Did the Nagasaki and Hiroshima Nuclear Bombing of Japan actually save lives in the long run?

Question

There was a planned first invasion by American ground troops beggining with an operation known as codename Operation olympic in November 1945 with other operations to follow but the Americans would have been outnumbered 3 to 2 by the Japanese who also were bolstered by their own fanatical fighting spirit/

Answer 1

there was a japanese plan that would have devastated america ifc we hadnt dropped the bombs on nagasaki and hiroshima the japanese had 2 bombs that they were going to drop on san fransisco that would have devastated america and the outcome of the war we dropped our bombs on there cities were there bombs were being kept and that is why the blasts were so devastating to those to areas of japan not only did our bomb detonate but it also detonated there bombs as well this is why the planned ground troops operation was cancelled not because we would have been outnumbered we didnt want our ground forces there when we dropped the bombs

Answer 2

Most historians and scholars agree that it did. I recently read that even Japanese historians agree that it did.

The predictions for actual casualties (mortal, not just the injury kind) for a land invasion of Japan was 500,000 for Allies in uniform only. At the time, it was estimated there would be at least one uniformed Japanese casualty for each Allied casualty, but more likely 3 or 4, judging from the death tolls at different battles in the Pacific. That's just for people in uniform. There was also the question of civilian casualties in Japan, either from people becoming involved in fighting, dying as cities were destroyed, or dying later of disease and starvation after the Japanese superstructure had been destroyed.

I deplore the fact that those bombs were dropped, and I actually sometimes wish that the war had ended through conventional warfare, even if it had cost a lot more loss of life. But the fact is that yes, the bombs saved lives in the long run.

Answer 3

It's difficult to say but yes, I believe so, fire bombing of Japanese cities with many more deaths didn't make the Emperor surrender.

Hand to hand fighting would have been the other option and much has been written about the losses to both sides in hand-to-hand fighting in the islands approaching Japan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tarawa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_War#The_final_stages_of_the_war

e.g.
Only 1 Japanese officer, 16 enlisted and 129 Koreans were alive at the end of the battle. Total Japanese and Korean casualties are about 4,690 killed in action. For the United States, about 1,000 were killed in action, and a further 2,200 wounded. The heavy casualties sparked off a storm of protest in the United States, where the high losses could not be understood for such a tiny and seemingly unimportant island.


see floowing for bombing details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_World_War_II

http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html (not impartial)

The firebombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities is considered a war crime by some. Unlike the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were at least partially intended to force Japan to capitulate immediately, fire-bombing, which killed more civilians in total, was carried out as a long-term strategy to destroy Japan's ability to produce war materials as well as to undermine the Japanese government's will to continue the war. In the context of total war, the large number of Japanese civilians killed by strategic bombing was seen as acceptable by the American administration. When reflecting on the campaign after the war, some expressed doubts about the morality of the firebombing. Curtis LeMay later said: "I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal." He felt, however, that his bombings were saving lives by encouraging Japan to surrender earlier. Former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoe's statement that, fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s, lends support to this view.

Answer 4

the japanese were close to brokering a surrender deal with russia. they could not keep up the fight. Fanatical fighting spirit or not, the society was on the verge of copllapse under the pressure of supplying resources and paying for the war.
It undoubtedly shortened the war by several weeks/ months
it undoubtedly saved lives
if the japanese had surrenedered to russia, then the whole post war world would have been different.. better or worse? who can tell. There may have been no Korean war, and No vietnam....or there could have been conflicts 10 times worse.

Answer 5

Yes, without any shadow of a doubt. An attack on the japanese mainland would have cost the lives hundreds of thousands of japanese soldiers and civilians. The two atomic bombs did kill a lot of people, although they killed less than some other bombing raids using conventional bombs, but this would have paled into insignificance compared to an invasion.

Answer 6

In the long run it saved many more lives than would have been killed on both sides had the US Military gone in with ground forces. And btw, more people were killed in the bombing of Tokyo than Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This was a tragic war and
should have never happened. I pray that we never have this type of war ever again.
I Cr 13;8a, Love never fails!!!!!
10-9-6

Answer 7

It saved the lives of thousands of American and allied soldiers. The two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, forced the Japanese to surrender more quickly than they otherwise would have done.

Answer 8

The Battle of Okinawa is what decided Japans fate. In Okinawa which is the first of the Japanese islands the US had 12,000 soldiers killed and another 38,000 wounded. Casualty estimates for the mainland invasion were over 1 million...

Answer 9

Chickens will come home to roost i.e. at the end of American age - It's the orignal war crime yet to go to Hague. No matter how you look at it - no matter what the rationalization - no matter what the excuse - no matter what the enemy did - in the soldier's book it must read as a cowardly act - Did not have the stomach for the fight.The end was a foregone conclusion with the forces from other theaters becoming available.

Answer 10

Yes probably tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands. Look at the numbers of deaths from both sides from the date of the Normandy invasion to the end of the war in Europe. The numbers would probably have been comparable if we had of invade the Japanese homeland.