Would Roosevelt have dropped the bomb?

He had followed the development of the bomb from the start, and I don't think he would worried to much if the bomb would have saved a million allied casualties
 
He'd have dropped it in a cold minute. Roosevelt was, afterall, the man who listened to Einstein's letter and got the ball rolling for the Manhattan Project. I have no doubt he'd have dropped the bomb.
 
Roosevelt had to drop them since it was the only way to end the war without the invasion of Japan.By sacrificing a couple thousand innocent japanese lives he saved the lives of millions of american and jap soldiers.
Roosevelt was hoping the bombs would scare the japs and make them realize they are defeated
 
ok, I agree with what has been said so far, and moving this thread along, I have another question. Do you think it would have been better for the US forces to drop the bomb in a souly military target, or would it have been better to drop it where they did, hiroshima and nagasaki? Would it have been better for them to drop it on an island such as iwo jima?
 
hoohaa....when they the Americans had the bomb ready they were already in Iwo Jima...As to dropping it on a military target, well docks are military targets there was industry in all these places using slave labour and there barracks as well in most of these cities so just how do you pick out what is military or which is non military with an atom bomb. Also if they did not want to surrender after first bomb, then a second one had to be used. By dropping the bomb on the Japanese mainland the Government could not hide just what had happened, yet if you dropped it on an island who is going to tell the Japanese people.
 
I know that Iowa Jima was to late, I was just using that as an example.


what you said, or wrote, whatever, is true, but, I was just saying that a slightly more military target could have been selected. Especially since the American public has always been so angry whenever they hear that the military has killed innocent civilians. I'm just surprised there wasn't a worldwide retaliation to the US killing many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
 
You course he would have dropped the bomb.
The dangers of radiation weren't fully known until after the bombs were dropped.
To the Allied leaders it was just a powerful bomb, it wasn't the bogey weapon it is today.
 
hoohaa........Just what is an innocent civilian, is a person that is making weapons of war innocent of all blame from the deaths that they cause, if civilians are killed in bombing raid are they just the casualties of war. Very Young children of eight to ten years old were working in factories producing weapons and they were also being trained as suicide bombers.What about the German Hitler youth regiments that fought so bravely for their country and died at there posts are you saying that they should not have been killed. Also what about the millions the Chinese slaughtered on there conquest of China to make room for Japanese settlers was that not wrong. The aim of dropping the bomb was to end the war with the minimum of casualties and that is just what it did.
 
I realize that, and am not disagreeing with you. I think we should have dropped the bomb, and i'm glad we did, and I agree with where we did. I just want to see who thinks that we shouldn't have dropped it there.
 
mmm...well there was a movement among the scientists to warn the japanese by showing them the trinity films and let them judge for themselves. it wouldnt have worked in my opinion.

would roosevelt have dropped it? yes he would have ordered it. his goal was to get the us out of the conditions that were killing the young men he promised wouldnt be involved in the war in 1940.
 
Yes. Roosevelt would have done it. He knew that an all out invasion of Japan would cost millions of lives, on both sides; and could lead to a struggle with the Russians, who would have helped, over Japan similar to the ones that cropped up in Korea and Germany.

If anything, he knew ten times more about what could be done than Truman.
 
Another thought is that the German U Boat 234 was sailing to to Japan in 1945 laden with radio active material for the Japanese to make dirty bombs to drop them on America. The bombs were going to be carried on small planes which would have been carried on giant Japanese Submarines with on board hangers. Had the war in Europe lasted just a few more weeks then the material would have been delivered and this thread could have had quite a different slant to it. As it was much of this material went into making Americas second Atom Bomb. One their first targets was Los Angeles
 
Roosevelt would have dropped the bomb without hesitation.
Peterminator said:
Roosevelt had to drop them since it was the only way to end the war without the invasion of Japan.By sacrificing a couple thousand innocent japanese lives he saved the lives of millions of american and jap soldiers.
Roosevelt was hoping the bombs would scare the japs and make them realize they are defeated
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Just a point of clarification. Roosevelt was dead by the time the bombs were ready. Truman was not informed of the bomb until Roosevelt's death and so he had only about 7 months to get around having to drop the bombs.

OORAH said:
ok, I agree with what has been said so far, and moving this thread along, I have another question. Do you think it would have been better for the US forces to drop the bomb in a souly military target, or would it have been better to drop it where they did, hiroshima and nagasaki? Would it have been better for them to drop it on an island such as iwo jima?
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Hiroshima was a high priority military target. The Japanese had all ready evacuated civilians from living there. It was a high industrial target. The civilians killed were mostly the workers in the factories.

Nagasaki was unlucky in that it was not the primary target for the second bomb. The primary target had cloud coverage and so the secondary target was chosen. Returning to base for a later try was not an option.They did not want to try and land the plane with a nuclear bomb still on board.
 
Personally I am not sure this is a question that needed an answer, I strongly doubt he would have pumped the money and resources into building it if he had no intention of using it.
 
keep this in mind, and yes i believe the two targets of hiroshima and nagasaki were good chioces because if this...

At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of some industrial and military significance. A number of military camps were located nearby, including the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a minor 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 one of several Japanese cities left deliberately untouched by American bombing, allowing a pristine environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb.

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.Nagasaki had never been subjected to large-scale bombing prior to the explosion of a nuclear weapon there. On August 1, 1945, however, a number of conventional high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city. A few hit in the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest portion of the city, several hit the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and six bombs landed at the Nagasaki Medical School and Hospital, with three direct hits on buildings there. While the damage from these bombs was relatively small, it created considerable concern in Nagasaki and many people—principally school children—were evacuated to rural areas for safety, thus reducing the population in the city at the time of the nuclear attack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Hiroshima_during_World_War_II
 
LeEnfield said:
Another thought is that the German U Boat 234 was sailing to to Japan in 1945 laden with radio active material for the Japanese to make dirty bombs to drop them on America. The bombs were going to be carried on small planes which would have been carried on giant Japanese Submarines with on board hangers. Had the war in Europe lasted just a few more weeks then the material would have been delivered and this thread could have had quite a different slant to it. As it was much of this material went into making Americas second Atom Bomb. One their first targets was Los Angeles
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The radio-active material carried in the U-234, couldn't be used to make a dirty bomb as it wasn't radio-active enough to be very dangerous. It would have had to be processed in a nuclear reactor before it would be radio-active enough to use in a dirty bomb, and the Germans or Japanese didn't have a working reactor.

The real purpose of this material was as a catalyst in the production of synthetic fuels
 
LeEnfield said:
Another thought is that the German U Boat 234 was sailing to to Japan in 1945 laden with radio active material for the Japanese to make dirty bombs to drop them on America. The bombs were going to be carried on small planes which would have been carried on giant Japanese Submarines with on board hangers. Had the war in Europe lasted just a few more weeks then the material would have been delivered and this thread could have had quite a different slant to it. As it was much of this material went into making Americas second Atom Bomb. One their first targets was Los Angeles
Click to expand...
I don't think the concept of Dirty Bombs was even imaginable at that point. And if it was, I think it would be a massive can of worms for the US government, reflecting back on the nuclear testing they did in Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. I think, but am not real sure about, some testing back east.
 
Hmmm.........A dirty bomb was planned to be dropped on America, and the way of delivering it had already been worked out. German scientist were on the sub on their way to Japan to help them make it. Also Redcoat said that this material was not radio active enough to make a dirty bomb, yet it was sealed in lead containers and carried on the outside of the submarine. The workers in the Navy port where the submarine was taken refused to unload this part of the cargo and the German were made to unload this radioactive material. This material was then used to help make Americas second atom bomb. In fact America had a very lucky escape and if the war had gone on for just a few more weeks things could have been very different.
 
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