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It did save lives, overall. My Uncle was stationed in Burma at the time, & his life was saved, along with all the other soldiers who were going to be sent in. Japan was not going to surrender. The war in Europe was already over.
That is what people used to say, but now they know Japan was going to surrender with or without the nukes. It may have saved lives thought, because conventional bombs and firestorms killed lot of Japanese people too. We'll never know how things would have ended up without the bombs.
Would Japan have surrendered without the atomic bombings?
In the United States, generations were taught that Japan would never have surrendered so quickly without use of the atomic bomb and that victory would have required a bloody invasion of the Japanese mainland, costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
Japanese students were generally taught a very different narrative: that Japan already had been defeated and dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki three days apart was a geopolitical calculation to keep the Soviet Union at bay.
By the 1970s, multiple American scholars adopted the dominant Japanese point of view, arguing that the atomic bomb was unnecessary because the Japanese would have surrendered by the end of 1945.
"It was for a greater good," is just a tired old phrase that allows America to assuage its guilt for everything from; Indian removal, slavery, internment camps and the atom bomb.
3.) There was no Choice 3. WE HAD NO OTHER CHOICE. Only those two.
There were other options. But none that we opted to take.
There was a third option not involving dropping a bomb. The Soviets had agreed to break their Neutrality Pact with Japan after victory in Europe. However, we saw what was going on in Europe... Europe was being divided into spheres of influence in what would ultimately become the Soviet Union that swallowed up Eastern European nations. If we waited for the Soviets to mobilize, they would have liberated China which at the time was fighting a civil war and could not band together to repel the Japanese forces in Manchuria. Imagine adding China to the USSR? At the time, 1945, we didn't know if Democratic China or Communist China would prevail. But we DID know that if the Soviets liberated Manchuria they would have a permanent foothold in China and surely Democratic China would founder.
How about a fourth option: an embargo? Japan has no oil. Coal can't fly planes. Capitulation by siege. We were already bombing Japan - drop a few bombs on hydroelectric plants - they have no power. However, if they didn't surrender before the Soviets arrived, we'd have option #2.
There WERE other options. I'm not saying dropping the bomb was the right call or the wrong call. It was THE call. But it was not the ONLY option we had. It is nice to say we saved 500,000 American lives by dropping the bomb. That's what sounds good in history books. Maybe our leadership in 1945 recognized the danger of the Soviet Union in eastern Asia and decided that half a million Japanese were a small price to pay.
We had another choice, we could have surrounded the island with ships and conventionally bombed them and starved them into submission. I don't think that would have been better either.
I suppose waiting for the Soviets was a choice too. But I am not sure if that would reduce death any. Maybe it would reduce American deaths, but certainly not over all deaths. It's still an invasion.
What gets me about this debate is that everyone fixates on the atomic bombings when there was a worse bombing campaign in the war. The Tokyo fire bombing killed 100,000 people in two days and a million people were maimed and injured. In comparison, Hiroshima killed 80,000 people and injured 35,000. So what's the difference? If bombing Tokoyo isn't import to a person, why is Hiroshima? Why don't people get up in arms about that bombing? Or why if they are upset with Hiroshima, don't they get up in arms about what the Japanese did at Nanking? If one doesn't know, the Japanese killed 200,000-300,000 civilians.
My point is it was a horrible war with a lot of tragedy. It's easy, 75 years later, to judge the people of the past by our standards. But is that really productive? I wonder how people 75 years from now will judge us.
The Soviets WERE already engaged. They had dealt the Japanese two major defeats in Manchuria and had (and still do) occupy northern Japanese islands.
Lemay's firebombing campaign killed far, far more people than the atomic bombs.
The Japanese were fanatical and were not going to surrender if conventional war was continued.
I would have bombed a few more cities just for good measure- they had it coming.
That is what people used to say, but now they know Japan was going to surrender with or without the nukes. It may have saved lives thought, because conventional bombs and firestorms killed lot of Japanese people too. We'll never know how things would have ended up without the bombs.
Would Japan have surrendered without the atomic bombings?
In the United States, generations were taught that Japan would never have surrendered so quickly without use of the atomic bomb and that victory would have required a bloody invasion of the Japanese mainland, costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
Japanese students were generally taught a very different narrative: that Japan already had been defeated and dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki three days apart was a geopolitical calculation to keep the Soviet Union at bay.
By the 1970s, multiple American scholars adopted the dominant Japanese point of view, arguing that the atomic bomb was unnecessary because the Japanese would have surrendered by the end of 1945.
By the end of 1945, Japanese occupation forces would have killed another 400k+ civilians in China, Korea etc...but hey....what's the rush.
It still took them a week to surrender after 2 nukes, the surrender by the end of the war is utter speculation and is not widely accepted by historians even if you can point to a few that think otherwise.
Lastly, you still ignore the Soviet role and their declaration of war on Japan. Do you realize how many Japanese they killed? Do you know how many they killed after August 15?
Oh well, like so many threads around here we are inundated by people who have very very little knowledge on the topic but some strong opinions without facts.
There were other options. But none that we opted to take.
There was a third option not involving dropping a bomb. The Soviets had agreed to break their Neutrality Pact with Japan after victory in Europe. However, we saw what was going on in Europe... Europe was being divided into spheres of influence in what would ultimately become the Soviet Union that swallowed up Eastern European nations. If we waited for the Soviets to mobilize, they would have liberated China which at the time was fighting a civil war and could not band together to repel the Japanese forces in Manchuria. Imagine adding China to the USSR? At the time, 1945, we didn't know if Democratic China or Communist China would prevail. But we DID know that if the Soviets liberated Manchuria they would have a permanent foothold in China and surely Democratic China would founder.
How about a fourth option: an embargo? Japan has no oil. Coal can't fly planes. Capitulation by siege. We were already bombing Japan - drop a few bombs on hydroelectric plants - they have no power. However, if they didn't surrender before the Soviets arrived, we'd have option #2.
There WERE other options. I'm not saying dropping the bomb was the right call or the wrong call. It was THE call. But it was not the ONLY option we had. It is nice to say we saved 500,000 American lives by dropping the bomb. That's what sounds good in history books. Maybe our leadership in 1945 recognized the danger of the Soviet Union in eastern Asia and decided that half a million Japanese were a small price to pay.
How many civilians in occupied countries did Japanese forces kill per month on average?
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How many civilians in occupied countries did Japanese forces kill per month on average?
There are arguments for and against dropping the atomic bombs, however lets not forget the cruelty of the Japanese, who conducted even worse experiments than the Nazi's, and their cruel treatment of PoW's and even woman and children should never be forgotten.
The Japanese killed more through bio-warfare including the spreading of bubonic plague than the Atomic bombs ever killed and the vile work of Units such as 731 is now lives in in infamy.
The US wasn't going to invade Japan, there simply wasn't any need to do anything but bomb it into submission. Its Navy was sunk and its air defense grid was paltry by the end of the war and was further waning by the day. Nukes just expedited the process and perhaps staved off more death and destruction. Bombing civilians as a means of economic warfare and inducing capitulation is a nasty business, and I just hope that we never have engage in a civilian bombing campaign ever again.
That is what people used to say, but now they know Japan was going to surrender with or without the nukes. It may have saved lives thought, because conventional bombs and firestorms killed lot of Japanese people too. We'll never know how things would have ended up without the bombs.
Is there any evidence that the firebombings of cities in either Japan or Germany accomplished anything other than murder innocent women and children? Germany lost the war long before the allies started bombing cities, and Germany didn't surrender because of the bombings either. Moreover, the US military was opposed to the bombings, saying they served no military purpose. Thus the only justification for the bombings was that "they deserved it".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
Japanese students were generally taught a very different narrative: that Japan already had been defeated and dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki three days apart was a geopolitical calculation to keep the Soviet Union at bay.
I would bet my life the bolded was the deciding factor for our use of nukes. We were trying to stop Stalin's expansionism, and Japan gave us an opportunity to show what we could do to the Soviets if they stepped over the line.
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