Atom Bomb almost detonated in NC

While it is true Japan was not the military strength it had in the late 3o's and early 40's... they had a mindset to fight to the last person, or die by their own hand in the fight... as evidenced by the warfare in the islands leading to the mainland.

Many of the commenters here don't get that, and that is because of their narrow understanding of that time... without the full details of what the allied forces faced.

Just a little note:
All of the Purple Heart Medals that we have been given since that war, including the ones my father, my brothers and myself have been awarded, were made because of the belief that was how many Americans were going to be wounded in the invasion of the Japanese mainland. We still have quite an inventory of them left, thank goodness. And thank goodness we had the tools at the time to end the evil mindset of the Japanese war machine, and the wherewithall to deliver them to the evil empire that used to be imperialist Japan.

 

Exactly, well said!

 

What would have happened in an invasion is speculation. The "necessity" of an invasion at that point is opinion. The wholesale slaughter of two entire cities full of civilians, when those cities had no military significance, in clear violation of international law, was a war crime of mind-boggling proportions. And dropping the second bomb before the Japanese hierarchy had time to surrender, was a crime worthy of the most bloodthirsty tyrants the world has ever known.

 

Hogshit.

 

It's amazing how good humans are at justifying the most horrendous acts. All sides do it in every conflict. We are no exception. But there is no excuse for incinerating whole cities full of civilians.

 

The rape of Nanking... the Bataan March... Guadalcanal... the exception is = we needed to stop WAR Daniel... and WE DID.

You saying we acted like a criminal when we stopped the japanese from fighting to the death is fricken ridiculous.

 

My dad was a B-29 tail gunner and had orders overseas when the Japanese surrendered. Combat was still going on including a conventional air war with bombers and fighters. Also, our submarines continued to patrol. There was no possibility of stopping combat operations until the Japanese surrendered including the Japanese hold-outs.

Bob Wilson

 

Dropping the bomb was easy for Truman.

If he did not use it and the Allied causalities were as high as predicted invading Japan, he would be facing impeachment. That and allowing a North/South Japan, as that's the price the Soviet's would exact.

 

I remember my old man saying they were all celebrating that war ended in Europe in 1945 and looking forward to heading home, only to be silenced when the sergeant told them they'd all be heading east to fight Japan. Not the sort of news you want to hear after 5 years of war with little food and supplies. Thankfully the bomb was later dropped on Japan ending the war.

The nuclear bomb in Japan DID stop the war years earlier than in traditional ways. It has probably stopped campaigns since, including during the Cold War - the Russians were just as scared we going to hit them first as we were them.

But who are we, with 70 years of hindsight, to say they were wrong to do what they did. It was war. It took our Country until the 1980's to recover fully from WW2. The bomb, whilst dreadful, stopped wider suffering.

 

What you are saying is that one atrocity justifies another.

Ever since the war, apologists for the bombs have repeated until most Americans believe it, that the alternative was a horribly bloody invasion. It's become a mantra that almost seems true by repetition. I suspect the mantra was invented because the decision-makers knew that they were about to commit one of the most barbaric acts of human history: the slaughter, in a single instant, an entire city.

Nagasaki was destroyed three days after Hiroshima. It was not until six days after that that Japan surrendered. What was the great hurry to destroy Nagasaki? Simple: The US military wanted to test the bomb (a different type from the first) before the Japanese had a chance to surrender.

The same effect could have been achieved by bombing a military target or an uninhabited place. But the US specifically chose two entirely civilian cities. And chose to destroy them one immediately after the other without waiting for the inevitable surrender.

 

No I am not.

What I am saying was it was a good thing to change the mindset of the Japanese.

Until they saw their two cities in ruins from just one bomb from the sky, they were planning on fighting to the last man on the mainland.

Some folks don't understand that... apparently, that includes you.

 

It wasn't Russia, it was soviet union. Huge difference. This is precisely why the war had to be ended as quickly as possible, to prevent soviet occupation of half of japan, just like they occupied half of Europe with very tragic consequences to the occupied nations.

 

I say four things:

1: Nobody can know what The Japanese would have done. It's been repeated so many times that they'd have fought to the last man, that nobody questions it any more. I question it.

2. Japan was defeated. Their military machine was a shambles. Their military infrastructure was destroyed. There was no need of an invasion. The US has a mindset that nothing but unconditional surrender will do, but we could have offered terms to end the war, requiring them to remain on their home islands, but leaving them some face.

3. I take the moral position that there is NEVER justification in war or elsewhere for the killing of non-combatants, and in fact, US law forbids the targeting of noncombatants. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US intentionally targeted non-combatant civilians. Japan committed horrible atrocities. We committed horrible atrocities. None of that justifies committing another atrocity.

4. Dropping the bomb on Nagasaki, just 3 days after Hiroshima, gives the lie to any arguments about good intentions on the part of the US with regard to the atomic bombing of Japan. If we had used the first bomb for all the reasons you allege, and if that had been justified for all the reasons you say, then we'd have waited after the first bomb to give them time to surrender.

 

I'm generally sympathetic to Daniel's point of view regarding the nuclear bombing campaign.

However, the unconditional surrender and purging of Japan's government and ideology seems like an important achievement. I'm not an expert on WW II or Japanese history, but I'm guessing it may have been an important contributor to Japan's non-militaristic stance over the last 50+ years. If only it might have been achieved without the seemingly eager nuclear firebombing of civilian targets that can only be fairly characterized as "the end justifying the means".

Of course, nobody knows what would have happened if we had negotiated a conditional end to the war and left some those institutions in place. Maybe it would worked out anyway.

 

To relate it to 2013, we were faced with a nation of suicide bombers. Not just speculation, but fact based on taking islands like Iwo Jima. And there was an attempted coup from die-hards Surrender of Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's hard to imagine after two bombs dropped and a conventional invasion by the other superpower, generals would attempt to take over to continue that war, but some were.

Sometimes, it's necessary to be very forceful dealing with irrational people. All our options were bad, and this was probably the least bad. Nobody mentioned starving Japan with a blockade - it was an option.

 

BTW, the next a-bomb likely would have been targeted for Tokyo around Aug 19, 1945.

Glad it did not come to that.

 

While this is deviating significantly from the OP, I want to say I do have some knowledge of the Japanese mindset during their imperialist period... to the post WWII reconstruction.

Anyone that thinks they could be reasoned with during that time is a fool.

They were not the Japan that we know of now. And their leadership believed they had a right through might... and that they were a superior race that others must learn to obey.

The only reason they did surrender unconditionally was because of the destruction we rendered upon them with those two bombs... in truth, they had suffered far far worse with the fire-bombings of Tokyo and their industrial cities, with 100,000's burned alive in the conventional fire bombings... and that didn't do it, because they still saw it took a lot of effort on the allied forces to accomplish that.

When they realized that we could level a city withone device, and that we did it again 3 days later... they knew they needed to change how they spoke to the allied forces... and did surrender.

What we did with the spoils of war after their surrender, is why we are the greatest nation on earth.

 

If we had one...

 

^ the sinking of the USS Indianapolis might have delayed it, but that was the plan.

 

My father-in-law was involved in the loading of the devices onto that Ship in Benicia...