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After the Germans surrendered my dad's division was scheduled to be transferred to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. At least that is what they were told.

by skh 8y ago

After the Germans surrendered my dad's division was scheduled to be transferred to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. At least that is what they were told. He was happy to hear of the bombings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima since from his perspective it caused the Japanese to surrender. Of course it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan. Politically the U.S. has not been a nation to stomach large numbers of its soldiers being killed. The actions on Iwo Jima and Okinawa were far more bloody than the public cared for. How many more such battles would a war weary public have endured? Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets but they were political targets. I don't know if the bombings were morally right or wrong and can see the argument both ways. But from at least one drafted soldier's perspective they were a good thing.

gandhium 8y ago
> it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan They were specifically mentioned in emperor's address. Yes, they caused the surrender. > Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets They were military targets. There was army HQ, troops stationed there, factories which were producing military goods.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Citing the Emperor's address as evidence isn't a great idea. It contains plenty of demonstrably false statements, like this: > Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.
  - gandhium 8y ago
    If you're cherry-pick anything, you will find plenty of demonstrably false statements anywhere.
- avn2109 8y ago
  >> "Yes, they caused the surrender." Broadly speaking, this is widely regarded amongst historians as not true at all, though most American schoolchildren are still taught it. Mostly this is because American conventional airpower was so overwhelming in Japan that its effects were substantially interchangeable with the bomb. Before the atomic bombings, Secretary of War Henry Stimson (who chose Hiroshima and Nagasaki as targets) mentioned that America had literally run out of targets to (conventionally) bomb in Japan [0]. A more detailed summary of the "Bomb didn't cause surrender" argument is given in [1]. [0] http://www.doug-long.com/stimson5.htm http://www.doug-long.com/stimson5.htm , ctrl-F for "I was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon [the atomic bomb] would not have a fair background to show its strength." [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-jap...
  - iguy 8y ago
    "its effects were substantially interchangeable with the bomb" Yes, its military effects. (And humanitarian effects.) But no, in political effect. If "war is politics carried on by other means" and the goal was to defeat Japanese Fascism, then you had to make sure it couldn't come back from the dead after a grudging surrender. That was IMHO the main lesson of Versailles. And it worked.
    - skh 8y ago
      I think this is the part that people miss when discussing the nuclear attacks. It’s purpose was not tactical or military. It was a political purpose.
      - krapp 8y ago
        >. It’s purpose was not tactical or military. It was a political purpose. When people debate this issue, I find they tend to resort to a reductionist view of history and the players involved in order to justify their personal views of the US. The degree to which one is opposed to American cultural imperialism and military hegemony, or believes the US to be an evil state, tends to be the degree to which one believes the bombings had a nefarious purpose, or an ulterior motive. The whole thing has become a Rashomon style play of contradictory truths, except no one insisting on the order of events, motives or naming the culprit was actually there. It seems more likely to me than not that the bombings didn't have only that one explicit purpose to the exclusion of the others, just as it seems unlikely to me that the bombings were either absolutely responsible or absolutely irrelevant to Japan's surrender.
- gmueckl 8y ago
  I was going to say that considering an entire city as a contiguous military target is a war crime. However, a quick search makes me doubt that such a provision was part of any relevant treaty in 1945. Massive bombings were inconveivable when the second Hague Convention was signed in 1907.
porpoisely 8y ago
It isn't debatable because we know hiroshima and nagasaki had no bearing on the japanese decision to surrender. If the nukes were the cause of japan's surrender, hiroshima would have been enough and nagasaki wouldn't have happened. Also, there is no ambiguity to the morality of hiroshima or nagasaki. No more than there is any ambiguity to the morality of nazi death camps. They were both racially driven war crimes and crimes against humanity. And as mcnamara said, if we had lost the war, our leaders would have been executed for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
- skadamou 8y ago
  >...we know hiroshima and nagasaki had no bearing on the japanese decision to surrender. I think this is an interesting idea but I would love to see a source on this. When I took a Japan at War class in college our professor seemed to be of the opinion that using the atom bomb was what finally convinced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally but that they would have agreed to a conditional surrender as long as their emperor was guaranteed some form of independence. What are your thoughts on this?
  - avn2109 8y ago
    I'm not the parent but I wrote a comment about this elsewhere in the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19115219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19115219 and another similar comment previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10485563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10485563
  - deogeo 8y ago
    avn2109 gave some sources in another comment - let me add one more: https://mises.org/wire/atomic-bombing-japan-reconsidered https://mises.org/wire/atomic-bombing-japan-reconsidered
  - jpfr 8y ago
    That is the justification for the bomb for the American public. Many Japanese cities (sixty-ish) were destroyed by traditional firebombing. For the Japanese, Hiroshima and Nagasaki simply meant "two more cities". Two days after Hiroshima, Russia declared war against Japan. So their strategic position in the war became hopeless. Historians believe Russia entering the war shaped the surrender much more than the atomic bomb. https://nationalpost.com/news/did-the-atomic-bombings-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-really-end-the-war https://nationalpost.com/news/did-the-atomic-bombings-of-hir...
chris_mc 8y ago
>I don't know if the bombings were morally right or wrong and can see the argument both ways. But from at least one drafted soldier's perspective they were a good thing. Soldiers volunteer to fight a war, civilians don't. If the Japanese had bombed LA, we wouldn't be having this conversation, every American would understand why this was morally wrong.
- skh 8y ago
  The question isn’t whether Americans would unambiguously view a fire bombing of LA as morally wrong. The question is would the Japanese view it as morally wrong? Of course the victims view it as wrong. Would the offenders?
  - chris_mc 8y ago
    That's not the question, the question is "was it morally wrong to drop the nukes?" My position, based on my classes on the rule of law in warfare from a US service academy, is that civilians are an illegal target for the military and using a nuke on several hundred thousand people to take out a handful of industry is definitely outside of acts of legal warfare. It's different to target a manufacturing facility directly, even with civilians inside. So, this isn't an argument, my position is the correct one. Even a US service academy teaches its officer candidates that the nukes were objectively wrong. The lives of civilians are more sacred than the lives of soldiers during wartime, legally.
    - skh 8y ago
      The answer to the question of the morality of the bombing at least in part depends on whether one is a victim or perpetrator. You correctly stated that Americans would consider a fire bombing of Los Angeles to be morally wrong. From the viewpoint of the victim it's not hard to view such an act as morally wrong. From the perspective of the perpetrator it's not so clear cut. So, this isn't an argument, my position is the correct one. I did not know your view of the morality of this bombing was the only one that matters. Apparently far too many people are wrong on this issue then. Even a US service academy teaches its officer candidates that the nukes were objectively wrong. The lives of civilians are more sacred than the lives of soldiers during wartime, legally. Apparently our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan did not get the message. Of course, the perspective taught in West Point today was not the one taught in West Point in 1945. It was not the viewpoint of Army Air Force commanders either during WWII. What is deemed moral is culture and time dependent. Hence some people - myself included - think it only proper to at least consider the views and knowledge of the people at the time the decisions are made. Since you have deemed yourself correct on this issue there isn't a point in discussion I suppose. Nothing I say can cause you to question anything on this matter. I will read any response you wish to give since I'm not so certain about my position.

by skh 8y ago

gandhium 8y ago

> it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan They were specifically mentioned in emperor's address. Yes, they caused the surrender. > Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets They were military targets. There was army HQ, troops stationed there, factories which were producing military goods.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ceejayoz 8y ago
Citing the Emperor's address as evidence isn't a great idea. It contains plenty of demonstrably false statements, like this: > Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.
- gandhium 8y ago
  If you're cherry-pick anything, you will find plenty of demonstrably false statements anywhere.
avn2109 8y ago
>> "Yes, they caused the surrender." Broadly speaking, this is widely regarded amongst historians as not true at all, though most American schoolchildren are still taught it. Mostly this is because American conventional airpower was so overwhelming in Japan that its effects were substantially interchangeable with the bomb. Before the atomic bombings, Secretary of War Henry Stimson (who chose Hiroshima and Nagasaki as targets) mentioned that America had literally run out of targets to (conventionally) bomb in Japan [0]. A more detailed summary of the "Bomb didn't cause surrender" argument is given in [1]. [0] http://www.doug-long.com/stimson5.htm http://www.doug-long.com/stimson5.htm , ctrl-F for "I was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon [the atomic bomb] would not have a fair background to show its strength." [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-jap...
- iguy 8y ago
  "its effects were substantially interchangeable with the bomb" Yes, its military effects. (And humanitarian effects.) But no, in political effect. If "war is politics carried on by other means" and the goal was to defeat Japanese Fascism, then you had to make sure it couldn't come back from the dead after a grudging surrender. That was IMHO the main lesson of Versailles. And it worked.
  - skh 8y ago
    I think this is the part that people miss when discussing the nuclear attacks. It’s purpose was not tactical or military. It was a political purpose.
    - krapp 8y ago
      >. It’s purpose was not tactical or military. It was a political purpose. When people debate this issue, I find they tend to resort to a reductionist view of history and the players involved in order to justify their personal views of the US. The degree to which one is opposed to American cultural imperialism and military hegemony, or believes the US to be an evil state, tends to be the degree to which one believes the bombings had a nefarious purpose, or an ulterior motive. The whole thing has become a Rashomon style play of contradictory truths, except no one insisting on the order of events, motives or naming the culprit was actually there. It seems more likely to me than not that the bombings didn't have only that one explicit purpose to the exclusion of the others, just as it seems unlikely to me that the bombings were either absolutely responsible or absolutely irrelevant to Japan's surrender.
gmueckl 8y ago
I was going to say that considering an entire city as a contiguous military target is a war crime. However, a quick search makes me doubt that such a provision was part of any relevant treaty in 1945. Massive bombings were inconveivable when the second Hague Convention was signed in 1907.

porpoisely 8y ago

It isn't debatable because we know hiroshima and nagasaki had no bearing on the japanese decision to surrender. If the nukes were the cause of japan's surrender, hiroshima would have been enough and nagasaki wouldn't have happened. Also, there is no ambiguity to the morality of hiroshima or nagasaki. No more than there is any ambiguity to the morality of nazi death camps. They were both racially driven war crimes and crimes against humanity. And as mcnamara said, if we had lost the war, our leaders would have been executed for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

skadamou 8y ago
>...we know hiroshima and nagasaki had no bearing on the japanese decision to surrender. I think this is an interesting idea but I would love to see a source on this. When I took a Japan at War class in college our professor seemed to be of the opinion that using the atom bomb was what finally convinced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally but that they would have agreed to a conditional surrender as long as their emperor was guaranteed some form of independence. What are your thoughts on this?
- avn2109 8y ago
  I'm not the parent but I wrote a comment about this elsewhere in the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19115219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19115219 and another similar comment previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10485563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10485563
- deogeo 8y ago
  avn2109 gave some sources in another comment - let me add one more: https://mises.org/wire/atomic-bombing-japan-reconsidered https://mises.org/wire/atomic-bombing-japan-reconsidered
- jpfr 8y ago
  That is the justification for the bomb for the American public. Many Japanese cities (sixty-ish) were destroyed by traditional firebombing. For the Japanese, Hiroshima and Nagasaki simply meant "two more cities". Two days after Hiroshima, Russia declared war against Japan. So their strategic position in the war became hopeless. Historians believe Russia entering the war shaped the surrender much more than the atomic bomb. https://nationalpost.com/news/did-the-atomic-bombings-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-really-end-the-war https://nationalpost.com/news/did-the-atomic-bombings-of-hir...

chris_mc 8y ago

>I don't know if the bombings were morally right or wrong and can see the argument both ways. But from at least one drafted soldier's perspective they were a good thing. Soldiers volunteer to fight a war, civilians don't. If the Japanese had bombed LA, we wouldn't be having this conversation, every American would understand why this was morally wrong.

skh 8y ago
The question isn’t whether Americans would unambiguously view a fire bombing of LA as morally wrong. The question is would the Japanese view it as morally wrong? Of course the victims view it as wrong. Would the offenders?
- chris_mc 8y ago
  That's not the question, the question is "was it morally wrong to drop the nukes?" My position, based on my classes on the rule of law in warfare from a US service academy, is that civilians are an illegal target for the military and using a nuke on several hundred thousand people to take out a handful of industry is definitely outside of acts of legal warfare. It's different to target a manufacturing facility directly, even with civilians inside. So, this isn't an argument, my position is the correct one. Even a US service academy teaches its officer candidates that the nukes were objectively wrong. The lives of civilians are more sacred than the lives of soldiers during wartime, legally.
  - skh 8y ago
    The answer to the question of the morality of the bombing at least in part depends on whether one is a victim or perpetrator. You correctly stated that Americans would consider a fire bombing of Los Angeles to be morally wrong. From the viewpoint of the victim it's not hard to view such an act as morally wrong. From the perspective of the perpetrator it's not so clear cut. So, this isn't an argument, my position is the correct one. I did not know your view of the morality of this bombing was the only one that matters. Apparently far too many people are wrong on this issue then. Even a US service academy teaches its officer candidates that the nukes were objectively wrong. The lives of civilians are more sacred than the lives of soldiers during wartime, legally. Apparently our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan did not get the message. Of course, the perspective taught in West Point today was not the one taught in West Point in 1945. It was not the viewpoint of Army Air Force commanders either during WWII. What is deemed moral is culture and time dependent. Hence some people - myself included - think it only proper to at least consider the views and knowledge of the people at the time the decisions are made. Since you have deemed yourself correct on this issue there isn't a point in discussion I suppose. Nothing I say can cause you to question anything on this matter. I will read any response you wish to give since I'm not so certain about my position.