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

[Flash]

 

[Flash]

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Go take a nap, old fool. You respond to copious amounts of actual researched information with slurs and childish emotion. Act your age.

You have not presented a SINGLE link much less copious amounts.

 

[Mushroom]

Fujimura contacted the Navy Ministry and made them aware of his negotiations with the Dulles people. On May 23, the Navy Ministry sent Fujimura a reply, signed by the Navy Minister: the ministry advised him to be cautious but did *not* shut down the approach.

And what exact authority did he have?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

And what exact authority did he have?

The Army ran the Japanese Government not the Navy

 

[Mushroom]

The Army ran the Japanese Government not the Navy

Both had equal say in the Supreme War Council. Often called the "Big Six", those are the only people in the entire nation that could make policy for the country.

Prime Minister, Admiral Suzuki
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Togo
Minister of War, General Anami
Minister of the Navy, Admiral Yonai
Army Chief of Staff, General Umezu
Navy Chief of Staff, Admiral Toyoda

Those six and only those six could make the decision to surrender. And if you notice, that is 1 civilian, 2 Army Generals, and 3 Admirals. You are confusing "run the country" with who was physically in control of the land in the nation, with the political power of who ran the country itself. And while the battles between Army and Navy in Showa era Japan are well known, at this top level they actually worked together fairly well. It was the lower leadership at the operational levels that had most of the friction.

But it could have been anybody holding those talks, it does not matter if it was Army, Navy, some part of a diplomatic delegation, or anything else. If they were not sent out at the order of the Big Six, it was meaningless. They had absolutely no power to negotiate anything. It would be like if I stepped into a professional sports strike, and said I wanted to negotiate for the players. I have no authority to do so, and the owners should absolutely ignore anything I try to say. I have no authority to speak for the players.

The same way that and all the other things like this are meaningless, because they had no authority to hold those talks in the first place.

And the Prime Minister actually swapped several times during the war, before Suzuki it was General Koiso. Before him, General Tojo. But the Prime Minister was always the leader of the Taisei Yokusankai, or "Imperial Rule Assistance Association". Essentially the Japanese equivalent of the "NSDAP".

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

They would have been fools not to take the estimates seriously

They would have been fools to take all estimates with equal value. Like you just did to prop up your talking points.

 

[Mac-7]

They would have been fools to take all estimates with equal value.

Oh no I didnt

I trust the planners and the joint chiefs of staff over even eisenhower

 

[Unkotare]

Oh no I didnt

I trust the planners and the joint chiefs of staff over even eisenhower

How about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Oh no I didnt

I trust the planners and the joint chiefs of staff over even eisenhower

Sure you did. Its the only estimate you used or presented. More cheap gaslighting.

The planners and joint chiefs set the plans and advise. The President chooses one. The joint chiefs were not unanimous.

 

[Mac-7]

How about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

There was no such person in 1945

 

[Mac-7]

Sure you did. Its the only estimate you used or presented. More cheap gaslighting.

they were the ultimate military authority

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

they were the ultimate military authority

Red herring. NWS is the authority on weather. But you won't catch them running around saying the outliers in the hurricane path map are equally likely as any path. This is what you have done, in a dishonest way without qualifications, for emotional effect, in lieu of compelling argument.

 

[Unkotare]

There was no such person in 1945

"Admiral William Leahy, White House chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war."

 

[Mac-7]

Admiral William Leahy, White House chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war."

Truman created the chairman position in 1949

 

[Mushroom]

There was no such person in 1945

Actually, at that time we had the "Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy and Special Presidential Military Advisor" There was no real need for the position of the "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff" until the Air Force was founded in 1947 as there were only two branches.

But the equivelent position did exist, it just got renamed after the war.

 

[Rigby5]

Here's the thing. At the time, it was just another weapon in a war that saw all sorts of weapons used by all sides... Horror on a level most of us couldn't understand today.

Later on, when Nukes became an existential threat to the species, people asked why we used them, but at the time, there was no question. We were at war, they started it.

It's a wonderful case of applying modern values to people in the past who would have looked at you funny.

I disagree.
No one ever attacked whole civilian cities before.
For example, when Germany bombed London, they actually only attacked industrial targets, with fairly precise bomb raids.
Only the allies did indiscriminate bombing or deliberate firestorms to wipe out whole cities, like Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, etc.

Just like there are international laws we adhere to, like against poison gas and chemical warfare, nuclear weapons have always been illegal.
Atomic weapons are both poisons and chemical weapons that slowly and painfully kill by illness, not fast kinetic energy weapons.

They are and always will be illegal really.
The fact we used them only meant we did not care, because we did not think ahead to the future when they will be used on us.

 

[Rigby5]

Except that the bombs didn't end the war. The entry of the USSR into the Pacific War did.

Actually, if you read "The Potsdam Diary" by Truman, the Japanese had been trying to surrender for over a year, but since there were no official diplomatic relations, they were communicating through Stalin, and Truman told Stalin to pretend to be confused over what they wanted.
They deliberately stalled because they had spend billions on the nuclear weapons, and wanted the opportunity to test and compare the 2 types, plutonium vs uranium.

If you are wondering why Japan was so anxious to surrender, it was because they were being starved to death.
By mining the waters between China and Japan, we prevented the civilian population from obtaining sufficient food.
Called Operation Starvation.

Operation Starvation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

{,,, Operation Starvation was a naval mining operation conducted in World War II by the United States Army Air Forces, in which vital water routes and ports of Japan were mined from the air in order to disrupt enemy shipping.
...
The mission was initiated at the insistence of Admiral Chester Nimitz who wanted his naval operations augmented by an extensive mining of Japan itself conducted by the air force. While General Henry H. Arnold felt this was strictly a naval priority, he assigned General Curtis LeMay to carry it out.

LeMay assigned one group of about 160 aircraft of the 313th Bombardment Wing to the task, with orders to plant 2,000 mines in April 1945. The mining runs were made by individual B-29 Superfortresses at night at moderately low altitudes.[2] Radar provided mine release information.[2] The 313th Bombardment Wing received preliminary training in aerial mining theory while their B-29 aircraft received bomb-bay modification to carry mines.[2] Individual aircrew were then given four to eight training flights involving five radar approaches on each flight and dummy mine drops on the last flight.[2]

Beginning on March 27, 1945, 1,000 parachute-retarded influence mines with magnetic and acoustic exploders were initially dropped, followed by many more, including models with water pressure displacement exploders. This mining proved the most efficient means of destroying Japanese shipping during World War II.[3] In terms of damage per unit of cost, it surpassed strategic bombing and the United States submarine campaign.[3]

Eventually most of the major ports and straits of Japan were repeatedly mined, severely disrupting Japanese logistics and troop movements for the remainder of the war with 35 of 47 essential convoy routes having to be abandoned. For instance, shipping through Kobe declined by 85%, from 320,000 tons in March to only 44,000 tons in July.[4] Operation Starvation sank more ship tonnage in the last six months of the war than the efforts of all other sources combined. The Twentieth Air Force flew 1,529 sorties and laid 12,135 mines in twenty-six fields on forty-six separate missions. Mining demanded only 5.7% of the XXI Bomber Command's total sorties, and only fifteen B-29s were lost in the effort. In return, mines sank or damaged 670 ships totaling more than 1,250,000 tons.[2]
...}

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Actually, if you read "The Potsdam Diary" by Truman, the Japanese had been trying to surrender for over a year, but since there were no official diplomatic relations, they were communicating through Stalin, and Truman told Stalin to pretend to be confused over what they wanted.
They deliberately stalled because they had spend billions on the nuclear weapons, and wanted the opportunity to test and compare the 2 types, plutonium vs uranium.

simply not true, We KNOW what Japan offered to the Soviets, a ceasefire and return to 41 start lines with no concessions in China.

 

[Rigby5]

simply not true, We KNOW what Japan offered to the Soviets, a ceasefire and return to 41 start lines with no concessions in China.

That is untrue.
The only reservation from total unconditional surrender the Japanese wanted, was some sort of protection for the Emperor.
That was because the role of Emperor was more than political, but also religious.

Of course we know exactly what the Japanese offered to the Soviets, but it was absolute.
They were willing to give up everything but the Emperor.