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I am not the only one who believes that in the long term the atomic bombs saved millions of Japanese lives. You can believe that if you want of course - but it

by vanusa 5y ago

I am not the only one who believes that in the long term the atomic bombs saved millions of Japanese lives. You can believe that if you want of course - but it seems simplistic at best to ignore other factors, such as the planned Soviet entry into the war on August 15. And some believe even that wouldn't have been necessary: Asked in 1945 for his opinion on dropping the atomic bomb, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower replied: “I was against it on two counts. First the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.” Fleet Admiral William Leahy, chief of staff to both Roosevelt and Truman, flatly declared that “the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.” Even the official US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded unequivocally that “Japan would have surrendered if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

caycep 5y ago
Also, history written by the victors...convenient to convey Curtis Lemay as a war hero vs. a war criminal that signed off on a raid designed to purposefully incinerate civilians. Whose ethnicity were constantly dehumanized as part of the psy-ops of conducting the war...
- dralley 5y ago
  History is not necessarily written by the victors, fwiw. Victors frequently end up too busy running the government to write history books whereas the losers sometimes end up with a lot of free time and motivation. See: Lots of pro-Confederate "history", lots of history from ancient times
  - caycep 5y ago
    "frequently" yes...but with the Pacific theater histories - most of what I've seen and also what's being quoted in the arguments below re "Would Japan have surrendered without the A bomb" are from books by primarily American or British historians, or even the Pentagon's own internal study. This is one conflict where I am not seeing a ton of Japanese academia weighing in. Why, who knows - maybe it isn't a hot topic for current academic research, maybe because of language barriers, engrained biases, etc, (maybe are a lot more Japanese academic works in Japan itself, but not getting a lot of traction here, who knows...) To whit, a lot of the quotes being thrown around to support the "Japan would have never surrendered without the A-bomb" seem(at least on my reading) to suggest there was a lot more debate amongst the civilian and military (Japan AND US Navy) higher ups that were assumed at the time, and who knows what would have happened had more diplomatic measures been tried?
    - dralley 5y ago
      I don't get the sense that Japan is, culturally, particularly interested in studying or publishing their WWII history.
major505 5y ago
Considering that the Japanese where ready for full scale war against a US invasion, even using old people and children against the invaders... I can't alse even imagine the scale of bloodshed that an amphibian landing in the style of Normandy would cost in dead soldiers for a territory the size of japan. It was also a great bluff for the Americans, because after they used where able to produce 4 bombs. They tested on in the desert, droped 2 in japan they got only one left after that they where saving to clean the beaches for a possible invasion.
- ble 5y ago
  What evidence is there, other than propaganda on both sides, that the Japanese were ready to use old people and children in a military defense?
  - brimble 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Military_use_of_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Military_use... Also, Germany did something very similar near the end of the war, as they got desperate for manpower and fighting moved into their own territory. [EDIT] Oh, and see farther down the page for, "Civilian losses, suicides, and atrocities". The lived experience of Okinawa (one of only a couple "home" territories for Japan that the US invaded before the bombs) was surely part of why so many expected an invasion of Japan to be a bitter, horrifying bloodbath.
    - vanusa 5y ago
      If anything, when a country signals their willingness to use their children and grandparents as canon fodder -- it shows how close to collapse they really are (and that they know they are very close to collapse).
    - ble 5y ago
      Read a little further down and the description has a different character: the Imperial Japanese Army showed, at best, an indifference to the lives of Japanese and indigenous civilians in Okinawa. Worse than the indifference, they propagandized civilians to believe that the Americans would rape, murder, and torture them and encouraged them to commit suicide or to launch suicide attacks and otherwise tried to maneuver civilians into harm's way. At the time it probably did look like civilians were being turned into defensive soldiers- in the fullness of time, I think it looks more like a desperate and cruel army brutalizing a civilian population, sometimes pushing them into harm's way. I'd also presume that the treatment of the civilian population was worse for indigenous Okinawans-- maybe even today Okinawans can find themselves treated as 'not real Japanese'. It's been a while since I read 'Embracing Defeat' but I recall its summary of the state of Japan towards the end of the war and a lecturer saying, in effect, that nobody had to invade Japan to cause the deaths of millions, the supply chain (Asian mainland colonies collapsing) / labor (men at all near military age gone to war and many of them dead or captured) / agricultural situation was so dire that the U.S. could have set a blockade and millions of Japanese would have died with 0 fighting. The counter-argument to the necessity of the bombs is basically that the U.S. knew Japan could not effectively resist and though the U.S. might not have had a way of guessing, the highest levels of Japanese government were already in the process of discussing when and how to surrender right around the time the bombs were dropped. IIRC about the emperor's message of surrender, the bombs may have made it easier for the emperor to preserve face when surrendering, as such weapons make it easier to justify a surrender as a positive action.
deeg 5y ago
Ending the war before the Soviets got seriously involved was another ways the bombs saved Japanese lives. Stalin would have demanded that Japan be divided just like Germany. How many would have died at the hands of an Asian Stasi? Dropping the bombs was a terrible thing but war is even more terrible.
golergka 5y ago
Don't you think that these quotes shouldn't be taken at face value, given that these officers could intend to maintain a public image? Who knows, may be some of those quoted here even dreamed about a political career after their military service.
throw0101a 5y ago
> And some believe even that wouldn't have been necessary: Those people would be wrong as the historical record shows: > The Japanese Army and Navy had their own independent atomic-bomb programs and therefore the Japanese understood enough to know how very difficult building it would be. Therefore, many Japanese and in particular the military members of the government refused to believe the United States had built an atomic bomb, and the Japanese military ordered their own independent tests to determine the cause of Hiroshima's destruction.[84] Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, argued that even if the United States had made one, they could not have many more.[85] American strategists, having anticipated a reaction like Toyoda's, planned to drop a second bomb shortly after the first, to convince the Japanese that the U.S. had a large supply.[61][86] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#Hiroshima,_Manchuria,_and_Nagasaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#Hiroshima,_... Even after the second bomb there was still some disagreement: > In the middle of the meeting, shortly after 11:00, news arrived that Nagasaki, on the west coast of Kyūshū, had been hit by a second atomic bomb (called "Fat Man" by the United States). By the time the meeting ended, the Big Six had split 3–3. Suzuki, Tōgō, and Admiral Yonai favored Tōgō's one additional condition to Potsdam, while General Anami, General Umezu, and Admiral Toyoda insisted on three further terms that modified Potsdam: that Japan handle their own disarmament, that Japan deal with any Japanese war criminals, and that there be no occupation of Japan.[96] * Ibid The Japanese government were still split on how to proceed after two atomic bombs were dropped. They were willing to stop fighting but only under their terms. If Germany was willing to stop fighting, but only if Hitler and the Nazis were allowed to stay in power (and keep a bunch of territory, etc), would that have been acceptable? Because that's basically what the Japanese were asking for.
- adventured 5y ago
  Indeed the conflict (in favor of continuing the war after the nukes) within Japan's government was so widespread that literally right up to the arrival of MacArthur there was an intense effort internally by Japan to put down a constant bubbling of coup efforts from the military, which wanted to keep fighting to the last man (Hirohito in his famous broadcast to the people of Japan recognized those emotions and asked the people to suppress them). The Japanese people often also had no idea just how poorly their military was faring toward the end, they didn't know they were clearly doomed to lose (which only added to the cultural resistance to capitulation). And it's important to note that their military was by far the most powerful faction of the government, as such it held enormous sway as to whether the war continued or not. People that pretend Japan was going to surrender without the nukes (they barely surrendered with the nukes), are either liar apologists (America bad) or extraordinarily ignorant of what actually happened (they should read a book rather than regurgitating Reddit propaganda).
missedthecue 5y ago
The Soviets would not have been able to make a meaningful entry to the war in Japan at that time. Firstly because almost all of their armed forces were in Europe and secondly because they didn't have a pacific fleet. Just for context, the invasion of the island of Okinawa just weeks prior had consisted of more than 1,600 allied ships. Japan would have to be a much larger task. Where were the Soviets going to get thousands of ships?
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  The Japanese empire extended into mainland east Asia at the time. There’s no reason why the soviets couldn’t have made meaningful entry into the war against Japan through Manchuria and the Korea peninsula.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    They had already done that. At that point, Japan didn't care a whole lot about those territories. The IJN barely bothered to make a defense and the Japanese Imperial Navy opted out entirely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria
    - wbsss4412 5y ago
      Well, that’s what I meant. I didn’t realize that you didn’t consider invasion of Japanese territory to be a significant entry into the war.
      - missedthecue 5y ago
        Japan wanted to defend the home island, and if it weren't for the threat of continued nuclear annihilation, they would have. This means either the Soviets would have to figure out a way to launch and maintain an amphibious assault, or they would have to sit on the sidelines.
        5y ago

by vanusa 5y ago

caycep 5y ago

Also, history written by the victors...convenient to convey Curtis Lemay as a war hero vs. a war criminal that signed off on a raid designed to purposefully incinerate civilians. Whose ethnicity were constantly dehumanized as part of the psy-ops of conducting the war...

dralley 5y ago
History is not necessarily written by the victors, fwiw. Victors frequently end up too busy running the government to write history books whereas the losers sometimes end up with a lot of free time and motivation. See: Lots of pro-Confederate "history", lots of history from ancient times
- caycep 5y ago
  "frequently" yes...but with the Pacific theater histories - most of what I've seen and also what's being quoted in the arguments below re "Would Japan have surrendered without the A bomb" are from books by primarily American or British historians, or even the Pentagon's own internal study. This is one conflict where I am not seeing a ton of Japanese academia weighing in. Why, who knows - maybe it isn't a hot topic for current academic research, maybe because of language barriers, engrained biases, etc, (maybe are a lot more Japanese academic works in Japan itself, but not getting a lot of traction here, who knows...) To whit, a lot of the quotes being thrown around to support the "Japan would have never surrendered without the A-bomb" seem(at least on my reading) to suggest there was a lot more debate amongst the civilian and military (Japan AND US Navy) higher ups that were assumed at the time, and who knows what would have happened had more diplomatic measures been tried?
  - dralley 5y ago
    I don't get the sense that Japan is, culturally, particularly interested in studying or publishing their WWII history.

major505 5y ago

Considering that the Japanese where ready for full scale war against a US invasion, even using old people and children against the invaders... I can't alse even imagine the scale of bloodshed that an amphibian landing in the style of Normandy would cost in dead soldiers for a territory the size of japan. It was also a great bluff for the Americans, because after they used where able to produce 4 bombs. They tested on in the desert, droped 2 in japan they got only one left after that they where saving to clean the beaches for a possible invasion.

ble 5y ago
What evidence is there, other than propaganda on both sides, that the Japanese were ready to use old people and children in a military defense?
- brimble 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Military_use_of_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Military_use... Also, Germany did something very similar near the end of the war, as they got desperate for manpower and fighting moved into their own territory. [EDIT] Oh, and see farther down the page for, "Civilian losses, suicides, and atrocities". The lived experience of Okinawa (one of only a couple "home" territories for Japan that the US invaded before the bombs) was surely part of why so many expected an invasion of Japan to be a bitter, horrifying bloodbath.
  - vanusa 5y ago
    If anything, when a country signals their willingness to use their children and grandparents as canon fodder -- it shows how close to collapse they really are (and that they know they are very close to collapse).
  - ble 5y ago
    Read a little further down and the description has a different character: the Imperial Japanese Army showed, at best, an indifference to the lives of Japanese and indigenous civilians in Okinawa. Worse than the indifference, they propagandized civilians to believe that the Americans would rape, murder, and torture them and encouraged them to commit suicide or to launch suicide attacks and otherwise tried to maneuver civilians into harm's way. At the time it probably did look like civilians were being turned into defensive soldiers- in the fullness of time, I think it looks more like a desperate and cruel army brutalizing a civilian population, sometimes pushing them into harm's way. I'd also presume that the treatment of the civilian population was worse for indigenous Okinawans-- maybe even today Okinawans can find themselves treated as 'not real Japanese'. It's been a while since I read 'Embracing Defeat' but I recall its summary of the state of Japan towards the end of the war and a lecturer saying, in effect, that nobody had to invade Japan to cause the deaths of millions, the supply chain (Asian mainland colonies collapsing) / labor (men at all near military age gone to war and many of them dead or captured) / agricultural situation was so dire that the U.S. could have set a blockade and millions of Japanese would have died with 0 fighting. The counter-argument to the necessity of the bombs is basically that the U.S. knew Japan could not effectively resist and though the U.S. might not have had a way of guessing, the highest levels of Japanese government were already in the process of discussing when and how to surrender right around the time the bombs were dropped. IIRC about the emperor's message of surrender, the bombs may have made it easier for the emperor to preserve face when surrendering, as such weapons make it easier to justify a surrender as a positive action.

deeg 5y ago

Ending the war before the Soviets got seriously involved was another ways the bombs saved Japanese lives. Stalin would have demanded that Japan be divided just like Germany. How many would have died at the hands of an Asian Stasi? Dropping the bombs was a terrible thing but war is even more terrible.

golergka 5y ago

Don't you think that these quotes shouldn't be taken at face value, given that these officers could intend to maintain a public image? Who knows, may be some of those quoted here even dreamed about a political career after their military service.

throw0101a 5y ago

> And some believe even that wouldn't have been necessary: Those people would be wrong as the historical record shows: > The Japanese Army and Navy had their own independent atomic-bomb programs and therefore the Japanese understood enough to know how very difficult building it would be. Therefore, many Japanese and in particular the military members of the government refused to believe the United States had built an atomic bomb, and the Japanese military ordered their own independent tests to determine the cause of Hiroshima's destruction.[84] Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, argued that even if the United States had made one, they could not have many more.[85] American strategists, having anticipated a reaction like Toyoda's, planned to drop a second bomb shortly after the first, to convince the Japanese that the U.S. had a large supply.[61][86] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#Hiroshima,_Manchuria,_and_Nagasaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#Hiroshima,_... Even after the second bomb there was still some disagreement: > In the middle of the meeting, shortly after 11:00, news arrived that Nagasaki, on the west coast of Kyūshū, had been hit by a second atomic bomb (called "Fat Man" by the United States). By the time the meeting ended, the Big Six had split 3–3. Suzuki, Tōgō, and Admiral Yonai favored Tōgō's one additional condition to Potsdam, while General Anami, General Umezu, and Admiral Toyoda insisted on three further terms that modified Potsdam: that Japan handle their own disarmament, that Japan deal with any Japanese war criminals, and that there be no occupation of Japan.[96] * Ibid The Japanese government were still split on how to proceed after two atomic bombs were dropped. They were willing to stop fighting but only under their terms. If Germany was willing to stop fighting, but only if Hitler and the Nazis were allowed to stay in power (and keep a bunch of territory, etc), would that have been acceptable? Because that's basically what the Japanese were asking for.

adventured 5y ago
Indeed the conflict (in favor of continuing the war after the nukes) within Japan's government was so widespread that literally right up to the arrival of MacArthur there was an intense effort internally by Japan to put down a constant bubbling of coup efforts from the military, which wanted to keep fighting to the last man (Hirohito in his famous broadcast to the people of Japan recognized those emotions and asked the people to suppress them). The Japanese people often also had no idea just how poorly their military was faring toward the end, they didn't know they were clearly doomed to lose (which only added to the cultural resistance to capitulation). And it's important to note that their military was by far the most powerful faction of the government, as such it held enormous sway as to whether the war continued or not. People that pretend Japan was going to surrender without the nukes (they barely surrendered with the nukes), are either liar apologists (America bad) or extraordinarily ignorant of what actually happened (they should read a book rather than regurgitating Reddit propaganda).

missedthecue 5y ago

The Soviets would not have been able to make a meaningful entry to the war in Japan at that time. Firstly because almost all of their armed forces were in Europe and secondly because they didn't have a pacific fleet. Just for context, the invasion of the island of Okinawa just weeks prior had consisted of more than 1,600 allied ships. Japan would have to be a much larger task. Where were the Soviets going to get thousands of ships?

wbsss4412 5y ago
The Japanese empire extended into mainland east Asia at the time. There’s no reason why the soviets couldn’t have made meaningful entry into the war against Japan through Manchuria and the Korea peninsula.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  They had already done that. At that point, Japan didn't care a whole lot about those territories. The IJN barely bothered to make a defense and the Japanese Imperial Navy opted out entirely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    Well, that’s what I meant. I didn’t realize that you didn’t consider invasion of Japanese territory to be a significant entry into the war.
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      Japan wanted to defend the home island, and if it weren't for the threat of continued nuclear annihilation, they would have. This means either the Soviets would have to figure out a way to launch and maintain an amphibious assault, or they would have to sit on the sidelines.
      - 5y ago