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If the US had a nuke earlier, would D-day have happened? Would we have used it on Germany? Which city(s)? Just wondering if the percieved cultural biases (Japs are "vermin" German's are like us) came into play.
Oh, we would've nuked the Germans, I've no doubt about it.
I don't think the Germans would've surrendered though until Germany itself was occupied and the German army whipped into submission. For all the bold talk of the Japanese it was actually the Germans who fought until the bitter end, down to the "last ditch" as the saying goes.
I'm not as knowledgable on WW2 as most of you, but I do not believe the US would have nuked Germany. The Japanese were not Anglo-Saxons, like us. It would have been like nuking your old German Uncle!!
I'm not as knowledgable on WW2 as most of you, but I do not believe the US would have nuked Germany. The Japanese were not Anglo-Saxons, like us. It would have been like nuking your old German Uncle!!
The Americans basically "nuked" Dresden with incendiaries...and dropped the equivalent of a nuke in convential explosives on a number of other German areas. Also, the A-bomb did not carry with it the stigma it has today so I believe they'd definitely have dropped the bomb on Germany.
I'm not as knowledgable on WW2 as most of you, but I do not believe the US would have nuked Germany. The Japanese were not Anglo-Saxons, like us. It would have been like nuking your old German Uncle!!
I dunno Trudey, we (the Allies) did everything possible to kill Germans including mass firebombings of German cities. And the Brits were ALOT more toughminded about it than we were. Nah, I can't see FDR, the Joint Chiefs and ole Winny not using a weapon that would end the war sooner and save American and British lives.
Plus Churchill would'a been keen on using the bomb and ending the war earlier because it would've put Britian in a better post war situation vs. the Russians; maybe less of Germany and the eastern European nations fall under Russian sway. Churchill was much more interested in the post war situation in Europe than the Americans were.
And Truman, he was rough as a cob, I see no hesitation there.
D-Day: send thousands of Americans, Brits and Canadians running from boats right through landmines and into machine gun fire; Market Garden: Failure to end war early by invading via Holland; Battle of the Bulge- frozen, starving and surrounded by German forces on their final offensive. In other words thousands of our guys dying horribly and Europe receiving ever more destruction for two years while Germany refuses to give up...
Yes, I see your point..Dresden was a population center, not a military site. And there was not the stigma of the " Bomb" that there is today. Times were different. Was there discussion at the time about using the Bomb on Berlin?
I'm not as knowledgable on WW2 as most of you, but I do not believe the US would have nuked Germany. The Japanese were not Anglo-Saxons, like us. It would have been like nuking your old German Uncle!!
That is why we didn't bomb Europe like we did Japan...twice.
Was there discussion at the time about using the Bomb on Berlin?
I'm not sure, I'm thinking it was a given that it would be used though had it been developed in time to use against the Germans there probably would've been such discussion.
When the bomb was developed there was discussion of whether it would be used and how it would be used against the Japanese. Some of the scientists that were FOR using the bomb against the Germans were against using it against the Japanese, not that anybody really cared what they thought anyway. Oppenheimer was the scientist that the powers in Washington had regard for and he was for using the bomb.
I suggest you read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. Sometimes it's technical and hard to read but it's an indispensable book in understanding all this.
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