General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Was the use of the atomic bomb against Japan justified? [View all]OmahaBlueDog
(10,000 posts)It's 1945.
a) Roosevelt has died and the weight of the world has fallen on your shoulders
b) Germany is about to be defeated, but the OSS and the FBI are now telling you the Russians are likely to be a problem
c) In a surreal moment, a general named Groves has come to you. He tells you something straight out of science-freaking-fiction: at Oak Ridge, TN a bunch of scientists, led by J. Robert Oppenheimer of UC Berkeley, are working on a bomb -- a bomb so powerful that one will destroy an entire city.
d) Meanwhile, back in the Pacific, the Japanese are fighting a scorched earth/fight to the last bullet war on Tarawa..on Iwo Jima...on Okinawa. The battles are bloody, lengthy, and costly. To make matters worse, Japanese pilots are flying planes converted into bombs into ships.
e) Your generals are telling you that once Germany is secure, troops will be transferred from Europe to the Pacific, and Operation Olympic will commence in 1946. There is no reason to believe that taking the Japanese home islands will be any different than taking Okinawa or Iwo Jima. We can reasonably expect to lose tens of thousands of soldiers in combat.
So July1945 rolls around, and you have this bomb. Which is it? Another year or more of fighting, with tens of thousands of allied soldiers dying (not to mention Japanese soldiers and civillians), or do you take a shot at ending the war now with this bomb?