dropping the bomb on japan? yes or no?
- Thread starter farmerboy219
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Japanese were going to stop fighting because the russians were pushing their northern forces, all the bomb did was scare the russians and prove to the world that the americans had a head start in the nuclear arms race, that second was when the cold war started, so i suppose it depends on philosophy, realistically it probably saved millions of lives, big deterent, but why drop two?
He's not being racist here, he's being down right serious. The Japanese military had plans to mobilize their entire adult population into one gigantic militia. Those that weren't used in direct combat roles would probably be used for combat support or human shields. The Japanese fought tooth and nail to hold onto the island of Iwo Jima, a volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific. Imagine how hard they would have fought for their very homes. They were willing to continue fighting so long as they died fighting the Allies. Why else would Kamikaze units become common strategy amongst the Japanese military? The atomic bombs were terrible enough to show them that continued fighting would not result in an honorable death, but annihilation. Even then there were Japanese officers willing to continue the fight against the allies.YesConsiderably said:
Although there were lots of propaganda used by the US to de-humanize the Japanese, what emeraldrafael was true. The Japanese would have continued to fight to the very end if it weren't for the use of the atomic bombs.
When your country has never surrendered and you are arming simple citizens with weapons just to fight back. 2 city's were nothing compared to what would of happened. There culture says never surender but kill your self first to maintain honor....everyone would of died
Why are we doing this thread again, I will say it was a while ago but still.
OT: Japan was ready to fight down too the last man, woman, and child. It would have been very, very bloody for both sides had we invaded Japan. I can not think of the numbers killed or wounded from the Nuclear devices (300000?) but the toll would have been at least that for the Americans and 1,000,000+ for the Japaneses and that is including after Japan recalled their main armies from China. We are talking 7 or 8 times the death and destruction.
Also, the horror of the bomb was fully realized until after its use. We did not fear it before, but after we saw what it had done to Japan, we wept. That prevented us from using it during the Cold War.
I am not saying using the devices was right or wrong, but maybe it was just the least bloody path.
OT: Japan was ready to fight down too the last man, woman, and child. It would have been very, very bloody for both sides had we invaded Japan. I can not think of the numbers killed or wounded from the Nuclear devices (300000?) but the toll would have been at least that for the Americans and 1,000,000+ for the Japaneses and that is including after Japan recalled their main armies from China. We are talking 7 or 8 times the death and destruction.
Also, the horror of the bomb was fully realized until after its use. We did not fear it before, but after we saw what it had done to Japan, we wept. That prevented us from using it during the Cold War.
I am not saying using the devices was right or wrong, but maybe it was just the least bloody path.
The Japanese weren't going to give up. When they knew an island was going to be taken, they often tied themselves to trees so they could keep shooting longer. they took one nuke and still wouldn't surrender. Besides, that was the way of the world then. Wars were fought by killing civilians as well as soldiers in order to scare the people in to forcing thier governments to surrender. Killing the spirit so that lengthy insurgencies(read: war in iraq and vietnam) wouldn't happen.
I understand what it is like to debate the uninformed about history. It is quite a pain. But let us remember that we should still be polite too those who have not learned history quite as well as we have.Hardcore_gamer said:
Name calling will not solve anything, and it weakens your position.
Did he tell you about the Chinese comfort women, you know the woman who were raped repeatedly and then had experimental birth control used on them that often would render them infertile? Probably not. The Japanese army was fiercely loyal, but, just like parts of our own armed forces they were not neccisarrily any more principled, the Japanese slaughter of Chinese civilians was second only to Stalin's condemnation of his own people.emeraldrafael said:
Pretty much the answer i've come to expect. The Japanese were prepared to stop fighting, but rather than come to a peaceful sollution, the United States killed hundreds of thousands of innoccent people.Mornelithe said:
Like i said, even if the US felt the need to continue fighting, a land invasion wouldn't have been as damaging to US forces as "Operation Downfall" made out.
you didnt read my previous quote. I siad they would use their wives to posion American Soldiers should they cook for them or take care of them. They would also have thier children and wives ready to kill the soldiers in their sleep.BackwardsO said:
I know the horror stories of China. I know of Nanking. The guy i talked to was there, then got moved to the pacific, where he was so close he was an island away from fighting one of my grandfathers. He didnt say he was sorry, he didnt say he was glad, he just siad it was war, and told me what he did. I'm not saying he was a good person. Just saying what he told me, first hand.
Morally, any act of war is bad, but logically speaking the nukes were a good thing. The Japanese trained their children to fight to the end, during school they would set aside time to teach them how to kill an American GI with a katana. They were told by the emperor that Americans would kill the men, enslave the children, and rape the women. The Japanese citizens were ready to fight to the death, they saved most of their planes for kamikazes to be dealt on the American fleet should it get close to the Home Islands. They also saved most of their ohkas, which were pretty much flying jet bomb kamikazes for defense of the home islands. The nukes saved countless American and Japanese lives.
Whether or not it saved lives by ending the war early is certainly still debatable. But if you want to delve into the hypothetical, who's to say that the collective horror at the results of using the bomb didn't have some aid in preventing the cold war from going nuclear? Maybe, if the bomb never fell on Japan, we would have been more inclined to try one out against Russia some day in the future.
One could speculate for days on what would or would not have happened. But its done, it can't be changed. Its a black day in our history indeed, and the best we can hope is that we learned from it. And that we won't ever need to use one again.
One could speculate for days on what would or would not have happened. But its done, it can't be changed. Its a black day in our history indeed, and the best we can hope is that we learned from it. And that we won't ever need to use one again.
I know that the average American's concept of geography isn't great, so i'll let you in on a little secret.Mornelithe said:
Japan is quite a big place, filled with many, many people. Shoichi Yokoi isn't at all representative of Japan, and you're having to stretch quite far to make this point.