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

[Unkotare]

so we had to nuke 2 cities full of grand parents and children because they didn't have a navy but t hey did have an army so we couldn't nuke the army because we needed them to say "UNCLE" so we kill a whole bunch of innocent grandparents and children because conservatives love killing people...

ok

you win

you had to kill those old people to make them say "uncle"

July 30th, 900 sailors were killed by the Japanese. Yet you make the outrageous claim that the japanese had no navy? August 18th the last B29 is shot down by the japanese, 9 days after Nagasaki, 6 days after the japanese cry "uncle". If I can use your pathetic term.

And how many Americans were crying, "uncle", in the torture camps!!!! How many you piece of shit. They were literally crying uncle, being beaten with bats, suffering, dying, yes americans crying uncle, for their lives, so that they could see their grandparents, and children.

How many died because of people like you! You would of had every american die by torture. You are a problem, your kind have been around since WW II. Afraid to fight, weak, pathetic, allowing americans to cry uncle under extreme torture.

Why, because you hate america so much you would have our men die of cruel torture and beatings under the worst conditions.

Cry uncle, yep, our american prisoners of war cried uncle and they got no quarter.

This appeal to emotion fallacy is a failed and transparent attempt at changing the subject. The frequent brutality of the Japanese military against prisoners of war is not in contention here.

 

[Unkotare]

Looking at history honestly is not "revision." Clinging to simplistic talking points that enable avoidance of the moral problems inherent in war is NOT legitimate study of history.

War is strategy, moral points during war is politics, politics loses wars.

You have been provided with quote after quote after quote from US military leaders of the day.

 

[Unkotare]

They were still asking for terms even after Hiroshima. We wanted unconditional surrender.
The Japanese only surrendered because they were afraid of the Soviets and ending up under communist rule.

Oh, yet there is no proof of that. I guess under your version of history it was the Soviet navy that was preparing to attack Japan? It was the Soviet air force dropping bombs on Japan?

The Japanese were so afraid of the Soviets, they fought the Soviets another week after they surrendered to the USA?

They weren't still holding out for terms after Hiroshima??
What navy or air force? I didn't say anything about the navy or air force. The Soviet Army was 3 days out. I don't know if they were already at Manchuria when we dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.

So you're saying we dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima but they were still holding out because.... they didn't realize the damage it had done? Then suddenly capitulated when the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, like "oh shit, the Americans are serious about this!"

For a country who's culture is, never surrender, death before surrender,.........

Stop watching so many cartoons.

 

[Unkotare]

How many of those reading this, would not be here if Truman has not used the bombs and ordered the invasion of Japan?

Those are not necessarily the only two options (nuking the cities, invading). We could have dropped one in a more remote area. The japanese scientiats would have gotten the picture.

The attack on Pearl Harbor (very bad decision) was of course understood as an instigation to war, and war is always terrible, but it is worth remembering that Pearl Harbor was a military base (and not even in one of the United States) while the only two atomic bombs in existence at the time were dropped on civilian centers clearly and deliberately to incinerate women, children, and the elderly in an essentially defeated nation.

Correct. I do understand it. We were tired of losing our children.

If fdr hadn't dismissed overtures to surrender as being politically untenable, the war might have ended much sooner, saving the lives of many thousands of US servicemen.

When did the Japs [sic] offer to surrender before they did? Okinawa had almost as much allied losses as the entire Vietnam war. ....

General MacArthur sent fdr a 40-page letter informing him of Japanese overtures to surrender well before the Battle of Okinawa. If American lives meant anything to that scumbag he might have followed up on those possibilities instead of dismissing them as politically inconvenient.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

That Was The Most Deadly Bombing Raid Of WWII
It Was Done With

And...? I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. We are discussing the timing and context of the atomic bombs.

 

[harmonica]

They only had two bombs, they d

When they dropped the first bomb, they only had one bomb. The second was not operational until after the hiroshima bombing. And a third bomb was almost operational. And 12 more were in the works and could be ready within a couple weeks. So, really, they had 15 bombs, if they had 2.


And, if it didn't work over the city, the difference is...?

Then they should have waited and dropped 15

Why?

Because the bombs dropped might have failed or the planes downed, I suppose that was one reason to drop them sooner so as to test them.

Anyway it all worked out for the better

The fish was all cooked

they did test them at the Trinity test

 

[harmonica]

They only had two bombs, they d

When they dropped the first bomb, they only had one bomb. The second was not operational until after the hiroshima bombing. And a third bomb was almost operational. And 12 more were in the works and could be ready within a couple weeks. So, really, they had 15 bombs, if they had 2.


And, if it didn't work over the city, the difference is...?

Then they should have waited and dropped 15

no--NO--they are not waiting weeks and MONTHS---the war had been going on for 3.5 YEARS

 

[harmonica]

again--all of Japan's major cities had been bombed and burned to shit
hundreds of thousands of Japanese killed
and they are still NOT surrendering--plain and simple
you don't fk around in war----
you can't wait weeks and months---and HOPE they surrender
hahahahahahahahahhahahah

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

and they are still NOT surrendering--

But also no longer a threat.

 

[Pogo]

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.

Well of course. Giving the USSR a window to finish that war TOO would have made the rah-rah revisionism that much more an uphill battle. Share the limelight? The Narrative can't have that.

Truman was a shallow menial little fart of a man who could be led around by the nose by purely emotional arguments, and those who led him by the nose knew it.

 

[Kilroy2]

There is a reason they say history is written by the victor

Yet morality is even lost by those who won

The sinking of the cruiser US Indianapolis where 900 men were lost delivering key components to be used in the atomic bomb that would be dropped 10 days later

The survivors of the initial attacked floated in the sea for 4 days

Eventually the survivors were rescued and the US captain was court martial because he failed to use a zig zagging technique



His own men who survived testified in his behalf. He was court-martialed and lost some seniority. Still he eventually became a rear admiral. The navy secretary even lifted the sentence because of prior bravery in the war.

But he was court martialed and it was still on his record and eventually committed suicide because of the ordeal in 1968 shot himself

56 Years later after he was vindicated/enorated by the Senate. It was noted that he had the discretion to zig zag but it was not a order

The Japanese commander of the sub that sank the ship testified that zig zagging would not have stopped the torpedo

For years the story was that he had carried a top secret cargo and he did.

The mission was so secret that it took them 4 days to find them and rescue the survivors where many had died during the 4 days drifting in the sea.

It was suggested that the Navy might have know a sub was in the area but they had just cracked the Japanese code and did not want to warn the cruiser out of fear that the japanese would find out about cracking the code

The Japanese commander wrote this to the Senators

''Our peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war,'' he said. ''Perhaps it is time your peoples forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction.''

Was he a scapegoat?

It is funny as various government make agreements on how to wage a war in a way that tries to make it civilized or moral

yet in the heat of battle, individual have to make life and death decisions. Then those in power make life and death decisions when they are not putting their lives on the line.

 

[Camp]

and they are still NOT surrendering--

But also no longer a threat.

The threat was Russia entering the war with Japan in Manchuria with the goal of invading Japan and gaining a seat at the surrender negotiations.

 

[Pogo]

Always fun to second guess history from the modern moral high ground.
First we need to understand that the Japanese were not going to surrender. There are many times civillians and military chose death rather then surrender. They committed suicide by jumping off cliffs. They rammed planes into ships. They hid out in jungles for years.
The second thing we need to understand is that there were not unlimited funds, resources or men that we were willing to commit to the war against Japan.
Japan was convinced that we only had one atomic bomb. At least that was what they convinced their people of. I do not know for sure if the high command was convinced because of the enormous cost of such a weapon at that time or what the real reason was.
To have used only one would have proven the leaders right so even if the origanal bomb was demoralizing to have proven them right would have increased the Japanese resolve.
Could we have won without the second bomb? Perhaps. At what cost in men and material? We will never know. We do know that the war ended abruptly after the second.
As I said it is always fun to second guess history from our moral high ground but that assumes we are willing to understand the whole of history and the thought processes that went on at the time. It is also nice if we stop to think about such things as cost of lives and material if our understanding is wrong.

We had three bombs
One was tested at Alamogordo, one at Hiroshima, one at Nagasaki

We had the bomb, nobody else did

At that time, no invasion was necessary. We could make more bombs. We did make more bombs. Time was on our side.

The whole (alleged) argument that "they only have one bomb" is inherently illogical. If you can make one bomb, then you can make any number of the same thing, because you already did it. This idea just smacks of revisionist mythology and should be dismissed out of hand.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

and they are still NOT surrendering--

But also no longer a threat.

The threat was Russia entering the war with Japan in Manchuria with the goal of invading Japan and gaining a seat at the surrender negotiations.

The Soviets had a seat at the Potsdam conference, just like we did. We engineered their invasion with them.

 

[Pogo]

We had three bombs
One was tested at Alamogordo, one at Hiroshima, one at Nagasaki

We had the bomb, nobody else did

At that time, no invasion was necessary. We could make more bombs. We did make more bombs. Time was on our side.

Except that it really wasn't.

What we were realizing by 1945 is that the Soviets couldn't really be trusted. they were installing Soviet puppet states in Eastern Europe, and now they were in a position to send hundreds of divisions into China, Korea and Japan.

We'd have gotten to the same place, but with the Sovietns firmly in charge of the region... As it was, we still ended up losing China in 1949, and the Korean war in 1950. Imagine if the USSR had completely occupied Korea and maybe half of Japan.

USSR wasn't "installing puppet states in Eastern Europe" until after that date, when they saw a mustering of force in western Europe, particularly Germany, by the same country that had pre-empted them out of Japan with the world's then-only Nuke, and after hiding out in Africa while they (the USSR) did all the heavy work in Europe. And they had nothing to do with Korea.

And China was never "ours" to "lose" anyway. Perhaps you're thinking of the Philippines?

Moreover, Japan and the USSR were neighboring states that had already been in conflict; Russia had the same concern about Japan to its east that it had about Germany to its west. That gives them more of an interest in containing Japanese imperialism than it does us, several thousand miles away. They'd never been invaded by Alaska.

This whole fantasy of USSR-as-invader bent on world domination is a sicko fantasy contrived in the warped minds of the Dulles Brothers and their ilk. History tells us how far off the mark it is. USSR was in no position to invade or dominate anything after bearing the brunt of the war in Europe. They were in need of reconstruction, which btw they also got snubbed out of when we were getting Germany and the UK back on their feet.

See the whole picture.

 

[elektra]

so we had to nuke 2 cities full of grand parents and children because they didn't have a navy but t hey did have an army so we couldn't nuke the army because we needed them to say "UNCLE" so we kill a whole bunch of innocent grandparents and children because conservatives love killing people...

ok

you win

you had to kill those old people to make them say "uncle"

July 30th, 900 sailors were killed by the Japanese. Yet you make the outrageous claim that the japanese had no navy? August 18th the last B29 is shot down by the japanese, 9 days after Nagasaki, 6 days after the japanese cry "uncle". If I can use your pathetic term.

And how many Americans were crying, "uncle", in the torture camps!!!! How many you piece of shit. They were literally crying uncle, being beaten with bats, suffering, dying, yes americans crying uncle, for their lives, so that they could see their grandparents, and children.

How many died because of people like you! You would of had every american die by torture. You are a problem, your kind have been around since WW II. Afraid to fight, weak, pathetic, allowing americans to cry uncle under extreme torture.

Why, because you hate america so much you would have our men die of cruel torture and beatings under the worst conditions.

Cry uncle, yep, our american prisoners of war cried uncle and they got no quarter.

This appeal to emotion fallacy is a failed and transparent attempt at changing the subject. The frequent brutality of the Japanese military against prisoners of war is not in contention here.

You are an idiot, how else do you explain such a sexually deprived user name.

Yes, I understand you wish to deflect from the subject, ending the war so that the american prisoners of war may live.

Of all the arguments, this is the one you desire to be talked about the least, if at all.

Dropping two bombs saved the lives of American pow,

It ended thier horror.

Your protest is pitiful and disgusting.

 

[Pogo]

The Japanese had been carrying out a genocidal war in China for nearly a decade... you think FDR should have rewarded them for THAT?

If FDR did nothing to punish the Soviets for their brutality and oppression, why did he choose to pick a fight with the anti-communist Japanese over their arguably justified war in China?

The Japanese were not any more vicious than Mao's Communist Chinese forces were, and the Nationalist Chinese forces certainly did not follow the rules of warfare either in many cases. The Japanese had entirely valid interests in seeking to keep the Communists from coming to power in China, as the whole world saw after the war when Mao came to power and murdered over 20 million Chinese.

Instead of joining with Japan to defeat the Maoist Communnists, Chang Kaishek oddly chose to form an alliance with the Communists against the Japanese. Surely no one in their right mind would say that China was better off under the Communists than Manchuria had been under the Japanese.

The Japanese were as bad as the Nazis in WWII... we just don't hear that much about it because the Jews run Hollywood and just can't stop whining about Hitler. Now, if the Chinese ran Hollywood, that'd be a different story.

Actually, that is total hogwash. The Japanese were nothing like the Nazis. Tojo was a mild leader compared to Hitler and Stalin. The Japanese people enjoyed far more rights and freedoms during WW II than did the Russians under Stalin and the Germans under Hitler.

One book that documents this fact is Israeli historian Ben Shillony's book Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan (Clarendon Press, 1991). Two other good books on the subject are Meron Medzini's Under the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Japan and the Jews during the Holocaust Era (Academic Studies Press, 2016) and Samuel Yamashita's Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940-1945 (University of Kansas Press, 2017).

Many readers will be astounded to learn of the degree and frequency of political opposition and criticism that was tolerated in wartime Japan. They will also be surprised to learn that much more often than not Japan's legal system protected citizens against unjust actions by the government. Japan was certainly not as free and open as America and England were during the war, but open criticism/opposition and the rule of law existed in Japan to a degree that was unheard of in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

We tend to conflate the mass of "World War Two" into a single entity due to timing but it was really two different wars that happened to have allies or temporary allies in common. It was German/Italian (and domestically, Spanish) fascism in Europe threatening British/French imperialism, while coincidentally Japanese imperialism threatened its broader region in Asia. But the Japanese were not fascists. Japan and Germany may have had opponents in common but Japan didn't send troops to Europe and Germany wasn't sailing to Asia. Different wars for different reasons.

 

[elektra]

You have been provided with quote after quote after quote from US military leaders of the day.

A quote without a source is a fable, a lie, nothing more.

The OP author can not link.
The user who posted can not source his quotes.
You can not offer facts or even an opinion to discuss.

You simply cry, " but they said so, so they are right"

 

[elektra]

,

and they are still NOT surrendering--

But also no longer a threat.

Yet, in July of 1945 a thousand american men died. How is that not a threat? I guess it is just life that does not matter?

 

[Vandalshandle]

Another major reason that we sought an end to the war as soon as possible, was because the Soviets had just joined in, and would have invaded Japan, if we had not invaded, ourselves, or ended the war with nuclear weapons, first. The end result would have been a Soviet Japan, which would have destabilized the entire Pacific rim. That would have changed history dramatically for the worst, as far as the free world was concerned, not to mention for the Japanese.