|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Hiroshima Nagasaki Seventieth Anniversary
|
Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
|
Posted
Was the dropping of the two bombs justified at the time?
Did the bombs in fact play any part in the Japanese surrender?
Given the possibility at the time that they might have, was it acceptable to calculate that the deaths of tens of thousands of mainly women, children and old people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was preferable to millions of Allied and Japanese deaths had the war continued?
Was it just a signal to Stalin?
Were they dropped out of an insatiable curiosity as to whether or not they would work, after all the money and effort put into them?
Should the Americans have warned the Japanese of their possession of nuclear weapons, and then demonstrated their effect by exploding one in an unpopulated area of Japan or its environs?
Is it possible by an act of historical imagination to immerse ourselves in the attitudes of 1945, such as the feelings of the loved ones of Allied soldiers fighting the Japanese, or of POWs or atrocity victims in Japanese-controlled areas?
Is it possible to discuss this issue without wallowing in self-righteous anti-Americanism?
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
|
Posted
1) Yes, the Japanese High Command and Cabinet had stopped listening to reason. It was Fat Man/Little Boy or Operation Downfall.
2) A large part, if historical accounts from the Japanese side are to be believed.
3) The widescale slaughter of civilians had been practiced by all sides since 1942 and the bombing campaign in Europe (for the Allies).
4) Probably, but there were strategic considerations as well.
5) That level of communication and coordination had long ceased to exist between Washington and Tokyo. As an invitation, it would have been dismissed by the Japanese. That is not the way statecraft is done.
6) HBO's "The Pacific" did a decent job of illustrating the "race war" side of the Pacific War, which had been neglected.
If you want to know the scale of what was imagined in Operation Downfall, the US purchase of Purple Hearts for this campaign supplied all Purple Hearts through Korea, Vietnam and the first and second Gulf Wars. Only recently has the US Armed Forces ordered new medals.
There are recorded instances of US soldiers coming across their own gravestones, pre-engraved, after the Japanese Surrender in US army depots.
--------------------
NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
140,000 killed in Hiroshima. Deutsche Welle had an interview of a woman who was a school girl in a class of 50, one of two in her class who lived after the bomb.
This kind of thing of course is completely justifed in war. The point is to kill the enemy and to kill their will to continue. If killing their children does that, then they must be killed in whatever numbers may be possible and preferably in ways to cause maximum destruction and horror.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
|
Posted
A Japanese Canadian historian (post-doctoral) told me that he had researched the situation fairly thoroughly in choosing his doctoral thesis topic, and had come up with the conclusion that more Japanese would have died in an invasion than were killed by the bombs. He told me that he was very disturbed by this conclusion, but he could not escape the logic of his estimates.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
ldjjd
Shipmate
# 17390
|
Posted
I think that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, occuring as it did almost simultaneously with the bombs, was also a strong factor.
In less than a fortnight the Soviets overran Manchuria and were in Korea. A two-pronged attack could come within days from both Korea and the northern islands, backed by the massive Soviet naval base a stone's throw away.
The Soviets demonstrated in the European theatre that they were willing and able to suffer enormous casualties and that they were extremely brutal conquerors. Moreover, they were itchinng for a rematch of their humiliating defeat in a prior conflict.
Had the Soviets invaded, the only questions would have been how much, if anything, would escape destruction and how many people, if any, would ultimately survive.
Unlike the U.S., the Soviets would not have been bothered by an enemy willing to fight to the last person, even if that happens to include nearly an entire civilian polulation.
Posts: 294 | Registered: Oct 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
ldjjd
Shipmate
# 17390
|
Posted
I'm even close to thinking that had the bombs not been dropped, the Japanese would still have soon surrendered given the incredible success of the Russian invasion.
The only hope for the Japanese would have been to surrender to the U.S. in the rather narrow window before the Soviets commenced their invasion of Japan.
I think that the Japanese could have endured quite a bit more bombing, conventional and/or nuclear, but the Soviets were at the doorstep and they had reached it with frightening speed and efficiency.
Posts: 294 | Registered: Oct 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Those are rhetorical questions, why are you asking them? We all know the answers. For decades I argued yes to the first. My God was the God of The Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, The Exodus. God the Killer. Except as Jesus, so true Christians had to be pacifist, but that was a purist, elitist position and America WAS God's own country along with the other lost Israelites of north west Europe and if you can't be a true Christian you have to be pragmatic, just like God, when dealing with the demonic gentile hordes.
Finally thanks to postmodernist Brian McLaren, the scales of the irrelevant God, the tribal God, the pragmatic God of redemptive violence, the human God, the idol of Christianity in the very main fell away.
So no, Ayn Rand - "When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are." - writ large was wrong. We were not justified. Except in Christ.
Something Andrew, Justin and George and their apologists have forgotten. Well, not that they've ever known.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
|
Posted
No, I do not think the dropping of the bombs was justified. At the time it represented the pinnacle of "the machine", and once again it was used in an evil way: the means justify the end.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
140,000 killed in Hiroshima. Deutsche Welle had an interview of a woman who was a school girl in a class of 50, one of two in her class who lived after the bomb.
This kind of thing of course is completely justifed in war. The point is to kill the enemy and to kill their will to continue. If killing their children does that, then they must be killed in whatever numbers may be possible and preferably in ways to cause maximum destruction and horror.
I find this a very potent point. I'm used to people pressing pacifism to test if it has limits: would you really not use force in this hypothetical situation?
But I see that it works the other way: are there not limits to the nature of the war you would wage?
Most of us get uncomfortable at some point in the calculation of suffering. There are factors beyond mere consequences.
--------------------
My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
|
Posted
Posted by Kaplan:
quote:
Was the dropping of the two bombs justified at the time?
No. You probably could try and make a case that the bombing of Hiroshima was, but to then say Nagasaki was also justified so soon after would need more than a few acrobatics to argue efficiently.
quote:
Did the bombs in fact play any part in the Japanese surrender?
For everyone involved except Marshall, no. Military records make it very clear that from Eisenhower down, everyone thought Japan was on the verge of surrender which would come within a time frame of a week to a month. This is what they thought - you can of course argue that their thinking was flawed. Meanwhile in Japan the tables were beginning to turn on the Emperor and the military. The population seems to have been living off one small bowl of rice per household per week with everything else being pumped into the war effort. Public opinion was also shifting dramatically against the war and there was a dawning realisation that they were being held to ransom on the international stage by a lunatic emperor and a brutalised war machine that didn't appear to have a shred of humanity left.
quote:
Given the possibility at the time that they might have, was it acceptable to calculate that the deaths of tens of thousands of mainly women, children and old people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was preferable to millions of Allied and Japanese deaths had the war continued?
Certainly the most difficult question to answer, but it must be asked; why drop a second one? Why choose two sites with little or no military significance? Why target the bombs on largely civilian areas? There are just too many questions to answer, at least for me. It's too big a 'what if'. The biggest question of all is why they went ahead with it when the military records indicate that shortly beforehand they all seemed convinced that the Japanese were perched on the verge of surrender (in fact if I remember correctly they had already indicated terms of surrender involving the preservation of the imperial system)? Maybe it was that Marshall fellow......
quote:
Was it just a signal to Stalin?
....yep, I think that was pretty much part of Marshall's argument.
quote:
Were they dropped out of an insatiable curiosity as to whether or not they would work, after all the money and effort put into them?
I think Trinity indicated fairly clearly they would work efficiently.
quote:
Should the Americans have warned the Japanese of their possession of nuclear weapons, and then demonstrated their effect by exploding one in an unpopulated area of Japan or its environs?
This comes back to the question of whether surrender was imminent regardless of whether the bomb dropped or not. The Japanese 'war cabinet' certainly seems to have known it was about to happen and they issue no warning. Afterwards they don't even report the bombing of Hiroshima to the public. There are so many questions as to why it went down this way. Were the Japanese hoping for world outrage? Were they simply in complete and utter disarray? Did they give up, thinking they were all going to be obliterated? Was the emperor just a lunatic and the Imperial general a psychotic who hoped to take everyone and everything down with them? I often feel that last one is a distinct possibility and I've never understood why they weren't taken out.
quote:
Is it possible by an act of historical imagination to immerse ourselves in the attitudes of 1945, such as the feelings of the loved ones of Allied soldiers fighting the Japanese, or of POWs or atrocity victims in Japanese-controlled areas?
Would you really want to? If you had loved ones in the war or prisoners of war of course you would want to see the Japanese Imperial army laid waste. No secret was ever made of their horrific brutality. They had demonstrated that clearly in the past too. When the bombs dropped and killed so many civilians and caused so much destruction who knew what to think. I'm not sure we've even come to terms with it today and that may be why the west constantly looks for a justification for doing it.
quote:
Is it possible to discuss this issue without wallowing in self-righteous anti-Americanism?
Yes; unless of course coming to the conclusion that they were wrong to drop both bombs is reasoned to be anti-American.
--------------------
'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Most of us get uncomfortable at some point in the calculation of suffering. There are factors beyond mere consequences.
Probably the reason East and West refrained from incinerating each other with a combined nuclear arsenal capable of killing every person on the planet 4 times over.
When you have *war with limits* you have war. No doubt why humanity is forever dogged by it.
The unusual thing about the nuclear strike on Japan in 45 was that became that rare occasion when a single military action actually achieved it's objective at a stroke.
Had Japan opted not to surrender and been totally destroyed? America's action would then have been judged as being rather more barbaric than using 2 controversial weapons to end a truly bitter and awful war.
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
I recently found science historian Alex Wellerstein's blog, which tackles many of these questions: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/
Many of those involved in developing the first nuclear bombs become vocal advocates of nuclear disarmament. That's pretty telling to me.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by Kaplan:
quote:
Did the bombs in fact play any part in the Japanese surrender?
For everyone involved except Marshall, no. Military records make it very clear that from Eisenhower down, everyone thought Japan was on the verge of surrender which would come within a time frame of a week to a month. This is what they thought - you can of course argue that their thinking was flawed.
The bombs definitely played a part in the Japanese decision to surrender. It wasn't up to the Americans. In his speech to the Japanese people, the Emperor mentioned the bombs specifically.
Moo
--------------------
Kerygmania host
---------------------
See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
|
Posted
Sorry, I meant that was the thinking before the bombs were dropped, except Marshall.
--------------------
'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
|
Posted
Excellent questions. Historical/theoretical questions that should be asked in order that we might answer them better should (when) we ever be in a position to ask them in a practical sense again.
There are people much better versed in history than I answering them from the historical record. Thank you all for that fascinating information.
I think it is a bit unfair to look at records of what the Japanese people were thinking at the time. After all, the US had precious little information about what the Japanese people were thinking. Should the US have had better intelligence? Of course.
Face it, the US was an insular society in many ways then. The people in power didn't know a lot about anyone other than the lily white with european ancestry. They hired Margaret Mead to tell them about our enemies and allies because they didn't have the foggiest. (Interestingly enough, Margaret herself didn't seem to have a clue about African American attitudes. Just read.)
So, you have a people who knew that the Japanese attacked them without a reason other than hostility (from regular citizens point of view) and who seemed to be buddies with that Hitler guy. They fought heroically from their point of view and beyond reason from the point of view of Americans who were losing family and friends.
What do you expect from a group of people who only knew the Japanese as enemies? And yes, military types are people too. How many of "those people" should die to keep "Our Boys" alive?
Is war ever justified is beyond my pay grade. How people react in times of war is very human and imperfect.
I say that you can never cure hate with hate. And I have no idea how I would react if a strange (to me) group of people started threatening my family. My guess is my reaction would be less then the pinnacle of perfection and love.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
Another point to note is that 24 hrs after Hiroshama the Japanese High Command still had it,s face set on the no surrender policy. It saw the first Bomb as a propaganda opportunity, kicking a man when he,s down (likewise Dresden).
So many of us viewed the second Bomb as merciless, yet the interval was crucial in making the Japanese leadership realise further resistance was utterly useless. It was shock and awe that worked.
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
|
Posted
More civilians died in the conventional fire bombing of Tokyo, so the death toll from the atomic bombs was not uniquely terrible.
By convincing the Japanese military that they could not continue fighting, the atomic bombs saved Japan from the far worse horrors of an allied invasion - millions would have died.
If the Russians had beaten us to it and conquered Japan, Japan would probably have ceased to exist.
--------------------
Jez we did hand the next election to the Tories on a plate!
Posts: 163 | From: Somewhere west of Bristol | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
More civilians died in the conventional fire bombing of Tokyo, so the death toll from the atomic bombs was not uniquely terrible.
By convincing the Japanese military that they could not continue fighting, the atomic bombs saved Japan from the far worse horrors of an allied invasion - millions would have died.
If the Russians had beaten us to it and conquered Japan, Japan would probably have ceased to exist.
That's a rationalism, namely, the means justifies the end.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Edwina Moon
Apprentice
# 18454
|
Posted
According to historian William Manchester, Truman appointed two committees, one comprised of soldiers and civilians and the other of scientists, to explore alternatives to operational use of the bombs. The committees rejected both a detailed warning and a demonstration as infeasible: The static test at Los Alamos still left lots of technical unknowns about the effectiveness of dropping a bomb from the air and it was feared that a declaration followed by a dud would stiffen Japanese resistance. Also, aside from the static apparatus detonated at Los Alamos, the Americans only had two bombs.
Posts: 4 | Registered: Aug 2015
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
... Certainly the most difficult question to answer, but it must be asked; why drop a second one? Why choose two sites with little or no military significance? Why target the bombs on largely civilian areas? ...
To see what would happen.
According to at least one documentary, among the factors in the selection of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the fact that neither city had been attacked or damaged with conventional weapons.
--------------------
"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
|
Posted
Posted by Tortuf:
quote:
I think it is a bit unfair to look at records of what the Japanese people were thinking at the time. After all, the US had precious little information about what the Japanese people were thinking. Should the US have had better intelligence? Of course.
I'm not sure they were that ignorant of all the facts and I doubt they had 'precious little information'. I may be wrong in this, but I do recall reading that they were aware of the Japanese war office canvassing of public opinion of the war on behalf of the emperor. They did know of the attempts by the Japanese to plead a peace treaty via the Soviet Union to the US. There are also unfounded rumour that they had approached the Swiss. Now publicly they (the Japanese) were saying different to their citizens, but the US knew of this and knew the terms for surrender which in actual fact is what they later granted all being said (i.e., the retention of the imperial system). They were also aware of the plight of the citizens and an entire population on the verge of mass starvation. It is for these reasons, and many others, that so many of the leading figures in the US army of the time (Eisenhower, Leahy, MacArthur, McCloy to name but a few) felt that Potsdam was part of the exercise of humiliation (i.e.. not offering the retention of the emperor as part of the peace deal and referring to it in terms of a deceitful veiling of the truth from the people...or some such), that the surrender was immanent (or would have taken place had the terms been offered regarding the emperor) and the dropping of the bombs should not have gone ahead as it did.
Ernest King is an interesting case in point. He claimed that the intelligence he had received once the naval blockade was in place in 1945 (before the bombing) was that Japan was effectively defeated. After the bombing he declared it to be immoral, as Japan was utterly helpless. He was commander in chief of the US Fleet and chief of Naval operations.
--------------------
'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
|
Posted
Fletcher Christian said:
quote:
Was the emperor just a lunatic and the Imperial general a psychotic who hoped to take everyone and everything down with them? I often feel that last one is a distinct possibility and I've never understood why they weren't taken out.
i can at least answer this one-- Hirohito actually forced the surrender in defiance of the JHC. Given Hirohito was actively cooperating in the termination of the war ( finally), he was too valuable to take out. If I remember correctly, the JHC was dissolved very soon after the way and its leaders were subject to various reprocussions assigned by Hirohito for their attempted coup.
As to the Bomb-- for the first time on Thursday, I heard the "bombs for peace" argument on NPR, and the person explaining it said something like this-- the strategeists who supported the bomb drop decided that " something Biblical"-- that is, a demonstration of a weapon that could wipe out a populated city and every living thing in its strike zone-- would not just end this war, but end War. They deliberately planned a drop in a densely populated area because they hoped the world-- not just Japan-- would recoil at the high stakes created by this new weaponry, and that the nations would just kind of collectively decide war wasn't worth it.
On the one hand-- that is clearly the thinking of very desperate minds. On the other hand, as cockamamie as it sounds, at least the proponents of this idea were aiming for some larger good.
All I can state with conviction is that I wish it didn't happen, that God forbid it happen again, and that as an American, every time Yom Kippur rolls around, I pray on this matter.
[ 08. August 2015, 16:15: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
--------------------
I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
|
Posted
Was it only an American decision though? I know, obviously, it was the US that dropped it, but was it not discussed with others? My knowledge of this is sketchy at best; but did Churchill, Russia and China not also know of the intention to drop the bomb or were they asked for any kind of input or opinion?
--------------------
'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
More civilians died in the conventional fire bombing of Tokyo, so the death toll from the atomic bombs was not uniquely terrible.
But still goes against Just War principles.
if utilitarianism is the sole judge, then the church may as well shut up and the Christian faith is of no relevance.
I'm not sure what your point is here. Are you saying that all the bombing campaigns in WW2 went against Just War principles? I agree that's arguable.
I think the US in WW2 Actually did pretty well when measured against Just War principles, certainly better than the Japanese. Their magnanimous treatment of defeated enemies places them above most victorious powers in history, especially considering that they were forced into a war they didn't want.
All war is hell. The best we can do is end it as quickly as possible, and take what steps we can to ensure it doesn't happen again.
Non-combatant casualties are inevitable. All combatants should attempt to minimise them, obviously. I am attempting to argue that the atomic bombs causing tens of thousands of casualties prevented the millions of casualties that would have resulted from an allied invasion. (This is counter-factual, but the planning estimates were that high, with allied service deaths in the hundreds of thousands.) So in this case, yes I think the end did justify the means. It doesn't in all cases.
--------------------
Jez we did hand the next election to the Tories on a plate!
Posts: 163 | From: Somewhere west of Bristol | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
More civilians died in the conventional fire bombing of Tokyo, so the death toll from the atomic bombs was not uniquely terrible.
True at the time. But the Tokyo firebombing didn't claim lives for years after, nor cause genetic defects.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
More civilians died in the conventional fire bombing of Tokyo, so the death toll from the atomic bombs was not uniquely terrible.
True at the time. But the Tokyo firebombing didn't claim lives for years after, nor cause genetic defects.
I wouldn't disagree with that. At the time the long-term effects of radiation exposure were not well enough known to have any bearing on the decision to use the atomic bombs. (Radiation precautions at the Manhattan Project labs were certainly not up to modern standards).
--------------------
Jez we did hand the next election to the Tories on a plate!
Posts: 163 | From: Somewhere west of Bristol | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Was it only an American decision though? I know, obviously, it was the US that dropped it, but was it not discussed with others? My knowledge of this is sketchy at best; but did Churchill, Russia and China not also know of the intention to drop the bomb or were they asked for any kind of input or opinion?
I leave it to the people in those countries to decide what to do for Yom Kippur.
--------------------
I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Was it only an American decision though? I know, obviously, it was the US that dropped it, but was it not discussed with others? My knowledge of this is sketchy at best; but did Churchill, Russia and China not also know of the intention to drop the bomb or were they asked for any kind of input or opinion?
I leave it to the people in those countries to decide what to do for Yom Kippur.
AIUI Churchill knew of the bomb's existence and was informed that it would be used (British scientists were involved in the Manhattan Project). Stalin knew about the bomb because of the penetration of the Manhattan Project by Soviet agents, but was not officially informed or consulted.
--------------------
Jez we did hand the next election to the Tories on a plate!
Posts: 163 | From: Somewhere west of Bristol | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
More civilians died in the conventional fire bombing of Tokyo, so the death toll from the atomic bombs was not uniquely terrible.
True at the time. But the Tokyo firebombing didn't claim lives for years after, nor cause genetic defects.
I wouldn't disagree with that. At the time the long-term effects of radiation exposure were not well enough known to have any bearing on the decision to use the atomic bombs. (Radiation precautions at the Manhattan Project labs were certainly not up to modern standards).
There is still a difference. Firebombing is an ancient method of warfare. Yes, the delivery method was more effective in WWII, but the technology not so much. The atomic bombs represented a massive change. The potential for which should have at least been on the minds of the creators and users. I do not think Oppenheimer's own quote:
quote:
I am become Death," he said, "the destroyer of worlds.
was at all accidental or naive.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
There is still a difference. Firebombing is an ancient method of warfare. Yes, the delivery method was more effective in WWII, but the technology not so much. The atomic bombs represented a massive change. The potential for which should have at least been on the minds of the creators and users. I do not think Oppenheimer's own quote:
quote:
I am become Death," he said, "the destroyer of worlds.
was at all accidental or naive.
Sorry, I don't think you can compare a volley of flaming arrows or even a Napoleonic battery of cannon with hundreds of B-29's each unloading 10 tons of high explosive and incendiaries on a civilian population housed in fragile Japanese buildings. The technology of killing advanced very rapidly in the 20th century, at the time the atom bomb must just have seemed like the logical next step. As a civilian (and one with - to the authorities - suspect loyalties) any reservations Oppenheimer had about about his creation would have been of no importance in wartime.
His supposed words at the Trinity test (there are different versions of them) always strike me as rather ambiguous. He was - at least partly - exulting that the thing actually worked, which was by no means certain.
[code]
[ 08. August 2015, 19:47: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
--------------------
Jez we did hand the next election to the Tories on a plate!
Posts: 163 | From: Somewhere west of Bristol | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
More civilians died in the conventional fire bombing of Tokyo, so the death toll from the atomic bombs was not uniquely terrible.
By convincing the Japanese military that they could not continue fighting, the atomic bombs saved Japan from the far worse horrors of an allied invasion - millions would have died.
If the Russians had beaten us to it and conquered Japan, Japan would probably have ceased to exist.
That's a rationalism, namely, the means justifies the end.
Which is not to say that either the rationalization or the end to which the means have been advanced are actually wrong, materially or morally. Presumably God gave us the capacity to operate as rational people for a reason.
Whether the reasoning was right or wrong, however, will always be debateable. It's unthinkable that God could've provided humanity with its rational faculties to the end that fellow human beings could be annihilated in this way. But on the other hand, he also permitted us the double-edged sword of freewill, and living in a world where evil has his permission to run riot.
Seems like Catch 22 to me.
--------------------
Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
Response to Touchsone
Actually, I was speaking of Greek fire.
But dropping bombs or incendiaries from aeroplanes is just a simple multiplication of force. A ballista is not a different technology to a simple bow and arrow or sling. Just use of a mechanical means to gain greater force.
The biggest conventional bomb I am aware of has a yield of 44 tonnes of TNT. Fat Man and Little Boy had a yield of 21 and 15 kilotonnes.(respectively) But it is the reason for this immensely greater yield that is the issue. It is to a conventional bomb what a rock is to a bunker buster.
[ 08. August 2015, 19:50: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
|
Posted
There were multiple conventional raids on Tokyo, with hundreds of B29s dropping a total tonnage of 1 - 2 Kilotonnes on each occasion. without doing a detailed calculation, we can infer that the total explosive power deployed against Tokyo was approximately equivalent to that deployed against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yes, nukes are horrible, but so are incendiaries. The standard US incendiary bomb would release about thirty bomblets as it fell, each of these was capable of penetrating a building before squirting out a jet of burning napalm. These abominations were dropped by the thousand.
As far as I know Greek fire, whatever it may have been was a tactical weapon never used strategically against enemy cities.
--------------------
Jez we did hand the next election to the Tories on a plate!
Posts: 163 | From: Somewhere west of Bristol | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
You are missing the point.
But whatever.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You are missing the point.
But whatever.
Sorry, what is the point? I think we're trying to establish whether nuclear bombs are so uniquely evil that it would be wrong ever to use them.
I do not believe they are necessarily any more evil than other machines that kill people. I also believe that their use in this instance was - on balance - justified.
--------------------
Jez we did hand the next election to the Tories on a plate!
Posts: 163 | From: Somewhere west of Bristol | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
|
Posted
Can we really say that stopping the bombs was right or wrong depending on whether or not they shortened the war? It's hard to tell if they did even with hindsight, looking back at WW2 from not so long after, with the enormous amount of information and historical analysis that has been done. It wasn't possible to know the result of dropping the bombs at the time with any certainty, so if the rightness if dropping them was a matter of the consequences, it couldn't be known at the time.
If we judge the action by its intention instead, then the A bombs can ge judged whatever the consequences. Conventional bombing in WW2 became largely directed against civilians in Germany and Japan. It started out, though, against industrial and military targets. If you attack railway lines you might claim it's an acceptable use of force. If some bombs go astray and some civilians are killed you might say that's acceptable. If you bomb a manufacturing district civilian damages will be huge, but you might still claim there is a military purpose and feel justified.
There is a continuity between bombing the industrial district and just dumping HE anywhere on a city. Perhaps the intention in Tokyo and Dresden was to create firestorms and maximum civilian deaths, but I doubt the aircrews knew that.
Dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was different in that it was a new weapon, and there was no question of mission creep. There was a clear intention to kill civilians and no one could doubt it.
If you think deliberately killing innocent people is wrong, then Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong, because of the intention and never mind the result.
--------------------
My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian
...but I do recall reading that they were aware of the Japanese war office canvassing of public opinion of the war on behalf of the emperor.
I have never heard of the Japanese war office canvassing public opinion. The war minister had the right to make all decisions affecting the war. The war minister had to be an army officer on active duty, and if the top army men didn't like his decisions, they could make him resign by taking him off the active duty list.
The idea of canvassing Japanese public opinion startles me. In the spring of 1945, only a few months before the end of the war, several hundred civilians were arrested by the secret police, "on suspicion of harboring a desire for peace."
Moo
--------------------
Kerygmania host
---------------------
See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Can we really say that stopping the bombs was right or wrong depending on whether or not they shortened the war? It's hard to tell if they did even with hindsight, looking back at WW2 from not so long after, with the enormous amount of information and historical analysis that has been done. It wasn't possible to know the result of dropping the bombs at the time with any certainty, so if the rightness if dropping them was a matter of the consequences, it couldn't be known at the time.
If we judge the action by its intention instead, then the A bombs can ge judged whatever the consequences. Conventional bombing in WW2 became largely directed against civilians in Germany and Japan. It started out, though, against industrial and military targets. If you attack railway lines you might claim it's an acceptable use of force. If some bombs go astray and some civilians are killed you might say that's acceptable. If you bomb a manufacturing district civilian damages will be huge, but you might still claim there is a military purpose and feel justified.
There is a continuity between bombing the industrial district and just dumping HE anywhere on a city. Perhaps the intention in Tokyo and Dresden was to create firestorms and maximum civilian deaths, but I doubt the aircrews knew that.
Dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was different in that it was a new weapon, and there was no question of mission creep. There was a clear intention to kill civilians and no one could doubt it.
If you think deliberately killing innocent people is wrong, then Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong, because of the intention and never mind the result.
The purpose of strategic bombing is to degrade an enemy's economy and reduce its ability to fight. It targets industrial plant that is concerned with war production - in practice this is a large category, e.g. the US suffered heavy losses bombing ball-bearing factories in Schweinfurt.
Early experience of attempting to precision-bomb "legitimate" targets was hopelessly ineffective - bombs fell miles away from their targets. This lead the RAF, USAF and Luftwaffe to develop "area bombing" whereby entire districts containing war-production plants would be devastated. Civilians were not deliberately targeted but the inaccurate bombing methods of the day made heavy loss of life inevitable.
Applying the same methods to Japan came up against the same problems, indeed the dispersion of Japanese industry into many small and medium-sized concerns spread throughout "civilian" areas meant that the price of attacking Japanese war production was even higher levels of non-combatant casualties.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate targets according to the strategic doctrine of the time - both were centres of industry and were major ports. They also had substantial military garrisons.
--------------------
Jez we did hand the next election to the Tories on a plate!
Posts: 163 | From: Somewhere west of Bristol | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Was it only an American decision though? I know, obviously, it was the US that dropped it, but was it not discussed with others? My knowledge of this is sketchy at best; but did Churchill, Russia and China not also know of the intention to drop the bomb or were they asked for any kind of input or opinion?
The US did not consult anyone. Stalin was officially in the dark, and unofficially not to be asked for his input.
The British nuclear effort "Tube Alloys" had been systematically excluded from the higher-end nuclear research that led to a practical weapon.
Further, the US saw the Pacific theatre as a US theatre of war, period. The British and Australian contingents were very much under US operational control. When Japan was occupied, MacArthur was declared "Supreme Commander of Allied Powers" over an undivided Japan, and ran it as a US show.
The Pacific was not Europe.
--------------------
NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
If the point is to kill the enemy, to stop its war-making, then we must not be naive. Killing civilians by whatever means, if it stops the enemy, is okay. The beast is indeed unleashed.
If this means Turks crucify Greeks in Anatolia and mutilate the corpses by slicing open their bellies or stuffing their genitals into their mouths in 1920, or Americans shooting everyone over 10 in the Philippines in 1900, or napalm bombing multiple villages in 1972, it is all justifiable. Justifiable as either accomplishing the ends desired or hopefully doing so. War is the justifiable violation of every rule and law to a greater end. These great ends are always worth it. After Blenheim made it obvious 200 years ago*. These things are always worth it.
* the correct name of Southy's poem.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
irish_lord99
Shipmate
# 16250
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
the strategeists who supported the bomb drop decided that " something Biblical"-- that is, a demonstration of a weapon that could wipe out a populated city and every living thing in its strike zone-- would not just end this war, but end War. They deliberately planned a drop in a densely populated area because they hoped the world-- not just Japan-- would recoil at the high stakes created by this new weaponry, and that the nations would just kind of collectively decide war wasn't worth it.
Well, if nations behaved rationally...
--------------------
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Posts: 1169 | From: Maine, US | Registered: Feb 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You are missing the point.
But whatever.
Sorry, what is the point? I think we're trying to establish whether nuclear bombs are so uniquely evil that it would be wrong ever to use them. ...
Would you prefer "orders of magnitude more evil" instead?
It would be impractical / impossible to completely destroy human civilization on the planet by conventional means. It is possible for us to completely destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons. Billions die instantly, and electromagnetic pulses, lingering radiation and climate change would take care of the remainder. To quote one of my favourite nuclear submarine movies, "In my humble opinion, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself."
Crimson Tide
--------------------
"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
Has anyone one else here read the book "Snake Dances" by Patrick Marnham? (There's a film too but I haven't seen it).
In it, he makes at least five broad points.
1. The amount of work carried out in the Manhattan Project gave it a scientific momentum which made it virtually impossible for the bombs not to be used.
2. Many senior US political figures were effectively kept in the dark by the military and sidelined in the decision-making process, under the guise of secrecy.
3. Targets were not chosen for military reasons but with regard to the potential effectiveness of the bomb. The "first choice" for the second bomb had been Kyoto but this was over-ruled because of its cultural heritage rather than for strategic reasons. (Out of interest,this article has just appeared on the BBC's website).
4. The second (plutonium) bomb was primarily dropped to investigate the difference in effect between the two devices.
5. The Americans had expected Japan to sue for peace immediately after the first bomb. When that didn't happen, they went ahead with the second. What they hadn't reckoned with was the sheer difficulties in communication the Japanese were having in gathering information on what had happened at Hiroshima and in making any political response.
I am usually highly suspicious of conspiracy theories but this book - although rambling and a bit odd in some of the allusions it makes - does seem to add up.
Incidentally, C.P. Snow's "The New Men" is a fictionalised account (written in the late 50s I think) of the view from the scientific community on this side of the Atlantic. One character - the narrator's brother - gets into atomic research early on because that was where the high-end scientific action was taking place. When he ultimately realises the consequences of his work he not only writes a letter to the "Times" but gets out of the job. As a result his career effectively finishes.
Snow was a high-up Whitehall official so I guess that his information is pretty accurate.
[ 09. August 2015, 07:19: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
|
Posted
Posted by Moo:
quote:
I have never heard of the Japanese war office canvassing public opinion.
February of 1945 by a specially appointed group of politicians, political thinkers and army, which was thought to lead to the first known peace pleadings in June. Only Konoe Fumimaro told the emperor what he didn't want to hear. It wasn't only public opinion included though.
I guess later there was a greater concern regarding possible coup d'état's
--------------------
'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
February of 1945 by a specially appointed group of politicians, political thinkers and army, which was thought to lead to the first known peace pleadings in June. Only Konoe Fumimaro told the emperor what he didn't want to hear. It wasn't only public opinion included though.
Can you give me a source for that?
Moo
--------------------
Kerygmania host
---------------------
See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
When you have an entire country like ,Japan or Germany, that has devoted it,s entire self to a war of conquest, I never really understand why we automatically consider the civilians of such a country to be "innocent" any more than it,s military personnel.
Civilians work in factories, civillians produce infants who will be conditioned to become warlike, thus producing continuation of war similar to what we see today in never ending Mid-East conflicts.
Coming back to Japan in August 45, civillians were being trained to throw themselves under U.S. tanks whilst holding explosives in the event of a land invasion.
The rapid and desicive end to the war, horrible though it was, did Japan as much of a favour as it did the rest of the world. As for it being an action to 'End all war' ? H,mm, where have we heard that before.
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
|
Posted
Posted by Moo:
quote:
Can you give me a source for that?
Hiroshima In History And Memory, Michael Hogan.
--------------------
'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
