Originally posted by jinXed by JaNx
Considering that the japs were on the brink of creating their own nuke, yeah it was totally worth it. I mean, it did end the war 😉 Besides, they were given warning.
It would have been retardedly difficult to end it. There was no way to get the leaders to see reason. All options exhausted.
I'm not sure if this has been posted yet, but the people on the main islands were training for invastion, as well. As many as were available...were training. Making it turn into a massive civilian war once we got to the main islands.
The bombings were an act of terrorism. Declassified documents show that Japan was ready to surrender weeks prior to the bombings and were never given sufficient warning and both bombs were dropped on cities, not military targets in order to inflict maximum civilian casualties. The Japanese never had the means nor the knowledge to even begin developing atomic weapons.
I would recommend the documentary White Light, Black Rain to anyone who talks about how "necessary" the bombings were.
Originally posted by Symmetric ChaosI was taught the Japanese were going to surrender before the bombing, but the message was in Japanese or some language. The Japanese leader was also going to meet with Truman to come to an agreement.
I'm pretty sure they started to surrender after Hiroshima. Blowing up Nagasaki was a dick move considering the US dropped the bomb inside the time frame they gave for surrender.
Anyway, they ignored all of that and dropped the bomb.
Cos we Americans are the ****ing best and no jap is gonna take pearl harbour without atleast losing 2 cities, that'll teach them that we're the biggest and best. America. **** yeah.
Originally posted by Darth Jello
The bombings were an act of terrorism. Declassified documents show that Japan was ready to surrender weeks prior to the bombings and were never given sufficient warning and both bombs were dropped on cities, not military targets in order to inflict maximum civilian casualties. The Japanese never had the means nor the knowledge to even begin developing atomic weapons.I would recommend the documentary White Light, Black Rain to anyone who talks about how "necessary" the bombings were.
I never said they were necessary...but I did say all options were exhausted. That's not correct. There is a caveat. Secretary Stimson did acknowledge that the allied forces were so entrenched on unconditional surrender that it would be almost impossible to both appease the Japanese Government, by way of leaving the monarchy in power, and satisfy the allied forces of further incrusions or restrictions...due to he sentiments coming from the monarchy and the fear of a future uprising a la Germany post WWI.
So the goal was, "any concessions which might be attractive to the Japanese, so long as our realistic aims for peace in the Pacific are not adversely affected."
-Sec. Stimson.
He sought to send a formal invitation to peace. This letter would seek that balance while also being timed to occur before Soviet interest became a problem as Germany's surrender taught the US and other allies that Stalin was out for power and blood and it was becoming increasingly dangerous to include them for fear of more "take over" upon defeat of the enemy. The Soviets already expressed an interest in not renewing the neutrality agreement between themselves in Japan and the neutrality agreement would expire in 1946.
The plan, at the time, was to invade Kyushu in November and 5-6 months later, invade Honshu.
So here is the caveat to the decision.
"Why, therefore, was it not possible to issue the warning before a Soviet declaration of war against Japan and rely on that event, together with an intensified air bombardment, to produce the desired result? If together they could not secure Japan's surrender, would there not still be time to use the bomb before the scheduled invasion of Kyushu in November [of 1945]?"
You see, the Americans wanted to keep the Bomb a secret as long as possible. Doing a demonstration was considered much too risky as detonation was questionable.
In the end, it was more about saving American lives than anything. The final assault to get surrender was going to cost dearly. Sure there were sentiments of surrender, even in the Japanese government, but they did not like the unconditional surrender option. The emperor never saw surrender as an option...much less unconditional surrender. There was also the case of dropping the bombs to demonstrate to Russia to cool it off a bit. There was also using it to show how horrible war was to prevent another WW like the previous two.
When Japan publically stated that the Postdam declarion was to be ignored, the US was forced to try something drastic to prevent the soviets from coming in as they stated that they would join in just two weeks. (It is late July, by now.) The rejection of that declaration only solidified that resolve to remove the miliatary heads, asap. When Russia followed through with it's official declaration of war, Japan STILL did not surrender and this was AFTER the first atomic bomb. AFTER!!!
Truman guarenteed a rain of bombs if surrender was not given. Nothing. August 9th was the next time it was dropped. You'd think they would have surrendered, right? No.
Could we have done a conditional surrender? Yes. Was a conditional surrender in the best interest of the allies? No, due to reprocussions as seen by Germany and an absurdly long list of other items that involved "risk."
Japan was trying to negotiate a mediation between the US and Russia. LOL. A cease fire, huh? A cease fire? It was no guarentee to an end of war.
Originally posted by Darth Jello
The Japanese never had the means nor the knowledge to even begin developing atomic weapons.
Wrong, so very wrong. I love how people claim it was terrorism. You do know that we were engaged in war with Japan, right? 😂 Hiroshima, Nagasaki and surrounding cities were given warning five and three days in advance. Do you honestly believe that the Japanese would have had the same compassion to warn America that they were about to drop a Nuke? Let me answer that for you...,Pearl Harbor 😉 Pearl Harbor was more of a terroristic act than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America was not at war with anyone. Because America stopped supplying the Japs and instead supplie the Allies, them Japs got pissed and declared war on America by dombing the hell out of Pearl Harbor. I'm surprised you didnt know this.
Japan was in deed on the cusp of creating Nuclear arms.
Originally posted by Quark_666
That was Germany, and Japan didn't even research nuclear development until after WWII. Maybe if you hadn't so flippantly thrown that out there to support an argument regarding human life...
no, wrong.
Morales are non existent when war is concerned. I'm not arguing that it wasn't a terrible thing that happened. I'm just saying that it was necessary. Nagasaki may have been a bit extreme but it ended the war and Japan is still an independent country with a booming economy. I mean, it should count for something that instead of taking the country over, America rebuilt it.
I'm just stunned at why people are arguing this. We were at war and any country involved in the axis wouldn't have neglected to level the allies countries with Nuclear arms if they had the capability. They certainly wouldn't have stopped with just two cities.
Maybe you should be blaming Japan for wanting to take over the world lol
Originally posted by jinXed by JaNx
I'm just stunned at why people are arguing this. We were at war and any country involved in the axis wouldn't have neglected to level the allies countries with Nuclear arms if they had the capability. They certainly wouldn't have stopped with just two cities.
Mainly because the US would have been much too stubborn. Also, they had at best theoretical nuclear capability, they never really backed their program properly and found producing the fissionable materials extremely difficult. A group of people with engineering degrees can build a nuke, making it into a weapon is dramatically different story.
Originally posted by jinXed by JaNxno, wrong.
[QUOTE=11908816]Originally posted by Quark_666
[B]That was Germany, and Japan didn't even research nuclear development until after WWII.
Morales are non existent when war is concerned. I'm not arguing that it wasn't a terrible thing that happened. I'm just saying that it was necessary. Nagasaki may have been a bit extreme but it ended the war and Japan is still an independent country with a booming economy. I mean, it should count for something that instead of taking the country over, America rebuilt it.
I'm just stunned at why people are arguing this. We were at war and any country involved in the axis wouldn't have neglected to level the allies countries with Nuclear arms if they had the capability. They certainly wouldn't have stopped with just two cities.
Maybe you should be blaming Japan for wanting to take over the world lol [/B][/QUOTE] Are you evading my point? Japan didn't develop nuclear power till after the war.
If you provided a stable source that Japan was developing A-bombs, your point might belong in this discussion. but all I see right now is someone who can't argue his point without twisting history. Nothing I've ever heard suggests that Japan knew nuclear fission existed.
War is war. It is part of humanity, and I wish we would quit trying to apply rules to it as they are almost always ignored. War is never supposed to be nice no matter how much modern political correctness tries to make it that way.
Yes the bombing was worth it. There was a conventional firebombing of Toyko just a few days before that killed around 150,000, more than the combined total of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but you never hear about that.
These events happened almost 64 years ago and Japan has recovered quite nicely. To all the naysayers...get over it.
Once again, yes, the bombings were worth it.