OT: Sounds like a war on Iran is imminent

[Stretch 74]

That’s certainly true in reference to the decision to use the bomb. But the decision about bombing civilian populations had already been made before the bombs were ready…even before Roosevelt died. We were doing it in Germany already, and ramped it up in Japan.

Honestly though, I would argue that there never really was a decision about using the bomb. The Interim Committee only existed as a form of political cover, Truman made up his mind as soon as he was read into it. James Byrnes was on it to make sure it came to the right conclusion. The target cities were preserved and protected from bombing to make the effects more measurable, and that was done months ahead. We used those cities as living laboratories to measure and study the bomb effects and to provide notice to the world of what we had. Plus we’d just spent a couple billion dollars on development, so we were damn well going to use it.

And, for the record, I agree with using it. Maybe not with exactly how we used it - in Hiroshima our aiming point was a civilian bridge closer to schools and hospitals than any military target, and most of the military facilities and infrastructure were far enough away that they weren’t significantly affected. Nagasaki isn’t as clear a case because the bomb missed its target by 2 miles. Honestly I would have lobbied for dropping it on the imperial castle and cutting the head off the snake. Want to see what happens to a “living god” when he reaches 10,000 degrees? Watch while I burn his shadow onto the wall.

I remember a WSU professor that was Asian/Japanese writing an article about how it was the right thing to do to drop the A-bombs on Japanese because that actually was the option that would lead to a quicker end to the war and also create less casualties. It has been several years ago and I don't recall all the details, but IIRC he was saying that the Japanese would have fought fiercely on the homeland and basically to the last man, due to their culture.

Don't know if it accounted for long term radiation exposure or not.

 

[95coug]

In 1942 the only way the US could bomb Japan was by sailing carriers to within striking distance. The USN had a total of 3 carriers in the Pacific. And we were a little busy getting our asses kicked. Strategic bombing started in earnest in mid 1944.

IMO, what is wrongfully omitted from the discussion is that Japanese were not surrendering. Guadalcanal- (1,000 estimate); Saipan- 921; Iwo Jima- 216; Okinawa- 11,250 (which included laborers). At Stalingrad 91,000 Germans surrendered.

My grandfather was in the Marines. I'm glad he didn't have to invade Japan.

All true, but we were bombing in Europe by mid-1942, and we stuck to the idea of daylight "precision" bombing there so that we maximized our chances of hitting strategic and military targets, rather than hitting neighborhoods and housing. "Precision" was a pretty relative term, and as we kept losing more bombers and not hitting our targets any more accurately, we gradually moved toward accepting the idea that worker housing (i.e., civilian homes) was connected to industrial production....thereby justifying the increasing move to area bombing used later in the European war and in the attacks on Japan.

It's also indisputable that the Japanese soldiers were more likely to fight to the death than surrender (or feign surrender and make a final suicide attack). There were concerns that their military may not even accept the Emperor's surrender announcement (well-founded concerns, since there was a coup attempt, and some elements of their army held out in isolated areas as late as the early 1970s).

But, they were exploring ending the war. They were making at least low-level approaches to 3rd parties - I think one was the Swiss, the other was the Soviets - asking if they would approach the Allies to arrange a cease-fire. I doubt they said "surrender" and they were certainly looking for favorable conditions. Their failure to respond to the Potsdam Declaration (they did not reject it - they didn't reply at all) is, in some circles, believed to be because they were waiting to hear back from the Soviets about their cease-fire inquiries, because they thought they could negotiate better terms than Potsdam offered. Ultimately, the Soviets' answer was a declaration of war and an overwhelming assault on Japanese forces on mainland Asia. Between the two bombs and the Soviet attacks, Japan was left no alternative to surrender...and some of their military still tried to prevent it.

Hard to say what the invasion of Japan actually would have looked like. Horrible, for sure. Casualty estimates were in the hundreds of thousands, and those were based on significant underestimates of the defenses the Japanese had put together in Kyushu. But, by the time it would have kicked off, the US would have had several more atomic bombs and very well could have used them to reduce those defenses. Lots of variables, so there are a lot of opinions about what it would have looked like...but in the end it would have been a lot of dead on both sides.

 

[95coug]

I remember a WSU professor that was Asian/Japanese writing an article about how it was the right thing to do to drop the A-bombs on Japanese because that actually was the option that would lead to a quicker end to the war and also create less casualties. It has been several years ago and I don't recall all the details, but IIRC he was saying that the Japanese would have fought fiercely on the homeland and basically to the last man, due to their culture.

Don't know if it accounted for long term radiation exposure or not.

I would argue that even long-term radiation exposure didn't kill as many as an invasion would have.

Some of the Japanese leadership at the time claimed that the Allies wanted to exterminate the Japanese race. If they had kept fighting, they almost would have forced us to do just that.

EDIT: Although...a lot of the Japanese population was suffering by then due to shortages of almost everything. They were at the end of a decade of deprivation, where all essentials had been prioritized for military use. They'd been using China and Korea as breadbasket and labor pool, and both disappeared overnight. One of the first - and largest - tasks of the occupation was to find ways to feed the population. So, the average Japanese civilian may not have been as zealous in their defense as their military was.

 

[dgibbons]

All true, but we were bombing in Europe by mid-1942, and we stuck to the idea of daylight "precision" bombing there so that we maximized our chances of hitting strategic and military targets, rather than hitting neighborhoods and housing. "Precision" was a pretty relative term, and as we kept losing more bombers and not hitting our targets any more accurately, we gradually moved toward accepting the idea that worker housing (i.e., civilian homes) was connected to industrial production....thereby justifying the increasing move to area bombing used later in the European war and in the attacks on Japan.

It's also indisputable that the Japanese soldiers were more likely to fight to the death than surrender (or feign surrender and make a final suicide attack). There were concerns that their military may not even accept the Emperor's surrender announcement (well-founded concerns, since there was a coup attempt, and some elements of their army held out in isolated areas as late as the early 1970s).

But, they were exploring ending the war. They were making at least low-level approaches to 3rd parties - I think one was the Swiss, the other was the Soviets - asking if they would approach the Allies to arrange a cease-fire. I doubt they said "surrender" and they were certainly looking for favorable conditions. Their failure to respond to the Potsdam Declaration (they did not reject it - they didn't reply at all) is, in some circles, believed to be because they were waiting to hear back from the Soviets about their cease-fire inquiries, because they thought they could negotiate better terms than Potsdam offered. Ultimately, the Soviets' answer was a declaration of war and an overwhelming assault on Japanese forces on mainland Asia. Between the two bombs and the Soviet attacks, Japan was left no alternative to surrender...and some of their military still tried to prevent it.

Hard to say what the invasion of Japan actually would have looked like. Horrible, for sure. Casualty estimates were in the hundreds of thousands, and those were based on significant underestimates of the defenses the Japanese had put together in Kyushu. But, by the time it would have kicked off, the US would have had several more atomic bombs and very well could have used them to reduce those defenses. Lots of variables, so there are a lot of opinions about what it would have looked like...but in the end it would have been a lot of dead on both sides.

They tried precision bombing in Japan as well, but the jet stream was a bigger problem than in Europe.

 

[95coug]

They tried precision bombing in Japan as well, but the jet stream was a bigger problem than in Europe.

Well, and with all those paper & wood houses, napalm bomblets were so much more effective than on the masonry in Germany.

Reading some of the accounts from the bomber pilots over Japan is pretty telling. Char on the bottom of their planes and the lingering smell of BBQ...

 

[KRUSTYtheCOUG]

It's cold and callous to say, but (in hindsight) the US using that weapon did the world a favor going forward.

We demonstrated it's awesome power and awful effects. If we hadn't used it, no doubt, someone else would definitely have used it eventually.

So...world...you're welcome! That's all I have to say about that.

 

[mikalalas]

Found the “from da reever to da see” guy.

F Pharmacoug

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Well, and with all those paper & wood houses, napalm bomblets were so much more effective than on the masonry in Germany.

Reading some of the accounts from the bomber pilots over Japan is pretty telling. Char on the bottom of their planes and the lingering smell of BBQ...

I had both an uncle (a Coug) and a father in law who flew those missions over Japan, as well as knowing a few others but not as well. The comment about the typical Japanese house construction and how that interfaced with fire bombing was sometimes an understatement; other times not quite as bad. Depended a lot upon the weather. The same flyers who bombed Germany generally never went near Japan, so there are very few who might have formed a first hand impression of how they compared. But my father in law couldn't imagine Dresden as having been worse.

 

[95coug]

I had both an uncle (a Coug) and a father in law who flew those missions over Japan, as well as knowing a few others but not as well. The comment about the typical Japanese house construction and how that interfaced with fire bombing was sometimes an understatement; other times not quite as bad. Depended a lot upon the weather. The same flyers who bombed Germany generally never went near Japan, so there are very few who might have formed a first hand impression of how they compared. But my father in law couldn't imagine Dresden as having been worse.

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to say one was worse than the other. Dresden was more concentrated, Tokyo was more spread out. Both were pretty much inescapable if you were in the attack zone. When you reach the point of “firestorm” the comparison is pretty much semantics.