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

It's probably worth repeating...

"...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 decision to use the atomic bomb



"...Truman faced almost no pressure whatever to reexamine his own inclinations..."

The decision to use the atomic bomb



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.

The decision to use the atomic bomb

 
Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur,[99][100] Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet), Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr. (Commander of the US Third Fleet), and even the man in charge of all strategic air operations against the Japanese home islands, then-Major General Curtis LeMay:
 
And the military experts say you are wrong


I'll go with them
No they dont

a few well known officers say japan was a beaten nation

well duh?

even Tojo could have told us that

but surrender was a political decision for the japanese not military
 
Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur,[99][100] Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet), Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr. (Commander of the US Third Fleet), and even the man in charge of all strategic air operations against the Japanese home islands, then-Major General Curtis LeMay:
Yeah, you mentioned those already. Unfortunately...

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.

The decision to use the atomic bomb

 
No they dont

a few well known officers say japan was a beaten nation

well duh?

even Tojo could have told is that

but surrender was a political decision for the japanese not military
Their opinion is quite clear


The bombs were not needed to achieve that


Even the army survey group said that
 
I dont think people like halsey, MacArthur, nimitz, lemay, Leahy and others are revisionist historians

Nobody gets to that rank without also being a politician. And for most of those involved that later spoke out against it, they had their own agendas.

LeMay was such a strong believer in "Air Power" that he believed that nothing but massive fleets of bombers was needed. That they could literally bomb any enemy into submission.

For Halsey and Nimitz, it was the same but Naval Power. That their fleets could blockade any enemy and starve them into submission.

For MacArthur, it was the raw power of an invasion itself. Notice, not a single one of them thought that Japan was about to surrender. Simply that their own methods would win the war and the bombs were not needed. And if any of them are to be believed, many more times the number of Japanese would have died. Through starvation through blockage, through the carpet and firebombings of cities by the Air Force, or by invasion by force by the Army and Marines.

Not a single one of the alternate "claims" was made until long after the war was over, and each proposed far more deaths than what actually happened.

And remember, all of them were also wrong in many ways. I already pointed out how "Bomb a day" was wrong in his predictions of the power of bombers in future wars. Hell, simply look at the "estimates" each proposed prior to Operation Olympic.

General LeMay believed that bombers alone would end the war. And would not believe when one of his staff told him an actual invasion would leave over half a million US dead.

Admiral Nimitz sent a proposal that had around 49,000 US casualties.

General MacArthur sent a proposal saying 23,000 casualties.

General Marshall sent a proposal claiming 31,000 casualties.

General MacArthur's staff estimate (which Mac quashed) had almost 300,000 casualties before they got 1/3 of the way through Kyushu (the southernmost island, not even the main island).

Remember, those are the estimates of the "experts" you keep trying to parade in front of us. And even their senior advisors were trying to tell them they were full of crap.

That is why the Secretary of War got his own independent estimate from William Shockley. Who was not a military man, but was a physicist and mathematician. Who sent a chilling estimate back in response after culling through the reports of Saipan and Okinawa. 1.7-4 million Allied casualties, and 400-800,000 Allied dead, and 7-10 million Japanese dead.

That report more than any other is what made the final decision. The numbers reported by the "Commanders" were all fantasies, because they were pushing their own agendas and supporting their own branches. Which is why your bringing them up over and over again is hilarious I find.

Oh, and the estimates expected for the Battle of Okinawa before that invasion? 10,000 Allied casualties, 3-5,000 Allied deaths. One knows that is an absolute garbage estimate, because in reality it was over 55,000 Allied casualties, and 12,000 Allied deaths. The number of deaths far exceeded even the amount of casualties in the pre-invasion estimates.

So take any claims of "estimates" from those leaders you keep quoting with a grain of salt. The size of Mount Everest.
 
The bombs were not needed to achieve that
As with many people, Truman was shocked by the enormous losses suffered at Okinawa. American intelligence reports indicated (correctly) that, although Japan could no longer meaningfully project its power overseas, it retained an army of two million soldiers and about 10,000 aircraft -- half of them kamikazes -- for the final defense of the homeland. (During postwar studies the United States learned that the Japanese had correctly anticipated where in Kyushu the initial landings would have taken place.) Although Truman hoped that the atomic bomb might give the United States an edge in postwar diplomacy, the prospect of avoiding another year of bloody warfare in the end may well have figured most importantly in his decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.

Manhattan Project: Potsdam and the Final Decision to Use the Bomb, July 1945


“He didn’t want to have to do it but he felt that he had to, to stop the war and to save both American and Japanese lives. The reports they were getting were that, in a land invasion of the Japanese main islands, the Japanese were building up forces to resist. Now we know that the Japanese knew where we planned to land and they were massing troops.”

'He felt he had to do it': Truman's grandson on bombing Hiroshima

 
Nobody gets to that rank without also being a politician. And for most of those involved that later spoke out against it, they had their own agendas.

LeMay was such a strong believer in "Air Power" that he believed that nothing but massive fleets of bombers was needed. That they could literally bomb any enemy into submission.

For Halsey and Nimitz, it was the same but Naval Power. That their fleets could blockade any enemy and starve them into submission.

For MacArthur, it was the raw power of an invasion itself. Notice, not a single one of them thought that Japan was about to surrender. Simply that their own methods would win the war and the bombs were not needed. And if any of them are to be believed, many more times the number of Japanese would have died. Through starvation through blockage, through the carpet and firebombings of cities by the Air Force, or by invasion by force by the Army and Marines.

Not a single one of the alternate "claims" was made until long after the war was over, and each proposed far more deaths than what actually happened.

And remember, all of them were also wrong in many ways. I already pointed out how "Bomb a day" was wrong in his predictions of the power of bombers in future wars. Hell, simply look at the "estimates" each proposed prior to Operation Olympic.

General LeMay believed that bombers alone would end the war. And would not believe when one of his staff told him an actual invasion would leave over half a million US dead.

Admiral Nimitz sent a proposal that had around 49,000 US casualties.

General MacArthur sent a proposal saying 23,000 casualties.

General Marshall sent a proposal claiming 31,000 casualties.

General MacArthur's estimate (which Mac quashed) estimated almost 300,000 casualties before they got 1/3 of the way through Kyushu (the southernmost island, not even the main island).

Remember, those are the estimates of the "experts" you keep trying to parade in front of us. And even their senior advisors were trying to tell them they were full of crap.

That is why the Secretary of War got his own independent estimate from William Shockley. Who was not a military man, but was a physicist and mathematician. Who sent a chilling estimate back in response after culling through the reports of Saipan and Okinawa. 1.7-4 million Allied casualties, and 400-800,000 Allied dead, and 7-10 million Japanese dead.

That report more than any other is what made the final decision. The numbers reported by the "Commanders" were all fantasies, because they were pushing their own agendas and supporting their own branches. Which is why your bringing them up over and over again is hilarious I find.

Oh, and the estimates expected for the Battle of Okinawa before that invasion? 10,000 Allied casualties, 3-5,000 Allied deaths. One knows that is an absolute garbage estimate, because in reality it was over 55,000 Allied casualties, and 12,000 Allied deaths.

So take any claims of "estimates" from those leaders you keep quoting with a grain of salt. The size of Mount Everest.
No invasion was ever going to be needed


You wish to attack these military leaders one by one but their unanimous opinion is crystal clear


The bombs were not needed to end the war
 
And the military experts say you are wrong

Look at my above post, on what they estimated the casualties would be for an invasion. Then compare it to the real numbers on Okinawa.

And notice, not a single one of those "experts" was proposing a postponement of Operation Downfall because "Japan was about to surrender". Okinawa was already being turned into a massive staging post for that very invasion. Not a single one of them believed that anything short of an invasion would end the war.

You are the one believing "revisionist history". Not us.
 
Look at my above post, on what they estimated the casualties would be for an invasion. Then compare it to the real numbers on Okinawa.

And notice, not a single one of those "experts" was proposing a postponement of Operation Downfall because "Japan was about to surrender". Okinawa was already being turned into a massive staging post for that very invasion. Not a single one of them believed that anything short of an invasion would end the war.

You are the one believing "revisionist history". Not us.
And invasion they clearly thought would never be needed


The war was over
 
No invasion was ever going to be needed
That's odd because...

American intelligence reports indicated (correctly) that, although Japan could no longer meaningfully project its power overseas, it retained an army of two million soldiers and about 10,000 aircraft -- half of them kamikazes -- for the final defense of the homeland. (During postwar studies the United States learned that the Japanese had correctly anticipated where in Kyushu the initial landings would have taken place.) Although Truman hoped that the atomic bomb might give the United States an edge in postwar diplomacy, the prospect of avoiding another year of bloody warfare in the end may well have figured most importantly in his decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.

Manhattan Project: Potsdam and the Final Decision to Use the Bomb, July 1945
 
Last edited:
No invasion was ever going to be needed
The only alternative to the atomic bomb that Truman and his advisors felt was certain to lead to a Japanese surrender was an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Plans were already well-advanced for this, with the initial landings set for the fall and winter of 1945-1946. No one knew how many lives would be lost in an invasion, American, Allied, and Japanese, but the recent seizure of the island of Okinawa provided a ghastly clue. The campaign to take the small island had taken over ten weeks, and the fighting had resulted in the deaths of over 12,000 Americans, 100,000 Japanese, and perhaps another 100,000 native Okinawans.



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.

 
The army survey group which studied this issue extensively said no invasion was ever going to be needed
 
The army survey group which studied this issue extensively said no invasion was ever going to be needed
Again... American intelligence reports indicated (correctly) that, although Japan could no longer meaningfully project its power overseas, it retained an army of two million soldiers and about 10,000 aircraft -- half of them kamikazes -- for the final defense of the homeland. (During postwar studies the United States learned that the Japanese had correctly anticipated where in Kyushu the initial landings would have taken place.) Although Truman hoped that the atomic bomb might give the United States an edge in postwar diplomacy, the prospect of avoiding another year of bloody warfare in the end may well have figured most importantly in his decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.

Manhattan Project: Potsdam and the Final Decision to Use the Bomb, July 1945
 
The 1946 United States Strategic Bombing Survey in Japan, whose members included Paul Nitze,[89] concluded the atomic bombs had been unnecessary to win the war. They said:

There is little point in attempting precisely to impute Japan's unconditional surrender to any one of the numerous causes which jointly and cumulatively were responsible for Japan's disaster. The time lapse between military impotence and political acceptance of the inevitable might have been shorter had the political structure of Japan permitted a more rapid and decisive determination of national policies. Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.

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.[90][91]
 
No invasion was ever going to be needed


You wish to attack these military leaders one by one but their unanimous opinion is crystal clear

Japan would never have ended the war otherwise. Bushido would not have allowed it. Under the Bushido Code, surrender was cowardly, and even death by suicide was preferred over it. That is why over and over on every battle prior, the remainders of the Japanese forces would mount suicide charges and fight to the last man in a hopeless charge. Better to die than surrender.

On Saipan, over 5,000 civilians killed themselves (many by throwing their families off of cliffs) rather than surrender.



And the pre-war civilian population of that island was less than 50,000 people. Many of them natives, and not Japanese. Yet, over 10% of them killed themselves rather than surrender.

Now, convert that to Japan

Over 73 million people. So over 7 million dead by suicide alone.

Even to this day, suicide is a problem in Japan, because culturally they do not have a prohibition against it. In fact, culturally they accept and endorse it even to this day. Better to die than to suffer humiliation and failure.

The problem, is that you do not understand Japanese culture. You especially do not understand Japanese culture in the Showa era. You act like they were Europeans, and would surrender when it was obvious they could not win. That was not the culture, they would have fought to the last man, as they had on every island prior to the dropping of the bombs. With mass suicides if that failed.

The bombs gave them an "easy out". Even for those drenched in Bushido, they could accept that ending the war (not surrender, I use that term but in reality Japan never surrendered) was the only alternative. Which is why their Emperor told them to "endure the unendurable".
 

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