Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a war crime?

Question

Why or why not? Just wondering people...

Answer 1

Strategically targeting civilians instead of military to weaken the enemy's resolve is generally considered a war crime. I suppose the only reasons we didn't face punishment for it were:

1. Extenuating circumstances: the world largely hated the axis powers.
2. We helped fund their reconstruction.

In Public Speaking, I wrote a persuasive speech explaining why what we did was not only excessive, but morally reprehensible. People know about the A-bombs, but most people don't know that we also carpet bombed nearly every major Japanese city with the intention of maximum civilian casualties. The carpetbombing of Tokyo actually killed more people in one night than either of the A-bombs; over 100,000.

The Japanese were fighting a losing war for almost the entire time militarily, but when we kept targeting the soldiers' families instead of the soliders, we strengthened their resolve again and again.

My professor was old enough that WW2 was a current event to her as a child, so that was my lowest grade of the semester. One woman in the class was so offended by my speech that she wrote one opposing my view, but her figures and details were way off.

Roosevelt had absolutely no problem with Japanese military expansion (including atrocities like the Rape of Nanking) until they reached southern indochina, where we had significant financial interests. Roosevelt wanted trade embargoes levied against Japan because (rough quote off the top of my head) "I refuse to support the Japanese war machine." He had supported it all the way through China and southeast Asia. He helped put Japan in the position of deciding whether to turn back after they had come so far with the US's help.

Also, please look at these quotes from high ranking military officers and politicians who were strongly against the use of the A-bombs:

~~~ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.



~~~JOHN McCLOY
(Assistant Sec. of War)
"I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe that even in the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of the Japanese to give it favorable consideration. When the war was over I arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. I believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs."

McCloy quoted in James Reston, Deadline, pg. 500.



~~~BRIGADIER GENERAL CARTER CLARKE
(The military intelligence officer in charge of preparing intercepted Japanese cables - the MAGIC summaries - for Truman and his advisors)
"...when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs."

Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 359.

(plenty more quotes on the source page)

Answer 2

No. The Japanese were slaughtering civilians everywhere they attacked. They had NO mercy. Millions of Chinese were outright slaughtered like pigs, men, women and children. It is said they played "baseball" by throwing babies and using sharp swords for bats. Life meant nothing to them. They fought to the death and committed suicide rather than be captured because they thought all other nations fought with the same savagery and inhumanity they did. (If the captured Americans couldn't march ((because of starvation, dehydration or injury) in the Battan Death March, they just killed them and left them lay.)) Invasion of Japan would have cost millions of lives on both sides.
Nobody really knew just how powerful the A-bombs were and the destruction of Hiroshima was not enough to make the Japs surrender. The destruction of Nagasaki finally convinced Hirohito to take charge to save his people and country from annihilation. We only found out about the total destruction after surrender. When the awesome power was discovered after the surrender, the world was shocked, and the horrible realization was that never again should such destruction be wreaked upon the world.
It's a very good thing Hitler didn't discover how to build the bomb first, and he was trying. It's also why the "Cold War" between the U.S. and Russia stayed cold. "MAD", or Mutually Assured Destruction kept Russia at bay. It's also why nations are so worried that Islamic fanatics should not get a bomb. They would use it.

Answer 3

Any time they use indiscriminate bombing of civilian centers it is a War Crime! They are purposely terrorizing civilians. Whenever they displace military targets with civilians it's a War Crime. The babies that died in both of the Japanese cities that were exposed to nuclear warfare could not have had anything to do with that nations war effort yet they were killed by allied forces for no reason other than to increase the terror level and hope that the civilian faction would pressure the military to back down. Military should only involve military targets. Both cities had little or no military targets what so ever, so what do you call attacking them but a War Crime! If these weapons were detonated on a uninhabited island with the Japanese and Russians observing they would have known that continued fighting on their part would be useless, and the Russians would know not to oppose the US in any further expansions. Truman traded civilian lives for military lives and it wasn't his right to do so!

Answer 4

Destroying the two cities was a brutal affair, war is a brutal affair. At the time we had some tough choices to make. Do we send a war weary soldiers and marines in on one last invasion, one that we'd be hard pressed to finance, or do we gamble and hope that the dropping of the two atomic bombs would break their will to fight and end the war. One thing often over looked is that if we invaded, would the Soviets also invade? How much would that have complicated post war Japan? There was always the chance that the bombs wouldn't have the desired effect. They almost didn't. There were people in high military and government positions that conspired to stop the Emperor's speech that ended the war from ever getting aired.

Answer 5

Just asking this question would have seemed unthinkable at the time (not that I am speaking first hand--but that is not the only requirement to comment on historical events). The Japanese, through the Swiss, had received the Allies' terms for surrender after the Potsdam conference in July 1945. Emperor Hirohito and the civilians in the Japanese would have liked to take them up on it, but the military, especially the Japanese Army, dominated the government and would not consider surrender. The Japanese had been offered pretty much the same terms that they ended up accepting on September 1, 1945 in Tokyo Harbor. Sure, there are some lefty revisionists from the 60s and 70s who held that it was wrong to drop the A bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that the Japanese would have surrendered anyway. But there are plenty of historians, including Samuel Elliot Morison, author of the official 15 volume U.S. Naval History of World War II, who can attest that the Japanese had thousands of planes, hundreds of thousands of well-dug in and motivated troops and a populace that honestly believed that their emperor was divine and that they should be willing to give their lives for him. U.S. military planning for the invasion of Japan had the invasion date pencilled in for November, 1945. The American Marine and Army divisions leading the assault were given two days of existence. Tens of thousands of American troops would have been killed by the end of 1945. The fighting would have lasted months as it did in the Phillipines and Okinawa. Oh yeah, and the Russians would have invaded the North of Japan--they were committed to do so. The world would have had north and south Japan, like north and south Korea, to this day. In my humble view, we did not have a choice. The death of tens of thousands of Japanese civilians or the death of tens of thousands of American teen agers. What would you have picked?

Answer 6

An opinion was rendered in international courts to wit:

"in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property, as the Conventions then in force dealt only with the protection of the wounded and the sick on the battlefield and in naval warfare, hospital ships, the laws and customs of war and the protection of prisoners of war"

At the time, "total war" meant the civilians on both sides faced indiscriminate aerial bombing, including incendiary attacks, nuclear attacks, and assaults on centers of culture/churches/schools, etc.

A change in the Geneva Conventions, beginning in 1949 were the results from the uproar of the fire bombing of Dresden, nuclear attacks on Japan, and other indiscriminate carpet bombing during WW II.

Therefore, in answer to your question, there were no specific treaties or conventions broken AT THE TIME of the bombings and therefore it was not a war crime, these prohibitions all came after the war.

Answer 7

You know, I was just thinking about this, as the anniversary of the drop was yesterday. I can not say it was a war crime, but I can say I feel it was too much. I know the basics of the history of why it was done, but I am not really educated enough on both sides of the issue to make a clear decision on whether I feel it was or was not a war crime. I know it was too much in my opinion, as people are still dying from the affects of a bomb dropped decades ago. People should not stil be suffering from the past. It's also hard to say because in one since, they hit us first, so to say it was wrong almost seems like saying what they did was ok. But honestly, when is it ok to kill so many people? It almost comes down to morals and patriotism. I believe another route would have been better but action still needed to be taken, as awful as it sounds. I am glad, however, that I didn't have to make that call. I would never want that amount of pressure on my shoulders and can;t imagine what it would be like to be that person who said "do it."

Answer 8

Times were different. President Trumman had a choice a very tough choice dorp the bomb and kill 70000 people and end the war or allow the war to continue and allow a million or more American soldiers to die taking the Japanize homeland.
But at the end of a war the losers are hung and the winners elected.

Answer 9

At what point does the defender become the aggessor? This rule has applied thru out ages. Japan was the test site. At that time, like today, nothing of value for the US was there.
If it was broken down, yes ultimately, some of of the issues would have been that. Again, who would challenge us?

Answer 10

No, it was the only way to end the war effectively. The Japanese were ready and willing to fight to the bitter end, so we could have either dropped the bombs or lost thousands of soldiers dragging out the war for months trying to capture Japan.

Answer 11

Unfortunately, the U.S. didn't get penalized for it. Sure, Pearl Harbor was horrible, and the U.S. definitely had the right to retaliate, but it was an attack on soldiers. It's in a soldier's job description of possible death. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, was an attack on civilians. Thousands and thousands of innocent people who had nothing to do with the conflict died, and many continue to feel the aftereffects. The retaliation was not equal.