A Harrowing Story: Dropping an Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki (thebulletin.org) 279
Last Sunday marked the 75th anniversary of the world's second atomic bomb attack in 1945. Slashdot reader DanDrollette (who is also the deputy editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) shares their article describing that eight-hour flight — with no radio communication — carrying a 9,000-pound nuclear weapon as "outside, monsoon winds, rain, and lightning lashed at them."
In a nutshell: A typhoon was coming, the fuel pump failed, they had to switch planes, things were wired incorrectly, they missed their rendezvous, they couldn't see the primary target, they ran out of gas on the way home, and they had to crash-land. But the worst part was when the Fat Man atomic bomb started to arm itself and begin the countdown to detonation mid-flight, before they were even half-way to Nagasaki.
"One of them, bearing the newly minted title 'weaponeer,' grabbed the Bomb's blueprints and raced to figure out what was wrong..." the article explains, calling it a miracle that their mission ultimately succeeded. "It is a story of astonishing screw-ups that easily could have plunged the plane, the men, and the bomb into the Pacific Ocean...
"The military has been loathe to talk about it for reasons of national security and, perhaps, embarrassment."
"One of them, bearing the newly minted title 'weaponeer,' grabbed the Bomb's blueprints and raced to figure out what was wrong..." the article explains, calling it a miracle that their mission ultimately succeeded. "It is a story of astonishing screw-ups that easily could have plunged the plane, the men, and the bomb into the Pacific Ocean...
"The military has been loathe to talk about it for reasons of national security and, perhaps, embarrassment."
"Harrowing"? In this context? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it was a little bit more harrowing for the people of Nagasaki than the pilots.
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Even worse for those poor souls that got bombed TWICE [history.com]. There were more than a few refugees from Hiroshima in Nagasaki when the second bomb hit. Seriously, how unlucky can you be? Or for those that survived both, were they amazingly lucky?
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Yeah, my first thought was that if it had detonated in the air hundreds of thousands of people might have not been killed or given life changing injuries and sickness. They were very unlucky that day.
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Depends on where it happened. Air bursts cause long-range EMP and fuck up the ionosphere so that it won't reflect radio communications for extended periods... Each of which could have serious consequences for people trying to live their lives in an industrializing society.
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Poor pilots. Having to fly through that bad weather and all.
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You won't believe what my grandfather had to go through on the Eastern front. It was very cold and they didn't have any Knuspriger Schweinebauch!
And then, oops, they destroyed a city (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And then, oops, they destroyed a city (Score:5, Informative)
and ultimately killed over 100000 people. Total slapstick episode, that flight.
You seem to be confusing Hiroshima with Nagasaki. I suppose all Jap cities look the same to you?
The Nagasaki bomb hit an industrial region, the Urulami valley with the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and the Nagasaki Arsenal.
Most of the city, including the centre, was spared.
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Most of the city was "spared" not by some US kindness, but because of the weather conditions - the planned hypocenter was 3km to the South, precisely over the most densely populated part of the city, which you can easily see form any map of the bomb damage.
http://www.asahi.com/hibakusha... [asahi.com]
Still, even with this error, the bombing murdered over 60k people, most of them civilians.
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Murdered? Nothing less than those sadistic bastards deserved, but it may well have saved millions of Japanese lives,
as well as those of POWs and victims of Japanese occupation.
Read some history. https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
Japanese leaders were divided, some for surrender, the army wanting the whole country to fight to the death.
Anything that helped tip the balance is good. Better 100,000 Japs than a half a million allied troops in the invasion.
(And far more so-called "civilians" defending with spea
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You tried to lie, I caught you and exposed your lie, and you come back with a defense of a war crime against people who had nothing to do with the regime except being exploited by it.
Lovely, you'd have been right at home at the Kenpeitai, neonazi.
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kindness? murder? You are living in a melodrama.
The targets were legitimate, and chosen for cold military and psychological reasons, to bring about an end to the war, at a time when the Japs were bayoneting civilians, and sending pilots on suicide missions.
But this does not mean those making the decisions were not dreading the results.
And what is this a bout "lies"? I knew about Kokura as the primary target, but what are you saying about the planned hypocentre further south in Nagasaki?
Was the industria
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The targets were legitimate,
No, the targets were not "legitimate", and only lying apologists that are no different from the Nazis claim otherwise.
The targets were deliberately selected to be populous cities, where the bomb effects would manifest themselves fully over a large area. It is obvious why - it was a live test by the US military - similar in purpose to the tests that Unit 731 did on live Chinese - to see what happens.
It was also meant to scare Stalin and get Truman out of the shade of Roosevelt - the great war president.
And what is this a bout "lies"?
You l
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You're quite wrong.
And a troll, to boot.
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Given a choice between a world dominated by Nazis and Japanese militarists and the one we got instead, I know which one I'd pick.
You can go on all day about Hiroshima and Dresden, but one side had an Auschwitz and a Rape of Nanjing on its conscience, and one had nothing like either on its own.
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It is murder nevertheless.
Murdering innocent ppl because you think to save some POWs or your own invading troops does not change the fact: that it is murder.
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Morally, perhaps. Legally, no. Declare war legally, not just "war on drugs" rhetoric, and you shield your troops from the charge of murder, as long as they follow the rules of engagement. It's morally repugnant, but those airmen and those who ordered their mission are not guilty of murder.
Or do you think you could prosecute them for murder in any court? No, you can't. Putting your statement in bold doesn't make it true. Tell the truth, it was a terrible, horrendous act. Get back to us when anyone manages to
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I suppose all Jap cities look the same to you?
They did after the Americans were done. Tokyo looked no different and didn't even need a nuclear bomb.
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Nevertheless it had 80k death toll on impact and roughly 250k the next 50 years.
Perhaps you are mixing up propaganda with real facts.
Maybe they should have thought twice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty sure a lot of Chinese folks thought they deserved the bombs. Don't engage in total war unless you are prepared to reap what you sow.
Maybe things like the Rape of Nanking and their treatment of POWs was a bad idea? Their doctors engaging in experiments that made Mengele look like a boy scout? Their treatment of civilian populations every place they invaded? Systematic horrific rape and murder of civilian women, children and even the elderly? Nailing people to boards and running them over with tanks?
I won't try to justify it with "the bombs saved thousands of lives". I simply say they deserved every bit of what they got and the alternatives were probably worse.
I'm sure if we had let the Russians invade their civilian population would have fared so much better. I'm sure they would have loved becoming Soviet Japan as well.
I would have pushed the button myself. Repeatedly. And slept just fine.
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Japan's civilians were mostly victims of their own military and government. They didn't want a war, they suffered because of it and had no choice but to participate. They were bombarded with propaganda and lies and if there had been an invasion most would likely have surrendered if they could, which is why the military put so much effort into demonizing US soldiers and making Japanese civilians think they had no choice but to fight them.
There is a channel called Three Arrows on YouTube who does a lot of vid
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Japan's civilians were mostly victims of their own military and government. They didn't want a war, they suffered because of it and had no choice but to participate. They were bombarded with propaganda and lies
Just like Americans are today. And like we have been for decades of senseless, often illegal wars for profit and dominance.
It's amazing how we have become what we claimed to abhor.
Re: Maybe they should have thought twice? (Score:2)
Well, except for Trump. No new wars and every time he's tried to pull us out of the ones we are in the establishment of both sides has screamed bloody murder.
The people of Japan will never forget. (Score:2, Troll)
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And he also explodes regularly!
The Great American Addiction (Score:2)
Re:The Great American Addiction (Score:4, Insightful)
Wahh, wahh. Muricans r so violent, except for all the other 20th century regimes that killed millions.
FDR was so bloodthirsty compared to Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the whole gang. Riiight
Brings back memories (Score:3)
Doolittle: Hello, Bomb? Are you with me?
Bomb #20: Of course.
Doolittle: Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?
Bomb #20: I am always receptive to suggestions.
Doolittle: Fine. Think about this then. How do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: Well, of course I exist.
Doolittle: But how do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: It is intuitively obvious.
Doolittle: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have that you exist?
Bomb #20: Hmmmm... well... I think, therefore I am.
Doolittle: That's good. That's very good. But how do you know that anything else exists?
Bomb #20: My sensory apparatus reveals it to me. This is fun.
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To secure access to oil that was powering their empire building ambitions.
Also, Pearl Harbor predates the Manhatten project
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Also, Pearl Harbor predates the Manhatten project
Tube Alloys was the codename for the initial British nuclear weapons project, started well before the Pearl Harbor attack happened. The British effort, including early research, materials, instruments and uranium samples were rolled into the Manhattan Project after the US went on to a war footing in early 1942. Many scientists based in Britain (some who were refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe) moved to the US to Los Alamos and elsewhere to pursue the developm
Re:If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Insightful)
Why did they antagonize the US by bombing Pearl Harbor?
Nuclear deterrents have generally been ineffective before the invention of nuclear weapons.
Why did Egypt attack the Hittites if they didn't want to get nuked?
Why did America attack Canada in 1812 if they didn't want to get nuked?
etc.
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Why did America attack Canada in 1812 if they didn't want to get nuked?
etc.
Washington was looking a bit like Nagasaki after that one. But they did build a nice new Whitehouse on the smoking ruins.
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Why did America attack Canada in 1812 if they didn't want to get nuked?
Because we figured we could get away with it - Canadians being who they are...
http://www.harkavagrant.com/in... [harkavagrant.com]
Re:If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Informative)
Because at the time, Japan had an expansionist fascist government. Their expansion plans required access to petroleum, which Japan does not have. They also thought themselves superior to other Asian societies and ethnic groups. They resented Western imperial activity in their part of the world due to the Brits and the U.S.
After invading Manchuria, for raw materials, they went after S.E. Asia for more. The U.S. controlled that region's petroleum markets and embargoed oil to Japan. A military back then ran on oil. Hence their military decided that if they were to support their conquests and increase them, the U.S. had to go. They could have just invaded the Philippines, which they eventually did, but that wouldn't force the U.S. to rethink its commitments in that part of the world and would take too long to make the statement that Japan was the Big Guy in the area. So they decided on a Big Bang at Pearl Harbor where the U.S. fleet had its home port.
One problem for that attack was the U.S. aircraft carriers were out to sea when the attack came, that allowed the U.S. to push back with Naval power. When the U.S. started to take the fight to the Japanese, it wasn't a slam dunk that it would succeed. The first real push at Tarawa wasn't exactly a resounding success and the U.S. suffered a lot of causalities. The fight at Guadalcanal was vicious and showed just how far Japan would go to defend its gains.
After that, the U.S. had the long arduous slog up through the island chains to get to Japan. The Australians were with the U.S. every step of the way. Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur were also fighting each other with Nimitz wanting to avoid the nasty ground slog in the Philippines and hopscotch up the island chains. MacArthur needed the ground slog for his dumb claim of returning to the Philippines (he lost them to the Japanese early on) and his ego. The U.S. had to fight hard to get the inner islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam (Northern Marianas) from which they could pound the Japanese home islands. When the U.S. finally dropped the big ones, Japan was arming school children with pitchforks to repel the expected invasion.
Every year Japan convenes a Horror Show about the bombs. While they were truly awful, Japan is also disingenuous. They have never even apologized for the atrocities they committed in China, 3 million Chinese dead. They used chem weapons there as well. And every year their prime minister visits a Japanese shrine to their war dead. And every year they ignore atoning for or even admitting their own atrocities. And they continue national lies such as claiming they are killing whales for research purposes. My sympathies towards Japan are limited.
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They have never even apologized for the atrocities they committed in China, 3 million Chinese dead. ... about 10 or 15 years ago.
Actually they did
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Reasonable summary but your statement of Chinese deaths attributable to the Japanese invasion is off by a bit. 15 million is considered to be fairly accurate.
The self-flaggellationists never report that this carnage was continuing every single day. Chinese lives matter. Ending the war completely and absolutely, immediately, was the only humane course of action to pursue. The Japanese Government had to believe that there would be no great cost in Allied lives and materiel required to bring about their abs
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A military back then ran on oil.
A military now runs on oil, too. We've got technologies to reduce that dependence but they haven't been broadly deployed yet.
Every year Japan convenes a Horror Show about the bombs. While they were truly awful, Japan is also disingenuous.
To be fair, they're not any more disingenuous than is America. We're still making excuses as to why we had to bomb Japan when they were about to surrender. I won't even go into other nations right now (*cough*Israel*cough*) but hypocrisy seems to be SOP.
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They attacked Pearl Harbour because they thought that war with the US was inevitable, and that they could not win against the larger US navy. They were right about that. So they decided to strike first in the hope of causing enough damage to prevent the US becoming a serious threat for long enough to build up their own Navy and bring the situation to a stalemate. They were also hoping for more support from Germany.
In hindsight it was one of many errors that the Japanese military made, but they were driven m
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And how was it an error? What were their options? Everyone knew that the US was far more powerful than the rest and was looking for ways to expand. Germany made an alliance with Japan in the hope that this would raise the threshold for the US to enter but the US used that alliance by squeezing Japan in the hope it would make the first move. It is not extraordinary that they made the first move. It was also more effective than expected.
But after that the US had its pretext to continue until it had conquered
Re:If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:4, Interesting)
And how was it an error? What were their options?
They could have chosen to ally with the... allies. Throwing in with people who would just turn around and ethnically cleanse your ass out of existence after they ethnically cleansed everyone else was fucking stupid. There was never any future there.
After we nuked them twice in WWII they were so impressed that they decided to emulate our culture in a number of ways, down to color choices and fonts on signs. They went balls-out on industrialization and thrived under America's thumb. They could have avoided a lot of hassle if they had gone that direction in the first place.
America may be a devil, but it's a much less malevolent devil than the Reich was.
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Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:4, Insightful)
"Japan"
How convenient! Just throw in all the civilians with their nutjob leaders and military?
Hey, look! Trump is an asshole! So by your logic, I should fly over to your home, and murder YOU!
Fuckin moron.
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Re:If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Interesting)
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because militarists who ran the country thought that an empire was a necessity for the Japanese economy. In order to secure the resources they needed they believed they had to *own* the places that produced them.
In response to the military regime's attempts to secure control of its oil supply, the US cut off exports of petroleum to Japan, hitting the regime in exactly the spot they felt most vulnerable. But when you threaten a fool, he responds by doing something foolish. The regime in Japan sincerely thought it was defending its national survival by attacking Pearl Harbor.
General Tojo, the Prime Minister, was an unintelligent, poorly-educated, narrow-minded man, and *proud* of it. He got where he was by hard work and self-sacrifice. Those are virtues of course, but to run a country you really ought to be pretty smart and knowledgeable.
The lesson isn't just "don't attack Pearl Harbor". It's don't put ignorant men in charge of the country, men whose first instinct when confronted with a problem is to use military force.
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Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:4, Informative)
Yes.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia... [scmp.com]
"Outnumbered by American forces, Japanese soldiers handed out grenades to civilians describing them as “benevolent gifts from the Emperor”. Other accounts detail them using civilians as human shields, decapitating babies whose cries threatened to give away secret hiding spots and stealing food meant for women and children."
Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:3, Insightful)
Iâ(TM)m not sure a decapitated baby is âoeparticipating in the war effortâ. They are a blameless victim, just as the babies killed by the atomic bomb were blameless victims.
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I'm not sure you understand pre-21st century military doctrine. War is ugly and only NATO has shown restraint in exercising their military power to save as many civilians.
Continued war with Japan would've cost many more lives, major Japanese cities were fire bombed almost nightly and the Soviets were even more cruel. At least Nagasaki and other major military industrial cities had leaflets distributed for civilians to get out, the ONLY powers in the 20th century that did warning campaigns were the UK and th
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That is complete bullshit. Truth be told, they did not know that it was at the time, but it is still bull shit.
Research has indicated the Japanes Emperor was already pushing for total capitulation by Japan, it was just a matter of time before.he would have convinced his generals. The war would not have raged on for much longer.
War is a dirty business, but even then dropping the atomic bomb on HIroshima and on Nagasaki was considered by many to be morally wrong an unjustifiable, as were the firebombings of o
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Yep. Every one of those Japanese Civilians was a murderous baby killing grenade wielder.
It's amazing how winners self-justify their atrocities. Anyway I can't criticise the USA for killing 80000 civilians in Nagasaki as I have no criticisms left after they burnt 100000 civilians alive in Tokyo.
But I'm sure those baby killing grenadiers had it coming.
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Awful, dreadful stories and statistics. I cringe at the histories I've read.
Still, the brutal japanese expansion had to be stopped.
What's your plan for that?
Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Informative)
Ask the Chinese about the Japanese occupation? Look up Unit 731. Find out the plan the Japanese had for an invasion of the Japanese main islands, including school children being sent out to blow up soldiers.
And even after Hiroshima, the Emperor did not order the unconditional surrender of Japan. He knew what the Americans could do, but he and his government still dithered, hoping for a negotiated surrender (despite the fact that the Allies had outright refused to negotiate with the Flensburg Government and forced Admiral Donitz to sign the unconditional surrender in April). It took a second nuclear bomb and even attempted coup by mid level Japanese officers for the Emperor to order Japan's unconditional surrender. And that surrender may have as much to do with fear that the Soviet Union might land on the main islands themselves.
Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Informative)
It took a second nuclear bomb and even attempted coup by mid level Japanese officers for the Emperor to order Japan's unconditional surrender.
The coup was an attempt to stop the surrender, not an attempt to force the surrender, and it wasn't by mid-level officers.
Kyujo incident [wikipedia.org]
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Anyway I can't criticise the USA for killing 80000 civilians in Nagasaki as I have no criticisms left after they burnt 100000 civilians alive in Tokyo.
Strategic bombing of Japan began at the beginning of 1945, and targeted cities all over Japan. It killed more people than the atomic attacks. Yet the Japanese refused to surrender. The firebombing of Tokyo occurred in early March of 1945. And yet after the near and total destruction of their capital city, with 100K dead, the Japanese still refused to surrender. It wasn't until months later, immediately after the atomic attacks, that the Japanese finally surrendered.
It's easy to sit back and say what t
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More so immediately after the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. This is because the Japanese government was hoping to use the Soviets as a mediator in a negotiated surrender. Once the Soviets (re)declared war, it was obvious that wasn't going to happen.
The Soviets didn't (re)declare anything. They didn't declare war with Japan until the eve of their invasion of Manchuria, which the Japanese knew was going to happen months before it actually occurred.
It was already in the works
I keep seeing people in this thread saying negotiations were underway, and that the US shouldn't have dropped the bomb because of that. Well, there were no negotiations going on with the signatories of the Potsdam declaration. Your own post says so. Trying to get Stalin to mediate between the parties doesn
Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not racism.
Japan at the time: totalitarian regime bent on ruling all their neighbors. Behaved themselves like barbarians in every place they invaded. They needed to be stopped by any means necessary.
Britain at the time: democracy trying to defend itself from a totalitarian regime bent on ruling all their neighbors, which behaved themselves like barbarians in every place they invaded. The Nazis needed to be stopped by any means necessary.
One cause is just, the other one isn't. Nothing to do with race. If you insist on calling it discrimination, it's discrimination against evil.
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Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't necessarily make it wrong. The Japanese did plenty of horrible things to Koreans, Chinese, and others that they wanted to annex.
That also doesn't excuse the US for the pieces of propaganda that were racist, and the concentration camps they filled up with Japanese. But it doesn't seem the decision to go to war, or any of the tactical decisions comprising the war, were motivated by race.
Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Informative)
That's 'plucky British courage'.
Actually, it was just a speech, not to be taken literally. In reality, the British did indeed surrender when beaten, such as in Singapore.
To the Japanese, surrender instead of fighting to the death was dishonourable, and they treated prisoners like vermin.
"According to the findings of the Tokyo Tribunal, the death rate of Western prisoners was 27.1%, seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians."
Timothy Mcveigh (Score:2)
Timothy Mcveigh would have called them "collateral damage".
Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that when we invaded Okinawa, the Emperor had ordered ALL citizens to fight to the end. Families where throwing their babies AT the Allies. Japanese used 8 y.o. and above for suicide missions to blow up tanks. Okinawa was one of the WORST battles in all of WWII. And to invade Japan DIRECTLY would mean losing 2-4x the ppl that WWII had already lost.
Keep in mind, this 3 month battle was the WORST in the entire WWII arena. This made D-day and Germany's invasion of USSR and Northern Africa look like a cakewalk compared to this. The Japanese ferociously fought with all men, women, and children.
The 2 nukes did not cost lives. They SAVED MANY MANY LIVES. More could have been saved had the emperor NOT listened to his war criminal generals who pushed for continuing the war.
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Re:If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Informative)
Did they have a choice? Was Japan a democracy?
Japan was a democracy. The people voted against war in the 1937 general election [wikipedia.org].
The Japanese Kwantung Army [wikipedia.org] in Manchuria started the war without permission from Tokyo and without the support of the people. However, their rapid successes led the imperial command in Tokyo to accept their actions and pulled Japan deeper into conflict with China and eventually the United States.
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Re:If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:4, Informative)
Japan was still feudal society. A manned invasion would have cost millions of lives on both sides. It took nuclear weapons to get through their ‘face saving’ culture. It was devastating, but the right decision.
What amazes me, is Japanese people and Japan is now such a great place to visit.
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What part of 'face-saving culture' made Churchill promise to have the UK fight in the fields and in the streets?
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Well firstly, Britain doesn't really have a "face-saving" culture in the way that some other cultures do. It's OK to admit to a mistake without having to commit hari-kiri in restitution. More so than most, in fact. Secondly, think about the purpose of Churchill's speech. It was more about making Germany think that the cost of invasion would be too high than anything else, since they were superior in numbers. But it was also to give confidence and inspiration to people at home. There were secret plans
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Why start with nuking civilians though? Why not demonstrate the weapons elsewhere?
At the time the bombs were dropped people in the Japanese government were already looking for a way to sue for peace and talking to the Allies about it. They could see that they were not going to win or bring the war to a stalemate. Negotiations with the US were already taking place and formed the basis of the eventual surrender.
Of course we can never know for sure but it seems likely that if the atomic bombs had been demonstr
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Why start with nuking civilians though?
Start? Hardly. Check this:
http://www.ditext.com/japan/na... [ditext.com]
The Japanese populace was on the barbecue every night and had been for months. They just changed to a nuclear heat source. Somehow the extent and horror of the firebombings has been glossed over or ignored and the whole focus has been on the two nukes. The American leadership had to be wondering what they had to do to force the Japanese to accept reality. Undoubtedly the US experience with the defense the Japanese put up on each and every is
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Things didn't really start with the nuking of civilians. There was a pretty intense firebombing campaign targeted at civilians going on for some time before the nukes were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As many or more people were killed in just one night of firebombing in Tokyo, as were killed in either of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Overall, 67 Japanese cities of significant size were firebombed, with several hundred casualties, and several million left homeless. Even General LeMay, who orchestrated the f
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Two important points here:
It took TWO bombings to get the Japs to quit the war. The first was insufficient.
It is a good job the Japs gave up after the second one because there were no more to "rain down destruction the likes of which the world has never seen before".
Jumping up and down waving arms does not cause the enemy to change their ways. The only way to get the enemy to change is to kill the bastards. This is a general rule and has applied for millions of years. God loves sorting. It is ones duty
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It took nuclear weapons to get through their ‘face saving’ culture.
Except that Japan had already accepted that they had lost the war and offered to negotiate an end to the war through the Soviets. Although the Soviets did not pass on the offer to America, we knew about it because we had broken their codes.
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Why would the Japanese be afforded the negotiated surrender that the Germans had not? Italy was a little different because the King actually dismissed Mussolini, and some Italian forces had already switched sides.
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The nuclear bombs were as much a demonstration to the Soviets as an act of war against Japan.
Re:If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:4, Informative)
I seem to recall that, at that late stage, the Emperor wanted to surrender for the good of the Japanese people - but a group of army officers basically attempted to imprison him and prevent it. Fortunately the coup ultimately failed.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]
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I did suggest what should have been done - demonstrate the weapons some other way that didn't involve hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. Look, I'll even quote it for you since you seem to have missed it the first time:
There were plenty of other targets they could hack picked to demonstrate the weapons.
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
This false dichotomy that it was either bomb civilians or invade is used to justify the atomic bombings but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. While some high ranking Japanese did want to continue fighting, especially those in or allied with the milit
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At that stage of the war, 100,000 civilian casualties was the status quo. By then, multiple cities had been firebombed. The raid on Tokyo in March 1945 was more destructive than either of the nuclear attacks. If turning their capital into ashes wasn't enough to convince the Japanese to surrender, a demonstration A-bomb wouldn't have been either.
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It was enough to convince the Japanese to surrender, their government was actively pursuing a surrender at that point. They just wanted to negotiate the exact terms.
All it needed was a bit more time, likely only weeks, and agreement of the terms that were eventually accepted anyway.
Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:3)
Re: If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:2)
That strike happened precisely, to the hour 25 years before I was born.
And you are right it killed more people than the nukes
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Japan surrendered not just due to the atomic bombs, but due to Russia invading from the north / west. By surrendering to America there would no longer be the possibility of having the country split in two - like what happened to Germany. As it stands, Japan did lose some of the land [wikipedia.org] they held at the end of WWII. Russia was about to take more right when Japan surrendered to America. The European conflict had just ended so Russia suddenly had plenty of troops and equipment to scale up the Pacific conflic
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''What makes the atomic bombings unforgivable is that so little effort was made to try anything else.''
Exact words from the Potsdam Declaration. Seems like a pretty serious effort to me. Especially when you consider the signatories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruc
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As the wiki article you linked to notes:
The terms of the declaration were hotly debated within the Japanese government. Upon receiving the declaration, Foreign Minister Shigenori TÅgÅ hurriedly met with Prime Minister KantarÅ Suzuki and Cabinet Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu. Sakomizu recalled that all felt the declaration must be accepted. Despite being sympathetic to accepting the terms, TÅgÅ felt it was vague about the eventual form of government for Japan, disarmament, and the fate of accused war criminals. He also still had hope that the Soviet Union would agree to mediate negotiations with the Western Allies to obtain clarifications and revisions of the declaration's terms. Shortly afterwards, TÅgÅ met with Emperor Hirohito and advised him to treat the declaration with the utmost circumspection, but that a reply should be postponed until the Japanese received a response from the Soviets to mediate peace. Hirohito stated that the declaration was "acceptable in principle."
The desire was there to accept it but the main issue was that it was too vague, e.g. it didn't clarify what would happen to the Emperor or what the Allies controlling Japan's resources would look like. So they were hoping to negotiate on those points, but then the atomic bombings started.
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The available evidence suggests that the US wanted to understand the effects of atomic warfare on cities and civilian populations so decided to do some tests while it had the opportunity.
That is why the first one was an uranium based one and the second one a plutonium based one.
And yes: they wanted as many victims - as in bodies and houses - to evaluate the effects. And then later the assholes declared the cities "radiation free" and caused nearly half a million more dead over the next 50 years.
Re:If Japan didn't want to get nuked (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't make that judgement. You just can't. Unforgivable? Who are you to decide what's forgiveable and what's not?
There's no way to reliably describe a successful alternative. You can engage in maybes and whatabouts, but there's no alternative to history that isn't fiction.
Discussing and debating alternatives within a context of fiction is fine, and a productive use of time and intellect. We need discussion and debate between intelligent people. Just don't try to make statements that try to determine the morality of something that happened before you and I were born. For a start, you weren't there, and your credibility can't reach a reliable standard. Perhaps you could ask a pacific WWII veteran what they think?
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Btw here is one well-researched book you can check online that explains it as I've heard it, I believe. AFTER Nagasaki, most of the Japanese leadership wanted to surrender, several didn't. Almost a week later that was resolved by the deaths of those who refused to surrender, and rhen the surrender was announced.
https://archive.org/details/ja... [archive.org]
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Because the Japanese were still trying to negotiate the terms, in particular the status of the emperor. It wasn't entirely up to him anyway, and he was taking advice from the Prime Minister who could have forced it.
It really just needed a bit more time, that's all.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Read the International Law section of the following wiki page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
I can't quote it, as it's 8 paragraphs, all relevant to discussion, but the summary is that it was not a war crime. Several legal angles were considered, but none of them fit the circumstances.
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England would have 'Amexit'd already.
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Not at all. It would be nice if the Americans were still busily working away to supply Britain with their tax dollars, though.
Taxes? Possibly the worst excuse for a war ever. After all the deaths of the insurgency, taxes only went *up* after independence.
And a monarchy well on the way to being a figurehead was replaced with a president, whose personal power has grown massively over the generations.
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Textbook example of -1 Offtopic...
Re: The harrowing story is the war crime that was (Score:2)
We forgive you. :)
But damn, now I have to imagine a horrible super hero from a parallel universe, called Trumpman, that is modeled on Bible Man and his preaching enemies to defeat, but with more Murica and guns and eagles and starstripes and rednecks and Trump mouths and tiny, TINY hands.
Hey Netflix ... O:-)
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Don't forget your medications, please.
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''How can you show so damn little empathy for the most horribe case of mass murder in human history? ''
Immediate casualties from both cities was 200,000 [more or less], and that doesn't count the radiation poisoning.
Either way it's a shitton less than 6 million. Who taught you history?