Was the atomic bombs necessary to end the war with Japan?

[Takes_Two_To_Tango]

I'm not an expert on this, but I'm just curious what most of you will vote for on the poll.

Some interesting tidbits about that time.

- They said that Japan was already going to surrender before the bombings.

- They said that if the US didn't nuke Japan, it would of cost 500 thousand US soldiers being killed in the invasion of Japan.

- They said that they used the atomic bombs as a display of unimaginable power to put fear on the Soviet Union.

 

[loyalyolayal]

It was a show of force against the Russian who were ready to join the fray. They're still butthurt when Japan invaded them. The US saved Japan from the Russians.

 

[Fatality]

No it wasn't necessary but they had two very good reasons to do it. 1. End the war quicker and save thousands of american lives. 2. Shock and awe deterrent for the ruskies.

 

[Twerknasty]

Hell yes they were!

 

[My name is]

Was the war necessary is anything necessary

 

[oldshadow]

We want unconditional and they wanted to bargain to keep their government and military intact.

 

[TheRuthlessOne]

No but it actually saved a lot of lives by doing so

That was the goal of the USA

 

[syct23]

Was not necessary,

But it sure did help wrap things up faster with less causualties on the allied side..

 

[loyalyolayal]

Was not necessary,

But it sure did help wrap things up faster with less causualties on the allied side..

You'd rather have the GIs do street to street, house by house warfare?

 

[syct23]

You'd rather have the GIs do street to street, house by house warfare?

I didn't say that..

I said the bombs helped end the war a lot faster without the need for steet by street, house to house warfare.

But if the bombs were not used the Pacific was all but a wrap and even if we had to do the street by street or house by house, the allies still would have won but with far more casualties..

So in the end, the bombs were not needed but helped save lives.

But it's all good, I'm used to you making up your own narrative from the War Room.

Carry on good sir.

 

[Phr3121]

1. Was the atomic bombs necessary to end the war with Japan?

2. They said that Japan was already going to surrender before the bombings.

3. They said that if the US didn't nuke Japan, it would of cost 500 thousand US soldiers being killed in the invasion of Japan.

4. They said that they used the atomic bombs as a display of unimaginable power to put fear on the Soviet Union.

1. Yes
2. Who is they? Hillary Clinton and George Soros? Japan was thinking about surrendering but not unconditionally.
3. Well, those 'sons-of-bitches' bombed us in Pearl Harbor. Yes, the invasion numbers are about right.
4. The Soviets were maybe a secondary reason. The U.S. did not know the Soviets were already working on their own bomb - a copy of the American.

* I think both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were poor targets. Not military in my book. It killed way more civilians than it needed to have done. Also, the bomb was detonated 2,000 feet above ground for maximum effect. There was no need for that. We Americans killed a lot of women and children in the process, but we did the same, if not more, with regular bombings in Germany. Take Dresden for example. That was a 'war crime' by Americans and the British.

 

[thehighking]

History is written by the winners. The atomic bombings saved US lives but replaced them with the lives of Japanese civilians

 

[loyalyolayal]

But it's all good, I'm used to you making up your own narrative from the War Room.

Carry on good sir.

History is written by the winners. The atomic bombings saved US lives but replaced them with the lives of Japanese civilians

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1946/12/if-the-atomic-bomb-had-not-been-used/376238/

Was the use of the atomic bomb inhuman? All war is inhuman. Here are some comparisons of the atomic bombing with conventional bombing. At Hiroshima the atomic bomb killed about 80,000 people, pulverized about five square miles, and wrecked an additional ten square miles of the city, with decreasing damage out to seven or eight miles from the center. At Nagasaki the fatal casualties were 45,000 and the area wrecked was considerably smaller than at Hiroshima because of the configuration of the city.

Compare this with the results of two B-29 incendiary raids over Tokyo. One of these raids killed about 125,000 people, the other nearly 100,000.

Was Japan already beaten before the atomic bomb? The answer is certainly "yes" in the sense that the fortunes of war had turned against her. The answer is "no" in the sense that she was still fighting desperately and there was every reason to believe that she would continue to do so; and this is the only answer that has any practical significance.

General MacArthur's staff anticipated about 50,000 American casualties and several times that number of Japanese casualties in the November 1 operation to establish the initial beachheads on Kyushu. After that they expected a far more costly struggle before the Japanese homeland was subdued. There was every reason to think that the Japanese would defend their homeland with even greater fanaticism than when they fought to the death on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. No American soldier who survived the bloody struggles on these islands has much sympathy with the view that battle with the Japanese was over as soon as it was clear that their ultimate situation was hopeless. No, there was every reason to expect a terrible struggle long after the point at which some people can now look back and say, "Japan was already beaten."

A month after our occupation I heard General MacArthur say that even then, if the Japanese government lost control over its people and the millions of former Japanese soldiers took to guerrilla warfare in the mountains, it could take a million American troops ten years to master the situation.

I don't hear any complaint about the tokyo air raids. Atomic bombs are just easy target of ridicule.

 

[Phr3121]

@MXZT, who is the cute chick in your avatar? 1950s style. I like that.

Also, the 1945 bombs were 'puny' by today's standards. About 15 to 20 kilotons. Fission process.
. Trinity test bomb: Plutonium 239
. Hiroshima bomb: Uranium 235
. Nagasaki bomb: Plutonium 239

Ivy Mike was about 10.4 megatons -- the first U.S. Hydrogen bomb, 1952, and it took a Nagasaki style bomb to set it off.
. Fusion process - 4 stage bomb
. 1 Megaton = 1,000 Kilotons Yeah! That is fucking crazy destructive power.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

The Yamato race did so much nasty crap to the Chinese, if the nukes not dropped on them, the chinese be even more furious today about what happened. By the dropping the nukes on the Yamato race, you at least got some licking in there.

 

[Fluffernutter]

I used to think that it was a show to the Soviets how mighty the US was. After all, the Allies knew that it would soon be a bi-polar world.

However, when reading Unbroken, Louis Zamperini, stated that during one of his train trips from one prison camp to another, he saw entire villages of elderly people and children being taught how to use weapons to fight back the impending invading force. He discussed that an entire generation of Japanese men were gone, but the population was still being told to fight (even if it meant the elderly taking up arms...or gardening tools...to do so).

Due to the dropping of the two bombs, the US did not have to invade Japan with a ground force. If the US had, untold amounts of people on both sides would have been killed.

 

[bushman505]

After the Chinese bombed Pearl Harbor we didn’t really have much choice.

 

[loyalyolayal]

After the Chinese bombed Pearl Harbor we didn’t really have much choice.

Goddamn Koreans.

 

[Alphaboy]

Not sure there's a clear answer. An American can say "yes, we saved countless American lives". The parent of a child that was dematerialized would beg to differ.

 

[JSN]

Was they? Probably not.

But they was something that sped up the process and saved allied and probably also Japanese lives.