A-bomb 60 years-first drop

http://www.dannen.com/decision/

 

ive read this 'law against bombing of civilians'. Today on the day after anniversary of Hiroshima, i watched a bbc documentary of what it was like in Hiroshima and the after effects. I know people are going to use this 'law against bombing of civilians' against the dropping of the A-Bomb.

Firstly, in Truman's speach after the dropping, he addressed the american people and he specifically said that Hiroshima was mainly a military base. Or maybe he ment it had large amount of military resources there.

Secondly, the attack on Pearl Harbour already broke the 'international laws of warfare'. The japanese attacked an American naval base without announcing the declaration of war. So if they break the rules, why not the Americans do so as well? Not only was the attack on Pearl harbour broke the rules, the japanese broke the geneva convention as well on how they treated p.o.w's. Cannibalism etc.

The war crimes the japanese commited, the deaths they immorally caused had far over populated both Atom bombs. Nanjing massacre and other East asian horrible events commited by japanese troops.

sorry some may think im talking too much but i just finished watching the documentary (not all of this information is based on it)and wanted to get it all out onto the forum hehe.

 

The BBC docu-drama ( which is also available as an extended DVD ) was very well produced and made powerful viewing. I'm not ashamed to say it literally gave me nightmares last night.

No sane person could watch without feeling revulsion at the sufferings of civilians ( whether in Hiroshima, Dresden or Coventry - or anywhere else ).

Whatver the rights and wrongs of the decision to use the weapon, the lesson I took away is that political leaders should consider very, very carefully indeed before resorting to war. It develops its' own terrible momentum.

FWIW, I also sat there thinking what could have happened if Hitler had got there first.....

 

I saw it as well. Absolutely gripping. It made me realize how far the reality of living though such a hell is from the rooms were these decisions are being made to use these weapons and tactics.

The doc certainly made me sit and think about the pro's and con's....and the consequences. No matter how you look at it; it remains a difficult question.

 

Well, it is certainly not a difficult question for me.

I remember very well 'The Rape of Nan-Jing', the terror bombings of Chinese cities, the brutal anti-partisan war, the famine, enslavement and murder of millions of Chinese civilians, the use of chemical and biological weaponry, the concentration camps, the Unit 731, the treatment of natives and Allied POWs, the 'Death March' of Bataan, the 'Day that will live in Infamy', the fact Japan had a fascist régime, the resolve of Japanese soldiers and civilians to get killed killing as many of their enemies as they could, the bloodbaths of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (just a glance of what would have happened at the invasion of Kyushu and Honshu), the stubborness and hesitation of the Japanese government…

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrible indeed, and the nature of the A-bomb is despicable. But it put an end to that sheer madness called WWII. It sickens me that the Japanese now want to be portrayed as victims (and are galdly supported by the political correctness wave of the XXI century) of WWII, being that they started it in the first place and that, once defeated, were not conquered, but received enough help to become the 2nd wealthiest nation on Earth.

Sorry for this spontaneous rant… but that's the way I feel.

 

First let me say, you have taken the words right out of my mouth.
The only things missing that I would have to add is to not forgot the mass suicide by the civilians leaping from the cliffs of Saipan. These were people who were so convinced by their own soldiers that the Americans would torture, rape and kill them that they elected to take their own lives instead. And who could blame them for believing that? After all this is exactly what their own soldiers would do so why would it be a stretch to believe that the American soldiers would do likewise. The other thing that needs to be mentioned once again is the failed coup on the night before Hirohito broadcast his message to the people of Japan announcing their surrender. This is an element of the military that despite all common sense, despite the progress of the war over the final two years along with the introduction of two atomic weapons used on their own country still believed that they could gain some advantage that would allow them to persue negotiations allowing them less than an unconditional surrender.

 

In the document on tv I think it was also mentioned that the hatred towards the Japanese at the time was so high that "The less of them here the better " which probably was the same feeling on both sides (?).

Also in the book Enola Gay Paul Tibbets mentions that as much as he was there to take part in the discussions on dropping the bomb there was this "mutual silence" as all agreed it would be dropped. There was no discussion on whether to do it or not really.

And I think that the Japanese should remember about their plans on dropping huge amounts of biological weaponry to the US continent. How horrible a situation that might have turned into. And how many civilians might have died then in maybe even a more terrifying way than the A-bomb.

War is cruel for one thing...and I´m happy I wasn´t there to decide for these things...

 

One of the things that many people seem to forget is that the death toll from the atomic weapons in both cities does not equal the toll from the incindiary attacks against Tokyo. That does not make the weapons any less horrific, but death in war comes in many forms. The end result is the same, dead. The use of these weapons, though debated for sixty years and many more to come, served as a stopgap to the war losses on both sides. Whole generations of people on both sides of the Pacific Ocean owe their existance to the preservation of life that resulted from the use of the atomic weapons.

The real question may be could we have saved even more lives if we had deployed the weapons sooner? How many people lost their loved ones in the days right before the end of the war? If the atomic bombs had been tested and deployed even a week earlier, how many more people would have came home to help rebuild after the war?

 

Welcome aboard, big! Hope you enhoy yourself in here!

 

Welcome to the boards big. In response to your question I recently began re-reading Richard Franks book Downfall: The End of the Japanese Imperial Empire. The book goes heavily into the planning of Operations Olympic (Kyushu invasion) and Coronet (Tokyo-Yokohama invasion). When questions of battle casualties came up a table was presented that listed the battle deaths in all theaters of war for all branches of the US armed forces. These figures come from the History of the Medical Department of the US Navy and Report on Army Battle Deaths and Casualties. May 1945 - 18,751 June 1945 - 8,945 July 1945 - 3,565 August 1945 - 1,992. While these are still significant numbers and again must stress they only apply to the US armed forces, you can see the comparitive lull that was taking place after the surrender of Germany and leading into the projected invasion of the Japanese home islands. I know this will come across as callous but compared to the death tolls earlier in the war the difference of a week or two would not have made too much of a difference.

 

I have seen several TV shows telling of the pressure to the Japanese and Americans to end the war before the Russians started taking Japanese land on it's own. The Russians did take and keep some small islands and if the war continued they would take and keep more land. I think the Japanese viewed the Americans as the lesser of two evils.

 

I agree with Bill that the casualty figures were winding down. The war may have ended with a Japanese capitulation after only a few more months of relative stand-off fighting without the all-out invasion of the Japanese mainland that everyone feared would cause so many allied casualties.

Look at the figures though, the last month more servicemen died than in our current involvement in Iraq.

The biggest reason I mentioned the generations of people that would have been saved was because of the geneological research I have done recently with the passing of my WWII veteran father. In the sixty years since the end of the war each combatant who died could have planted their little part of the post-war baby boom. Before they passed away at a ripe old age they could have had children, grandchildren and even great- grandchildren. If they were from (fill in whatever state you make fun of locally) they could have even had great-great-great-great-grandchildren.

 

I agree with Bill that the casualty figures were winding down. The war may have ended with a Japanese capitulation after only a few more months of relative stand-off fighting without the all-out invasion of the Japanese mainland that everyone feared would cause so many allied casualties.

Look at the figures though, the last month more servicemen died than in our current involvement in Iraq.

The biggest reason I mentioned the generations of people that would have been saved was because of the geneological research I have done recently with the passing of my WWII veteran father. In the sixty years since the end of the war each combatant who died could have planted their little part of the post-war baby boom. Before they passed away at a ripe old age they could have had children, grandchildren and even great- grandchildren. If they were from (fill in whatever state you make fun of locally) they could have even had great-great-great-great-grandchildren. [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Sorry about the confusion here Big. I flat out missed your reference to the lives brought about from the generations after the war. My response was intended more toward your statement regarding how many had lost there lives in the last weeks of the war. And frankly from what I have read I can not agree with an assessment that the Japanese may have capitulated with only stand off fighting and no invasion. All indications are that the Japanese were gearing up to resist an invasion and were mobilizing their civilians for such a battle also. While there was a segment of the Japanese society that was growing more and more dissatisfied with the war the nature of the Japanese culture would not have allowed them to quit the war without the Emperor giving his assent as he did with his historic broadcast to the people of his country. Secondly with the capitulation of Germany there was a very strong groundswell in the States as I'm sure was also occuring in the other Allied countries for a return to normality after the long periods of fighting and war rationing. In other words, there was a growing pressure to end the war with Japan sooner rather than later. This is not to say that the war couldn't have been ended without an invasion or the use of the atomic bomb, but it is my belief that had the US elected to persue a blockaid and bombing strategy to force Japan to capitulate it would have taken much much longer with casualties exceeding either of the aforementioned senarios.

 

Bill, maybe you can answer this;
was the USN "looking too far ahead/ focusing too much on the Abomb" when it directed McVay to sail un-escorted and with no anti-sub radar?
Into waters where a Detroyer had just got torpedoed.

 

I would have to guess that this was not the case Framer. Most likely those responsible for issuing the movement orders for the Indy were little more than staff officers who most likely had no knowledge of the impending atomic bomb. As we know even Capt. McVeigh himself did not know what it was that the Indy was transporting and it is known that he did not question vigorously when he was ordered to deep six the lead lined container, carrying what was the cores of the two bombs, in the event that the Indy found herself "in extremis". No I would have to say that it was bad judgement for the Navy not to have made available an escort. That being said however, in my opinion what was criminal in this affair was the fact that Capt. McVeigh was not provided with the information that the destroyer escort USS Underhill was sunk presumably by a Japanese sumbarine days earlier along the path that the Indy would be taking in order to reach Leyte.