Greatest act of terrorism in history......

[Postman]

August 6, 1945

Anyone who has ever played the game of Risk knows It was not nessesary to win the war

[tabasco]

1. Tell that to the infantry waiting to attack the home islands.

Would you have preferred massive tons of conventional munitions rather than two nukes?

Thousands more would have been killed if the war hadn't ended when it did. The Japanese were prepared to fight to the last position.

[batsauce]

3. And probably many more Japanese would have died..

Truly, the fighting spirit showed at Iwo Jima when the Japanese inflicted horrendous casualties against an overwhelming foe say something about the feelings of the common Japanese.

That fighting spirit was not going to go away when the invasion hit the home islands, it was only going to be stronger.

[JAbuchan08]

4. "Thousands more would have been killed if the war hadn't ended when it did

thousands more soldiers (emphasis on soldiers). Instead thousands of civilians were killed, but I guess those are the wages of war.

"The Japanese were prepared to fight to the last position."

I've heard this before. I've also heard that if we'd offered them a face-saving alternative to unconditional surrender they would have taken it. Of course I'm not a WWII historian so I will accept corrections on this.

[batsauce]

8. no, I think that civilians would have been killed if the war hit the home

islands. Imagine a battle taking place in Times Square that didn't kill more civilians than soldiers.

As I understand it, surrender was not an acceptable practice within Japanese military tradition, and this was reflected in the brutal and barbaric treatment of soldiers who did surrender.

[JAbuchan08]

15. I think the "Japanese were a proud race and unwilling to surrender"

is a bunch of bullcrap (no offense) and probably racist too. Nobody is eager to die and I expect the Japanese were far more pragmatic reasonable and sane than people give them credit for.

On edit: sorry if a little harsh, but following the reasoning in my previous post I just have trouble accepting the cold pragmatism of the nuclear decision over even the bloodiest of invasions.
To paraphrase someone (sorry I'm not googling the qoute) "it's a good thing war isn't too easy, or we would become too fond of it." What is easier than the nuclear option.

[geek tragedy]

22. These are the people who invented kamikazes and hari-kari. Surrender

was not a word in their working vocabulary.

I won't dispute that it was an act of terrorism. However, it was an act of terrorism that saved lives and may have prevented Japan from becoming a satellite of the Soviet Union--something most Japanese alive today can be grateful for.

[Art_from_Ark]

50. Um, Japan had a non-agression pact with the USSR

It was the US that talked Stalin into joining the war against Japan, in exchange for the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin, which Stalin promptly invaded AFTER the Hiroshima bomb was dropped.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/Dip/USSR-Jap-DoW.ht...

[electron_blue]

7. Yes, I would have preferred that

[SemiCharmedQuark]

30. The United States Bombing Survey issued 1946 disagreed with you

It was a panel ordered by Truman to look over the Pacific theater of WWII. The conclusion arrived at was that the Japanese would have surrendered WITHOUT the nuclear bombs and even without the entry of the USSR by November.

Not only that, AGAIN, messages intercepted by the US completely disprove the "they would have fought to the last position" theory.

[Fozzledick]

52. My father already told it to me

He was an Army intelligence officer in the Pacific. His unit was scheduled to spearhead the invasion of the Japanese mainland; his interpretation of that was that they would have hit the beach "three steps behind the Marines". After landing they expected to find "a sniper behind every tree".

During the six years he spent in the occupation he became convinced that they had been ready to surrender and only wanted to negotiate terms, but that Truman refused on the grounds that Roosevelt had demanded "unconditional surrender" and had already imposed it on Germany.

My own historical studies have convinced me that the Japanese commanders in the Pacific had already contacted our commanders directly to ask for terms, and that all they were asking for was that we recognize them as a defeated nation and not simply as conquered territory as they had treated Korea and China. I believe that Roosevelt was clever and flexible enough to have given them private assurances to that effect while publicly accepting their surrender without official terms, but that Truman was just too stubborn and rigid to budge from his publicly stated position.

[KG]

2. they were about to capitualate.

the a-bombs were dropped to shock and awe soviet russia, not the japanese.

not even sure why an invasion was necesary. the japanese were neatly bottled up on their home island.

[batsauce]

5. I don't think they were ready to give up.

Certainly the information available to the American military at that point in time would argue against that conclusion. American soldiers were fighting a determined enemy which showed little sign of surrender.

Of course, with a half-century of hindsight it is possible to come to a different conclusion. We are both different peoples now.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Very good.... well stated and accurate. It was as you say... to

scare the crap out of Russia... no more, no less.

[batsauce]

9. Then Truman was stupid.

The Russians had an atomic bomb in development. In addition, Russians had access to a great deal of the Nazi research on nuclear weapons.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

11. No, it was Roosevelt's project. Truman came on board late in the game.

[Fozzledick]

53. Truman's message to Stalin

1. We already have the bomb

2. It works

3. We're willing to use it on civilians

[HysteryDiagnosis]

16. The slippery slope.....

The dropping of the bomb illustrates another problem in moral reasoning, often referred to as the slippery slope. In the beginning, Allied bomb raids were directed primarily at military targets, though it was often hard to distinguish between military and civilian. Gradually, the scope of bombing was broadened until Curtis Lemay invented fire-bombing, a devastating tactic that allowed him to burn large parts of Japanese cities, killing thousands. It is a huge step from targeting military installations to dropping an atomic bomb; it is a smaller step from destroying cities with conventional bombs to destroying them with a new weapon. Once the U.S. and its allies decided that Japanese civilians were integral to the war effort and had to be targeted, they started down a slippery slope that made additional decisions easier and more obvious. One participant in the final discussions on dropping the bomb argued that the "number of people that would be killed by the bomb would not be greater in general magnitude than the number already killed in fire raids."(Rhodes, 1986, p.648)

Lise Meitner, the physicist who co-discovered fission with Otto Frisch, observed this slippery slope first-hand as Germany drifted into Nazism. There were good Germans in the physics community who were not Nazis, like her collaborator Otto Hahn. As the Nazis gradually took more and more control and started to oppress the Jews, he became focused on saving his institute and asked Meitner, a Jew, not to appear at work any more. "He has, in essence, thrown me out" (Sime, 1996, p.185).

[The Magistrate]

23. For The Record, Sir

LeMay no more invented fire-bombing cities than he invented racist bombast.

In February of 1932, Japanese navy bombers scattered incendiaries wholesale over the Chapie district of Shangjai, constructed largely of wood and paper, igniting tremendous fires that killed thousands. In the aerial campaigns of the Japanese against China, begining in the autumn of 1937, the same tactic was employed on innumerable occassions. No one has ever managed a sensible estimate of the casualties among Chinese civilians; all observers agreed they were sufficient to stagger the imagination.

It is an unfortunate fact that, given the state of the military art at the time, there existed no way to strike effectively at the government of a society mobilized for war without striking at the civilian populace of the nation. Despite great improvements in the art, that remains even today largely true.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

26. We struck at the government of a society "so say mobilized for war"

and we are killing their civilians to this day. Bombing solves nothing. Changes nothing... it only determines who is left to hate.

[The Magistrate]

36. An Incomplete Analysis, Sir

In many, though not all, instances, such action so materially reduces the capability of a state to maintain effective military organization that it does bring about a decision on th battlefield. In some, though certainly not all instances, it reduces the willingness of a population to continue the fight to a degree that substantially disarms its leadership.

Nor is conventional war against a nation-state the same endeavor as war against popular resistance to occupation, or war against popular revolution. Indeed, any attempt to trat the latter things as if they were the former, a thing to which the U.S. political and military establihments seem peculiarly prone to do, is guaranteed to fail.

[The Magistrate]

12. That Idea, Sir, Is A Tremendous Oversimplification

It is far from true, as a matter of practical fact. Certainly elements in the civilian government of Japan were ready to negotiate a surrender. These elements did not have the capability to control the military leadership, which held the decisive power, without an open statement dictating surrender by the Emperor, and even then, as events showed, after the atomic weapons were used, signifigant elements of the military leadership were prepared for a coup even against Him. The Emperor was not moved to openly commit to surrender prior to the atomic attacks, though he was privately convinced of the futility of further war after the fire bombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities, several of which were far more lethal than the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Uncomfortable as the thought may be to face, there is no way that war would have been, or could have been, ended, without wholesale slaughter of Japanese civilians. Nor, when one examines the history of Japanese imperial aggression in East Asia, particularly in China, and in the occupation of former Western colonies, can there be any doubt the military regime of Imperial Japan had to be broken by whatever means proved necessary, and utterly expunged.

[democracyindanger]

14. "Every Citizen A Soldier"

That's the propaganda line that was being promoted in Japan at the time, in preparation for an invasion of the home islands. And you're absolutely right that there were some diplomats that secretly discussed the possibility of surrender with the Allies, but it was the military that held the reins to power.

[The Magistrate]

17. The Period, Sir, Is One Of My Particular Interests

China in the early twentieth century is a fascination of mine, and requires, owing to events and interrelations, a working knowledge of Imperial Japan in the same period. By the mid-thirties of that century, people had learned to disregard completely what civilian officials said, and watch what leading generals and admirals did.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

19. Eisenhower disagreed with the decision, as did MacArthur.

MacArther even claimed he wasn't even consulted on the issue, but that if he was, he would not have condoned it.

The heroes of WWII thought it was a bad idea. Why wasn't MacArthur even consulted? Even George Marshall thought it was not a military move, but rather a political one.

[KG]

21. because the politicos were already planning the next war - against russia

hence the shock and awe concept was born - for the benefit of the USSR

[The Magistrate]

32. Unimportant, Ma'am

Soldiers have a charming delusion that war is not political, but military only. That is quite wrong: war is a political exercise, in which military means are employed to achieve political effects as well as ends.

MacArthur was a purely political general, and would have said anything to discredit Democratic politicians. If he had any real objection stated at the time, it would have been rooted in being deprived of the glory of conquering Japan himself by an infantry invasion, and distaste for the decision in the matter being credited to the Air Corps.

There was a feeling among military commanders, which the methodical Gen. Eisenhower seems to have shared, that Japan should not be conquered too quickly. the plan was not just for invasion of the home islands, but engagement of the sizeable and active Japanese forces in China, by U.S. forces and newly established and trained Chinese nationalist forces, striking north from the south and west. By this means it was intended to check-mate the growing power of the Communists in northern China, and balk Soviet moves into Manchuria. The sudden end of the war prevented this, and threw the whole situation in mainland China, and in the former Dutch and French possessions as well, into a tremendously confused turmoil, in which in many locales Japanese garrisons became allied subordinates with Nationalist Chinese and U.S. detatchmenyts against the Communists in China, and were deputized as the allied occupation forces against Indonesian nationalists. It must never be ignored that a great underlyig thrust of the Pacific War was the restoration of colonial imperiums, and the thwarting of the Communist Revolution in China. Military figures commenting on how the war was ended should be understood in this light, to be correctly evaluated.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

34. What about the 1946 panel drawn up by Truman that came to the same conclus

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey?
Are they deluded as well?

Also, Marshall refused to comment on the bomb BECAUSE he argued it was not military, but political.

[The Magistrate]

39. That Survey, Sir, Is An Interesting Document

It establishes several things, one of the most important being that the air forces greatly over-rated the material effect of their demolitions on the enemy's war effort. Part of this was owing to the difficulty of gathering good intelligence, part of it was owing to a lack of engineering knowledge on the part of those assessing initially the effect of the strikes, and a good deal of it was due to the peculiar political relations between the new air forces and the older services, in which the airmen were attempting to carve out both independence and a superior position relative to their entrenched rivals. But it does not establish that the final acts of the Pacific war were unnecessary, nor that they were not decisive.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

42. The document the Survey released says this:

"Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion."

"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

[The Magistrate]

46. That Is A Possiblity, Sir

As with all hyputhetical projections, it can neither be proved or disproved.

What do you imagine is meant by the phrase "air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender"? That refers to the continuation of a conventional air attack round the clock on Japan, including mass bombings of cities, and close quartering of the place by fighter-bombers at low level, strafing anything that moved by road or rail. It envisions wholesale killing, destruction and interdiction of food stocks required in cities, of fuel, of medicine, of all necessities of life, afflicting civilian and military persons alike, indiscriminately. It would certainly, in the several additional months contemplated at minimum, have killed a great many more people than were killed in the atomic blasts, and wrought a great deal more material destruction. It might be recommended as preferable on some grounds, but certainly not on the ground that it was more humane, or a less terrible exercise in pitiless slaughter.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

47. That fails to take into account the new bombing directive issued July 24

That is, that civilian targets are 4th priority. Not only that, few civilian targets remained. There is no evidence the bombs saved more lives.

[The Magistrate]

51. Operational Orders Are An Art Form, Sir

Study reports of the actual actions of the fliers. And disabuse yourself of the notion there is some clean and clear dividion between military and civilian targets in such a campaign. the Pacific War was a war of race hate; the objective of the fliers was to "kill japs", and that is what they did.

[Postman]

13. Exactly.

Japan is an island. Just surround the place and you win, an invasion would be not only stupid but unnecessary for victory.

The A-Bomb was for the Soviets to take notice.

Pretty despicable.

[batsauce]

18. I don't think that Truman/Roosevelt were that stupid.

An A-Bomb is a hard thing NOT to notice.

It would have been cheaper just to invite a couple witnesses to a demonstration.

As it was, Russian had their own A-bomb by 1949, so if that was the strategy, is turned out to be a very silly one.

[ChemEng]

24. Despicable?

I don't think so. Japan would never have given up without an invasion. How do you define victory anyhow? What about the Japanese in Manchuria?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

27. That is not true. As I posted below, messages intercepted by the US

indicated that Japan was seeking a mediated peace with the US.

[batsauce]

35. But how meaningful were those messages?

Perhaps the military was just feeling the Allies out, seeing how insistent they were on unconditional surrender.

In any case, could the originators of these messages guarantee that they could force the powerful military to submit to the terms?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

37. The originator would be Shigenori Togo, Foreign Minister of Japan

It wasn't as though it were just some kid screwing around on the radio.

[batsauce]

38. So you think the politician could have forced the generals to

submit to his surrender?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

40. He was not speaking solely for himself. The reason he was the one

sending the messages was because he was attempting to negotiate a mediated peace. He was communicating to the Soviets because they were neutrals.

[The Magistrate]

41. In Effect, Sir, He Was Just Yhat

Had he told a general to surrender, that man would have either burst out laughing or had him shot on the spot....

[SemiCharmedQuark]

43. By the time these messages were relayed, the emperor had already

been convinced by the "doves" so to speak to surrender under certain conditions, specifically the retention of the emperor. When the emperor requested the surrender, no matter how repugnant the military leaders found it, they would accept.

The exact words of the minister of War were "As a Japanese soldier, I must obey my emperor."

[The Magistrate]

49. Ther Emperor At That Time, Sir

Had not yet committed to that in public, even in government councils. These efforts were made in dire secrecy, and for good reason. The Minister of War certainly said that, but did not necessarily mean it. The Japanese military was honey-combed with ultra-nationalist cliques that had in the past acted independently and violently, to commit the nation to war in China, and to assassinate figures seen as standing for peace. They had fellows in the highest echelons of command. A common figure was to view it as a patriotic necessity to save the Emperor from weak and corupt councilors, and there is no doubt whatever that in the summer of 1945 that view was widely held in the Japanaese officer corps. Even after the atomic attacks, before the broadcast of the emperor's speech, officers of the Imperial Guard division at the Palace attenpted a coup to prevent its broadcast, and came very close to succeeding. Attempting to treat this, some sixty years after the event, as if it was some cut and dried certainty, wholly misses the reality of the period.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

10. We couldn't bomb the USSR because they were our allies, so we bombed Japan

There's plenty of evidence now to suggest that had the Japanese been given different terms than "unconditional surrender" and relinquishing of their emperor, they would have surrendered.
But Truman was haunted about dropping those bombs for the rest of his life.

[geek tragedy]

20. Well, anyone who's played Axis & Allies would tell you the opposite.

Though I try not to base my geopolitical analyses on board games.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

25. Another thing: the US wanted the war over before USSR got involved with

Japan.

During June, Japan was looking for a mediated peace between itself and the US. They attempted to do this through the Soviets, the only major power that was neutral with Japan at the time.

These are some of the messages intercepted by the US from the Japanese. Do they sound like the words of a country wishing to continue to fight?

# July 11: "make clear to Russia... We have no intention of annexing or taking possession of the areas which we have been occupying as a result of the war; we hope to terminate the war".
# July 12: "it is His Majesty's heart's desire to see the swift termination of the war".
# July 13: "I sent Ando, Director of the Bureau of Political Affairs to communicate to the Ambassador that His Majesty desired to dispatch Prince Konoye as special envoy, carrying with him the personal letter of His Majesty stating the Imperial wish to end the war" (for above items, see: U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 1, pg. 873-879).
# July 18: "Negotiations... necessary... for soliciting Russia's good offices in concluding the war and also in improving the basis for negotiations with England and America." (Magic-Diplomatic Summary, 7/18/45, Records of the National Security Agency, Magic Files, RG 457, Box 18, National Archives).
# July 22: "Special Envoy Konoye's mission will be in obedience to the Imperial Will. He will request assistance in bringing about an end to the war through the good offices of the Soviet Government." The July 21st communication from Togo also noted that a conference between the Emperor's emissary, Prince Konoye, and the Soviet Union, was sought, in preparation for contacting the U.S. and Great Britain (Magic-Diplomatic Summary, 7/22/45, Records of the National Security Agency, Magic Files, RG 457, Box 18, National Archives).
# July 25: "it is impossible to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we should like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter." (U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 2, pg. 1260 - 1261).
# July 26: Japan's Ambassador to Moscow, Sato, to the Soviet Acting Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Lozovsky: "The aim of the Japanese Government with regard to Prince Konoye's mission is to enlist the good offices of the Soviet Government in order to end the war." (Magic-Diplomatic Summary, 7/26/45, Records of the National Security Agency, Magic Files, RG 457, Box 18, National Archives).

[i miss america]

28. A dark day in human history. What a shame we had to resort to such

massive destruction and weren't able to accomplish a positive outcome through diplomacy.

I pray the world never sees a repeat of that kind of monumental failure.

[batsauce]

33. Here is some history that might shed some light...

Here is the website I found. It seems credible. The qoutation of the Emporer is authentic:

http://www.ishipress.com/whybomb.htm
"
Another even bigger controversy has been whether the Japanese would have surrendered anyway even if the A-Bomb had not been dropped. It is reasonably clear that the Japanese would not have surrendered otherwise. Some Japanese, including my wife's father, still do not accept the surrender of Japan. A little known fact is that after the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, a palace coup took place in the Japanese Imperial Palace. Emperor Hirohito wanted to surrender, but his generals were not going to let him. They took the emperor prisoner and held him for a few days. Hirohito prepared a tape recording saying that he wanted to surrender, but was not able to get it out so that it could be broadcast.

Later, he made a second tape recording. This one got out, although Hirohito was still a prisoner, and was broadcast on August 14, 1945. The Japanese people had never heard the emperor's voice before. It was high-pitched and squeaky. It sounded like a bird. Nevertheless, when the tape was broadcast over the radio, the people concluded that this must really be the emperor speaking, and so they accepted the surrender of Japan.

The radio broadcast by Emperor Hirohito specifically stated that surrender was necessary because "the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/hirohito.htm

[Zorbuddha]

29. They could've dropped the bomb 15 miles out of town

and had the same effect. Without the horrendous casualty count.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

31. They actually did drop Fat Man slightly off target to do just that.

[Zorbuddha]

45. Bullshit...they missed their bullseye,

through heavy cloud cover, and they fretted over just how off target they were.

[Redstone]

44. Given my father's age, it's fairly likely that I would

never have been born if we hadn't nuked the Japanese into surrender.

We did what we had to do. No apologies are necessary.

They started it, we finished it.

Redstone

[Fozzledick]

56. I beg to differ...

...and I was born nine months after my father returned from the occupation!

See my post #52 above.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

48. Why two? Why Nagasaki?

The Japanese "would never surrender", but they DID surrender after two bombs. Why didn't they wait more than 3 days between them?

[Fozzledick]

54. It was a BLUFF!

Those two bombs were all we had at that time, but we wanted to give the impression that there were plenty more where they came from!

[Spider Jerusalem]

55. More people died in the firebombing of Tokyo than died at Hiroshima.

So which is worse, really?

[bluestateguy]

57. Ok, then how would you propose defeating Japan?

I'm listening.

[really annoyed]

58. Apparently, not to anybody here

I guess violence IS and WAS the answer.