I heard two guys arguing at a party the other night about why we dropped the bomb and one of them was saying we had to because if we didn’t, the germans would. The other was saying the Germans had absolutely nothing to do with it because it was so long after V-E day. Or maybe he was saying we had to go ahead with the Manhattan Project because of the Germans. Anyway, while the latter fellow seems to make more sense, I know the former to be a pretty smart guy, so is there any factual basis for saying “if we hadn’t done it, the Germans would have”?
The Germans were busy working on their atomic bomb during the war. It was a real possibility that they would succeed and it would have certainly had a major affect on the outcome.
The Germans were working on their own version of an atomic bomb; in fact, at least one (and probably more) commando raids were carried out to disable their production of heavy water, and slow down their bomb-making efforts.
I think Hitler had hoped to mount an atomic bomb on a V-2 rocket and hit London, but I don’t have a specific cite for that. I seem to recall reading it, though.
We didn’t drop the two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of the Germans, though. That action was done in an effort to save the lives of U.S. GIs. Japan wouldn’t have surrendered unless the U.S. invaded her home islands, and casualty projections for such an invasion were incredibly high. Dropping the bombs was seen as a way to shorten the war and save American lives.
Shooting from the hip, here:
The Germans were far behind on their nuclear research, but there wasn’t really any way of knowing this during the war. They had, after all, produced some very high-tech weaponry.
The commando/resistance action against the heavy water plant in Norway was spectacular, BTW.
IIRC, the Manhattan project was carried out without a specific target in mind - it was simply a matter of adding another weapon to the Allied arsenal.
I agree with Sauron on the reasoning behind the US use of the Bomb. Looking over the losses in the Pacific theatre, the thought of conquering mainland Japan Iwo Jima style would have anyone looking for a faster way out.
S. Norman
There are some accounts that suggest some German scientists were trying to sabotage Nazi development of an atomic bomb. From those stories, and the accounts of destroying heavy water facilities, we can pretty solidly infer that there WAS development going on. So while the Germans might not have been as far along as the U.S., there’s strong evidence that they were developing a bomb, and Hitler being Hitler, little doubt that he would have used it.
As for dropping the bomb on Japan, IIRC after the horrific battle of Okinawa, military experts estimated 2,000,000 U.S. casualties and at least a six month battle to invade the Japanese homeland. Harry Truman often said the decision to use the bomb was the easiest of his Presidency.
Another big part of dropping the Bomb was oour less-than-ideal relations with the USSR. We wanted to show that we were really big and scary, and a land invasion would give them time to get their forces there and have some claim to Japan (note the problems that this caused with a divided Germany).
Possibly easy before it happened. (I would be curious to see a reference.) He is also on record as having indicated that he always had regrets concerning that action.
Had the Germans developed the bomb, I believe they would have certainly used it.
On the other hand, between internal and external sabotage of their program, the Germans were probably years away from developing the actual bomb. The heavy water experiments for which so many Britons and Norwegians gave their lives to stop was a dead end (although no one could have known it at the time).
Japan had an active atom bomb program. It’s not known how far the research progressed, but all accounts suggest they were far behind the US but ahead of Germany. The program was headed by Yoshio Nishina who had worked under Bohr. It began in 1940 and was called either “F-Go” or “No. F”. Here’s a very interesting article on the Japanese efforts http://vikingphoenix.com/public/JapanIncorporated/1895-1945/jp-abomb.htm Robert Wilcox wrote a book entitled “Japan’s Secret War”, based on recently declassified documents. His conclusions are subject to debate. It seems that American military intelligence was only dimly aware of these efforts before the end of the war or discounted the program as unlikely to succeed.
There was even some collaboration between Germany and Japan on this front. Towards the end of the war, when it was clear Germany would fall, a U-boat was interecepted and brought to Portsmouth, NH. It was carrying 1,200 pounds of uranium oxide. There were two Japanese officers on board who were allowed to commit suicide. The uranium oxide eventually found it’s way to the Oak Ridge laboratory.
From what I remember from school ,in 1939 Albert Einstein sent a letter to FDR. The letter basically explained the concept of an A-bomb and urged the president to develop the atomic. The letter does suggest that the Germans were in the process of development.
As far as Japan is concerned, the second bomb was dropped 3 days after the first one. Japan had not agreed to surrender and the US chose to drop another bomb. My history teacher presented the thought of a two fold reason. #1 The US could do ”it” again. And more importantly #2 The US WOULD do “it” again.
Sn-man just beat me to some of this, but here goes…
Oh? I suppose it depends on whose perspective you are viewing the project from. I was under the impression that the reason it began was due to pressures that Germany was attempting to develop atomic weapons (remember Leo Szilard’s & Einstein’s interactions with FDR). Once Germany was defeated, Oppenheimer and some of the others were somewhat reluctant to continue research, but did so anyway under pressure from General Groves.
I think I have probably posted something similar on this before, but the decision was to either drop 2 bombs on Japan or none. IIRC, this was because they wanted to test the two different designs. A US Army Air Force study at the time had indicated that the A-bombs were unnecessary; that continued fire-bombing would have had the same effect eventually, no invasion required. (Isn’t fire-bombing so much better? :rolleyes:)
However, John Galbraith (a member of a civilian commision initiated by FDR to examine the effects of the air war) indicates in Stud Terkel’s The Good War that neither course was necessary. Japan was ready to surrender and was making back door peace gestures when the bomb was dropped. Japanese were concerned about maintaining some appearance of honor and felt absolutely bound to keep the Emperor in charge. Unconditional surrender was a difficult option to accept.
I tend to agree with Sn-man’s teacher. The A-bomb was really the ability to send the Soviets and the Japanese a big message at the same time: “Don’t piss us off.”
I think the primary reason in using the bomb was to scare Russia. At that time Japan was all but defeated. Although at the time I’m sure the president would have vaporized Japan to save American soldiers. Eisenhower however was against using the bombs. He felt that they were not needed. Japan had already tried to negotiate a surrender but were unwilling to lose their Emperor. (They did not lose the Emperor.)
The positive thing about using the bomb on Japan was that it probably prevented WWIII. If we had not seen the devastation caused by the radiation, it’s use would have been acceptable in Korea, Cuba, or Vietnam.
While the Manhattan project may have been started without a specific enemy in mind, most of the Jewish physicists who worked on it had a very specific enemy in mind.
See Richard Feynman’s book, “Surely You’re Joking…”. He decided to work on the project because he was worried about Germany, and so did lots of others.
Also: while Japan might have been ready to surrender, how was the US supposed to know that unless Japan offered to surrender? They did not offer to surrender. We dropped the bomb. They dithered. We dropped another bomb. They surrendered.
We have to remember that although the guys on the Manhattan project understood what the bomb was about, to the political leaders (ie Truman) it was just a really big bomb. We had been firebombing Japan and Germany for years already. The moral distinction between destroying a city with a thousand bombs and destroying a city with one bomb is not that great.
Let me clarify that when I said I agreed with Sn-man’s teacher, I meant the A-bomb as a message, not in the details about dropping two bombs. As I said, the choice was to drop 0 or 2 A-bombs when the decision came to Truman.
FTR, one of the main reasons the German fell so far beyond in their A-bomb research was that they had exiled most of their best nuclear physicists in the '30s. A nice case of evil defeating itself.
One of my history teachers told me that, essentially, this was for two reasons. One was to test the two different designs. The other was because the Americans thought, “If we drop one bomb, they’ll think we only have one, but if we drop two bombs, they’ll think we have an enourmous supply.”
If you really want the answers to all of these questions in more detail than you could possibly imagine, read “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” by Richard Rhodes.
We dropped two bombs quickly in a row to let Japan think that we had an unlimited supply and could keep up the pace indefinitely. In fact, it would have taken us months to build more bombs because of a lack of fissile material.
We did not need to “test” two designs. The fat man was tested at trinity and it worked just fine, thank you very much. The little boy was not tested because the understanding of the physics of the thing was so complete that there was no doubt that it would not work.
What I heard was that Hitler had the option of putting his resources into rockets (V-1 and 2) or the atomic bomb. He decided that most of them should be put to rockets. I may be wrong though.
There is evidence that the German atomic program had ended in the middle of the war, with no significant results. There were two reasons for this. One, the Allied raids had severely damaged their ability to produce the heavy water they thought they needed, and two, the Science ministry was afraid to tell Hitler about the project.
I have a book around here somewhere called “The Second Creation.” It details the history of twentieth-century physics. The authors quote the guy who had to decide whether to go ahead with the research. The scientists told him that the project could be completed in two years (which would have still been before the end of the war, I believe). He knew that if he approved the project, Adolf would have insisted they produce the bomb in six months. Since he knew that was impossible, and he knew that Hitler would have him and his staff shot if they didn’t do it, he shut down the research, saying that the studies so far indicated the bomb was not feasible.
So, Hitler was probably never aware that the bomb could be completed.
I discussed this topic with my Japanese boss, who grew up in the ruins of Tokyo following WW II.
He said that, while there were some doves in the military high command at the time who were urging surrender before Japan was completely destroyed, there were hawks who wanted to fight to the death. The defining aspect was the dominant warrior culture, which prevented anyone from appearing weak-willed before the hawks. Therefore, they all supported the noble idea of death in battle to each other’s faces, effectively (if not sincerely) putting the military firmly in the “no surrender” camp. Without the support of the military, it was impossible for the emperor to negotiate a peaceful surrender (which he wanted to do). Indeed, while the surrender was being signed on an American battleship, kamikaze pilots were readying airplanes at a nearby airfield to destroy the signing ceremony and prevent the surrender and the shaming of their nation, their military, and their emperor.
He said, were he in Truman’s position, he would have dropped the bombs, too.
Boy, I really do seem to recall testing being involved in the actual decision making process, but I suppose I could be wrong. Perhaps it was testing the effects of both types on full scale cities and a live population. And ISTR there being some concern by the military top brass of one or both being a dud. I do know Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been among a few cities virtually untouched by American bombers so the full effects could be evaluated.