The Nuking of Nagasaki: Even More Immoral and Unnecessary than Hiroshima

[mikegriffith1]

Whatever labored, embarrassing arguments one can make for the nuking of Hiroshima cannot be made for the nuking of Nagasaki just three days later. From my article "Did We Really Need to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan?":

On August 9, 1945, just three days after we nuked Hiroshima, and before Japan’s leaders had sufficient time to process and respond to our nuclear attack on Hiroshima, we dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, which was home to Japan’s largest Christian population. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki was even more inexcusable than the nuking of Hiroshima. . . .​

​

On August 9, we nuked Nagasaki, just three days after Hiroshima, and hours after the Soviets began to maul the Japanese army in Manchuria,, and while Japan’s civilian leaders were understandably absorbed with trying to process what had happened to Hiroshima and with responding to the Soviet attack in Manchuria. Surely Truman and other high officials knew that three days was not enough time for Japan’s government to formulate a formal response to the unprecedented use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and to the Soviet invasion in Manchuria. Even McGeorge Bundy, who helped Henry Stimson write his defense of the atomic bombing of Japan, acknowledged that Truman was too quick to nuke Nagasaki:​

"It is hard to see that much could have been lost if there had been more time between the two bombs. . . . Such a delay would have been relatively easy, and I think right." (https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf)​

​

The Japanese were not even able to get a scientific team to Hiroshima until August 7, the day after the attack. Meanwhile, Japan's leaders were getting conflicting, fragmentary information about what had happened in Hiroshima. Some Army officials were telling the government that the bombing of Hiroshima was merely a very large conventional bombing raid, and they were suppressing information about the kinds of wounds that had been inflicted. There was no Internet back then, no fax machines, no Skype.

Surely it was obscene for us to nuke Nagasaki just three days, 72 hours, after we had nuked Hiroshima.

Recent research indicates that Truman was surprised by the nuking of Nagasaki, that he did not specifically authorize it but that the military brass assumed that his previous authorization permitted them to drop another atomic bomb at their discretion. After Nagasaki, Truman issue an order that no more A-bombs were to be dropped without his express authorization.

Recent research also suggests that Truman favored giving the Japanese private assurance that the emperor would not be deposed if they surrendered, but that Byrnes and some other advisors pressured him into not doing this by arguing that the American public would not accept such a surrender (yet they did just that when we allowed the emperor to remain in power after Japan surrendered).

 

[mikegriffith1]

he is referring to attempts by Japanese outside the government, people with no authority and no power,

That old myth was debunked decades ago. How can you be so uninformed about this? Most of the peace feelers were blessed and/or supported by senior Japanese officials. The peace feeler to the Soviets to mediate a surrender with the Americans was supported by the emperor himself, and Truman knew this.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

That old myth was debunked decades ago. How can you be so uninformed about this? Most of the peace feelers were blessed and/or supported by senior Japanese officials. The peace feeler to the Soviets to mediate a surrender with the Americans was supported by the emperor himself, and Truman knew this.

You mean the offer for a ceasefire and return to 41 start lines? That offer?

 

[Flash]

That old myth was debunked decades ago. How can you be so uninformed about this? Most of the peace feelers were blessed and/or supported by senior Japanese officials. The peace feeler to the Soviets to mediate a surrender with the Americans was supported by the emperor himself, and Truman knew this.

All this is bullshit about the Japs wanting to surrender but we wouldn't let them.

If they wanted to surrender then all they had to do was put down their arms. They sure as hell didn't do they at Okinawa, did they?

Instead they fought almost to the last man and took tens of thousands civilians with them.

No, they didn't really want to surrender. They wanted to fiddle fart around and it got them nuked.

 

[Correll]

So is slaughtering hundreds and thousands of civilians.

You are aware of the sporting contest that was carried in Japanese Newspapers during the Massacre of Nanking, are you not? "The contest to behead 100 people with a sword"? It is a real thing, where two Japanese Officers decided to stage a contest, to see who could behead the most people first. It was actually reported in most Japanese newspapers of the time, normally on the sports page.

The above image was after it was announced it had gone into "extra innings", as they were considered tied at 106 to 105.

Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda were eventually tried and executed for this at their war crimes trial in 1948.

De-escalation would have been freaking easy. Japan should have stopped their brutal invasion and slaughter. You are aware that most place the actual casualties in China by the Japanese at somewhere between 10 and 15 million, right? Why are you whining about the US backing down, while that was going on?

I'm not whining about it. I was commenting on it. I do worry that often our leaders follow polices that lead to war without being prepared for that. or being honest with the voters about it.

 

[Mushroom]

he is referring to attempts by Japanese outside the government, people with no authority and no power,

Or the ones proposed that were so absolutely silly that even their own former Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the Soviets through they were a complete joke and waste of time.

 

[Mushroom]

Most of the peace feelers were blessed and/or supported by senior Japanese officials. The peace feeler to the Soviets to mediate a surrender with the Americans was supported by the emperor himself, and Truman knew this.

Yes, we know that also.

It was also so impossible that even their own former Foreign Minister and the Japanese Ambassador to the Soviet Union outright told them the Allied Powers would never accept it, and that they needed to get serious about considering surrender options before it was too late.

He knew the Soviets would never deliver it, and indeed they did not. Their even attempting to deliver such a stupid demand would have had them lose respect in the eyes of the Allied Powers.

That would be like expecting the Swiss in behalf of Iraq on 28 February 1991 that they would return to their borders after the Invasion of Kuwait, and there would be no sanctions, no occupation, no ill effects after losing a war of aggression.

This is why you and others keep failing, just because an offer was made, is not the same as a reasonable offer.

 

[Unkotare]

... just because an offer was made, is not the same as a reasonable offer.

 

[Mushroom]

View attachment 523160

The Japanese offering to accept the Unconditional Surrender of the US forces in August 1945 is an offer also.

That does not make it a reasonable offer.

And by the way, that is actually closer to what they were demanding than what they finally accepted.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Treaties" my aching red ass. Exactly what treaty does your fevered brain tell you we had with Japan and violated?

You confuse yourself. My reference to treaties was to illustrate a baseline truth that we don't consider all weaponry and tactics to be morally equivalent. That's all. You can say they are, but you are on an island.

 

[whitehall]

The Japanese Army never intended to surrender. The Army was the Government. Even after 2 atomic bombs and the Soviets attacking them the Army REFUSED to surrender. The Emperor who was seen as a LIVING God by the Army ordered the surrender. The Army Attempted a Coup to stop the Emperor from surrendering.

Apparently the Japanese Bushido holdouts were intent on keeping the Emperor from being executed but Truman refused to negotiate. The ironic thing is that the Emperor was protected anyway.

 

[9thIDdoc]

You confuse yourself. My reference to treaties was to illustrate a baseline truth that we don't consider all weaponry and tactics to be morally equivalent. That's all. You can say they are, but you are on an island.

Then you obviously don't understand what treaties are. Nations that do not sign a treaty are not part of that treaty and are in no way obligated or protected by it's terms.
.Since nuclear weapons had not been invented previously I don't much think you can find a prior treaty wherein we promised not to use them against Japan.
Incendiary bombs were in common use during WWII and did in fact cause more death and destruction than nuclear weapons. But feel free to look for a treaty that supports your bullshit.

 

[Man of Ethics]

Whatever labored, embarrassing arguments one can make for the nuking of Hiroshima cannot be made for the nuking of Nagasaki just three days later. From my article "Did We Really Need to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan?":

On August 9, 1945, just three days after we nuked Hiroshima, and before Japan’s leaders had sufficient time to process and respond to our nuclear attack on Hiroshima, we dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, which was home to Japan’s largest Christian population. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki was even more inexcusable than the nuking of Hiroshima. . . .​

​

On August 9, we nuked Nagasaki, just three days after Hiroshima, and hours after the Soviets began to maul the Japanese army in Manchuria,, and while Japan’s civilian leaders were understandably absorbed with trying to process what had happened to Hiroshima and with responding to the Soviet attack in Manchuria. Surely Truman and other high officials knew that three days was not enough time for Japan’s government to formulate a formal response to the unprecedented use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and to the Soviet invasion in Manchuria. Even McGeorge Bundy, who helped Henry Stimson write his defense of the atomic bombing of Japan, acknowledged that Truman was too quick to nuke Nagasaki:​

"It is hard to see that much could have been lost if there had been more time between the two bombs. . . . Such a delay would have been relatively easy, and I think right." (https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf)​

​

The Japanese were not even able to get a scientific team to Hiroshima until August 7, the day after the attack. Meanwhile, Japan's leaders were getting conflicting, fragmentary information about what had happened in Hiroshima. Some Army officials were telling the government that the bombing of Hiroshima was merely a very large conventional bombing raid, and they were suppressing information about the kinds of wounds that had been inflicted. There was no Internet back then, no fax machines, no Skype.

Surely it was obscene for us to nuke Nagasaki just three days, 72 hours, after we had nuked Hiroshima.

This is one big Crime on a long list of USA's Crimes Against Humanity.

 

[jackflash]

Congratulations on your website

while its not a crazy idea some people have about dropping nukes on japan as a war crime I think you are wrong

the japanese people were fanatical and millions would have died during a US invasion

also you wrote this:

While FDR bent over backwards to befriend the Soviet Union’s brutal, murderous Marxist regime, he showed no such flexibility toward anti-communist Japan. The Japanese offered a wide range of concessions in an effort to get FDR to lift the sanctions, but Roosevelt, perhaps influenced by his pro-Soviet advisers, would not even meet with Japan’s prime minister to discuss the matter.
FDR could have made Japan our ally, and he probably could have persuaded Japan to invade the Soviet Union, which would have almost certainly led to Russia’s defeat and would have spared hundreds of millions of people from Soviet tyranny. The Japanese were seriously considering invading Russia before they concluded that Roosevelt was not interested in a reasonable peace deal and that he was determined to strangle Japan’s economy to the point of collapse. They decided to attack Pearl Harbor only after FDR rejected every peace offer they made to try to get the sanctions lifted, and after FDR refused, on admittedly flimsy grounds, to meet with their prime minister to discuss their differences (Hoover 263-320).

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

i reject the idea that FDR could have or should have allied with japan in a war against the soviet union when nazi germany was the greater threat

Mac-7 speakum truth about saving MILLIONS of Japanese lives!!!!!! My dads ship the USS James O' Hara pulled into Nagoya harbor with occupation troops right after the end of hostilities. He said the Japanese had dug in hard & deep & ready to die fighting in mass... including women & children. He had watched the 'suiciders(women holding newborn babies along with kids) a year before jumping off the cliffs of Saipan & he was horror struck @ the needless death(he never forgot it). Those two atomic weapons may have been the greatest life saving devices used in the entire 2nd world war!

Suicide Cliff - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Turtlesoup]

Do you realize how little sense that makes?

Do you realize how uneducated you sound when you say nonsense like this? I'll help you out since you obviously Know nothing ----------the Japanese ran a scorch earth policy in their war. They made sure that their people would fight to each and everyone of their deaths to win the war or just avoid capture. The Japanese were known to toss their kids over cliffs to avoid any of their people being capture. To people they captured, they did all sorts of fun things like run bayonets through pregnant womens stomachs and even cannibalism. Their emperor (their god on earth) ordered that they fight to the deaths and so they did-----not until their emperor got a clue that the US could just bomb him with a nuke, did he change his orders.

The US did the right thing-------but communists like you keep trying to spin shit about it.

 

[Mac-7]

Mac-7 speakum truth about saving MILLIONS of Japanese lives!!!!!! My dads ship the USS James O' Hara pulled into Nagoya harbor with occupation troops right after the end of hostilities. He said the Japanese had dug in hard & deep & ready to die fighting in mass... including women & children. He had watched the 'suiciders(women holding newborn babies along with kids) a year before jumping off the cliffs of Saipan & he was horror struck @ the needless death(he never forgot it). Those two atomic weapons may have been the greatest life saving devices used in the entire 2nd world war!

Suicide Cliff - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

How could Unkotare object to that post?

jackflash is correct

 

[mikegriffith1]

You mean the offer for a ceasefire and return to 41 start lines? That offer?

Nope. It is pointless to talk with you until you educate yourself. FYI, the vast majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender acknowledge the facts I've been discussing.

And, incidentally, China and Korea would have been far, far better off if we had kept the Soviets out of China and out of Korea and had allowed the Japanese to keep Manchuria.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Nope. It is pointless to talk with you until you educate yourself. FYI, the vast majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender acknowledge the facts I've been discussing.

And, incidentally, China and Korea would have been far, far better off if we had kept the Soviets out of China and out of Korea and had allowed the Japanese to keep Manchuria.

Yet you have not EVER linked to a single supposed veritable supposed valid offer with proof it came from the Japanese Government. You claim all these scholars have proof where is it? I can and have linked to the ACTUAL Japanese intercepts.

 

[Unkotare]

Do you realize how uneducated you sound when you say nonsense like this? I'll help you out since you obviously Know nothing --....

There you go again. Every time one of you 'scholars of insistence' starts running out of steam, you resort to the absolutely empty "I know history and you don't!" refrain. It's completely transparent. Throwing in some common knowledge as if it were the product of your own original research only makes you look more desperate.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

There you go again. Every time one of you 'scholars of insistence' starts running out of steam, you resort to the absolutely empty "I know history and you don't!" refrain. It's completely transparent. Throwing in some common knowledge as if it were the product of your own original research only makes you look more desperate.

All you have cited is an unsourced News article with no links and no corroboration. I ask again LINK to any source that factually sources an offer to surrender BY Japan before their surrender.