You seem to be of the mindset that whatever your country does is good.
Where did I say that? I never said anything to that effect nor did I imply any such thing. We are talking about WWII. To the contrary of your accusation here I have in fact agreed in earlier posts that the U.S. has done things that we shouldn't have on other occasions.
I carefully referred only to things within the same time reference that you did and generalized about the US just like you generalized about Japan.
I never generalized about Japan. We are talking about specific historical events here. What did I generalize about?
I didn't say we should not have gone to war with Japan, I focused merely on the A-bomb decision.
That is not factually correct. In post #66 you stated "Why were we fighting them anyway? Because they made us mad? That’s childish. Because we felt we had some better way of telling them how to run their country? Because we are fascists? You ask me to choose between big bombs and small bombs, how about none? "
You referred to intentions and methods used by Japan for justification and I pointed out that we were doing the same crap.
While I dont defend many of the recent actions taken by our government they are not the same as what Japan and Germany were doing by a long shot.
By your standard, the very next country to develop a bomb should have immediately dropped it on us. That would have prevented us from escalating the Cold War wouldn’t it?
I don't understand your reasoning here at all. Russia developed the bomb a few years later. Attacking us would have served no purpose but to turn the cold war into WWIII
Why didn’t we choose a military target? Some island near Japan with nothing but bases on it? Or why not an uninhabited one? Then gave them two days to surrender or THEN we’d hit the mainland?
I don't know why they chose the particular target. You would have to ask someone more knowledgeable about the events. I'm guessing that you don't know either but are willing to fill in the blanks with some uninformed preconceived notion as to why it happened. We did however drop leaflets all over both cities prior to the attack advising residents to evacuate. The Japanese government then confiscated the leaflets and jailed anyone found distributing them. The government made no effort to head the warning and evacuate the city.
I don't know why they chose the particular target. You would have to ask someone more knowledgeable about the events. I'm guessing that you don't know either but are willing to fill in the blanks with some uninformed preconceived notion as to why it happened. We did however drop leaflets all over both cities prior to the attack advising residents to evacuate. The Japanese government then confiscated the leaflets and jailed anyone found distributing them. The government made no effort to head the warning and evacuate the city.
It's pretty hard to get me to lose my patience, but you succeeded. You are defending a decision to drop two A-bombs on civilian targets. I don't know what you are talking about "uninformed notions". I have every right to question anyone's decision to do such a thing simply by being a human being. A military target would have made the same statement without all the innocent deaths.
It's pretty hard to get me to lose my patience, but you succeeded. You are defending a decision to drop two A-bombs on civilian targets. I don't know what you are talking about "uninformed notions". I have every right to question anyone's decision to do such a thing simply by being a human being. A military target would have made the same statement without all the innocent deaths.
I have been saying all along that we all need to have some humility about passing judgement on the people who made the decision since we are looking at these events without having lived through the horror of war that they did when the decision was made and because none of us knows how world events would have turned out had they not made that difficult decision.
You are passing judgement without having all the facts so if you are willing to do that then yes by definition it is an uninformed notion or opinion. My position isn't necessarily that the bombs should have been dropped. My position is simply that anyone who says they shouldn't have been is being unfair to those who made this decision, who lived in the time, and who had both more and less information about the dangers they faced than we do today
Hi TVA,
Thanks for your extended reaction.
My points about the A-bombs boil down to two points:
1. Do we know from the decision making of the Japanese government know that the A-bombs were necessary to capitulate? Röling’s reading of the minutes suggest something different.
2. Did the USA government really thought the A-bombs were the best way to end the war ASAP? Not trying things before that they could have done suggests something different.
Thanks for the link, I had no time to read it carefully, but the text seems to confirm my point. But if I fly over the main points, which exactly map my two questions, then it really seems so:
And thank you for catching me up on Heisenberg and his failed attempt to build a bomb. Interesting pic too! That's definitely one I haven't seen. I was aware however of the hard water project and the Norwegian and British raid on the reservoir which pretty much ended any perceived attempt to build one. In response to your two points:
1. Yes we do know that the Japanese Government was made aware of a weapon of mass destruction they, chose to ignore it even though this was a misinterpretation of their response. There were two ways to interpret the response into English as it was communicated by Prime Minister Suzuki; his response to the ultimatum was to " Mokusatu it. One interpretation meant "silence" and the other meant "kill". Unfortunately The Japanese reporters used the literal term to " kill with silence" or ignore the warning when he really meant "No comment". The American papers picked it up and the American public saw that the Japanese had turned down the ultimatum thus Truman decided he had no alternative but to use the bomb to attempt to end the war quickly and spare allied lives as well as Japanese who seemed to want to prolong the war.
2. There were those in his cabinet who cautioned Truman not to be too hasty in using the bomb, some for humanitarian reasons and some who didn't want to tip our hand re. The Soviets. After the June meeting however, once again fully corroborated by primary documents I have read and from Ham's book (he used many of the same sources) even the joint chiefs were on board with using the bombs. As I may have mentioned already head of the Air Force Curtis LeMay opposed the bomb and favored high level saturation fire bombing (actually killed more civilians than the A-bombs BTW, see the fire bombing of Tokyo and Dresden) but changed his mind after the June 15th meeting. By July most top level advisors were convinced that it was the best military response to Japan's response. As a side note Truman broached the idea to Stalin while at Potsdam and his reply was in a paraphrase, then use it. Truman was taken aback at Stalin's casual response but it was later uncovered that Stalin had previous knowledge of the Manhattan Project via his spy network so he knew we might pull out the trump card. Oh, BTW, thanks for the info on the umlauts and I do have windows but only on my laptop. Anyway to access it via my IPad? This is my portable link to the forum. I don't think I can link both my IPad and my laptop to the CSI site. I hope this answers your questions. Sometimes I digress! I only wish I understood the physics behind the experiments. I did have the opportunity to meet one of the, then very young scientists who was present at the Chicago Field experiments but had literally no idea what he was talking about!
Cap't Jack
It’s pretty hard to get me to lose my patience, but you succeeded. You are defending a decision to drop two A-bombs on civilian targets. I don’t know what you are talking about “uninformed notions". I have every right to question anyone’s decision to do such a thing simply by being a human being. A military target would have made the same statement without all the innocent deaths.
Lausten, just to be clear here the target committee chose Five military targets i.e. cities with military installations important to the Imperial Army. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki housed military divisional HQs and military industrial sites that would further cripple the war effort. In fact the first target, kokura was a key munitions base but it was obscured by cloud cover so tibbets went on to the secondary target, Hiroshima which had a divisional HQ and a war industry. Nagasaki was chosen as the third target on the list because it housed a military HQ and it was a key disembarkation port for the Imperial Army and the Navy but all five were considered military targets by Army intelligence. Keep in mind that Tokyo was bypassed as a target city even though it would have wiped out the Japanese Government and the Emperor.
Cap't Jack
I’m going to start another thread to continue this interesting topic, rather than cluttering this one up forever and ever. Hopefully Doug will merge them.
Hi TVA,
I’ve now read the article you linked to. I see my position confirmed:
By June 1945 there were already divisions within the Japanese Supreme Council discussing how to end the war with the Americans with the largest reservation being the desire to retain the national polity by allowing the Emperor Hirohito to remain on his throne. In fact, in July 1945 the U.S. intercepted a Japanese cable from Japan’s Foreign Minister Togo to Japan’s ambassador to the Soviet Union which stated that Japan wanted to end the war and that the major impediment to Japanese surrender was the insistence on unconditional surrender by the U.S. Concurrently, the U.S. was also deliberating offers of surrender for the Japanese. Secretary of War Stimson, aware of the Japanese regard for the Emperor, was adamant that the offer include the provision that the Emperor would be able to remain in power. However, he was continually overridden and even with the knowledge that such a modification could prove amenable to the Japanese government, the U.S. chose not to include it.
One could argue that by just modifying unconditional surrender, the U.S. could have saved both U.S. lives and the lives of those Japanese residing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As noted in the biography of Henry Stimson, “history might find that the United States, by its delay in stating its position [in regards to the Emperor] had prolonged the war." Similarly, it can be argued that correlation does not equal causation and that as Hasegawa suggests, maybe the decisive factor was having the engagement of the Soviet Union, and not the dropping of the two bombs.
And thank you for catching me up on Heisenberg and his failed attempt to build a bomb. Interesting pic too! That's definitely one I haven't seen.
Yeah, it was a pure coincidence that I got to know about this 'Atomkeller' ('atom cellar'). I was in Haigerloch for a sports event that took a few days. There I saw destination boards 'Atomkeller'. Being interested in physics, I visited it, only to learn there what it was really about. And that was of course not less interesting than what I thought.The German Wikipedia] article is very extended, but has pity enough not an English equivalent. But important is to know that the test reactor never reached critical state, and so was still no use to breed plutonium (the Germans had given up the idea of enriching Uranium, as there are very big installations needed for it). And another point of importance: the cellar was previously a beer cellar... Lying 20 meters under a church:
Anyway to access it via my IPad?
Nö, no idea... I have a (Swiss) German keyboard, the characters with Umlauts are just on the keyboard. Maybe you can make some quick switch to a German virtual keyboard on your IPad, and then turn it back?
I only wish I understood the physics behind the experiments.
Well, if you have concrete questions, maybe I can answer them. But not in exact historical detail...
I don't know why they chose the particular target. You would have to ask someone more knowledgeable about the events. I'm guessing that you don't know either but are willing to fill in the blanks with some uninformed preconceived notion as to why it happened. We did however drop leaflets all over both cities prior to the attack advising residents to evacuate. The Japanese government then confiscated the leaflets and jailed anyone found distributing them. The government made no effort to head the warning and evacuate the city.
It's pretty hard to get me to lose my patience, but you succeeded. You are defending a decision to drop two A-bombs on civilian targets. I don't know what you are talking about "uninformed notions". I have every right to question anyone's decision to do such a thing simply by being a human being. A military target would have made the same statement without all the innocent deaths.
As many civilian peasants had munitions making operations in their homes, it would be tough to sort out.
It's easy to be holier than thou, 60 years in retrospect, and condemn the A-bombs being dropped. But if one were truly informed about the complex contingencies of the time, I think that one would understand the decision.
I wonder what everyone’s opinion would be about the morality of using atomic bombs if civilians in the US had been the targets and the bombers Axis powers. .That would probably have ended the war, too. Would it have colored our opinion about the efficacy and morality of the use atomic bombs?
Lois
I wonder what everyone's opinion would be about the morality of using atomic bombs if civilians in the US had been the targets and the bombers Axis powers. .That would probably have ended the war, too. Would it have colored our opinion about the efficacy and morality of the use atomic bombs?
Lois
Of course it would. The axis powers were the aggressors and the perpetrators of horrible atrocities. Anything that allowed them to win would have been wrong from our point of view. Morality here is intimately tied to who wins. Unlike most wars there were clearly a good and evil sides in WWII.
Hi TVA,
I’ve now read the article you linked to. I see my position confirmed:
Hey GbB, yes, that's why I posted the article, in order to more clearly show both sides of the debate in a more concise form. You'll also see my position confirmed as well listed in his reasons in favor of dropping the bomb. Ultimately, for me at least it all boils down to Truman as the final decider. After carefully weighing the evidence, he made the decision based on the reasons I have already listed. Also, remember that Stimson, even though he had a credible opinion concerning using conventional weapons also had a personal axe to grind re. Truman. Truman snubbed him in making the final decision and the two never really saw eye to eye on this issue and Truman later replaced him with James Byrnes who favored using the bomb for the same reasons I mentioned earlier. In truth we can only speculate what would have happened had Truman been convinced that conventional weapons and a full scale invasion (as we had done to Germany, crushing their military and displacing thousands of civilians leaving most of their cities and infrastructure in utter ruin not to mention the thousands of American casualties spent doing it) would have had more humane results. Personally I doubt it owing to the Japanese preparations on the home islands by arming every man, woman and child and holding back their most advanced weapons. Needless to say the casualties would probably have been extreme before capitulation. But I'll leave that to the historians of this period to decide.
A couple of minor comments here, first I really enjoyed this debate. It isn't often I get the chance to dive into a lively discussion of the subject I most enjoy. Many thanks! Also, I'm going to Germany this Summer and hope to get off the beaten path and visit the Atomkeller. Sticking it under a church, very clever indeed! Who would want to bomb a church? Of course had the allies have known it was there they would have flattened it for sure. I'm also glad that we had the Manhattan team and they didn't.
Also, I found the info on the IPad keyboard. It was available all this time but I didn't know where to look for it. Your suggestion helped and I can now use the proper Tastatur.
Cap't Jack
In truth we can only speculate what would have happened had Truman been convinced that conventional weapons and a full scale invasion (as we had done to Germany, crushing their military and displacing thousands of civilians leaving most of their cities and infrastructure in utter ruin not to mention the thousands of American casualties spent doing it) would have had more humane results.
My point however, is that the war might have ended earlier without A-bombs or invasion, by letting the Emperor on his thrown.
Also, I'm going to Germany this Summer and hope to get off the beaten path and visit the Atomkeller.
Think before you do that. Haigerloch is a neat German town, but small. And the Atomkeller is also very small. If you want to do this as a kind of pilgrimage 'where history was being made', then yes, go there. And if you are nearby anyway...
I found these link links about the Atomkeller:
Interview with Heisenberg]The Atomkeller-Museum at Haigerloch]
Your suggestion helped and I can now use the proper Tastatur.
My pleasure. Your German is really getting of the ground!
My point however, is that the war might have ended earlier without A-bombs or invasion, by letting the Emperor on his thrown.
Really not a chance GdB. After the Okinawa campaign where casualties were severe the allies, principally the U.S. and Britain were insisting on the full occupation of a post war Japan which would have threatened their cultural identity regardless of offering the carrot of allowing the Emperor to stay on the throne. Besides, if it had happened in that manner the Truman admin. And the former PM Churchill saw this as the potential for a repeat of a post-war Imperial Germany wherein the militarists could crow that they weren't really beaten because the allies presented a peace without total submission, also pointed out in Ham's book. So, as they thought, it was either invasion or the bomb. We can only wish that it had been otherwise ,but unfortunately the Japanese government and the people who supported it should bare the responsibility for the war. Remarkably, the peacetime Japanese Government renounced war as a future solution and rebuilt a modern society and dynamic economic structure in record time all the while being protected by the very people who dropped the bomb. I would also like to point out that the American Government in the past sent millions of dollars in disaster aid to an Earthquake plagued Japan (see the Kantor Earthquake 1923) and did not place economic sanctions on sending American goods despite Japanese depredations in China until 1940, the sinking of one of our gunboats in the Yangtze River (an internationally recognized act of war) and the seizing of American recognized treaty ports. I'm only mentioning this in order to illustrate American, and later allied restraint until Pearl Harbor literally blew us into the War. This created a war fever that Truman was well aware of even as VP. So when the Suzuki translation hit the U.S. All hell broke loose as 70% of the American people polled favored hanging the Emperor even if he had been restored to the throne. Sorry, I digress but wanted to point out the power of public opinion in formulating foreign policy. Today however, the tail wags the dog if you get my analogy.
Cap't Jack
Think before you do that. Haigerloch is a neat German town, but small. And the Atomkeller is also very small. If you want to do this as a kind of pilgrimage ‘where history was being made’, then yes, go there. And if you are nearby anyway…
I found these link links about the Atomkeller:
Once again, thanks for the links GdB. Yeah, I'm drawn to historic places, especially those I've read about. This really sounds like a neat place though to do a day trip however and I bet it's bigger then the village I live in! We don't even have a stoplight but hey, we have nine churches, all Evangelical or mainstream. Kein Moshee.
Cap't Jack
To 1.
Ending the war at the earliest possible moment
To justify the cost of the Manhattan Project
To impress the Soviets
A lack of incentives not to use the bomb
Responding to Pearl Harbor
Your forgetting one thing here, the US troops that would have been lost in a physical invasion, like my father and three of my uncles. It is very possible that I and many others like me would not be here if the A bomb had not been dropped.
Your forgetting one thing here, the US troops that would have been lost in a physical invasion, like my father and three of my uncles. It is very possible that I and many others like me would not be here if the A bomb had not been dropped.
Very good point Gary. Same here BTW. My Father would have been part of the invasion as well. He was recovering from his wounds on Okinawa and was to be sent back to his unit in time for the initial assault. His division, the 6th Mar. was to have been in the assault force on Kyushu I believe. After the bombs dropped, the 6th was sent to China to accept the surrender of Japanese forces near Tsingtao. He spent nine months there watching the Communists fight the Republican forces.
Cap't Jack
Back on topic… (For the moment at least! :coolsmile: ).
Reading an anthology titled The Way of The Wizard edited by John Joseph Adams. I’ve enjoyed the first two stories so far. The first one, In The Lost Lands, by George R. R. Martin was an entertaining story about the ‘be careful what you ask/wish for’ style. It had an interesting twist that I didn’t see coming. I thought I had at least figured out one small part, but suspect that might have been ‘given to me’ by the author.
The other was a story about a family tree. Truly, a tree that a huge multi-generational family lives in. Different.
I’ve been on a short story kick for a while as I can generally finish them during my commute. (On a bus, lest you think I’m one of those idiots who drive with reading material on their steering wheel. )
Take care,
Derek
Just started Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Haven’t even gotten out of the Intro sections and I’m already thinking everyone should read this book if you want to see how the global fascists have succeeded.
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