SteveR Loc: Michigan

We firebombed Tokyo. With its wooden and paper houses the city went up in horrific flames. 100,000 Japanese civilians were k**led. The Japanese could have surrendered then and we never would have had Hiroshima. But we did. Once we had Hiroshima the Japanes could have surrendered, but the tyrannical leadership thought more about themselves than their people, so we had Nagasaki.

In Europe, at some point Hitler knew the war was over but would not surrender. He allowed his entire country to be ripped to shreds and divided between allies rather than think of his own people. Another megolomaniacal tyrant.

And now the tyrants who have ruled Gaza would rather fight to the bitter end, allowing their people to suffer and their country to be demolished RATHER THAN SURRENDER. Who's the Hitler? Who are the tyrants? HAMAS

Texcaster Loc: Queensland

Wow, do you think the Z*****ts are coming out of this as some kind of sweet smelling international saints? Bibi took the Hamas bait with a massive overreaction that has buggered Israel's place in the world for decades. That's the reality on the ground. Have you noticed the worldwide condemnation? It's not going away anytime soon.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

What Hamas did in that raid is very similar to what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor. Compare the deaths. The Israeli deaths are very similar in number to our military deaths. What do you think, did we overreact? We k**led hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians.

Texcaster Loc: Queensland

Yes, criminal overreaction. The Japanese were beat and looking for a way out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Opposition

The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.

— Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, [99]
The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons ... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

— Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman, 1950, [109]
The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.

— Major General Curtis LeMay, XXI Bomber Command, September 1945, [110]
The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment ... It was a mistake to ever drop it ... [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it.

— Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr., 1946, [111]
Stephen Peter Rosen of Harvard believes that a submarine blockade would have been sufficient to force Japan to surrender.[112]

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Selected quotations. If they were so beaten why didn't they surrender after the bombing of Tokyo? LeMay himself, one of your quotees, himself was in charge of that operation. He tried everything and couldn't bring the Japanese to their knees. He coulda stopped the war, but he didn't. He actually k**led more Japanese civilians than either of the A bombs did. What's worse than an A bomb? Perhaps incindiary bombing of a city made of matchsticks.

Since the bombing of Tokyo didn't bring about surrender, the A bombs were used to prevent a full scale invasion. Nitmitz was known for popping off, too.

Bottom line, all Japan had to do was surrender. All Hamas NEEDS to do is surrender. And don't tell me they're all but beaten.

InfiniteISO Loc: The Carolinas, USA

I agree. The decision to use the bomb was to save US lives, not lessen the total human cost of war. Imperial Japan made their bed and their citizenry paid the price. My family lost one uncle on Iwo Jima (my Mother's brother) and had one uncle imprisoned by the Japanese in the Philippines (my Father's brother). They were ruthless in his treatment.

Japan would probably not be the peaceful nation they are today without the total humiliation and destruction brought down upon them by the US at the end of WWII.

Doddy Loc: Barnard Castle-England

👍

SteveR Loc: Michigan

All Hamas has to do is surrender, but they're too pigheaded (oh, am I allowed to say that?).

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

The Japanese leaders made a "sorta" offer to surrender, on their terms! Since when do the losers set the terms?

They wanted things to go back to the way they were before the war. With them in charge. The same people who started the war the first time in charge again. So did they really want to surrender or did they want a "time out" to recover and build up their strength for round 2?

The US and Allies could have forced a real surrender without using the atomic bomb but estimates of casualties on both sides were much higher than those caused by the bomb if the surrender was forced by a Normandy style invasion. By using the bomb the US and Allies avoided their casualties and most of the estimated Japanese casualties.

A professor of mine long ago posed the questions 1."Why did we drop the first bomb?" 2."Why did we drop the second bomb?" and finally 3."Why didn't we drop a third bomb?"

1. To force them to surrender by proving we had the bomb.
2. To prove we had more than one bomb and could destroy their whole nation.
3. Because we didn't have three bombs. We were 6 weeks to 3 months from having a third bomb built.

And still the surrender took place when it did mainly because the Emperor himself demanded it and was prepared to risk an internal civil war by going public with his order to surrender and save Japan from being totally destroyed.

Once the US occupied Japan they found out what the Japanese military had in mind to resist an invasion.
Things like civilians drilling to attack with garden tools etc. School children trained to put on a bookbag/backpack of explosives and throw themselves into US positions or under US tanks and other vehicles. Mass suicide attacks by any type of plane or boat etc. etc.
That is the sort of thing the bomb really prevented.

Blaster34 Loc: Florida Treasure Coast

I LIKE IT!!! Hamas is pure and unadulterated evil, Iranian puppets and they are equal to or worse than the SS, ISIS or even Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. The Arabs in Gaza got what they v**ed for in 2007, a despicable, bloodthirsty regime and they are now reaping the results of that unholy Hamas government.

Raze the entire Gaza Strip and put it back under an international consortium or a neutral country who's willing to govern it and oversee its rebuilding....one thing is for sure, the Arabs in Gaza have no ability to govern themselves. The IDF is doing what they HAVE to do to survive. Leaving Hamas functioning and somewhat intact would be like leaving Hitler and the SS intact....CHEERS!

mikee

The reason we nuked japan was to prevent US deaths in the island by island, building by building, ground war.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

You're right, after firebombing the heck out of Tokyo, the Japanese leaders made it obvious that thee would be no surrender. They were int***sigent, just like Hamas. They left us with no alternative.

rwoodvira

[quote=robertjerl]A very good read is K*****g the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan by Bill o'Reilly.A number of leaders, notably MacArthur, wanted to invade Japan. As was pointed out the civilian populace was ready to fight to the death on behalf of the Emperor. Allied casualties forecasts were as high a potential as1,000,000. The atomic bomb and the Invasion of Manchuria by the Russians together forced the issue.

O'Reilly made an interesting point at the end of the book - his Father was an ensign off of Japan, and had a very good chance of dying due to the success of the Kamikaze suicide planes. Some 7,000 deaths on Allied ships were attributed to the kamikaze. O'Reilly felt that he might not have been born if the war had continued.

I was shocked when I read it because I was in the same situation. My Father volunteered for the Navy, but was rejected for being too near-sighted. He ended up in the Merchant Marine. At the end of the war, he was serving on a hospital ship off Japan. The kamikaze did not care if there was a Red Cross on the ship or not, it was still a target. I was in the same situation as O'Reilly.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

[quote=rwoodvira]

My Dad was not quite as close to the action as yours or O'Reilly's, but he shipped out for the Pacific on the day that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. I, too, think that he may have dodged a bullet.

National Park

I used to think the dropping of the atomic bombs weren't necessary to force Japan to surrender, but I have had second thoughts about this after reading the recent book "The Road to Surrender" by Evan Thomas. The book makes a pretty compelling case that the dropping of both the first and second atomic bombs were necessary to get Japan to surrender. The book claims that the dropping of the two bombs ultimately saved many lives: American soldiers, the Japanese public, and the Chinese (thousands of whom the Japanese were slaughtering every day). Well worth a read...