Glad-I-Ate-Her

I find interesting the opinions of Japanese historians. What's everyone's take?

I believe the dropping of the bombs saved countless lives. The Japanese military was un-willing to surrender at any cost. Its an unfortunate situation all around.
Glad
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times Op-Ed Columnist
Tuesday, August 5, 2003 Posted: 6:54 AM EDT (1054 GMT)


Tomorrow will mark the anniversary of one of the most morally contentious events of the 20th century, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. And after 58 years, there's an emerging consensus: we Americans have blood on our hands.

There has been a chorus here and abroad that the U.S. has little moral standing on the issue of weapons of mass destruction because we were the first to use the atomic bomb. As Nelson Mandela said of Americans in a speech on Jan. 31, "Because they decided to kill innocent people in Japan, who are still suffering from that, who are they now to pretend that they are the policeman of the world?"

The traditional American position, that our intention in dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki was to end the war early and save lives, has been poked full of holes. Revisionist historians like Gar Alperovitz argue persuasively that Washington believed the bombing militarily unnecessary (except to establish American primacy in the postwar order) because, as the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey put it in 1946, "in all probability" Japan would have surrendered even without the atomic bombs.

Yet this emerging consensus is, I think, profoundly mistaken.

While American scholarship has undercut the U.S. moral position, Japanese historical research has bolstered it. The Japanese scholarship, by historians like Sadao Asada of Doshisha University in Kyoto, notes that Japanese wartime leaders who favored surrender saw their salvation in the atomic bombing. The Japanese military was steadfastly refusing to give up, so the peace faction seized upon the bombing as a new argument to force surrender.

"We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war," Koichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest aides, said later.

Wartime records and memoirs show that the emperor and some of his aides wanted to end the war by summer 1945. But they were vacillating and couldn't prevail over a military that was determined to keep going even if that meant, as a navy official urged at one meeting, "sacrificing 20 million Japanese lives."

The atomic bombings broke this political stalemate and were thus described by Mitsumasa Yonai, the navy minister at the time, as a "gift from heaven."

Without the atomic bombings, Japan would have continued fighting by inertia. This would have meant more firebombing of Japanese cities and a ground invasion, planned for November 1945, of the main Japanese islands. The fighting over the small, sparsely populated islands of Okinawa had killed 14,000 Americans and 200,000 Japanese, and in the main islands the toll would have run into the millions.

"The atomic bomb was a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war," Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief cabinet secretary in 1945, said later.

Some argue that the U.S. could have demonstrated the bomb on an uninhabited island, or could have encouraged surrender by promising that Japan could keep its emperor. Yes, perhaps, and we should have tried. We could also have waited longer before dropping the second bomb, on Nagasaki.

But, sadly, the record suggests that restraint would not have worked. The Japanese military ferociously resisted surrender even after two atomic bombings on major cities, even after Soviet entry into the war, even when it expected another atomic bomb — on Tokyo.

One of the great tales of World War II concerns an American fighter pilot named Marcus McDilda who was shot down on Aug. 8 and brutally interrogated about the atomic bombs. He knew nothing, but under torture he "confessed" that the U.S. had 100 more nuclear weapons and planned to destroy Tokyo "in the next few days." The war minister informed the cabinet of this grim news — but still adamantly opposed surrender. In the aftermath of the atomic bombing, the emperor and peace faction finally insisted on surrender and were able to prevail.

It feels unseemly to defend the vaporizing of two cities, events that are regarded in some quarters as among the most monstrous acts of the 20th century. But we owe it to history to appreciate that the greatest tragedy of Hiroshima was not that so many people were incinerated in an instant, but that in a complex and brutal world, the alternatives were worse.

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I'm "Glad I Ate Her" because the payback was worth it!!

The_Dude

that was all out war and i support the decision by the US to drop the bombs.

but if such a situtation happened today, US would not (probaby) drop nuclear weapons due to the civilian casualties. (seems like it's the #1 concern).

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geep

I think the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was tremendously sad, yet necessary. My big question is "Who died and appointed Nelson Mandela god?" I don't seem to recall him moralizing over the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The_Dude

you cant compare pearl harbor to hiroshima/nagasaki.

pearl harbor was a military base. these 2 places were civilian towns.

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ubertuber

Well, I wonder why this comes up. After all, dropping the atomic bomb didn't make the Japanese surrender, it was dropping the second one that did it. So why would someone think that they were already on the edge and the war could have been won without atomic weapons OR significant casualties. The death rates on the Pacific islands were horrific - often with Japanese soldiers fighting to the last few men. Extrapolate that to the main islands, and then consider that at that point America had already endured nearly 5 years of war, rationing, and casualties all for causes that were oceans away. Hindsight may be 20/20, but this position is not even that!

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Ralvek

Using the atomic bombs in 1945 saved millions of lives by stopping the starvation of the Japanese and the slaughter which would have taken place had the US landed on Japan. Another, often overlooked, reason we dropped the bombs was to stop the USSR from gobbling up more of Asia, they were soon to start an all out war against Japan....It also proved to the world that those weapons should never be used again.

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m0ntyblack

I believe the bombs should have been dropped, I in NO way at all believe that they should have dropped them where they did. Civilian targets for the most destructive weapons ever.... it really sickens me.


MB

The_Dude

ok, this just struck me.

isnt that basically what the terrorists of 9/11 did??

they attacked defenseless civilians.

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j8ear

Indeed it is....indeed it is

chavos

the fact that after 2 atom bombs, there was a coup de etat by Japanese military officers to try to prevent surrender by kidnapping the emperor...i'm somewhat lead to believe it may have been sadly necessary.

weedline

If we did not use nuke's and needed the USSR to defeat Japan?
A communist/free Japan?
I think that we would have droped more two and not just on Japan!
And the fire storms in Dresden/Tokyo killed than more Tall /Fat Boy
ever did. It is the stuff of night mares!!

ubertuber

Except we weren't at war with them. BTW, civilians dying is part of warfare, not to say that Nagasaki and Hiroshima weren't tragic. In recent years we have gotten the idea that warfare is somehow sterile, and only the military is involved. Even stranger to me is that European countries seem to be thinking this, despite their experience with two devastating wars in the last century. When you go to war, the goal must be to win, and sometimes civilians will die. This isn't to trivialize the issue, but maybe people should think harder before they support the idea of armed conflict. The American public was all for invading Afghanistan when we first did it, and also to a lesser degree with Iraq. Support seems to wane as collateral damage mounts or our own troops die. When advocating for military action, we should remember the saying: "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it!"

reconmike

Was Hiroshima and Nagasaki picked at random?

Ofcourse not they were military targets, being the center of the Japanese war machine.

They were manufacturing their war effort in these cities.

Is a assembly line building war planes with civilian people a military target?

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seretogis

To suggest that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a terrorist act on our part is nothing but complete ignorance.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

The_Dude

i have no info on the reasons why they were dropped. can you link me to any useful sites (i tried googling, but got irrelevant stuff).


well, we werent or arent "at war" with iraq right now. when was the last time we had an official declaration of war?

regardless of whether or not the two cities had been the supply houses, we killed almost 200k people and permanently scared a lot more (and future generations).

i agree that civilians can be killed in a war, but how about killing 200k civilians + the infected people?

the more and more i think about it, i'm getting to a postion against the droppin of the nukes.

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Zeld2.0

The bombs were needed there was no doubt about it IMO -

But i would check up on saying that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were exactly military targets. Thats not entirely true - the cities were left 'off target' to U.S. bombers for a long time during the war for the sole purpose of proving what the bombs could do to intact cities. Sure there is no doubt that they produced stuff for their war effort - but they weren't exactly considerable or else they would've been hit much earlier by conventional bombers.

Oh and interesting point - Hiroshima and Nagasaki only ended up the targets because Kobe ahd bad weather one of the days and so those were the two that ended up getting hit.

hobo

I remember a documentary that said something about Tokyo being the target that more hardline military officials wanted to hit, for the purpose to destroying the Japanese cultural centre and demoralizing the people. It's a good thing someone got Tokyo off the nuke list or the casualties and damage would have been way more severe than necessary.

I think the atomic bombs were probably dropped for good reasons. It set the USA up as the world super power and prevented the loss of troops. It also allowed scientists to really learn about the effects of atomic weapons on people, which is part of the reason people don't use those weapons today.

Pearl Harbor was a perfectly legitimate target. It was a big naval base that was the likely base of operations on any move against Japan. Japan did actually send their declaration of war out with the intention of it being received by the White House before the attack, but slow translators delayed it.

Glad-I-Ate-Her

Kyoto is considered a holy city of great beauty and was left off as a possible target on purpose. I believe it was the capital before Tokyo.

Tokyo was almost completely wiped out by the daily bombings. The majority of the the houses in Tokyo at that time were made of wood. The fires spread quickly and devastated most of the city.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were industrial cities. They had plants that made most of Japan's weapons of war. Obviously there were many civilians living there at the time.

There is an interesting movie that I saw not to long ago on cable called Hiroshima. It's a movie depicting the conditions on both sides of the conflict. Truman's decision. Emperor Ito's agony of his people being killed. The movie also intertwined interviews with actual people on both sides. They interviewed American scientists, military and civilians. They also interviewed Japanese goverment officials. I suggest that all of you watch the movie. The movie is about 4 hours long.

This subject matter is not simple nor in black in white. Its very complex. Truman anguished over his decision. I believe he made the right one.

Glad

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I'm "Glad I Ate Her" because the payback was worth it!!

Glad-I-Ate-Her

Of course not. There was a full blown war where thousands of lives were being lost on both sides. Japan started the war for Imperialistic reasons. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had anti airplane artilery protecting the cities. They also had fighter planes guarding them. We obviously caught them by surprise by sending only one bomber at a time. The majority of the civilians that died in those cities were helping in the war effort by cranking out arms for the military. So some were not as innocent as it seems.

9/11 was completely different. We were not at a declared war when it happened.


Glad

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I'm "Glad I Ate Her" because the payback was worth it!!

ctembreull

World War II. Korea was a United Nations "police action", Vietnam was undeclared, as were both of the Gulf wars. Here's a link to the Google cache of a U.S. Navy History page which has some details of 234 military actions on foreign soil by United States troops. Five of them were in "declared" wars.

I've just spent the better part of an hour typing a post in which I rail against the killing of civilians. Hiroshima was probably our nation's lowest point, militarily speaking. We knowingly sacrificed the lives of almost a quarter million innocents upon the altar of political expediency. What we may never really know is whether or not the alternative was, in fact, worse.

I wish I could find the post online, but Dave Barry (of all people) was actually in Hiroshima on the 50th anniversary of the bombing (August 6, 1995). It's a sobering, emotional piece, and I recommend it highly.

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Nad Adam

I'm not informed enough about the politics and events of the pacific theater (except for playing BF1942) of WWII. Somehow school history lessons seem to concentrate on the European history here in Sweden. I know the basics but not more.

Anyway, I think that the Japaneese should have credit for their sportsmanship. I've never heard anyone from Japan holding an ureasonable grudge against the US for what was done. They have more the "If you play the game accept the concequenses(sp?)"-attitude that so many western countries could learn from.

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almostaugust

Im not sure if the bombs should have been dropped where they were. Ive heard good points from both sides. I hope that it was the right thing to do. When teaching the topic of Nuclear Weapons to my Year 11 students i tried to make them aware of what these bombs physically did to the earth they were dropped upon. I can tell you that it (especially the images) sure opened up the eyes of the fidgeting boys up the back laughingly sneering "Bomb the gooks". (well, until the lunch bell rang anyway).

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Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
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Dragonlich

Just a thought: what were the other options?

1) Normal bombings to destroy morale; Germany proved this didn't work. And, as someone had already mentioned, normal bombings have killed more people than these two atom bombs. Hell, the fire-bombing of Tokyo was comparable in it's effects: 100,000 deaths.
2) Negotiation; the US had tried to negotiate with the Japanese, even though these were obviously losing the war. Unconditional surrender was demanded, but the Japanese refused. Why would the US compromise with the Japanese?
3) Wait it out, until the Russians invaded; politically, this would have been a disaster, especially with communism spreading in China, and Russia all over eastern Europe. And given the history of Russian combat in Europe, it is very likely hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of Japanese would have been killed.
4) Invasion... Given the experience of D-day, and the recent other invasions of Japanese-held islands, it is reasonable to expect massive casualty numbers on both sides. The outcome would have been certain, the level of death and destruction was unknown, but expected to be severe.

So, given the other options, I'd say that the atomic bombs were actually the least damaging option. One can hardly expect the US to invade, killing tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands US soldiers, if they can end the war with two bombs that kill a lot of *enemy* civilians. you have to remember that this was the era of "total war" - civilians were seen as legitimate targets; military planners thought that if you kill enough of them, they will give up the fight. And to be fair, in this case, they were correct.

Glad-I-Ate-Her

I could have not it better myself.
Glad

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I'm "Glad I Ate Her" because the payback was worth it!!

Ace_of_Lobster

maybe to end the war?

the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan to scare the Soviets.

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geep

So what you're saying then is that dropping the 2 bombs on Japan may have saved millions of lives by scaring the Soviets out of starting total nuclear war?

Phaenx

This is a nice list of why it was a good action. America haters will always say otherwise, but the numbers reveal their intentions.

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maxero

the bombings if hiroshima and nagasaki appeared necessary to end the war with japan, they were threatened, and still made attempts to avoid surrender after the dropping of the bombs.
it all depends on whos side you look at it from anyway

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seretogis

Once again, I have to thank Dragonlich for another well thought out post.

War is a game of "what if"s, and "better theirs than ours". To suggest that any one loss of civilian life is more important than another is pretty silly, imho, it's unfortunate in every case.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Trilidon

Didnt we drop the bombs in the hope of finishing the war before the russians could advance farther?

Also Hiroshima and Nagasaki had smaller populations then most towns other targeted towns, or something like that

Big enough to make the japanese think, + yes it was an industrial town.

Comparing it to 9/11 is retarded.

Imo it was the lesser of 2 evils. Dont gimme that civilian crap either, everyone and there mother in japan would have fought and died to not lose that war if they had to Just like the majority of folks in the US would if a land invasion ever happened



Oh ya, if you want to talk about horrid things the allies did, go research Dresden

james t kirk

One other thing,,,,

It was August 1945...

If Truman didn't drop the bomb and invaded, thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of mainly americans would have been lost. Of that i have no doubt.

If the american people found out that truman had a dooms day weapon and DIDN'T use it, he would have been shot and pissed on.

Truman had no choice in the matter.

The only thing he might have done was dropped one of the nukes on a deserted island off japan after telling the japanese he had the bomb.

He could have said, "ok, you can see what we can do to your population now. Your choice is simple, surrender and live or refuse and die. The next target will be Tokyo."

I am probably being naive, but it's the only option i can think of.

It was war.

War is hell.

Truman made the right call.

The british made the right call when the bombed the shit out of Dresden and the rest of Germany.

We didn't start it.

Awful but true.

I don't know if this is true or not, but i once heard that Robert Openhiember (spelling), the lead scientist behind the Manhattan project went mad after he saw what his invention had done. He never thought they would use it.

Maybe someone can tell me the story if there is one there.

seretogis

Honestly, I wish that we could end every war by just dropping two bombs. I bet it would make the world a more peaceful place in the end.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Zeld2.0

In a way it already has seretogis - notice the fact that the # killed a year by wars has dropped incredibly since 1945..

Now I really hate people who keep saying it was unneeded and what not - yes many of my thoughts are "liberal" but honestly i am very much for the dropping.

Do i think it was a low point? Yes, but it was one of those things you HAVE to do. And of course, because of it, we in a sense (ironically) made a better world by showing what it could do, and hence no sane leader in the 20th century has used the nuclear weapon again.

The bomb *did* taint the ultimate victory slightly (WW2 can very much be said a war of good vs. evil but even the ultimate victory was tainted) - and don't give stuff about how it was hell, or because there were no other options.

The fact is, there were, BUT they would've taken time and the U.S. knew that the invasion was coming up very soon and it couldn't wait that long.

The invasion of the first home island would've taken place in Nov. 1945. The fact of the matter is, the anti-war feelings in America were slowly coming up.

In fact large #s of troops from Europe were being moved to the Pacific theater - and i willsay this, a LOT (clsoe to a majority) thought of mutiny / deserting because it was simple - they fought for years against Hitler and the Wermacht and survived, only to be sent to another theater where they might very well not make it.

Feeligns were bad at home too because the war had indeed been 4 years and the prospect of another bloodier year or two was not very good for hte public.

And this is the quote that Truman heard and perhaps greatly influenced his decision:

"Mr. President what will you say to the American Public in 1946 during your impeachment trial when the public finds out that you ahd a weapon that could have ended the war but chose not to use it."

ubertuber

quote:
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Originally posted by Dragonlich

Why would the US compromise with the Japanese?

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Actually, the allies had agreed all along that nothing other than unconditional surrender would be accepted. This is because even then they realized that the seeds for the second world war were sown in the lack of resolution of the first. So the Americans never planned to compromise and had already rejected offers of conditional surrender from potentially mutinying factions of the German military. In retrospect, unconditional surrender was a good call, although it had some painful consequences as the war dragged on.

Zeld2.0

well the unconditional surrender wasn't entirely true on japan

the japanese were always vying to keep just ONE term which was to allow the emperor to remain in position - the U.S. in PUBLIC didn't want to agree so they kept pressing "official" unconditional surrender - in fact Japan was trying to surrender on that term but weren't granted it.

In the end however the U.S. still granted it tho not officially - so officially yes Japan did surrender unconditionally in the end but secretly they still gave the single term.

That being said there were many hard-liners in the military who didn't want to surrender - as seen in the coup d'etat by a few soldiers tho tried to destroy the surrender tapes - but in actuality teh generals and war ministers and whatever knew the emperor's words were final.

So honestly though, who knows - the bombing may never have been needed had they been postponed and history would be veyr differnet of course - but looking back at history does no good - its a matter of knowing what to do and what not to do in teh future.

The_Dude

didnt mcarthur say that the bombing was unnecessary? (i could be wrong, but i'm positive i heard it someplace)

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blackdas

Why are nukes really bad and traditional firebombing is ok? People that complain about the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki usually don't complain about Dresden, where more people died.

Glad-I-Ate-Her

I saw a I think it was Discovery Channel show about a secret German submarine that carried all their latest advances. It was sunk on the way to Japan in the Indian Ocean by the allies. It had the secrets of the "heavy water" which could be made into an atomic device. It also carried the latest radar and tons of gold. The allies had broken the German and Japanese codes and knew exactly where and when the submarine was to launch and what route it took. Imagine if this sub had made it to Japan. Maybe the Japanese might have created an atomic bomb before the Americans.

Would they have used it? I believe they would have.

In the long history of Japan. They have never been defeated until the WWII. They would have prefered to die than to admit defeat. Many of the generals commited Hara Kiri (spelling?). They could not stand living in defeat.

The unconditional surrender terms were set by all the allies in Pottsdam. It was known as the Pottsdam Accord.

The cost of the research and the 2 atomic bombs cost $2 billion dollars. Imagine if Truman didn't use the bombs to save additional American lives and spending that much money. He would have been considered one of the worst American presidents.

Glad

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smooth

I don't know the story but I can relate to what I've read in the research literature on how scientists justify their actions and attempt to rationalize their responsibilities:

The scientists (and military planners) use words and phrases that minimize human destruction, such as, "collateral damage" versus "civilian casualities", "objectives" versus "targets" or "attacks", "sanitizing areas" versus "bombing" or "killing people in a building", "friendlys" and "non-friendlys" versus "combatants", "effective range" or "areas of dispersion" versus "killing radius", and a wide range of other neutral language.

This is usually accompanied by a dehumanization process that allows people to shut off natural processes (guilt and remorse, for example) that would otherwise inhibit them from building their "devices" (not "weapons" or "bombs") or "utilizing their technology" or "defending themselves" (not "shooting" or "killing").

This is extremely effective but, if used too long, will fall out into the general public discourse creating apathy and violent repurcussions against members of the enemy. This also tends to make it more difficult for soldiers to react objectively in battle scenarios where they need to make split-second decisions.

One of my critiques against the embedded reporters is that, since they went to training with the units, lived with them, and saw the world through their viewpoints (a journalist's dream, I'm certain), they began to use the same language and gave us an extremely biases view of the operations in Iraq.

This bias is one of (false) "objectivity" since everyone was using such neutral language. But from what I just described you can start to imaginge that the ramifications of war are anything but neutral so this doesn't do us a very good service since it eventually undermines empathy for the foreigners (which would eventually run counter to our attempts to do things for someone else's good and will blind us to particular activities we think are positive but actually interpreted as negative).

Zeld2.0

glad - even saying japan would've made a bomb before america is ludicrous.

America had the only ability in the world to make it at the time - because they had the brighest people in the world working, and htem ost money pumped in.

Germany had been at it for years longer than the U.S. - and now we learn that they have never been even close. Japan didn't even care much for it.

The bombings were for show to a) inspire fear in the japanese and b) inspire fear in the russians.

HOWEVER - one must take into account THIS:

The U.S. only had 2 A-Bombs and we used both of them. Had the Japanese not surrendered, the U.S. would not have had another one for years. Thus, in the end, the choice was the Japanese and not the A-Bomb. The A-Bomb only tilted the choice to the side of surrender. Had Hirohito been an irrationnal man (a'la Hitler or Stalin) - he might've not surrendered and we would have had to invade -anyways.-

So take that into account.