27-10-2003 22:57									#1
	Do you think the allies have any blood on their hands for Heroshima and Nagasaki ... Got spare money?

especially because they leaflited the cities first telling them to get the h eck out of dodge?

	27-10-2003 23:01									#2
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None at all.

	27-10-2003 23:33									#3
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Of course they do. All warfare not used to bring down your own government is evil.

	27-10-2003 23:35									#4
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yes, why?

	27-10-2003 23:38									#5
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It's a pretty small drop of blood.

	27-10-2003 23:47									#6
	Re: Do you think the allies have any blood on their hands for Heroshima and Nagasaki ... Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Vesayen especially because they leaflited the cities first telling them to get the h eck out of dodge?

They leafleted virtually all targets of US bombing except for one:

Hiroshima.

Hiroshima was, prior to the bombing, completely unscathed. It had industry in the suburbs, but the bomb landed directly downtown on the civilian areas. Truman said to the American people that he had struck a "military base."

These are facts. You draw the conclusions.

	27-10-2003 23:48									#7
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Yes.

And the cities of Jacksonville, and Omaha should be nuked by the Japanese to make up for it.

Then things would be even. Oh I almost forgot, we'd have to firebomb Chicago as well.

	27-10-2003 23:48									#8
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The Allies? No.
The US? Yes.

It was a war. Blood gets on your hands in a war. The purpose of war is to kill people.

Was it necessary? Probably not.
Did they know it at the time? Some say yes, some say no.

According to something I just saw on the History Channel (oh wonderful source that is . . . ), Japan waned to continue fighting even after the Atomic bombings. It was when the Soviets invaded Manchuria that the Emperor realized holding out was pointless and ordered the surrender of Japan.

	28-10-2003 00:13									#9
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They only did what they thought was necessary to bring an end to the war.

Looking back on it, there may have been other alternatives.

...but hindsight is always 20/20 as they say.

	28-10-2003 00:41									#10
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara The Allies? No. The US? Yes. It was a war. Blood gets on your hands in a war. The purpose of war is to kill people. Was it necessary? Probably not. Did they know it at the time? Some say yes, some say no. According to something I just saw on the History Channel (oh wonderful source that is . . . ), Japan waned to continue fighting even after the Atomic bombings. It was when the Soviets invaded Manchuria that the Emperor realized holding out was pointless and ordered the surrender of Japan.

Che, AFAIK, the Japanese were trying to surrender, conditioned on the maintainance of the Emperor, long prior to Hiroshima. The came the two bombs and the Soviet invasion. The Japanese still did not alter their insistance on the Emperor.

What the bombs did is alter the view on our side that we should accept a Japanese conditional surrender. I think many on our side were appalled and sickened by what was going on and simply demanded that Truman call a halt. Among them were both MacArthur and Eisenhower.

	28-10-2003 00:53									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Che, AFAIK, the Japanese were trying to surrender, conditioned on the maintainance of the Emperor, . . .

According to many here, this was a minority position in the government. MtG, DF, and others have argued, persuasvively IMO, that the more fanatical elements of the Japanese government would have mounted a coup had the government tried to surrender. Apparently, even with the Atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion, these elements wished to fight on and only the direct order of the Emperor made them lay down their weapons.

It should be kept in mind that the USSR captured Manchuria in days, slicing through the IJA as if it were warm butter. This, not the Atomic bombings (which were really no more damaging than the fire bombings, though those were pertty terrible) were what convinced the Emperor that resistence was futile.

	28-10-2003 00:57									#12
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara The US? Yes. It was a war. Blood gets on your hands in a war. The purpose of war is to kill people. Was it necessary? Probably not.

Yeah, you're probably right. Pretty much what I think about this matter...

	28-10-2003 01:06									#13
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara According to many here, this was a minority position in the government. MtG, DF, and others have argued, persuasvively IMO, that the more fanatical elements of the Japanese government would have mounted a coup had the government tried to surrender. Apparently, even with the Atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion, these elements wished to fight on and only the direct order of the Emperor made them lay down their weapons. It should be kept in mind that the USSR captured Manchuria in days, slicing through the IJA as if it were warm butter. This, not the Atomic bombings (which were really no more damaging than the fire bombings, though those were pertty terrible) were what convinced the Emperor that resistence was futile.

Not the Emperor, but probably many higher ups in the military. I agree that the bombs and the Soviet invasion made a coup all but impossible. However, this does not change the fact that Emperor was looking for a negotiated surrender long prior to that. It also does not change the fact that we accepted a conditional surrender after the bombs where before we demanded unconditonal surrender.

I think the horror of the bombs did sicken a lot of higher-ups in the US administration. Just look what happened during the first Gulf war when the highway of death was shown on TV. It sickened people so much that Powel and others called for a halt.

	28-10-2003 01:11									#14
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i remeber hearing somewhere that more people who have died in the invasion of japan than the atomic bombing

	28-10-2003 01:25									#15
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Caveat:You can immediately discount my objectivity : had there been a land invasion of Japan, I would likely not be here to post - my father was an officer in the US navy, and was designated to act as naval gunfire artillery spotter in the event of an invasion of the home islands - IE he would have been landed BEFORE the initial barrages and landing, in order to guide the gunfire to soften the defensive positions. The expected chances of survival for such spotters was quite low. Needless to say, the use of the A bomb was NOT considered a bad thing in my house.


Points
1. How you evaluate the use of the a bomb depends on the alternative. If you think a negotiated peace was a real possibility, thats one thing. A land invasion would certainly have meant more Japanese civilian casualties than the A bombs did, and so would a continued submarine blockade.
2. At the time the allied bombing campaigns against German and Japanese cities had taken far more civilian lives than the A bomb did. While there was a sense of the scale and horror of the A bomb, I do not think there was as much of a sense of an ethical firebreak between conventional city bombing and the A bomb as developed in retrospect, after the H bomb was developed, and eventually arsenals capable of ending civilization on the planet.

	28-10-2003 01:27									#16
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara According to many here, this was a minority position in the government. MtG, DF, and others have argued, persuasvively IMO, that the more fanatical elements of the Japanese government would have mounted a coup had the government tried to surrender. Apparently, even with the Atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion, these elements wished to fight on and only the direct order of the Emperor made them lay down their weapons. It should be kept in mind that the USSR captured Manchuria in days, slicing through the IJA as if it were warm butter. This, not the Atomic bombings (which were really no more damaging than the fire bombings, though those were pertty terrible) were what convinced the Emperor that resistence was futile.

Can someone remind of what day the USSR declared war on Japan- ISTR that it was AFTER the bombing of Hiroshima.

	28-10-2003 01:28									#17
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Let's not forget the atrocities Japan committed against Chinese civilians and Allied POWs.

	28-10-2003 01:36									#18
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quote: Originally posted by MrFun Let's not forget the atrocities Japan committed against Chinese civilians and Allied POWs.

seeing as how Japanese civilians are not guilty under the laws of war, that is not directly relevant to this discussions. Bringing in such logic invites those who would make everything an endless cycle of revenge, and who to this day would justify 9/11 with everything from Hiroshima to cold war era atrocities. The US DID NOT at the time justify the bombing by the Japanese atrocities. The Japanese atrocities confirmed the need to defeat Japan, and gave context to any negotiations for a a conditional surrender - the bombing itself was justified at a broad scale by the horrors of the alternatives, and in detail, like other strategic bombing, by the presence of strategic industry in the city in question - Ned claims the industry was not located in the city center - I presume it was considered at the time that with the city center gone, the suburban industry would cease to function. This is not to say that such an approach to strategic bombing is one that we should follow today - it is not and we do not - but in the context of WW2, after 6 years of genocidal war (as you point out) that was considered adequate, and does, IMHO, differentiate what the allies did from the deliberate genocide practiced by their adversaries.

	28-10-2003 01:43									#19
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Where did I say Japanese CIVILIANS were responsible??

	28-10-2003 01:48									#20
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LoTM, the invasion of Japan would have been necessary if, and only if, we STILL wanted an unconditional surrender.

I think the Soviet invasion occurred essentially simultaneously with the bombing of Hiroshima. However, if we had not dropped the bomb, I think that that invasion would have ended any Japanese hope of a military stalemate and forced a surrender on fewer conditions.

Also, if the Emperor were part of the problem and not the solution, we could have dropped the second bomb on his palace. Now, that would have really sent a message.

Finally, I think Truman deliberately used the bomb under 1) to force an unconditional surrender and 2) to send a message to the Soviets that America was "invincible." We had been having troubles with Stalin concerning Eastern Europe.

	28-10-2003 01:56									#21
	Re: Do you think the allies have any blood on their hands for Heroshima and Nagasaki ... Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by Vesayen especially because they leaflited the cities first telling them to get the h eck out of dodge?

Of course not.

They did what they had to do to end the war. If it took dropping nukes then so be it. If the US invaded Japan the casualities would of been a lot greater.

	28-10-2003 02:03									#22
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Do the allies have any blood on their hands? Well every country has blood on their hands in war. The question is should the allies be ashamed of the bomb drops? I say no. They wanted to have a final end to the war as soon as possible (do you blame them?) and did it the best way they knew how. As for the arguments for 'conditional' surrender, and little as I believe it, the Americans did not want a Germany situation, where you allow the country to rise up again. Allowing the emperor to stay was considered too much of a risk.

	28-10-2003 02:03									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Ned LoTM, the invasion of Japan would have been necessary if, and only if, we STILL wanted an unconditional surrender. I think the Soviet invasion occurred essentially simultaneously with the bombing of Hiroshima. However, if we had not dropped the bomb, I think that that invasion would have ended any Japanese hope of a military stalemate and forced a surrender on fewer conditions. Also, if the Emperor were part of the problem and not the solution, we could have dropped the second bomb on his palace. Now, that would have really sent a message. Finally, I think Truman deliberately used the bomb under 1) to force an unconditional surrender and 2) to send a message to the Soviets that America was "invincible." We had been having troubles with Stalin concerning Eastern Europe.

Given the troubles we had with a conditional surrender in 1918, and the fact that even today people are claiming that the occupation of Japan was successful because Japan was so decisively beaten, (in contrast to er, a certain OTHER occupation) and given that the allies had been calling for unconditional surrender for years, so that the public would have had difficulty understanding a withdrawl from that standard - I think its easy to underestimate the difficulty HST had in negotiating a conditional surrender.

As for dropping a 2nd bomb on the palace, that would have meant bombing Tokyo again - what would that have saved in civilian lives? And it would lost the use of the emperor to call on Japanese to surrender, which proved important.

	28-10-2003 04:43									#24
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Will look up the dates for Hiroshima and for the Russian invasion of Manchuria. I do believe that the invasion came first because the Americans did not want the Russians to have even more influence in the far East.

	28-10-2003 04:44									#25
	Re: Re: Do you think the allies have any blood on their hands for Heroshima and Nagasaki ... Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by Ned They leafleted virtually all targets of US bombing except for one: Hiroshima. Hiroshima was, prior to the bombing, completely unscathed. It had industry in the suburbs, but the bomb landed directly downtown on the civilian areas. Truman said to the American people that he had struck a "military base." These are facts. You draw the conclusions.

Hiroshima was also not the intended target. They had to go there because of weather.

	28-10-2003 04:46									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Ned I think the horror of the bombs did sicken a lot of higher-ups in the US administration. Just look what happened during the first Gulf war when the highway of death was shown on TV. It sickened people so much that Powel and others called for a halt.

And you know what? The "highway of death" wasn't particularly deadly, because most of the Iraqis knew to get out of their tanks

	28-10-2003 04:49									#27
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47. August 6, 1945 -- Hiroshima bombed (Aug. 5th at 7:15P.M., Washington time, Truman, p. 421)

48. August 8, 1945 -- Molotov informed Amb. Harriman in Moscow that Russia would consider itself at war with Japan as of Aug. 9th. Truman received this news on August 8th and immediately announced it at press conference. (Truman, p. 425)

49. August 9, 1945 -- Nagasaki bombed. ("We gave the Japanese three days in which to make up their minds to surrender, and the bombing would have been held off another two days had weather permitted." Truman, p. 426)

	28-10-2003 06:03									#28
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the japanese deserved it.

was it right? no, not particularly.

	28-10-2003 06:30									#29
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No!

	28-10-2003 06:37									#30
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A land invasion of Japan would have killed millions of people- dropping bombs and killing in the order of hundreds of thousands was definitely more acceptable as an issue