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It's not generally a good idea to take contemporaneous sources out of context and uncritically. USSBS was basically the same people who had been advocating mass

It's not generally a good idea to take contemporaneous sources out of context and uncritically. USSBS was basically the same people who had been advocating massive strategic bombing the entire war writing up a report on how effective their own efforts had been. They're not going to come out and say "Yeah, we achieved nothing in Japan and it was only the nukes or Soviets that had any effect". That's not to say the report is useless, just read things more critically. Whether the bombs were the sole-cause of the surrender is a rather different discussion, and one I understand few historians would argue. It seems difficult to argue that they had no effect given that we now have records of what Japanese leadership was discussing at the time and atomics feature prominently, alongside the soviet invasion. That's why the whole consensus school thing exists, because neither was obviously definitive.

myrmidon 5y ago
> It's not generally a good idea to take contemporaneous sources out of context and uncritically Sure. But to be fair-- there were tons of civilian experts involved that had no great personal stake; It's not like it was written by arms manufacturer lobbyists or generals personally involved in past decision making. And I'm mostly missing strong fact-based counterarguments, so my personal opinion is going to remain that the atomic bombings probably expedited Japans surrender, but were not necessary (nor would a ground invasion have been).
- mcguire 5y ago
  That quote is taken from the Summary Report (https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0020_SPANGRUD_STRATEGIC_BOMBING_SURVEYS.pdf https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_..., page 107). It (almost) literally ends: "The experience of the Pacific war supports the findings of the Survey in Europe that heavy, sustained and accurate attack against carefully selected targets is required to produce decisive results when attacking an enemy's sustaining resources . It further supports the findings in Germany that no nation can long survive the free exploitation of air weapons over its homeland . For the future it is important fully to grasp the fact that enemy planes enjoying control of the sky over one's head can be as disastrous to one's country as its occupation by physical invasion." It does literally end with a call to separate the Army Air Forces from the Army. I haven't found a copy of the whole report, including the hundreds of individual reports, but I've been given to understand that they are thorough, detailed, and contradictory.

myrmidon 5y ago

> It's not generally a good idea to take contemporaneous sources out of context and uncritically Sure. But to be fair-- there were tons of civilian experts involved that had no great personal stake; It's not like it was written by arms manufacturer lobbyists or generals personally involved in past decision making. And I'm mostly missing strong fact-based counterarguments, so my personal opinion is going to remain that the atomic bombings probably expedited Japans surrender, but were not necessary (nor would a ground invasion have been).

mcguire 5y ago
That quote is taken from the Summary Report (https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0020_SPANGRUD_STRATEGIC_BOMBING_SURVEYS.pdf https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_..., page 107). It (almost) literally ends: "The experience of the Pacific war supports the findings of the Survey in Europe that heavy, sustained and accurate attack against carefully selected targets is required to produce decisive results when attacking an enemy's sustaining resources . It further supports the findings in Germany that no nation can long survive the free exploitation of air weapons over its homeland . For the future it is important fully to grasp the fact that enemy planes enjoying control of the sky over one's head can be as disastrous to one's country as its occupation by physical invasion." It does literally end with a call to separate the Army Air Forces from the Army. I haven't found a copy of the whole report, including the hundreds of individual reports, but I've been given to understand that they are thorough, detailed, and contradictory.