4 ms·
I mean, if the U.S. had not created the nuclear bomb, odds are high that Germany would have. At the same time, the U.S. was prepared to do a full invasion of Ja
by Cshelton 10y ago
I mean, if the U.S. had not created the nuclear bomb, odds are high that Germany would have. At the same time, the U.S. was prepared to do a full invasion of Japan with 250,000 troops, expected casualties at 100,000 U.S. troops. My grandfather was on a boat off the coast of Japan when the bombs dropped. I may not be here now if we did not drop the bombs. I know it's all relative, as somebody would be here today that is not in Japan. But still.
I tend to blame human nature for the destruction of our own selves, not the weapons we do it with. One way another, humans will kill each other, nuclear or not.
- saagarjha 10y agoNot a history expert by any means, but didn't Germany basically drive away all the scientists that could have worked on the bomb?
- rangibaby 10y agoYes, and the war in Europe ended before the Germans built a bomb (they were trying, but had not made much progress), and like you said many of their best minds were in the US. I think in a situation where the Americans didn't build an A bomb then no one would have for some time. Would it have made a difference to our world now? It's hard to tell, but the Soviets certainly would have taken more Japanese territory than they did in our timeline. My opinion was Stalin was too pragmatic to start WWIII, Before and after WWII he only provided limited support to Soviet-aligned groups (see: post-war France and the Spanish or Greek civil wars) in other part of the world to avoid antagonizing the west too much. The real answer is, who knows?
- omarchowdhury 10y agoI read yesterday that the estimated cost of invading Japan would be 1M US casualties.
- chillingeffect 10y agoThat's an often-repeated and far from conclusive statement used to justify dropping the bomb to gain a temporary (it's crumbling now) international advantage. Check out Oliver Stone's Untold History [1], or many other history sources for various opinions. There is considerable debate about it.[2] In reality, the Japanese were on the verge of surrender. The U.S. had badly firebombed Japan, burning hundreds of thousands of people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untold_History_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untold_History_of_the_Unit... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan
- omarchowdhury 10y agoYeah. They could have also dropped the nukes into the ocean. Surely that would have forced surrender without the loss of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- CamperBob2 10y agoConsidering that we had to nuke two actual cities to get them to surrender, how many bombs would we have had to drop in the ocean to achieve the same effect? I don't know about you, but I'd only have to be nuked once before I'd run up the proverbial white flag.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- walshemj 10y agoNot really when the "peace" party's plan was to cause horrific casualties when the allies invaded to get a negotiated. I don't think there was much chance of Japanese surrender without an actual invasion
- emmelaich 10y agoIt not only saved Allied troops but it saved a lot of Japanese civilians and soldiers. Also it saved a lot of prisoners of war from a cruel death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war#Empire_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war#Empire_of_Japa...
- walshemj 10y agoI think 100,000 allied casualties is a low estimate the generals told the president that the invasion would have 85% wastage for the first 5 or so waves ashore.