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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Hiroshima Nagasaki Seventieth Anniversary
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
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.
Nagasaki wasn't the primary target for the second raid; Kokura (site of one of Japan's largest munitions plants) was.
link
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Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
That is true jbohn, but all cities on the list were chosen because they had not been the subject of intensive bombing raids beforehand. In effect, the bombings were serving as an extension of the laboratory to show the capabilities of atomic weaponry in general and of the different types of bombs prepared.
Of course that was not their prime objective, which was to bring the war to a rapid conclusion and without the need for an invasion. They were successful in that aim. Moo has pointed out the very limited vision of the Japanese High Command, and its inability to see the inevitable conclusion of an invasion.
By August 1945, the need to rely upon the bombs had been borne out. An interesting hypothetical question we might ask is whether this scenario could have been avoided had MacArthur adopted a modified strategy. His campaign of island hopping had been very effective in capturing territory at minimal risk. Each new island taken gave a further protected forward base for planes and ships. That much is not in doubt. What would have happened had MacArthur combined this strategy with one of a submarine blockade of the main Japanese islands as early as (say) March 1943. The victories at Coral Sea followed by Milne Bay and Midway had given the Allies much greater security in the South-West Pacific. That at Midway went further and gave the US dominance in naval warfare. It's not going too far to say that after Midway the ultimate defeat of Japan was inevitable*. Had a strong blockade of Japan itself followed that battle, the flow of food and such raw materials as coal and oil would have been severely impeded and economic collapse may well have followed quickly.
The initial focus had been on waters further from Japan, and there is no doubting the great successes achieved there. For a long time though there was much less impact on supplies making the short journey from China to Japan proper .
MacArthur came to recognise this in early 1945, and the aerial mining of the waters around Japan had a rapid effect. By June 1945, virtually no oil was getting through - IIRC the last shipment was a convoy of fewer than a dozen cargo ships loaded with barrels of oil in Singapore, and which managed somehow to evade all search parties. What would have happened had there been early mining close in of the major Japanese shipping lanes with or without strong submarine is unknown,
*Had the Japanese High Command recognised this, they could probably then have obtained peace terms leaving Japan in control of much of the conquered territory.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
If there had been a successful blockade, all available goods would have gone to the military, even if civilians starved.
Moo
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
No doubt about that at all, but it would not have taken long to run out of even military supplies.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Which I suppose leaves the interesting moral question, is it better to slowly starve someone to death or to kill them instantly with a very big bomb?
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Helen-Eva
Shipmate
# 15025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Which I suppose leaves the interesting moral question, is it better to slowly starve someone to death or to kill them instantly with a very big bomb?
Were I the person on the receiving end I should infinitely prefer to be killed instantly.
If I was being irreverant I would cite 2 Samuel 24:13-15 as the basis for my answer but frankly I'd just rather it were over quick.
Of course that doesn't mean those in Japan in 1945 would have made the same choice, poor blighters.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Which I suppose leaves the interesting moral question, is it better to slowly starve someone to death or to kill them instantly with a very big bomb?
Instead, they got to experience both! lucky devils.
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Hallellou, hallellou
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
The Japanese public would not have been the only one's facing starvation had the war continued. Let us not forget their wonderfully looked after POWs.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
The Japanese public would not have been the only one's facing starvation had the war continued. Let us not forget their wonderfully looked after POWs.
And the civilians in the occupied countries.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Thanks rolyn and Moo: I was beginning to wonder whether anyone actually remembered what went before Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Post-war Japan has done an excellent job of making the rest of the world feel guilty about dropping the bombs while avoiding any meaningful acceptance of their part in some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.
The worst thing is we even help them with some of it referring, as we do, to the Far East theatre of WWII being 1941 to 1945, conveniently relabelling a huge chunk of it the Second Sino-Chinese War - and for the most part leaving Manchuria out of the picture altogether.
And at the end of the war we allowed ourselves to be bullied by the Americans into soft-pedalling on the pursuit of bringing war crimes indictments against 99.9% of those responsible for some of the ghastliest atrocities perpetrated in the 20th century. Dammit, we even allowed ourselves to swallow the line that the Emperor (and the rest of the royal family) were somehow prisoners of the military and so must be absolved from all blame. The loathsome Douglas MacArthur unilaterally decided to give immunity to all of the imperial family, ignoring Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, who actually gave the order to kill all the civilians during the Rape of Nanking.
Here in 2015 we're still wringing our hands about bringing the war to an earlier end by the - yes, appalling - act of dropping 2 atomic bombs; but we ignore the loss of life that would have happened if the war had continued using conventional weapons. People forget the dreadful scenes in Okinawa where the Imperial Army forced men, women and children to kill themselves as part of their warped strategy to fight the invading Americans using any means. It was part of Japanese strategy that eventually western troops would be so sickened by the civilian suicides that they'd give up.
Yes, remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki; yes, do everything we can to ensure that no more nuclear weapons are ever deployed.
But remember too the good that those 2 bombs did in helping to bring down a regime of unspeakable brutality
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Why would no one know what led up to the A-bombings?
A century of Western gunboat diplomacy and imperialism literally forcing Japan in to the same game which she played more vilely than the West? As long as we count the Philippines genocide as 'unfortunate'? Collateral damage, not policy?
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Love wins
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
And at the end of the war we allowed ourselves to be bullied by the Americans into soft-pedalling on the pursuit of bringing war crimes indictments against 99.9% of those responsible for some of the ghastliest atrocities perpetrated in the 20th century. Dammit, we even allowed ourselves to swallow the line that the Emperor (and the rest of the royal family) were somehow prisoners of the military and so must be absolved from all blame. The loathsome Douglas MacArthur unilaterally decided to give immunity to all of the imperial family, ignoring Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, who actually gave the order to kill all the civilians during the Rape of Nanking.
I deplore the power that MacArthur had to make decisions. He was a military man and had no special qualifications for making such decisions.
However, I do believe it was a good idea to keep Hirohito on the throne, not because he was innocent, but because his presence promoted stability. I have read a lot about what happened in Germany after World War 1. I am convinced that if the Kaiser had been left on the throne with his wings clipped, Hitler would never have come to power.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I deplore the power that MacArthur had to make decisions. He was a military man and had no special qualifications for making such decisions.
However, I do believe it was a good idea to keep Hirohito on the throne, not because he was innocent, but because his presence promoted stability. I have read a lot about what happened in Germany after World War 1. I am convinced that if the Kaiser had been left on the throne with his wings clipped, Hitler would never have come to power.
Moo
Yes, MacArthur may have been a good soldier (not sure why anyone during WW II would have called him loathsome, nor even after Korea either) but that sort of decision was not military and should either have been settled at Yalta, or through some other governmental process.
I can't see any of the Hohenzollerns letting Hitler into power. They may not have the Hapsburgs' detestation of Nazism, but would have been in happy to see a solid restoration of the generally sound social policies that Bismarck started (much more generous social security than any other European country at the time) even if the immature and bellicose foreign policy that the Kaiser preferred needed to be ditched.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Many of Hitler's early followers were royalists. Since they couldn't have the Kaiser, they saw Hitler as second-best.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Thanks rolyn and Moo: I was beginning to wonder whether anyone actually remembered what went before Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Post-war Japan has done an excellent job of making the rest of the world feel guilty about dropping the bombs while avoiding any meaningful acceptance of their part in some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.
The spry old veterans we've seen this weekend haven't helped either: completely atypical outliers.
I remember instead the haggard and tormented contemporaries of my father, men who'd been POW in the Far East. They did not make old bones. At the New Year, when a glass or two had been taken, old soldiers would reminisce, and we'd lurk and listen fascinated by tales of blood and guts. But when those who'd served in the Far East began their horror stories we were chased off to bed.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I have read a lot about what happened in Germany after World War 1. I am convinced that if the Kaiser had been left on the throne with his wings clipped, Hitler would never have come to power.
I don't claim to be expert on this and know that history will always hold a place for suggesting the ending of the First German war sowed the seeds for the Second.
It does strike me though that having delivered such destruction on Germany and Japan in 45 it did make both countries a little more malleable when it came to rebuilding the post-war world.
Not the case in 1918, whereby a virtually bankrupted Britain joined the Allies in basically telling a battered foe take the punishment and don't do it again. Hindsight made that a bad strategy.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
And at the end of the war we allowed ourselves to be bullied by the Americans into soft-pedalling on the pursuit of bringing war crimes indictments against 99.9% of those responsible for some of the ghastliest atrocities perpetrated in the 20th century.
According to Wikipedia, over 5700 were indicted for war crimes in the Pacific theater. If the number had been 1000 times larger, it would have been nearly equal in size to the entire Imperial Japanese Army at the end of the war.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
There is a huge difference between indicting people and their being found guilty - and, in the case of the Japanese, even then the chances of them serving a sentence was not great.
For example, in the case of the most high profile International Military Tribunal (the so-called Tokyo War Crimes Trial): - 28 were indicted
- 2 were not brought to trial
- 2 died during the trial
- 1 was judged mentally unfit to plead or be tried
- 7 were executed
- 16 were given life sentences
Of the 16 so-called life sentences, none were served: 3 died in prison, the remaining 13 were paroled in the mid 1950s. Given that the court was adjourned (it never sat again) in November, the so-called life sentences worked out at a maximum of 7½ years.
There were other, smaller tribunals set up by the individual powers but, with the exception of the Chinese, these tended to use the results of the Tokyo trials as precedent and sentencing was much more lenient than in European trials.
For example, although it is often bandied about that Nobusuke Kishi, grandfather of the current Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, was a 'war criminal' in fact although indicted he was never tried but was released from custody in 1947, going on to be Prime Minister.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Can you clarify how someone has not served a life sentance if they died in prison?
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Sorry, you're right Alan C. What I really meant is that at a maximum of under 8 years the life sentences would seem very lenient even in today's UK, never mind the world of the 1950s.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
It does strike me though that having delivered such destruction on Germany and Japan in 45 it did make both countries a little more malleable when it came to rebuilding the post-war world.
Not the case in 1918, whereby a virtually bankrupted Britain joined the Allies in basically telling a battered foe take the punishment and don't do it again. Hindsight made that a bad strategy.
My impression is that things in Germany got so bad because of unstable government. Woodrow Wilson assumed that representative democracy was something that came naturally to people, whatever their past history. In fact, many Germans hated the idea of not having a Kaiser. Many political groups were formed and quite a few of them resorted to violence. When Hitler came to power, many people gave a sigh of relief because it meant no more fighting in the streets.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
There is a huge difference between indicting people and their being found guilty -
I should hope so! Otherwise, what would be the point of having trials at all?
You were complaining before about the number who were indicted - are you abandoning your suggestion that there should have been 5,700,000 indictments rather than 5700?
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LA Dave
Shipmate
# 1397
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Posted
A few thoughts.
First, the "island hopping" strategy was primarily that practiced by the United States Navy, led by Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief Pacific. That was, by far, the most significant campaign of the Pacific war (MacArthur's campaigns in the Southwest Pacific were, IMHO, really a sideshow, albeit one that tied down Imperial Japanese Army and Army Air Force assets). The Central Pacific campaign utilized island hopping on a grand scale, leaving isolated Japanese garrisons to starve and rapidly shrinking Japan's defensive perimeter.
The USN's conquest of the Marianas (implemented with Army and Marine units under the overall command of CINCPAC (and later Iwo Jima as a fighter field) allowed the USAAF to deploy B-29s to mine Japanese waters, incinerate Japanese cities and, ultimately, to drop the two A-bombs.
Second, the American Navy did not begin to have an effective submarine force until late 1943 early 1944, due to undiscovered problems with its torpedoes. And even then, I have read that more Japanese shipping was destroyed by the 1945 B-29 mining campaign, though the destruction of the Japanese merchant fleet (and the Imperial Japanese Navy) was in large part due to submarine attack. Thus, there was no ability to "blockade" the Japanese home islands until fairly late in the war. It should be recalled that major units of the Kaigun, including the superbattleships Yamato and Musashi, a number of fleet carriers and numerous other battleships, cruisers and destroyers, were still extent as late as October 1944, when they were consumed by attempts to turn back the American landings on Leyte.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
If we're bringing the Kaiser into it, can we just say the whole thing is Queen Victoria's fault for having such assholio offspring, and British Empire in general for refusing to allow Germany pre-war parity and the sort of free hand Britain had exercised around the world such that it would have been its natural successor thus saving us from the British overseas bases going American?
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
posted by Dave W quote:
You were complaining before about the number who were indicted - are you abandoning your suggestion that there should have been 5,700,000 indictments rather than 5700?
Eh? I have never suggested a number for indictment. What I said was that there were relatively few trials, and that a unilateral decision was made by the US not to pursue those suspected or accused of war crimes even on the same (IMO lack lustre) scale as happened in Europe.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
To refresh your memory: quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
And at the end of the war we allowed ourselves to be bullied by the Americans into soft-pedalling on the pursuit of bringing war crimes indictments against 99.9% of those responsible for some of the ghastliest atrocities perpetrated in the 20th century.
This seems to suggest the actual number of indictments was only 0.1% of the number there should have been; since there were 5,700 indictments, that implies there should have been 5,700,000.
If this isn't what you meant to imply, what did the 99.9% number refer to?
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Oooh! And I thought I was the one with a gift for pedantry.
No, I'm not suggesting that five and a half million people should have been indicted for war crimes. But it is generally acknowledged that there was a massive difference in the number of people named as 'wanted' after the European war came to an end and the number named in the FE; and that when it came to tracking people down and putting them on trial, it depended greatly on which of the countries responsible for an area it was and the resources they put into it.
For example, the senior judge to the MT from India didn't make a single finding of guilty: this was nothing to do with the evidence but rather that he was a leading figure in the fight for Indian independence from the UK and saw his role as a jurist as being subordinate to his political beliefs.
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
I think it's undeniable that there was a definite incompleteness about the trials after the war. Not always for reasons for real-politic either. One of my criticisms about the trial of Groning was that after the war thousands of mid-ranking Nazi's who had actually participated personally in killings and atrocities were either not taken to court, or were never sentenced. As such, legally pursuing someone who had a less direct connection with the atrocities many years after the event is a cheap exculpatory option.
In the case of Japan the process went much further. Anyone who has visited the war exhibits in the national museum in Tokyo would have seen the extent to which the country at large is myopic towards their actions preceding and during the war.
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
posted by Dave W quote:
You were complaining before about the number who were indicted - are you abandoning your suggestion that there should have been 5,700,000 indictments rather than 5700?
Eh? I have never suggested a number for indictment. What I said was that there were relatively few trials, and that a unilateral decision was made by the US not to pursue those suspected or accused of war crimes even on the same (IMO lack lustre) scale as happened in Europe.
I recall once seeing the figures for the Japanese war crimes trials but the only number I recall is that almost a thousand Japanese war criminals were executed (I have just found a figure of 920), which was higher than the (my quick count) 62 German Nazis and 102 collaborators.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Oooh! And I thought I was the one with a gift for pedantry.
Not that I've noticed. Overblown hyperbole, perhaps.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Overblown hyperbole
As opposed to that other kind?
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Overblown hyperbole
As opposed to that other kind?
That would be subtle hyperbole. It's a British thing ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
posted by Augustine the Aleut quote:
I recall once seeing the figures for the Japanese war crimes trials but the only number I recall is that almost a thousand Japanese war criminals were executed (I have just found a figure of 920), which was higher than the (my quick count) 62 German Nazis and 102 collaborators.
Accessing information about war crimes trials relating to WWII in Europe is difficult because the trials involved numerous jurisdictions and countries, but some of the trials can be found online.
The so-called Nuremberg trials, for example, didn't all take place in that city, but convention is that they are still referred to as such because those were the trials that took place with judges from all four of the Allied powers - US, USSR, UK and France.
In addition to the centralised Nuremberg trials, each of the Allied powers undertook separate trials for crimes committed within its given area (the total land mass occupied by Nazi Germany was divided between the four) and some of the liberated countries undertook their own investigations and trials.
As well as that, the Soviets started to investigate and prosecute war crimes as early as 1943: in particular they put on trial Soviet citizens accused of collaboration in the murders carried out by Einsatzgruppen in the occupied parts of the USSR. No overall figures have ever been given for these trials.
Similarly, the Soviets have never provided figures for the trials carried out in their area (particularly the Baltic countries) post-war. The same applies to other countries in Eastern Europe - the only trial with publicised outsome was in Poland and involved SS from Auschwitz and other camps.
However, with information available, the following numbers can be proved for death sentences: - Nuremberg trials 239
- US sector 278 executed (46 others sentence commuted to life)
- British sector 240 executed
- French sector 104 executed
- Krakow trial 31 executed
- Norway 37 (12 German, 25 Norwegian)
- Estonia 2 executed
- Italy 4 executed
Trials also took place in Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark of their own citizens who had either collaborated with the occupying Nazis or who had joined national units in the Nazi military.
As an occupied country that had collaborated at national level, France was in a unique position in western Europe and literally thousands were indicted and tried between 1946 and 1951. Nearly 6,800 death sentences were passed, although only 791 were carried out. Former members of the Waffen-SS Charlemagne Division were given a choice of imprisonment or service with the Foreign Legion in Indo-China, while the divisions senior officers were tried in courts martial and shot.
So I think we can take your figure of 62 executions as being somewhat of an under-estimate.
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Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
L'Organist writes:
quote:
.... underestimate...
It certainly was. I had entirely forgotten about the French executions and have no excuse for that (indeed, the great-uncle of a French friend was among them). And, of course, the Soviet records have now been again largely hidden from researchers.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
AIUI any Soviet soldiers who were captured by the Germans were executed by the Soviet government after they were repatriated.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
AIUI any Soviet soldiers who were captured by the Germans were executed by the Soviet government after they were repatriated.
Moo
I would leave them out of the discussion on war criminals but IIRC Solzhenitsyn, in the Gulag Archipelago, gives us many account of the ex-POWs in the Gulag. For my own part, I have met one of the ex-POWs, who was with the delegation who lay the Red Partisan wreath at the Cenotaph in Ottawa two years ago. He told me that he really enjoyed Chinese food after the Liturgy on Sunday.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I think you're thinking of the Cossacks.
Stalin demanded that Cossacks who were captured by other allied powers (because fighting for the Reich) be repatriated at the end of the war: the demand was initially made at the Yalta conference and although Churchill argued that many were not Soviet citizens (having left Russia during or at the end of the civil war) Roosevelt agreed and told Churchill he must so (a) they had a united front, and (b) to ensure that the USSR would declare war on Japan.
In the event, the fate of the cossacks was sealed at Potsdam when Truman (replacing Roosevelt) made no attempt to fight for them and Attlee (who replaced Churchill half-way through the Conference) was advised by Ernest Bevin that it would be difficult to divide the cossacks between traitors and political refugees so all would be sent back since cossacks were known to be traitors.
At least 50% of the cossacks repatriated - mainly from Austria and the UK but also from the USA - were executed on their return: that included women and children who should never have been part of the repatriations in the first place. Of the other 50% nearly all were sent to the gulag, with the majority perishing. After Staline's death when the living were released it was found that only about 10% remained alive.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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