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China was embroiled in the war, officially, from July 1937 through August 1945, a period of 97 months. Estimates of civilian deaths vary wildly, but I'll use the the figure of 16 million that is reported in the World War II Database. Assuming these figures, this works out to an average of about 165,000 Chinese civilian deaths in each and every month of the war.
So, let's say that the Strategic Bombing Survey is correct, and Japan would have surrendered by November 1st, which is 2.5 months later than they did historically. Statistically speaking, this means that another 412,500 Chinese civilians would have been killed. Let us also consider that by early August, there were only four major Japanese cities left standing, they being Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Kokura, and Kyoto. Every other major city, and many smaller ones, had already been firebombed. If the war was still going, and we didn't use nuclear weapons, it beggars belief to assume that we wouldn't have targeted three of those remaining four cities. (We had specifically exempted Kyoto from attack due to its historical and cultural significance.) Thus, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been bombed anyway, and Kokura would have as well. It seems reasonable to assume that there would have been many civilian deaths, even if fewer than the atomic bombings produced.
So what good would it have done to grind them down until they surrendered in November? A lot more innocent people would have died; a similar number of Japanese civilians, and many more Chinese civilians. THIS is why we say that the atomic bombs ultimately saved more lives, including innocent civilian lives, than they cost.
Sometimes, there are no good choices. Just less-bad ones. This is one of those times.
The claim made here was that the bombing saved American and Japanese lives. Chinese lives were not part of the equation. The defenders of the bombing claim that making Japan surrender via nukes spared the need for an invasion: again, American lives.
What you argue may or may not be true, but it is not relevant to the scope of the claim which has been debated here: the bombing saved American and Japanese lives and not using the A-bombs would have meant an invasion with millions dead. But the Survey, as well as Generals Eisenhower and LeMay, and Admiral Healy, makes it clear an invasion would not have been needed as Japan would have surrendered. Even the USSR staying out would not have pushed a Japanese surrender too far out into the future.
Well, I just quoted the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, published in 1946. It said Japan would have surrendered.
Sure..... by December 1945. Maybe.
With hundreds of Americans being killed daily in the fighting that was still going on, you seem to be OK with the idea of a few thousand more dying... so we could do the Japanese a favor and not nuke them.
I have to wonder how popular your bizarre attitude would have been in the U.S. in the late summer of 1945, once the U.S. govt knew its secret atomic bomb project worked.
Would you have volunteered to visit the thousands of additional bereaved wives, children, mothers, fathers, brothers etc. of the Americans killed between August and December?
You would have been fine, I assume, with explaining to THEM that you had been the one who talked the U.S. Armed Forces into NOT using a weapon that would have ended the war months sooner and spared their now-dead loved ones.
I have to question the sanity, if not the outright humanity, of these we-shouldn't-have-nuked-Hiroshima fanatics as they explain that we somehow owed it to the people who started WWII to not use our best weapon to stop them from continuing the slaughter they started... even though that weapon would ultimately spare for more of them than NOT using it, and continuing with conventional warfare that we had never asked for in the first place.
The warlike factions running the Japanese government at the time, who considered death superior to surrender, no doubt would have thanked you.
I've read The Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang, which is about the massacre. It'll absolutely churn your stomach. The subject matter was so traumatic that it is believed to be a factor in the author's eventual suicide. The massacre was so unspeakably horrible that even the resident Nazi representative was appalled. He was so disgusted that he actually tried (and, to an amazing extent, succeeded) in shielding Chinese civilians from the marauding Japanese soldiers.
I am not saying that Japanese infants deserved to be incinerated at Hiroshima because of atrocities like this. They didn't, and their death is no less tragic than that of the innocent babies who were killed at Nanking. I'm saying that we were justified in stopping Japan's aggression. And I'm saying that the party responsible for causing the deaths of these infants, in both Nanking and in Hiroshima, was Japan's government.
Yes, the government was responsible. But here would be a good place to understand what had happened with Japanese society prior to the WW2 period.
In the late 19th century Japan had gone through basically a cultural upheaval. During this upheaval what had been a millennium of tradition was completely uprooted. The Samurai were displaced. The aristocracy that they served was taken out out positions of governing power.
The emperor retained his position but the military and certain wealthy industrialists had the power. With singular authority laying with the premier. That premier during WW2 was Hideki Tojo.
The military saw themselves as a new aristocracy and all the way down to the lowliest private in the army as the new Samurai. They reveled in this and saw themselves as above reproach. Many in the officer and even non commissioned officer class took to carrying a sword.
Some even carried the traditional two swords of the Samurai even though they were not anscestorally tied to that class. In actuality they were peasant born but the new system allowed them ascension.
More than were not were arrogant, cruel and sadistic beyond belief. And they were in charge. The actual Samurai were not much different. By Western standards traditional Japanese culture is extremely cruel and sadistic and to a traditional Japanese life and death are no different.
The new class of 'Samurai' in the firm of the military took this to new heights. They had a master race mentality that Nazi Germany paled next to. The military had done what the Samurai never had. Hugely expanded Japan from the home islands.
They had even crippled the mighty United States. China Korea, Southeast Asia and Indonesia were bowing before Japan's might. The new breed of 'Samurai' was a global power. ALL others, all non Japanesewere less. Less than animals and to be treated as such.
In true traditional Japanese ways the people accepted this rule. After all , look at the power and prestige it had brought.
To my personal way of thinking and having spent time in Japan while there were still vestiges of old Japan around I will say this as to the atom bomb.
One way or another the only thing that would suffice as to Japan was its undeniable crushing defeat. Only such a defeat would deliver the proper humility and realization that the Japanese were NOT the master race destined to rule the world.
It had to happen. The occupation and the way it was conducted very much puzzled the Japanese people. They fully expected withering abuse and cruelty from American military personnel. And were prepared to accept it fully.
They could not u understand why these men who had just completely and utterly defeated them would pick them up and dust them off. They expected to have to bow with their faces in the sewer or fa e death for not doing so.
Thus was the way things had always been under the Samurai and then the Imperial military. Why would Americans be different. But they were. And now we have modern Japan.
I often wonder if we shouldn't have made Japan the 51st state.
The claim made here was that the bombing saved American and Japanese lives. Chinese lives were not part of the equation. The defenders of the bombing claim that making Japan surrender via nukes spared the need for an invasion: again, American lives.
What you argue may or may not be true, but it is not relevant to the scope of the claim which has been debated here: the bombing saved American and Japanese lives and not using the A-bombs would have meant an invasion with millions dead. But the Survey, as well as Generals Eisenhower and LeMay, and Admiral Healy, makes it clear an invasion would not have been needed as Japan would have surrendered. Even the USSR staying out would not have pushed a Japanese surrender too far out into the future.
Are the lives of Chinese civilians less important than the lives of Japanese civilians? Maybe we aren't talking about them, but I would imagine that they figured in the calculations of the men who were making the decisions in 1945.
But OK, let's forget about them. What about Japanese and American lives? Every single day that the war ground on, more and more people on both sides were killed. As I stated before, it's a virtual certainty that, absent the atomic bombs, Hiroshima and Nagasaki still would have been attacked by conventional bombing raids. The fire raids were not as deadly as the nuclear raids, with the glaring exception of the March 1945 raid on Tokyo, but plenty of people were still killed in each and every one of them. And of course we need to toss Kokura into the flaming cauldron. And then what? No more major Japanese cities left to bomb, but still a number of smaller ones remaining. I guess we can sacrifice them as well, huh? Also important to consider, in most raids, some number of planes did not come back, whether because they got shot down or mechanical trouble or whatever. So there's more American crews lost on every raid. Ditto for the flight crews operating off the aircraft carriers. And the kamikaze attacks were still going on, many of which caused casualties.
I am not competent to run the numbers, but I think it's reasonable to conclude that a continuation of the war, without nuclear bombs, until November 1, 1945 would have resulted in more or less the same number of Japanese casualties, and certainly more American ones. The little baby who survived in Hiroshima because her city was not nuked would be alive, but maybe you're just trading her for the little baby in Kokura who survived the war because her city wasn't bombed, but would have died in a bombing if the war had continued.
One way or another the only thing that would suffice as to Japan was its undeniable crushing defeat. Only such a defeat would deliver the proper humility and realization that the Japanese were NOT the master race destined to rule the world.
This is a lesson that we understood in 1945, but seemed to have forgotten now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NVplumber
It had to happen. The occupation and the way it was conducted very much puzzled the Japanese people. They fully expected withering abuse and cruelty from American military personnel. And were prepared to accept it fully.
This reminds me of an anecdote I read about when General MacArthur was being driven somewhere in Japan just after the war, when the occupation was beginning. Many Japanese people lined the streets, but they all had their backs turned to him. In the American culture, this would be highly insulting. But it was explained to MacArthur that it was actually a high compliment. The people felt themselves so utterly unworthy in his presence that they didn't even deserve to look at him; and they also felt that it would bring shame to MacArthur if he had to stoop so low as to look at their dishonorable faces.
I have to question the sanity, if not the outright humanity, of these we-shouldn't-have-nuked-Hiroshima fanatics as they explain that we somehow owed it to the people who started WWII to not use our best weapon to stop them from continuing the slaughter they started... even though that weapon would ultimately spare for more of them than NOT using it, and continuing with conventional warfare that we had never asked for in the first place.
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I full agree with your very accurate post.
If the bombs simply cut down US casualties, that alone meant Truman made the correct decision in using them.
The concerns of the enemy are immaterial in wartime, particularly when the enemy STARTED the war.
If the sun becomes a red giant a few billion years early and kills your kids would you be upset?
That would take out a couple additional planets besides the good Earth, who would be around to survey the BDA results?
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