Question about the atomic bombing of Japan?

Question

Was it really needed? Its not justifiable unless it saved more lives. Some say it did. Many more. I'm not so sure. I believe we had other options. The United States had air AND naval superiority! I think one option would have been a naval blockade of Japan. Then conventional air attacks against the the leadership of the country to include the use of special forces. We could have taken out the leadership of Japan. It would have taken some time though.
This option, or others, would have been much better than doing what we did to so many innocent men, women, and children! Those people suffered unspeakable horrors.

mark1011 - Good point. I am aware of that. Still we could have taken alot more time considering other options. Thats just the truth.

cybersho - Your last statement says it all. "Damn those Japs".
There was an extreme bitterness and resentment towards Japan at the time. Understandably. And we allowed that to cause us to want revenge in the worst way possible.

We could have convinced the emperor of Japan to surrender and order his army to stand down. We could have demonstrated the atom bomb to them.
But, we wanted blood instead.

Answer 1

Research your question a little more. The information I have studied indicated that the war could have dragged out another 4 or 5 years and deaths of three million or more were expected. The world had been fighting for five plus years and just wanted it over yesterday. The US had been sucker punched at Pearl Harbor and seen captured american service people killed on the Bataan Death March, seen the japanese cut heads off nurses and medical personnel and commit attrocities too horrible to imagine. They enslaved foreign women to serve as prostitutes for their military personnel, made slaves out of the men, the list goes on. The thought at the time was to put an end to it, and do it now.

Answer 2

In retrospect, was it necessary? That is a hard question to answer. They say that hindsight is 20/20. Remember, the A-bomb had been tested, but never actually used on a population prior to the attacks on Japan. While there were theories and speculation on the result of a real world application of the weapon, no one really knew how destructive it would truly be. This, in and of itself does not absolve the U.S. of responsibility for the results of the attack, but it does begin to put it in perspective.

The intelligence of the time suggested that if the allies attempted an invasion of Japan, we would likely have to fight our way through every man, woman and child to take out the leadership. Was this an accurate assessment? Who can say? Would the civilian casualties have been as extreme as they were from the bombing? Maybe, there is really no way to say. They likely would still have been significant, though, perhaps not as bad. On the other hand, how many U.S. and Allied soldiers would have lost their lives. While the Japanese losses may have been decreased, the U.S. losses would have been staggering. Remember, the innocent Japanese men, women and children may have suffered unspeakable horrors, but we should be thankful for one thing. If we had not dropped the bomb, then, years later, the Cuban Missile Crisis may have played out much differently. Historically, I am much more comfortable with two (comparatively) weak nuclear weapons dropped on Japan than 2000 (comparatively) powerful weapons lobbed across the world between the US and USSR.

Answer 3

Let me tell it to you this way. Japan was stepping into territory that was used by the United States to dominate that portion of the Pacific.

When you step in and want to take that away from the U.S. you are calling an all out act of war because we will protect what we took from the Hawaiians.
Look at the History of Hawaii and you will better understand why Americans grabbed Hawaii and then later it became a State.

Since the Atom Bomb was developed and ready for use since we robbed that fdrom Germany, we decided to put the word out that we will do anything it takes to revenge a horrible attack on Pearl Harbor and at the same time we were curious as to how the Atom bomb would be effective for future use.

Apparently Japan didn't get the message the first time so we hit them again and was ready to hit them third time before they surrendered to U.S.

What your looking at here was more than political power...the U.S. was setting the pace that Hawaii belongs to the United States and don't ever forget that should you try to take it over again.

Truman was not avid about the bomb, but the latter consequences of using such force made him sit down in the Whitehouse and wonder "My God, what have we done?" Truman was reluctant to use the bomb, but political power say's bomb those bastards and teach them a lesson.

Could we have won the war without the bomb?
Many lives were shattered because we used a force that was unheard of and Japan had no idea what was to prevail, Yama knew that he had awaken a sleeping giant.

Answer 4

It has be said that the manned invasion of the Japanese mainland would have cost one million American lives and God knows how many of the Japanese themselves. Some have said that the Japanese were ready to surrender and the bombings were not necessary. After the second atomic bomb was dropped the surrender came within a matter of days because it was assumed that the Japanese cities would be bombed one by one, but the truth is it really was a bluff because we really didn't have anymore bombs ready at the time. The military government of Japan is really to blame if anyone is because it was obvious to the Emperor and to the military itself that Japan was defeated. The Emperor was in favor of surrender but the military wanted to fight to the last men woman and child. A far bigger waste of humanity don't you think?
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Answer 5

In my opinion, I think Captain Hammer has got to the crux of the situation. Whatever 'official line' history records as justification for the nuclear bombings, I believe their driving concern was Russia. The Americans realized that the new world order was going to be either them or the Russians, therefore the bombings were both expedient and demonstrative. In short order Japan was vanquished and Russia had concrete proof of what America was capable of and how far they would go. It could be argued that without the bombings Russian expansion would have remained unchecked, causing the cold war that was just around the corner to be a great deal hotter.

Answer 6

One factor that never gets mentioned but played a key role is that we knew that the Soviet Union was set to enter the war on August 8, exactly 3 months after the German surrender. And we had a pretty good idea about what happened once the Red Army gained control of an area from seeing what was happening in Eastern Europe. Had we not dropped the bombs and Japan had surrendered in response to the Soviet Unions defeat of the approximately 1 million soldiers in Manchuria, which also took place in the first half of August, they would have played a much larger role in postwar Japan. Had Japan delayed their surrender by one month, the Soviet invasion of Hokkaido set for the first week of September would have left at least that island under Soviet domination for the duration of the Cold War. If you accept that it was important to keep the Soviet Union from expanding in Asia as they did in Europe, then dropping the bombs was justified.

Answer 7

While it's easy to focus on the two nuclear attacks, the majority of the other Japanese cities were oblitereted during the summer of 1945 with far more deaths than Hiroshima & Nagasaki combined.

Fewer people died from the nuclear attacks than who died in the incendiary attacks on Tokyo and other Japanese cities.... In a period of ten days starting March 9, a total of 1,595 sorties delivered 9,373 tons of bombs against Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe destroying 31 square miles of those cities most people think the most destuctive air raid in history was the Atomic Bomb. NOT SO. The Japanese empire was almost totally destroyed by summer 1945.

On March 9-10, 1945, an air raid on Tokyo killed an estimated 100,000 people in a single night of fire.

U.S. warplanes shower the sky with rivulets of fire, and thousands of corpses — many of them women and children — clot Tokyo's main river. Flaming victims plummet in agony from a burning bridge.

At this stage in the war, civilians on both sides were feeling the effect of total war...indiscriminate carpet bombing, V1/V2 attacks, and yes, the nuclear attacks.

You ask what options were available? A demonstration of the nukes in an unihabited island was considered but denied, as the show of force was not considered enough. Did we lose the moral high ground by being the first to use nukes on civilians....yes, but the resultant quick end to the war would seem to have justified it considering the estimated losses on both sides if the war were to continue.

Answer 8

first, you have to see the whole picture. it was a world war. there several countries involved. the attack on pearl harbor was a major blow to the American navy. they did not have the resources to spread through out the world in an effective manor.
second, nuclear science, bombs, etc. were not understood. think about the comic books from this time and even after. people thought that radioactivity could give you power. they even sold radio active pills because they thought it could cure disease. the reason for the bombs was to put a quick end to a long struggle and to be able to concentrate on other enemies. this is a time when there was no laser guided system or satellites that can take pictures of a street sign from space. they dropped bombs on what they thought were factories. that is what they aimed for. these were nuclear bombs... the first to be used in war. no one knew the full effects.

Answer 9

It SAVED MANY MORE LIVES THAN WERE TAKEN BOTH AMERICAN AND JAPANESE! Post war estimates are that it would have cost over one million American lives and most of the population of japan were prepared to fight to the death to defend the home islands. an example of the Japanese civilians wiliness to die rather than surrender would be when American Marines invaded Okinawa and the Japanese jumped to their deaths rather than surrender. As far as a navel blockade goes it just never would have worked for a multitude of reasons. The first would be the amount of time necessary ane the effect on the Japanese. It would have taken many years to have any effect and once again resulted in many more Japanese deaths than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. In both cities the combined death toll was approx. 150 thousand a single firebombing raid on Tokyo resulted in over 100,000 DEATHS so imagine if those types of raids had lasted for years while we blockaded the islands. If you take a clear dispassionate view of the reality many millions of Japanese lives were most likely saved by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. the men that flew the Enola Gay and Box Car on those missions should be heroes to the Japanese as well as the Americans for the lives that were saved on both sides!

Answer 10

If you want to know more about a subject like this, I recommend watching the documentary 'The Fog of War'. It features the story about all the American wars and what is dubbed as 'necessary', being told from the Secretary of Defence at the time Robert McNamara. A great documentary that really opens your eyes and leaves you thinking.