# Why did US planners think Japan had to be invaded? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786 "2014-09-18T01:27:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/81 "2014-10-23T11:28:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Ridiculous. The firebombing of Tokyo was done to destroy a major enemy industrial city. Were a lot of people killed? Of course - people live in cities. But every country in the war accepted bombing cities as a legitimate military act. It was perhaps even more legitimate for Japan because much of the manufacturing (including of war materiel) was still done in small workshops scattered all over the cities. While inefficient in many ways, this effectively protected against any attempts at precision bombing, and area bombing was the only way to damage dispersed production. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/82 "2014-10-23T14:25:00Z")
I also think we need to be careful about being judgmental on historical events using our current perspectives. There are many things that were acceptable even 20 or 30 years ago that we won’t dream of doing now. So judging events from 70 years ago with our social mores of today is problematic. Even with that suppose that WWII was being fought now: It’s 2014, and we’ve (the US) been at war with Germany and Japan since 2011. We expect when this war is over that over 990,000 American service members will be killed, with potentially double that as causalities when we invade Japan. Keep in mind that it was only back in 1988 that we fought World War I. And while the US was only at war for only about 18 months, over 400,000 Service members were killed then. We’ve had two world wars over the last two generations with massive causalities. The rest of the world lost even more. And we don’t know when we’ll get an email telling us that our son, brother or father was killed. Were the fire bombings of Japan wrong from our perspective now? Yes I think they clearly were. We don’t have pin point munitions that we have now either so that isn’t an option. And after three of four years, we want this to stop once, and hopefully for all. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/83 "2014-10-23T18:52:28Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#): > > It was perhaps even more legitimate for Japan because much of the manufacturing (including of war materiel) was still done in small workshops scattered all over the cities. While inefficient in many ways, this effectively protected against any attempts at precision bombing, and area bombing was the only way to damage dispersed production. Don’t whitewash what was done with poor attempts at excuses like this; the specific target of the firebombing was the most densely populated urban areas of Japan’s cities, whose houses of paper and wood would burn more easily than European civilian housing. It was an extremely horrible war, setting hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians on fire was the specific intent of these missions; no one pretended otherwise at the time. From the [US Strategic Bombing Survey](http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS/PTO-Summary.html), bolding mine: > [@](#): > > On 9 March 1945, a basic revision in the method of B-29 attack was instituted. It was decided to bomb the four principal Japanese cities at night from altitudes averaging 7,000 feet. Japanese weakness in night fighters and antiaircraft made this program feasible. Incendiaries were used instead of high-explosive bombs and the lower altitude permitted a substantial increase in bomb load per plane. One thousand six hundred and sixty-seven tons of bombs were dropped on Tokyo in the first attack. **The chosen areas were saturated. Fifteen square miles of Tokyo’s most densely populated area were burned to the ground. The weight and intensity of this attack caught the Japanese by surprise. No subsequent urban area attack was equally destructive.** Two days later, an attack of similar magnitude on Nagoya destroyed 2 square miles. In a period of 10 days starting 9 March, a total of 1,595 sorties delivered 9,373 tons of bombs against Tokyo, Nagoya, Osake, and Kobe destroying 31 square miles of those cities at a cost of 22 airplanes. The generally destructive effect of incendiary attacks against Japanese cities had been demonstrated. In what possible way is this “more legitimate” for Japan than ‘dehousing’ and killing the German civilian industrial workforce to disrupt Germany’s wartime economy was? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/84 "2014-10-23T20:21:12Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Don’t whitewash what was done with poor attempts at excuses like this; the specific target of the firebombing was the most densely populated urban areas of Japan’s cities, whose houses of paper and wood would burn more easily than European civilian housing. It was an extremely horrible war, setting hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians on fire was the specific intent of these missions; no one pretended otherwise at the time. . . . Nope; you’re wrong, wrong, and wrong. The post was not a “whitewash” nor a “poor attempt at an excuse.” It addressed the fact that munitions manufacturing in Japan was highly distributed in small workshops in homes and suburbs, and thus that those areas became legitimate military targets. Failure to bomb Tokyo would have led to additional allied deaths and the lengthening of the war. And, no, the allies never deliberately sought to cause civilian deaths. Your quote does not support your claim. This issue is difficult enough to debate without the fallacious introduction of affected emotional contrivances. No one has ever spoken in admiration for the firebombing. Serious historians – and amateurs – recognize the military necessity that was compelled on the allies by the nature of the war. ---
**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:** [October 23, 2014, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/85 "2014-10-23T20:27:34Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > munitions manufacturing in Japan was highly distributed in small workshops in homes and suburbs, What did that do to their quality control? > [@Trinopus](#): > > And, no, the allies never deliberately sought to cause civilian deaths. I don’t believe that my Father and his associates living in tents in New Guinea would have been terribly concerned at the time if some of the bombs had caused civilian deaths; perhaps not even Grandmother. But them Grandmother had lost a son. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/86 "2014-10-23T22:22:17Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > What did that do to their quality control? I’ve never read anything that addresses this. > [@](#): > > I don’t believe that my Father and his associates living in tents in New Guinea would have been terribly concerned at the time if some of the bombs had caused civilian deaths; perhaps not even Grandmother. But them Grandmother had lost a son. People come in all kinds. There were surely people on both sides who crowed, “Fry, you bastards,” and others on both sides who wept. There were also most certainly strategic errors made. The idea that area bombing will “Destroy the enemy’s will to continue fighting” was badly overestimated. The London Blitz should have eliminated that kind of reasoning, but didn’t. Much had been learned from WWI. But there were still terrible blind spots, and horrible realpolitik gambits, and all the rest of the shitty things we humans seem never to learn how to stop doing. Show me a better species, and I’ll enlist with them. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/87 "2014-10-23T22:49:57Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The post was not a “whitewash” nor a “poor attempt at an excuse.” The post is attempting to claim the indiscriminate bombing of Japanese cities was a more legitimate act of war than the indiscriminate bombing of German cities, which is an utter whitewash. Since the entire economy of nations are mobilized to support war, under the theory of total war as practiced during WW2 the factory worker is as legitimate of a target as the soldier; the entire economy of an enemy nation is a target. Trying to claim it was ‘more’ legitimate to firebomb Japanese civilians than it was to [dehouse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing) the German civilian population by dropping incendiaries on German cities because Japan’s light industry was more widely distributed in its cities than Germany’s was is absurd. > [@Trinopus](#): > > And, no, the allies never deliberately sought to cause civilian deaths. Your quote does not support your claim. This is exactly the kind of whitewash I’m talking about. No serious historian - amateur or otherwise - would make such a ludicrous statement. The only one injecting emotion here is you; that you could make that statement with a straight face shows how emotionally invested you are that the Allies remain as pure as the driven snow in what was the single most horrific event of the last century. What do you imagine the planners expected to happen when over a thousand tons of napalm was dropped on a target area with a civilian population density of 103,000 per square mile? This is what they [expected to happen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan#LeMay_changes_tactics): > [@](#): > > USAAF planners began assessing the feasibility of a firebombing campaign against Japanese cities in 1943. Japan’s main industrial facilities were vulnerable to such attacks as they were concentrated in several large cities and a high proportion of production took place in homes and small factories in urban areas. The planners estimated that incendiary bomb attacks on Japan’s six largest cities could cause physical damage to almost 40 percent of industrial facilities and result in the loss of 7.6 million man-months of labor. It was also estimated that these attacks would kill over 500,000 people, render about 7.75 million homeless and force almost 3.5 million to be evacuated.[84] The USAAF tested the effectiveness of incendiary bombs on Japanese-style buildings at Eglin Field and the “Japanese village” at Dugway Proving Ground.[85] The American military also attempted to develop “bat bombs”, using incendiary bombs attached to bats dropped by aircraft to attack Japanese cities, but this project was abandoned in 1944. You might also want to take a look at the [area bombing directive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_bombing_directive) as a starting place to clear up misconceptions that the Allies never deliberately sought to cause civilian deaths. > [@](#): > > The Area Bombing Directive was a directive from the wartime British Government’s Air Ministry to the Royal Air Force which ordered RAF bombers to attack the German industrial workforce and the morale of the German populace through bombing German cities and their civilian inhabitants. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/88 "2014-10-23T23:08:36Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > No Americans of German or Italian descent [helped the enemy](http://www.historynet.com/the-niihau-incident.htm) on American soil. At last none that were known about. 🙂 Are you actually trying to justify the Japanese internment here? ---
**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:** [October 23, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/89 "2014-10-23T23:19:45Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Are you actually trying to justify the Japanese internment here? No, I am pointing out why I believe they were interned and not German Americans. Perhaps their eating POWs had something to do with it, too. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/90 "2014-10-24T01:14:57Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > . . . This is exactly the kind of whitewash I’m talking about. No serious historian - amateur or otherwise - would make such a ludicrous statement. The only one injecting emotion here is you; that you could make that statement with a straight face shows how emotionally invested you are . . . Ad hominem, and uninteresting. Have a nice whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/91 "2014-10-24T02:35:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > USAAF planners began assessing the feasibility of a firebombing campaign against Japanese cities in 1943. Japan’s main industrial facilities were vulnerable to such attacks as they were concentrated in several large cities and a high proportion of production took place in homes and small factories in urban areas. **The planners estimated that incendiary bomb attacks on Japan’s six largest cities could cause physical damage to almost 40 percent of industrial facilities and result in the loss of 7.6 million man-months of labor.** It was also estimated that these attacks would kill over 500,000 people, render about 7.75 million homeless and force almost 3.5 million to be evacuated.[84] The USAAF tested the effectiveness of incendiary bombs on Japanese-style buildings at Eglin Field and the “Japanese village” at Dugway Proving Ground.[85] The American military also attempted to develop “bat bombs”, using incendiary bombs attached to bats dropped by aircraft to attack Japanese cities, but this project was abandoned in 1944. The bolded part of the quote from **Dissonance’s** post is the point I was trying to make. While attacking Germany’s industrial base could largely be done by bombing the industrial areas of cities (if bombing accuracy had been up to the task), significant parts of Japan’s industry were spread throughout otherwise residential areas. The only purpose of bombing housing in Germany was to attack the civilian workforce. For Japan it was a secondary effect of attacking the industrial capacity. I don’t doubt that attacking Japan’s civilian workforce was seen as a \*desirable \*secondary effect, but nonetheless there was a better justification for the attacks than just “dehousing”. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/92 "2014-10-24T16:48:11Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#): > > The bolded part of the quote from **Dissonance’s** post is the point I was trying to make. While attacking Germany’s industrial base could largely be done by bombing the industrial areas of cities (if bombing accuracy had been up to the task), significant parts of Japan’s industry were spread throughout otherwise residential areas. The only purpose of bombing housing in Germany was to attack the civilian workforce. For Japan it was a secondary effect of attacking the industrial capacity. > > I don’t doubt that attacking Japan’s civilian workforce was seen as a \*desirable \*secondary effect, but nonetheless there was a better justification for the attacks than just “dehousing”. No. The massive Tokyo firebombing was targeted at the dense housing area of _shitamachi_ Tokyo (the area where my ex-wife’s mother lived) which was not a manufacturing area. Oita Ward, where my ex-wife’s father lived had more small manufacturing but it was attacked much later in the campaign. Also, can you please explain the attacks on small Japanese cities? > [@](#): > > XXI Bomber Command began incendiary raids against small cities from 17 June. On that night, Hamamatsu, Kagoshima, Ōmuta, Yokkaichi were each attacked by a wing of B-29s using similar tactics to those employed in the firebombing raids against the major cities. Of the 477 B-29s dispatched, 456 struck their targets and Hamamatsu, Kagoshima, Yokkaichi suffered extensive damage; overall 6.073 square miles (15.73 km2) of buildings were destroyed. The cities were almost undefended and no B-29s were lost to Japanese actions.[139][140] This operation was judged a success, and set the pattern for XXI Bomber Command’s firebombing attacks until the end of the war. As the campaign continued and the most important cities were destroyed, the bombers were sent against smaller and less significant cities. On most nights that raids were conducted, four cities were attacked, each by a wing of bombers. Two-wing operations were conducted against Fukuoka on 19 June and Ōmuta on 26 July, however. Sixteen multi-city incendiary attacks had been conducted by the end of the war (an average of two per week), and these targeted 58 cities. The incendiary raids were coordinated with precision bombing attacks during the last weeks of the war in an attempt to force the Japanese government to surrender.[141] As the small cities were not defended by anti-aircraft guns and Japan’s night-fighter force was ineffective, only a single B-29 was shot down during this campaign; a further 66 were damaged and 18 crashed as a result of accidents. > > The firebombing campaign against small cities continued through June and July. On the night of 19 June B-29s struck Fukuoka, Shizuoka and Toyohashi. On 28 June Moji, Nobeoka, Okayama and Sasebo were attacked. Kumamoto, Kure, Shimonoseki and Ube were bombed on 1 July. Two nights later, Himeji, Kōchi, Takamatsu and Tokushima were attacked. On 6 July, attacks were conducted against Akashi, Chiba, Kōfu and Shimizu. Gifu, Sakai, Sendai and Wakayama were struck on 9 July. Three nights later, the B-29s targeted Ichinomiya, Tsuruga, Utsunomiya and Uwajima. On 16 July, Hiratsuka, Kuwana, Namazu and Ōita were attacked. Chōshi, Fukui, Hitachi, Okazaki were bombed on 19 July. After a break of almost a week, Matsuyama, Omuta and Tokuyama were firebombed on 26 July. Are you claiming that these were all centers of manufacturing as well? Gen. Arnold was convinced that he could firebomb the Japanese into submission, and had been resisting changing strategies from burning down the cities, despite evidence from the evaluation teams in Germany that they needed to be targeting the transportation systems more. They finally were on track to make the change when the war ended. Your statement which begins with "While attacking Germany’s industrial base could largely be done by bombing the industrial areas of cities (if bombing accuracy had been up to the task), " is baseless. They didn’t have that degree of accuracy, so that speculation is meaningless. If they had had that level of precision, they wouldn’t have needed to attack the civilians. The highest priority for the Allies was the aircraft manufacturing, in order to stop production of enemy fighters. That was not done in small houses in the back streets of old Tokyo. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Perhaps their eating POWs had something to do with it, too. No, because the internment occurred before the horrible Japanese treatment of POWs. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/93 "2014-10-24T17:50:40Z")
> [@hansel](#): > > Prior to the dropping of atomic bombs, Japan offered to surrender on terms that amounted to a rollback to 1935: Japanese troops surrender all possessions and return home; Japan retains the Emperor and Imperial government; Japan handles its own disarmament, and its own prosecution of war crimes; nominal war reparations to be negotiated later. No blockade would have been necessary, because this was basically a get out of jail free position that was totally unacceptable, and just like Germany between WWI and II, everyone’s immediate thought was that it would give them a chance to rebuild and rearm and launch another war. The only acceptable outcome of WWII was the destruction of Japan as a warmaking entity. Japan itself could survive, if rebuilt as an ally, but the Imperial Japan that launched its side of WWII (after a massive, brutal invasion of China) was deemed too dangerous to be allowed to continue to exist. > > In WWII, unconditional surrender of all Axis powers wasn’t just a goal, it was an agreement that was foundational to the alliance: They were scared of one of them negotiating a separate peace with a belligerent, as (newly communist) Russia had done with Germany in WWI, leaving England, France and the U.S. to finish up against a large number of troops freed up from one frontier to reinforce the other. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agreed at Yalta (?) that no one would stop before destruction or unconditional surrender. Actually, they never made such a offer. Something like that was tentatively floated thru the USSR, but if was hardly a “offer”. Yes, you are correct, One of the core ideas behind the Allies was “no separate peace”. In any case, a blockade would have killed far more Japanese than the Bombs did. And would have spelled the slow horrible death of all Allied POW’s. Firebombing would have continued and it killed far more than the A-Bombs did. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/94 "2014-10-24T18:09:07Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > No, I am pointing out why I believe they were interned and not German Americans. > Perhaps their eating POWs had something to do with it, too. Japanese internment in the United States was due to blatant racism, pure and simple. And I’m surprised there is really any debate on that issue. I felt that historians were in agreement with that at this point in history. Having said that, I don’t think that racism played much of a part if any on the decision to use the atomic bomb. We would have made the same decision in Germany. ---
**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:** [October 24, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/95 "2014-10-24T18:18:04Z")
It was racist in that you could look at a guy and tell that he was Japanese. Coupled with the Hawaiian Japanese helping the downed pilot. If Americans whose ancestors came from Germany were readily identifiable, I would imagine they would have also been interned. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/96 "2014-10-24T18:21:21Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Having said that, I don’t think that racism played much of a part if any on the decision to use the atomic bomb. We would have made the same decision in Germany. If anything, the difference is this: If we’d had the atomic bomb before the Fall of Berlin, we would have done everything in our power to locate Adolf Hitler and drop the damned thing directly on his head. We did not, however, drop one of them on the Emperor or the Japanese Supreme Command. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/97 "2014-10-24T18:36:22Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Japanese internment in the United States was due to blatant racism, pure and simple. And I’m surprised there is really any debate on that issue. I felt that historians were in agreement with that at this point in history. > > Having said that, I don’t think that racism played much of a part if any on the decision to use the atomic bomb. We would have made the same decision in Germany. Not entirely. All Axis nationals were interned. This was normal. BUT just in the case of the Japanese-Americans, those were were American Citizens were also interned. _That_ was racist. Some small justification can be made due to the fact there would have been attacks on them by ultra-patriotic Americans. You are correct in that the decision to use the Atomic Bomb was in no way racist. And, it was also “No Big Deal” (assuming we can accept the firebombings as “no big deal”, which is kinda a stretch). In 1945 the A-bomb was just another weapon. It’s only that recently after 50-60 years of Propaganda (\*true \*propaganda, but propaganda just the same) the Nuclear war is unthinkable that we think there was something morally wrong with using the Bomb (assuming we accept that firebombs were acceptable). That is necessary of course. In the 50’s with the proliferation of Nukes, it became obvious that a Nuclear _was_ unthinkable, that it could very well end civilization and perhaps even Life on Earth. Thus to us today, using the Bomb in 1945 was a difficult Moral decision that needs justification. That simple wasn’t very true then. We were at War- once you accept firebombings it is no big stretch to go to the A-Bomb. It _was_ “just another weapon”. It is no longer. Thus the wailings and long diatribes and hypotheticals of what were the alternatives to using this Most Horrible and Unthinkable of Weapons are simply hindsight. Sure, _maybe_ the Invasion of the Japanese Homeland would have “only” resulted in 25K US military deaths (and hundreds of thousands of Japanese note) instead of some estimates of 500K casualties (and of course casualties do not = deaths). Sure, _maybe_ the Japanese would have surrendered with only allowing them the Emperor. But it would have been months. Sure, _maybe_ the Japanese would have surrendered with the entry of the USSR. Sure, we could have starved them out thru a blockade. Overall, far more Japanese would have died that way, and likely almost all Allied POWs. None of those matter. The A-bomb then was “just another weapon”, the Japanese were showing incredible tenacity. American servicemen were still dying. The firebombing and blockade were still continuing. The Bomb was a tool that needed to be used- by the thoughts and knowledge of that time. ---
**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:** [October 24, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/98 "2014-10-24T18:49:13Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > If anything, the difference is this: If we’d had the atomic bomb before the Fall of Berlin, we would have done everything in our power to locate Adolf Hitler and drop the damned thing directly on his head. We did not, however, drop one of them on the Emperor or the Japanese Supreme Command. The Doolittle Raiders were ordered to not bomb the Imperial palace. That has always struck me as odd. Destroying their Emperor, believed to be divine, would have been a great way to lower morale and illustrate how determined and strong the United States was. I would have chosen if not the Japanese of German leadership, the greatest troop concentration they had. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/99 "2014-10-24T19:11:14Z")
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**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786/100 "2014-10-24T19:33:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Not entirely. All Axis nationals were interned. This was normal. > > BUT just in the case of the Japanese-Americans, those were were American Citizens were also interned. _That_ was racist. Some small justification can be made due to the fact there would have been attacks on them by ultra-patriotic Americans. Not buying your argument. Stating that Axis Nationals, (Axis POWs) and Japanese Americans under lock and key are somehow the same thing is just plain wrong and illogical. Japanese Americans were interned because they were Japanese. Not because any crime they committed, or were imminently going to commit. German Americans were not interned Italian Americans were not. There was blatant racism against Asian American people, particularly on the west coast since well before the 20th century. That’s why the were interned. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-us-planners-think-japan-had-to-be-invaded/698786.md?page=6)