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Although in later decades there was considerable debate about whether the bombings were ethically justified, virtually all of America’s political and military leadership, as well as most of those involved in the atomic bomb project, believed at the time that Truman’s decision was correct.The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.
— Major General Curtis LeMay, XXI Bomber Command, September 1945, [102]
Prove itAlthough in later decades there was considerable debate about whether the bombings were ethically justified, virtually all of America’s political and military leadership, as well as most of those involved in the atomic bomb project, believed at the time that Truman’s decision was correct.
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The decision to use the atomic bomb
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What did the japanese court say about the Rape of Nanking?
Or the forced prostitution of Comfort Women?
And yet they surrenderedEven more amazingly, look at Okinawa into at least the early 1990s.
Until that time the Japanese military were confined to base if they were on Okinawa. Not by anything to do with the Americans, but they were that hated by the people of Okinawa.
That is who they blamed for decades after the war ended for the death on the islands. They were the ones that slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians with hand grenades and bayonets', and forced them to lead suicide charges to soak up bullets and protect those with guns. Who would find caved full of families trying to hide from the fighting, and kill them all so they would not suffer the humiliation of surrender.
On Okinawa, I met a lot of very friendly people. And at that time a lot who survived the battle. But amazingly, they did not blame us. They blamed their own military, which is why they were confined to base. Even over 40 years later.
I have been told that was lifted in the late 1990s, as by then the WWII generation was dying off and the old hatred of the Japanese military was also dying. But that should tell some how their own people saw the military of their own country. I also know that today most are proud to call themselves "Japanese". That also was not the case 40 years ago. Many would get mad at that, and insist they were "Okinawans".
Because of their twisted form of Bushido, Japan was the most brutal of occupiers during WWII. Even making the Germans look like nice guys.
I thought you were big on authority? Britannica is the authority.Prove it
Watch this folks
Opinion noted and dismissedI thought you were big on authority? Britannica is the authority.
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The decision to use the atomic bomb | WWII, Hiroshima & Nagasaki
Less than two weeks after being sworn in as president, Harry S. Truman received a long report from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. “Within four months,” it began, “we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon ever known in human history.” Truman’s decision to use thewww.britannica.com
"...In later years, several key figures, including General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral William Leahy, and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, claimed to have opposed using the bomb, but there is no firm evidence of any substantial contemporary opposition.
Most of the scientists, civilian leaders, and military officials responsible for the development of the bomb clearly assumed that its military use, however unpleasant, was the inevitable outcome of the project. Although they were forced to formulate an opinion before a single bomb had been built or tested, it is unlikely that a more precise knowledge of the weapon’s power would have changed many minds. Truman faced almost no pressure whatever to reexamine his own inclinations.
When Truman became president, a long and bitter military campaign in the Pacific, marked by fanatical Japanese resistance and strongly held racial and cultural hostilities on both sides, was nearing its conclusion. In February 1945, about a month after he was sworn in as vice president, American troops invaded the small island of Iwo Jima, located 760 miles (1,220 km) from Tokyo. The Americans took four weeks to defeat the Japanese forces and suffered nearly 30,000 casualties. On April 1, 12 days before he became president, the United States invaded Okinawa, located just 350 miles (560 km) south of the Japanese home island of Kyushu. The battle of Okinawa was one of the fiercest of the Pacific war. The small island was defended by 100,000 Japanese troops, and Japanese military leaders attempted—with some success—to mobilize the island’s entire civilian population. Offshore, Japanese kamikaze planes inflicted severe losses on the American fleet. After nearly 12 weeks of fighting, the United States secured the island on June 21 at a cost of nearly 50,000 American casualties. Japanese casualties were staggering, with approximately 90,000 defending troops and at least 100,000 civilians killed.
The Americans considered Okinawa a dress rehearsal for the invasion of the Japanese home islands, for which the United States was finalizing a two-stage plan. The first phase, code-named Olympic, was scheduled for late October 1945, with a landing on Kyushu, defended by an estimated 350,000 Japanese troops backed by at least 1,000 kamikaze planes. Olympic entailed the use of nearly 800,000 American assault troops and an enormous naval fleet. The scale of the operation was to be similar to that of the Normandy invasion in France in June 1944, which involved 156,000 Allied troops in the first 24 hours and approximately 850,000 others by the end of the first week of July. Estimates of casualties from an invasion of Japan varied, but nearly everyone involved in the planning assumed that they would be substantial; mid-range estimates projected 132,000 American casualties, with 40,000 deaths. Truman told his military advisers that he hoped “there was a possibility of preventing an Okinawa from one end of Japan to another.”
The second phase of the plan, code-named Coronet, envisioned a landing near Tokyo on the home island of Honshu in the spring of 1946 and a Japanese surrender sometime before the end of the year. The same mid-range estimate that predicted 132,000 casualties for Olympic projected 90,000 for Coronet. If both invasions were necessary, by the most conservative estimates the United States would suffer 100,000 killed, wounded, or missing, as compared to a Pacific War total that by mid-June was approaching 170,000. Thus, the best estimates available to Truman predicted that the war would continue for a year or longer and that casualties would increase by 60 to 100 percent or more.
But would Japan have surrendered without either invasion? By mid-1945, an American naval blockade had effectively cut off the home islands from the rest of the world. Moreover, regular incendiary bombing raids were destroying huge portions of one city after another, food and fuel were in short supply, and millions of civilians were homeless. General Curtis LeMay, the commander of American air forces in the Pacific, estimated that by the end of September he would have destroyed every target in Japan worth hitting. The argument that Japan would have collapsed by early fall is speculative but powerful. Nevertheless, all the evidence available to Washington indicated that Japan planned to fight to the end. Throughout July, intelligence reports claimed that troop strength on Kyushu was steadily escalating. Moreover, American leaders learned that Japan was seeking to open talks with the Soviet Union in the hopes of making a deal that would forestall Soviet entry into the Pacific war..."
I dont think the women and children of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were war criminals
Truman faced almost no pressure whatever to reexamine his own inclinations. That's straight from Britannica. Bam!Opinion noted and dismissed
you have only offered 2 or three military men who opposed the bombing
I thought Truman gave the order to drop the two bombs.
3 days waitThen their government should not have attacked Manchuria. And China. And French Indochina, and Burma. And India. And the Dutch East Indies. And the Philippines. And the US outposts in the Pacific. And Australia. And all of the other countries they attacked and brutalized during the war.
Here, let me put the numbers into perspective. During the Pacific War, the civilian death toll is around 18 million.
Around 330,000 were Japanese.
Now just think about that for a few minutes. Out of 18 million dead civilians in that conflict, almost all of them were by the Japanese, in nations invaded and occupied by Japan. The vast majority of them were in China. Around 14 million dead in that nation alone. Almost all women and children, sometimes entire villages. Orgies of murder that would last for days and weeks, simply because they could.
And you whine about the Japanese in two cities?
Here is the amazing thing, even in Japan they do not blame the US for that. They blame their own leaders, they are the ones that started the war, then refused to end it until the nation was faced with utter destruction. And if not for the bombs, they would have willingly sacrificed the entire nation in actual battle.
You are John Snow.
If Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not force Japan to surrender then why did russia invading manchuria force them to?
Yes and they surrendered when that last hope was gone. Within hours actuallyIn reality, the Soviets were their last hope.
They had been hoping that through Russia they could make an armistice work. And even work through the Soviets to act as observers during the pullbacks of an armistice, and leave mainland Asia through their territory.
However, their declaring war removed that, and showed that they really were alone and surrounded by hostiles. That even their hopes for an armistice were moot (just as their own Ambassador to the Soviet Union told them), and they were only being played with for the gain of the Soviet Union.
It must be remembered by then they had tried to go through the Swiss, the Swedes, the Dutch, and several other countries. Nobody would present their offers of an armistice to the Allies because they knew it would be rejected. The Soviets were literally their last hope. But they did not know that they were already planning to invade themselves, and were just playing with them to kill time until they were ready to invade themselves.
Reasons Against Dropping the Atomic Bomb — Argument 1: The Bomb Was Made For Defense Only
Uh.....nopeBombs are not, and can never be a defense. They are only a deterrent.