210Cav came up with this idea, I'm only starting the thread so I don't pollute his other thread with my babbling....... :-)

Anyhow, 210Cav wrote:


To which I replied:


What is your thought on the subject? Faced with the prospect of a war lasting another year or two, costing more and more lives on both sides, what decision would you have made?

I say that it is always arguable that we did not need to do so, but it was obvious then and should be now, we had limited options. The submarine campaign was attaining highly visible effects, the air campaign decimated the industrial and transportation base. Now, the $64 question is "how would you have then ended the war?" We could not keep up this destruction for an indefinite period. People wanted to get back to normalacy. A land invasion. Wow! As heartless as some portray it, dropping the Bomb was the only way to traumatize Japan into surrendering.

Yup, drop it.

Well spoken!

I have done a bit of reading on this topic lately for a university class. Today, the general consensus among historians seems to be that dropping the bomb would not have been necessary to end the war within a matter of months. They point to a Strategic Bombing Survey from 1946 that concluded Japan would have surrendered prior to that year and a War Department Study that found Japanese leaders had already decided to surrender, but they needed to convince the die-hards in the army and politics that the war was lost. The Soviets' pitifully easy drive through Manchuria, against what were supposed to be the best Japanese troops, would have done this.

Personally, however, I believe what is more important is what was thought at the time. Both these studies came shortly after the war. Though it appears true that the Japanese would have surrendered without the atomic bomb, we must judge what Truman and his advisers knew at the time and what their policies were. By policy, I refer to the fact that Truman wanted the war in the Pacific, which the US had done nearly all the fighting in, to be won on American terms. Truman's diary entries suggest that he did believe Russian entry in the war would bring peace, but he did not want the Russians to gain an extra bargaining chip for the peace table. Thus, when the bomb was tested in 1945 and Truman knew that it worked, he tried to delay the Russian attack as much as possible.

Militarily, there are other reasons American generals believed the bombs were necessary. For one thing, even though their situation was hopeless, the militants in control of the government claimed to welcome an invasion of the home islands. Recent experience in Okinawa, which cost 50,000 US casualties, supported the view that the Japanese still had fight in them and were suicidal enough to inflict heavy casualties against the Americans in the defence of their homeland. Truman's Chiefs of Staff saw an invasion of the home islands as the only way to defeat Japan until the bomb came along. The estimated losses for this invasion ranged from under 200,000 to 1 million. Obviously, there was a great range here and we must remember that they are just estimates, but Truman seems to have been swayed more by the higher number.

So, in conclusion, the US probably did not have to drop the bombs to avoid an invasion of the home islands or a war prolonged into 1946, but many high-ranking officials, with plenty of evidence supporting their view, were not able to see this at the time. Furthermore, dropping the bombs furthered American political policy. The Cold War was already brewing. The Russians already had power at the peace conference due to the fact that the opening of the second front in Europe had been delayed for so long; if they were to play a major role in bringing the Japanese to their knees this power would be increased further. The use of the bombs to show their abilities also was useful to the US in the Cold War before the Soviets developed their own bomb in 1949. At home, Americans had been told that their government would settle for nothing less than unconditional surrender and that the Japanese Emperor Hirohito was in the same league as Hitler and Mussolini. It was thought it would be difficult for the public to digest an armistice with the Japanese, who would certainly make one condition be that their emperor remained (this was achieved anyway, but with signifacant reforms to the Japanese form of government). For these reasons, the bombs were necessary.

I guess that answer wasn't very conclusive, but at leat it should give you people some food for thought

Nic

Drop it.

All of the post-war studies are well and good, but they don't do a very good job of getting into the mind of the people. Yes, some politicians were ready to quit, but the core of the army, which was the most powerful branch of the military politically, was still very willing to fight and were prepared to sacrifice the lives of every last Japanese so long as it meant that they didn't do the disgraceful thing and surrender. Just bombing the Japanese would not have been enough to break their spirit. The fireboming of several major cities, including Tokyo, failed to bring the Japanese to their knees. In fact, it strengthened the resolve of many to resist. They were militarily prepared to continue fighting. They had thousands of planes ready to fly massive kamikaze strikes against any invasion fleet, their army was fanatically prepared to defend their homeland, and even the general populace was being trained to fight the invaders with spears. I know much of this because my mother grew up in wartime Japan and told me of how she, her brother, and all of their classmates all had daily instruction in fighting with spears. A large percentage of the people were ready to take up arms, even in a hopeless fight, to defend their homeland. They were prepared to fight to the last man woman and child if it came down to that situation. Without the bomb, an invasion would have been necessary, and it could very well have meant the near annihilation of the Japanese people. I think the decision to drop the bomb was the right one, and so does my mother. She fully believes that the Japanese people would have been nearly exterminated otherwise.
Also, you need to remember that some officers tried to stage a coup and make sure Japan stayed in the war even after both A-bombs were dropped. They tried to prevent Emperor Hirohito's surrender message from being broadcast so that they could continue fighting and avoid the disgrace and dishonor of surrender. In order to prevent massive useless bloodshed, the A-bomb was a necessary evil.

I think that we made the right decision in dropping the bomb with the evidence that the government had at the time. What I find interesting is that no one has mentioned the fact that Japan was fairly well along with their own bomb project in Korea. Makes one think what would have happened if we had invaded Japan. They may not have been ready at the initial invasion but probably a short time later.
Eric

I think we made the best decision. I just watched an episode of Modern Marvels on Bombs. They discussed this exact issue. The scientist interviewed estimated that if we would have gone through with an invasion they estimated 5-6 million Japanese civilian casualties from starvation. Because the island was cut off from supply lines and would have quickly run out of food. Not to mention the horendous Allied and Japanese combat losses. Now also, why could'nt we have done a demonstration off the coast? But, as was said earlier, "hindsight is 20/20." War is hell and horrible things occur.
One thought, if we had not dropped them, invaded and won. Tensions would have still risen between the US and USSR. Having not seen the horrors associated with these weapons it may have made it easier to start a nuclear release.
Also, if you were the Allied commander, could you have lived with yourself having sent upwards of one million soldiers to their graves, when you had a weapon that would have ended the war with no Allied casualties?

That might not have done the trick. After the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japanese officials explained it as a natural disaster. A second one was needed to bring the move towards peace. Dropping an atom bomb of the Japanese coast, resulting in some big waves, would probably have been explained in a similar way.

Nic

I have the "demonstration theory for years. A couple of points: No one knew what these things were so to be effective you would have had to tell the Japanese that you were going to "demonstrate" a new bomb's power. Okay, you do that. You fly over in your handy B-29, drop the thing in the ocean and it doesn't go off. This was brand spanking new technology after all. What effect would that have had?
Second, there was only so much material available to make these rascals. You gonna waste one? What if the Japanese had not surrendered after Nagasaki? How many do you have left?

Just a couple of thoughts. And remember, more people died in the firestorms in Tokoyo and Dresden, IIRC, than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Shaun

I have no faith in the "demonstration theory." If that is not naive, I do not what is. Unfortunately, the only way to get some folks attention is to grab their anatomy and squeeze hard. The Bomb got their attention and retained it until they said "Uncle."

We only had two bombs. If Japan would of called our bluff and said, is that it? Any more? We would of been screwed. I think that "Operation Olympic" as it was called (I am pretty sure) would of been very costly. But it would of worked. My grandfater was in the Air Corp as an MP and he was training for the invasion when the bomb was droppped. If it would of gone down, I might not be here today, I might not have just completed my sophmore year in high school.

Who knows?

~Chip

Ask anyone who was there. As Chip told about his grandfather , I got from my Father. Same thing, they already had planed Olympic and Coronet. Plans were in the offing to bring combat troops over from Europe. The Japanese had never surrendered and weren't about to, in fact the only reason they did was because of the Emporer. JUst saw a docu tonite on History channel on how near a thing that was (and that was after we had already dropped both bombs). More people died in the Firebombings of Tokyo and Hamburg.

Well, here's a follow-up point. Why do we not hear more about the horrors of the fire bombing rather than a concentration on the use of the Bombs? We burnt out some 50-60% of Yokohoma for example. Lord knows how people disappeared in the flames....I wonder why we do not hear more discussion on the destruction wrought by these conventional weapons.

Maybe because of the connection to nuclear warfare. These are weapons that, if used in the same numbers as in the firebombings would have destroyed all of Honshu (okay, I'm just making this part up). Also, the use of the atomic bombs clearly have a political aspect to it, as well as a role in the Cold War. They were simply more important, so that's why you hear so much discussion about them. You are right that, when asking questions about morality (which I find a pretty useless thing to do) we should maybe consider the firebombings more, but I can state that most new literature I have read does in fact deal with this.

Nic

Nic--I am curious as to your statement on morality. It definitely plays a part in the way Western Nations wage war. If the cause be just (as was the case during the Second World War) then a Nation is justified in using force to accomplish an end. In using force, the Augustine Doctrine on the Just War states that you have to use proportionality. Now therein lies the sticky point, proportionality. The Bombs were hardly a proportional response to attain an end state of world peace. They were employed to shock the Japanese into capitulating. We used them after some agonizing debates within the government. Recall also that the last land battle in the Pacific over Okinawa cost us about 1/3 of all Naval casualties in WW II. An invasion of Japan was thought to make that sacrifice look like small change. The Bombs were utilized as a strategic tool with more than a head nod towards morality. We did not think of using it against Tokyo. We also took several other Japanese cities off the target lists because of their cultural, religious or political value. Was that using moral values to employ weapons?
DJ

Morality and war are two things which don't mix well, it's the nature of the beast.

All throughout history, men have fought one another. In these battles and wars, the side which out thinks their enemy, and takes full advantage of the technology and equipment available to them, usually wins the war. You really cannot fault the US for dropping the bomb, because given the same technology and situation, I'm pretty sure ANY nation would have done what was required to win the war, including using the most devastating weapon (albiet the most misunderstood) available in their arsenal.

Nobody really understood what they were releasing by dropping the bomb. There really was not a firm appreciation for the long term affects of dropping that weapon, since there was little to no time to do the research to determine long-term consequences. They had enough time to design, build and test one bomb, and it was a race. They weren't sure how close the Nazis, or even the Japanese, were, and the last thing they wanted was to allow the Axis to possess an atom bomb first..

Jason--now this is where I dispute any who say war has no "morality." Define terms. Morality is the ability to choice between right and wrong. If my definition is correct then using the Bombs to forestall further suffering (a goood or right thing to do) was the correct path. If using the weapons was wrong because of their destrucutive power then you have to balance that against the good to be produced by ending the conflict. In the end, your morality is governed by your ability to discern what is right to you as an individual and reflects the standards and mores of your cuture and society. There is a danger in that we humans tend to bend our "morality" so that it become situationally dependent, but I would argue that the use of the weapons against Japan was a moral "good." What do you think?
DJ

Right and wrong to you may differ greatly from right and wrong to me on many different levels. I suspect we are closer to one another in what we perceive is right and wrong than we may realize, but I use this to illustrate a point, morality is a perception in my opinion.

There are MANY people in the world who disagree with my opnion that dropping the atom bombs on Japan was justified or right. There are many who may agree with me. What is right or wrong in this case? During WWII, many Germans and Japanese felt their respective countries were right doing what they did, whereas people in the Allied countries felt it was wrong.

Shooting unarmed civilians is wrong. Torturing prisoners is wrong. However, there isn't a nation on the face of this planet who hasn't committed these acts at one time or another. During war, morality as we know it gets twisted and contorted and things that we normally would consider immoral may suddenly seem moral in the face of defeat and the emotional responses and hatred that may rise from the conflict. Take for instance the Japanese-Americans that were sent to internment camps during WWII. In this day and age, we consider that immoral and wrong, but back then there didn't seem to be a problem with it. Segregation is another issue. Acceptable by southerners back then, whereas nothern US citizens thought it to be wrong.

I'm not trying to say dropping the bomb was wrong or immoral, however, I would venture to say that if we understood what the long term affects of dropping the A-bomb were, there may have been a large moral debate as to whether or not to proceed with the mission.

Jason--it always amazes me how many times I can mispell words in e mail. Regardless, the loss of a moral compass during times of high emotion is normal human behavior. But, the Nation defining what is unacceptable (Rules of Land Warfare, etc) and enforcing the provisions of it should rectify what we as individuals do in the heat of battle. To intentionally kill civilians, for example, is wrong. We state so in law and we enforce the law when it becomes a known fact. So morality is a vital part of our ability to return from a conflict without completely debasing ourselves. I would enjoy expanding this topic area to cover the current events of the day, but unfortunately while I was away for a time someone exerted influence to have Jim disbanded the current event forum. Too bad, history only makes sense to me when we compare what happened with what is happening. Exchanging ideas even seemingly controversial viewpoints is how we develop.
thanks
DJ

PS--I hope we can get a ground swell underway to re instate the Current Forum.

As stated elsewhere, morality is extremely variable in the best of times. During war, it can be viewed as polar opposites depending on who you talk to. The Germans decried the Allied bombing of their cities as being acts of terror, but didn't blink an eye at the bombings of Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, or half a hundred other cities. Some Japanese call the fireboming and a-bomb raids criminal, but don't bat an eye when Japanese treatment of prisoners or the occupation of China is mentioned. To try to apply one rule for morality in war is futile at best because different cultures see different actions as within or excluded from their own ideals.
As for morality being applied to warfighting, it must be balanced with the commander's responsibility to the well-being of his men. If a commander is told that having a town bombed or shelled will kill X number of civilians but could spare the lives of Y number of his own troops, what is the commander to do? Risk his men's lives because it's morally wrong to kill civilians or bombard the town and kill civilians because it is his responsibility to bring as many of his troops home alive as possible? As distastefull and morally repugnant such actions may be to a peacetime mindset, in war commanders are forced to find a means to their ends, i.e. saving the lives of the men under their command.
In response to another point made elsewhere, some places were spared bombing because of their historical significance, but also because they were tactically unimportant. Kyoto wasn't bombed because 1) it was very significant historically and 2) it held no strategic value. Tokyo wasn't targeted for the a-bomb because it had already been burned to ashes by the firebombing and there wasn't any point in hitting that particular target again. I'm not advocating wholesale slaughter and destruction, just trying to point out how it is difficult, nigh impossible, to try to conduct a war without violating someone's code of morality.

Ed--very nice input. I read your statement to say that morality in war is culture based. Additionally, the situational decisions that form a vital part of the command decision making process are subject to moral decsions. I define morality as choosing between right and wrong. My Lai is an example of situational morality that took the wrong path. Bombing of the Abbey of Monte Cassino was right or wrong depending on where you sat in the Liri River Valley. Mistreating enemy prisoners of war is also a conscious moral decision. Did the North Vietnamese not understand that torturing people was morally wrong? To my mind, morality has cultural overtones but it is not cultural dependent as you seem to imply. What do you think?

He he. Sorry for inadvertently changing the topic of this thread, DJ.

You've already got at what I was talking about in my last post. Basically, when analyzing an historical event, we should stay away from questioning whether something was moral or not. Ideas of morality differ between cultures and also through time. We should not impose our present values on another time. Granted, World War II wasn't that long ago, but I think we've seen that even moral values changed during the war. Today, we know that dropping an atomic bomb on a large civilian population is wrong, and most would have argued the same in 1945 had there been no war. War does change morality. Truman could justify dropping the bombs on the Japanese because it would save perhaps 1 million American lives (I have never come across anything stating that Truman considered the fact that dropping the bombs and bringing an early end to the war would ultimately save Japanese lives; he probably didn't care much about that, anyway).

Here's a question that I don't know the answer to. Does morality have a place in the practice of history? Can we look at morality entirely through the perspective of the time we are studying (or do we have to)? How important is it, even? Would such a study tell us anything? Is a moral study as valuable to us as analysing the how and why and its effects?

Anyway, that's what I was getting at. Sorry that my little side-note stirred up so much off-topic debate.

Nic

I think that morality and moral values can be very much affected by culture. The classic example of this is the Japanese treatment of prisoners. To many, perhaps most cultures, prisoners are supposed to be treated with decency. The Japanese view prisoners as something akin to pond scum and who deserve no compassion whatsoever. This is due to the cultural belief that a soldier should never be taken prisoner and anyone who is captured is dishonored and does not deserve any form of kindness. They deserve to be treated like dirt because, in the eyes of the Japanese, they are lower than anything else. By and large I think that culture does have an impact on the mores of a given civilization. This is most often reflected in the laws of each respective country. What is criminal in one country is accepted behavior in another. I don't believe that there is one moral code that all people and cultures abide by.
As for studying morality in history, I don't think that we should exclusively apply our own morals when passing judgment on any event. To make a fully informed analysis, the historian needs to understand the period they are studying and the circumstances of the event before passing judgment. The historian's final judgment will be shaped primarily by their own moral code, but they need to examine and discuss the views of the period as well before drawing conclusions. This leads to a more balanced appreciation of the past, i.e. "Was this wrong? At the time they didn't think so, but to us today such an action would be repugnant." Now you better know what they thought then and have applied the lesson to today.
Sorry for rambling a bit there. It's not as easy to put that last thought into words as I thought it might be.