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

[Unkotare]

Port. Check. Airbase Check. Manufacturing Hub. Check, Army Headquarters. Check, Troops there. Check. Training civilians for invasion. Check. But golly gee it wasn't a military target HONEST.

300,000 + civilians = a civilian center. You lack the courage to look at the issue clearly and directly.

You are the one IGNORING facts.

The facts disagree with you, Rain Man.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

You have NOT every linked to an actual source that proves those quotes.

yeah i have, and any idiot could as well

~S~

Prove me wrong LINK now.

 

[sparky]

Prove me wrong LINK now.

how 'bout a 'prove me right LINK' now

~S~

 

[elektra]

Prove me wrong LINK now.

how 'bout a 'prove me right LINK' now

~S~

You ain't linked the quotes I questioned. You did link to stuff unrelated.

 

[mikegriffith1]

I’m guessing that those who are defending the government’s version of Japan’s surrender have never read any of the mountain of scholarly research that has debunked that version. One such research piece is Professor Ward Wilson’s famous article “The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima,” published in the prestigious journal International Security in 2007.

Wilson documents what numerous other scholars have documented, namely, that Soviet entry into the war, not the atomic bombs, caused the moderates to push harder than ever for surrender and caused some key hardliners to soften their opposition to surrender. Wilson notes, for example, that after the nuking of Hiroshima was confirmed, this was not enough to cause the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to meet (this council is commonly referred to as the Supreme Council or the Supreme War Council). However, when news of the Soviet invasion reached Tokyo, the Supreme War Council met almost immediately. Here is an excerpt from Wilson’s article:

When Japanese responses to the Hiroshima bombing are placed side by side with responses to the Soviet intervention, it is clear that the Soviet intervention touched off a crisis, while the Hiroshima bombing did not.​

Japanese governing bodies did not display a sense of crisis after Hiroshima. First reports of an attack on that city reached Tokyo on August 6 and were confirmed the next day by fuller reports and an announcement by President Truman that a nuclear weapon had been used in the attack. Even after the attack was confirmed, however, the Supreme Council did not meet for two days. If the bombing of Hiroshima touched off a crisis, this delay is inexplicable. . . .​

In all, three full days elapsed after the bombing of Hiroshima in which the Supreme Council did not meet to discuss the bombing. When the Soviets intervened on August 9 and word of the invasion reached Tokyo at around 4:30 a.m., on the other hand, the Supreme Council met by 10:30 that same morning. . . .​

Following the bombing of Hiroshima, Emperor Hirohito took no action except to repeatedly request “more details.” When word of the Soviet invasion reached him, however, the emperor immediately summoned Lord Privy Seal Kido and told him, “In light of the Soviet entry . . . it was all the more urgent to “find a means to end the war.” He commanded Kido to “have a heart-to-heart talk” with Prime Minister Suzuki without delay. (https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/is3104_pp162-179_wilson.pdf)​

Literally hundreds of other scholars have documented these same facts. For example, Dr. Noriko Kawamura, a professor of history at the University of Washington, in her recent book Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, using previously unexploited Japanese sources, presents additional evidence that it was the Soviet invasion, not the nukes, that caused the moderates to push harder for surrender than they had ever done before and that created the circumstances that enabled the emperor to order the military to surrender.


Incidentally, Dr. Kawamura also debunks the slanted portrayals of Hirohito and the Japanese government painted by scholars like Herbert Bix and Robert Maddox. She points out that Bix mistranslated several of the Japanese sources that he used.

 

[elektra]

I’m guessing that those who are defending the government’s version of Japan’s surrender have never read any of the mountain of scholarly research that has debunked that version. One such research piece is Professor Ward Wilson’s famous article “The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima,” published in the prestigious journal International Security in 2007.

Wilson documents what numerous other scholars have documented, namely, that Soviet entry into the war, not the atomic bombs, caused the moderates to push harder than ever for surrender and caused some key hardliners to soften their opposition to surrender. Wilson notes, for example, that after the nuking of Hiroshima was confirmed, this was not enough to cause the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to meet (this council is commonly referred to as the Supreme Council or the Supreme War Council). However, when news of the Soviet invasion reached Tokyo, the Supreme War Council met almost immediately. Here is an excerpt from Wilson’s article:

When Japanese responses to the Hiroshima bombing are placed side by side with responses to the Soviet intervention, it is clear that the Soviet intervention touched off a crisis, while the Hiroshima bombing did not.​

Japanese governing bodies did not display a sense of crisis after Hiroshima. First reports of an attack on that city reached Tokyo on August 6 and were confirmed the next day by fuller reports and an announcement by President Truman that a nuclear weapon had been used in the attack. Even after the attack was confirmed, however, the Supreme Council did not meet for two days. If the bombing of Hiroshima touched off a crisis, this delay is inexplicable. . . .​

In all, three full days elapsed after the bombing of Hiroshima in which the Supreme Council did not meet to discuss the bombing. When the Soviets intervened on August 9 and word of the invasion reached Tokyo at around 4:30 a.m., on the other hand, the Supreme Council met by 10:30 that same morning. . . .​

Following the bombing of Hiroshima, Emperor Hirohito took no action except to repeatedly request “more details.” When word of the Soviet invasion reached him, however, the emperor immediately summoned Lord Privy Seal Kido and told him, “In light of the Soviet entry . . . it was all the more urgent to “find a means to end the war.” He commanded Kido to “have a heart-to-heart talk” with Prime Minister Suzuki without delay. (https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/is3104_pp162-179_wilson.pdf)​

Literally hundreds of other scholars have documented these same facts. For example, Dr. Noriko Kawamura, a professor of history at the University of Washington, in her recent book Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, using previously unexploited Japanese sources, presents additional evidence that it was the Soviet invasion, not the nukes, that caused the moderates to push harder for surrender than they had ever done before and that created the circumstances that enabled the emperor to order the military to surrender.


Incidentally, Dr. Kawamura also debunks the slanted portrayals of Hirohito and the Japanese government painted by scholars like Herbert Bix and Robert Maddox. She points out that Bix mistranslated several of the Japanese sources that he used.

Mikegriffter, still ignoring your posts I challenged you to support and substantiate.

You lost this debate a long time ago. You already stated that the leaders are liars and frauds. Now we are to believe you when you claim they are not?

Japan fought Russia until Aug 20th. 8 days after japan announced their surrender to the USA.

That fact is a bitch.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Port. Check. Airbase Check. Manufacturing Hub. Check, Army Headquarters. Check, Troops there. Check. Training civilians for invasion. Check. But golly gee it wasn't a military target HONEST.

This is sick, especially coming from someone who claims to be a former Marine. Yes, Hiroshima had a port, since it was on a coast, but the port was hardly used anymore by then--it was somewhat clogged with sunken ships and port-bound ships that didn't dare leave the port. ALL Japanese civilians were being trained for an invasion, so that proves nothing, unless you're going to tell me that women and children wielding bamboo spears were a serious threat to us. Yes, Hiroshima had a fair amount of factories; most of them were on the outskirts of the city, and they were almost completely unharmed in the nuking because the nuke was dropped near the center of the city. Troops and an HQ? Yeah, they were garrison troops. An airbase?! Yeah, a small one. The city had no fortifications, no outer defenses, etc. I ask again, why do you suppose we felt confident enough to send the Enola Gay totally unprotected by any fighters? Hey? We both know the answer to that question.

It is sad and obscene to see an alleged former Marine trying to justify the murder of over 100,000 people, at least half of them women and children, by making the ludicrous claim that Hiroshima was a valid military target. The factories on the outskirts of the city were valid targets, and the small unfortified compound where the troops stayed was a fair target, but those were only a small part of the city and contained a very small part of the population.

300,000 + civilians = a civilian center. You lack the courage to look at the issue clearly and directly.

We don't bomb civilian centers. What is wrong with you? You are as inhumane as some of the Japanese soldiers you excoriate.

300,000 civilians did not die in Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together.

Over 200,000 died from those two nuke attacks, and tens of thousands more suffered from radiation effects for the rest of their lives.

FDR screamed because the Japanese bombed a handful of cities in China. We bombed dozens of cities in Japan and dropped far more bombs on them than the Japanese dropped on the cities they bombed.

You have not provided a single Government document to prove your claims YET. And all you have on MacArthur is an unsourced book.

I have linked to the ACTUAL Japanese Government documents ACTUAL Intercepts of Japanese Government and ACTUAL US documents you have not done any of that at all.

First of all, you realize that Eisenhower and Leahy stated in their own memoirs that they had opposed nuking Japan and that they still thought it was wrong and unnecessary, right? You realize that Admiral, the Chief of Naval Operations at the time, indicated in his memoir that nuking Japan was unnecessary and that Japan could have been defeated by naval blockade alone, right? We’re not talking about second-hand accounts in these cases.

Second, MacArthur’s opposition to nuking Japan was confirmed by his biographer, William Manchester, and by his former consultant during our occupation of Japan, Norman Cousins. What’s more, Richard Nixon said that MacArthur told him that he believed we should not have nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hiroshima: Quotes

We didn't need to drop the bomb -- and even our WW II military icons knew it

You wanna see a link to a “Government document”? Okay, how about the report of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), which concluded that Japan would have surrendered without nukes and without an invasion by no later than December 1945, even if the Soviets had not invaded? The USSBS spent months studying the effects of our conventional and atomic bombing of Japan, interviewing former Japanese officials, and interviewing former Japanese generals and admirals, and concluded that Japan would have surrendered by no later than December 1945, and probably before November, even if we had not used the atomic bomb and even if the Soviet Union had not entered the war against Japan:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. (page 26, available at United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report (Pacific War))​

 

[Frannie]

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.

Yea but payback is a bitch.

PS. The Japanese actually had several scientific teams in Hiroshima during the attack.

Oh well...……….……………….!

 

[mikegriffith1]

Yea but payback is a bitch. PS. The Japanese actually had several scientific teams in Hiroshima during the attack. Oh well!

Those were not scientific teams that were equipped or trained to identify a nuke attack. Such a team did not arrive until the day after. Plus, you had elements in the military trying to persuade the government that the attack was a conventional one and that the damage was not much worse than the Tokyo bombing.

Payback? Eee-gads, we had paid back the Japanese for Pearl Harbor 100 times over by then, including the killing of hundreds of thousands of women and children.

 

[Frannie]

Yea but payback is a bitch. PS. The Japanese actually had several scientific teams in Hiroshima during the attack. Oh well!

Those were not scientific teams that were equipped or trained to identify a nuke attack. Such a team did not arrive until the day after. Plus, you had elements in the military trying to persuade the government that the attack was a conventional one and that the damage was not much worse than the Tokyo bombing.

Payback? Eee-gads, we had paid back the Japanese for Pearl Harbor 100 times over by then, including the killing of hundreds of thousands of women and children.

Actually the scientific teams were designing weapons you dumb shit. The USA could have destroyed Tokyo, but chose instead to let the emperor see his errors in judgement...…………….

Precious

I'm lucky and here because my father returned from Okinawa, too many didn't, but you don't seem to know or care.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Prove me wrong LINK now.

how 'bout a 'prove me right LINK' now

~S~

As I thought you can not link to any such source thanks for admitting it.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Prove me wrong LINK now.

how 'bout a 'prove me right LINK' now

~S~

As I thought you can not link to any such source thanks for admitting it.

Then that means you just admitted the same thing. That sword cuts bith ways.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: A Collection of Primary Sources SOURCE documents. Proving that the Emperor surrendered because of the Nukes.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Prove me wrong LINK now.

how 'bout a 'prove me right LINK' now

~S~

As I thought you can not link to any such source thanks for admitting it.

Then that means you just admitted the same thing. That sword cuts bith ways.

I have linked to my source numerous times and just did again.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Yea but payback is a bitch. PS. The Japanese actually had several scientific teams in Hiroshima during the attack. Oh well!

Those were not scientific teams that were equipped or trained to identify a nuke attack. Such a team did not arrive until the day after. Plus, you had elements in the military trying to persuade the government that the attack was a conventional one and that the damage was not much worse than the Tokyo bombing.

Payback? Eee-gads, we had paid back the Japanese for Pearl Harbor 100 times over by then, including the killing of hundreds of thousands of women and children.

Actually the scientific teams were designing weapons you dumb ##$%.

They had no training in radiation or nuclear science. You are arguing something that no serious scholar argues. Again, the Japanese were not able to get a radiation specialist to Hiroshima until the next day. I see you did not address the other point I made on this issue.

The USA could have destroyed Tokyo, but chose instead to let the emperor see his errors in judgement. Precious.

It seems apparent that you've done no serious study on this subject, but you might be interested to know that the emperor did not want war with the U.S., that he did all he felt he could to avoid war, and that after the fall of Saipan he decided that Japan had lost the war and that Japan needed to surrender. In her book Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, Professor Kawamura documents these facts from Japanese sources, some of which were unavailable until she found them in the course of her research.

I'm lucky and here because my father returned from Okinawa, too many didn't, but you don't seem to know or care.

Oh, don't try to wrap your barbaric attitude in the flag or pretend that questioning the nuking of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians somehow equals not caring about our soldiers who fought in the Pacific. When your arguments have to crawl that deeply into the sewer, that should tell you that your position is terribly flawed.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Prove me wrong LINK now.

how 'bout a 'prove me right LINK' now

~S~

As I thought you can not link to any such source thanks for admitting it.

Then that means you just admitted the same thing. That sword cuts bith ways.

I have linked to my source numerous times and just did again.

Gotcha. I thought it was pretty common knowledge that the bombs and russia declaring war made japan change its mind practically overnight.

 

[Frannie]

Yea but payback is a bitch. PS. The Japanese actually had several scientific teams in Hiroshima during the attack. Oh well!

Those were not scientific teams that were equipped or trained to identify a nuke attack. Such a team did not arrive until the day after. Plus, you had elements in the military trying to persuade the government that the attack was a conventional one and that the damage was not much worse than the Tokyo bombing.

Payback? Eee-gads, we had paid back the Japanese for Pearl Harbor 100 times over by then, including the killing of hundreds of thousands of women and children.

Actually the scientific teams were designing weapons you dumb ##$%.

They had no training in radiation or nuclear science. You are arguing something that no serious scholar argues. Again, the Japanese were not able to get a radiation specialist to Hiroshima until the next day. I see you did not address the other point I made on this issue.

The USA could have destroyed Tokyo, but chose instead to let the emperor see his errors in judgement. Precious.

It seems apparent that you've done no serious study on this subject, but you might be interested to know that the emperor did not want war with the U.S., that he did all he felt he could to avoid war, and that after the fall of Saipan he decided that Japan had lost the war and that Japan needed to surrender. In her book Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, Professor Kawamura documents these facts from Japanese sources, some of which were unavailable until she found them in the course of her research.

I'm lucky and here because my father returned from Okinawa, too many didn't, but you don't seem to know or care.

Oh, don't try to wrap your barbaric attitude in the flag or pretend that questioning the nuking of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians somehow equals not caring about our soldiers who fought in the Pacific. When your arguments have to crawl that deeply into the sewer, that should tell you that your position is terribly flawed.

Dude the only nuclear radiation specialist at the time if any were in the USA, you can't have specialist for something that did not exist yesterday in Japanese terms at the time. You need a brain tuning

Seriously, you are using Japanese documents to show that Japan did not want war with the USA that they fucking started. Again you need a brain tuning

The reason that the bombs ended the war is because men, women, children and infants all evaporated. If someone had the balls no US soldiers would have died in Afghanistan, but we chose to kill the terrorist and let the wives raise the new terrorist telling the kids that the USA killed their Daddy.

Dumb, nuking Japan, smart

PS the only reason Japan surrendered is because the Emperor was informed that Tokyo was next and he pooped his pants...………………..

Bombs away, all raw fish will now be fully be cooked

 

[Kilroy2]

Yes they bombed Pearl Harbor first but it was a military target and yeah civilians probably died but it was a military target. They could have bombed the city next to the base

Dropping a bomb on cities which were primarily civilian targets can never be justified. Thus the secondary argument that the city had a weapons factory or some other such nonsense probably makes some feel good about it.

The fact remains Japan was defeated, they had lost all territories gain, there military was defeated, Kamikaze is interesting but in the end you are destroying your military assets. they could have blockade the island into submission but the president decided that its best to bring the boys home and they wanted that signed surrender

also it was a test and show for the destructive power of nuclear weapons

Still we have military bases there and Japan military spending is so low that its even less than Chad.

Yet the their GDP is 3rd on the list with US and China being the top dogs, German is 4th no wonder

This does indicate what an economy would look like with low military spending.

US had a strong case for a just war but they put a question mark on it by the last act of targeting a civilian city which had no defense

to put it in prospective the death tolls

Japan 2,120,000 military 580,000- 1,000,000 civilian

US 416,800 418,500 and that is a WW2 total

 

[Frannie]

Yes they bombed Pearl Harbor first but it was a military target and yeah civilians probably died but it was a military target. They could have bombed the city next to the base

Dropping a bomb on cities which were primarily civilian targets can never be justified. Thus the secondary argument that the city had a weapons factory or some other such nonsense probably makes some feel good about it.

The fact remains Japan was defeated, they had lost all territories gain, there military was defeated, Kamikaze is interesting but in the end you are destroying your military assets. they could have blockade the island into submission but the president decided that its best to bring the boys home and they wanted that signed surrender

also it was a test and show for the destructive power of nuclear weapons

Still we have military bases there and Japan military spending is so low that its even less than Chad.

Yet the their GDP is 3rd on the list with US and China being the top dogs, German is 4th no wonder

This does indicate what an economy would look like with low military spending.

US had a strong case for a just war but they put a question mark on it by the last act of targeting a civilian city which had no defense

to put it in prospective the death tolls

Japan 2,120,000 military 580,000- 1,000,000 civilian

US 416,800 418,500 and that is a WW2 total

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the industrial cities building the weapons that were used in Pearl Harbor.

Were you born stupid or did you study?

Mitsubishi Nagasaki shipyard

 

[karpenter]

Funny how no one cares about burning Japanese cities to the ground with incendiaries - but a nuke? OMFG!!!

English, German, And Russian Cities
All Got The Bombing Treatment