Poll: Was It Wrong To Drop The Atomic Bombs In Japan?

[gim73]

I think the first bomb was a test. The second being real.

Nope! They actually tested the plutonium bomb before they dropped the bombs on japan. They knew the uranium bomb would work, but the plutonium bomb and its yield was a question. It was more destructive than they expected.

Would a conditional surrender have worked? Technically, the japanese DID do a conditional surrender, but it was so far along the lines of our unconditional surrender that we allowed it. There is no doubt that japan is enjoying more prosperity now than it has ever enjoyed in the past. Had we just won and left, they would have been taken over after a few years by china.

One other nice question to ask is: was it wrong for the americans to insist on full demilitarization and then build their economy up from the ruins after the war? Then we can go into korea and question our motives there.

People tend to get stupid when it comes to nuclear. Chemicals, nerve gas and biological agents have all been used against civilian and military targets for appauling effects. Fire has killed billions since it was discovered as an effective weapon. 2 bombs were dropped 65 years ago and NONE have been needed as weapons since. Really, the best weapon is one that you never really have to use. If we built a laser cannon in orbit and used it to cook a couple middle east cities then people would question if we /really/ needed to do that as well. Would they then persecute all laser cannons? Probably not. Why? Because nuclear stuff requires you to be really smart to understand it. It's easy to point as something you don't understand and call it 'the devil'. Most people don't understand lasers yet either, but we have yet to develop laser weapons that take out cities.

The fact is, history is history. If one day we can eventually travel back into the past, I would caution against trying to change decisions like this, or even some of the more heinous war crimes. Such events may cause unexpected consequences and ultimately lead to the planets early demise.

 

[Littlee300]

http://www.cracked.com/article/18360_6-assassination-attempts-that-almost-f2340ked-world/
read the story at bottom of the list.

I didn't answer this poll question due to the fact that I feel it was terrible, but also necessary. It wasn't good that we fried all those innocent Japanese people into crispy bits, but I've read a lot of books on the subject and I know that the only other alternative was for the Americans to invade.

The Japanese were counting on an invasion because it was their homeland and they were completely prepared. The American soldier casualties would have been astronomical! Think D-day X 10 or 20, but on Japan's shores. The Japanese were even training kids as young as 10 years old to use guns against the Americans if they invaded. It's sad, but they really gave us no other choice but to drop the bombs because the emperor was too stubborn.

Besides, think if you were an American soldier, and you had already spent a few years fighting the Japanese across the Pacific Islands and now you had to invade the mother country. You were already exhausted from barely surviving all of your battles for the last few years, and going into Japan would be practical suicide!

It's just like the ending of DOOM, episode one on the PC, where you kill the two Hellknight bosses on the last mission and you're totally excited, but then you go up the stairs and get dropped into a pit of angry demons who tear you apart in seconds. The American soldiers pretty much felt like that if they had to invade Japan - they were gonna get their asses killed after everything they'd already been through.

So sorry Japan, I like you and stuff, but your stubborn ways are to blame.

One of the best comments in the thread.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

The soviet union wasn't communist? Get your diploma in a cardboard box, did we?

The Soviet Union claimed to be Communist, and might have been had Vladmir Lenin successfully stopped Joeseph Stalin from taking power. That monster turned it into what was essentially a far-right military dictatorship that did a communist bit.

 

[Sacman]

I don't know we did get Godzilla as a result... it's hard to say...

 

[Xan Krieger]

It seems really hard to say it was wrong. Was it wrong to kill not even half a million people to save many millions? Seriously people who are against the bombs are all in favor of a higher body count. I never understood how they could say it's better to kill millions instead of a few hundred thousand.

 

[NordicWarrior]

The Japanese army yes, most were not on the main land, but the Japs had conscripter any male 16-60 (with anything from muskets to bamboo spears) into service and started arming woman as well. There was one story out of Japan where they armed an 18 year old girl with an awl and told her that killing 1 American would have been enough. The BEST estimates said that near 1 million Americans would have been killed fighting city to city, street by street against the entire population. I would have rather seen half a million Japanese killed before 1 more American.

When they started arming their citizens, they no longer became innocent people.

 

[IWCAS]

According to the Japanese beliefs... Surrendering was at the bottom of their list. We would have lost many more on land if we didn't drop the bomb.

 

[kaziard]

meh my standing on this has always been that the americans could have just dropped the nuke in the ocean nice and close by, would have sent the same message but without the munises, viz a viz: death and geneerations of harmful long term effects.

Even if japan hadnt surrendered after that, at least it would have been giving them a chance as opposed to asploding them

 

[automatron]

Well yeah, seeing as Japan was on their way to sign a truce.

Que?
This is not accurate, to my understanding.

In my view, it was justified. If it did not happen, mainland Japan would have been invaded. The Japanese would have fought to the last breath. Countless American and Japanese troops and Japanese civillians would have died on the Journey to Tokyo. 3 million casualties predicted in Tokyo civillians alone, were the projected figures.

How many died from the bombs though?
(This isn't a flame I'm actually asking cause I don't know)

 

[Syphous]

It was a terrible day in human history, but it helped bring World War 2 to an end, one of the worlds most awful wars, and the fear of such power continues to stabilize most of the world. It was a wake-up call to mankind's ability to destroy itself. In the end, it's a good thing it happened, but horrible that it had to.

 

[xXAsherahXx]

The atomic bomb killed less people than an actual invasion would have. It did kick start what evolved into the Cold War, which branched out into two others. However, i don't think that would really match the Japan invasion which was predicted to exceed 100,000 casualties in the first months. The Pacific theater was an island hop and with each hop, many more were killed. I can only imagine how much worse it would have turned out if the US and Japan battled it out on the mainland.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

The problem with judging history is that, it is history. We can't change it, and it is impossible to judge. Who knows what might of happened if we didn't? Maybe Japan didn't surrender, used spies to find out how to make their own A-bombs, and tried to use kamakazi's with Nukes in the planes. Maybe they would of surrendered and that was that. Who is to know weather it was or was not the right thing to do, how many lives would of been lost or saved if the US hadn't. We simply can't know.

we can't change it, but we sure as hell can judge it.
and no, I don't think japan would've kamikazi'ed with nukes,
look at the cold war (where nobody fired any atomic bombs)

I don't actually think they would of gotten their hands on Nukes, though if they did they would sure as heck use them since the idea of mutual assured destruction would be alien to a people that WAS willing to blow themselves up as long as it meant that it took as many American lives with them as possible. However, we don't know what would happen. I am not saying the instant vaporization of thousands of people was a good thing, but I can't say that the possibility of millions more dead would of been any better.

 

[Snella]

You gave them a chance to leave? That is no excuse for bombing a city! That whole "they did it so we can" mentality is madness. London got bombed to hell and that was an atrocity, but it was nowhere NEAR the atrocity the fire bombing of Dresden BY THE ALLIES was, and even that was nowhere near the atrocity of the nuclear bombing of two cities. Had they attacked military bases I would not be complaining, but they killed thousands of innocent people. There is no way at all you can justify that.

Innocent? The majority of Japanese civilians were being armed and trained to fight invading Americans to the death. Women and children were given spears and told to charge into American lines, and were trained since birth to die for the Emperor. 10,000 Japanese soldiers were also killed in the blast as well.

 

[avatar_vii]

that may be true, but an invasion does not spreed fallout that causes birth defects and cancer even 50 years after, making entire regions unlivable for almost as long. the way I see it, an invasion can never be as bad as dropping an atomic bomb. In this case, America was just as bad as hitler in terms of carnage and human suffering. And, the bombs were not dropped to defend any allies, if they were, the Americans would have dropped them as soon as Australia was bombed, not much later after being attacked themselves. This was nothing more than unjustified revenge whose effects are still beimg felt today. By the way, most of the Japanese troops were in Papua New Guinea and other south east asian countries, not actually in Japan itself, meaning an invasion would have been the least destructive option.

Japan brought the destruction on themselves. They were the ones who started Axis aggression, they were the ones who attacked Pearl Harbor and brought the US into the war, and they committed thousands of atrocities that you can't even begin to imagine. You would rather have one million American casualties than finish a war that we didn't start?

It wasn't just destruction, it was mass murder. The fallout from those bombs spread all over south east asia, causing cancer and birth defects even as far down as Australia.
And I can begin to imagine the atrocities they committed, my great-grand father and his brother were Prisoners of war in Japanese death camps, and before they died, told us stories about what happened.
If they brought in upon themselves, why did America wait until after pearl harbour to enter the war, when Australia (who they are ment to be allies with) had been bombed for months and was only not invaded because of hundreds of brave men who sacrificed themselves in order to stop the Japanese from getting any further than southern Papua New Guinea (look at a map, it's a stones throw away from mainland Australia).
Are the lives of millions of innocent Japanese civillians in two of their most heavily populated cities worth less than one million American soldiers?
Besides, the Japanese soldiers had abandoned the death camps and were making their way back to Japan weeks before the bombs drop.

 

[gim73]

I love how everyone loves to paint an American flag all over this issue, when in reality it was an allied operation. The atomic bomb was built because rumor spread to the allied powers that Germany was building an A-bomb as a last effort to turn the war around. The Manhattan project began to beat Germany in this arms-race with the help of British, American, and Canadian scientists and plutonium from Canada. When the bomb was finished, the allies prepared to drop it on Germany until Germany surrendered. With nowhere to put these two giant tax-money eating scraps of metal the government feared they would lose the public's trust which could have toppled the government. Then when the numbers came in it was recommended to the allies to drop the bombs on Japan, a country still in the war and was willing to fight to the death for their cause. It was unlikely that Japan was going to surrender because their army was trained to fight till the last breath ( Surrender was discouraged and lead the Japanese to believe brutal punishment to their prisoners of war was necessary) which was why the allies decided that it was the best choice of action in this situation.

Canadian plutonium, eh? LOL!

Okay boys and girls, let's have some SCIENCE lessons!

Uranium: heaviest naturally occuring element. Current isotope percentages: 99.3% 238, .7% 235
Plutonium: man made element created through neutron capture.

Let's let Enrico Fermi build Chicago Pile number 1 at the university in chicago, showing that sustained nuclear reaction can occur. Now we can settle on three sites in the US. Let's develop the bomb in Los Alamos. Since U-235 is needed for bombs (not U-238), Let's enrich uranium at Oak Ridge. Finally, since we want to make a plutonium bomb as well as a uranium bomb, let's make plutonium in Hanford, Washington. Okay, let's throw everything together!

Oops, my uranium bomb design won't work for plutonium.

But, what is my uranium bomb? Is it just a core with some TNT wrapped around it? Sadly, it's not even that high tech. The Hiroshima bomb (little boy) was a gun type uranium bomb where a portion of uranium is shot down a cannon into the main mass of uranium, forming a critical mass and explosion.

This won't work for plutonium because it reacts before it can form the mass and fizzles faster than explodes. The Nagasaki bomb (fat man) is an implosion type where a core of plutonium is compressed by shaped explosives set to go off at the exact same time.

Science is FUN. But we can't forget to thank some of the displaced Italian, German, Polish, Austrian and French scientists that also assisted in the manhatten project. I don't wanna downplay canadas contribution, but they did NOT have a plutonium tree to provide raw plutonium for the bombs.

 

[LarenzoAOG]

It's reallly hard to determine if it was right or wrong, invasion of Japan whould have cost a lot of lives on both sides, and the Japenese didn't surrender in WW2 cuz it was shameful.

Killing civilians is never a good thing but then again there wouldn't be a Hiroshima if there wasn't a Pearl Harbor, and the declaration of war never made it to the U.S. when that happened, and besides we told Japan that we were gonna fuck them up if they didn't surrender, even after the first bomb was dropped they didn't give up.

I guess both sides were to blame but maybe one was more to blame than the other, but fuck, I wasn't around in the 40's and neither were you, so who are we to judge?

 

[Davrel]

Really tried not to post in this thread, but oh well...

No - it was not wrong.

1) Warnings (albeit oblique warnings) were made by Truman at Potsdam.
2) The peace faction in the Japanese government would not have been influential enough to end the war before the Soviets became involved.
3) Linking from point 2: If the Russians had invaded any portion of Japan, it would simply have acted as another focal point for crisis generation - we all (I hope) know what happened at Berlin, Cuba and the Taiwan Straits.
4) It did end the war sooner rather than later and ultimately meant far fewer casualties from BOTH sides than if the proposed invasion had taken place.
5) Their usage, and the willingness shown by the USA to use nuclear weapons allowed for a few brief years of complete American political dominance; re. the successful implementation of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan (vital for European redevelopment), and the lack of Soviet escalation during the Berlin Blockade.
6) They were dropped on targets with some military significance; Nagasaki was an important port, and there were large numbers of Japanese troops stationed in Hiroshima.
7) Japan would go on to act as an important American ally in the Far East, and a symbol of the US policy of Containment.
8) It would have been complete political suicide for Truman (or anyone) to have continued the war when they had weapons that could win it almost instantaneously; despite being a 'secret' project, the Manhattan project was riddled with spies and the existence of nuclear weapons would have become public knowledge sooner or later.
9) By delivering such a crushing defeat to an aspiring imperial power, the United States and its later domination over Japan, was probably the fundamental driving force behind Japan's evolution from a militaristic semi-autocratic feudal state to a modern democratic capitalist one.
10) Having seen the devastating impact of nuclear weapons, the world (even at the height of the Cold War) has been deeply reluctant to use them.


In short: "boo hoo" civilians died but tough luck, this was total war unlike anything ever seen before and hopefully to be never seen again; you have to look at events such as this in the long term - the use of nuclear weapons in this case did a great deal more good than harm.

N.B. There is an argument that states the use of the second bomb against Nagasaki was unnecessary, but in a situation when time is of the absolute essence (see points 2 & 3) it falls somewhat flat especially when considering it doubtless hammered home in the minds of the Japanese government that complete annihilation was rapidly approaching.

 

[LarenzoAOG]

Well yeah, seeing as Japan was on their way to sign a truce.

Que?
This is not accurate, to my understanding.

In my view, it was justified. If it did not happen, mainland Japan would have been invaded. The Japanese would have fought to the last breath. Countless American and Japanese troops and Japanese civillians would have died on the Journey to Tokyo. 3 million casualties predicted in Tokyo civillians alone, were the projected figures.

that may be true, but an invasion does not spreed fallout that causes birth defects and cancer even 50 years after, making entire regions unlivable for almost as long. the way I see it, an invasion can never be as bad as dropping an atomic bomb. In this case, America was just as bad as hitler in terms of carnage and human suffering. And, the bombs were not dropped to defend any allies, if they were, the Americans would have dropped them as soon as Australia was bombed, not much later after being attacked themselves. This was nothing more than unjustified revenge whose effects are still beimg felt today. By the way, most of the Japanese troops were in Papua New Guinea and other south east asian countries, not actually in Japan itself, meaning an invasion would have been the least destructive option.

Hitler killed more than 6 million people because he was a fuckin phsycopath, we dropped the bomb because we didn't want to draw out the war, theres a huge fuckin difference.

And the Japenese weren't fucking saints either, soldiers on both sides did bad things and we can't deny that but put yourself in the position of the ones who had to decide, I don't think its fair to judge them because we don't know what WOULD have happened if the bomns weren't dropped.

 

[mexicola]

Yes, it was wrong dropping an atomic bomb over two towns.