Hiroshima debate?

[Charge 7]

The thing of it is, Charge7, I don't think that the USA would have let the Russians join in. The Russians were quite willing, but the USA had control of the seas. Nothing was getting past the US Navy without her permission. Russia did not have anything close to enough naval strength to press the matter. The question was, would the USA have bowed to the need for help if things got hairy in the invasion? I'm sure that Stalin was hoping so.

Well, since one of the central aims of Yalta was just that, to bring the Russians into the war against Japan, I don't think we'd have had much choice in the matter unless we were prepared to go to war with them. As Yalta surely answered in the decision to have Russia control eastern Europe, we were not willing to go to war with them to keep them from controlling white nations. We wouldn't have been more inclined to do so to keep them from controlling half of a yellow nation. I know that's racist, but I am commenting in the context of the times.

The invasion of Japan would have dwarfed anything else the US did in the war and we would have been forced to call on Russian manpower and materiel in order to accomplish that. Roosevelt knew that and that is why he courted Stalin so closely at Yalta. He was hedging his bets in case the bomb did not work.

LeEnfield is correct in his comment as well, the Russians were already knocking on Japan's door.

 

[godofthunder9010]

godofthunder9010.......Russia had been involved in the Assault on Japan, it driven the Japanese troops from China and had mounted a seaborne assault on some of the more Northern Japanese Islands which they still hold to this day.

This is true, however these were territories that had already been in dispute prior to WW2, so allowing Russia to reclaim Sakhailan Island on its own ... well Russia had a pretty strong claim to it afterall so. Claim on the Kuril Islands was more questionable perhaps, but Russia had grounds for claiming them as well. Yes they were knocking on the door, you are right. But the USA had the ultimate say in whether the Russian forces landed onto the primary islands of Japan. The USA could have said no, and Stalin would have had to deal with it. The USA saw Japan in much the same way as the Soviets saw Berlin: "We earned the right to take it because we were the primary instrument in turning the tide against them." Ever the opportunist, Stalin was going to grab up as much territory as possible. It is certainly possible that the Soviets would have been involved in the initial invasion plans as an add in, but the USA wanted to go it alone. The cold hard truth was that we'd have ended up changing our mind the moment things got ugly, and they most certainly would have. The thing of it is, I think that Stalin knew this and was planning ahead for it. He'd have used Manchuria and Sakhalin as a staging grounds and done everything possible to insist that we allow Russian help, since their forces were already there and ready to go. The US leaders knew that this wasn't a really good idea, but the American public was totally ignorant to what Stalin was really like. The fallout of outright refusal of Russian help would have been increasing messy as time went on. It is possible that it might have touched off a war in the worst case scenario.

The two Atom Bombs ended the develpment of that messy scenario with an exclaimation point.

Ultimately, I think we share the same view: Russia would have been involved eventually if we'd have scrapped use Little Boy and Fat Man. Russian involvement would have furthered their Communist Empire even farther and I don't think they'd have given back Manchuria.

 

[LeEnfield]

At that stage of the war if Russia was going to take half the casualties of an invasion then so be it. It would not have been so hard to invade from the coast of China as would for a Sea Assault with your biggest bases many more miles away. Also we had very large forces in the area including a number of fleet carriers that had been working along side the American fleet. Also do think that Russia would have taken any notice if America said we are going to take Japan and keep it, and you must not land any troops in Japan. Have you ever read any thing about the Russian Campaign in Manchuria, it just swept the Japanese away if they were not there, it took just a couple of weeks to take the whole of Manchuria.

 

[Corocotta]

It seems that nobody here remebers that Hirosihma & Nagasaki were cities with no military targets and full of refugees. The nukes were thrown just to impress the enemy. Remeber that McGorge Bundy invented that number of the million US military casualties


http://www.doug-long.com/guide3.htm

 

[Missileer]

It seems that nobody here remebers that Hirosihma & Nagasaki were cities with no military targets and full of refugees. The nukes were thrown just to impress the enemy. Remeber that McGorge Bundy invented that number of the million US military casualties


http://www.doug-long.com/guide3.htm

There were 40,000 Japanese troops in Hiroshima at the time of the blast. I wish we could have looked around and found a city populated only by crack Japanese soldiers but there just wasn't time. In Nagasaki, the Mitsubishi Arms and Torpedo Works were still working until the blast.

 

[Corocotta]

It seems that nobody here remebers that Hirosihma & Nagasaki were cities with no military targets and full of refugees. The nukes were thrown just to impress the enemy. Remeber that McGorge Bundy invented that number of the million US military casualties


http://www.doug-long.com/guide3.htm

There were 40,000 Japanese troops in Hiroshima at the time of the blast. I wish we could have looked around and found a city populated only by crack Japanese soldiers but there just wasn't time. In Nagasaki, the Mitsubishi Arms and Torpedo Works were still working until the blast.

One thing that i do not understand: if there were so many troops there why hiroshima was one of the less bombed cities during the conflict? The US military choosed those cities because they had very small damage from other bombings, these way they could see the efect of the nuke.

 

[Charge 7]

It seems that nobody here remebers that Hirosihma & Nagasaki were cities with no military targets and full of refugees. The nukes were thrown just to impress the enemy. Remeber that McGorge Bundy invented that number of the million US military casualties


http://www.doug-long.com/guide3.htm

Incorrect, the figures date from 1945. However, if you believe otherwise, there's not much I can say that would possibly convince you except perhaps to examine the rape of Nanking, the defense of Iwo Jima, Saipan, etc.

 

[Shadowalker]

Hiroshima was a city of considerable industrial and military significance. Some military camps were located nearby such as the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was as a major supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It was chosen as a target because it had not suffered damage from previous bombing raids, allowing an ideal environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb. The city was mobilized for "all-out" war, with thousands of conscripted women, children and Koreans working in military offices, military factories and building demolition and with women and children training to resist any invading force

The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

 

[JumpingFrog]

Why only 2 cities were atomized? Should have been 4 or 6, I think those are just about right to pay for the atrocities the Japs committed in the Philippines and other places.

 

[Rabs]

I personally agree with you, and most of my family does as well especially my grandpa.

To this day i think a US flag should be flying over Tokyo.

 

[Locke]

Why only 2 cities were atomized? Should have been 4 or 6, I think those are just about right to pay for the atrocities the Japs committed in the Philippines and other places.

it wasn't about making them pay, it was about ending the war quickly and decisively, and with a comparitive lack of loss of life to other scenarios

 

[Corocotta]

Here is all the declasified info concerning the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm

For me is unjustificable what the US did in Japan. Devastating entire civilian cities with such a weapon and cause so much pain, so many diseases is abominable. I do not know how you guys can justify this. I can only hope that no japanesse citizen is reading this board.

 

[JumpingFrog]

Why only 2 cities were atomized? Should have been 4 or 6, I think those are just about right to pay for the atrocities the Japs committed in the Philippines and other places.

it wasn't about making them pay, it was about ending the war quickly and decisively, and with a comparitive lack of loss of life to other scenarios

Ya, that too...but to me it was still payback..

 

[Rabs]

I'm sure if they got the bomb before us they would have blown as many of our cities to hell as they possibly could. My family has no remorse or sympathy when it comes to this subject, for reasons il keep to myself. The japanese people were just as invovled in the war effort the same as Americans would be under the threat of invasion.

It was a war agasint an evil nation an evil empire. The use of atomic weapons saved AMERICAN lives and quite frankly thats all i gave a dam_ about. Maybe its just my family, I don't know but we don't buy things that are made in Japan or Germany. Something about buying something thats rolling out of the same factorys that produced weapons that killed Americans is morbid and wrong.

I do not know how you guys can justify this. I can only hope that no japanesse citizen is reading this board.

Oh my gosh, the Japanese used chemical weapons on the Chinese. They slaughtered Chinese running through the villages rapeing, bayoneting, shooting the young the old and the crippled. Did the Japanese people disapprove of this, h**l no they considered it there destiny. Even today they refuse to talk about. Japanese children are taught Japan was the victim of the war. Japan doesn't even recongnize the attrocities it committed. It would be like the Germans coming back and saying that the f'in holocaust didn't even happen.

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/rummel/sod.chap3.htm
http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/rummel/sod.tab3.1.gif

"From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war."

I think these numbers dwarf the numbers killed with the Atom bombs. I'm not going to go as far as the famous quote "The only good jap is a dead jap" or "The only place japanese should be spoken is in hell!" but I don't think the Japanese paid dearly enough. They started a war, we won the war, and then re-built there cities. So as the Japanese run around whining about them being victims in streets rebuilt with money straight from the pockets of US taxpayers.

The japanese got off easy. Maybe I'm such a red-kneck that I'm too ignorant and un-sophisticated to understand World War 2.

I just cant for the life of me understand Spains reasoning in getting attacked by terrorist and then doing exactly what the terrorist want, turn tail and run like h**l.

Sorry for the emotion in this post this subject just strikes close to home.

 

[Shadowalker]

Here is all the declasified info concerning the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm

For me is unjustificable what the US did in Japan. Devastating entire civilian cities with such a weapon and cause so much pain, so many diseases is abominable. I do not know how you guys can justify this. I can only hope that no japanesse citizen is reading this board.

IF the japanese had the bomb then they would of used it on america...
and if they had developed the bomb then the whole pacific region could still be under japanese rule and im sure i dont need to remind you how the japanese treated the POWs and conquered people. The americans could of abused the japanese after they surrendere but they didnt...

I agree that the japanese have never payed for the crimes they commited against the POWs and citizens of China etc, but maybe the bombs were seen as punishment enough.
I think its wrong to persecute the current generation of japanese and germans because of what there grandparents/great grandparents did, and the factories today arent the same as those that produced the weapons 60 years ago.

I think in the link i posted earlier there is a mention to other cities that were considered to bomb such as kyoto which wasnt bombed due to its temples...

The Target Committee at Los Alamos on May 10-11, 1945, selected in order the following targets: [2]
Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Kokura arsenal, Niigata, and possibly the Emperor's Palace. According to Robert Jungk 1956 p. 178 , :

"On the short list of targets for the atom bomb, in addition to Hiroshima, Kokura and Niigata, was the Japanese city of temples, Kyoto. When the expert on Japan, Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, heard this terrible news, he rushed into the office of his chief, Major Alfred MacCormack, in a department of the Army Intelligence Service. The shock caused him to burst into tears. MacCormack, a cultivated and humane New York lawyer, thereupon managed to persuade Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to reprieve Kyoto and have it crossed off the black list."

 

[JumpingFrog]

A battalion of Japs entered the village of my grandma, put every living thing to the sword (yes, including the carabaos, dogs, and pigs). Babies were tossed up in the air and bayoneted on their way down. Took a long time to die...

No, I do not persecute the current generation of Japs.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked back in WW2. The Japs of that period totally deserved their fate. Shortening the war was only a bonus, to me at least.

 

[Corocotta]

I'm sure if they got the bomb before us they would have blown as many of our cities to h**l as they possibly could. My family has no remorse or sympathy when it comes to this subject, for reasons il keep to myself. The japanese people were just as invovled in the war effort the same as Americans would be under the threat of invasion.

It was a war agasint an evil nation an evil empire. The use of atomic weapons saved AMERICAN lives and quite frankly thats all i gave a dam_ about. Maybe its just my family, I don't know but we don't buy things that are made in Japan or Germany. Something about buying something thats rolling out of the same factorys that produced weapons that killed Americans is morbid and wrong.

I do not know how you guys can justify this. I can only hope that no japanesse citizen is reading this board.

Oh my gosh, the Japanese used chemical weapons on the Chinese. They slaughtered Chinese running through the villages rapeing, bayoneting, shooting the young the old and the crippled. Did the Japanese people disapprove of this, h**l no they considered it there destiny. Even today they refuse to talk about. Japanese children are taught Japan was the victim of the war. Japan doesn't even recongnize the attrocities it committed. It would be like the Germans coming back and saying that the f'in holocaust didn't even happen.

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/rummel/sod.chap3.htm
http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/rummel/sod.tab3.1.gif

"From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war."

I think these numbers dwarf the numbers killed with the Atom bombs. I'm not going to go as far as the famous quote "The only good jap is a dead jap" or "The only place japanese should be spoken is in h**l!" but I don't think the Japanese paid dearly enough. They started a war, we won the war, and then re-built there cities. So as the Japanese run around whining about them being victims in streets rebuilt with money straight from the pockets of US taxpayers.

The japanese got off easy. Maybe I'm such a red-kneck that I'm too ignorant and un-sophisticated to understand World War 2.

I just cant for the life of me understand Spains reasoning in getting attacked by terrorist and then doing exactly what the terrorist want, turn tail and run like h**l.

Sorry for the emotion in this post this subject just strikes close to home.

For God´s sake I am not justifing the crimes of the japanesse! Using a EVIL weapon to destroy a EVIL empire is justified? Wouldn´t this attitude transform the US onto an EVIL empire as well? This is my question. please do not start with the hypotheticall victims of the US military, nobody knows how many would have died. Remember that people is still diying today due to cancer in japan, many babies deformed. Are this people guilty of the crime of their ancestors?

By the way, using the japanesse atrocities as a excuse to desintegrate to cities full of civilian people is not very ethical

I think is interesting to notice that japanese where very close to surrender.

 

[LeEnfield]

Corocotta..............You said that people are still dying from the bomb even now, well some 60 years on from when the bomb went off, well they would be dying off any way. As I have said earlier my firm employed a large number of former British Soldiers who had been Japanese POW and very, very few ever managed to work till their retirement age, due to their mistreatment while in the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese killed more POW than they lost in the Atomic explosions, yet hardly a word is said about this, I wonder why.

 

[Corocotta]

Corocotta..............You said that people are still dying from the bomb even now, well some 60 years on from when the bomb went off, well they would be dying off any way :shock: . As I have said earlier my firm employed a large number of former British Soldiers who had been Japanese POW and very, very few ever managed to work till their retirement age, due to their mistreatment while in the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese killed more POW than they lost in the Atomic explosions, yet hardly a word is said about this, I wonder why.

Your first argument is kind of.....scary. :shock:
Concerning the POW: the prisioners of the POWs where soldiers, most of the victims of the atomic attacks were civilians: refugees, children and women. They had to pay such a high prize for the crimes of their army??
This threat is about japanesse war crimes or about allied war crimes?? From my point of view the events of agoust 1945 were war crimes. By the way, you did not answer the question of my last post.

 

[Missileer]

Dang LeEnfield, you expressed my sentiments exactly. I am still mentally masticating on just what constitutes an EVIL weapon to Corocotta.

Corocotta, which was the more evil, the Japanese death camps scattered over the Pacific, which was the "G" word, oh okay genocide which is against all Human rights. Or the bombing of two cities and ending the suffering of those trapped in a Japanese manufatured Hell?