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Agreed, the only reason there even was a US atomic bomb so early was because the US military intercepted multiple uranium shipments bound for Japan. When German

Agreed, the only reason there even was a US atomic bomb so early was because the US military intercepted multiple uranium shipments bound for Japan. When Germany fell they tried to get enough refined material for the Japanese to get the bomb first so the war would be won by their allies and not their enemies. Fortunately the US Navy had recovered enough by that point in the war to hunt down the U-Boats. If the US Navy hadn't recovered so quickly after Pearl Harbor, and if the Enigma Code hadn't been cracked then we'd all be hailing the Emperor of Japan right now. I mean the first nuclear test wouldn't have been in the middle of a desert, it would have been over mainland China. The USSR would likely have never invaded Japan, keeping their neutrality pact alive would have meant the Japanese would have had free reign to attack anywhere they saw fit. The whole of WWII is extremely complicated. I mean the reason for the whole delay in the Japanese surrender to the US after the atomic bombings was because they didn't plan to, until the USSR invaded Japanese territory, breaking a neutrality pact and covering almost as much land in days as the US had managed in months. The Japanese were afraid of being conquered by the USSR because of the atrocities they committed against Russians at the start of the war. So Japan didn't surrender to the allies, they surrendered ONLY to the USA so they would have to be protected from the Russians, incidentally because they knew the US had the A-Bomb they knew it would have to be used in their protection if Russia kept invading. So just the simple 'the A-Bomb won the war' theory is a billion times more complicated than the lay person understands. Hindsight is 20/20, but you're still as blind as the point of view you're looking from. The American POV for the war is very blind of what truly happened during the war compared to the British POV; I'm British and when studying history we were taught that because the US was so late coming into the war it was solely the British Navy and RAF keeping the German Navy from expanding out into the Atlantic. If it wasn't for the British then it wouldn't have been Pearl Harbor, it would have been a full-out invasion by the Germans long before anyone even dreamed of D-Day.

cstejerean 18y ago
I'm a little confused by what you meant at the end. Are you saying the British Navy prevented the Germans from invading America?
DanielBMarkham 18y ago
I take issue with some of your observations. It's true that Germany sent Uranium to Japan as their defenses collapsed. That was 25 March, 1945. German forces surrendered about six weeks later, around 5 May. The Captain, Feher I believe, surrendered to Allied Powers following orders for all U-boats to surrender (insert interesting tangent here) Assuming he would have violated orders and made it to Japan, it would have only meant Japanese would have had Uranium in mid 1945. The first working nuclear bomb was detonated at the Trinity site in July 1945, just a few weeks later. The United States bombed japan in August, just a few weeks after that. There has been no significant evidence that the Japanese were anywhere near capable of using the Uranium to construct a working bomb in those 8-10 weeks. And even if they had, industrial production in the states would have landed a dozen nuclear bombs on Japanese soil for every one they could have built. It's also true that the Japanese feared the Russians more than the United States, but Japan was a complex cauldron of interests at that time. For instance, the surrender recording by the Emperor had to be smuggled out of the Palace because military elements would have destroyed it if they had found it. So simply saying that they would not have surrendered solely due to the atomic bombings is misleading at best. Oddly enough, you're over-simplying it. There were many interests in Japan, and the interests of surrendering to the United States won out. At the end of the day, it was the emperor's call, and the diplomatic service won out over the military. History is complicated, yes. The British performed against the Germans in a way that lent credence to Churchill's statement that this was "our finest hour". But there was also lease-lend, and lots of loans, and secret help from the United States. FDR realized the war was coming but had to wait until American popular opinion realized it as well. There was also Hitler's mucking around with the execution of the air war, diverting bombing raids from airfields (where they were devastating) to civilian targets, where they inflicted terror but were militarily not as significant.
fauigerzigerk 18y ago
I know WWII was the most complex story ever in terms of ethics. Members of my own family died in the nazi death camps, so how could I be against fighting that war? However, no amount of complexity and evil could make me drop an A-bomb on a city. At some point I have to say, whatever the consequences, I'm just not going to do this. You don't torture. You don't kill indiscriminately. Otherwise there is nothing left worth fighting for anyway.
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  War is all about making the other person stop fighting. War has been around as long as there have been people with different opinions and the will to use force to settle them. These are super-ethical issues: ie, they exist regardless of your opinion of them. I hope there is no disagreement on them. Throughout history all of the techniques you mention have been used to advance society in order to put you in a position of modern life being able to make your opinion to quit fighting under certain circumstances. Since you are alive right now, and must find some value to your life, it follows that after all of these conflicts in which your rules were not followed, there was still something left that was worth fighting for. At least at the level of civilization. So it follows that you at least value the results of other people with fewer qualms than you. Otherwise you should be living in a cave by firelight -- but fire was probably stolen by force involving torture, mass killings, etc. as well, so put the torch out. That's at a civilization level. At a personal level, many folks throughout history have had moral issues with various parts of war. In the United States, many many times the rest of the populace fought wars the Quakers refused to participate in. In this case, either 1) you die, 2) you submit, or 3) somebody else with fewer moral qualms fights the war for you. Morals are a key part of your personal life. I just wouldn't substitute my personal morals for my greater responsibility to mankind. My personal morals might be wrong, and if morals mean anything they mean the ability to introspect and change. I'm fully prepared to be wrong and face the personal consequences to me if my morals tell me to do or not to do something. It becomes selfish and grossly immoral, in my opinion, to inflict consequences on others under the banner of my own self-righteousness. War is a nasty, ugly business and it should be avoided at all costs mainly because of this equation: it strips us all to the primal need to dominate or die. That's just my opinion. I would not mean to judge. I've found self-righteousness on both sides of the "just war" discussion, and it seems to hide the greater issue of how mankind as a race reacts and suffers.

cstejerean 18y ago

I'm a little confused by what you meant at the end. Are you saying the British Navy prevented the Germans from invading America?

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

I take issue with some of your observations. It's true that Germany sent Uranium to Japan as their defenses collapsed. That was 25 March, 1945. German forces surrendered about six weeks later, around 5 May. The Captain, Feher I believe, surrendered to Allied Powers following orders for all U-boats to surrender (insert interesting tangent here) Assuming he would have violated orders and made it to Japan, it would have only meant Japanese would have had Uranium in mid 1945. The first working nuclear bomb was detonated at the Trinity site in July 1945, just a few weeks later. The United States bombed japan in August, just a few weeks after that. There has been no significant evidence that the Japanese were anywhere near capable of using the Uranium to construct a working bomb in those 8-10 weeks. And even if they had, industrial production in the states would have landed a dozen nuclear bombs on Japanese soil for every one they could have built. It's also true that the Japanese feared the Russians more than the United States, but Japan was a complex cauldron of interests at that time. For instance, the surrender recording by the Emperor had to be smuggled out of the Palace because military elements would have destroyed it if they had found it. So simply saying that they would not have surrendered solely due to the atomic bombings is misleading at best. Oddly enough, you're over-simplying it. There were many interests in Japan, and the interests of surrendering to the United States won out. At the end of the day, it was the emperor's call, and the diplomatic service won out over the military. History is complicated, yes. The British performed against the Germans in a way that lent credence to Churchill's statement that this was "our finest hour". But there was also lease-lend, and lots of loans, and secret help from the United States. FDR realized the war was coming but had to wait until American popular opinion realized it as well. There was also Hitler's mucking around with the execution of the air war, diverting bombing raids from airfields (where they were devastating) to civilian targets, where they inflicted terror but were militarily not as significant.

fauigerzigerk 18y ago

I know WWII was the most complex story ever in terms of ethics. Members of my own family died in the nazi death camps, so how could I be against fighting that war? However, no amount of complexity and evil could make me drop an A-bomb on a city. At some point I have to say, whatever the consequences, I'm just not going to do this. You don't torture. You don't kill indiscriminately. Otherwise there is nothing left worth fighting for anyway.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
War is all about making the other person stop fighting. War has been around as long as there have been people with different opinions and the will to use force to settle them. These are super-ethical issues: ie, they exist regardless of your opinion of them. I hope there is no disagreement on them. Throughout history all of the techniques you mention have been used to advance society in order to put you in a position of modern life being able to make your opinion to quit fighting under certain circumstances. Since you are alive right now, and must find some value to your life, it follows that after all of these conflicts in which your rules were not followed, there was still something left that was worth fighting for. At least at the level of civilization. So it follows that you at least value the results of other people with fewer qualms than you. Otherwise you should be living in a cave by firelight -- but fire was probably stolen by force involving torture, mass killings, etc. as well, so put the torch out. That's at a civilization level. At a personal level, many folks throughout history have had moral issues with various parts of war. In the United States, many many times the rest of the populace fought wars the Quakers refused to participate in. In this case, either 1) you die, 2) you submit, or 3) somebody else with fewer moral qualms fights the war for you. Morals are a key part of your personal life. I just wouldn't substitute my personal morals for my greater responsibility to mankind. My personal morals might be wrong, and if morals mean anything they mean the ability to introspect and change. I'm fully prepared to be wrong and face the personal consequences to me if my morals tell me to do or not to do something. It becomes selfish and grossly immoral, in my opinion, to inflict consequences on others under the banner of my own self-righteousness. War is a nasty, ugly business and it should be avoided at all costs mainly because of this equation: it strips us all to the primal need to dominate or die. That's just my opinion. I would not mean to judge. I've found self-righteousness on both sides of the "just war" discussion, and it seems to hide the greater issue of how mankind as a race reacts and suffers.