Do you feel that the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were justified?

Question

I think not. Although (supposedly) Japan knew that they would get attacked, there was no way they could have known that we'd use the (at the time) most powerful bomb. I think it's even less justified by the fact that almost all of the 200,000+ people that died as a result were citizens, not involved in the conflict in any way. If you answer this question, please provide more than just a yes or no.

I'm not asking as though we can go back now. I'm asking because, after people remembered tomorrow, some people thought back to other major attacks that have happened in history.

Adam E., how could you possibly say 200,000+ of any innocent civilian aren't worth our own lives. Every life is valuable, rather it's Japanese or American.

Answer 1

We would have won eventually but we would have lost many, many, many, many, more more men if we did not drop that bomb. What you want is exactly what is happening in Iraq. We can basically destroy our enemies there but since we have to fight the war in a nice and happy way so we do not kill "civilians" or upset the liberals we are losing our fighting men everyday. The only thing I would have done differently is I would have saved one of those bombs for Germany.

Answer 2

It's true we lost the moral high ground after use of the nukes on Japan, but looking at what Truman faced in 1945, i probably would've done the same thing. To compare the moral depravity of state sponsored genocide where the death ovens at Aushwitz/Birkenau were topping out at 2,600 per day or 80,000 killed per month and the aerial bombardment of civilians is looking at different scales.

The "Final Solution" was the policy of only one country during the last century, and it wasn't the U.S. My beef is with the multi-national business cartels that allowed it to happen, the top being IG Farben (now BASF, Bayer, among others).

Not only did they finance Adolf, they supplied him with Zyclon B for use in the death camps. The American side of the company was not tried at Nuremburg, although they were just as culpable, go figure.

The fire bombing of Dresden by the 8th Air Force and RAF Bomber Command, caused the destruction of 15 square kms including 14,000 homes, 72 schools, 22 hospitals, 18 churches, etc. with a conservative estimate of around 30,000 civilians killed. At the time, the Germans used it as propaganda to advocate against following the Geneva conventions and to attack people's perception of the Allies claim to absolute moral superiority. The military claimed the railroad center was a military target, which it was, altho it was up and running a week later. Feb 1945 was only 3 months away from May 1945 (end of the Euopean war), the outcome of the war was not in doubt, so why bomb a 'cultural' medieval city of 600,000?

The firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes, genocide should also include civilian victims of aerial bombardment. Even after saying this, i still don't think the Allies were close to the moral depravity of the Nazis and their wholesale holocaust of the Euopean Jews.

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 3

Look at it from this perspective...

If Truman did not use the bomb and America invaded and the loss projections were correct (1,000,000 lost, both civilian and military, both Japanese and Allied) and Truman could have ended it with only 200,000 deaths, I think he would have been kicked out of office for not doing what would have saved more lives. Remember his job was to the American People, not the Japanese people FIRST!

You have to remember, that the 1,000,000 lost estimate would have been heavier on the Japanese side. So you are willing to say that, giving you the benefit of the doubt, 650,000 Japanese died in the invasion. Do you think that Japanese people would have been happy, if we could have ended it with 200,000?

You have to forgive me, but I lived in Japan for many years and I speak the language. I know that people tell me that even though the bomb is not a good thing... many Japanese people told me that they were happy that it went the way that it did and not even worse. In fact, if you talk to many Japanese people, they feel shame that their government at the time caused so much suffering.

Think of these numbers...
200,000+ people died as a result of the bomb, OK...
600,000 people could have died in an invasion (mostly civilian, because many military people were killed in the invasions of other islands)
300,000 people (mostly civilians) died in Nanjing (Nanking) at the hands of the Japanese military.
Thousands (if not millions) died as a direct result of the unprovoked invasions caused by the Japanese including those that died as a result of the Kamikaze attacks and Pearl Harbor.

Granted, 200,000 people dying is bad and tragic. You are also right that a civilian life is worth as much as a military life. As a military member I know that there is no "good day to die." But as a manager of violence, I can tell you that we did what was best at that time with the information that we have. Because of the bomb, we are trying to justify the deaths of 200,000 vs. the deaths of over one million; instead of talking about why Truman in the face of all that was logical, took a course of action that cost the lives of more people than what was necessary.

Finally, as a side note, people are too spoiled with "precision targeting." In the time of WWII, the only bombing that was done was carpet bombing of targets and most of those targets were located in civilian sectors because the military leaders (of the Japanese people) put them there. Don't tell me that you actually believe that in WWII, we could have avoided civilian deaths. Remember back then battles did not end in hours or even days, they ended in weeks or even months.

Answer 4

Well, the fact that it happened sixty years ago makes argument over the issue rather pointless but yes it was. To win the war otherwise would have required the invasion of Japan, which would have resulted in the death of over one million on our side alone. Though the people killed during the bombing were civilians, you must understand that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were industrial cities where military arms were produced. Like it or not, they were involved. So you have to consider, two hundred thousand civilians producing weapons or one million of our own men and then the additional Japanese killed in the fray.

Answer 5

Joy, there are alot of reasons I do not agree with you. But the fact that you ask a question like that shows that your heart is in the right place.

1st, Japan itself was within months of having its own atomic weapon. Though the USA did not know it when we made the decision, the droping of our bomb at Nagasaki destroyed the atomic research of the Japanese Empire. Theirs was a dirty bomb targeted at San Franciso. This was released within the last five years from the Japanese Archives. Droping the bomb saved American Civilian lives.

2nd, The loss of life was staggering, but not as staggering as the loss of life from the fire-bombing of Tokyo and Kyoto. If the massive loss of life is your impetous, then perhaps you should research this history instead.

3rd, Japan has never ever been successfully invaded. Ever. The planned invasion estimated about 150,000 US Soldiers dead, assuming that the USA had the suprise. Unfortunatly, Japanese records show that their expert tacticians predicted the landing zone, and re-inforced accordingly. Assuming that we still would have won the battle for the inniatial invasion, out losses would have been double or triple expected casualities...and most likely we would have withdrawn or lost completly.

4th, Our conditions for ending the war with the Axis was total surrended. No terms. The Japanese were negoctiaing through the Russians, true, but they were negociating a conditional surrender that would leave the imperial government in charge.

5th, Japan's military strategy at the end of the war was to protract the war as long as possible to force American support to wane, then negociate a conditional surrender.

Dropping the bomb was horrible, true, but war is horrible. Can you imagine the Cuban missle Crisis without people having seen the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.....that crisis could have gone differently.

6th, imagine the cold war with a partioned Japan, like a partionioned Germany.

7th, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both industrial centers. Knocking them out made sure that if Japan did not surrender, then the total war invasion would be easier.

8th, as a people and a war culture, the Japanese were resolved to fight to the end. Remember, it took two bombs to break the resolve of the Emporer. When the emporer saw the second bomb, he knew we were not bluffing about having more than one.

It was a terrible thing to do, but in war sometimes you only have terrible choices.

Answer 6

Were the atomic bombs dropped catastrophic? Absolutely. But, strange as it is to say, the payloads dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't the worst thing we did to the Japanese cities during that war.

We also firebombed Tokyo.

What you may not know, as it's not exactly covered by many of the current history texts, is that at the time most of the construction materials in Japan were paper-related. Oh, wood was used to frame buildings, but it was paper which was the covering for windows, doors, and many other fixtures in construction. So when we dropped incindiary bombs on Tokyo, we started a firestorm which laid waste to much of the city...and killed many more people than in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

As for the justification, it was a war. Yes, there were countless civilian lives lost, but that was true in many areas where the conflict raged. Jews, gypsies, and other "undesirables" were slaughtered, entire German cities were bombed into rubble by wave upon wave of bombers, prisoners were literally marched until they dropped in Bataan and other Southeast Asia locales, and yes - we dropped a couple of really powerful bombs on Japan.

Much of the consideration that Harry Truman gave to the question before approving the bombing centered upon the number of anticipated casualties that the U.S. could expect upon invading the home islands of Japan. As it was, the most optimistic projections were that we'd lose anywhere from 25-60% of our forces ***just on the initial landings*** and that things wouldn't get much better from there.

It was, for want of a better term, a "perfect storm" sort of situation. You have a war that had gone on for four years (for the U.S.), combat on one front had recently ended, yet things on the other front promised to only escalate (the Japanese were, even on the day of Emperor Hirohito's surrender, holding fast to the "death before dishonor" portion of the Bushido code), losses that would make our casualties on D-Day look trivial by comparison...and two mega-bombs which could, if used effectively, end it all.

It was a hard choice to make, it was war, and I say yes, it was justified.

...after all, it was the Japanese that floated a few thousand balloon-bombs across the Pacific to (they hoped) explode all over the western United States. They would have used the bombs if they had them, don't for a second think otherwise - anything of that sort is just sophomoric drivel.

Answer 7

At least 1/2-3/4 of Tokyo would have been dead, without the A-Bomb.
An additional 500,000 American troops were projected to have been killed in the already planned invasion of Japan.

The US plan was an all out, total effort to destroy Japan, if the war continued.
Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Corp, were prepared to to use every last means to end the war.

Japan was bombarded with millions of leaflets, dropped by air, for weeks and weeks, to evacuate. They were advised that there may not be any survivors in the attack.

Emperor Hirohito was a mad man. He was prepared to sacrifice any number of his people in war by conventional means.

You should get your full education and learn to think for yourself and learn all sides to history. Don't let some teacher give you only one side of anything.

Those two islands were chosen on purpose because they were the least populated, but the US presumed that Japan would take heed.

There are many more examples of the resolve of Japan. They had men in underground bunkers on Pacific islands 10 years before war.
Bouganville for one.

Answer 8

If you really, really cared about the casualties suffered by Japanese civilians in World War II, then you should be condeming the firebombing of Tokyo rather than the atomic bombs.

The two atomic bombs killed about 50,000 people each instantly, and another another 30,000 (roughly) each over time. So the total fatalities were roughly 150,000 to 200,000.

In ONE bombing raid over Tokyo using incendiary bombs that were designed to start fires, a huge firestorm raged in the city that killed nearly TWICE the number of people that died in both Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

So, rather than debate the justification of the atomic bombs, you should debate the justification of firebombing a city.

Lastly, the studies done by the allies estimated that if an invasion of Japan was carried out, Japanese casualties could reach 1 MILLION. In addition, there would be in excess of 500,000 allied casualties.

So, look at it as a numbers game, 200,000 deaths in the atomic bombs vs. nearly 2 million deaths in an invasion. In a way, by dropping the atom bombs and ending the war, hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians were spared.

Answer 9

The war against Japan was one of outright terror. We were attacked at Pearl Harbor with no justification and citizens are never completely unjustified targets.
We knew we were fighting people much like the modern terrorists that we fight now. They were Kamikaze fighters who would use suicide attacks. That kind of enemy needs unusual tactics. The A-Bombings were announced ahead of time and the second bomb was dropped three days later only after the Japanese leaders refused to surrender after the first bomb. Harsh tactics, yes but necessary then I believe. I hope we never have to use them again.

Answer 10

Actually, more people died from the fire bombing of Japanese cities than from the nuclear bombs. The nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki took less civilian lives than conventional warfare of its time.

There is no question many died from the use of nuclear bombs but it did save lives of civilians and the military on both sides.

Answer 11

The Japanese killed far more civilians than that by machine gunning them!

How could you justify not using the bomb? Many times that number were dying each month and without the bombs that would have continued for months to come.

Why is it that pacifists always seem happy to sit back and watch millions die and expect no one to do anything to stop the aggressor?

If you had a loaded gun next to you and someone started shooting your family one by one - would you just sit back and watch? That would make you guilty of aiding and abetting the murders wouldn't it?

Just how many people have to die before you think it is justified to take steps to stop it???