Japanese officials stated that if the USA were to invade Japan with their military forces on land, even if the Japanese army were disarmed , Japan will still engage in combat, “citizens will fight with pitchforks and frying pans” causing an overall casualty count to be much higher than the atomic bombings and the radiation caused by them, not to mention the counter attacks of Japan on American soil.
The atomic bombings knocked Japan off of their hubris throne, no longer being the ruthless empire with it’s war crimes done by the military and “scientific research”
In the end, the world got to experience the outcome and effects of atomic bombings and atomic research, achieved a transition of a nation to a more peaceful one, while also migrating casualties and ending the war.
u/ds-2-is-peak, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...
Dan Carlin (hardcore history) dives deep into this. People forget we were still always fire bombing Japan, which was absolutely devastating, like 100k people in each run sometimes. Curtis LeMay said if the US were on the losing side, he’d be brought up on war crimes. It was a really good listen, turned your stomach at some points but man, I’d never want to be that person to make those decisions.
A single night of firebombing in Tokyo killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Nukes were devastating but to the Japanese, they were nothing new in terms of scale or atrocity.
That's what always gets me, the Japanese were basically losing whole cities already and from their perspective I don't see why the specific type and number of bombs mattered
My speculation, is that they could keep the emperor (who was legitimately a living god) safe during the fire bombings, they weren’t naive, if they didn’t surrender after Hiroshima/Nagasaki, the third one was going to land on his palace. They also surrendered unconditionally because the Allies, albeit secretly agreed, didn’t try him on war crimes. If we pushed to try him on war crimes, they would have let every person in the country die before surrendering.
That makes a lot more sense to me than any other argument I've heard, the idea that it's a weapon so great that no actual precision is needed to wipe out the highest-value person in the country in one attack no matter what precautions were taken.
Full acknowledgment, listening to Dan Carlin “Hardcore History” is where I’m getting that insight from.
Bc all it took was one bomb to lose a city. Nagasaki showed it wasnt hard to make those bombs, and that we had multiple. If we had two, how long would it take to make 50? Japan at that moment faced an existential threat. We don't have enough firebombs to completely erase japan, but we couldve had enough nukes.
the Japanese spent the whole war getting drowned by American production capacity. The Americans showed up to the Battle of Leyte Gulf with more destroyers than the Japanese had carrier-based aircraft. They had no reason to believe the flow of bombs would stop and even in retrospect I don't think anything would have stopped the US from burning down every city with firebombs either
Thats the thing atomic bombs would've made it possible to effectively sink Japan into the ocean, not just the cities. (Not actually sink it but yk what I mean) They had an atomic program, they understood what had been done. Additionally, on the same day the Soviet Union began their invasion in Manchuria, and the Emperor knew if he gave surrendered to the US now, his country wouldn't be partitioned like Germany and later on Korea.
Here's a good video on it:
https://youtu.be/zMieIAjIY0c?si=dp8fZEtLLBWA77aP
His reading of how the firebombs were melting the streets and people were being rolled on by melted asphalt and fire... and this happened many times and japan still didn't surrender. the estimated 1 million casualties just for the allies to invade is a modest estimate. It is the train car problem of do you kill a few people or not make the choice and let more people die to keep a good conscience.
did you even read your own post
Hard to say. Ive seen many historians argue for and against it. I think IF japan wasnt already gonna surrender it was the right option but ive heard many historians say the USSR joining the war against japan was already gonna make them surrender to the US to avoid communism and stuff.
Japan was seeking a conditional surrender where they kept occupied territories. Historians that say Japan was going to surrender leave that part out.
USSR joining the war would mean another 2-5 years of war. Even assuming this scenario is true, they would not surrender until land invasion from both sides was certain.
I’m starting to get sick of this excuse, they didn’t think that the US had a doomsday weapon. The worst mistake we ever made.
Wasn’t there an attempted coup in Japan when they announced their surrender after the nuclear bombings? If I remember right there were plans to arm Japanese citizens and in some places hide away in tunnels to fight against an occupation.
It’ll always be a debate whether or not it was necessary, but would people react the same way in modern times if it was the Nazis we’d bombed? Would people say “poor Germany?” Because Japan was just as evil, just as nationalistic, and is hated to this day by neighboring countries for their atrocities- many of which they refuse to even acknowledge.
Yes, it would have been a mistake to drop a nuke on Germany, because not every German citizen was a Nazi. This propaganda is used constantly during war in many different flavors; dehumanize the masses to justify war crimes.
I think most people in the modern day don’t connect Japan with nationalistic atrocities, but the word ‘Nazi’ instantly makes people lose all remorse was what I was getting at.
You’re right about military propaganda in general, but I disregard your take because the governments of Japan and Germany (at the time) were literally built on that exact propaganda, cranked to the nth degree. Japan has a long and storied history of using nationalism as a tool to control the populous- who is our enemy in wartime, no matter how innocent any of them are. It’s a reality that civilians die in wars, whether they’re minding their business, working in a factory or staffing a hospital.
Like, we firebombed the hell out of Japan, killing more people and doing more damage than the nukes, but people focus on the two big scary bombs for some reason.
Japan killed between ten and twenty million Chinese people alone in the Second World War, but I don’t hear sympathy for Japan’s victims. Whether we nuked them or not shouldn’t even matter, if the war dragged on then just as many would die elsewhere.
The US isn’t great but our enemies were hyper nationalists that didn’t view their enemies as human- both countries systematically murdered millions and millions of people outside of war. Bombing runs and mass executions can’t be compared. I’d rather get nuked than be one of the civilians present at Nanking.
If your point is “civilians don’t deserve to die” then you’re right, but that’s not how war works or will ever work. It’s a naive, nothing stance. People also don’t deserve to starve but It will happen forever.
“But the other side bad too”. Nations carry certain responsibilities during war, to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible. It’s the nature of empires to spread death and destruction no matter the civilian casualty, my point is that it was inevitable because the US is an empire. As a nation we failed that day but as an empire it’s par for the course.
The nature of empires is also to punish their enemies ten fold. They drop bombs on an enemy naval base? We nuke the shit out of a civilian metropolis. I’m tired of Japan bad, because although they were, it doesn’t mean that we have to be, it doesn’t work like that.
Your argument disgusts me, just because leadership is nationalistic, it doesn’t automatically doom the populace. Lumping them all together is what fascists do.
Joke answer : necessary to get Akira.
Fr, you just can't be sure, to me the points made against the bombing are better but we can't know now. Since I'm seeing a distinct lack of disagreement with you I went and found a few redditor's comments that disagree with you that I found compelling.
"Despite what you will hear, there was never an alternative for Truman between invasion or bombing. Thats a post war notion spread in part to justify the bombings. Both campaigns were planned and approved independently and never compared as independent options. The creation of the “bomb or invade” dichotomy just serves to justify the bombing campaign. The book Five Days in August does a good job of showing the shift in thinking once the bomb was tested/used and how those in the US began to frame it.
It’s not even likely Downfall would have happened as planned had the war continued to that point because the US grossly underestimated the Japanese build up when they approved the planning. Seeing your 4:1 advantage turn into a 1:1 from the perspective of attempting an amphibious landing puts up some major red flags and we started to see those flags popping up in July and August. Talk of alternative landings and stuff like that. The expected casualties in June, when they approved the planning, was roughly below 100,000 for the operation. Barton Bernstein has a few good papers on the subject if you look up something like Myth of 500,000 Lives Saved or something along those lines. There is also The Alarming Japanese Buildup on Southern Kyushu, Growing U.S. Fears, and Counterfactual Analysis: Would the Planned November 1945 Invasion of Southern Kyushu Have Occurred? which discusses growing hesitancy towards Olympic.
I am of the opinion that if the Potsdam Declaration were to have been released with the Russian’s signature and a bomb was dropped near Tokyo, it would’ve ended the war on a similar timescale. The additional/non-removal of a mention of the Emperor possibly remaining under a constitutional monarchy also would’ve helped, but the Russians likely wouldn’t have agreed with that term being passed in the Declaration (which is ultimately fine since it got removed anyways).
The Potsdam Declaration was released without Russian signature which left the Japanese to assume that Russia was still their neutral ally and they immediately and continually reached out to them even after Hiroshima to try and use them to bargain for a better surrender against the Allies. This delayed surrender.
Russian actually came to Potsdam looking to sign the Declaration, arriving with their own draft. The original draft by the JCS (joint chiefs of staff) and the suggestion of the Secretary of War, was also to include the Russians as a signature on the Declaration. So what happened? Truman and Byrnes (Secretary of State) cut them out and released the Declaration without their signature or knowledge with the hopes they could end the war before the Russians (who they just followed up on inviting to enter the war) got into the war.
I wouldn’t have done that. Issue the Potsdam Declaration with their signature and the usage of the 2nd ever nuclear weapon. That would create quite a shock to leadership.
The mention of retainment of the Emperor was also in the original draft and suggested by Stimson (the Secretary of War) and would’ve served to strengthen the Emperor’s inevitable decision to surrender. Having a clear line in which the Emperor would remain would create a situation for the Hawks where they would have very little to actually argue against. They would need to convince the Emperor (who was selfish in his desire to live) that despite the Doves having their surrender essentially outlined that they could hold out further and that it was worth it. The Emperor likely wouldn’t have listen to that argument, just like he didn’t when he ordered surrender at the end and the open acknowledgment of his role in the post war would only strengthen his decision.
It can also be argued the US did accept a “negotiated” surrender in the form of an affirmative decision to maintain the emperor."
"No. Nearly every civilian and military adviser to President Harry Truman advised alternatives to using the bomb. Many high-ranking military officers and intelligence officials at the time insisted that the use of atomic bombs was not necessary to secure Japan's surrender, which they believed was imminent due to the Soviet invasion. However, Truman, influenced by his incoming secretary of state, James F. Byrnes, decided to use the bomb.
Byrnes saw the bomb as an important diplomatic instrument in dealing with the Soviets. The decision to use the bomb was later justified by a deception - the claim that the action saved half a million to a million American soldiers who might otherwise have died in an invasion. The American government dropped the atomic bomb on Japan not to save American lives, but to see off a surrender negotiated by the Russians.
By mid-April 1945, Byrnes had informed the President that he believed the bomb could potentially position America to dictate the war's terms. He mentioned to a nuclear scientist that demonstrating and possessing the new weapon could render Russia more manageable in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, Romania, and Hungary.
"The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth," by Gar Alperovitz, is an insightful books on the subject."
The book mentioned by the 2nd guy seems pretty interesting, might read it sometime.
Godzilla was also a result of the atomic bombings, hmmm…
Hasn't been a world War since.
That is a fairly common opinion and not really that controversial. Japanese were ready to fight until last man and woman, possibly last child.
Obviously not if those bombs didn’t take out every last man woman and child. Seems to me they stopped quickly.
Yea, because thats unwinnable. A ground campaign, even with superior air support, is an entirely different story. They stopped because they realized they literally couldnt fight the enemy, not because they thought they would lose. If the US had to actually invade, japan probably would have inflicted heavy enough losses to the US to force a withdrawal.
If they were fighting to the last man, woman, and child that wouldn’t matter
You can't fight to the last man, woman, and child when you're facing something that you literally cannot physically fight against so of course it would matter.
That was how Atom bomb made the surrender faster. But only after US proved that they got more than one.
But if they were fighting until the last man woman and child that doesn’t matter
Can you explain why it wouldn't matter?
Because then they weren’t fighting to the last man woman and child to begin with
Um..ok? But like, can you actually explain why that would be the case please? Genuinely having a hard time understanding your thought process here sorry.
It’s becoming far less of a common opinion in certain far left circles. People will straight up ignore the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan in order to make their “Hiroshima and Nagasaki are examples of US imperialism” argument work
calm down. two things can be true
This one short phrase could do so much for mankind if only we could drill it through peoples thick heads
left circles actually do call out japanese warcrimes, and the atom bombs aswell, two evils don't make a good
Really? I must have stayed on the soft side of the internet for a long time
Maybe. Internet in some circles REALLY downplays what happened.
On one side Japs who were literally worse than Nazis ready to fight until last civilian.
On the other USA who firebombed them so hard that nukes were actually more humane option in the long run. Yes US played war crime bingo too.
Japanese human experimentation was definitely ATLEAST as bad as Mengele. What the Japanese did to China was possibly the biggest set of atrocities in a war, Nanking being the prime example
I mean, the us is considered more as a war crime nation due to their experimentation in wars, no one knew the real catastrophe of the atomic bomb until it was launched (by the US)
I was talking about firebombing of civilians in all wooden cities. That’s not experimental.
Even if the effects of radiation weren’t known, they still knew how much destructive potential it had. They knew what they were dropping and how many innocent lives would be vaporized. It’s been our motto that to liberate people from oppressive regimes like WW2 Japan, they have to be murdered.
They even were warned there was a chance of the bomb igniting the atmosphere and destroying all life on earth.
Small chance… but add it to the list of considerations
Destructive yes, but no one knew about the long term effects of it, Oppenheimer believed the atomic bomb will ignite the atmosphere, guesses were wild and rough
I acknowledged the point about radiation in my original comment. Going back to your point: They theorized that it would be more destructive than it initially was, yet they still dropped it?
It was a speculation that it will ignite the atmosphere, some only thought of it as a huge step up in the explosion’s size
mind you radiation studies back then were futile and couldn’t have known about the future impact
Once again I acknowledged that they didn’t know about long term radiation effects. They knew about the explosion and its immediate destructive potential, even overestimating it by your accounts. They knew it would completely wipe out Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and take more innocent lives than combatants.
Yes
You are debating with someone who clearly does not understand how conversations work lmao
Oh boy, I’m excited to read further to get this Redditors measured take on the atomic bombing of Japanese civilians.
What do you want to know ? I will happily offend you but need to know your pain points first. Don’t worry I got a ton of ammo on both sides of that conflict.
I’m not offended by your use of a WWII-era racial slur, I just refuse to pretend that anyone who is educated and objective is going to use language like that.
If you want to tell us how you feel about the chinks, kikes, spicks, and nigs, go off king. Nobody has to take you seriously, though.
Yap yap, I know why you got offended now so let me twist the knife.
Just one night of firebombing of civilians in Tokyo on 9th of March 1945 killed more people than in Nagasaki (total inc. radiation).
Sing with me now the song of war criminals “0 say can you see, by the dawns early light….”.
My country was one of those colonized by Japan, and if it hadn’t been for those bombs we might still be under their control. I don’t think most people, especially in the West, fully understand how brutal and evil Imperial Japan was. They were comparable to those of the Nazis and resulted in an even higher death toll, experiments, torture and rape. Yet for some reason this part of history isn’t discussed as openly.
I feel deep sorrow for the innocent lives lost in the bombings, but far more innocent lives were lost because of Imperial Japan’s actions. And I say this as someone who genuinely loves Japan and its culture.
This👆
I'm pretty sure that six million Jews would disagree about Japan causing a higher death toll.
Japan had been a colonial power since the Meiji restoration in the late 1800s dawg, their nationalistic colonial ass government was probably responsible for more deaths overall- but it doesn’t really matter. We nuked them because of their mentality moreso than their military might from what I understand.
Also Japan killed between 14 and 20 million Chinese people, google it
It's estimated Stalin's regime and policies killed anywhere from 6 to 20 million or maybe more.
Didn't Charles Leighy one of the Navy men who gave the O.K. for the bombing change his mind layer in life and say the bombs weren't necessary because he believes Japan would have surrendered due to a northern Soviet threat.
That has been the US line for decades. I disagree with it. Their strategic situation was bad they were facing a blockade in the main island and a quickly collapsing front in China.
Don’t really need to fight an enemy that’s ran out of oil and blockaded on an island but such a blockade would cause a lot of starvation.
But Japan was close to surrender anyway, I tend to go with the idea they used the bombs more as a massive show of force to the soviets and to get a deal quicker to prevent the Soviet’s from being in a better position when the war did end.
The idea Japan needed to be bombed into submission some what comes from the idea that any side gives in from bombing alone this is an idea a lot of the airforce has and the US military has but is generally untrue but this is more of a tangent.
No.
Okinawa was the small scale test run which included blockade/encirclement. Okinawa ended up a horror show and Truman had no reason to believe the invasion of the mainland would be anything other than orders of magnitude worse.
The bombs were used in a desperate attempt to shock the Japanese government.
That is the simplest explanation.
Had Japan not surrendered, Kokura would have been destroyed with the third shot and if that failed, then the US and UK would have proceeded in conducting a massive strategic bombing campaign with incendiaries.
This is not an unpopular opinion at all
Not really unpopular, it was a horrible choice that Truman had to make. Also the last sentence you mean to say mitigate not migrate
Were the Japanese already engaged in surrender negotiations? I think the sticking point was the role of the Emporer in post war Japan.
In a world where human rights don’t matter, sure
r/humanrights
There you go!
This is what I learned in school. It helped me be less horrified by the vaporization of 200,000 people - far more humans than I will meet in my entire life - in a moment. It helped me believe that the United States government was not irreparably evil for having committed this act.
It may not have been necessary but it was effective. Lot of nut jobs on here who think they have the answers to everything
I don’t think you’re aware of the importance of pre-hiroshima steel
In terms of the morality and casualties I agree (and most dentists do these days) that dropping those bombs may well have been the best of bad choices. But the world will literally never be the same again.
This is not a 10th dentist opinion lol
What people like to leave out of this story, is that the war was already lost, and Hitler was dead.
Due to the Japanese culture it would be a great dishonor for them to surrender. So it's was a tough obstacle to overcome.
But let's also be real. Why was there a need for a land invasion if Nato had already won.
The reasoning behind this would be like Russia nuking Ukraine to "save lives".
I think the belief that the ends justify the means is the most succinct definition of evil I know of
There’s an argument for “at the time, given the information the Americans had, it could be a reasonable conclusion that the atomic bombings were the best way to end the war.”
Given what we know now with hindsight, the Nagasaki bombing is 0% justified as we now know that Japan was preparing to surrender after Hiroshima. Hiroshima is still debatable.
*before Russia joined the eastern front forcing the United States to split territory like in Germany.
whatever you have to tell yourself to justify incinerating 10,000 children in an instantaneous flash of light bro
e: like it’s pretty arguably one of the most evil single instantaneous actions in the history of our species lol
The atrocities perpetrated against Chinese civilians by the Japanese, while not instantaneous, were arguably way more evil. 10-20 million dead.
What connection do they have to the atomic bombs?
Seriously? Well I’m sure the Chinese civilian population was in favor of a quick Japanese surrender for one.
Korea was invaded in 1910, and China in 1937. the atomic bombs were revenge for attacks on America’s own colonial possessions in the sandwich islands and the Philippines. the us did not give one single fuck about ‘chinamen’ being killed, and it is an insult (and revisionist) to claim otherwise
Whether they cared or not is irrelevant, it’s just one example that showed the ruthlessness of the Japanese army at the time, which is a reason the U.S. wanted to avoid a land invasion. Revenge played a role too I’m sure, as did the U.S. wanting to project their power to the world, etc
This is the part about politics that everyone claims to know everything about— Tough decisions need to be made and this was one of those decisions, and while it sucks so many civilians died, it may have been for the best. We will never know because we can’t go back in time, the only thing you can do is consider what the alternative could’ve been and come to terms with what actually happened.
Whatever you have to tell yourself bro
Is that worse than siding with the country that killed 6 million Jews?
anti-comintern pact was 1936 and tripartite pact was 1940.
Yeah, I’m sure that if the USA and Japan were to invade each other it won’t result in tens of thousands of civilian deaths
a negotiated conditional surrender would have saved even more lives. in what situation now should they be used? if Putin could end the war on Ukraine now with nuclear weapons, and immediately end the slaughter of three years in one fell swoop, should he do so?
That the japs weren't interested in. Even after the 2 a-bombs where the japanese decided to surrender there was still a coup in that moment to prevent them from surrendering.
Putin is the one that started the Ukranian war. The Japanese are the ones that started theirs. In your example it would be the Ukranians with the a-bomba. And if the japanese didn't like having their ass handed to them then they should have thought about that twice before invading and massacring a huge chunk of Asia.
I guess you forgot that the allies did agree to a conditional surrender when they agreed to allow Emperor Hirohito to remain in power. I think you also forgot that the total casualty estimate for Operation Downfall was a million and a half dead and wounded. Given how fanatical the Japanese fighting had become by that point in the war, that casualty figure was a very real possibility. How would you have justified not using the atomic bomb, potentially resulting in the war lasting at least another year? How would you justify it to the families of the thousands of soldiers that would be dead because of the invasion?
The allies agreed at Casablanca to accept nothing but unconditional surrender
That's true. The allies did agree on accepting nothing less than unconditional surrender. The conditional surrender of Japan came one month after the Postdam Declaration, which was specifically aimed at Japanese surrender.
Oh yeah sureee, Japan would definitely sign an unconditional surrender with the US, IN FACT, the kamikaze pilots themselves would sign!
Best history ragebait I had seen
conditional, not unconditional.
Just casualties of war
Japan didn’t surrender because of the bombs….. they surrendered because the Stalin was finished in Germany and had been amassing the entirety of the Red Army in the Vladivostok region in preparation for an invasion of Japan in which the Soviet troops would have pillaged their way across what was left of Japan with a ruthlessness that US forces wouldn’t have been capable or willing to engage in. Unconditional surrender to the US was a far more favorable choice than the latter. Conventional fire bombings of Japanese cities did more damage and caused more casualties than the a-bombs did. The whole “Japan surrendered to the US after the bomb” thing just sounds better to the Japanese and the US government for a long list of reasons. Better yet, Truman didn’t even need to drop the bombs, Japan has already agreed to surrender with two, extremely minor terms, one being that they leave their Emperor alive and I can’t remember the second, but it was wildly insignificant. Truman just wanted to be a tough guy and scare the world into thinking America was the country that can’t be messed with cuz we alone had the bomb. Certainly not expecting Manhattan Project scientists to ALREADY be in contact with Soviet officials slowly leaking the tech and info needed for the Soviets to join the US as a nuclear power within 4 years of the wars end.
The Soviets came in at the end and didn’t do much, as the Japanese in Manchuria were literally stuck there, as the US had taken control of the sea.
Best option for many perhaps. But it was the slaughter and harming of manu innocent civilian lives.
Such evil can't be justified.
9th dentist