Yes, the buckets of instant sunshine were well justified both militarily and politically.
They spared more lives than they took, and the monetary saving was incalculable.
After years of war everyone needed relief from the killing, that the bombs were dropped on civilian targets was unfortunate, but the Axis had made the rules…
Dropping the bomb was justified casualties would have been huge in a landwar. the Enemy was indoctrinated and had its back to the wall. added to that The US wasnt able to use it’s air superiority against the japanese on the Islands. These were the days prior to Agent Orange and Napalm. well dug in and Well fortified it would be impossible to dislodge the defenders without massive bloodshed and Costly in all manner of ways too. (err halls of montezuma shows that I think)
The World was terrified of Nuclear weapons for 50 years and concerned about them possibly for ever after. Yet only two have ever been dropped in action.
With a garuantee that there would be a new world order after 1945 it was a grand opportunity to showcase new weaponry before it all calmed down again and you couldnt chuck big load weapons about (tongue firmly in cheek)
Just so you know napalm was developed and used during WW2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm
I agree with you but just an FYI 
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I hawe seen once photos and documental movies - somekind of report about combat usage BM-12 Katusha, but not with usual rockets. There were rockets, stuffed with some substance equal napalm (or maybe it was napalm ?). I may be wrong, i hardly remember where these pictures and movie were taken - it was Orsha or Stalingrad, but picture was terrible…
These pictures i never seen publicated, archives still closed.
About bomb. If i was a somebody, who can decide - use a-bomb against japans in 1945 or not - my descision would be - “Use that thing immidiatelly.”
Why ? I sure - is somebody shot in you from pistol - you need shot that guy with rifle. Then sooner you give a good lession - then better will be result. And i sure - japans learned that lession completly. How i can see - they hawe turned into pacifists… great result.
By the way, some japanese soldier fighting with USSR troops till 1946, they just don’t matter official capitulation… these fighters deserved something better than usual bombs.
To briefly paraphrase someone who served in Burma and wrote a book on his soldiering:
The commentator felt that modern-day armchair generals and politicans wrongly assume the right to act as judge and jury on the morality of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. When asked if they would have sacrificed their lives or the lives of their families, such armchair generals say “that’s not the point”. This commentator wrote of the comrades he served with in World War 2: if they had been given the choice of soldiering on for another year or two with all the inherent risks, or seeing the end of the war with two cities razed to the ground by terrible new weapons, he felt they would have wearily picked up their rifles and packs and said something along the lines of “lets get on with it then”.
Arguably the use of the atomic bombs against Japan meant that the world had seen how terrible they were and didn’t use them again.
Otherwise the first use may have been in Korea, or by the Soviets in Europe in the Cold War.
I believe that the Atomic Bomb and the Manhattan Project were both justified. After the Pearl Harbor bombings from Japan (we were at peace then), we needed a way to show them that we wouldnt take that sitting down. It was good to drop the A bomb b/c it showed the Japs who they were dealing with.
i always stuck to saying it was a good decision.
The use of the Atom Bomb on Japan was not just about preventing the need for a land War in Japan and it’s resulting casualties but was to prevent the need for the Russians to move down from the North and grab land as we saw in Europe. Had the conclusion of the Asian Theatre depended on conventional force’s part of Japan would have spent decades under soviet control.
Dropping the Atom Bomb on Japan, i can not really vote yes or no for the poll, seeing as Either way your going to lose millions of people.
Still today people suffer from nagasaki and hiroshima.
The U.S.A could of come to an agreement with the Japanese and to cease all the bloodshed.
Like what? The only agreement the Japanese would have accepted would have been an “I surrender” from the US. Given the Japanese behaviour in WW2 (which can only be described as deeply evil in very many cases), this is not a good thing.
My only regret about the atomic bombs is that we didn’t have them available earlier.
I have heard theories that the involvement of the Russians (by whom the Japanese suffered some crushing defeats in 1938 when they tried to expand northwards from China into Siberia), as was planned according to the Yalta agreement (Russians concentrate on Germany first, after defeat of Germany they have three months time to move their troops from Europe to East Asia), showed, together with the nukes, that the war was over for Japan.
I think another reason for the nukes on Japan was that by August 1945, relations between Russia and the weatern Allies started to turn sour and that Truman wanted to demonstrate to Stalin that he had an ace up his sleeve.
Jan
I agree there is a school of though that indicates that the US did not want to replicate Europe, with the USSR expanding west. A protracted land war across the main Japanese Islands would have allowed Russian forces to move rapidly east. The US did not want Russia to make significant land gain in the region so it was expediant to use their “super weapons” to limit the engagement.
The US had hoped to prevent the British from re-establishing their trading base’s in Hong Kong and Singapore and to establish a system similar to the British commonwealth but under US influence.
I recently read in Secret Weapons of World War II that Japan was actually very close to having its own nuke (closer then Germany who hadn’t even built a reaction chamber yet and if I remeber correctly the Japanese had already successfully triggered a reaction but just needed to put it into bomb form). I think that over the long run the Bomb did save more lives then it took and I too have heard the theory that it was dropped as much to threaten the Russians as it was to end the war in the South Pacific.
I’d have to say it was justified, for these reasons.
there are also the atrocities the japanese commited but i wont include those because many of these things werent known of till after the war. The dropping on the atomic bomb sent a strong message into history, and from my point of view it means…
if you play with fire you’re going to get burned
to drop any bomb on any people is bad, but i think with all the things the japanese forces were during this war, there honestly wasn’t a better answer to save allied forces lives. yes it opened a horrible chapter in history, but with the circumstances that were goingon. better them then us.
The Japanese were closer than the Germans.
The Germans thought an atomic weapon would have a critical mass of several tonnes, was therefore impractical and not worth bothering with.
The Japanese had a reasonable estimate of critical mass and knew what needed to be done. They were incapable of solving the engineering problems involved within a reasonable timescale and in any case did not have the industrial capability required to produce nuclear weapons.
The wikipedia article here currently has a good entry, but it should be noted that this article is apparently one of those frequently edited by those pushing an agenda. What is currently the last paragraph is the relevant part, which is frequently edited to make a highly implausible claim that the Japanese detonated a mini-nuke in August 1945 appear to be historical fact. A mini-nuke is in fact very unlikely for the simple reason that small nuclear weapons are much harder to design and make than the Hiroshima sized ones.
The quoted reasons are childish. (The POW treatement as a reason are debatable - only the fourth reason it worths).
It was a response of the japanese attack.
A lot of KIA, MIA and POW, How many more have to wait until drop the bomb? :arrow:
In a war, the higher cost, ALWAYS pay the enemy.
I’d say that Mexico is in great danger (according to your logic). :lol: :lol: :lol: http://www.lone-star.net/mall/texasinfo/mexicow.htm
Edited: Mate, proudness of being American is good, but learning is needed!
I hope that you weren’t bothered by my replies. If so, I apologise!
Hard to believe that this topic is even half way seriously broached on an ongoing basis. With 2 horrendous alternative outcomes it’s puzzling as to why, A- invasion with the probable 1-10 million Japanese deaths or B- the old naval blockade to starvation with millions of deaths, was even considered especially with the attendent presense of the Russians and the certain division of Japan that would have certainly complicated the region as badly as Eastern Europe. :roll:
As the Japanese were already making overtones for surrender and the horrendous conventional firebombing attacks on Japanese cities was far more damaging than a A-Bomb, I have always wondered if the attacks were meant as a symbol of US power more than anything else?