them gets an atomic bomb it’s going to use it.
Maybe it is not totally, absoultely, necessary to win the war? doesn’t matter because it will have a salutary effect on any third party watching the events unfold.
Maybe it’s overkill? doesn’t matter because the belligerent with the weapon has spent a lot of resources to make it and it’s going to damn well not waste them.
It’s the ethical thing to do? doesn’t matter because after the first million casualties ethics kinda get out of the picture.
The moral of the story is: don’t get into total wars mmkay?
This is not correct. The US was already blockading Japan quite effectively. It wasn’t necessary to have a steel curtain around each port, nor was it needed to stop each fishing boat.
Unlike the other major combatants in the war, Japan was highly dependent on shipping for internal transportation of food, coal and other items.
Famously, all of its oil, rubber and other resources came from conquered land.
Japan didn’t produce enough food for its population and was dependent on its southern islands, colonies and conquered lands for sugar and a lot of its rice, among other foods.
The northern island of Hokkaido and the southern main island of Kyushu provided a significant portion of rice and other crops for Japan, and were vulnerable to the loss of sea transportation.
Japan started the war with over 6 million tons of shipping, which was less than the amount required for the civilian economy. The shortage was made up with foreign flagged ships.
After the war with the Western Allies began, the Army and Navy requisitioned millions of tons of shipping, which immediately started to harm the civilian economy.
US submarines had done a number on Japanese merchant ships, and then Operation Starvation contributed to essentially demolishing civilian shipping. In total, almost 9 million tons of shipping were sunk. (Around 4 millions tons of shipping were built during the war so it was possible to sink more than what was originally available.)
There was less than 2 million tons by the end, and a lot of those ships were not seaworthy or in good shape. The repeated mining of the harbors reduced the effectiveness of the remaining shipping.
By the fall of Okinawa, Japan lost the last imports of sugar, rice, oil, etc. from lands outside the main islands.
The civilians outside farm areas were starving and as it turned out there was a rice famine in the summer and fall of 1945.
The rate of absenteeism among workers in war industries was at a critical level due to sickness from malnutrition as well as workers taking time off to find food on the black market.
Had the war continued, the US was starting to target the railroad structure based on feedback from the European War. That would have exacerbated the food shortages even more.
The problem was not that the blockade was ineffective at stopping shipping, it was that the military-led government didn’t care about the lives of the people.
US Navy doctrine assumed that the Japanese government was as concerned about civilians lives as the US government would be, and hence, would surrender rather than let the country die of starvation.
Similarly, the USAAF also assumed that burning down all the urban population centers, killing hundreds and thousands of civilians and “unhousing” millions of the necessary workers would convince a rational government to quit, instead of committing a national seppuku.
Unfortunately, the military-dominated government was prepared to sacrifice the entire nation, blinded by the belief that if only they inflicted enough casualties on the US, they could negotiate a better deal and could remain in power and could keep some of the spoils of war.
Same for my dad. He was in Underwater Team 11. At the time of Hiroshima he was in the states doing extra training for the invasion. After the surrender they were sent to Nagasaki to survey the harbour and docks.
In addition, it would likely mean another pariah state. We would most likely have ended up with a North Japan, probably with a capital in Tokyo. It would most likely be every bit as nasty as North Korea currently is. I think it’s a safe bet that Stalin would have deposed and likely executed Hirohito (who as it turned out could be a decent guy if provided with the right environment) and installed a Japanese version of the Kim family into power. There would be a South Japan, probably with a capital in Kyoto and at best another current day South Korea. More likely would be both South Korea and South Japan as officially western allies, but looking more like a “third world” western allied country (Mexico would be a good comparison), rather than the economically developed countries we actually have. Or possibly the Kim family would be in charge of a united Korea just as bed as the current day North Korea. At least in the scenarios that I can imagine, they are all worse than what actually happened.