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By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.
In actual effect the atom bombs produced devistation no different from the bombing of other cities during WWII, except it only took one bomb per city. The fire bombing of tokyo was far more destructive, but isnt given as much attention as it took hundreds of bombers to create the same effect.
We gave Japan the same conditions we gave Germany. Germany capitulated, Japan did not. While Japan was near defeat, thier millitary leadership was determined to go down fighting, and stuck to the concept that if they caused enough casualties on the invasion beaches, they could get away with negotiated terms. They also wanted to maintain thier army, have no occupation, try thier own war criminals, and handle thier own disarmament, above and beyond thier requirement for immunity for the emperor.
If Japan didnt surrender, the options were blockade, further coventional air bombing, and invasion. Blockade would result in millions of starvation deaths, conventional air bombing millions of civilian casualties, and invasion millions of casulaties on both sides. With invasion we might have also needed help from the Soviets, and guess what they would have asked for. Imagine a cold war with a "North and South" Japan.
By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.
In actual effect the atom bombs produced devistation no different from the bombing of other cities during WWII, except it only took one bomb per city. The fire bombing of tokyo was far more destructive, but isnt given as much attention as it took hundreds of bombers to create the same effect.
We gave Japan the same conditions we gave Germany. Germany capitulated, Japan did not. While Japan was near defeat, thier millitary leadership was determined to go down fighting, and stuck to the concept that if they caused enough casualties on the invasion beaches, they could get away with negotiated terms. They also wanted to maintain thier army, have no occupation, try thier own war criminals, and handle thier own disarmament, above and beyond thier requirement for immunity for the emperor.
If Japan didnt surrender, the options were blockade, further coventional air bombing, and invasion. Blockade would result in millions of starvation deaths, conventional air bombing millions of civilian casualties, and invasion millions of casulaties on both sides. With invasion we might have also needed help from the Soviets, and guess what they would have asked for. Imagine a cold war with a "North and South" Japan.
Let me get this straight marty. Is it the pro-Truman argument that using the Atomic Bomb was no different than any other weapon in history? I beg to differ. In fairness I think the Military was running the administration and the timid little bean counter former senator former haberdasher would sign anything the generals and admirals put in front of him. Clearly there was a disconnect between the eggheads who created the monster and the monsters who decided to use it. Long after the war the admirals and generals were forcing American Troops into the deadly radiation in "training " exercises. During the Bikini Is. Atomic tests the Navy actually thought that spraying radiated ships with radiated water would make them safe. Sailors died and Truman dodged the buck.
The a-bombings were immoral and necessary. It is never right to wantonly murder civilians. And particularly of a nation that wanted to surrender. Japan has been seeking surrender terms for months. The idiot progressive Truman and the fascist FDR demanded unconditional surrender leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths by both sides.
Japan was done by July '45. They were incapable of continuing the war. Their navy and air force were gone. We have complete control of air and sea.
The bombing was NOT about winning the war. It was about showing the world our power and it was hoped, scare Stalin (how the hell did we align ourselves with histories greatest tyrant and murderer???), which of course, failed.
Immoral and unnecessary.
This is stupid and false. Japan was not ready to surrender.
The use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved countless lives.
funny how the war ended after the second one was dropped.
Funny how you said the bombings saved millions of lives, but now change the subject.
You are right...murdering women and children in cold blood did end the war...but then the Japanese wanted to surrender before they got incinerated by the stinking pro-war statist Truman.
Thier military wanted a 4 part conditional surrender. No war crimes trials held by outsiders, No occupation of Japan, No military disamament and yes, nothing affecting the emperor. The Allies would not accept the first 3, regardless of finally "accepting" part 4.
The bombs gave the civilians the ability to shut up the military, in particular the Emperor was able to force them to accept his judgement to surrender, even if he had to face crimes.
Trh
A Secret Memorandum
It was only after the war that the American public learned about Japan's efforts to bring the conflict to an end. Chicago Tribune reporter Walter Trohan, for example, was obliged by wartime censorship to withhold for seven months one of the most important stories of the war.
In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)
This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. Specifically, the terms of these peace overtures included:
Complete surrender of all Japanese forces and arms, at home, on island possessions, and in occupied countries.
Occupation of Japan and its possessions by Allied troops under American direction.
Japanese relinquishment of all territory seized during the war, as well as Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan.
Regulation of Japanese industry to halt production of any weapons and other tools of war.
Release of all prisoners of war and internees.
Surrender of designated war criminals.
Is this memorandum authentic? It was supposedly leaked to Trohan by Admiral William D. Leahy, presidential Chief of Staff. (See: M. Rothbard in A. Goddard, ed., Harry Elmer Barnes: Learned Crusader [1968], pp. 327f.) Historian Harry Elmer Barnes has related (in "Hiroshima: Assault on a Beaten Foe," National Review, May 10, 1958):
The authenticity of the Trohan article was never challenged by the White House or the State Department, and for very good reason. After General MacArthur returned from Korea in 1951, his neighbor in the Waldorf Towers, former President Herbert Hoover, took the Trohan article to General MacArthur and the latter confirmed its accuracy in every detail and without qualification.
Peace Overtures
In April and May 1945, Japan made three attempts through neutral Sweden and Portugal to bring the war to a peaceful end. On April 7, acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo, asking him "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was unacceptable, and that "the Emperor must not be touched." Bagge relayed the message to the United States, but Secretary of State Stettinius told the US Ambassador in Sweden to "show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of the matter." Similar Japanese peace signals through Portugal, on May 7, and again through Sweden, on the 10th, proved similarly fruitless.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html
Japan was training women to fight with wooden rifles, they would have fought to the death, to extinction.
Don't be stupid. Women, children, and the elderly would not have taken to the streets en mass to fight with armed US soldiers. That's just ridiculous. The people of Japan were starving, exhausted, and long since sick of the war. If you have to swallow silly exaggerrations to believe your simplistic view then you don't really believe it much yourself.
Well, if you are going to lie, there's really no point.
Death before dishonor is an insane Jap trait, deny it if you will, but don't expect me to buy it.
50,000 mark 67th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion
Always a somber and reflective anniversary.
In actual effect the atom bombs produced devistation no different from the bombing of other cities during WWII, except it only took one bomb per city. The fire bombing of tokyo was far more destructive, but isnt given as much attention as it took hundreds of bombers to create the same effect.
We gave Japan the same conditions we gave Germany. Germany capitulated, Japan did not. While Japan was near defeat, thier millitary leadership was determined to go down fighting, and stuck to the concept that if they caused enough casualties on the invasion beaches, they could get away with negotiated terms. They also wanted to maintain thier army, have no occupation, try thier own war criminals, and handle thier own disarmament, above and beyond thier requirement for immunity for the emperor.
If Japan didnt surrender, the options were blockade, further coventional air bombing, and invasion. Blockade would result in millions of starvation deaths, conventional air bombing millions of civilian casualties, and invasion millions of casulaties on both sides. With invasion we might have also needed help from the Soviets, and guess what they would have asked for. Imagine a cold war with a "North and South" Japan.
Let me get this straight marty. Is it the pro-Truman argument that using the Atomic Bomb was no different than any other weapon in history? I beg to differ. In fairness I think the Military was running the administration and the timid little bean counter former senator former haberdasher would sign anything the generals and admirals put in front of him. Clearly there was a disconnect between the eggheads who created the monster and the monsters who decided to use it. Long after the war the admirals and generals were forcing American Troops into the deadly radiation in "training " exercises. During the Bikini Is. Atomic tests the Navy actually thought that spraying radiated ships with radiated water would make them safe. Sailors died and Truman dodged the buck.
One or two atomic bombs, the bombs of a size used in Japan, were no different in scope than the massive bombing raids done during the war, the only difference was all the bombs exploded at one point, and it only took one bomber to do the damage.