Should the Atomic Bomb have been dropped on Japan?

as I understand it the Bushido code stated any prisoners or those who surrendered were to be treated well. The code itself was twisted between the wars and made into what then formed the basis of the atrocities.

Warhawk, i was talking about the president. sorry I wasn't clearer.

 

Thats okay.

 

Is it the dropping of an "Atomic Bomb" that makes, some people "historically apologetic"?

If it were possible to drop "1,000 or 5,000 bombs" at one time at one location, and have the same effect, would that make the event and intention easier to handle?

I don't recall the statistics, however the fire bombing of Dresden, produced death and destruction in extraordinary numbers; but that event doesn't seem to produce the same discussion or emotion.

I didn't read through all the posts on this thread, so it may have been discussed, but American society was getting weary of the fighting after 3 years. The prospect of Allied forces fighting to take the Japanese home islands was daunting to say the least; militarily and certainly socially/politically.

IMHO, the A-Bomb was the answer.

 

Actually the bombing of Dresden is discussed in almost the same level as the atomic bombings.

The debates and disagreements are summarised:

Bombing of Dresden in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and a search of dresden+WW2 on google brings up thousands of pages arguing over the validity, ethics, numbers etc of the bombing.

Even Churchill, rather hypocritically, disowned it. And Harris suffered because of the public's antipathy to the bombing, after the war

 

KYT- I guess I should have added, in the US today, recent past, by average citizen, mainstream media, etc. Didn't mean to indicate lack of discussion by those knowledgeable or interested in WW2.

 

No worries CP. I think the debates refect national consciousness. The Americans dropped the bombs, and the British bombed Dreden. So the primary concerns and debates would reflect that

 

If it were possible to drop "1,000 or 5,000 bombs" at one time at one location, and have the same effect, would that make the event and intention easier to handle? I do not believe at all, it would have cost alot more money

 

No worries royce. What Kyt was getting at is that in Britain/Europe, the firebombings of Dresden rank on the same scale as the A bomb does in America. America had suffered 3 years of war, with only the occasional attack on its homeland. Here in the UK we had suffered from 5 years with constant enemy intrusions overhead.

Now America, as you rightly say, was facing the prospect of a long drawn out campaign in the Pacific, with the Commonwealth nations just preparing itself to join en masse after victory in Europe. There is no doubt that with this combined force the Japanese would eventually have been beaten, but only with massive casualites on all sides. So yes, the A bomb, from a prely logical unemotional view was the right thing to do. And this view is given to us with the hindsight of time.

If you take the situation of Dresden, then it has been proven in the last few years, from the German archives themselves, that it was a legitimate military target with hundreds of small factories, two major rail lines, thousands of troops moving through every day on their way to the Eastern Front. Endless reasons to bomb it. Why it wasn't bombed before I do not know. What the main argument is about now is the way it was bombed. The crews merely know they were bombing, very few would have realied, let alone cared they were carrying incendaries.

It was the incendaries, combined with the prevaling weather conditions that created the fire storm, purely accidentally. But once the devestation of this was realised it was a type of bombing deliberately ussed by Bomber Command in the future. Also Dresden suffered 20+ hours of constant bombing, begun by the USAAF durign the day, throughout the night by Bomber Command, and finished by the USAAF the next day.

Dresden literally suffered complete obliteration in a day.

The main argument is that obliteration, as many more died from suffocation and heat than from the bombs themselves. A very similar argument to that around the A bomb - many more died from radiation sickness in the months and years following its use.

However, hindsight tells us that war is war, and anything to bring it to a hasty end is for the best. Isn't it?

And sorry if this makes no sense, am just typing off the cuff.

 

>> ..war is war, and anything to bring it to a hasty end.. <<

Particularly when dealing with an aggressive, brutal enemy, who initiated war and whose credo was not to surrender at any cost.

BTW..very interesting forums here.

 

The Japs were ready to kill all the POW's/(Slaves), they were being beaten back on all fronts esp from the Pacific. To invade the Allies would of needed all their forces already in the pacific to land and then heavily reinforce them from troops coming back from Europe. As again imho the casualty rates on our side would of been enormous with the jap military and civilians under cover in concrete strong points and so on. The Japs would of fought till the bitter end. This to me justifys the dropping of the A bombs on japan in 1945.
IMHO dropping the bombs on Japan was the only way to end the war, if the USA was sick of war after just three years imagine how sick of it the rest of the world was after six years of allmost constant Total war.

The Russians after, the mass murderer Joe Starlin sucked the US Pres in, they declared war but never fought the Japs, however for some reason they got to sign the surrender/peace papers in third place after USA and Britain, you can see the big cheeky smile the commie gives to General Blamey CIC Australia Forces who signed it after the Communist.

 

Firstly, to all members, the use of terms like "The Jap", "The Nip" etc are NOT acceptable terms on this forum. This forum is a place to discuss issues and events in a calm and polite manner, and terms with a racist undertone will be removed. The only time when such terms maybe acceptable would if they occur in a direct quote from the period.

Secondly, the same applies for terms such as "commie dog". There is no need for that term, as it is both derogatory and detracts from what would, otherwise, be an interesting post.

I will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who continues to use terms that are borderlne racist, sexist etc.

As to your post, Cobber, I agree that the Soviet Union did not fight the Japanese for most of the war, but one can well understand their position. Fighting on two fronts would have been very difficult for them. But apart from Stalin's pragmatic attitude towards the Allies, the actual change in the Soviet Union's position in relation to Japan was partly at the instigation of Churchill and Roosevelt, who were desperate for Russian action against the Japanese. When Soviet involvement was agreed between the three, the war was still hanging in the balance, the possibility of an invasion on the Japanese mainland was high, and there was no guarantee that the A-bomb would have worked, or that its use would have forced the Japanese to surrender. It had been agreed that the Soviet's would take action three months after the surrender of Germany, so as to give them time to transfer their units to the east. The fact that they then did so just before the war's end was coincidence. If the A-bombs had failed then the fighting between the Japanese and Soviets would have gone on much longer.

 

My old dad was based in Japan after the war and part of the Aussie AOR included Hiroshima, he never forgot what he saw and hated Nukes of all sorts, however he believed strongly that the bombs had to be dropped or the war would of carried on for years more and cost hundreds of thousands of casualtie's.

We allways wondered if this had anyhting to do with his cancer that took him from us at the age of 56, he smoked ciggie's and liked a drink, and no other extended family member to the best of my knowledge has ever had cancer,

 

Sorry to hear about your father Cobber. The issue of radiation after the bombs were dropped really took the Americans by surprise and I believe they were not expecting the issues of radiation-related deaths to be so high. So they made plans for the occupation of the two cities in the same way as the other cities.

 

Thanks Kyt. he has been gone 27 years and I still miss the old soldier.
Vale dad

Sorry Kyt, I will refrain from referring to Communists current and from the past as a animal or any thing else, I have very, very strong personal reasons to dislike communists and racism has absolutly nothing to do with it, i do recognise the good that has finally happened in China due to Communisim opening up a little bit.
As for calling Japanese "the Jap" I agree and you raised the right points and i agree with in your post. Maybe we should just refer to all WW2 Japanese as Imperial Japanese.

Still believe that General Blamey (Aust) should of been in front of the USSR Gentleman when signing the peace papers.

Cheers
Cbr

 

I never agree on dropping an atomic bomb on any country,too me it's a murder.
Killing bad enemies worth it, while you are risking normal population life?
Why should normal population life always suffer the consequences in every way?
I do agree on using Atomic bomb on the enemy it was intended for, and only if there is no risk to normal population life and pows, or if the emeny is much weaker and had no impact in earlier conflicts.

 

Apologies for not reading the whole thread here, and someone may already have remarked on this book.

But my own feelings tie in perfectly with the author of the Flashman novels who died last year if I remember rightly..

His book Quartered safely out here...story of his own trials and tribulations in Burma with a northern regiment.

He tells of a discussion he had with an anti bomb activist a few years after the war, and his explanation is one of the best I have ever heard on the subject and one I totally agree with...When I have time I'll put it up.
The gist of it being...the families of the troops he served with could, could possibly never have been born if the war had carried on as his soldiers were the tip of the sword in that theatre...and for that one reason alone...just that one reason, he would gladly drop them all over again. Hard but in my view true.

 

Well Cobber, my dad has been gone 27 years also. Everytime I go down to the house in Ivanhoe I still expect see him.

 

There is only one word needed to answer the question "Should the Atomic Bomb have been dropped on Japan?". That word is Okinawa.