The REAL Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan

[Ron]

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/10/the-real-reason-america-used-nuclear-weapons-against-japan-to-contain-russian-ambitions.html

Atomic Weapons Were Not Needed to End the War or Save Lives

Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives.

But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise.

Ran across this link during a discussion on facebook.

What say you?

Frankly this is new to me, never even heard that there were alleged voices of dissent.

[grampster]

Why do you suppose this info is popping up now?

[Ron]

Why do you suppose this info is popping up now?

Is this info correct?

Does the context of the quotes change the impact?

Ultimately I would prefer to have the unvarnished truth rather than the victors write the history version.

We're all big boys and girls here, we're not going to go all OMG!! WTF!!  if some inconvenient facts come out. 

[roo_ster]

Japanese internal politics & docs say otherwise, last time I looked into this.  Regimes less fanatical than the Japanese have managed to hold on for many years after having their tails bobbed, but not having their main territory occupied & subjected.

If you read down farther, the author subscribes to the notion that the FDR/Truman administrations wanted to start a cold war with the USSR before WWII had even ended. 

Oh, and anyone not a nitwit understands that many most all military acts & decisions are also political acts & decisions.

[MicroBalrog]

Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped,

The question is - when, and at what cost? They refused the Allied Ultimatum released only 2 weeks prior.

[Tallpine]

gawsh what i've ben taut bye the publik skools cudden bee rong  

[TommyGunn]

*!SIGH!*

This felgercarb .... again.
And what about Truman's military advisors?
While in hindsight some of their predictions seem farfetched today, there were those who honestly believed they'd be fighting the Japanese for the duration of the twentieth century if they didn't force the issue.
The Navy was was the only force that believed in a blockade of Japan to end the war .... perhaps to echo one meme in this story, because it would be "their toys" used to enact the blockade.
But the other forces, many of which had borne the brunt of the physical fighting against the Japanese, considered them ruthless and determined and that they would never surrender without either using the BOMB or a massive invasion.
OPERATION DOWNFALL, consisting of two basic maneuvers, was planned to bring Japan down to its knees.  We were expecting enormous losses, and the Japanese were also expecting an invasion, and were training citizens to resist using any weapons at hand even down to broomsticks if need be.
Preparations for this had already started and troops from the european theter were being transfered to the Pacific Coast to position them as the Enola Gay was revving up.  
There were factions in Japan against the government -- indeed, even an attempted coupe d'etat -- and some Japanese did know it was over, but the hardcases in the military would never have capitulated so easily.  
Plus, this knowledge wasn't available to Truman and his advisors at the time.  Truman saw the decision as one using the one type of massive attack they had that would simultaneously save as many American lives as possible .... and THAT wasn't the invasion, it was the use of nukes.
As horrible as it was....and I've read books about the results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that give me the heebeejeeebes just READING about the horror the survivors of the atomic attacks faced.......I have often thought that another serendipitous response to the bombings was it taught the world powers very well what nuclear weapons would do.  The Nazis had a nuke program that lacked a fuse, the Japs had a nuke program that HAD a fuse and lacked fissile material (they were being shipped some by German U-Boat which we intercepted [thank God]) and the Russians had spies in our nuclear program that allowed them to produce a nuiclear bomb only a few years after WW2 ended.
Many thousands of Japanese survivors had to deal with radiation poisoning and a slow horrible death.  Others survived longer only to deal with cancers and other tumors later in life.
But I still believe that those peoples' suffereings would be as nothing compared to what would have happened should any superpower have decided it was possible to engage in a nuclear war and win.

[RoadKingLarry]

The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.

If Japan was on the verge of surrender I wonder why it took 2 nukes to get the point across?
You'd think if they were pretty much ready to throw in the towel already the first one would have gotten the point across.

[Ron]

I was a little surprised to see the comments from some of the most highly esteemed principle leaders of the war showing something less than support for the use of nukes.

My point behind posting this here was maybe to get a bit of context for the comments.

 

[Monkeyleg]

I've heard the Russian deterrence point many times over the years, but I still think the reason was to force Japan to surrender rather than fight to the lat man, woman and child.

[MillCreek]

My Dad, who flew Corsairs off the Enterprise during the Pacific War as an ensign, was always convinced that the nuclear weapons was what finally convinced Japan to sue for peace.  He recalled briefings on the preparation to invade Japan, and that if the Emperor so urged, they would have fought to just about the last person standing.

[Scout26]

Just as an aside, every American that has been wounded in combat receives the Purple Heart Medal. And the last time those medals were ordered was in 1945.  Seems that the War Department projected the number of casualties for Operation Downfall (consisting of Operations Olympic and Coronet) and just like ordering enough bandages and blankets, ordered the medals.  However, because the nukes were used and the war ended early they cancelled the contract when it had only been half completed.

Since then we have fought in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq (2x), Afghanistan and few other places.  And we have not had to order any Purple Heart medals.  The 500,000 delivered to the War Department, out of the 1,000,000 they initially ordered before cancelling the remainder of the contract when the war ended, have been more than enough to cover all the casualties we have suffered since 1945.  

Last number I heard was that in 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.   Medals that were intended for Grandfathers and Great-Grandfathers are instead being awarded to their Grandsons and Daughters.  

Who might never had been here in the first place, had we not dropped the two Atomic Bombs.  

[T.O.M.]

I find it interesting that the author uses quotes from Ike, McArthur, and other military leaders that the bombs were unnecessary, and that the victory could have been achieved in other, conventional way.  Of course these men said this.  It was their jobs to win battles and wars using conventional methods.  For them to say that the use of the atomic bombs was necessary would essentially be that they would be unable to achive victory using their own conventional means.  What general or admiral would say this?

[K Frame]

This crap has been circling the bowl for years and years.

It's called revisionist history.

Even AFTER the dropping of TWO atomic bombs on Japan there was almost a military coup to overthrow the government, seize the emperor and prevent his pre-recorded surrender message from being broadcast, and continue the war until the absolute bitter end. It was only thwarted at the last minute and almost by accident.


There's a damned good reason why the nearly half million Purple Hearts struck for the expected invasion of Japan were never given out, and in fact are the ones being given out today, nearly a century later.

That reason is the atomic bombs made the majority of Japan realize that it was all over, even if there were a few fanatics left.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

This crap has been circling the bowl for years and years.

It's called revisionist history.

Even AFTER the dropping of TWO atomic bombs on Japan there was almost a military coup to overthrow the government, seize the emperor and prevent his pre-recorded surrender message from being broadcast, and continue the war until the absolute bitter end. It was only thwarted at the last minute and almost by accident.


There's a damned good reason why the nearly half million Purple Hearts struck for the expected invasion of Japan were never given out, and in fact are the ones being given out today, nearly a century later.

That reason is the atomic bombs made the majority of Japan realize that it was all over, even if there were a few fanatics left.

the majority of Japan realize

the majority never knew  some not for years  this was not the usa   control was pretty total internally

[dogmush]

Why are the nukes so much worse then what we did to Tokyo (or Osaka, or Kobe, or Dresden)? Do any of the revisionist historians think that the invasion wouldn't have had any strategic bombing?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i always figured first bomb was for effect  second was payback   it works for me

the other stories would be more creditable if there was more than 3 days between booms. things did not move as fast in those days

[K Frame]

"the majority of Japan realize"

By that I meant the Japanese controlling infrastructure, the Government, the Navy, and the Army.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

heres a view from some years later
On 30 June 2007, Japan's defense minister Fumio Kyuma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war. Kyuma said: "I now have come to accept in my mind that in order to end the war, it could not be helped (Shikata ga nai) that an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and that countless numbers of people suffered great tragedy." Kyuma, who is from Nagasaki, said the bombing caused great suffering in the city, but he does not resent the U.S. because it prevented the Soviet Union from entering the war with Japan.[44][clarification needed] Kyuma's comments were similar to those made by Emperor Hirohito when, in his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975, he was asked what he thought of the bombing of Hiroshima, and answered: "It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn't be helped (Shikata ga nai) because that happened in wartime."[45]


and make no mistake if they got the bomb first  we were in deep doo doo

[K Frame]

The second bomb would not have been dropped had the Japanese responded to the Potsdam Declaration. There was abject silence, so the US put the exclamation point on the Allied stance with the second bomb.

Once the bombs became generally known in the military, planners began incorporating them into the invasion plan as a means of quickly breaching the Japanese defenses on Kyushu. The Japanese correctly figured that that area would be a prime invasion spot and had prepared a very strong defense-in-depth.

US plans for dealing with those defenses also included the possible widespread use of chemical weapons.

[K Frame]

"and make no mistake if they got the bomb first  we were in deep doo doo"

Not so much, if you apply the same development to test to production schedule as happened in the United States.

By that late in the war, Japan had absolutely no effective way of delivering a weapon like an atomic bomb, and no real way to get it anywhere near US held territory.

[Tallpine]

Seems like the a-bombs were mostly dropped to keep the USSR from invading Japan before we did

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

"and make no mistake if they got the bomb first  we were in deep doo doo"

Not so much, if you apply the same development to test to production schedule as happened in the United States.

By that late in the war, Japan had absolutely no effective way of delivering a weapon like an atomic bomb, and no real way to get it anywhere near US held territory.

i think we were a bit more concerned about the mission being safe for crew.  they were not so encumbered

[TommyGunn]

"and make no mistake if they got the bomb first  we were in deep doo doo"

Not so much, if you apply the same development to test to production schedule as happened in the United States.

By that late in the war, Japan had absolutely no effective way of delivering a weapon like an atomic bomb, and no real way to get it anywhere near US held territory.

This is true if you consider what the Japanese had at the time the war really ended.  They had plans for aircraft that would have been able to reach San Francisco (the actual city their longterm strategic plans targeted) on the drawing board but the end of the war terminated the project.
They did have some interesting aircraft experimental versions completed in hangers that, had they made it to the front, would have caused quite a buzz....... 

[K Frame]

Except... None of the aircraft they either had, or planned, were capable of carrying a bomb as large and as heavy as the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan.

And, given that the Japanese were getting most of their cues for bomb development from Germany, it's doubtful that any aircraft short of a B-36-style craft would have been able to carry one of those.

German bomb plans, had they ever been successful (which is doubtful), likely would have been roughly two to three times HEAVIER than what the US came up with.


There was, no doubt about it, an element of politics in the decision to use the bomb regarding relations with the Soviet Union, but that was not, and never had been, a primary driving concern.

There are also those who claim that racism was a primary motivator in the decision to drop the bomb on Japan. I also dismiss that given that there were solid plans in place to use atomic weapons against Germany had they held out very much longer.