This issue has been debated for centuries. I decided to bring the subject up.

Centuries? How many? It was only about 50 years ago.....

Are you sure you don't mean decades?

Truman did what he thought was best to end the war as quickly as possible. He didn't want a repeat of the invasion of Europe with the massive amounts of ally lives lost. The Japanese were defeated but wouldn't surrender. We had to show them the consequences if the war continued. It was a tough call, but I think the right one.

For anyone interested, we had this debate once here: Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Did we need to?. That thread is closed now due to it's age, but many of us weighed in there.

And boyscout, while it's somewhat easy to assume your debate question, we ask you state it very clearly so there is no ambiguity on what you want to debate. Please keep this in mind for when starting new threads in the future.

no. at that point of the war the soviet union would have been able to help us take japan, the chinese had beaten them back and would likely contributed troops because of what the japanese did to them. we could also have blockaded the island and not allowed any thing in our out. we could also have set little boy (aug 6 1945) off in the ocean or someplace with little/no people.

facing the soviets from the north, america from the south and the detenation of an atomic bomb(not on a city)they would have surrendered. Dwight D. Eisenhower himself stated that he felt the japanese were trying to find a way of surrendering with minimal loss of face. Admiral Leahy, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Truman's Chief of Staff said "The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons
(sources-http://www.vanguardonline.f9.co.uk/01206.htm - http://www.nuclearfiles.org/hiatomicbomb/q...ingthebomb.html - http://www.lehigh.edu/~ineng/enola/content/gar.htm ) instead we nuked not one, but TWO heavilly populated areas killing millions over the next ten years (radiation poisining) when at the most only the first was necessary.

Fleet Admiral and Senior Join Chiefs of Staff Member William D. Leahy felt that a Japanese surrender could be negotiated both without the use of the atomic bomb and without a land invasion. He is on record:

Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, was also opposed to the use of atomic weapons. He has been quoted by his widow as saying he felt it was an unnecessary loss of civilian life and, "We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything."

A man who went on to become president, General Dwight D. Eisenhower is on record as well:

Fleet Admiral William Frederick Halsey, Commander of the Third Fleet, appears to have shared the opinions of those I've listed above:

From this timeline we can see that a major sticking point for those in favor of using the atomic bomb was the clamor for "unconditional surrender." Among those taking issue with the administration's calls were Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy and Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall. Beyond administration issues with the insistance of "unconditional surrender," it was reported through the OSS (CIA) in May that Japanese diplomats were seeking to negotiate surrender regardless of of terms merely so long as the terms "unconditional surrender" were not included. In July...

Two days after that, newly appointed Secretary of State James Byrnes convinces Truman to drop Article 12 of the Potsdam Declaration, which specified post-war Japan would be allowed to retain a constitutional monarchy under the present dynasty. So, of course, when Truman issues a final chance to surrender before making use of the atomic bomb, included in the terms is the call for "unconditional surrender" without a definition conveying the retention of the dynasty.

It was not necessary and I am in agreement with Leo Szilard: “Using atomic bombs against Japan is one of the greatest blunders of history."

Abs,

I teach this one saying the general historical consensus was that this was the right decision at the time but it became more controversial at the nuclear arms race accelerated. You make a convincing argument with your post that several military experts had grave doubts about the need to use this weapon. This is the best argument I have seen yet on your side of this debate.

In my opinion, there was no why he shouldn't.

Trying to attack Japan by using troops would have meant thousands of dead soldiers. That would have made public opinion go against Truman.

I'm not saying he should have done it to avoid bad public opinion

The U.S. estimate. was one million.

In retrospect the decision might have been the wrong one only if we could have avoided an invasion and not dropped the atomic bomb. The price of an invasion would be incredible to the Japanese people and the american forces. Many more people would die if we invaded than from the atomic bomb.

To All:

What is the standard of whether it was the right decision or the wrong one? Is your standard one that would have made any sense whatsoever at the time?

Here are the relevant questions:
Would the Japanese have surrendered without the Bomb?

WHEN would they most likely have surrendered?

Would an invasion of the Home Islands have been necessary to secure the surrender?

What would the American casualties have been in the event of an invasion?

What would the Japanese casualties have been?

What would the Japanese casualties have been WITHOUT an invasion and without the Bomb?

How do the probable casualties of the alternatives stack up against the known casualites of dropping the Bomb?

Okay...so the first bomb may have been the right decision, but the second dropped on Nagasaki (sp?) was a bit over-kill and used entirely for scientific purposes (I mean we had no idea what was really going to happen).

Shrugs...

Welcome, Dead Phoenix.

I have never heard this before. Have any sources?

Thousands.Hiroshima: Historians Reassess

I'm not sure how many of those would have been American when considering the other allied forces and the fact that Russia had just joined days prior to the use of the bombs. Of course, there were many high ranking officials who still felt surrender could be negotiated without either the bomb or an invasion. Among them, for any who forgot or missed my last post: Fleet Admiral and Senior Join Chiefs of Staff Member William D. Leahy, Fleet Admiral and Commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet Chester Nimitz, General and future president Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Fleet Admiral and Commander of the Third Fleet William Frederick Halsey.

So, assuming the Japanese hadn't in fact been trying to surrender, that blockades wouldn't have ended the war, or that detonating the bomb overseas wouldn't have persuaded them, the loss of life in an invasion would not have been anywhere near the numbers put forth after the use of the bomb (ie: one million).



I would base the standard on whether or not there were clear alternatives offering considerably less loss of life than the use of the two bombs. The estimates I've seen place the number killed by the bombs at approximately 300,000 by the end of that year alone. That of course doesn't include the lasting effects of radiation in the years to come. This seems a standard that would have made sense at the time, and which continues to today.


All the available evidence indicates a resounding yes. It certainly helps knowing that they were already trying to surrender well before the use of the bomb in July. In hindsight it appears the Japanese were likely to accept the Potsdam Declaration had it not been for the intervention of Secretary of State Byrnes.


Had it not been for the late intervention of Secretary of State Byrnes in the wording of the Potsdam Declaration it's possible they would have surrendered July 28, 1945, almost a full week before the first atomic bomb was detonated over Hiroshima. Even with the rejection it seems likely, even by military assessment, that Japan would have surrendered by November or December.


An invasion may not have ever been necessary according to the accounts of those I have quoted previously and above. I mentioned above through quotations what the projected casualties would have been in the event of an invasion. Other reports I have seen estimate that of those numbers, 10,000 might possibly have been American soldiers.


I haven't seen any estimates for what the Japanese casualties might have been. There is of course still the chance that no invasion would have been necessary, but even in light of that it's unlikely to have surpassed the almost 300,000 who died as a direct result, and the countless others affected by the lasting radiation.


From what I can tell the probable casualties of any of the alternatives stack up very favorably against the use of the bomb. I can see where an argument might be made for the use of the first bomb, but I can see absolutely no justification for the use of the second.

http://176-m236.summer.com/schools/sss/soc...es/ww2page5.htm


There were two different atomic bombs. The one dropped on Hiroshima was called "Little Boy." It caused more deaths and damage than "Fat Man," which was dropped on Nagasaki. Obviously scientists wanted to compare which bomb would do the most damage.

And one more piece of information:

This was apparently the coup de grace.

The decision was made against the better judgement of General Eisenhower and Admiral Leahy, along with several other high-ranking officers. Those quotations can be read in Unabomber's links and Abs like Jesus' links.
If the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not think it was necessary to drop the atomic bombs, I figure he knew what he was talking about. I think that nuking the Japanese was wrong.

What would the world be like now if the awesome power of the atomic bomb had not been utilized to end WWII? Hard to say. But it hasn't deterred all of these little wars around the world. And knowing what we do now about how radioactivity sticks around, do we really want to use tactical nukes in this continuing "war on terror"?

This particular nutmeg has been discussed and digested any number of times on AD.
By the way Elspeth, there was only one TYPE of bomb but different code-names.

Morally it was a disgusting act of self interest.
Historically..........well we can all be experts in retrospect can't we?.

There are , however, a few undeniable facts.
America had the bomb, they didn't and , as usual..'Shock and awe'.
They were beaten and knew it, but it was simply a question of preserving their Emperor who was considered a God in their society, who they fought and died for.
They were asking to give in but the hawks in the American government back then made the rules, just as they are making them now.

There is so much information from ABS and Paladin, the little I can offer regarding this nutmeg is apologetic.
http://www.doug-long.com/

Regards.........Alan

My mistake about the bombs being different types. I looked at the size difference of the two in the picture of them next to each other plus the following information:



The fact remains that after Hiroshima the scientists knew what was going to happen. It took some callous indifference (to my mind) to go ahead and kill more Japanese civilians in like manner.

actually there were two types:

Little Boy used the "gun-type" method of compressing two subcritical masses of fissionable material together to create a critical mass and thus a self-sustaining chain reaction. Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. the fissionable material was uranium. the gun type bomb took a piece of u-235 and slammed it into another piece using explosives to propel the uranium.here is a diagram of this type of bomb

Fat Man used the "implosion-type" method which proved more efficient, though somewhat more bulky than the gun-type. Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945. this type of device used a sphere of plutonium, which was crushed in on itself with high explosives, creating a chain reaction. the fissionable material was plutonium. I can't find a diagram for this type.

just thought I would clarify

'Little Boy' had already been tested during 'The Manhatten Project' and
it worked. It's duplicate was ready to go.
'Fat Man' had a bigger yield, that is the reaction produced for a given amount of material.
The limited amount of 'fissionable' material available to even America at the time made 'Fat Man' a bit of a doubtfull starter.
In the event it worked on Nagisaki.
I can supply verification of the obove if required.

Several tens of thousand Japanese died, and are still dying.
Japan brought America eventually economically to it's knees.
Japan owns most of America.
Who won the war??........

Check it out.

Regards....Alan

Yes.

The only remotely compelling argument I've ever heard against it was that we could've shown them a demo before we dropped it on them, but war doesn't live in such a polite reality, and we did warn them that they were about to experience annihilation on an unprecedented scale.

It was an conventional, experimental weapon that we rushed in to use, and it ended up working well. In a world war, you use what you can to cripple your enemy, and as long as you are not aiming at civilians, such incidental casualties do not warrant a war crimes tribunal.

I have a great disdain for second-guessing difficult military decisions that clearly have no undue malice.

The first bomb was "probably justified" at the time, but once the first one was dropped, it actually became imperative that the second one be dropped, because the first one used such an expensive technology to process the fuel. Let me explain my reasoning.

I'm not going to try to go back and find all the sources I used in my first marriage while attacking the process of building a nuclear power plant in Midland, MI. After fifteen years of researching, arguing, letters to the newspaper, meetings, and going back to my college texts; I'm not an accredited expert, but I am certain of my facts.


Actually, the first bomb that was dropped was developed using Uranium 235. Uranium 235 is separated from Uranium 238 by converting it to a gas, then taking advantage of gas laws and the difference in molecular weight to separate the lighter gas from the heavier gas. Among other products that I am aware of, that were invented to make this process possible were Teflon, which was not attacked by Uranium HexaFlouride, and ion exchange resins (Water softener beads.) which capture heavy metals due to a difference in valences. Intelligence after World War II showed that Japanese scientists studying the fallout at Hiroshima correctly identified U-235 as the material from which the bomb had been developed. They reported to the emperor that we would not be able to build a second atomic bomb if that was the technology that we were relying upon. Actually, we had built two based on this technology, exploded one in a test, used the second on Hiroshima, and then essentially abandoned that technology. A lot of propaganda was released however, on "Here's how we split the Uranium Atom." I know. I read it in newspapers, magazines, and books. I saw it in special stories on television, in school, and in the museum.

The second bomb was Plutonium based. Plutonium is a man made "TransUranium" fissionable element. The primary reason that the United States began to build nuclear power plants was to have a source of Plutonium for building atomic weapons. The conversion of Uranium 238 to Plutonium is an extremely exothermic reaction. The generation of electric power is used to cool the reaction. Plutonium however, can be chemically separated from Uranium. Again, the Japanese scientists were able to study the fallout and determine that the Nagasaki bomb was a different composition from the first bomb.

Yes, like the Germans, they also had a nuclear weapons development program under way. I don't know if it ever got beyond a theoretical standpoint. The theories were well documented though, and the technology to differentiate between different isotopes and determine what radioactive products you were looking at; while not common knowledge, was still widespread.

I have heard this information from a college professor involved in the clean-up of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the nuclear chemistry course that I took in 1965, in reading Hiroshima by John Hersey, I believe it was also covered in No Place to Hide(?), a diary kept by one of the scientists at the Bikini Atoll tests, in a Communications Course that I took perhaps 6 0or 7 years ago, in newspapers, magazines, etc. I would have to say at this point that it is "common knowledge" that the 2 weapons used different materials.

I had one professor who worked on the cleanup. He told us, "I was sent in as a photographer, but of course all of my photographs came out totally overexposed. All I can do is tell you about the photographs that I would have taken. There were shadows. The sidewalks and roads were bleached white, except for the tell-tale shadows where plants, animals, people, even children at play had evaporated, leaving nothing behind but their shadows. We had to remove all of that evidence."

Einstein's famous formula predicted the amount of energy that would be released if humans could find a way to destroy matter. "Project Blue Light" was the code name I heard for a raid that stopped the Germans from developing a nuclear weapon. The Manhattan Project was kept extremely secret. (Thanks dad!) Of the notes that have been released from there, I recall one scientist expressing concern that the amount of energy they expected to see released in an Atomic explosion might be sufficient to ignite the Nitrogen in the atmosphere. With the end of all life on the planet as one possibility, a test bomb was still detonated. With time and resources, it is probable the Japanese would have developed an atomic weapon. In one country they were trying to uncork a bottle. In another country they were trying to rub a lamp. The United States discovered how to release the Genie, perhaps by opening Pandora's box.

We truly need to keep telling our children that radioactive waste cannot be destroyed, or even safely stored. There is no reason for developing "tactical nuclear weapons." If possible, we need to find a way to destroy the nuclear weapons that have already been built, or someone will find a reason to detonate one. Nobody speaks anymore of Strontium-90 replacing the Calcium in children's bones and teeth. They keep telling the former residents of the Bikini Atoll that when it is safe, they will be allowed to return. Have your children read Sadako And The Thousand Paper Cranes. by Eleanor Coerr. Look for the eyewitness accounts that you can find, and read them yourselves.

I tried to check Michigan's Electronic Library listing for the author of No Place to Hide. My memory is that it was written by Dr. David Bradley, but I read it in the early 1960's. Neither the title, David Bradley, or Bikini Atoll testing as a subject were listed. My significant memory of reading that book was that the researchers were eating fresh fish from the area. Then, someone left a freshly caught fish on a package of undeveloped photographic paper. An accidental X-ray of a fish was made, and with it came a realization; the reason they weren't seeing any sick fish in the atoll, was that the healthy fish were eating them...and then getting sick.


To the best of my knowledge, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilian targets; but then "war crimes" would have been an oxymoron until the Nuremberg trials were held. Hiroshima was targeted so that the bomb would have a maximum impact, leaving, if possible, nothing standing.
It's been a few decades since I read Hersey's Hiroshima, but I recall it being described as a residential area, with buildings that were built using traditional Japanese construction, including paper walls. Both Hiroshima and Sadako And The Thousand Paper Cranes. documented the fact that people, trying to cool off, rushed into the river. So many people then died in the river, that it turned red from their blood.

(Edited to include a response to aquapub.)

Japan was already crippled. They knew it and we knew it. The only thing they didn't know was that we had the means to detonate an atomic weapon over their homeland. Had Japan posed any kind of legitimate threat in August of 1945 perhaps your argument would hold, but our actions -- especially the Nagasaki bombing -- were completely unnecessary. To quote a fellow member of this site, "we may as well have used a shotgun to kill a mosquito." The estimates I've seen place 95% of the casualties as having been civilian.


Maybe a healthy Japan at the height of the war, but certainly not the ravaged dynasty that stood seeking surrender in the month before having nuclear warfare unleashed upon it.


I didn't see the reasoning behind claiming the second bombing was "imperative." What exactly is it you feel made it imperative in light of the information you presented in your post, ranging from the ghostly shadows to the river tainted with blood?

Abs, I thought that the Americans dropped the atomic weapons because the Soviet Union was within weeks if invading the whole of northern Japan. Truman, who already distrusted Stalin and his motives was determined not to allow the Soviets gain a major hold over the Japonese mainland, considering they only joined the war weeks ago while the Allies, primarily America had lost hundreds of thousands of lives to defeat Japan.

It would be obscrene to allow the Soviets to take such a large chunk of Japan, that was why the atomic weapons were necessary. Moreover, the dropping of the Bomb sent a message to Moscow which as recent historical evidence has come out that Stalin was planning to invade western Europe as Germany was totally defeated. Only the Bomb stopped him.

Overall, on balance I would say Truman was right.

[QUOTE=Abs like Jesus,Jul 30 2003, 09:43 AM][QUOTE=Curmudgeon @ Jul 30 2003, 04:53 AM]I didn't see the reasoning behind claiming the second bombing was "imperative." What exactly is it you feel made it imperative in light of the information you presented in your post, ranging from the ghostly shadows to the river tainted with blood?[/QUOTE]

Have you ever seen a movie where one of the people in a shootout counts the other one's bullets?

What I was taught in school was that; essentially, the makeup (U-235) of the first atomic bomb was such that their scientists analyzed the fallout, decided that our technology was obsolete and expensive, and went to the Emperor with a message of "Yes! We do feel lucky!" They were as angry as we were after the bombings of 9/11, felt that we were out of ammunition, and the net result was an increase in their determination to fight on. It was only their analysis after we dropped the second bomb, that we had switched to the use of Plutonium that caused them to realize that we had not used a one time weapon.

Henry Ford is credited with inventing the assembly line. Because of it, he was able to mass market the automobile. Because of that, he is generally believed to have" invented the automobile." Actually, most historians agree that several people were working on horseless carriages at the time. If we were building atomic weapons with Uranium, we had a "garage business" going." If we were manufacturing Plutonium, with which to make atomic weapons, then we had assembly line capabilities. That is what the second weapon proved to the Japanese. Imagine if terrorists had not used stolen 747's on 9/11, but rather a fleet of Stealth Technology bombers, built at an unknown location.

I half agree and half dont. The first atomic bomb was needed to end the war to reduce US casualties during the war. Without the use of the bomb, there could have been up to 1 million casualties on the american side.(not to mention japanese casualties) Although the second bomb may have been dropped for scientific reasons, it wasnt the motive for the US to drop it. When Truman gave the order to use the atomic bombs, he said to drop both of them. It wasnt drop the first bomb, wait till they surrendur, and if they refuse, drop the second. So while the first bomb was a good measure of scaring the japanese, Truman was careless in dropping both.

By all accounts I have seen they had no determination, and hardly any ability, to fight on in the month leading up to the first bomb. Do you have anything to indicate that they had any revival in spirit after the first bombing to warrant the bombing of Nagasaki, as a means of forcing their hand for sure?


If you read through this entire thread, you'll notice that reassessment of history, following the declassification of military assessments written at the time, indicates the number of projected Allied casualties for an invasion never reached or exceeded 100,000, much less a million American soldiers. The numbers were inflated after the war as a means of justification. Beyond that of course is the opinion of top military officials, one a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that surrender could be negotiated without invasion or bombing.

Thomas, wanting to jockey for position with the Soviet Union seems hardly a justifiable reason to me for erasing the lives of almost 300,000 people of another country in two separate instants, not taking into account the lasting effects of radiation in the area. Japan was already trying to surrender. Had it not been for the interference of Secretary of State Byrnes it's likely a surrender could have been negotiated in July with the Potsdam Declaration. There were alternative measures available, and made known, for ending the war as well as preventing the Soviet Union from gaining a leg up in Asia.

This is misleading because one of the biggest justifications for dropping the bomb was the extreme levels of patriotism demonstrated by japanese soldiers as the fighting got near the home islands. Okinawa was a brutal and deadly lesson to many American military leaders and soldiers.

Battle of Okinawa

I see a distinction between the continuation of fighting for one's homeland and the determination to continue a war. Had Japan been truly determined to continue fighting with us and our allies they would not have been seeking means of surrender as they in fact did. From what I know, and what I can tell from your source, Eeyore, even Okinawa was wrapped up when it came time to bomb Hiroshima.

Of course it was wrapped up and that was just over a month before the bomb was dropped. But where do you come to the conclusion that there was no determination to fight using fanatical, self-sacrificing tactics.

Even if the Japanese government was not enthusiatic about continuing the war does this mean that the defense of the homeland against an invasion force would have been half-hearted. The Japanese would have expected some kind of miracle like the divine wind or kamikaze that destroyed Mongol invasion fleets way back when. Nothing in your argument provides evidence that the defense of the home islands would have been half-hearted.

My link shows how rabid the defense of a perimeter island was an how many casualties and suicides the Japanese would be willing to take.

I come to my conclusion through the fact that they were trying to surrender. Do you expect that Japan -- not stragglers cut off from communications -- would have continued to fight along the perimeter islands following surrender? The surrender could have been negotiated without the use of a bomb or an invasion.

Of course, the quote in question was the use of the second bomb. Looking at that, was there any significant sign of possible attacks coming from Japan in the lull between bombings that in anyway necessitated the second bombing of Nagasaki? While I personally feel that the first bomb was unnecessary, though arguable, I absolutely maintain the use of the second one to have been completely unnecessary and malicious.

And they would have gotten it...

The Divine Wind, or Kamikaze, of a powerful typhoon destroyed a foreign invasion force heading for Japan in 1281, and it was for this storm that Japanese suicide aircraft of World War II were named. On October 9, 1945, a similar typhoon packing 140-mile per hour winds struck the American staging area on Okinawa that would have been expanded to capacity by that time if the war had not ended in September, and was still crammed with aircraft and assault shipping- much of which was destroyed. US analysts at the scene matter-of-factly reported that the storm would have caused up to a 45-day delay in the invasion of Kyushu. The point that goes begging, however, is that while these reports from the Pacific were correct in themselves, they did not make note of the critical significance that such a delay, well past the initial- and unacceptable- target date of December 1, would have on base construction on Kyushu, and consequently mean for the Honshu invasion, which would have then been pushed back as far as mid-April 1946.

If there had been no atom bombs and Tokyo had attempted to hold out for an extended time- a possibility that even bombing and blockade advocates granted- the Japanese would have immediately appreciated the impact of the storm in the waters around Okinawa. Moreover, they would know exactly what it meant for the follow-up invasion of Honshu, which they had predicted as accurately as the invasion of Kyushu. Even with the storm delay and friction of combat on Kyushu, the Coronet schedule would have led US engineers to perform virtual miracles to make up for lost time and implement Y-Day as early in April as possible. Unfortunately the Divine Winds packed a one-two punch.

On 4 April 1946, another typhoon raged in the Pacific, this one striking the northernmost Philippine island of Luzon on the following day where it inflicted only moderate damage before moving toward Taiwan. Coming almost a year after the war, it was of no particular concern. The Los Angeles Times gave it about a paragraph on the bottom of page 2. But if Japan had held out, this storm would have had profound effects on the world we live in today. It would have been the closest watched weather cell in history. Would the storm move to the west after hitting Luzon, the Army's main staging area for Coronet, or would it take the normal spiraling turn to the north, and then northeast as the October typhoon? Would slow, shallow-draft landing craft be caught at sea or in the Philippines where loading operations would be put on hold? If they were already on their way to Japan, would they be able to reach Kyushu's sheltered bay? And what about the breakwater caissons for the massive artificial harbor to be assembled near Tokyo? The construction of the harbor's pre-fabricated components carried a priority second only to the atom bomb, and this precious towed cargo could not be allowed to fall victim to the storm and be scattered across the sea.

Abs's "casualty estimates" are so far off as to be laughable, if he weren't serious about them. I highly recommend that anybody interested in this subject read the following:
Operation Downfall: US Invasion Plans and Japanese Counter-Measures

Gianreco tears Bernstein's Casualty estimates a new one.

Here's something else that the revisionist perspective fails to consider, you know, the one that says the Japanese were just about falling all over themselves in July '45 to surrender:

So the first bomb was dropped, and according to Dr. A, there was almost no response from the Japanese. No noises about surrender, no retreat. Shock, yes, but no desperate negotiations.

So the second bomb was dropped. Even then, it was unclear if the Japanese would surrender. Their war council took a vote, and it was a 3-3 tie, which the Emperor was called upon to break, and which he did in favor of surrender. He then prepared a taped surrender message.

Even then, many junior military officers attempted to stage a coup to prevent Hirohito's message from being delivered. The Japanese secret police sent out death squads and killed the Imperial Guard in an attempt to intercept the surrender message.

Even after the surrender was officially issued, there was a military uprising and thousands of Japanese officers committed suicide out of shame or protest or whatever.

Finally, there's this gem,
review of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire

The Japanese were fully aware of their situation, of the blockade, the strategic bombing campaign, the serverance of lines of supply to China, etc ... yet they planned to keep on fighting.

Here's another one to read, by the author of Downfall.Ending the Pacific War : History and Fantasy

If thats true, the Soviets would have overrun Japan before the Yanks got anywhere near! No wonder Truman had to use the Bomb!

Abs, you may call it jockeying for position, but a Soviet controlled Japan would have been catastrophic for the captalist world.

Abs,

I think you made much of your argument as well as it can be made. The part of your argument that I strongly disagree with is (as I have pointed out) where you conclude that the defense of the Japanese homeland would not have been fanatical. This was a culture that highly valued the tragic death in combat and extreme devotion to the emperor. (The reason that the Japanese would not agree to an unconditional surrender.)

It is unfortunate that these weapons were dropped. But our government and military decided on an ultimatum with no window of opportunity for pause.

Bikerdad's quote about the fall monsoon is indeed eerie, and if it is accurate our technology of the day would have been delayed significantly.

But, as far as my comments, remember I did commend you for making the strongest argument I have seen to date against the use of the bomb.

How can you simultaneously conclude that the Japanese would NOT have 'fanatically defended their homeland', and 'it was a culture that highly valued the tragic death in combat and extreme devotion to the emperor' ? If they valued tragic death so much, of course they would've 'fanatically' defended their own land.

Just one example of how 'fanatical' these people were....In 1944, in thousands of Japanese mothers (in Saipan) threw their children off of cliffs (and then sacrificed themselves) to prevent what they believed would be a massive shame by the American occupation. Thousands upon thousands of bodies were found pounding in the surf...not soldiers but mothers and their children.

edited to add: Oops! Sorry, I misread your post. You disagreed with that part. I agree with you, in that case

No window?
The Potsdam Declaration was made in July, the Japanese flatly refused it. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6th, and we "paused." The Japanese made no move to surrender, we dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki three days later. Even in 1945, it wasn't all that tough to get on the horn and say "Uncle"

If it is accurate?

Typhoon Louise
A total of 12 ships were sunk, 222 grounded, and 32 damaged beyond the ability of ships' companies to repair.

What would the impact of another "divine wind" have been on Japanese morale? What would the impact have been on the invasion fleet? Typhoon Louise and the Divine Wind

What was the reality at the time?



If the Atomic Bomb Had Not Been Used - Atlantic Monthly, 1946

In the Itoman memorial in southern Okinawa 237,318 casualties are listed. An estimated one-third of the civilian population was killed. Kind of hard to conclude an invasion of Japan would not have resulted in much greater casualties.

Here are some reasons for dropping the bomb. from this link

[CODE]But according to documents I have uncovered, a conference to discuss pre-invasion casualties was held at the White House on June 18, 1945, between President Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From the Pacific, Gen. Douglas MacArthur submitted rather optimistic casualty estimates. This caused Adm. William D. Leahy, Truman's military advisor, to take charge of the session. Based on the experience at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Leahy predicted that in an invasion of Japan, 30% to 35% of U.S. soldiers would be killed or wounded during the first 30 days. Truman obviously understood what Leahy said. The president remarked that the invasion would create another Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other. The Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed.

Suddenly, and only after being advised about the buildup of Japanese forces and fortifications by Magic intelligence, MacArthur medical staff revised its pre-invasion needs for hospital beds upwards by 300%. MacArthur's chief surgeon, Brig. Gen. Guy Denit, estimated that a 120-day campaign to invade and occupy only the island of Kyushu would result in 395,000 casualties.

Marshall then learned from the Magic Summaries, just before the Potsdam Conference convened on July 17, 1945, about behind-the-scenes negotiations between Japan and the Soviet Union. From June 3-14, 1945, Koki Hirota, a Japanese envoy with Emperor Hirohito's blessing, had met with the Russian ambassador to Tokyo to propose a new relationship between the two countries. Japan proposed to carve up Asia with the USSR . According to the Magic Diplomatic Summaries of July 3, 1945, Hirota told the Russian ambassador: "Japan will increase her naval strength in the future, and that, together with the Russian Army, would make a force unequaled in the world...." The Magic Summaries further revealed that throughout June and July 1945, Japan's militarist [CODE]

Could our use of the bomb in Hiroshima prevented a later nuclear exchange? We will never know.

My high school history teacher fought in the Battle of the Bulge. If what I learned of World War II from him were all I knew, I would hardly have known the Japanese stayed in the war after Pearl Harbor. I have not been a great fan either of reading up on what had been "current events" for most of the adults in my life at that time. I heard too much anecdotal information about things that were often classified.

Today's newspaper, for instance, carried the story of the sinking of the Indianapolis. The summer that I spent working with one of the survivor's of that event, he would tell me of how close the sharks came to him before he was rescued. "I can't tell you where we were, what we were carrying, not even the name of the ship. I told God if he got me out of there alive, I'd never find another thing to complain about." The closest I ever heard to a complaint from him, was one day when we were sharing a couple of dreams. I told him, "My dad always wanted to build his own house. I guess I've carried that dream along. I'd like to build my own house some day." He looked over toward his wife, sighed, and said, "I'd like to build a new house, but it would have to be at least 100 miles away from her." The he stopped, smiled, and said, "Did I ever tell you about when the Japanese torpedoed our ship?"

I had a neighbor growing up who claimed to have been friends with the King of Siam, the Japanese Emperor, and several American Presidents leading up to the start of WW II. The majority of his investments had been made in Japan, and the philippines. So I would hear from the next door neighbor, "This is what the Emperor told me." and "I passed this information on to the President." Living in the middle of a ghetto, I took it with a very large grain of salt until I helped his widow unpack and dispose of a warehouse full of belongings after his death. I saw a rifle with a stock, custom made so that he could balance it with the two fingers coming from his elbow that he was born with. All of the metal parts were gold plated. The storage crates, all had hand carved scenes of Japan on the sides. "Our belongings were packed up by the royal carpenters when the emperor sent us back to America."

My father was involved in the hiring process for the Manhattan Project. He was a civil servant working in Flint, Michigan for the Michigan Employment Security Commission. His main talent in that job was the ability to remember anything that he had ever read, and any interview he had ever conducted. (Near the end of his career, he filled a job that he had been told of 38 years previously. Someone met the qualifications, he picked up the phone, dialed a number, and said, "Do you still need a baker that speaks fluent Syrian?") He was a voracious speed reader. During WW II, an FBI agent would come to him, and hand him a note. It might say "We need a carpenter who can pick up and move to Manhattan on a couple hours notice. He needs the following skills..." Dad would write down a name, phone number, address, and Social Security no. He might add notes like, "He's going through a divorce. He's currently working for... " The next day it might be a request for someone with a knowledge of X-ray crystallography. He would write down an article that he had read, the name of the individual, the college where he was doing his research, etc. I was studying a nuclear chemistry text, and he picked it up. "I recognize these names." he said, "Would you like to know their Social Security numbers?" He then went on to tell me of his involvement. The time between the FBI picking someone up for an interview (Security clearances were always performed first.) and putting them on a train for "Manhattan" was never more than a few hours. Moving crews picked up family, personal belongings, etc., later.

Perhaps a decade letter, he showed me a letter from a president. (Memory fails me, but it was likely either Ford or Nixon. Dad belonged to the same lodge as Gerald Ford, and they had been friends for a long time. Either as President or as Vice President, he would have recognized dad's name.) Reading through some of the Manhattan Project documents he had discovered that with the exception of specific individuals requested from within the project, everyone hired for the Manhattan project had been referred by my father. No one he referred had refused a job offer on the project, and he never discussed it with anyone, because he had no idea what was going on. He was being credited with job placements, and that was his job.

In 1964 and 1965, I was attending Junior College and learning Chemistry, and Nuclear Chemistry from professors who had fought in the Pacific theater. I learned about the construction of atomic weapons from a professor who carried around a vial of heavy water as a souvenir/memento of being on the team that developed the H-bomb. I had radiation sickness described to me by a gray haired "old" man who was sent to Hiroshima to work on photography and clean-up before he was twenty years old. (That was in the fall of 1964.) I was taken on a tour of a nuclear reactor by a professor who worked his way through college as an operator at the site we were touring.

The mid '60's were a fascinating time to be in school. My teachers had been involved in what they were teaching us about. My neighbor, my father, and my father's acquaintances had some unusual insights on what I was being taught in school. Security was such that a teacher could say, "I made a phone call, and I'm going to be visiting (some place he used to work.) Would anyone like to come with me Saturday? Two or three of us would raise our hand, and off we'd go. I had a physics teacher in high school who took a carful of us to his Alma Mater the day after Kennedy was assassinated. We watched as a flash of red light punched a hole through a razor blade. It was explained to us, "It's called a LASER. We're using a very expensive, high quality ruby. It takes the entire output of our power generating plant to punch that hole. Right now, it's the only one in the world. There's probably no practical future for the technology. That's what is meant by theoretical research." I know I didn't need any permission slips for those weekend trips. My dad would never sign anything like that, and my mother was always working.

Most of my knowledge is anecdotal, and certainly colored more by prejudices of the time, than by released secret documents or espionage data. For the first decade or so that I was working after I left college to get married, most of my co-workers were WW II vets.

Fighting a nuclear plant, I had access to a large technical library, but it's on the other side of the state. I started out looking for answers to my (first) wife's objections. "They generate tons of waste." I'd been taught they used "less than a pound of fuel a year." Then I'd see a photograph of people near the tons of fuel they were getting ready to lead into a reactor. "There's no way to dispose of the waste." I'd been taught that the government was purchasing and reprocessing the spent fuel. Then I learned that the U.S. govt. was no longer doing that. Eventually I stumbled across the conference report from the first conference held on building nuclear plants. It was outlined very clearly in the preface that the government had to find ways they could sell the public on the image of safety, and the need for such an expensive generating process. Most of the report centered on propaganda, image, selling the public on the need, etc. That book was in a stack the library was giving away one day, and it might still be in my possession. A lot of what I took from my first marriage has never been unpacked.

Also, I probably still have a communications text from a course I took a few year's back. It did have some documentation of correspondence, and the translations of that correspondence, that went on between the US and Japan in 1945. If I can find that, I will post it here, because it was cited in a chapter dealing with idioms if I recall correctly. Something was not translated correctly at the time, and the author felt that the poor translation might have led directly to the order to drop the bomb.

The story of the Indianapolis sinking brings up one other point of consideration also. We weren't using a long range bomber to deliver the bomb from California. It was loaded aboard a ship, which according to today's newspaper story left California July 16, 1945 and delivered the bomb to an Island called Tinian. The order obviously had to be issued several days before the weapon was actually used.

My father was in the Army during WWII. He was a radio operator. He has told me he is very glad Truman dropped the bomb as my father was to be in the force landing on the shores of Japan. From his viewpoint in the military, those bombs might have saved his life.

I like to hear your personal history, Curmudgeon.

From one of the links you provided, Bikerdad I found this:

I presume this might be what led some military brass to increase projected casualty numbers, but I'm curious as to what the real strength of Japanese troops in Kyushu was before either the first or second atomic bomb. It would be nice to know it wasn't "overstated" and inflated to serve the purpose of dropping the bombs. The above is what Mr. Giangreco uses to laugh off other historians who have reviewed the assessments, but he refrains from mentioning again that the numbers at Kyushu were overstated, and again refrains from disclosing the actual number of troops. He instead takes an anecdotal pot shot at other historians without offering support as to why any casualty estimates would have been increased and what they might have been increased to.

Mr. Giangreco also goes on to say:

While I am not myself a historian, it would seem to me other historians reviewing the matter might also get the impression that a naval blockade could be effective from reviewing the opinions of those commanders overseeing many of the operations.

• "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons." Fleet Admiral and Senior Joint Chiefs of Staff Member William D. Leahy
  
• "We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything." Fleet Admiral and Commandier in Chief of the Pacific Fleet Chester Nimitz
  
• "I voiced to him (Secretary of War Stimpson) my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary..." General Dwight D. Eisenhower
  

If these men aren't considered U.S. planners, I'd like to know who is, since Mr. Griangreco asserted that "U.S. planners... weren't nearly so bold" as to believe Japan was facing starvation.

Going into his part of the speech about the dreaded typhoon, Mr. Griangreco, as I'm sure any other historian would, has to speculate first that Japan would not have surrendered and secondly that events would have unfolded much as he depicts them, neglecting the entrance of the Soviet Union into the fray. With the arrival of the Soviet Union into the war I don't believe it's clear that Kyushu would have remained a staging point, or that Japan would have been able to last even to October 9 (the typhoon) facing both America and Soviet Russia.

The article you cite from The Atlantic, Bikerdad opens with the opinion of a young Japanese soldier. That is not, however, to say that's the way it would have been. No doubt the article must have its flaws though since it repeats those "laughable" estimates I quoted from sources earlier.

Beyond that, The Atlantic also doesn't consider the impact of the Soviet Union entering the war in August of 1945. And in its comparisons between the atomic bombs and the incendiary bombings that came before it lacks the information to accurately detail the lasting effects of radiation for those civilians who survived the bombing and those who came after them. While the fires of those incendiary bombs did claim many lives themselves, it is overlooked that the fire from the atomic bombs didn't die when the smoke cleared.

From the article:

I feel it's important to remember that Japan was actually trying to surrender, and likely would have done so at Potsdam had it not been for the intervention of Secretary of State Byrnes and his decision to remove Article 12. It's interesting (to me anyway) to note that on July 7 Byrnes was made aware that Japan was prepared to surrender so long as the United States would guarantee the continued reign of the Emperor, and then saw to it that the provision guaranteeing it was removed from the Potsdam Declaration.

Five days later in his secret diary, Secretary of Navy Forrestal writes: "The first real evidence of a Japanese desire to get out of the war came today through intercepted messages from Togo, Foreign Minister, to Sato, Jap Ambassador in Moscow, instructing the latter to see Molotov if possible before his departure for the Big Three meeting and if not then immediately afterward to lay before him the Emperor's strong desire to secure a a termination of the war."

In another diary, Secretary of War Stimson writes on July 17th that: "Byrnes was opposed to a prompt and early warning to Japan which I first suggested. He outlined a timetable on the subject [of] warning which apparently had been agreed to by the president, so I pressed it no further."

A week later on July 24 Walter Brown, Secretary of State Byrnes' special assistant, writes in his journal that Byrnes is: "hoping for time, believing after atomic bomb Japan will surrender and Russia will not get in so much on the kill, thereby being in a position to press claims against China."

Taken from Timeline

The greatest missed opportunity came when Secretary of State Byrnes, presumably for reasons related to Russia rather than the war in Japan, convinced President Truman to drop Article 12 of the Potsdam Declaration. Once Byrnes did this, he effectively guaranteed unnecessary loss of life by way of either the bombs or an invasion, when both could have been avoided.


Note: Your link didn't work for me, Hugo.

The way I see it, it's as simple as this: It was a world war. People were going to die, not just soldiers, but civilians. That was inevitable, completely and utterly so. When we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki we were doing it for real reasons, not just to be mean. So, it was therefore justified.

So it doesn't matter to you, Bean, that there were viable alternatives to ending the war and limiting the loss of military or civilian life?

Actually, Abs, it does, so I'd like to have you take that into consideration in the furture before jumping to such conclusions. The thing is, we don't really know how much longer the war would've gone on without us using those bombs. You can't deny the fact that those bombs were absolutely crucial to our victory in WW2. Without them, the war might've stretched on for years, causing even more people, both civilians and soldiers, to die. This might've been the best method. Was it? We'll never know for sure.

Abs, it seems like your opinion was that either:

1. The Soviets would invade Japan, thus alleviating OUR need to do so.
or
2. That we could starve them out via blockage.

The civilian casualties that would result from #1 would have been no less than had the US invaded. Sure, it would have been "Rooskies" dying instead of us, but the civialians would have still been killed. Remember 1/3 of the Okinawa civilian population was killed during the invasion of that island.

As for 2.) What makes you think that they would have surrendered BEFORE mass starvations occured? And who would have starved first: the military or the civilians? Again, you're talking about massive civilian casualties which cannot be measured.

Either way, the bombings (arguably) served to limit civilian casualties, and certainly limited our military casualties. As a side note (and an important one) it kept Russia from occupying Japan.

It was a question, Bean, not a conclusion. The fact of the matter is we knew before Potsdam that Japan was ready to surrender. We knew that the only request Japan had was that they be allowed to retain a constitutional monarchy under the dynasty. In spite of this, in the days before Potsdam, Secretary of State Byrnes convinced Truman to retract the one article of the offered surrender detailing that Japan would in fact be allowed to retain their constitutional monarchy under the dynasty. The war could have been over a week before the bombs were used and months before any invasion had been planned.

Take note of the above, Amlord. If my argument came across as you depict, I apologize for the confusion. What I was intending to get across was that Japan, already prepared to surrender, would have been pressured even more so by the entrance of the Soviet Union into the war. That they were already beaten and starving gave us that much more leverage in asking their surrender, which, again, they were already trying to offer.

Side note: A Soviet involvement in the war doesn't necessarily translate as a Soviet occupation of Japan in the event of victory.

I think the Soviet issue is what made the decision for Truman.

Truman wrote in his diary that Stalin was entering the war against Japan on August 15th. The issue needed to be resolved before then.

Remember the problems we had with the joint occupation of Berlin? Nightmares, really.

Please remember that this is Josef Stalin we are talking about. A guy who is arguably worse than Hitler.

Immediately after the first bomb is dropped, Stalin decides to enter the war. Why, when the end is so obviously near, would Stalin do that? Perhaps he wanted a piece of Japan, perhaps there was something else in the cards (more on my theory there later). The Soviets proceed to invade Manchuria, despite the obvious end of the war.

It STILL took until August 15th (after a second bomb) for Emperor Hirohito to surrender.

I think Truman realized that Japan would lose, but Stalin forced his hand to demand immediate surrender.

Back to my theory about Japanese-Russian collusion: As I was reading your explanation earlier, it occurred to me "Why would Japan seek to use Russia as an intermediary?" Then I read Hugo's quote:

It does not seem unlikely that the defeated Japanese would ally with the Russians, and their combined strength would rival that of the other Allies. It may be conspiracy theory-ish, but as you say, the writing was on the wall for Japan.

Remember that not 2 years later, Truman would start pursuing the Truman Doctrine to contain the Soviets.

Really? If that were true then we wouldn't have had the Berlin Wall....

I'm still trying to find more information regarding what Japan did in the time between bombs, and the time between the second bomb and their surrender.

I agree that the bombings were likely done more as a result of possible Soviet involvement than as a means of ending the war with Japan. What I find personally unacceptable is that before our hand was "forced" by Stalin's intervention, we could have had Japan's surrender without the removal of Article 12 at Potsdam in July. Invasion, bombing and Soviet involvement could have all been averted had it not been for the intervention of Secretary of State Byrnes.

From the information I have had available to review, it would appear to me that Byrnes was aware of the consequences of his actions. I think it almost impossible for Byrnes not to have known what the Japanese reaction to removing Article 12 would be. It seems to me he forced the hand of Japan at Potsdam, relished the interest of the Soviets and took deliberate steps to see the atomic bombs used to gain post-war leverage over the Soviet Union.

I find this objectionable and don't perceive this to justify the use of the bombs at all. Looking only at your depiction, Amlord, I could see a possible argument for at least the use of the first bomb. However, considering the actions of Byrnes which led to their use, I can't see either of them being justified, as it seems to me surrender could have been easily negotiated at Potsdam.

Edited to add: After some quick looking through available information, I'm curious what our problem with the Soviet Union at the time might have been to even warrant such actions taken on account of possible Soviet involvement? Amlord wrote:

The information I've been able to review thus far -- since I'm certainly no expert on the time period -- doesn't indicate any prior problems with the Soviet Union. From what I can tell we hadn't yet had any problems with the joint occupation of Berlin at the time of the bombings. And I've seen some references to Stalin as "Uncle Joe," prior to our problems with him, prior to problems in Berlin or the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Also, there was not yet a Berlin Wall to lead us to foresee any problems with a potential Soviet occupation at the time of the bombings, Billy Jean

First, the brass never increased the projected casualty numbers based on the Japanese strength increase. The projections remained at @220,000 US casualties. The projections for Operation Olympic alone, the invasion of Kyushu, were for 132,500 US casualties. This projection was made under the intelligence estimate that the Japanese would have 350,000 troops (6 divisions + lotsa other stuff) on Kyushu, with the likely addition of 4 more divisions after the invasion commenced. SIGINT put the Japanese strength in June 1945 as equal to the expected for the invasion in November. There is, however, no evidence that this information was made available to the President. All evidence points to Truman (and the "Interim Committee") making the decision based on the earlier estimates. As a result, your cynical charge that the "brass" inflated the numbers in order to get Truman to drop the Bomb is unfounded.

Second, the "real strength" of Japanese forces on Kyushu when the bombs were dropped? MIS estimates were 11 divisions (534,000 troops), with another 2 divisions (40,000) suspected yet not confirmed. Post war Japanese records confirmed that there were 14 Japanese Army division on Kyushu on 2 Aug, 1945, with a total of 900,000 troops assigned to the defense of Kyushu (almost 3 times the estimate that Truman based his decision on!)

The commanders were wrong. In the June 18th meeting that decided on proceeding with Operation Olympic, Marshall repeatedly emphasized the assesment of the Joint Planners that air and naval power had already reduced movement of Japanese shipping south of Korea and should, in the ensuing few months, "cut it to a trickle if not choke it off entirely", an assessment Marshall claims was shared by Nimitz and MacArthur. Was the optimistic assessment in error? Yes, because by the end of the following next month the Japanese had managed to get 8 more divisions onto Kyushu than anticipated.... clearly, things weren't quite as "choked" as had been hoped.

Regarding your planners who object to the use of the Bomb, Stimson and Marshall were both on the committee that recommended its use. Eisenhower was in command in Europe, not the Pacific, so his perspective is less than useful.

Clearly the same planners that you just applauded had no doubt whatsoever on the subject, since they were planning Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet, both of which they fully expected to take place after October. The Soviet entry is problematic, because the Soviets actually had very limited ability to strike the Japanese main islands. They did not have an invasion fleet, so how exactly was the Red Army supposed to roll over Japan? They didn't have a strategic bomber fleet capable of hitting anything of significance in Japan, so how were they going to play a part in forcing the surrender?

Well, strictly speaking, both the Joint War Plans committee and MacArthur's staff had estimates of over 105,000 for the first 90 days, based on the June estimates of projected Japanese strength on November 1(estimates that I've already demonstrated were barely half of the ACTUAL strength the Japanese had reached by August...).

Of course it has its flaws. MY point in introducing the article wasn't to demonstrate the accuracy of American casualty calculations, but rather to demonstrate the inaccuracy of the contention that the Japanese were falling all over themselves to surrender. BTW, what basis do you have in saying that the Japanese Army officer being quoted is a "young Japanese soldier" (with the implication that he doesn't know what he's talking about.....) Why a "group of scientists and engineers" would be interrogating a clueless butterbar is beyond me, but if such an unconscious characterization suits your agenda, I'm more than happy to demolish it.

You're right, it doesn't. So? The impact is very hard to judge, because anybody who wants to claim that the entry of the Soviets on August 8th led to the Japanese surrender has to contend with Hiroshima (August 6) and then Nagasaki (August 9). Which was it? Was it the deadly cocktail? Was it purely the Soviet entry? Was Nagasaki the tipping point? We don't know, but we do know by May the Japanese were bringing forces home from Manchuria and Korea for the defense of the Home Islands, so its hard to imagine that the loss of Asia was a big priority by that time. They'd written them off...

True. It also doesn't account for the 100,000 Chinese casualties a month that were dying at the hands of the Japanese, folks who would have continued dying without the use of the Bomb. Nor does it account for the millions who would likely have died under Soviet occupation of all or part of Japan, as well as the additional millions of South Koreans. What reason is there to think that the Soviets would have inflicted that scale of casualties?

The Soviet Union entered the war against Japan on August 8th. The Japanese toll? For 4 weeks of "combat", somewhere between 340,000 and 376,000 Japanese died or disappeared forever in Soviet captivity. The death toll inflicted by Hitler and Tojo pales against that of Mao, who arose under Soviet influence AFTER WW2.

"Remember" all you want, because even after the Bombs, after the Soviet entry, after the guarantee of the Emperor the tie vote for surrender still required the Emperor's intervention to break. The Japanese knew they were going to surrender, probably as early as January 1945. They were fighting so they could surrender on their terms. That was the sticking point. The Japanese military, which still controlled the government, couldn't abide by these three elements of the Potsdam Declaration: Occupation by the victors, disarmament and demilitarization by the victors, and war crime trials, by the victors, i.e., the same situation the Germans faced. What was the political likelihood of giving the Japanese far more favorable terms than the Germans had recieved? zilch, 'cause in July '45, there's no way that would have flown at home.

The more I look at it, the more your argument that using the Bomb was the wrong thing to do appears to proceed from the conclusion that the action was immoral, and then works backward trying to build support.

It just doesn't work. You can't justify your position on the basis of civilian casualties, since just another month of full scale conflict would have led to another 100,000 civilian casualties in China, potentially 400,000 civilian casualties in Hokkaido under the planned Soviet invasion (I'm skeptical of that plan though....), and most devastatingly, the destruction of the Japanese rail network, which would have resulted in massive famine that would have continued for months after the end of war, killing millions. As it was, thousands died from famine in the first year after the war with an intact rail network and with limited US food aid.

There's no way you can justify it on the basis of military casualties, since the above scenarios would certainly have involved higher US casualties than the Bomb did, and, given the Japanese propensity for fighting to the bitter end, even higher Japanese military casualties than the 43,000 who died at Hiroshima. (hmmmm, 43,000 military casualties and it wasn't a military target? Guess they must have all been on leave at the time, just visiting...)

You're left with "Dropping the Bomb was wrong because, well, dropping the Bomb was wrong."

Regarding the concerns about the Soviets as a justification, whether to intimidate them with the Bomb or to end the war before they could get a serious foothold in Japan, here's something I've turned up:

"Unless the mere entry by the USSR somehow caused an immediate surrender on the unconditional terms being demanded by Washington, the Potsdam experience was likely to reinforce the tendency among at least some US officials to see any gain resulting from Soviet entry as also carrying a serious potential cost -- the possible emergence of a Far Eastern version of the Soviet hegemony that was beginning to be imposed on Eastern Europe."

Apparently, the "Potsdam experience" as less than pleasant.

Let's, for a moment, take a stroll down AlterReality lane. Let's assume that the Bomb was developed, but it was not used to end WW2. Let's assume, as well, the best case scenario, that the Japanese capitulated to US demands on August 9th with the entry of the Soviets into the war.

We had the Bomb. The Soviets, having already stolen the B-29, was hard at work moving to match American military technology. Sooner or later, they would have learned about the Bomb (probably sooner, given the Rosenbergs and Co), and developed their own. Perhaps it would have taken them a few more years, but in all probability, they would have had the Bomb.

When would the first Bomb have been used? What powerful psycho-social impact did the use of the Bomb to end a war would be lost? Would the first use of the Bomb have been at the beginning of a war, only to be followed by many more in a flurry of mushrooms without any benefit of the doctrines that have grown up to limit the use of nuclear weapons?

The course to the Atomic Age was set irrevocably in 1939, if not earlier, and in the overall scope, I'm thankful that their fury and terrible power was revealed at the end of a war, rather than hidden until a later day. Imagine the Cuban Missile Crisis, without MAD, or the Red Army rolling across Europe in 1948 only to be obliterated in a hail of nuclear weapons.

It is a comforting fantasy to believe that the world would be a much better place if Hiroshima and Nagasaki hadn't been nuked. I fear, however, that it is an implausible fantasy, because there is an immutable fact of human nature. We have yet to invent a type of weapon that has never been used, at least once. (I'm using "type" in a broad sense). Hopefully, we've made the bar for nukes and they won't ever be used again.

Q: Was Truman Justified?

A: First ask the Chinese (funny how we save their *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. *** and now we are at opposite ends, reminds me of France). Second, ask those that were serving for our country at that time that were serving during the European campaign and were moved over to the Pacific campaign. Then ask yourself...

I've reached an impasse with the projected number of casualties assuming an invasion rather than the bomb. While the 1 million mark still appears to be a gross exaggeration, the estimates in the hundreds of thousands appear to be as common as those of only the tens of thousands. From what I've found it, and from what others have provided here, it seems different commanders and analysts of the time had different projections. Whether we would have lost 46,000 or 220,000 though, we would have definately lost many more American lives through any invasion as opposed to the bombing. This much I can definately agree to: faced with the option of invasion and a bombing, I feel that the first bomb could have been justified.

I don't feel that Soviet and Chinese actions after the fact can be used in an argument of whether the bomb was justified at the time. Without any knowledge of what either Soviet Russia or Communist China would do following the war, their post-conflict actions would have no impact on the decision to use the bomb.

As to "AlterReality Lane," I see a significatly much better case scenario than what you describe, Bikerdad. I see that it was very possible Japan would have agreed at Potsdam and surrendered had it not been for the intervention of Secretary of State Byrnes. Prior to that it was understood by Secretary of War McCloy and then Secretary of State Grew that Japan was prepared to surrender regardless of terms, so long as those terms weren't referred to as unconditional, and as long as they were allowed to retain a constitutional monarchy under the dynasty.

It appears to me that Byrnes was prepared from the start to avoid the possibility of a Japanese surrender, see to it the bombs be used and gain a leg up on the Soviet Union, who according to my research so far didn't have any issues with us at the time. Outside the death of FDR, I think the appointment of James Byrnes to Secretary of State was the single greatest force fueling the use of the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Whatever the estimates for loss of life in the event of an invasion seem irrelevant when considering the possibility of a July 28th surrender. The 300,000 or so dead Japanese killed by the bombings, however, are very relevant as they are not merely a projection but a reality. Unnecessary loss of life could have been avoided for both sides, and from what I have gathered it was deliberately avoided for what amounts to a flexing of muscles on our part.

Because I think there was a viable chance to peacefully resolve the conflict deliberately sabotaged, I do not think either bombing was justified. Even were it merely a case of them or us, and I could see justifying the Hiroshima bombing, I still see nothing to justify the second bombing over Nagasaki.


Side note: Chucky, what would your answers be after asking yourself those questions? It would be helpful if you would actually give us some insight into your opinions as we have already been given the question to ask ourselves and debate for this particular topic.

In hindsight, the use of the bombs on military targets in Japan probably saved countless thousands of lives.

Someone, somewhere would have been itching to try out their new technology. If the Bomb was not used to end WW II, then it almost certainly would have been used to start World War III.

Very good point, BD.