What do some people feel the atomic bombing was unjust and cruel?

Question

This is what I am surprised to learn.

Why is it some people today still feel it was unjust for the US to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan? They feel it was cruel and barbaric. This is especially so if they are Japanese. These people even feel the US SHOULD apologise!

However, why didn't these people think of the events that led to these bombings? Pearl Habour, Nanking, Hong Kong, Singapore, Darwin or Brisbane? Weren't these MORE cruel?

If the Japanese had refrained bombing Pearl Harbour, wouldn't the outcome had been very different? The US would not even enter the war!

Wasn't the late Paul Tibbets correct? He refused to apologised and he had no regrets.

I mean why didn't these people even mentioned the crimes the Japanese commited in their conquests but so openly criticise the US for the bombing??

I am sad some people still see the "pointless" deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki without due regard to the barbaric deaths in Pearl Harbour Nanking, Singapore or Darwin, or the rest of Asia.

Answer 1

This questions about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have now become the second most-asked World War II questions here in the History of Y!A - the first place belongs to questions about a meglomaniac dictator that ruled Germany between 1933 - 1945.

I will make my answer brief - and stick to the subject: you have already largely answered your own question. The attacks, invasions, and occupations of Pearl Harbor, Nanking, Hong Kong, Singapore, Darwin, Brisbane, (and Manila, Burma, China, Siam, Indochina, Malaya, Philippines, the Solomon Islands, etc. etc. etc.) WERE more cruel!

Those who who would like to tell us how much more atrocious the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were ignore the facts. The facts are, they know little of what occurred in Asia from 1933 - 1945. They know even less about the atrocities the Japanese committed (although the name "Nanjing" has now entered their vocabulary).

The figure for the deaths in China alone during the time of 1933-1945 was an estimated 19,000,000. When those same people who care so much about the victims of the bombings at Nagasaki and Hiroshima (including the Japanese who try to take advantage of their role as "the victim" of World War II) begin to ask if their deaths were "unjust and cruel" - then I will listen.

You are correct. Paul Tibbets was correct. Japan's War of Aggression in Asia - far from being correct.

* garwy - next time, search for facts before you make claims. There were 68 U.S. civilian casualties caused by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I won't go into the very long list that each Asian country has...The war was not just between the U.S. and Japan - a fact you need to understand.

Answer 2

The pilot of the bomber Enola Gaye, Mister Paul Tibbet, died a couple of days ago aged [I think] 92. Paul Tibbet, RIP. Job well done, mission accomplished.

Paul Tibbet did not create [invent] the A-Bomb. His job was to drop the two A-Bombs and return to base.

The use of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, brought the war to a swift end in Japan. There was simply no way that the Japanese were going to surrender, even when it was so obvious that the end was at hand and it would mean their defeat.

At no time ever did the American government want to defeat the Japanese People. NO. What was required was for the Japanese military to surrender, lay down their arms and put an end finally to Japanese militarism.

The surrender of Japan [Nippon] was only made possible by a demonstration so awesome that even the most hard nosed militarist would know and understand the uselessness of continuing a war which his side would lose with the possibility of a death toll in the millions.

To those Japanese civilians who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my prayers go out to you as they do every year at our time of Remembrance. You are not forgotten.

Answer 3

I dont know why the people leave out the Japanese atrocities to answer your question. I guess they remember the 200,000 killed in the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as innocent victims--women-children- elderly- and so forth. Which is true there were innocent people killed. But the Japanese were expected to lose 6.5 million people killed and wounded if we invaded. Of those it is stated about 800,000 would have been innocent women-children and elderly. Also it was estimated the US Armed forces would have lost 1 million killed and wounded.---But you are right ASKER Why dont these people remember the 2,403 Innocent American Men-Women(Nurses) Children(Civilians) killed 12-7-41 at Pearl Harbor? What about the thousands of POWs Innocent Americans-British-Australians who were supposed to be protected by the Geneva Convention Murdered on the Bataan Death March? What About the Rape of Nanking? Some people just leave out the obvious Facts!!!!!

Answer 4

Area bombing killed more people in Japan than the A Bomb drops. The Firebombing of cities and towns up and down the length of Japan was so intense the only reason they stopped was because they ran out of incendary bombs! The Americans understood that normal HE and AP explosives where not much use against the Japanese as the majority of their houses where of a light wooden and bamboo construction. As the Airforce had negligable forces drawn up against the SuperFortress thanks to its excellent ceiling height even when full loaded, they could saturate townships and cities with ease in daylight.
One of the things it does show how badly the Japanese where at defending their own cities from Air Attack, was that in 1945, the USAAF could send single planes straight over the areas to be bombed to do recon and weather reports without interferance from the ground.
As for dropping the A bomb, if it is in your arsenal of wepons and calculated that it may save lives then you use it.
Apologists are never right in any feild, what is done is done, and can not be undone by someone saying sorry.

Answer 5

Well, those event you discribe above were atrocities on part of the Japanese. But some people felt Hiroshima and Nagakaski were cruel because it killed so many people and left the the surviviors with Leukemia and also because Japan was going to surrender without the atom bomb. But I totally agree with you, the japanese attacked all of asia, and provoked america. They commited some of the worst atrocities know to man, some bearly shadowed by the holocaust, and the whole point of the war is to bring defeat, and that will mean many killed, our servicemen in Pearl Harbor did nothing to harm the Japanese. But you must admit, it is pretty horrible, vaporizing tonnes of innocent people. Japan should apologize to China, Korea, the POWs, etc. for the many atrocites to them and accually put it into textbooks, (we at least admit to Japanese interment and the Atomic bombs in our textbook) before we apologize to them.

Answer 6

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.

Answer 7

I think some people feel that way is because after 60 years the US continues to glorify the atomic bombings, citing various reasons that it was not only necessary, but that it was morally "right" to drop it. You should also keep in mind that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan were the first and last times that such a weapon of mass destruction has ever been used on mankind. So Japan is the only nation that can claim to have suffered from the atomic bombs- can we as Americans claim to know even a fraction of what they went through?

Do those people ever think of the events that led to the bombing? Yes they do, but keep in mind that the people who died in the bombing had little to no knowledge of the things committed by the Japanese army in those places. It is like how Americans think of Hiroshima- x numbers dead, y numbers wounded- in terms of numbers. Thus the victims of the a-bombs are dehumanized and become simple figures. So to the Japanese civilians, Nanking, Hong Kong, and Singapore are simply names of distant places and numbers- just like how many Americans view Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Conversely, why not ask: What about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed many civilians? Weren't those more cruel? I am not saying they were, or were not- but I do think we need to examine the standpoint from which we come from. What if Japan had dropped an atomic bomb on us? How would we have viewed it? We should also ask ourselves if we consider the atomic bombings as a form of genocide or not, because frankly it was genocide.

And why is Darwin and Brisbane on the list of places? Japan never invaded Australia, though they had planned to.

As for Paul Tibbets- He did a great job in serving the nation, willing to take on the tremendous responsibility of carrying out the bombing. But the only thing I have with him is how he refuses to feel regret for what he had to do.

Perhapes the bombings were necessary, perhapes not. But we at the very least as humans should regret the loss of countless innocent lives- be they Japanese or American.

Answer 8

people feel it was cruel and unjust because it was, but there is no reason for us to apologize. The Japanese were as cruel and unjust as the US.

but ,let's face it -war is hell ,and it is pathetic that humans the supposedly most intelligent species on Earth,are sometimes too damned stupid to resolve their differences, in any other way but destroying civilization.
killing thousands of innocent people was cruel and unjust.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

Well, it was a hard decision. If we hadn't dropped the atomic bomb, we would have been in war for much longer and more of our American men would have died. There was a full scale attacked planned and that would have caused more death on the U.S. part.