Though Hiroshima has risen from the rubble to become a thriving city of three million, most of whom were born after the war, the anniversary underscores its ongoing tragedy.

Officials estimate that about 140,000 people were killed instantly or died within a few months after the Enola Gay dropped its deadly payload over the city, which then had a population of about 350,000.

Three days later, another U.S. bomber, Bock's Car, dropped a plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, bringing World War II to a close.

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=beadde34-2da5-436f-9458-208c285a6840

Lets hope we never see anything like this ever again.

Have to agree, no one wants to see people suffer in that way anytime.Bear in mind tho how many people suffered at the hands of the japanese tho which they never really held there hands up to?.

There is substantial evidence to suggest that, based on the behaviour of Japanese Soldiers and civillians at Okinawa, the death toll would have been substantially higher had allied forces attempted to invade teh mainland.

At Okinawa the locals were convinced that teh US soldiers would rape and murder their way across the island. Rather than face that civiliians were urged to either join the fighting or kill themselves 'with honour'. Many leapt to their deaths in the sea; some who didn't were helped on their way by Japanese soldiers with bayonets. The soldiers refused to surrender and the death toll was enormous - I believe in excess of 100,000 soldiers and over 40,000 civiliians. Some figures go as high as 100,000 civillians as well.

Given that this was the first piece of Japanese homeland territory that was being fought over, it doesn't require much imagination to see what could have happenned. The US estimated that it would take at least a year or so to defeat Japan, with casualties of possibly up to a million US troops.

I believe that even without the 'sabre rattling' value of the bomb, and kepeing the USSR out of occupying part of Japan, the use of the bombs was totally valid.

Joe

Good post joe p,says it all.

Originally posted by JoeP
I believe that even without the 'sabre rattling' value of the bomb, and kepeing the USSR out of occupying part of Japan, the use of the bombs was totally valid.

Joe

What!? . . . how on earth can you think that the use of an atomic bomb is valid on any country!?:confused: . . based on your personal theories....

Originally posted by Lestat
What!? . . . how on earth can you think that the use of an atomic bomb is valid on any country!?:confused: . . based on your personal theories....

Seconded. The killing of thousands of innocent people can never be valid.

Ithink joe p wasnt using personal theories, i think youl find there probably facts. Bear in mind the japs were also capable of terrible atrocities including torture of a lot of british soldiers and the bombing of pearl harbour. Using nuclear weapons isnt a thing anyone wants to see but in the long term it did save thousands of lives.

one morning the other week i read a couple of newspaper features about it, starting before they dropped it and carrying on through it and the aftermath......i dont get shocked easily but just reading what actually happened to people after the bomb was dropped was staggeringly shocking.......zombie like people walking about with eyes popping out and intestines being held in, skin burnt off etc etc

NOBODY deserves that NOBODY

if your fighting a war you fight it, no matter the cost you DONT destroy a whole city of innocents in the most sicking way imaginable

Didnt the germans blitz britain in the second world war, britain destroyed dresden with massive bombing, many innocets were killed as always happens. In the long term millions of lives were saved as this action brought the surrender of the japs, lives saved on both sides.

Originally posted by brooksy
Didnt the germans blitz britain in the second world war, britain destroyed dresden with massive bombing, many innocets were killed as always happens. In the long term millions of lives were saved as this action brought the surrender of the japs, lives saved on both sides.

theres a mighty difference between "normal" bombings and dropping an atom bomb. Bombing and destroying warships are "normal" everyday war things, atom bombs on hundreds of thousands of innocent civillians aint ......plus it then changed the whole world forever, none of us are safe ever

and yes lives were saved, ooh i wonder which side, if the japs had bombed us with an atom bomb to end the war itd be a different story :)


my grandad was in a japanese pow camp in burma by the way, so i aint excusing what they did

Itotally disagree with you, however people are killed in a war situation dosnt change the main issue which is to defeat the enemy and get the war over with. This in its self saves lives on both sides .Your comments on nuclear weapons making the world a much unsafer place arnt in my opinion correct. How many more have there been?, none, they in a way are the ultimate deterent to all countrys.I have no wish to see any country attacked in this way but sometimes the needs of the many outway the needs of the few.

Originally posted by JoeP
There is substantial evidence to suggest that, based on the behaviour of Japanese Soldiers and civillians at Okinawa, the death toll would have been substantially higher had allied forces attempted to invade teh mainland.

At Okinawa the locals were convinced that teh US soldiers would rape and murder their way across the island. Rather than face that civiliians were urged to either join the fighting or kill themselves 'with honour'. Many leapt to their deaths in the sea; some who didn't were helped on their way by Japanese soldiers with bayonets. The soldiers refused to surrender and the death toll was enormous - I believe in excess of 100,000 soldiers and over 40,000 civiliians. Some figures go as high as 100,000 civillians as well.

Given that this was the first piece of Japanese homeland territory that was being fought over, it doesn't require much imagination to see what could have happenned. The US estimated that it would take at least a year or so to defeat Japan, with casualties of possibly up to a million US troops.

I believe that even without the 'sabre rattling' value of the bomb, and kepeing the USSR out of occupying part of Japan, the use of the bombs was totally valid.

Joe

Absolutely accurate Joe. There is a mountain of evidence to demonstrate that, had the atomic bomb not been used, the death toll on both sides would have been very much higher. The attrition rates on Iwo Jima, Okinawa and other battlefields were an indication of what would have followed an invasion of the Japanese mainland.

As another example of this, the Japanese had plans to murder every single allied POW in the event of an invasion of the Japanese mainland. There was a book entitled Deliverance written by a British ex-POW a few years ago which provided pretty conclusive evidence for this.

Originally posted by JoeP
There is substantial evidence to suggest that, based on the behaviour of Japanese Soldiers and civillians at Okinawa, the death toll would have been substantially higher had allied forces attempted to invade teh mainland.

At Okinawa the locals were convinced that teh US soldiers would rape and murder their way across the island. Rather than face that civiliians were urged to either join the fighting or kill themselves 'with honour'. Many leapt to their deaths in the sea; some who didn't were helped on their way by Japanese soldiers with bayonets. The soldiers refused to surrender and the death toll was enormous - I believe in excess of 100,000 soldiers and over 40,000 civiliians. Some figures go as high as 100,000 civillians as well.

Given that this was the first piece of Japanese homeland territory that was being fought over, it doesn't require much imagination to see what could have happenned. The US estimated that it would take at least a year or so to defeat Japan, with casualties of possibly up to a million US troops.

I believe that even without the 'sabre rattling' value of the bomb, and kepeing the USSR out of occupying part of Japan, the use of the bombs was totally valid.

Joe

there is also pretty decent evidence to suggest that Japan were close to surrendering and that thre US Hierarchy were aware of this and wanted to test their little bomb out.

I'm about to go out in 10 minutes so annot hunt around and the links I've discussed before on an unmentionable other forum seem to have gone. If you looks around on google you can find both sides of the argument.

just found this but not the stuff I was talking about (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7706)

Originally posted by robbie
there is also pretty decent evidence to suggest that Japan were close to surrendering and that thre US Hierarchy were aware of this and wanted to test their little bomb out.

I'm about to go out in 10 minutes so annot hunt around and the links I've discussed before on an unmentionable other forum seem to have gone. If you looks around on google you can find both sides of the argument.

There is 'no decent evidence' suggesting that Japan was close to surrendering. The vast weight of evidence points in the opposite direction, i.e. that the word surrender was not in the Japanese vocabulary or psyche and that the values of samurai had been so deeply inculcated in the Japanese public mind that it could not even be seriously contemplated. The right wing militarists dominating the government at the time would certainly not have countenanced it. Indeed, even after the bombs had been dropped, the surrender decision was by no means a foregone conclusion and a group of army officers even attampted a coup to prevent Hirohito from making his (ambivalent and ambiguous) surrender speech.

Everyone was working on the bomb, even the Japanese.

The USA got there first.

As for 'mountains of evidence':
Wikipedia points out:
Some have claimed that the Japanese were already essentially defeated, and therefore use of the bombs was unnecessary. General Dwight D. Eisenhower so advised the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, in July of 1945. [12] The highest-ranking officer in the Pacific Theater, General Douglas MacArthur, was not consulted beforehand, but said afterward that there was no military justification for the bombings. The same opinion was expressed by Fleet Admiral William Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific), and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials)

Starving the islands out would have arguably caused a higher civilian death toll. And as the article also points out, many people in Japan saw the dropping of the bomb as a
Hirohito's Cabinet Secretary
golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war


It will be a matter of debate for some time, but Leo Szilard sums it up nicely:
"If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities instead of us, we would have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them."

At the same time as preparing for a fight to death, the Japanese were also suing for peace through the USSR. Of course this would have meant a joint occupation of Japan with the USA, something the USSR was very keen to have. The USA were less keen.

The devastation is not unique, only that it was created in this instance by a single bomb. The after effects were unique, however.

Originally posted by melthebell
theres a mighty difference between "normal" bombings and dropping an atom bomb.

The only difference Mel between the two is that the atomic bomb is a far more efficient way of killing people. You are able to achieve with the drop of one bomb what could take months to achieve with conventional weopons. For instance the Allied bombings of Hamburg in summer 1943 killed over 50,000 people, the fires burned so hot that people were vapourised in the streets and cooked alive in air raid shelters. Deaths equally as gruesome as those of Hiroshima.
At Dresden, where the death toll has been estimated at 70,000, most of whom were refugees and POW's, the same was achieved with 'normal' bombing.
The only difference was the aftermath, ie there was no radiation poisoning, something which then was an unknown quantity.
Joe is absolutely right in his post, he is quoting facts from the day, the Japanese were not going to surrender their homeland easily and many more would have been killed if conventional methods had been used. Perhaps it is significant that they had to drop 2 bombs before the Imperial Japanese government would surrender

Originally posted by daverity
The only difference Mel between the two is that the atomic bomb is a far more efficient way of killing people. You are able to achieve with the drop of one bomb what could take months to achieve with conventional weopons. For instance the Allied bombings of Hamburg in summer 1943 killed over 50,000 people, the fires burned so hot that people were vapourised in the streets and cooked alive in air raid shelters. Deaths equally as gruesome as those of Hiroshima.
At Dresden, where the death toll has been estimated at 70,000, most of whom were refugees and POW's, the same was achieved with 'normal' bombing.
The only difference was the aftermath, ie there was no radiation poisoning, something which then was an unknown quantity.
Joe is absolutely right in his post, he is quoting facts from the day, the Japanese were not going to surrender their homeland easily and many more would have been killed if conventional methods had been used. Perhaps it is significant that they had to drop 2 bombs before the Imperial Japanese government would surrender

that was thousnads of bombs dropped over a full summer that killed thousands, not 1 bomb dropped on 1 day.....look what wouldve happened if theyd dropped the same amount of atom bombs over the same period

Wow,

Certainly rattled a few cages there. Lestat - don't take things so personally. They're not 'my' theories - just look at a few history books and you'll see that they're widely held views. And if we want to get all emotive - consider that between December 1937 and March 1938 the Japanese Imperial Forces raped 80,000 women and killed upwards of 300,000 chinese civillians and POWs when they attacked Nanking.

No one deserve a bomb dropped on them - Coventry didn't, Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo - none of the places deserved being razed.

But it IS valid to carry out an action that saves potentially hundreds of thousands of lives. And most of the lives saved would have been Japanese civillians and servicemen.

I'm aware of both sides of the argument - that's why I mentioned the stuff about the USSR. People had similar blast and burn injuries in all of the above attacks, the difference being the scale and the fact that one bomb was involved.

I stand by what I said - a valid use of a nasty weapon in terms of ultimately saving lives.

Robbie, ss for the Japanese being willing to surrender, even AFTER the Hiroshima bomb the Imperial General Staff were still contemplating carrying on fighting. The belief that the Japanese were planning on surrendering before Hiroshima comes from a comment from Togo :

“so long as England and the United States insist upon unconditional surrender the Japanese Empire has no alternative but to fight on with all its strength.”

This has often been interpreted to read that the Japanese WOULD have surrendered had the word 'unconditional' not been in the terms. Given the recorded reluctance of the Japanese military to surrender, it's debatable whether that interpretation is correct. In addition, the militants were running the show.

It HAS been suggested that the Japanese would have surrendered between Hiroshima and the start of the US invasion of the Japanese mainland, which was planned for mid-late Septmebre 1945. Whether the Nagasaki bomb was required is still a question to be answered - it did serve to keep the Russians out of Japan, and no doubt did speed Japanese considerations.

Joe

Originally posted by melthebell
that was thousnads of bombs dropped over a full summer that killed thousands, not 1 bomb dropped on 1 day.....look what wouldve happened if theyd dropped the same amount of atom bombs over the same period

Hamburg was conducted over 8 days and 4 nights, Dresden over 2 nights, those are facts. Are you trying to say though that its more acceptable to kill significant numbers of people that way than with just one bomb? The numbers stack up to the same virtually.
I once read an interesting comparison between Hitler and Stalin which ran under similar lines. Who was the worse of the two. They both killed millions of people and the conclusion was their motives were their only difference. Hitler's hatred and Stalin's paranoia.
A nasty period of history which makes todays troubles look insignificant when compared.
As bad as the A bomb was, perhaps it has kept the world at relative peace for 60 years? Here's to another 60!

Originally posted by JoeP
..... The US estimated that it would take at least a year or so to defeat Japan.........

That's the US doing the estimating, though :roll:
I think on one of the 'World at War' programmes it was suggested that the Japanese were only about six weeks away from surrender when the bombs were dropped.......

Good series of articles on the guardian site.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,14058,1535156,00.html

"Before August 1945, very many Japanese had already been killed by "conventional" bombing. On one night in Tokyo in March, American bombers killed 85,000 civilians - more than would die at Nagasaki - and at least 300,000 were incinerated in great fire raids over the following months."



"And yet Mr Matsushima, whose brother, Kanngo, was a Zero fighter pilot, said he too had craved the fight against America. 'All Japanese boys wanted to join the military in those days. When I walked out of the city I could see both sides of the river burning phosphorus. Big smoke had covered the whole city, rising up, and I thought, "Hey, the Americans invented a real tough weapon. It's very hard to win this war." At the same time I never believed in surrender either. We were ready for suicide attacks.'

Would he have dropped the A-bomb? 'I tell American people I don't think we can blame you. This was during the war, when people become mad to kill the enemy. If Japan had an A-bomb we might have dropped it into New York. "

Originally posted by Draggletail
That's the US doing the estimating, though :roll:
I think on one of the 'World at War' programmes it was suggested that the Japanese were only about six weeks away from surrender when the bombs were dropped.......

Is that an "It'll all be over by christmas"-type suggestion?

The awesome power of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts has served to keep atomic weapons tucked away ever since - I doubt very much that even the americans anticipated the enormous impact of these two attacks.

If only the terrible human costs of the use of conventional weapons on civilian populations had resulted in a similar abstinance.

Originally posted by Draggletail
That's the US doing the estimating, though :roll:
I think on one of the 'World at War' programmes it was suggested that the Japanese were only about six weeks away from surrender when the bombs were dropped.......

Well, if the Japanese were willing to sacrifice 150,000 lives to stop the US getting Okinawa, how many would they have sacrificed for the Homeland? I think the US estimates are quite reasonable.

Also, I mentioned in my posting that the Japanese may have been 6 weeks from surrendering; admittedly my posting was a long one and that statement was made near the bottom!

Whether the military would have surrendered in that time is debatable. The final US offer to the Japanese on July 26th was in teh form of the Potsdam Declaration - in it it re-iterated the unconditional surrender of the Japanese military - NOT the Japanese state as a whole, and stated that Japan would have to give up overseas possessions and that teh homeland would be occupied until a suitable form of Government that would prevent a repeat of the militarism that had triggered the war was in place.

The Japanese tried to stall for time - and took the policy of mokastsu against the Declaration; this is a sort of diplomatic contempt. The US regarded this as a failure to agree and the rest is history.

Joe

I think what is necessary now is to strive for a　nuclear-weapon-free world rather than to share the historical　perceptions.

Peace Declaration August 6, 2005 from Hiroshima (http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/declaration/English/2005/index.html)

We all know that we can never use A-bombs other than for politically showing off. It is ridiculous to keep a system which could lead the human race to perish.

Originally posted by akihabara
I think what is necessary now is to strive for a　nuclear-weapon-free world rather than to share the historical　perceptions.

Peace Declaration August 6, 2005 from Hiroshima (http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/declaration/English/2005/index.html)

We all know that we can never use A-bombs other than for politically showing off. It is ridiculous to keep a system which could lead the human race to perish.

By ignoring this history that took us to where we are we risk compounding the mistakes.

The bomb will NEVER go away. Get used to it. The only time we'll ever be totally free of nuclear weapons is when every piece of bomb grade uranium and plutonium is accounted for and destroyed. And the technology to make more is destroyed. And the knowledge is forgotten - or our industrial infrastructure is too clapped out to make new stuff.

It'll never happen. Any resaonably indutrialised nation with a civil nuclear power program can refine uranium to bomb grade. They may not make an efficient bomb, but it's good enough. Whilst the major powers are now unlikely to have a go at each other with nuclear weapons, there are likely to be scores of countries who may use them or the threat of them against neigjbouring states. Whilst they exist, other countries need a deterrent against nuclear weapons use.

Joe

Originally posted by JoeP
By ignoring this history that took us to where we are we risk compounding the mistakes.

The bomb will NEVER go away. Get used to it. The only time we'll ever be totally free of nuclear weapons is when every piece of bomb grade uranium and plutonium is accounted for and destroyed. And the technology to make more is destroyed. And the knowledge is forgotten - or our industrial infrastructure is too clapped out to make new stuff.

It'll never happen. Any resaonably indutrialised nation with a civil nuclear power program can refine uranium to bomb grade. They may not make an efficient bomb, but it's good enough. Whilst the major powers are now unlikely to have a go at each other with nuclear weapons, there are likely to be scores of countries who may use them or the threat of them against neigjbouring states. Whilst they exist, other countries need a deterrent against nuclear weapons use.

Joe


Whether they have technology to make the bomb is different from actually making inhumane weapons.

I understand that the efforts to nuclear nonproliferation is faced with difficult situation and we have far way to go, but there is no reason to abandan the lofty idea. There is nothing to be gained by giving up.

In the near future should I be concerned for risk of getting killed in tiny A-bombing in town?
I can't get used to it.

Lord Chaverley's well argued defence of the decision to drop the bombs leaves little for me to contribute. My friend says it all regarding the Japanese attitude towards surrendering, the Allied pows etc. Lord C mentions the influence of the Samarai code upon Japanese military thinking and strategy. There is good evidence [from Lord Russell of Liverpool's experience at the Tokyo trials] that a cabal of senior officers in the Japanese military introduced a perversion of the Bushido code, in which the previous emphasis upon compassion and chivalry towards defeated enemies was replaced by naked, merciless butchery. One reflects that the vast contrast in the behaviour of the Japanese military towards captives in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War [where the Japanese won praise throughout the world for their humanity towards Russian 'poor unfortunates'], and in World War Two clearly shows the effect of the then 'new' interpretation of Bushido.

I consider the dropping of the Atom bombs upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki to have been completely justified. The greater number of deaths which would have resulted from an invasion of the mainland, referred to by Lord C, is the main reason. There have been some very recent attempts by 'historical revisionists' to paint a less savage picture of the Japanese soldiery, based upon rather pathetic diary entries, and evidence [which has long been known] of barbaric behaviour by the US Marines on Okinawa, Iwo Jima etc. Thank goodness the Chinese and Koreans refuse to let Japanese atrocities be airbrushed from history. This brings me to the second reason why I think the bombings were valid. We can only imagine the terror inspired by the Japanese war machine, which waged 'total war' in every sense. Such behaviour demanded extreme tactics in response. We cannot imagine either the sheer desperation of the Allies, knowing of the massed waves of kamikaze attacks awaiting any invasion attempt. The response, mushroom-shaped, DID stop the Japanese aggression. For that I am eternally grateful.

Originally posted by akihabara
Whether they have technology to make the bomb is different from actually making inhumane weapons.

I understand that the efforts to nuclear nonproliferation is faced with difficult situation and we have far way to go, but there is no reason to abandan the lofty idea. There is nothing to be gained by giving up.

In the near future should I be concerned for risk of getting killed in tiny A-bombing in town?
I can't get used to it.

I'm 44. I survived the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1973 crisis caused by the Arab-Israel War when we got to Defcon 3 and you basically get used to living with it.

It's a great thing to aim for, but it's not the sane and rational people we have to worry about. The biggest risk of nuclear war for 50 years was probably the 'Fail Safe' or 'Dr Strangelove' scenario - technical failure or human error. Now we have the possibility of fanatics getting hold of a small nuclear weapon for terrorist use - or even being given a small weapon by a sympathetic nuclear capable country.

I doubt terrorist with a nuclear weapon would waste it on Sheffield. You stand a bigger chance of being blown up by a conventional terrorist bomb, being hit by lightning, whatever.

But maintaining a small nuclear arsenal would probably mean that any country thinking of giving a nuclear device to a terrorist group would think twice. We still hae the problem of posisble 'black market' weapons sales to deal with, but that's a different problem to state sponsored use.

I would agree we have too many of the darn things in the US and Russian arsenals, but I believe the prospects of a nuclear free world disappeared on 16th July 1945 at Alamogordo.

Joe

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were almost defeated and ready to surrender...in being the first to use it, we...adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."

---Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy,
Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II

Not known to the general public until after the war, Japan had begun to put out feelers about surrender by May of 1945. On May 12, 1945, William Donovan, Director of the Office of Strategic Services (which later became the CIA) reported to President Truman that Shinichi Kase, Japan’s minister to Switzerland, wished "to help arrange for a cessation of hostilities." He believed one of the few provisions the Japanese would "insist upon would be the retention of the Emperor." A similar report reached Truman from Masutaro Inoue, a Japanese official in Portugal. In mid-June Admiral William D. Leahy concluded that "a surrender of Japan can be arranged with terms that can be accepted by Japan and that will make fully satisfactory provision for America’s defense against future trans-Pacific aggression."

more info here (http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hiro/necessary.html)

Publicly, The emporer had to give a no surrender stance. The view that most Japanese would fight to the death/rather commit suicide than surrender is in my opinion a western myth.

"Now is the time to exterminate the Yellow Peril for all time… Let the rats squeal."
—Congressman Charles A. Plumley, August 1945

article (http://www.vw.cc.va.us/vwhansd/HIS122/Hiroshima.html)

Many U.S. military officials were less than enthusiastic about the demand for unconditional surrender or use of the atomic bomb. At the time of Potsdam, Gen. Hap Arnold asserted that conventional bombing could end the war. Adm. Ernest King believed a naval blockade alone would starve the Japanese into submission. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, convinced that retaining the emperor was vital to an orderly transition to peace, was appalled at the demand for unconditional surrender. Adm. William Leahy concurred. Refusal to keep the emperor would result only in making the Japanese desperate and thereby increase our casualty lists, he argued, adding that a nearly defeated Japan might stop fighting if unconditional surrender were dropped as a demand. At a loss for a military explanation for use of the bomb, Leahy believed that the decision was clearly a political one, reached perhaps because of the vast sums that had been spent on the project. Finally, we have Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's account of a conversation with Stimson in which he told the secretary of war that:

"Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. ... I thought our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of face. The secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude, almost angrily refuting the reasons I gave for my quick conclusions."

article (http://mediafilter.org/caq/Caq53.hiroshima.html)

Why did the United States demand that Japan surrender unconditionally? This policy had a number of sources. One was simple fanaticism, as illustrated by the telegram Senator Richard B. Russell sent to Truman after Hiroshima opposing the acceptance of any conditions on Japanese surrender:

If we do not have available a sufficient number of atomic bombs with which to finish the job immediately, let us carry on with TNT and fire bombs until we can produce them....Our people have not forgotten that the Japanese struck us the first blow in this war without the slightest warning. They believe that we should continue to strike the Japanese until they are brought groveling to their knees. We should cease our appeals to Japan to sue for peace. The next plea for peace should come from an utterly destroyed Tokyo (quoted in Kecskemeti, p. 165).

article (http://www.bcasnet.org/articlesandresources/article10_10.htm)

Hiroshima Peace Site (http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/peacesite/English/Stage1/S1-1E.html)

It is the Japanese who were the 'fanatics' not the American military and public! Why should anyone have trusted Japanese 'feelers' about surrender? Read 'The Knights of Bushido' by Lord Russell of Liverpool, Robbie. The answer lies within its horrific pages.

Originally posted by timo
It is the Japanese who were the 'fanatics' not the American military and public! Why should anyone have trusted Japanese 'feelers' about surrender? Read 'The Knights of Bushido' by Lord Russell of Liverpool, Robbie. The answer lies within its horrific pages.

your point being?

What the hell have Japanese war crimes got to do with it?

Bear in mind we were the second country to use death camps so what right have we to criticize others? (and yes the Japanese war crimes were horrific)

Robbie,
I do not appreciate your aggressive tone. Secondly, the Japanese war crimes have a great deal to do with the decision to drop the bomb. This is not so much because of a desire for retribution [perfectly understandable anyway, given the incredible scale of the war crimes] but because the Japanese military had proved themselves ruthless and untrustworthy to say the least. The attack on Pearl Harbour hardly encouraged the Allies to trust Japan's motives. In the micro context, there were hundreds of accounts of false and murderously deceptive Japanese surrender attempts [waving the white flag and then opening fire etc] throughout the Pacific theatre of war. The Allies realised that they were dealing with true 'fanatics' to use your terms, who had behaved like some vast , barbaric, medieval hordes throughout the conflict. How does one trust the word of a military that allows its troops to fall upon Nanking the way it did, for example? The so-called Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere hit Asia like an atom bomb itself.

This was truly 'total war' without mercy, and very much 'racialised' one admits. What do you think would have happened had Japan possessed the means to drop atom bombs on America? They would have surely done so. The same is true of the Nazis. The difference is, had the Axis powers prevailed, you would not have the freedom to debate the 'rights' and 'wrongs' of warfare today.

How you have the audacity to label Americans 'fanatics' for desperately desiring the defeat of such a bestial enemy frankly beggars belief. You should hang your head in shame.

Absolutely accurate Timo. Well said. Any one who thinks for a moment a moral equivalance between the Allies and Japan during the war years should read the late Iris Chang's marvellous book The Rape of Nanking - or read about the experiments in biological warfare conducted by the Japanese, using Chinese and allied captives.

The myth that the Japanese were on the verge of surrender is based on several misconceptions. For example, their overtures to the Russians during the war were primarily aimed at keeping the latter out of the war with Japan (which they did almost until the end, when Soviet troops went through the Japanese army in Manchuria like a knife through butter). When they realised they were losing, the Japanese did indeed put out peace feelers, but on terms which would have never been accepted by the allies. As for the retention of the emperor, the US did indeed offer the Japanese these terms prior to the dropping of the bomb, but these terms were rejected by the Japanese and indeed were interpreted by them as signs of weakness. The militarists in the Japanese government would not have accepted them anyway. On the verge of surrender? No. On the verge of defeat? Well yes, but what a verge. It would have been a verge piled high with Japanese and allied corpses, with a death toll vastly higher than the tolls at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Originally posted by timo
Robbie,
I do not appreciate your aggressive tone. Secondly, the Japanese war crimes have a great deal to do with the decision to drop the bomb. This is not so much because of a desire for retribution [perfectly understandable anyway, given the incredible scale of the war crimes] but because the Japanese military had proved themselves ruthless and untrustworthy to say the least. The attack on Pearl Harbour hardly encouraged the Allies to trust Japan's motives. In the micro context, there were hundreds of accounts of false and murderously deceptive Japanese surrender attempts [waving the white flag and then opening fire etc] throughout the Pacific theatre of war. The Allies realised that they were dealing with true 'fanatics' to use your terms, who had behaved like some vast , barbaric, medieval hordes throughout the conflict. How does one trust the word of a military that allows its troops to fall upon Nanking the way it did, for example? The so-called Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere hit Asia like an atom bomb itself.

This was truly 'total war' without mercy, and very much 'racialised' one admits. What do you think would have happened had Japan possessed the means to drop atom bombs on America? They would have surely done so. The same is true of the Nazis. The difference is, had the Axis powers prevailed, you would not have the freedom to debate the 'rights' and 'wrongs' of warfare today.

How you have the audacity to label Americans 'fanatics' for desperately desiring the defeat of such a bestial enemy frankly beggars belief. You should hang your head in shame.

Whate aggresive tone?:confused:

I don't like your smug air of intellectual superiority but that is another issue;)

so after another racist rant against the Japanese I'll ask you again. What did Japanese war crimes have to do with droppig the bomb. It's nice of you and LC to name drop books which were written years after but that would hardly have influenced the Americans at the time. Considering what information the US would have had to hand at the time.

It seems that your arguments seem to centre on your belief that the Japanese were sub humans on a par with animals...

Originally posted by robbie
Whate aggresive tone?:confused:

I don't like your smug air of intellectual superiority but that is another issue;)

so after another racist rant against the Japanese I'll ask you again. What did Japanese war crimes have to do with droppig the bomb. It's nice of you and LC to name drop books which were written years after but that would hardly have influenced the Americans at the time. Considering what information the US would have had to hand at the time.

It seems that your arguments seem to centre on your belief that the Japanese were sub humans on a par with animals...

robbie,

With regard to your comment about Timo. Smug air? No. Intellectual superiority? Yes, deservedly so. In his posts Timo provides cogent arguments backed up by evidence, enlivened also by wit and humour.

I am disappointed that you use the phrase 'racist rant', which hardly counts as a rational argument and which is in any case completely ridiculous. Japanese war crimes, from the late 1930s through to Pearl Harbour and beyond (indeed right up until the end of the war) underpinned the fact that this was a total war, fought to the limits of the military capabilities of the belligerents. They were also an indication of the fanaticism of the Japanese - i.e. of no quarter given and none taken, a savagery witnessed in the Western theatre mainly on the Eastern front. The information the US had at the time - and don't forget they had broken the Japanese diplomatic and military codes - pointed to the fact that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been necessary, as shown for example for the extensive preparations being made by the Japanese at the time (including suicide squads of one kind or another and the mass mobilisation of the civilian population). You have not answered the points I actually made in my previous post, so I can hardly respond with a rejoinder to these.

And calling an entire nation mass barbaric medieval hordes isn't racist?

anyway your points.

Some of the military Hieracrhy were mad fanatics (same with the US) who would never have accepted surrender.

However, at the time they were on the verge of surrender. The fact that they would consider surrender surely would make dropping bombs on civilians which doesn't merely blow things up but strips the flesh from their skin would be immoral?

A naval blockade would have sufficed to ensure that the Japanese would have had to surrender. I'm not for one minute saying that the US should have embarked on a ground invasion or carried on their carpet bombing.

I personally believe that the only reason that the US dropped the bomb was to show that they had a fully operational bomb and to curtail Russian expansion. The US dropped the bomb for their own reasons and in essense it had little to do with ending the war.

Robbie,
I regard the phrase 'What the hell has etc' to be aggressive in tone. Secondly, if there is an air of 'smug intellectual superiority' about my posting then that is your opinion. At the risk of sounding genuinely 'smug', there are plenty of posters on the forum who take the trouble to tell me how much they enjoy my postings, and in 'the real world', I have published four times this year already, so your hostile views bother me not. Thirdly, I do not regard the Japanese as 'subhumans on par with animals'. Great numbers of their soldiery behaved like 'subhumans' certainly, but I do not regard the Japanese as innately more aggressive or sadistic than other peoples. Nor do I believe in inherited 'racial guilt'. As a social scientist with an interest in genetics and biology, I am very familiar with the literature on geographical variations in human intelligence. Far from being 'subhuman', the Japanese [and Mongoloids in general] tend to outstrip other groups in IQ tests of visio-spatial intelligence. I have enormous respect for Japanese culture in general, have qualifications in the Japanese martial art of Shukokai-style Karate, have visited the country twice, and had the pleasure of teaching many Japanese students. Please do not scatter words like 'racist' rashly to the wind.

The fact remains that Japanese troops in general behaved abominably in the Pacific Theatre of war. This very much influenced the desperate decision of the Americans, and desperate they truly were. The Japanese could only be stopped by a weapon that, in Hirohito's words, could destroy Japan itself. The ultimate weapon. If you think my views are old-fashioned and not in keeping with 'the spirit of the age', look at the very recent anti-Japanese riots , provoked by Japanese refusals to acknowledge the past, involving furious young Chinese and Koreans.

Let's keep ridiculous and cowardly accusations of 'racism' out of the debate. They really do not apply in my case, and are potentially libellous.

MOD: Obviously this is a subject where feelings are bound to run high but please avoid letting personal judgements & comments about other users becoming part of the debate.

Originally posted by timo
Robbie,
I regard the phrase 'What the hell has etc' to be aggressive in tone. Secondly, if there is an air of 'smug intellectual superiority' about my posting then that is your opinion. At the risk of sounding genuinely 'smug', there are plenty of posters on the forum who take the trouble to tell me how much they enjoy my postings, and in 'the real world', I have published four times this year already, so your hostile views bother me not. Thirdly, I do not regard the Japanese as 'subhumans on par with animals'. Great numbers of their soldiery behaved like 'subhumans' certainly, but I do not regard the Japanese as innately more aggressive or sadistic than other peoples. Nor do I believe in inherited 'racial guilt'. As a social scientist with an interest in genetics and biology, I am very familiar with the literature on geographical variations in human intelligence. Far from being 'subhuman', the Japanese [and Mongoloids in general] tend to outstrip other groups in IQ tests of visio-spatial intelligence. I have enormous respect for Japanese culture in general, have qualifications in the Japanese martial art of Shukokai-style Karate, have visited the country twice, and had the pleasure of teaching many Japanese students. Please do not scatter words like 'racist' rashly to the wind.

The fact remains that Japanese troops in general behaved abominably in the Pacific Theatre of war. This very much influenced the desperate decision of the Americans, and desperate they truly were. The Japanese could only be stopped by a weapon that, in Hirohito's words, could destroy Japan itself. The ultimate weapon. If you think my views are old-fashioned and not in keeping with 'the spirit of the age', look at the very recent anti-Japanese riots , provoked by Japanese refusals to acknowledge the past, involving furious young Chinese and Koreans.

Let's keep ridiculous and cowardly accusations of 'racism' out of the debate. They really do not apply in my case, and are potentially libellous.


Ok, so why didn't the US drop a bomb on Germany? Didn't the Nazis murder anywhere between 3 and 15 million Jews.

I don't buy the argument that the US dropped the bomb was partly due to the actions of the Japanese.

Again there were some horrible atrocities. But were these atrocities on the scale of fire bombing and murdering 100,000 people in Tokyo in one

day? (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0310-08.htm)

Was it all Japanese soldiers committing these atrocities?

Again, the question of individual culpability has to be viewed differently between Germans and Japanese. Japanese society and history is based on people carrying out orders from their superiors without question. There life is not theirs it is the emporers.

It has always puzzled me how the NAZI party perpetrated the Holocaust but all Japanese soldiers committed Japanese war crimes.

and going on to Pearl Harbour. There is also a lot of evidence to suggest that the US WANTED Japan to provoke them and bring them in to the war.

A summary of arguments are here (http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html)

oh and Timo I apologise for calling you smug.

That's alright, son. I'll call off the neo-fascist death squad.

Originally posted by robbie
Ok, so why didn't the US drop a bomb on Germany? Didn't the Nazis murder anywhere between 3 and 15 million Jews.

I don't buy the argument that the US dropped the bomb was partly due to the actions of the Japanese.

Again there were some horrible atrocities. But were these atrocities on the scale of fire bombing and murdering 100,000 people in Tokyo in one

day? (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0310-08.htm)

Was it all Japanese soldiers committing these atrocities?

Again, the question of individual culpability has to be viewed differently between Germans and Japanese. Japanese society and history is based on people carrying out orders from their superiors without question. There life is not theirs it is the emporers.

It has always puzzled me how the NAZI party perpetrated the Holocaust but all Japanese soldiers committed Japanese war crimes.

robbie,

The US actually developed the atom bomb with the intention of using it against Germany. However, the Germans surrendered in May 1945, before the bomb was completed. As for Nazi war crimes, it was primarily the SS and related units rather than the Wehrmacht as such which perpetrated these. Conversely, there is ample evidence to show that atrocities on a vast scale were perpetrated by the Japanese Imperial army at all levels.

Most of the important points have been made ----but here's a couple of small things that may be interesting.
Here in China , the T.V. English Channel has beenshowing a 5 part documentary about prisoners of War in Japanese hands .
This was about only the Americans , Australians and British , as it was fairly easy to compile the record of this group..It said that the death-rate of this group in Germany , as prisoners of War was 1.5 % per annum mainly due to illness.
In the Japanese case it was 16.5 % p.a. The Japanese camps were in fact half -way to being concentration camps.
That's not to mention the huge numbers of Chinese and other civilians from all over East Asia who were used and abused by the Japanese.Presumably , whilst we waited for a possible blockade to have effect , as someone suggested , , the prisoners could have gone on dying ? Or would we have blockaded the whole of China too ?
The prisoners were scattered all over China and Japan .We knew how ruthless the Japanese had been , for example , in Singapore , so we knew our prisoners of War were in deadly danger.
When it came to the actual signing of the surrender on an American battleship , the words chosen did still not use the actual word , "surrender ". ! I suppose the Allies , by that time had got so sick of shilly-shallying over it that they didn't push the matter -----just , "sign here , please ".
Finally , these , "blood-thirsty , barbaric , racist " , Americans , poured millions of dollars after the war into re-building Japan , with a sort of Oriental Marshall Plan. A strange way , surely for such evil people to behave ? A bit different , for example than the German treatment of the Poles when they surrendered !

Thankyou Fareast for the important points you make there regarding Japanese treatment of pows, and the post-war American rebuilding of Japan.

There is a current trend towards a facile anti-Americanism in this country, not helped by the [in my view, misguided] interventions in Iraq. It borders upon a form of racism in some cases. If in doubt, blame the good old USA. The US government then, and now, like any sane and sensible government of a nation state, has its own interests at heart. Nevertheless, the American post-war conduct in Japan is a shining example of how to [largely] 'win the heart' of an enemy nation. Cynics might say that Japanese culture has been buried by USA popular 'LA Coca Cola culture'. One reflects that the Americans did not officially, to my knowledge, 'ban' any aspect of traditional Japanese culture from Kabuki to Sushi. They merely, and quite rightly, stemmed any further military development. That said, the Japanese have the largest police force in the world, and there are rumblings from the rightwing of Japanese politics about re-arming Japan in the face of the very real threats from North Korea. The point is, America and Japan are now allies. When one considers the almost medieval barbarity of the Japanese soldiery, it is a tribute to American diplomacy that the relationship holds firm.

Timo ,

Picking up your point about , "facile " anti-Americanism----it's a good word to describe it.
There seems to be a , "knee-jerk" reaction to condemn and vilify anything politically American , amongst a certain type of person.
I'll just say , first , that I , more or less , detest American culture ----or large swathes of it --- and I don't think that all American domestic or foreign policy has been right or fair ; so , I don't think I can be accused of being an Americo-phile !
However , I really do find it extremely odd , the invective and bile that spews forth from some quarters whenever Bush or America is mentioned.When one compares America with any other Super Powers of the past , their actions have been benign by comparison.
I wonder why there IS this reaction ?
For what it's worth , I suspect there's an element of jealousy and envy . America is more powerful than anyone else and for some people ,Goliath is ALWAYS wrong and David is ALWAYS right.
Maybe there's a lack of historical knowledge or maybe our history books and a lot of the media are anti-American. I could understand why the East Europeans complained about the dominance of the other last Super Power , the ,"the Socialist Brotheres of the USSR " but I've never heard many complaints about American behaviour in West Germany or Japan.
After the war , the Americans propped practically the whole of Western Europe up with the Marshall Plan. There weren't too many complaints about that either. They didn't have to get so involved in the European theatre of war either ; they had their own war to fight in the far east.
Yes , it's all very curious ! And what makes it odder still , is that , in Britain , albeit from a different group of people probably , there is an almost slavish copying of American culture .
To say that we've always supported America , in important matters ---and them , us ----since the War of Independence , it 's one of the more baffling aspects of British life .

Far east,
I think you are correct re the 'Goliath and David' analogy, to an extent. Additionally, many share your dislike [and possibly resentment towards] the global flow of American popular culture. Unfortunately, the America portrayed is invariably, 'pushy', 'feisty' New Yorkers, LA, California etc. America is a vast continent, and there are regions that hardly ever feature in the media we are exposed to. Popular, 'LA Coca Cola culture' focuses upon immediate gratification, the cult of the individual, dumbed-down information, and lots of nasty loud noises offensive to the ears of velvet-suited souls such as you and I. There is a quieter, more cultured America in places such as New England. If we saw more of this world through our media, instead of the Bronx etc, it might change British perceptions of vulgar, selfish, egotistical 'yanks'.