Many of people I talk, say it wasn't really essential to use the Nuke. I don't agree, the Japanese saw the power of the big one and capitulated, it just made much less US casualties.
But there is other question: Was that to show Soviets that after WWII they shouldn't mess with the West!

well it wasnt certanly necessary,but it seemed then to be a shorter way to win the war,and no i dont think it was droped to scare off the soviets

Well........ I'm not sure there is history that isn't written.... Know what I mean. After WWII we all know what started......

i believe it was necesary, unless the allies wanted to lose 100's of thousands or possibly more men in taking the japanese main islands.
i aslo think they could off dropped a few more.

What da ****... are you creazy,this one was enough and TOO much.Have you seen the consequnces of the Nagasaki or Hiroshima,the poor people feel the effect of it eaven now I Dont belive this.............

They started it remember, 7 Dec. 1941! They were severely punished, they deserved it! We gave them 4 years to surrender and they didn't surrender, they attacked the US without war declaration! And they masacrated everything they found! I don't mean on all Japs don't get me wrong!

I'm out of this one,cant stand this kind of statesments wouldn't stay civil

OK, can you both calm down a little here?
The exchange of ideas is good, but let's not get too emotional!

Some points to consider:

1. The Japanese government surrendered after the second bomb was dropped, so further bombings were not needed (besides, the US only had 2 bombs at that time).

2. The attacks actually saved Japanese lives as well as US. How many Japanese military and civilian casualties do you think Operation Olympic would have caused before the Japanese quit fighting – 1 million, 2 million, 3 million?

3. As far as impressing Stalin goes, the attacks were a bust! He already knew about the Manhattan Project thru the HUMINT sources inside the project and in the UK. That's how the Soviets were able to develop thier atomic weapons so soon after the close of WWII.

Originally Posted by Uncle_Sam

Many of people I talk, say it wasn't really essential to use the Nuke. I don't agree, the Japanese saw the power of the big one and capitulated, it just made much less US casualties.
But there is other question: Was that to show Soviets that after WWII they shouldn't mess with the West!

US strategic planning for casulties for any land invasion of Japan was put, conservatively, at 1 MILLION men DEAD just on the US side.

So yeah, it was absolutely neccessary.

You should know that, had relations broken down between Stalin and the Western Allies in 1945, the Red Army IMO could have driven all the way to the Atlantic, shattering the Allied armies in the process. So there's an element of truth in that it was designed to show off to the Soviets. Only a small element mind. The main reason was to cow Japan into a quick surrender and it worked.

Well the Soviets couldgo on, they were with the Nazis from the start, O.K. they were buying time, maybe, they werepreparing themselfes. But they saw one great thing when they attacked Finland to show Hitler they are as good as him, but everything gone wrong from the start, they realised that their soldiers were unreliable, noskilled, with bad morale,... And when WWII finished they had 20.000.000 casualties out of 22mil. recruited. Germans had 4mil an all fronts, while the US had 405.000 an all fronts, That all sais something about will, morale and tactics! Hmmmm...... I don't know that they were prepared to have their military annihilated totaly. So what am I saying is everything is very dubious....