Does anyone believe that the US bombarded Japan in WWII to save American lives?

Question

Back in High School my US History teacher actually believed his pathetic history book and could almost swear that President Truman decided to drop the atomic bombs on Japan because not doing it would cost the lives of thousands of Americans in an invasion.

This whole idea of killing in order to save sounds ridiculous, and many historians like Howard Zinn claim that the US orchestrated such massacre in order to have Japan surrender to them and not Russia who was about to declare war on Japan.

Its time to tell people the truth about the United State's past, we should not allow our children grow up in a fictitious world where the US is the lover of liberty and democracy, where all other nations are bad and want to hurt the US. Why shoul Pearl Harbor be covered in one chapter and Hiroshima and Nagasaki in one paragraph.

What, is it that a Japanese life is worth two fiths of an American life?

Answer 1

The bombing of civilians is a great tragedy, none can deny. It is not so much this or the other means of making war that is immoral or inhumane. What is immoral is war itself. Once full-scale war has broken out it can never be humanized or civilized, and if one side attempted to do so it would be most likely to be defeated.

Answer 2

Had President Truman not dropped the Atom Bomb on Japan Asia today would be another ongoing Middle East!! It cannot be denied that the entire Japanese civilian population would have mobilized with little objection to defend their homeland. At that time Japan was fare, fare removed from the counrty it is today!

Its subseqent surrender thus avoiding countless millions in years and generations of terrorist activities, could at that time only be regarded as "hope" for the future! Hope for all the allies who were involved and hope for the peaceful and active participation of all to win the peace and strive to bring Japan out of something of an abyss and step forward into the modern day world.

Despite whatever allied nations may do - never will such a laudible improvement and a just cause be either recognised or achieved in the Middle East!

Answer 3

a profound question.

lets look at it the way it was, not the way it could have been, because the question seeks to correct the problem that we may face again hypothetically in the case of Japan since relations are good now.

so how would it have unfolded if America didn't respond to pearl harbor?

turning the other cheek would have been great and meant allot less sh*t would have gone down, just think of it. it was a terrible long and diverse battle.

but it was a big smack.

how would have a diplomatic mission unfolded? wouldn't it have been interpreted by the Japanese as submission and simply opened a new facet of a war that had already been stated by the attack? (by legal definition)

looking back at that ugly chapter... and read this carefully!... the Japanese committed one of the most STUPID crimes ever committed before, not just pearl harbor, but their entire war plan, not only did they bite the hand that fed them, (Britain and American built their economy from scratch, and their army), but they through it. their crime which spanned a big war, now after its finished denotes stupidiy more then any other trate.

they made an alliance with a total maniac who was far to distant and incapeble of being a threat and was a leader who was openly hostile to the presence of their race in his country. they where impopular at home since they couldnt import anything from europe or america since they had allready taken a hostile stance without reason other then liking the rice paddies of china.

The Japanese decision makers of the time go down in History as probably the most arrogant and stupid ever. The sad fact that the Japanese today don't learn this in the history of their own nation and the war is absolutely terrible.

Answer 4

Well that because you are in America and of course they placed more emphasis on American History.

If the bomb has not been drop in Japan in WW2, the number of casualties will be very high, just look at Okinawa and Guan, they are just small island beyond the coast of Japan, but taking those two island itself have cause the life's of almost 40,000 American Life's not including those who are wounded in action.

Just how many life's will be lost just by attacking the main island itself, no one can estimates it. beside the conflict in Asia has not ended back then and Japanese troops are still fighting in other areas in Asia.

Without a haste and speedy end to war, more people could die and suffer. Japanese citizen back then are taught to fight and die for honour, and they are willing to lay down their life's for the emperor and what could the Allies do, they have bomb Japan for months and they still would not surrender.

Cause the use of the Atomic bombs cause a widespread disaster for the Japanese government, but it also help end the war early and thus also saved millions of life's. If you would just think a bit further you will realise that maybe the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is the right move. Without it maybe it would have taken another years or two to conquer Japan, and who know how many life's will be lost in the total warfare alone.

Answer 5

Not that I support the Atomic Bomb being used, but the facts remain we where at war with Japan.

The motive for droping the bomb may have been to save american lives or it may have been to get Japan to surrender to the U.S. instead of Russia. That is debatable and both arguements make sense. Only someone that had access to Trumans mind could answer that with 100% surity.

War has always been and will always be about inflicting as much damage as possible to the other side. The notion that wars should be fought and not involve civilians is laughable. If Japan had the ability to drop the Atomic Bomb on us they very well may have done so.

It is the duty of a government to protect the people it governs. Japan and the U.S. where at war, it was the duty of the U.S. government to protect the citizens of the U.S. at the expense of the citizens of Japan. It doesn't mean that Japanese are worth less then American lives, it means they were on opposing sides of war

Answer 6

How about teaching the truth about the deeds of the Japanese army in Japanese schools , numerous atrocities like the Burma railway , the prisoner of war camps and the emaciated prisoners when liberated , the wholesale slaughter of nurses , the sinking of hospitals ships and the slaughter of prisoners when the prison camps were liberated ! Did you learn any history at all. Just ask the older generation who were there, I sure that people who red this could expand on this since some were actually there.
Oh and to answer your original question bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki did save thousands of both American and Japanese lives as well, do a little research instead of being brainwashed !

Answer 7

I love answering tough questions. First you are correct in the statement that Truman wanted to end the war quickly to prevent Russia from carving Japan into another communist state. However there are many other factors you are forgetting. The pacific campaigns were the bloodiest in all of WWII for the Americans. In just the last battle, the battle for Okinawa over 75,000 Americans lost their lives. Over 100,000 Japanese defenders also lost their lives. The worst tragedy however was the over 150,000 Okinawan civilians that lost their lives. If any of you have ever been stationed there you know it is a tiny rock with hardly any real cities even today. As horrible as it sounds the combined civilian deaths from Hiroshima and Nagasaki only equates to 250,000. If Americans had to take the island it would have cost the Americans and the Japanese more than double the lives they had already lost during the war. That means millions of dead civilians as apposed to two hundred thousand. I do not agree with many of the ignorant responses that reek of racism. The Japanese were a great enemy we (the Marines) learned a lot from fighting them. Today Japan is one of our greatest ally’s and we are still learning a lot from them.

Answer 8

WAKE UP!!
First your high school teacher's pathetic history book was wrong. The information available at the time prior to dropping the A-bombs on Japan indicated it would take several 100,000 to 1 million American and allied death to take the Japanese Islands, not thousands. Why, because the great military commander's running the empire proclaimed that every Japanses citizen should and must die before defeat. And based on the mass banzi and kamakazi attacks and the 1000s and 1000s of Japanese soldiers fighting to the death on island after island in the pacific, there was every reason to believe and expect the Japanese people to fight to the death and kill as many Americans and Allies soldiers as pobbible.

And as for your buddy Zinn....get the facts straight. Don't just believe the history 101 book you've been given as gospel. The Russians only declared war on Japan until the 2nd day after we dropped the 1st Atomic bomb on Japan. They refused time and time again to declare war on Japan beleiving that only Nazi Germany posed a threat to their saftey. Therefore, commen sense points to the obvious, the Russians were looking to get in on the spoils of VJ-Day (look it up) once they were certain the Japanese were defeated.

What "truth" are you speaking that our children have been allowd to grow up with? Cite specifics! You claim America believes all nations are bad and want to hurt us....do you really believe the BS you have put in print or do you always make sweeping, unsubstantiated claims?

Why should Pearl Harbor cover an entire chapter and Hiroshima & Nagasaki only a paragraph? Simple.........
The cowardly sneak attack on US Naval and CIVILIAN personnel at Pearl on a Sunday morning STARTED THE WAR!

The delivery of atomic weapons (after dropping millions of leaflets over several days warning the Japanse people to leave thses 2 cities) on these 2 cities ENDED THE WAR!

Expand your studies of WWII and the decisions that brought the war to an end. Don't be a myopic student that believes every word some liberal college teacher tells you.

Answer 9

I can not say a lot that hasn't already been said in previous answers. I would just like to point out that even after the bombs were dropped there was large element in the Japanese military that did not want to surrender. There was an attempted coup on the the Emperor that was thankfully foiled.

And before we all start crying for the Japanese, I would recommend reading up on the Japanese campaign in China. If you want to see cruel and brutal just do a search for the "Rape of Nanking" or the Harbin germ warfare research. I will say, it took only one picture of Japanese soldiers marching down a street in China with the bodies of infants hanging from their bayonetts to make me feel less sad about the bombings for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Answer 10

You need a history lesson. Have you any idea how brutal and inhumane the Japanese were in world war 2? There are hundreds of video documentaries on the cruelties of japan's pow camps....these people were savage and merciless. You weren't there and neither was i, but i trust the men who lived it to come back and tell there stories and not just the us government's version. They were extremists just like the jihad bombers we are dealing with today. They weren't going to stop until we stopped them and an invasion would have lasted years and years. What is the point anyway.....If we lost that war, we would be speaking German or Japanese right know......Did we do that to them....take over there country after we defeated them......No, we rebuilt them into a Huge successful democracy and there GNP is larger than ours. I can guarantee you if they had the bomb before us they would not have stopped at 2 cities.....idiot!

Answer 11

If you think the causalities in the current situation are high think again. Do you have any idea how many people died on the Allied side in WW 1 or WW 2???
Once the Japanese entered we had to fight on 2 fronts, Hitler on one side and Japan on the other.
It was probably a combination of ending the war as soon as possible for lives, the drain of the war on the economy and retaliation for Pearl Harbor.
By the way growing up a LOT of my friends were Japanese and I NEVER heard any of them say anything bad about America. Think of that.