# why did we drop the Atomic Bombs on Japan **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 21, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342 "2012-09-21T00:37:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [September 21, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/61 "2012-09-21T19:53:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I suppose you could claim that they were ‘testing’ the long-term effects of nuclear radiation, but we already had people who had been exposed accidentally to large doses of radiation, so we knew a lot about that as well. My understanding is that the radiation casualties were a surprise. The Americans knew that radiation could kill people but they thought that anyone who was exposed to a lethal amount of radiation would have to be close to the initial blast that they would be killed by that. So they didn’t expect to see many people dying of radiation poisoning. This is the same reason why they thought it would be acceptable to use atom bombs on battlefields in anticipation of an American attack. It was only after seeing the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that they realized the radiation effects were much more long ranged and longer lasting that they had thought. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/62 "2012-09-21T19:59:45Z")
IIRC our understanding of the amount and effects of fallout were seriously underestimated. As mentioned previously, we could have ended up killing a lot of our own troops if the weapons had been used tacticly. Even by the Korean War this wasn’t well understood. ---
**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:** [September 21, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/63 "2012-09-21T20:05:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > My understanding is that the radiation casualties were a surprise. The Americans knew that radiation could kill people but they thought that anyone who was exposed to a lethal amount of radiation would have to be close to the initial blast that they would be killed by that. So they didn’t expect to see many people dying of radiation poisoning. This is the same reason why they thought it would be acceptable to use atom bombs on battlefields in anticipation of an American attack. > > It was only after seeing the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that they realized the radiation effects were much more long ranged and longer lasting that they had thought. That’s a valid point, but the fact that it caught them by surprise undermines the idea that they felt they needed to ‘test’ a bomb on a civilian population. The ‘testing on a civilian population’ theory is also the most morally reprehensible excuse for using the bomb, which is why it carries so much weight with some people who want to believe the worst about America or its WWII military leadership. ---
**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:** [September 21, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/64 "2012-09-21T20:10:42Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > All nations of the time period used some degree of propaganda, information control, and/or exhortation, but the Japanese traditions of obedience and sacrifice – coupled with the fact that the rapid modernization of the country had given the ruling classes a reservoir of extra credibility – made the Japanese people fairly susceptible to believing their own propaganda, and (significantly, IMHO) their notions of monolithic social cohesion made it difficult for individuals who did have doubts to express them – so everyone who had doubts was _alone_ in those doubts, unable to tell if others secretly felt the same way. > > … > > Ultimately, the atomic bombs saved Japanese “face” – who could be blamed for surrendering when war is no longer war? – and millions of Japanese lives. I think there was also an issue of the Japanese world view. Japan, like many other countries (including the United States) has its own ideas of its national exceptionalism. They had a belief that Japan was protected - by the gods or by fate or by history. Japan put a lot of stock in the story of how when the Mongols were overrunning all of Asia, they failed to conquer Japan. Twice the Mongols prepared invasion fleets and twice the fleets were destroyed by sudden storms as they sailed towards Japan. (These storms were the “divine winds” aka kamikazes.) So the Japanese people believed that while they might lose a war overseas, it was impossible for Japan itself to be conquered. No matter how bad things looked, some last minute miracle would save Japan. The only danger was if they despaired and gave up before the miracle arrived. So while things certainly looked bleak for Japan in 1945, they were determined to keep fighting. And then the Americans dropped the atomic bomb. And the Japanese people saw the miracle had arrived but it was the Americans and not the Japanese who wielded it. This shook Japan out of their blind faith in their exceptionalism and made them take a realistic look at their situation. They could now see that they had lost the war and act on this reality. ---
**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:** [September 21, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/65 "2012-09-21T20:12:54Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > That’s a valid point, but the fact that it caught them by surprise undermines the idea that they felt they needed to ‘test’ a bomb on a civilian population. The ‘testing on a civilian population’ theory is also the most morally reprehensible excuse for using the bomb, which is why it carries so much weight with some people who want to believe the worst about America or its WWII military leadership. I agree. The Americans weren’t “testing” the bomb. They were just using it as a weapon in a war that had been going on for several years. The idea of not using the new bomb was probably given no more consideration than the idea of not using a new type of aircraft or submarine. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/66 "2012-09-21T20:46:58Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Yes, many Germans were interned, as were many Italians. It was only Japanese on the West Coast who were relocated, and most of them were not sent to internment camps. They were simply resettled in other parts of the country. Do you have cites that Germans and Italians were interred on any scale for merely being German or Italian, vs for actual cause? Do you have cites for Japanese being merely resettled as opposed to interred? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/67 "2012-09-21T20:48:42Z")
It occurred to me to fully clarify the “100 million die together” in “One hundred million of us, as the Tokko (Special Attack), must exterminate the enemy to protect our native soil and maintain our eternal Empire.” The intention isn’t 100 million fighting to resist the invaders, it’s literally for 100 million to die resisting the invaders. Tokkō (Special Attack) was the euphemism for suicide attack; kamikazes were Special Attack Units, as were [Kaiten](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiten) (manned torpedoes), [Kairyu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairyu) (suicide mini-submarines), [Shinyo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinyo_(suicide_boat)) (suicide motor boats), and [Fukuryu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukuryu) (suicide divers), [Ohka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohka) (manned anti-ship rockets). [Banzai](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banzai_charge) charges were referred to by the Japanese as “Gyokusai (Japanese: 玉砕, literally “jade shards”; honorable suicide).” The proper phrasing in Japanese for the 100 million die together was > [@](#): > > By the end of 1944, the government announced the last protocol, unofficially named ichioku gyokusai (Japanese: 一億玉砕, literally “100 million shattered jewels”), for the purpose of resisting opposition forces until August, 1945. As a bit of a side note, the 100 million was a propaganda exaggeration; Japan’s population at the time was only ~75 million. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/68 "2012-09-21T21:14:41Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Yes, many Germans were interned, as were many Italians. It was only Japanese on the West Coast who were relocated, and most of them were not sent to internment camps. They were simply resettled in other parts of the country. The only serious moral failing here is that conditions in the internment camps should have been much better than they were. Compared to the atrocities our enemies committed against civilians, this barely even makes the scale. Reminds me of an article I read a while back. Basically, it tried to say that all sides committed atrocities in World War II. Germany had Auschwitz, Japan had Nanking, we had the Internment camps. I supressed an urge to go Sesame Street “One of these things is not like the others…” ---
**Author:** ![DJG311](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f1d935/32.png) [@DJG311](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DJG311)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/69 "2012-09-21T22:24:53Z")
First off I want to thank all those who responded to my questtion.Although I wasn’t really looking for the reason we used Atomic Bombs, I was more curious as to how some people draw the conclusion that it was unjustifiable. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/70 "2012-09-22T20:49:30Z")
> [@Lazlo Hapsburg](#): > > Frisco, > > t, it seems to me that like most wars around that time, it was a very small number of militant war-mongers who were really caused and sustained the war and although it seems like it should be reasonable to blame the entire country, you really have to wonder how some individual citizens could have possibly stood up the the Japanese war-mongering element of the government and the same goes for individual German citizens. How could some individual German baker or candlestick maker done anything to prevent the war besides get themselves locked up in some terrible camp and be made to suffer and/or die? > > How? > > And can you really fault the entire population of the country for the acts of a tiny handful of crazy militants? > > I just don’t get it. I mean, I just don’t understand how that could happen. Its amazing isn’t it ? How a small number of bad people get themselves into the position of not just running the entire country, but getting a large amount of people to carry out their wicked aims ! No groundswell of popular opinion ! No ordinary citizens informing on dissenters. Workers striking in war industries Banks and ordinary people refusing to buy War Bonds, or otherwise lend money to these few wicked people to carry out their war aims. Everyone saying how unjust their political position is, people refusing to be drafted, underground resistance papers being printed, plus of course people actually taking up arms against the “few people” who took over the country. Mutiny in the armed forces, refusal to obey unjust orders. A refusal by the civilian populace to honour the military, sabotage by ordinary people, sending information to the allies, escaping from the country. Boycotting military parades (And jingoistic movies), and certainly not cheering them on ! And inspite of all of these things, STILL these few people managed to get the whole country into a genocidal war. After everyone has told us how they couldn’t be held responsible for what happened, because of their sex, their status, whatever, it all seems to be the fault of someone named Bill, and a couple of his mates who are conveniently, all dead. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/71 "2012-09-23T05:29:51Z")
> [@HubZilla](#): > > Reminds me of an article I read a while back. Basically, it tried to say that all sides committed atrocities in World War II. Germany had Auschwitz, Japan had Nanking, we had the Internment camps. > > I supressed an urge to go Sesame Street “One of these things is not like the others…” Yeah. If one wanted to make a serious argument for “atrocities”, one could mention firebombing Dresden, or dropping the nukes. Those are at least arguable to the same scale. While the internment of Japanese Americans was a horrible act, it was a far cry from Auschwitz or Nanking. If those two rate a 10 on the scale, the internment camps rate, like, a 3. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/72 "2012-09-23T05:42:04Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Japan’s coastline is longer than that of the U.S. or Australia. You would have needed more ships than the entire U.S. Navy to enforce a blockade. While I believe the use of the atomic bombs was the best of a lot of bad options, this statement is totally mystifying. The Allies could certainly have maintained a blockade, as evidenced by the fact they WERE enforcing a blockade by August 1945. The length of the coastline isn’t the relevant point; they had destroyed Japan’s oceangoing fleet and controlled any sea lane that could have brought Japan enough food to survive. There was zero chance Japan could have done anything about it. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/73 "2012-09-23T05:43:53Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Do you have cites that Germans and Italians were interred on any scale for merely being German or Italian, vs for actual cause? Do you have cites for Japanese being merely resettled as opposed to interred? “Interned.” I certainly hope nobody was interred, as that means buried in a grave. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/74 "2012-09-23T12:48:07Z")
> [@DJG311](#): > > First off I want to thank all those who responded to my questtion.Although I wasn’t really looking for the reason we used Atomic Bombs, I was more curious as to how some people draw the conclusion that it was unjustifiable. Several ways: **The Japanese Nationalist pity party:** Often folks in Japan who play the ‘woe is us’ card. Crying about the casualties caused by the bomb and ignoring the rest of the history of WW2 that led up to it. If cornered, these folks often downplay things like the rape of Nanking and say things like ‘The USA forced Japan to attack Pearl Harbor’. There’s the **Everything America did must have been wrong somehow** contingent. Folks who try to find fault with everything the US (not the allies, mind you) did during the war. You’ll see these folks quoting Admirals and Generals who didn’t like the use of the bomb (since it stole some of their glory). They rarely get comments from ground soldiers in the Pacific campaigns for whom the bomb ended their torment. \*\*Armchair peacetime generals. \*\* These folks feel that Japan was already beaten and that any battles & bombs that happened were because the US just wouldn’t stop. The faux ‘peace offers’ made by Japan are often referenced and the statement that we should have just waited Japan out (by starving them all to death). ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/75 "2012-09-23T14:16:10Z")
That last one is the one that bothers me for the sheet horror of hypocricy. So let’s get this straight: Dropping two bombs and killing very roughly 100,000 people was so horrible, so terrible, so unforgivable; that we should not have done it and instead forced several million\* to starve to death? :dubious: - The first victims of course usually being the very young and the very old. Exactly the sort of people you want to kill in order to punish a nation, right? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/76 "2012-09-23T16:16:57Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > That last one is the one that bothers me for the sheet horror of hypocricy. > > So let’s get this straight: Dropping two bombs and killing very roughly 100,000 people was so horrible, so terrible, so unforgivable; that we should not have done it and instead forced several million\* to starve to death? :dubious: > > - The first victims of course usually being the very young and the very old. Exactly the sort of people you want to kill in order to punish a nation, right? Most of the folks develop a cognitive dissonance about the starvation issue. Pretending that Japan would have seen the light once their island nation was surrounded. Or that the starvation of millions is still not as bad as lingering radiation exposure for thousands. Most of these folks just do not grasp Japanese war mentality. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/77 "2012-09-23T17:41:43Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Yes, many Germans were interned, as were many Italians. It was only Japanese on the West Coast who were relocated, and most of them were not sent to internment camps. They were simply resettled in other parts of the country. The only serious moral failing here is that conditions in the internment camps should have been much better than they were. ??? The sheer numbers of Germans (11,500 in the U.S. plus 4,500 brought in from Latin America), and Italians (fewer than 2,000), that were interned were not very close to the numbers of Japanese that were interned. Of course, there were far more German and Italian immigrants in the U.S., (thanks to restrictive immigration laws against Asians), than there were Japanese immigrants, so the percentage of Germans and Italians interned was orders of magnitude smaller than the percentages of Japanese interned. There were also significant differences in the way the detentions were carried out. The overwhelming numbers of Germans and Italians interned were actual German or Italian citizens. Nearly 65% of Japanese interned were U.S. citizens. (Even the non-citizen Japanese tended to be immigrants who had been denied citizenship by racist immigration laws.) Every German or Italian who was interned had been checked out by the FBI or were immediate family members to someone judged a potential risk by the FBI. The Japanese were swept up by region with no examination of their politics or behavior or even whether they had any connection to anyone still living in Japan. 10,000 Italians were forced out of the Weast Coast Defense Zone, but the majority of them actually were allowed to resettle elsewhere in the U.S. As to “most” Japanese being “resettled” rather than interned: the reality is that fewer than 1,000 had been “resettled” by the end of 1942, increasing to around 35,000, (out of 110,000 to 120,000 interned), by the end of WWII. For the Japanese, internment was overwhelmingly the norm and it was imposed with far less restraint. It is true that the U.S. did not execute any atrocity on the level of the Nazi Death camps or the Rape of Nanking, but it is also not accurate to try to portray the total disruption of the Japanese American community on the West Coast as a mere matter of some people being told to go find housing elsewhere in the U.S. with some sent to inadequately prepared camps. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/78 "2012-09-23T19:20:51Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > There were also significant differences in the way the detentions were carried out. The overwhelming numbers of Germans and Italians interned were actual German or Italian citizens. Nearly 65% of Japanese interned were U.S. citizens. (Even the non-citizen Japanese tended to be immigrants who had been denied citizenship by racist immigration laws.) > > Every German or Italian who was interned had been checked out by the FBI or were immediate family members to someone judged a potential risk by the FBI. The Japanese were swept up by region with no examination of their politics or behavior or even whether they had any connection to anyone still living in Japan. 10,000 Italians were forced out of the Weast Coast Defense Zone, but the majority of them actually were allowed to resettle elsewhere in the U.S. > > As to “most” Japanese being “resettled” rather than interned: the reality is that fewer than 1,000 had been “resettled” by the end of 1942, increasing to around 35,000, (out of 110,000 to 120,000 interned), by the end of WWII. For the Japanese, internment was overwhelmingly the norm and it was imposed with far less restraint. Thank you, **tomndebb**. ---
**Author:** ![Learning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5daacb/32.png) [@Learning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learning)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/79 "2012-09-23T19:29:43Z")
> [@DJG311](#): > > While researching what Japanese students learn about WW2 > I was a bit surprised by how many people made the statement that we used Atomic Bombs > for no justifiable reason. I was always taught that it was to bring an end to the war which > could have lasted several years past 1945 if we hadn’t. According to what I learn in my middle school it was because USA wanted to demonstrate its power, as far as, the Militaristic Japan almost lost the war already. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342/80 "2012-09-23T20:25:10Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It was only after seeing the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that they realized the radiation effects were much more long ranged and longer lasting that they had thought. What are you talking about? The number of radiation casualties at Hiroshiima and Nagasaki were pretty much trivial relative to the blast and heat casualties. Both bombs were airbursts, and in both cases, the prevailing winds took any fallout out to sea, sparing the Japanese serious radiation casualties. Any radiation exposure casualties were more likely survivors inside of that 5 psi overpressure curve in which everyone was expected to be dead, and because the blast and heat didn’t get them, the radiation did. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-drop-the-atomic-bombs-on-japan/635342.md?page=5)