0th anniversary of VJ Day: Thank the atomic bomb for saving millions of lives

[Mushroom]

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule1?country=us

"In the 1930s, both the United States and Britain refrained from targeting civilians in wartime bombings regarding such actions as savage and ruthless. ....” President Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the issue as well calling civilian bombing “inhuman barbarism.”

And the general term used in cases like that is "reciprocity". Both sides in all theaters promised to not target civilian centers, as well as not use chemical weapons, and all other things in the Geneva and Hague Conventions.

However, that broke down, almost always by the Axis powers. Germany started targeting civilian centers in England, specifically their massive bombing raids on London. And once they started doing that, the Allies started responding in kind.

Japan never refrained from bombing civilians. Starting in China even before they pulled the US into the war. This was spectacularly ignored when General MacArthur declared Manila an "open city", and that there would be no defensive action taken as the Japanese moved into it. However, Japan ignored that and not only bombed it mercilessly, they also assaulted the city and swept it clean, just as they had done previously in China. Total deaths (including the execution of POWs, and over 60,000 civilians needlessly killed) resulted in Commanding General for the attack and occupation General Tomoyuki Yamashita being tried and convicted of war crimes, and executed for them.

It is rather stupid for people to cry over the deaths of "innocent civilians" in Japan, when they themselves killed millions in exactly the same way. Purposefully bombing civilian areas that really did have no military presence or activities at all. Or bombing and assaulting civilian cities even after they had been declared "open" and they could walk in with no resistance.

So yes, when one side does that, the other tends to do the same thing. However, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both major military centers.

 

[Unkotare]

"Symington distinguished between targeting industry which unavoidably killed civilians, and targeting civilians generally and directly. When confronted starkly with the idea of accepting the targeting of civilians as a legitimate method of war, the Air Force and almost every participate in the 1949 hearings avoided such a course."

 

[M14 Shooter]

 

[mikegriffith1]

Military planners estimated that the coming invasion of Japan in 1945-1946 would cost a quarter million Allied lives, plus several million Japanese military and civilian lives.

Instead, the atomic bomb destroyed almost no Allied lives and less than half a million Japanese lives from all causes. Horrific, but far less than the invasion would have taken.

Japanese officials were offering only a stand-down that would leave the pro-war Japanese government intact and in charge - a situation the U.S. rejected for obvious reasons.

BTW, though the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only two we had on hand at that moment, the U.S. was in gear to produce half a dozen more within a few months, and more later as needed. These would have been used on Japan during the invasion if Japan didn't surrender. Fortunately for all involved, the Japanese realized that the U.S. could completely destroy Japan as a country with virtually no U.S. casualties, with the remains divided between America and Russia (who was also invading), and so saw the wisdom of surrendering.

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70th anniversary of V-J Day Kiss a nuke Hot Air

70th anniversary of V-J Day: Kiss a nuke

by Allan Bourdius
posted at 6:01 pm on August 14, 2015

Seventy years ago today on August 14, 1945, the Japanese Empire announced their surrender to the Allies and the end of World War II. The day (August 15th in Japan) is generally known as “Victory over Japan Day” or “V-J Day”. The official Japanese surrender was signed 19 days later on September 2, 1945, on board the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) in Tokyo Bay.

During the afternoon of this day seventy years ago, joyous Americans took to the streets to celebrate the end of the war. In New York City’s Times Square, a United States Navy sailor grabbed a woman, a “nurse” (she was actually a dental assistant) he didn’t know, and kissed her right in the middle of the street, the moment captured by two different photographers. It is the iconic image of V-J Day and the end of World War II.

Instead of a nurse, it would have been more fitting if he could have kissed a nuclear weapon. The life he later lived was undoubtedly made possible because of them.

Japan’s surrender was expedited by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). Had Japan not announced their surrender, the United States would have had the next nuclear strike ready for August 19th, and another in September.

Then, still absent Japan’s surrender, Operation Downfall would begin; the invasion of the Japanese home islands in two parts.

November 1, 1945, “X-Day”, was the scheduled date for Operation Olympic, a landing by 14 American Army and Marine divisions in the initial attack on the island of Kyūshū.

Operation Coronet would follow on “Y-Day”, March 1, 1946 – landings directly into the Tokyo plain on the island of Honshū. Twenty-five divisions. Many more would be ready to reinforce them. Many of the Coronet soldiers would have been those retrained and redeployed after defeating Nazi Germany. Victory in Europe wouldn’t have spared them from more fighting to defeat Japan.

All in all, well over two million American servicemen would have taken part in the invasion of Japan. The United States also had plans for the tactical use of nuclear weapons during the attack, anticipating having an additional seven ready bombs on X-Day.

They would have faced a Japanese enemy who correctly predicted where the landings would take place. They would have faced a Japanese enemy who had changed the training for Kamikaze pilots so they would focus on attacking troop transports and landing ships rather than warships.

Estimates of casualties were wide ranging; the Joint Chiefs of Staff predicted in April 1945 that Olympic alone would cost 456,000 casualties, 109,000 of which would be killed or missing in action.

The same study said the entire campaign – Olympic and Coronet – would result in 1,200,000 total casualties, 267,000 killed or missing.

This American militarist propaganda is just about as bad as the propaganda that the Japanese militarists put out during the war.

I have personally documented for you that we now know from Japanese archival materials and other primary sources that, weeks before Hiroshima, most of Japan's leaders were ready to surrender on the sole condition that the emperor not be deposed. Hiroshima was unnecessary, and many senior figures in our government knew it. All we had to do was give Japan private assurance that the emperor would not be deposed, but Truman refused to do this, and his refusal enabled the militarists to prevent an earlier surrender.

There is nothing patriotic about lying about the unnecessary slaughter of hundreds of thousands of women and children. I notice you guys never mention that General Eisenhower and General MacArthur both said that we did *not* need to nuke Japan to end the war.

 

[M14 Shooter]

I have personally documented for you that we now know from Japanese archival materials and other primary sources that, weeks before Hiroshima, most of Japan's leaders were ready to surrender on the sole condition that the emperor not be deposed. Hiroshima was unnecessary, and many senior figures in our government knew it.

If, on August 6th and August 9th, we had not nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but instead burned them to the ground with incendiaries - like we did every other major city in Japan - no one would care to the point that almost no one outside Japan would know those cities existed.

Why then does it matter that we used 3 planes and one bomb rather than 100 planes and 4,000 bombs?


Just FYI: One of my favorite footnoes in history:
20 July 1945: 1 B-29 drops a Pumpkin bomb (bomb with same ballistics as the Fat Man nuclear bomb) through overcast. It was aimed at, but missed, the Imperial Palace

 

[RetiredGySgt]

This American militarist propaganda is just about as bad as the propaganda that the Japanese militarists put out during the war.

I have personally documented for you that we now know from Japanese archival materials and other primary sources that, weeks before Hiroshima, most of Japan's leaders were ready to surrender on the sole condition that the emperor not be deposed. Hiroshima was unnecessary, and many senior figures in our government knew it. All we had to do was give Japan private assurance that the emperor would not be deposed, but Truman refused to do this, and his refusal enabled the militarists to prevent an earlier surrender.

There is nothing patriotic about lying about the unnecessary slaughter of hundreds of thousands of women and children. I notice you guys never mention that General Eisenhower and General MacArthur both said that we did *not* need to nuke Japan to end the war.

Only when they became politicians did they say such things and there is no actual record of them opposing the bombing of Japan with conventional bombers that caused much more death and destruction over a longer period, as to Japan they never wanted to surrender what they wanted was a ceasefire and were willing to return to 41 start lines except in China.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Only when they became politicians did they say such things and there is no actual record of them opposing the bombing of Japan with conventional bombers that caused much more death and destruction over a longer period, as to Japan they never wanted to surrender what they wanted was a ceasefire and were willing to return to 41 start lines except in China.

you can disagree all you want poop boy but the actual records of what was offered and talked about and public words of the general are all public knowledge

 

[Unkotare]

"more active efforts to avoid civilian casualties in recent American wars such as the expanded role of operational law and military lawyers in targeting may be more a result of the rise of counterinsurgency thinking than evidence of a growing belief among Americans that killing civilians is wrong. "

 

[Mushroom]

I have personally documented for you that we now know from Japanese archival materials and other primary sources that, weeks before Hiroshima, most of Japan's leaders were ready to surrender on the sole condition that the emperor not be deposed.

Then why was that not the position that Ambassador Naotake Sato was presenting to the Soviet Union in the final days of the war?

The fact is, that is the only attempt by Japan to end the war, and their own ambassador knew it was a failure.

The sole Japanese diplomatic effort sanctioned by the key Japanese leadership was to secure the Soviet Union as a mediator to negotiate an end to the war. That effort ran through Sato. Decoded Japanese cables made American leaders fully aware that none of the Japanese diplomatic or military representatives in Europe who presented themselves as seeking peace on behalf of Japan carried actual sanction.

Japan’s one authorized diplomatic initiative required two things: 1) concessions that would enlist the Soviets as mediators; and 2) Japanese terms to end the war. Sato relentlessly exposed the fact that Japan never completed either of these two fundamental steps.

When Togo presented a pledge not to retain Japan’s conquests as “concessions” to secure Soviet mediation, Sato’s scathing reply was “How much effect do you expect our statements regarding the non-annexation and non-possession of territories which we have already lost or are about to lose will have on the Soviet authorities?” He added that mere “abstract statements” on concessions, which he slammed as
“pretty little phrases devoid of all connection with reality,” would have no impact on “extremely realistic” Soviet authorities.
And he then inserted the knife thrust: “If the Japanese empire is really faced with the necessity of terminating the war, we must first of all make up our minds to terminate the war.” Sato thus charged that Japan’s leaders still lacked a real intent to end the war.

"Pretty Little Phrases": Japanese Diplomacy in 1945 | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

Misguided Japanese diplomacy in 1945 helped to ensure that the war would not have a peaceful end.

www.nationalww2museum.org

Notice the part I bolded, that it would conclude with Japanese Terms. In other words, they would only end the war on terms they themselves set, and nothing else. That is not a surrender, that is absolutely nothing like a surrender.

But please, feel free to go through all of the telegrams between Sato and Togo. Find in them for us anywhere where Togo authorized a surrender.

Nuclear Files: Library: Correspondence: Telegrams: Togo-Sato

Japanese Peace feelers in the Soviet Union

www.nuclearfiles.org

But I can promise, you will not find it. Because he never gave that instruction to his Ambassador.

Do not confuse an attempt to end the war with surrender. Japan wanted an armistice, resetting everything to how it was before December 1941.

 

[Unkotare]

"Many Americans contemplating these results today will be shaken by the willingness of their fellow citizens to support the intentional killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians. "

 

[Unkotare]

"In World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, the United States inflicted hundreds of thousands (or more) civilian casualties on its adversaries. A large proportion of these deaths resulted from the intentional targeting of civilian populations."

 

[AZrailwhale]

"In World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, the United States inflicted hundreds of thousands (or more) civilian casualties on its adversaries. A large proportion of these deaths resulted from the intentional targeting of civilian populations."

In WWII Germany, Italy and Japan targeted and deliberately killed MILLIONS of civilians. The PRVN killed hundreds of thousands of it OWN citizens as well as those of the RVN, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand during Vietnam. The DPRK killed at least tens of thousands of ROK civilians during the Korean War.

 

[Unkotare]

In WWII Germany, Italy and Japan targeted and deliberately killed MILLIONS of civilians. The PRVN killed hundreds of thousands of it OWN citizens as well as those of the RVN, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand during Vietnam. The DPRK killed at least tens of thousands of ROK civilians during the Korean War.

So, you think it should be US policy to target and kill civilians as an act of revenge on behalf of other nations?

 

[M14 Shooter]

So, you think it should be US policy to target and kill civilians as an act of revenge on behalf of other nations?

The US has not targeted civilians.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

So, you think it should be US policy to target and kill civilians as an act of revenge on behalf of other nations?

we bomb military targets including manufacturing sites we don't control where the enemy puts them

 

[Unkotare]

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7591/9780801454578-005/pdf

 

[Unkotare]

"The most commonly articulated argument for the decline in the intentional targeting of civilian populations by the United States since 1945 focuses on the increasing internalization by Americans of the international norm of noncombatant immunity. Although the principle that civilians deserve at least some protection from the horrors of combat is one of the oldest rules of warfare, many scholars assert that the norm began to spread faster and generate a much higher degree of compliance after World War II and the entry into force of the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949.11 Airpower expert Ward Thomas, for example, contends that “the bombing norm has slowly recovered from the catastrophe of World War II."

 

[AZrailwhale]

So, you think it should be US policy to target and kill civilians as an act of revenge on behalf of other nations?

Collateral damage is inevitable in war. But the only real way to enforce the Laws of War is reciprocity. So when your enemies violate the rules you have to balance the scales. We stopped doing that after WWII and that’s why we keep losing wars and our enemies neither respect or fear us. War by its nature is violent and inhuman.

 

[Unkotare]

"Deterrence cannot explain America's more humane conduct in recent wars. The United States has maintained this policy of comparative restraint despite the fact that none of the adversaries the United States has engaged with militarily since World War II has possessed the capacity to retaliate in kind."

 

[AZrailwhale]

"Deterrence cannot explain America's more humane conduct in recent wars. The United States has maintained this policy of comparative restraint despite the fact that none of the adversaries the United States has engaged with militarily since World War II has possessed the capacity to retaliate in kind."

All of the people we have fought since the end of WWII have violated the Laws of War on a routine basis and as an official policy.