OK, was it wrong to bomb Japan?

Ready to invade based upon our stubborn insistence for unconditional surrender, which we did not ultimately get, and probably accepted conditional because the Soviets were gaining too much by our delay.

Winner defining the terms is unconditional surrender - which was not necessary. Here are the conditions offered months before the bombs:

This was not unreasonable, and not far from what happened in the end. The primary sticking point for Japan was that they were not willing to have the Emperor punished, and again in the end we accepted that.

It could have been worse. It would have been ridiculously tragic if we conducted a land invasion with millions of dead based upon being too stubborn to accept conditional surrender. Given that perspective, what's a few hundred thousand more lives. But again, those lives did not need to be lost. Truman wasn't necessarily a war criminal, but he did cost us lives and allowed the Soviets to gain more than they should have. So he didn't do a great job.

This doesn't make any sense. They didn't expect to win. Many of them wanted to fight to the death. What's the difference if it's by an A-bomb, a firebomb, or a bullet? It was already futile before the bombs.

Sorry you guys are wrong according to historians and people who looked into this in detail - and not based upon their "opinions" but rather the documents they found - things that could have been found very easily with a google search today. Majority opinion does not determine truth.

 

We could had hung the Emperor for being involved in the killings of some of the Doolittle Tokyo raiders who planes was shot down.

The Emperor pardon some of them and let the others be hung and as they was legal military members acting under the rules of war that is a war crime.

As he did pardons some of them he could not had claimed that he did not know about the matter or have control of the situation.

 

The Leahy "clown" you refer to was a military genius who was the first naval officer ever to hold a five star rank in the US military.

 

Lets be clear. Of course Japan was willing to accept an unconditional surrender AFTER we dropped atomic bombs on them. If we were to do that to any nation currently they would also accept unconditional surrender. But to assume this is the ONLY way to get unconditional surrender is ridiculous. It was not the only way then, as expressed by virtually every military commander, and it is not the only way now.

 

In practical terms, war crimes are in the eye of the beholder. IF we had lost for some reason, dropping that nuclear bomb would have been a war crime.

The President was in charge of making the final decision and Truman was the one who approved the Interim Committee. The Target Committee was not a committee approved by the President.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interim_Committee

This "we did not tell them the nature of the A-bomb" business is, just like your target committee contention, a bunch of smoke and mirrors designed to deflect from the FACT that we did not warn the residents of Hiroshima that we were going to drop an atomic bomb on them and EXACTLY what its effects would be. That said, even if we did, it was still an unnecessary, barbaric act.

 

Japan had zero aircraft with the payload capacity or bombbay dimensions necessary to carry a 1940's nuclear bomb. They had no delivery method. How many of those examples you gave were able to operate under constant unrestricted aerial bombing and strafing?

 

None expressed a viable method of achieving this.

 

The viable method was time. Something that costs nothing and can produce everything

 

In fact unless you were in the room you can not know this

 

Not stubborn but the only way to ensure we didn't have a repeat of what occurred with Germany after WWI which led directly to WWII.

According to a Holocaust Denial Site run by a white supremacist. I call BS as the only conditions to be met were what was dictated by the Potsdam Declaration which are;


Potsdam Declaration
Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender
Issued, at Potsdam, July 26, 1945

""""We-the President of the United States, the President of the National Government of the Republic of China, and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war.
The prodigious land, sea and air forces of the United States, the British Empire and of China, many times reinforced by their armies and air fleets from the west, are poised to strike the final blows upon Japan. This military power is sustained and inspired by the determination of all the Allied Nations to prosecute the war against Japan until she ceases to resist.
The result of the futile and senseless German resistance to the might of the aroused free peoples of the world stands forth in awful clarity as an example to the people of Japan. The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of life of the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.
The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason.
Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.
There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world.
Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan's war-making power is destroyed, points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies shall be occupied to secure the achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth.
The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.
The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives.
We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established.
Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those which would enable her to re-arm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of, raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted.
The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.
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.""""

What we accepted in the end was unconditional surrender with the Emperor's head still in the noose until Tojo took the fall for him.

Wiki sums it up nicely with;

""""MacArthur's highest subordinates were working to attribute ultimate responsibility for Pearl Harbor to Hideki Tōjō"[50] by allowing "the major criminal suspects to coordinate their stories so that the Emperor would be spared from indictment."[51] According to John W. Dower, "This successful campaign to absolve the Emperor of war responsibility knew no bounds. Hirohito was not merely presented as being innocent of any formal acts that might make him culpable to indictment as a war criminal, he was turned into an almost saintly figure who did not even bear moral responsibility for the war."[52] According to Bix, "MacArthur's truly extraordinary measures to save Hirohito from trial as a war criminal had a lasting and profoundly distorting impact on Japanese understanding of the lost war."[53]""""

Furthermore, he was publicly forced to reject his divinity and instead, became a mere figurehead. A far cry from what the Japanese stood their ground on in their surrender hold out.

 

So anytime a country we are at war with does not immediately give us an unconditional surrender we should drop nuclear weapons. I guarantee you that you will get a lot of unconditional surrenders....but at what cost

 

Not at all. Where on earth did you get that idea from?

We only do that when we are at war with an island nation of 71 million people living in a completely fanatical militaristic society complete with a God King who are intent on maintaining the status quo which stands a good chance of bringing about a repeat war if they are left alone with the same society and God King with the same powers and infrastructure with no occupation permitted in order to ensure they have indeed changed their society to a democratic one rather than the dictatorship it once was and they refuse our terms.

Only happened once with the God King scenario, the other time we just invaded and conducted regime change so no need to drop a bomb but that's another story and there wasn't 7 thousand islands involved.

 

They had a proven history of fighting to the last man on fairly major islands,they was making public noises about being as a nation and a people willing to fight to the last man, woman and child and it was already way pass time that they should had been suing for peace.

Sorry but thinking that only such an event as having one bomber destroy a major city would shock them to the surrender table was not all unreasonable and more then likely correct.

 

Wrong they had super large subs design to carry and launch four or five aircrafts for one thing that could had carry an atom bomb into one of our large harbors.

 

Yet they did not fight to the last man. In fact they accepted an unconditional surrender without fighting to the last man. I tend to believe the generals that said they would also have accepted that eventually even without the bomb

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Why the exclusive criteria? If we could have dropped a nuke on Iraq wouldn't that also have prevented an invasion? Where is the logic?

 

Sorry they could only repeat only carry three aircrafts around the world and somehow I question if fitting in a big boy or a little man would be must of a problem.

 

Those aircraft the I-400's carried couldn't carry an atomic bomb. Also, the I-400's were so loud, they never would have made it past the blockade, let alone all the way to the West Coast.

 

Even after two atom bombings there was strong elements of the Japanese military that did not wish to surrender to the point that they try to pull a coup off against their 'god' Emperor.

We did the right thing not only for ourselves but for Japan in using such a weapon to end that war.

 

Only time we used them and the only time this sort of situation has come up. See the logic now?

 

The same excuse could be used for any war. Why over ten years in Iraq and Afghanistan? Drop a couple of nukes and they will come begging for peace.....right?

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And what situation is that? You need the leader to be referred to as a God King? Really?

 

They only accepted unconditional surrender after the second bomb and even then the war council was deadlocked on the issue. It took the Emporer himself to intervene after the third meeting so no, 'they' didn't accept it, they were forced by the bomb.

If you wish to believe the generals then find one who says the Japanese were going to surrender and I'll show you one who didn't know that the Big Six were deadlocked more than a day after the second bomb. Without the second bomb there would have been no unconditional surrender and that was not only a prerequisite by the Potsdam Declaration but common sense to ensure Japan was beaten and would not return with a militaristic goal.

 

If would have done no harm to give it a few weeks

 

There no reason on this earth to think that such super subs could not carry first generations nukes and their range was such that they could had sail completely around the earth and attacked New York city if they had wish to from the east.

As far as being noise is concern they was design to used their aircrafts to attack the panama canal and their subs designers was some of the best in the world that would be unlikely to design a noise sub.

In fact noise only came to be a major problem when dealing with nuclear subs not diesel electric subs.

 

Until his brother was KIA in the early summer of 1945, my father was getting ready to be part of the invasion forces. He was an officer running a 20MM AAA position on a battle ship. by then the US air superiority was so great that the invasion vessels were modifying the triple A to be used against ground targets. Like waves of Japanese citizens-mainly women, the elderly and children who were expected to charge our troops on landing zones-mainly armed with bamboo spears. My father noted what a twin 20MM cannon would do with explosive rounds when leveled against mass banzai type attacks. the casualty rates would be astronomical if our marines had encountered such waves of poorly armed attackers

after what happened at Pearl Harbor, Nanking, and the fact that POWs in Japanese prison camps had a 30X higher rate of mortality compared to those held by the Nazis, The Japanese got off light

 

They couldn't sail that far submerged, which is the only way they would even have a chance in hell of surviving, but even then their chances were basically nil. The home islands were totally blockaded. The allies had more maritime patrol aircraft in the Pacific that could hunt for subs than the entire Japanese military had aircraft in total. They had more destroyers that could hunt subs that than the entire IJN had warships in total.

The time to use the I-400's was late 1944. By the fall of 1945, they would have been annihilated before they got more than a thousand miles from the home islands.