Did we really have to nuke Japan?

[Mojo2]

I don't buy it.

They no longer had a navy or air force to project their armies.

A simple food and trade embargo would have sufficed (enforced by our unchallenged navy).

There was no reason to even attack the Japanese mainland.

I think it was a bunch of sick and demented fucks that wanted to demonstrate the power of their new toy to the communist USSR.

Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):

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.

The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

This country is being run by murderous sociopaths.

If the Japs had been defeated why did the fighting continue even past the 15th of August 1945?

backmarkerS_E 7 points 1 year ago

Fighting continued right up to the announcement of the surrender on 15th August 1945, though the United States had frozen its combat actions on 14th August 1945. As a result, it is near impossible to tell who fired the last shot before the surrender, though my educated guess would be a Chinese, Japanese or Soviet soldier.

Fighting, however, continued beyond the surrender. The Imperial Japanese Army did not communicate the cease-fire order to the Kwantung Army in Manchuria until the 20th August 1945, meaning that fighting between Soviet-Mongolian and the Kwantung Army continued until that date. Japanese soldiers in China had not completed their surrender until 9th September 1945, and there were isolated incidents of fighting up until that point.

Japanese garrisons on the Kuril Islands did not surrender until 23rd August 1945. The Battle of Shumshu was the final battle in the campaign, and saw 1,534 soldiers killed.

Because Japanese soldiers were conducting jungle warfare on isolated islands in the Pacific, a number of soldiers kept fighting after the surrender, either as they did not find out about the surrender, or they suspected reports of the surrender might have been enemy propaganda.

The last confirmed holdout was Teruo Nakamura, who was found on Morotai in Indonesia in December 1974, but it seems that he didn't fire his rifle for much of his time on the island as he feared that he would attract attention by doing so, so I don't think he would have fired the last shots.

Before him, Hiroo Onoda was found on the Lubang Island in the Philippines. Despite having seen a leaflet in October 1945 that declared the war was over, he and his fellow soldiers thought it was probably enemy propaganda, so continued fighting. Onoda is a good bet for having fired the last shots, as he and his fellow soldiers (who all died before his discovery) believed they were conducting a guerilla war, and killed 30 Filipinos, and was involved in a shoot-out with the police as recently as 19th October 1972. When discovered he only agreed to surrender if he was given a command to do so by his commanding officer. The Japanese government tracked down his commanding officer, who was by then a book-seller, who flew to Lubang and ordered Onoda to surrender.

Source: Japanese Army Stragglers

It's possible that there were further holdouts, but unlikely. There were two Japanese soldiers who joined communist guerillas in Thailand and were fighting until 1991, but I would exclude this as being part of the Second World War.​

backmarkerS E comments on When was the last shot of World War 2 fired

 

[Theowl32]

The simple fact is that the Japanese saw the writing on the wall, knew that the Soviet Union would soon enter the Pacific to aid the U.S., and began reaching out to the Soviets to surrender and end the conflict. The idea that the nuclear bombs saved American soldiers' lives is grossly misstated, and completely ignores the fact that an invasion of Japan was completely unnecessary as they were already attempting to end the conflict. The U.S. government refused their conditions, nuked them, and then accepted their conditions after they had vaporized innocent Japanese civilians for no reason.

***Liberal propaganda alert!!!****

Typical American hating bullshit perspective right here.

Wasn't it the liberal Truman who nuked the Japanese, whereas conservatives opposed it?

"I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria." - Herbert Hoover

"The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul." - Herbert Hoover

Days later, David Lawrence, the conservative owner and editor of U.S. News (now U.S. News & World Report), argued that Japan's surrender had been inevitable without the atomic bomb. He added that justifications of "military necessity" will "never erase from our minds the simple truth that we, of all civilized nations . . . did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children."

Just weeks after Japan's surrender, an article published in the conservative magazine Human Events contended that America's atomic destruction of Hiroshima might be morally "more shameful" and "more degrading" than Japan's "indefensible and infamous act of aggression" at Pearl Harbor.

Such scathing criticism on the part of leading American conservatives continued well after 1945. A 1947 editorial in the Chicago Tribune, at the time a leading conservative voice, claimed that President Truman and his advisers were guilty of "crimes against humanity" for "the utterly unnecessary killing of uncounted Japanese."

History News Network Why It s Time for Us to Confront Hiroshima

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Perhaps you're the liberal propagandist with no knowledge of conservatism at all.

Go ahead and explain to us why the USSR declared war on Japan on August 8th and then we dropped the second bomb the very next day.

Go ahead.

You are a fucking fool. The proof is the timeline and the fact that the USSR became our enemy immediately following WWii.

The bombs essentially had little to with Japan and basically everything to do with Stalin.

Fucking American hating fool of the academic commie elite left. Who lives to blame America for everything.

You are nothing but a propagandist of the left wing commie pieces of shit.

Fuck you.

Boring. Was Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied forces during WWII, an "American hating fool of the adademic commie elite left?" Or are you just too ignorant to actually understand the history of your own ideology, let alone that of others?

Do you even know when the cold war started?

Hint: It was in February of 1945. (the Yalta conference) There, I just gave you the answer.

I love it. You think Stalin was all interested in "helping the US" in August of 1945. Of course he was. Of course.

Fucking hippy.

Keep on thinking that Truman just made the decision to kill Japanese women and children, simply for no reason. Of course.

Keep on telling that to your fellow American hating morons.

You, do not know shit about history. It is real easy for you to join that bandwagon of know it all idiots

Communism failed. The USSR was an absolute epic failure. Karl Marx, failed.

 

[whitehall]

Japan was a defeated country. It's once powerful navy was left with a couple of submarines and little or no surface ships. It's army was defeated on every front. The clinically insane remnants of the Bushido empire were desperate to negotiate terms with the US but Harry Truman was following orders from his deceased former boss and the clinically insane holdouts in the FDR administration and he refused to negotiate so the Japanese went to Stalin who promised them everything. The biggest issue in the Japanese negotiations was the preservation of the Emperor and the promise that he would not be executed. Ironically that promise was kept after Truman authorized the incineration of two Japanese cities. While the Japanese thought they were negotiating peace terms with Russia (who was a US ally) they were jolted into reality with entire cities destroyed with a single bomb. The use of the Atomic bomb was a hideous example of how degenerate human beings had become in a mere four years.

So....after 150 years of atrocities against its neighbors and attacking Pearl Harbor, Japan is the victim?

Revenge is a very, very bad military tactic. Killing civilians to convince a crazy band of military holdouts to surrender is itself evidence of the loss of humanity in the U.S.. The use of nuclear weapons on civilians was the final indication that the FDR/Truman administration had gone insane and the media at the time was just a propaganda arm of the military.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Pure garbage.^
We won a war that we didn't ask for. Then went and helped rebuild the enemy's country for them. Pretty humane considering all of the Americans that died because of Japan's greed and aggression. Tell all of those patriots who buried their children because Japan lost it's mind, that we shouldn't have ended the war as soon as possible.
Don't want your ass kicked? Don't declare war on America. We do care about our women, children, and elderly, and will do what ever it takes to protect them.

 

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

Japan was a defeated country. It's once powerful navy was left with a couple of submarines and little or no surface ships. It's army was defeated on every front. The clinically insane remnants of the Bushido empire were desperate to negotiate terms with the US but Harry Truman was following orders from his deceased former boss and the clinically insane holdouts in the FDR administration and he refused to negotiate so the Japanese went to Stalin who promised them everything. The biggest issue in the Japanese negotiations was the preservation of the Emperor and the promise that he would not be executed. Ironically that promise was kept after Truman authorized the incineration of two Japanese cities. While the Japanese thought they were negotiating peace terms with Russia (who was a US ally) they were jolted into reality with entire cities destroyed with a single bomb. The use of the Atomic bomb was a hideous example of how degenerate human beings had become in a mere four years.

So....after 150 years of atrocities against its neighbors and attacking Pearl Harbor, Japan is the victim?

Revenge is a very, very bad military tactic. Killing civilians to convince a crazy band of military holdouts to surrender is itself evidence of the loss of humanity in the U.S.. The use of nuclear weapons on civilians was the final indication that the FDR/Truman administration had gone insane and the media at the time was just a propaganda arm of the military.

Then I guess the entire country was insane because Truman's decision met with almost universal approval.

Or we can go with a far more likely scenario. You are.

 

[Theowl32]

Japan was a defeated country. It's once powerful navy was left with a couple of submarines and little or no surface ships. It's army was defeated on every front. The clinically insane remnants of the Bushido empire were desperate to negotiate terms with the US but Harry Truman was following orders from his deceased former boss and the clinically insane holdouts in the FDR administration and he refused to negotiate so the Japanese went to Stalin who promised them everything. The biggest issue in the Japanese negotiations was the preservation of the Emperor and the promise that he would not be executed. Ironically that promise was kept after Truman authorized the incineration of two Japanese cities. While the Japanese thought they were negotiating peace terms with Russia (who was a US ally) they were jolted into reality with entire cities destroyed with a single bomb. The use of the Atomic bomb was a hideous example of how degenerate human beings had become in a mere four years.

So....after 150 years of atrocities against its neighbors and attacking Pearl Harbor, Japan is the victim?

Revenge is a very, very bad military tactic. Killing civilians to convince a crazy band of military holdouts to surrender is itself evidence of the loss of humanity in the U.S.. The use of nuclear weapons on civilians was the final indication that the FDR/Truman administration had gone insane and the media at the time was just a propaganda arm of the military.

Another brainwashed fool of communist propaganda. They are so stupid that they actually believe they dropped the bombs for the hell of it.

Yes, they are that fucking stupid.

America is to blame for everything to these fucking pawns of the socialist left.

 

[regent]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

The simple fact is that the Japanese saw the writing on the wall, knew that the Soviet Union would soon enter the Pacific to aid the U.S., and began reaching out to the Soviets to surrender and end the conflict. The idea that the nuclear bombs saved American soldiers' lives is grossly misstated, and completely ignores the fact that an invasion of Japan was completely unnecessary as they were already attempting to end the conflict. The U.S. government refused their conditions, nuked them, and then accepted their conditions after they had vaporized innocent Japanese civilians for no reason.

***Liberal propaganda alert!!!****

Typical American hating bullshit perspective right here.

Wasn't it the liberal Truman who nuked the Japanese, whereas conservatives opposed it?

"I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria." - Herbert Hoover

"The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul." - Herbert Hoover

Days later, David Lawrence, the conservative owner and editor of U.S. News (now U.S. News & World Report), argued that Japan's surrender had been inevitable without the atomic bomb. He added that justifications of "military necessity" will "never erase from our minds the simple truth that we, of all civilized nations . . . did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children."

Just weeks after Japan's surrender, an article published in the conservative magazine Human Events contended that America's atomic destruction of Hiroshima might be morally "more shameful" and "more degrading" than Japan's "indefensible and infamous act of aggression" at Pearl Harbor.

Such scathing criticism on the part of leading American conservatives continued well after 1945. A 1947 editorial in the Chicago Tribune, at the time a leading conservative voice, claimed that President Truman and his advisers were guilty of "crimes against humanity" for "the utterly unnecessary killing of uncounted Japanese."

History News Network Why It s Time for Us to Confront Hiroshima

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Perhaps you're the liberal propagandist with no knowledge of conservatism at all.

Go ahead and explain to us why the USSR declared war on Japan on August 8th and then we dropped the second bomb the very next day.

Go ahead.

You are a fucking fool. The proof is the timeline and the fact that the USSR became our enemy immediately following WWii.

The bombs essentially had little to with Japan and basically everything to do with Stalin.

Fucking American hating fool of the academic commie elite left. Who lives to blame America for everything.

You are nothing but a propagandist of the left wing commie pieces of shit.

Fuck you.

Boring. Was Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied forces during WWII, an "American hating fool of the adademic commie elite left?" Or are you just too ignorant to actually understand the history of your own ideology, let alone that of others?

Do you even know when the cold war started?

Hint: It was in February of 1945. (the Yalta conference) There, I just gave you the answer.

I love it. You think Stalin was all interested in "helping the US" in August of 1945. Of course he was. Of course.

Fucking hippy.

Keep on thinking that Truman just made the decision to kill Japanese women and children, simply for no reason. Of course.

Keep on telling that to your fellow American hating morons.

You, do not know shit about history. It is real easy for you to join that bandwagon of know it all idiots

Communism failed. The USSR was an absolute epic failure. Karl Marx, failed.

Was Eisenhower a hippy?

Yes, communism was an abject failure. Big surprise. Completely irrelevant.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Pure garbage.^
We won a war that we didn't ask for. Then went and helped rebuild the enemy's country for them. Pretty humane considering all of the Americans that died because of Japan's greed and aggression. Tell all of those patriots who buried their children because Japan lost it's mind, that we shouldn't have ended the war as soon as possible.
Don't want your ass kicked? Don't declare war on America. We do care about our women, children, and elderly, and will do what ever it takes to protect them.

"We" didn't ask for it, but FDR was bound and determined to get the U.S. involved, and so provoked the Axis powers at every opportunity.

 

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

 

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

Oh, is that what they were doing while we were dropping leaflets on them and begging them to avert disaster?

 

[The Irish Ram]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

Huh. If that was really the case, they would have waved the white flag as soon as the first bomb was dropped.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

Oh, is that what they were doing while we were dropping leaflets on them and begging them to avert disaster?

Yes, they were reaching out to the Soviet Union to surrender because they knew when the Soviets entered the Pacific theater they were done for. The U.S. had intercepted communications from the Japanese making this fact clear. It's the reason that Eisenhower said that nuking them was unnecessary and evil.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

Huh. If that was really the case, they would have waved the white flag as soon as the first bomb was dropped.

Actually, it doesn't mean that at all. For starters, three days isn't exactly a long period of time to get a government's affairs in order, especially when there were so many competing interests after power in Imperial Japan at the time. Not to mention that the reason the U.S. wasn't interested in this surrender was that the Japanese were only willing to go through with it on the condition that the Emperor would remain in power. The U.S. wanted an unconditional surrender, which they got after the second bomb and then proceeded to accept that condition anyway. In other words, they vaporized those innocent civilians for no reason other than to demonstrate that they could.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

No they were not as evidenced by my already linked source documents all Japan offered was a ceasefire in place with a return to Japan of all land seized since the start of the war.

 

[SAYIT]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

Oh, is that what they were doing while we were dropping leaflets on them and begging them to avert disaster?

Yes, they were reaching out to the Soviet Union to surrender because they knew when the Soviets entered the Pacific theater they were done for. The U.S. had intercepted communications from the Japanese making this fact clear. It's the reason that Eisenhower said that nuking them was unnecessary and evil.

Some people have an irresistible need to make America seem "evil" by twisting history to satisfy that need.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

No they were not as evidenced by my already linked source documents all Japan offered was a ceasefire in place with a return to Japan of all land seized since the start of the war.

How many times have you and I done this? You post the link to your source documents, I find the documents showing the Japanese cables intercepted by the U.S. showing them reaching out to the Soviet Union to end the conflict, thus making any invasion or nuclear bombing unnecessary, and you resort to quibbling over semantics.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

Oh, is that what they were doing while we were dropping leaflets on them and begging them to avert disaster?

Yes, they were reaching out to the Soviet Union to surrender because they knew when the Soviets entered the Pacific theater they were done for. The U.S. had intercepted communications from the Japanese making this fact clear. It's the reason that Eisenhower said that nuking them was unnecessary and evil.

Some people have an irresistible need to make America seem "evil" by twisting history to satisfy that need.

Like future President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied forces?

 

[SAYIT]

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

Oh, is that what they were doing while we were dropping leaflets on them and begging them to avert disaster?

Yes, they were reaching out to the Soviet Union to surrender because they knew when the Soviets entered the Pacific theater they were done for. The U.S. had intercepted communications from the Japanese making this fact clear. It's the reason that Eisenhower said that nuking them was unnecessary and evil.

Some people have an irresistible need to make America seem "evil" by twisting history to satisfy that need.

Like future President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied forces?

No ... like you.