Do you think it was necessary to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Question

please EXPLAIN! ;)

i'm trying to learn a little more about the situation too.
i personally think that people are fallible and most will do what's best for themselves. either we let them kill us or we kill them...let me know your opinion.

Answer 1

The final outcome would have been the same but the massive numbers of lives saved on both sides made it worth it.

Answer 2

With so many "answers" mostly good ones and well the usual fools:

I have visited both places fairly soon after the war, did I gain any special knowledge?

Yes, the Japanese people were not "free", no democracy:
the lack of "hate" towards the USA - always amazed me.

Tojo was a real work of art: a Nazi in Asia.

Folks get confused on the issue: the war had to end: fast:
we had the capacity: we ended the war. Sure a few Army Air Corps officers lied, cheated but who cares the killing stopped.

But to kill so many in a few seconds? Burn, boil, fry tens of thousands, mostly not military?

It was no "worse" than a fire bombing mission for the B-29's.

But it does still cause some issues, does it not/

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PS
I flew with a few B-29 pilots that flew over Japan: and as i noted was in both cities in the years after WWII.

The real issue is what the Japanese said, tell: these "weapons' must be stopped.


What would I have done?


I think I would have done that movie "Fail Safe' just killed myself afterwords......... let the Lord judge me.

Good question, often asked

Answer 3

well Yes and no the problem here is that one japan had already killed so many at pearl harbour and somthing had to be done to show that the usa wouldnt allow such an act to go unpunished whether the opposing nation was seeking peace or not .also it was the only real way the americans could do and major damage without huge losses of life the japanese made them pay very very dearly to take the two small isalnds off japan american commanders realsed the japanese had set there defence with an intent to fight to the last man with the only objective being to kill has many us servicemen has possible if the americans had gone to the mainland even though im sure america would of gained victory in the end the price they would of had to pay to get t would have basically being a vietnam before vietnam commanders new this it was also an oppetunity to show the world that the allies had created a weapon with such power beyond what was thout of at the time and surrender was the only real options for the enemys has they had nothing to counter such a threat

Answer 4

While its true we lost the moral high ground for dropping nukes on civilians, we were killing more civilians with the carpet bombing and incendiary fire boming on German and Japanese cities prior to the nuclear attacks. While it's a tragedy that civilians are killed in war, the indiscriminate attack on civilians was not a war crime at the time. It was the uproar in 1949 over Dresden and the nuclear attacks against Japan that these kinds of attacks were added to the Geneva Accords. Total war in WWII meant indiscriminate bombing of civilians and the infrastructure of the country....sorry.

You ask was it necessary? My answer is, a country that attempts to moralise (is that a word?) or humanize total war, will most likely be defeated. That to me is the lesson of Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Answer 5

Roadkill has it right; the fact is that the Japanese had been offering surrender terms for some time before August 1945; the US insisted on unconditional surrender. Add to this the desire - or need - to limit Soviet territorial claims (and Stalin was mobilizing troops to move to the Pacific) and the US felt a pressing need to end the war quickly. Despite all the myths alluded to above about "saving millions of lives" that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would cost, this was not the reason. The US got an (almost) unconditional surrender, demonstrated to Stalin that the A-bomb worked, and all for only a few hundred thousand Japanese civilians. War is not pretty, is it? And geopolitics even less pretty. Welcome to reality.

Answer 6

No, well I mean maybe depends on neccessary for what purpose. You have to understand that the cold war began before the Japanese surrendered and the iron curtain had already started to fall on eastern Europe (Soviet sector).

The United States insisted on an unconditional surrender. The Japanese were negociating a surrender at the time the bombs were dropped. The fact is they didn't surrender unconditionally. They insisted on keeping the Emporer and did, so the terms they agreed to were the same as before the bombs were dropped.

The problem was the soviets. They had already grabbed eastern Europe and North Korea and were preparing to invade Japan from the North. The purpose of dropping the bombs on Japan was to provide a fire power demonstration for the soviets. It served that purpose well. But it wasn't necessary to get the Japanese to surrender.

Answer 7

In the Pacific theater, we were having to fight the Japanese down to the last man. There were two options, get into a war of attrition with Japan, or drop our new weapon of mass destruction. However, Japan only thought we had one bomb, so we were forced to drop the second. The cities that were selected for the test were of a certain size so that the entire city would be destroyed. (They determined the exact size of the city during the desert test of the first bomb.)

The casualties on both sides of the conflict would have been staggering had the weapon not been deployed, and in an effort to save both American and Japanese lives, it was used.

Granted, it is unfortunate that so many people had to die in those bombings, but from a pragmatic point of view, it saved more lives than it took.

Answer 8

No.
Why did America use atomic bombs on Japan and not Germany?
America was still fighting the Germans and infact German submarines were captures in American waters off the East coast but the American government and the media suppressed this information so as not to "frighten" American.
The Japanese never attacked Americans. The Americans started the war in the Pacific. Americans had been destroying Japanese vessels in Japanese waters. The Americans had invaded Japanese waters. The Japanese requested the Americans to leave. The Americans ignored their request and instead became more aggressive. After the destructions of several Japanese vessels, the Japanese destroyed an American submarine. The Americans replied with more force. The Japanese solution was to get rid of the cause of the problem so it bombed the American military base in Hawaii (Pearl Harbor). America had invaded Hawaii, deposed and enprisoned the Hawaiian Queen and then annexed Hawaii in 1898. This was at the urging of Samuel Dole (So next time your eat your pineapples or anything with the Dole label, remember it was by military force.) Hawaii was made a territory in 1900, and Dole became its first governor. On August 21, 1959 Hawaii became the 50th state. Starting around the 1880's Japan was modeling itself after American and European powers. In the 1930's it was acquiring natural resources in other countries. Hypocritical and racist Americans did not believe an Asian country should have colonies. This is real reason for the Vietnam war. After WWII, France which had been devastated chose to relinquish it's colonies. This left Vietman in turmoil, Japan seized the opportunity which seen to suit everyone except the Americans who went in to RESTORE Vietnam as a French colony. The Vietnamese decided they wanted to be a free country and fought the American invaders. American thinking-It is okay for American and white Europeans to invade and colonize non-white countries but non-white countries cannot colonize other countries even if they do not use force. Pearl Harbor was an excuse to destroy Japan. The Americans were the aggressors. Japan sought to end the problem by destroying machines. Americans solution to gain control of Asian was to destroy Japan and it's people by using atomic bombs. After the destruction of Japan, it went into Vietnam and while still in Vietnam, Americans went into Korea and all the neighboring countries. American military was in Vietnam for 30 years. What America did in Asia in the 1940's-1970's it is doing today in the Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East.

Answer 9

In Europe, we lost thousands of soldiers on the beaches or Normandy. That was not the German homeland. In the Pacific, we saw the Kamikaze planes, the suicide charges and the leaders knew that, if we tried to land on the island of Japan, Millions, ours and theirs, would die.

The atomic bomb shortened the war and saved lives, and the liberals will try to rewrite history and put the blame on America. According to them, America is the reason for all the worlds problems. Imagine that, a nation, that everyone in every other country wants to immigrate to, is the cause of world troubles.

Read history because the President really had a problem dealing with the bomb, but because of the lose of life, he decided to use it and the Japanese surrendered.

Answer 10

Yes. The Japanese had been attacking everywhere they could and were famous for throwing babies in the air and "catching" them on bayonets as their mothers screamed, then they raped and murdered the mothers who were crying for their dead babies. Compared to that, America was nice. Notice how after the war, America helped rebuild Japan even though Japan had destroyed everything they could until we stopped them the only way that works, by showing them we could kill them all if we had to.
Those who say we should not have nuked Japan are saying they wish another million Americans would have been killed. Any American who says that is a traitor. Any foreigner who says that is an enemy of America.

Answer 11

As per the island hopping campaign, every square inch of every small, insignificant atoll was fought over like it was the last stand. Against overwhelming odds, the Japanese forces would liqour up, whip out their swords, and charge headlong into American forces. By all means, these people were nearly insane. Not to mention the kamikazes

Thus, taking these thoughts to their home turf would mean drastic loss of life on both sides. Extremely demoralizing war.

Then, two bombs were dropped to prove that the US could in fact build more than one of these super weapons. If you think someone only has one bullet in their gun and they use it, you're more likely to strike back. But if they hit you more than once, well, then logically, they must have more.