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Truman's handlers wanted to bomb cities with the nukes
to see what would happen and scare the world.
Diplomatic avenues were brushed aside in favor of rushing the bombs.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were among the most heinous war crimes ever committed
against civilian populations. There is no excuse. It was evil and unjustifiable.
Nonsense. The Japanese sealed their own fate when they ignored the Potsdam Declaration. Their demands to stop fighting were absolutely unacceptable, and they were willing to keep fighting at almost any cost. The closer the fighting got to Japan, the bloodier it became, with Iwo Jima and Okinawa alone taking the lives of 25,000 Americans, 128,000 Japanese, and about 150,000 Okinawan civilians. The home islands were defended by over four million men, and over 31 million conscripts, thousands of kamikaze planes, suicide speed boats, human torpedoes, and human mines were trained and ready for the invasion fleet.
It's also worth noting that Hiroshima was the HQ of Japan's Second General Army, the 59th army, 5th division, and the 224th division, or a total of about 40,000 troops. It was also home to manufacturing of parts for planes, bombs, and guns, making it a legitimate military target.
Nagasaki had several shipyards, steel mills, and the Mitsubishi torpedo plant, which made the deadly "long lance" torpedo, making it too, a military target.
On top of the countless American lives saved by the bombs, they also saved even more Japanese lives that would have been lost if the invasion had gone forward. There were estimates of up to 10 million Japanese deaths in an invasion, (on Okinawa 50% of the civilian population was killed), so it could have been over 15 million.
No, the bombings are not war crimes, and both sides were spared a bloodbath even worse than the one these bombs ended.
NJ Goat wrote this excellent post over five years ago.
It may be the best post ever written on the History Forum. If it is not, chances are one of his other posts deserves that honor.
I looked at his posting history and it appears as though he as only posted once on CDF during 2019. Prior to that it had been months since his last post. I suspect we are not likely to see him again
Frankly, I just wanted to say how much I miss NJGoat and how much I wish he was here to write and share other fine posts with us. Time marches on and all of us have to decide how much time we can take from our real lives and devote to this forum. Perhaps, NJGoat now has more pressing commitments
NJ Goat wrote this excellent post over five years ago.
It may be the best post ever written on the History Forum. If it is not, chances are one of his other posts deserves that honor.
I looked at his posting history and it appears as though he as only posted once on CDF during 2019. Prior to that it had been months since his last post. I suspect we are not likely to see him again
Frankly, I just wanted to say how much I miss NJGoat and how much I wish he was here to write and share other fine posts with us. Time marches on and all of us have to decide how much time we can take from our real lives and devote to this forum. Perhaps, NJGoat now has more pressing commitments
Whatever he is doing, I wish him well.
I too appreciated his posts. very knowledgeable...………...
Would there really have been a million casulaties in an invasion?
Spoiler
This is one of the foremost arguments FOR dropping the atomic bomb. It is also one that tends to spark controversy. The argument here is that the bombs collectively killed 105,000 (H:66k and N:39k) and wounded another 94,000 (H:69k and N:25k). Therefore the bombs saved countless lives and the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not die in vain. So, where did the estimates come from?
During the drafting of Operation Downfall (Downfall was the names for the invasion of Japan; Olympic and Coronet were sub-operations within Downfall targeting specific areas) various commanders and advisors were asked to submit casualty figures for the invasion. The Joint Chiefs of Staff drafted an estimate based on historical casualty rates during invasions in the PTO. They estimated that both phases of Downfall would result in a 90-day casulty figure of 1.2 million with 267,000 of those being KIA. Nimitz and MacArthur did studies, but only for Olympic that stated a possibility of 125,000 casualties within 90-days. Admiral Leahy reached an estimate of 268,000 for Olympic with 94,000 being KIA.
Ultimately the best study came from the Secretary of War Henry Stimson. He and his staff estimated that a full conquest of Japan (remember the military were mainly just talking about individual operations, not the entire conquest) would incur 1.7-4 million casualties of which 400,000-800,000 would be KIA. The report went on to also estimate that civilians would widely participate in the defense of Japan and it was believed that the Japanese themselves would suffer 5-10 million casualties.
There are two interesting facts that help drive home how costly an invasion would have been. Had the US merely suffered 5% of the casualty per unit area rate that we did in Okinawa the US would have suffered 297,000 KIA during an invasion...again, that's IF we managed only 5% of the rate on Okinawa. Second, the military ordered 500,000 Purple Hearts in order to have enough to handle the casualties from the invasion. To date the US military still has over 100,000 of these medals in stock which means that in all wars since WW2, we have not exceeded the combat casualties estimated for the invasion of Japan.
It is simply indisputable fact that an invasion would have cost an immense amount of lives. Far more than were lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.ffects. Morally it was seen as just a really big bomb. It was not until the results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were studied as well as additional testing carried out that the full effect of fallout was known.
It's true that the estimated casualty figures grew rapidly and that MacArthur had his own math to promote his own objective to be the man who won the Pacific War. But other things were going on at the same time. After the defeat of Germany, the US was demobilizing and the general public's perception that WWII was close to ending had many champions in The Congress to get on with bringing the boys back home ASAP. But unfortunately the invasion of Japan would require moving an enormous number of soldiers from the East and West Coast to the Pacific. But the logistical capacity (transportation infrastructure and operational personnel) to do this and bring troops back from Europe at the same time, basically, didn't exist. This was a huge worry of Stimson's and the Joint Chiefs. This is an important aspect of the political problem faced by the Administration, but from a more practical standpoint, the invasion of Japan wasn't really a possible alternative.
The bomb saved the day politically and pragmatically.
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