OK the two bombs was not just an attack the USSR and the United States were at the time allies but were no were near friends so using the bombs was to show the Soviets our strength that doesn't justify fully the use of them. the US also tried invading it was called island hopping look it up and you'll also see that it coast the US heavily with solders and resources and an attack directly on the main land would have been long and would have been a lot more bloodier the US would have lost ships and soldier loss would have been extreme. the Japanese soldiers would never surrender the were flaying there plains in to our ships sacrificing them self's because they were told it was honorable and back then to be dishonored was worse then death. we asked for there surrender before the first bomb we asked after the first one was dropped they refused so we dropped the next they finial surrendered. and if all there soldiers were going to kill them self's to the last one till they died. so the only way to make them surrender was to attack the civilian's. personally i think it saved altogether saved lives. and was necessary
i hate nukes. however, i do support our bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki. it saved more than a million of our soldiers from being massacred. and, though my thought on this will be more than likely picked apart, i believe it also saved the lives of the japanese as well. if we had invaded, then almost all of the japanese populace would have fought till every one of them was dead. japan would have become a mountain of bodies
Ok for some reason I can't import the image so here's a graph of deaths in WWII, Civilian and Military for both sides. As you can see, Japan's death toll seems fairly low compared to the Soviet Union and China.
@iMogwai Are you saying that the civilians in China, who were mercilessly slaughtered when Japan invaded, were far less important than those who died in Japan when the bombs were dropped? How would you justify war crimes done with guns and knives? Are those acceptable simply because they're conventional?
I'd say what I was saying back before this thread died, two (or more) wrongs don't make a right. That, and now that the combined Allied Forced were focusing on a single nation, they'd be able to push them out of China and the other countries on the mainland. I'm not sure if the total amount of civilian casualties during that time would be more or less than the amount of civilian casualties due to the bombings, but neither did they, and that's why I don't think "to save lives" is a valid argument. Even if it was, I would not consider the intentional killing of a ****load of civilians to be justified.
Anyways, long rant short, two wrongs don't make a right.
If you knew for certain that the same number of civilians would have died either way (conventional or atomic), and more soldiers dying on both sides (due to continued fighting), would you have allowed the bombs to drop?
If you knew for certain that the same number of civilians would have died either way (conventional or atomic), and more soldiers dying on both sides (due to continued fighting), would you have allowed the bombs to drop?
If you knew for certain that the same number of civilians
That would be impossible to know for certain in real life.
But, since this just a what-if question, I'll try to answer it.
If I was from the US during the war, and I knew doing that would save more lives than it would take, some of them being from my own country, I guess I would allow it to be dropped, mostly to save those closest to me. However, I would not think it was justified, or even the right thing to do.
However, seeing as how it would be impossible to know that it would save those lives in the first place, I don't see what that has to do with the original question.
Anyways the cites that were destroyed by the bomb were set to be firebombed anyways, which would have killed the same amount of people that the atomic bomb did but without any effect on the Japanese government.
It only killed 250,000 or so. A lot more would have been more than willing to fight to the death. Japanese soldiers were told that Americans had to kill both their parents in order to join the Marines. If the public was told that after a mainland invasion started, every citizen would kill as many US soldiers as they could, resulting in potentially millions of deaths.
People often overestimate the atomic bomb. It was more of a psychological thing on the Japs to surrender already. In reality the fire bombs made the atom bomb victim's number almost irrelevant. Another common misstake to do is to think it made Japan surrender or even win the war. In reality Japan already lost but the bombs would not make her surrender, she only surrendered after the USSR started invading Japan's Chinese territories. That means they really didn't want to surrender but they understood they would be better off surrendering to USA then USSR, so they did.
Over 6000 marines were killed and another 20000 injured fighting for a small island with an area of only 8 miles called Iwo Jima. That's about the size of a very small town. Another 12000 were killed and 50000 injured at the larger island of Okinawa. The majority of Japanese troops on the islands never surrendered, mostly for fears of being captured alive and tortured due to propaganda.
mostly for fears of being captured alive and tortured due to propaganda.
It wasn't only that. It was also about the Japanese suicidal culture that included dying for the country as a duty for every soldier. That's why although every army in WW2 had propaganda against surrendering, only Japan and Russia had almost noone surrendering. However, the thought that no Japanese soldier would ever surrender made the Japanese army not teach their soldiers how to react if they were captured. The result was that the few Japanese that did surrender were an extremely valuable to the allies.
Understanding the culture of Japan during the Second World War I would say the dropping of the atomic bombs was justified and the correct choice.
Meiji Japan was basically a military cult, they did not believe in surrendering and to die for the emperor was desired. They were raised to believe they were ethnically superior to their neighbors and carried out exterminations of conquered peoples, basically working them to death. They had a literal (translates literally) thought police and to even know anyone who spoke out against their government was enough to be thrown in prison. Children were raised to be soldiers and as the war began to turn against Japan they began to arm children with spears to fend off the invadors. A good book for you to read is Saburo Ienaga's The Pacific War 1931-1945, it details the military cult and the Japanese attitude to the war and other peoples much better than I can. Put basically imagine the Japanese as the Nazis and the rest of the world as the Jews.
The Japanese government was ran by the military and the military wanted war. When a peace faction arose in the government, by peace faction I mean they wanted to wait and build their military before going to war, an army group took over Tokyo and held the government hostage until the Navy had steamed into the harbor and pointed their guns at the army group. That group was sent to Manuchuria where it was believed they couldn't get themselves in any trouble and they ended up invading China, forgetting to tell Tokyo for several weeks. Part of the invasion of China included the **** of Nanking, a war crime so bad it got the Nazis to send their embasy guards along with the British, Americans and French to set up an international zone to protect the local people. They comited a war crime so bad it got the Nazis to send peacekeepers.
To believe the entire allied force (much of which could not take much more fighting) could have taken the Japanese home islands is almost laughable. Look at how hard they fought for practically worthless islands, death rates of over 90% on many islands where their primary battle tactic was the human wave. Not until Okinawa did they develop good military tactics and the US almost failed to take that island. In fact Okinawa was what caused the US to decide to use the atomic bomb and Okinawa was not a home island. The Japanese killed the civilian population including one famous story where they threw among many others a pregnant woman over a cliff where she gave birth in free fall. Mother and baby fell upon the rocks dead.
To attack the home islands with infantry would have been suicide for the allies. The Red Army never would have arrived in time, the British were weak from the war and the American forces from Europe would be expecting to fight Germans and instead been faced with the very willing to die Japanese soldiers. Japanese civilians would have been armed and would have fought and been killed if the allies had attacked the home islands and much of the Japanese population would have had to have been slaughtered. Men, women and children would have died by the city load due to the arrogance of the Japanese government while more Japanese soldiers would have arrived from China and other holdings. They would not have surrendered and eventually the Germans would have had to been rearmed to take part in the fight and eventually the atomic bomb would have had to been used anyway. After the first bomb the military did not want to surrender, it took two bombs. Also remember the image of the Japanese government has been cleaned up especially after the war, much of what they did is not regularly taught. If those bombs had not been dropped when they were that war would have only been dragged out longer, many many more people would have died and Japan as we know it today would not exist.
