One Hiroshima talking point examined.

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2013, 03:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Every Hiroshima day we see arguments saying that Hiroshima prevented 100,000 US cdeaths in an eventual invasion of the Japanese mainland. Or 200K, or a million. (the word "casualty" confuses matters because it includes wounded)

Whatever number one uses, it is is a rather odd comparison to use as a moral balancing test.

The right comparison would be Hiroshima versus 100K Americans plus the MILLIONS of Japanese who would have died in any invasion that featured more than 100,000 American deaths.

In a world where there was no such thing as an atom bomb, a 1945-1946 US invasion of Japan would have been preceded by the incineration of every city in Japan, by conventional incendiary bombing.

One can say that the US should not have been prepared to incinerate every single Japanese city as part of taking the island, but at that point the argument is about the general conduct of the war, and is the same argument without with the atomic bomb.

Hiroshima was not in any way morally special. It was one of a several strategic bombings of largely civilian populations that featured a six digit death toll in a war where strategic bombing had been central to the allied strategy for years. It was tactically very special in it implications for air defense. But it was not morally special.


Hiroshima was, and remains, significant as a symbolic core of world-wide efforts to reduce the spread of bigger and more dangerous nuclear weapons with geo-level implications, and remains so to this day.


But if one were to stipulate, for purpose of argument, "Hiroshima and Nagasaki prevented an American invasion of Japan" then we would be talking about millions fewer Japanese deaths.

One can argue that the a-bombings did not prevent a US invasion, or that a US invasion would have not been resisted much and thus result in few casualties, etc..

But whenever this argument arises, it should be treated as a given that a US invasion of Japan would have been, by far, the worst thing that ever happened to the civilian populace of Japan.

[Th1onein]

1. Japan was defeated and had been trying to negotiate a peace with us for months

when we dropped the bombs on their cities. Dropping these bombs, or even invading them, was totally unnecessary.

Moreover, we dropped one bomb, on Hiroshima, and we KNEW that our own soldiers, captured by the Japanese, and imprisoned as prisoners of war, were kept there.

So much for giving a shit about our soldiers.

We did this because we wanted to pay them back for Pearl Harbor (which we precipitated by refusing to sell steel to the Axis powers, and thus discarded our neutrality, purposely), and because Russia was an emerging Communist power at the end of WWII. We wanted to show them what we had. Also, we wanted to know the "best" way to build the bomb. The bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were engineered differently.

[Mnemosyne]

2. Thank you, Th1onein. nt

[geek tragedy]

5. "trying to negotiate a peace" They refused to surrender, ergo the nuke.

The war was going to continue until Japan surrendered. There was no "let's make a deal" option.

Imperial Japan had to be broken and disarmed.

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. There was nothing to negotiate.

The terms offered by the Allies were quite plain: Unconditional surrender.

We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.

The Japanese weren't prepared to surrender unconditionally. Many senior Japanese military officers thought that forcing an Allied invasion would lead to more favourable terms after heavy losses had been inflicted on the Allies. Anyone who says "the Japanese were trying to negotiate peace" is so ignorant of the history involved that they shouldn't even be listened to.

[Th1onein]

10. I'm sure you would like for everyone to listen just to your revisionist version of history.

But this is a discussion board, and like it or not, not all of us ascribe to the revisionist history.

No, the Japanese wanted to KEEP THEIR EMPEROR, which is a part of their RELIGION. And, Americans, who tout that they believe in freedom of religion for all people, couldn't give that to the Japanese.

Look, we wanted to bomb them. We needed to bomb them (look up Cold War), and no matter what, we would have bombed them. It wasn't necessary; it didn't save lives, but we did it for reasons other than that, which we now don't want to admit to.

Deal with it.

[Savannahmann]

13. The Japanese conditions were not just to keep the Emperor

The included the following terms.

To keep the Emperor
To be allowed to disarm their own military.
No Allied troops to enter Japan.
No allied troops to be stationed in Japan.

There was, simply stated, no way in hell the Allies could ever agree to those terms. As we had learned after the First World War, you had to occupy the nation you had beaten, because then you could keep an eye on things to make sure it was not merely a pause in the conflict, as the twenty year gap between War 1 and 2 regarding Germany.

The Japanese Terms were unacceptable. The Japanese military was convinced that they could bloody the Americans enough that those terms would be acceptable, and if not, then Japan would go with honor into the afterlife.

Discuss the issue if you want, but don't pretend that all the Japanese wanted was to keep the Emperor.

[Th1onein]

16. I think you are obfuscating.

I believe those were the FIRST terms they tried to negotiate, not the penultimate.

[Savannahmann]

27. Those were the terms they offered up in reply to the Potsdam declaration.

Hardly very early in the process since it was at Potsdam that Truman ordered the first bomb dropped.

Besides, the Allies had insisted on Unconditional Surrender for Germany, and could hardly be able in the interest of Fairness and commonality to accept less than that from the Japanese.

You'll notice that I have not mentioned that the Emperor was kept, providing the Japanese accepted that he would answer to the Supreme Commander, which was MacArthur.

A very good docudrama on the principles. Yes fictional, but fictional with some attention to the history.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113309/

[Spider Jerusalem]

33. I'm not the revisionist here.

[William769]

11. Where did you get that revisionist history from.

I'd love to see the source.

[HardTimes99]

12. I think you are exaggerating what were at best informal peace feelers put out

by a small faction within the Japanese intelligence\diplomatic corps. This faction, IIRC, did not even have the formal blessing of Hirohito to make such efforts (although he may have privately supported the efforts).

The vote to surrender was 3-3 and only Hirohito's decision compelled the surrender of Japanese forces.

If you have solid sourcing that suggests otherwise, I would like to see it as perhaps I have not stayed up to date on the final months of the war in the Pacific.

[Th1onein]

14. If that's what you "think," then you would be........WRONG.

"Japan was already defeated and dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary." They are the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe.

[HardTimes99]

17. Eisenhower was offering a post-hoc erroneous assessment of Japanese war-fighting

capabilities and morale.

The Japanese may have been 'defeated' in the metaphoric sense, but until a country's forces lay down their arms, they have not surrendered. Estimates of Allied casualties from a land invasion range as high as 1,000,000, not counting the OP's inclusion of Japanese military and civilian casualties (which may be a tad conservative, given the conventional fire-power we could bring to bear by land, sea and air).

I'm not happy Truman dropped the bomb on the Japanese. It really saddens me. But dropping it was the 'least bad' choice among a set of bad choices.

[LanternWaste]

15. Try History rather than editorial....

The Japanese government was fragmented. Yes, there were some who looked for a way to get out of the war, but the military (and it's puppet faction in the government) were absolutely against any type of surrender. The militarism of the controlling faction was complete as was its rule over the people. One cannot accurately state the Japanese government was looking for peace when history and reality illustrates to us it was merely the two weakest factions of the government wanting to do so.

So to say "the Japanese were attempting to negotiate peace" is both misleading (I certainly hope not intentionally) and inaccurate (see sources given for better information) in that the core of the government, the government that had control over the people and the war machine were in fact, absolutely against any form of peace overtures.


See: Joseph Persico, Roosevelt's Secret War; and (especially) Ronald Spector's 'In the Ruins of Empire'.

History rather than editorial, you see. Premise and conclusion rather than dogma. Peer-reviewed primary and secondary sources instead of political ideologues... or else I have to presume that for many people "so much for giving a shit about facts..."

[Th1onein]

18. So Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces is EDITORIAL?

Wow. See if that kite will fly elsewhere, honey, cause it's dragging in the mud here.

[zipplewrath]

19. Sorry, but it is true

Eisenhower was fairly unknowledgeable about the Pacific Campaign (for obvious reasons, he was a tad busy through most of it). His perspective is very interesting, but shouldn't be taken as one based upon a battle command knowledge of the situation. It basically is much the same as any well studied historian looking after the fact.

[Th1onein]

20. Well, CERTAINLY, we ought to take YOUR word for it over Eisenhower's, right?

Geez. Unbelievable.

[zipplewrath]

22. Word for what?

You don't have to take my "word" for anything. It is a fact that he was not in the command staff and in fact had little more knowledge than most high ranking officers outside of the immediate pacific command. His point of view, expressed as it was, can be described fairly accurately as an "editorial" comment on the situation. Certainly one to be respected, but shouldn't be confused with a factual dissertation of the situation at the time.

[Th1onein]

28. Uh Huh...and what about the opinion of Fleet Admiral William Daniel Leahy?

You see, this senior-most military officer during WWII, concurred with Eisenhower.

But I guess YOUR opinion should hold sway over theirs, right?

[zipplewrath]

34. No

But Eisenhowers "opinion" shouldn't be confused with "fact".

[LanternWaste]

21. That's all pretty muddy too my little friend.

You're lacking any peer-reviewed source material for any of your claims. You're also using paraphrases made fifteen years after the fact-- in hindsight. That's all pretty muddy too my little friend.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. "which we precipitated by refusing to sell steel to the Axis powers"... How dare we do that.

Yeah, those same axis powers who were using that steel to build rail cars to carry my relatives to the gas chambers.

One can debate the morality of the atomic bombing, but please let's not try to pretend that WWII was some sort of US-instigated atrocity, for fuck's sake.

[Dreamer Tatum]

3. The worst thing that happened to the populace of Japan was the leadership of Japan.

So, as much as it sucks, sometimes it's just tough shit what happens in war.

Yeah, it's really that simple.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. Allied casualty estimates were a quarter of a million, minimum.

They struck so many Purple Hearts that they're still using those instead of making new ones.

And yes, millions of Japanese would have died.

[Gman]

6. Unfortunately for Japan, Truman didn't have the luxury

of weighing all the moral scenarios. Or maybe he did, but there were many inknowns. No sound argument yet has arisen that says Truman's choice wasn't the best one available and it saved hundreds of thousands of American GI lives. The real moral issue is the manipulation of the Japansse people that they would elevate a ruler to the level of a deity and be so willing to do the bidding of that "deity" to a point that included suicide. In short, had Japan not started the war, Truman would never have had to drop the bomb.

[Dreamer Tatum]

8. People seem to think that Japan in the 40's was this teeming democracy

and they had Twitter and Facebook and were connected to the global village and such. That they could
wake up and go pick up a New York Times to see what's going on in America. Or they could go ask one of the
many foreigners what life was like where they were from (excluding Korean SLAVES, I suppose).

Japan was LITERALLY an isolated, homogeneous society ruled essentially by a PERSON who was held
up as a GOD.

Gee, I wonder if there's any remote equivalent today...hmm...



...still thinking...hmm...



Gee. I'm stumped.

Yeah, folks. Japan was a bastion of reason in the 40's. Most countries that signed treaties with THE NAZIS had ALL their marbles intact.

[Gman]

26. That's an excellent comparison with N Korea

Both of my parents were upstanding, good people. My dad was on a troop ship in the Pacific and actually saw the flash from Hiroshima. They both thought it was the correct decision to drop the bomb, no two ways about it. Since they lived all of it, I defer to their judgement and believe it was the correct choice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Operation Olympic had several divisions of Brazilian and Mexican Marines

In the first wave, because we did not have that many fresh troops left, and both were part of the allied order of battle. Those divisions, together with the American units, are gone from the order of battle by day two.

This is a piece of trivia never taught in US history. Hell, operation Olympic is not taught in usual US history courses...that is the invasion of Honshu.

It's not taught in Mexico either...I know of this, and went looking, after a retired WW II vet of squadron 201 (which fought in the South Pacific) pointed me in that direction.

I need to paint a few fighters in Mexican colors for Flames of War, now that they started rolling out Japanese...mostly as educational value.

[Archae]

23. There were also plans to use poison gas in the invasion.

High-level communications between FDR, then Truman and Churchill have active planning to use large amounts of poison gas in the invasion.

Now THAT would have been REAL humane, right?

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Actually that would have been a war crime

But I could present to you the actual conventions that actually forbid that... but that be academic to you. It is not to me.

[Gman]

30. Which is probably the biggest reason why they didn't do it

But they were exploring options.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Exactly

The good side of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, IMO it kept the world from going to WW III, with nuclear weapons. Yes, the last half of the 20th century was horrific, but nothing close to WW II

[Gman]

32. That was also a time when the words "war crimes" meant something

All that went out the window in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's still so amazing to me.

[Gman]

29. #1 They didn't do it

And why should we have worried about "humane" when the Japanese were the most vicious people on earth at the time? Did you know the Japanese had plans to send women and children to the seashore with farm tools to fight US soldiers as they came ashore? And they would have willingly died for the emperor. How humane was that?