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Also, the IJA & IJN competed against each other - they developed separate air wings & didn't coordinate well @ all.
In an ironic twist, the US fell into even more interservice rivalry when it came to nuclear weapons in the postwar years.
The US Navy hated nukes right until the development of nuclear weapons small enough to be delivered by carrier-based aircraft, at which point in time they did a 180 and argued that obviously the Navy should be the US nuclear delivery force of choice. Even started competing with the Air Force in missile development (Matador vs. Regulus, for instance).
With the USAF being formed in 1947, the US Army had no nuclear capacity at all, and started arguing that nuclear weaponry wasn't how wars were won, at all. Then tactical nukes were made, and suddenly the the Army wanted 15,000 warheads (not making this up) to defend against Soviet armor in Europe.
And the USAF, of course, fought tooth and nail to keep their de facto monopoly.
we did NOT have an attack on us coming. yes we had economic sanctions against japan, but they were in place to force them to stop aggression against china.
How was it the responsibility of the US to support a Communist Nation?
You support Communism?
It has always made me wonder how it was the Nazis didn't develop atomic weapons first. They had the technology, the minds and the personnel. Had they actually gotten working weapons into action before they were over run, things would be quite different today. I keep imagining nuke tipped V2s shooting off the pad. Japan could have conceivably made atomic weapons themselves, but I'v never seen anything on a Japanese atomic weapons effort during WW2. That Germany would have provided them such weapons had they made any, well, that's a foregone conclusion.
The decision to use our atomic weapons, I can't find fault in that. The war needed to end. Both theaters. We could have gone on to world domination after Fat Man and Little Boy, but we didn't. Instead we rebuilt both Germany and Japan and let the Russians get their own atomic weapons. That worked out well.
germany didnt develop nuclear weapons because they lost the heavy water source they were using for deuterium, as well as all the heavy water they had found when the british sank the transport ships and severely damaged the plant that was processing the deuterium. once that happened, the germans ended atomic research for the most part.
it is doubtful that that the germans could have launched a nuclear weapon with a V2 rocket, since nuclear weapons of the day were very heavy, and the V2 had a maximum payload of 1000 pounds.
the japanese were working to develop a nuclear weapon as well. there are plenty of notes captured by the allies in that regard. it is unclear though how far along in their research they were though. some say they did develop and detonate a small nuke, others say not. not enough evidence to say one way or another though.
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Originally Posted by PedroMartinez
Japan surrendered on September 2, 1944. The third bomb wasn't ready until August 1945.
So, a third bomb could have been used, but not until a little more than a year after Nagasaki was bombed.
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Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
I think you have your surrender date off by a year, there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PedroMartinez
ROFLMAO.
Wow, I certainly screwed the pooch on that one.
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Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
Let he who has never committed a brainfart on CD throw the first stone.
dane beat me to it, but he is also right that we all have brain farts from time to time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by J746NEW
How was it the responsibility of the US to support a Communist Nation?
You support Communism?
remember at the time china was an ally, and we had a responsibility to support our allies. do i support communism? no i dont, but i do support allies to our country despite their form of government.
and before you go off about how china is not an ally now, alliances change over time. in 1812 the british were an enemy to the US, after the war of 1812, they became a ally to the US. france has been an on and off again ally depending on their mood. russia has been an on again off again ally, again depending on the situation and their mood. same with china and japan. japan was an ally in world war one, an enemy in world war two, and an ally again after world war two.
in fact as far as i know, the only country to be allied with the US in every war was have fought together is australia.
How was it the responsibility of the US to support a Communist Nation?
You support Communism?
You might want to google this fellow Chiang Kai-shek and what he was doing in 1937. At the time, China was run by the Kuomintang nationalist government, embroiled in a civil war with the Communists. They put aside their differences to fight the Japanese, then went at each other's throats again after 1945 - but China couldn't be properly said to be Communist until Chiang Kai-shek was beaten and fled to Taiwan in 1950.
It brought the worst, most deadly conflict in history to a swift end.
It's SO easy for us today to sit back in comfort and safety while we second guess the decision. None of us are at risk. None of our family and friends are scheduled to wade ashore in the titanic invasion of the home islands.
Here's a suggestion for those soft heads who have convinced themselves that the bombs were a bad idea.
Watch the recently released film, Hacksaw Ridge, about the fighting on Okinawa in 1945. Multiply that violence by a thousand or so and you begin to get a mental picture of what Operation Downfall would have involved.
By August of 1945, Japan was utterly defeated. Its navy no longer existed. It's airpower was reduced to a handful of fighters sent up in a pitiful attempt to turn back massive bombing raids here and there. It's ground forces were cut off and starving in China. They were beaten but stubbornly clung to false hopes that they could negotiate a less negative outcome.
They should have and could have surrendered before they lost Hiroshima. They could have surrendered after Hiroshima and before they lost Nagasaki. But they didn't and they gained nothing through their pig-headed insistence on continuing the war.
Correct. We sort of bluffed them since we didn't have a third. Insomuch as you can bluff a country you have already nuked twice anyway.
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Japan could have conceivably made atomic weapons themselves, but I'v never seen anything on a Japanese atomic weapons effort during WW2. That Germany would have provided them such weapons had they made any, well, that's a foregone conclusion. 
Was it Wrong to Drop the Atom Bomb on Japan?
