[HN Gopher] Hiroshima (1946)
___________________________________________________________________
Hiroshima (1946)
Author : kibwen
Score : 119 points
Date : 2020-08-09 18:26 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| terrorOf wrote:
| Given what Japanese have done to other non-Japanese (disgusting
| experiment on people alive) as well as Pearl Habor, and also
| given that they do not sincerely apologize on what they have done
| during the war before atomic bomb, I don't think they deserve
| apologizing. Also as what "dang" found out duplicated article
| from 2016 and 2018, I feel this is kind of money-supported ad by
| Japanese government.
| [deleted]
| ErikAugust wrote:
| Feynman on Hiroshima is fascinating:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018w6rc
| idlewords wrote:
| If you ever get a chance to visit the Hiroshima Peace Museum, it
| is a moving and worthwhile place to go. Give yourself a few hours
| so you can spend time watching eyewitness interviews. The main
| tram line through downtown goes right past Ground Zero, which
| never stops being shocking.
| mholt wrote:
| If you're interested in this, I highly recommend watching _In
| This Corner of the World_. The perspective of a young woman who
| lives her life during the war, and her family 's tragic
| experience with the bomb.
|
| If I'm not mistaken, it is the first anime the Emperor of Japan
| has gone to see personally in theaters
| (https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-
| news/2019/12/18-1/japans-e...).
|
| Spoiler-free analysis:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPS2U2ijBkU
|
| US Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80192244
| dang wrote:
| If curious see also
|
| 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18536235
|
| 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11750331
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The allies had already started to resort to obliterating whole
| cities and their inhabitants before Hiroshima (see Dresden,
| Tokyo).
|
| IMHO, this was not the result of how "evil" the German and
| Japanese regimes were (which seems to me to be a rationalization)
| but the result of 5 years of total war. I think that at some
| point people came to accept doing whatever it took to win and end
| the war.
|
| In the context of what was going on I think dropping atomic bombs
| to precipitate the end of the war and send a message to the
| Soviets was perhaps not considered as big a deal as we might
| think because, as said, the result was already accepted looking
| at the conventional bombing raids that had taken place.
|
| War is hell and total war means total hell.
| spicyramen wrote:
| I have had the opportunity to visit Hiroshima and lived in the US
| where I had the chance to study under professor William Perry
| former Secretary of Defense and responsible for many post war
| research. The perspective and official version that Americans
| have is that dropping the bomb was the right thing to do and only
| way to finish the war in the Pacific. The history is written by
| the winners simple fact to always keep in mind. This is clearly a
| misunderstanding of World War 2. In Europe after England and
| France lost their hegemony as empires, it became a race between
| USSR and US for world domination. The Red Army after controlling
| Germany were on their way to Japan, and Japanese were really
| afraid of it. There was a previous dispute over Kamchatka
| peninsula and other territories that Russians would want to claim
| back. US already defeated Japan in the Pacific and most of Japan
| was already destroyed. US sent the bomb to send a message to the
| World and USSR: we have this weapon and we will use it. It was in
| their best interest to control a Russia-free Japan than get into
| the same mess as in Germany.
| overkalix wrote:
| This is such a remarcable piece of writing. I'm sure among
| americans this is already somewhat of a classic but if you
| haven't read yet it do yourself a favor and take half an hour to
| read it.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| If you look up the author, one of the first things a you will
| read is that this was judged to be the finest example of 20th
| century American journalism by a large group at New York
| university.
| [deleted]
| supernova87a wrote:
| When I was young in grade school, and learned about the bomb, and
| its terrifying aftermath, pictures, scars, I thought that this
| was clearly a wrong against humanity to have been dropped on
| anyone. Clearly the visceral kind of "this should never happen"
| reaction that any average person would have. "How could we put
| the Enola Gay on a stamp to glorify this?"
|
| Then, in college and especially after, learning about the equal
| horrors of the Japanese war machine, and maybe actually more the
| non-horrific but relentless robotic support for the war (or
| obedience towards the emperor, government, etc) among the people,
| I realized that it actually did bring an end to the war. Which if
| it had continued, could have consumed far more lives. (whether it
| had to be this tool, of course, is certainly worthy of debate)
|
| Now, my 3rd phase of thinking -- beyond any opinion on tactics or
| reaction or bombs in the moment of a war -- is how do we get
| people to help themselves get out of the path to war? Each and
| every one of us, who whether by support or indifference, or tacit
| approval, or compounded misinformation, or ego, get ourselves
| into situations that we look back 50 years from now and say,
| "what happened?".
|
| Surely, we have the tools and desire, don't we? I hope.
| eska wrote:
| My school education about this was also essentially "bombs are
| bad, kids". The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wik
| i/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...) is actually quite
| enlightening in this matter. A lot of people seem to think that
| the Americans didn't try anything else before. Likewise most
| people don't realize how much more death there would've been on
| both sides if the US invaded Japan by sea.
| rbecker wrote:
| > Likewise most people don't realize how much more death
| there would've been on both sides if the US invaded Japan by
| sea.
|
| That's begging the question - _was_ a US invasion the only
| alternative?
| https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/08/05/nuclear-war-
| or... argues that Japan would have surrendered without the
| bombings. And that's for _unconditional_ surrender - a
| conditional one would be even more easily achievable.
| valuearb wrote:
| There was no conditional surrender possible. The Japanese
| were still demanding to keep their "colonies" in China and
| elsewhere. Agreeing to that would be agreeing to continue
| the Japanese holocaust against the Chinese and the peoples
| in their other captured territories.
|
| And from the Allied perspective, after the Bataan death
| march, the massacre of surrendered US troops and civilians
| in Wake, and the hundreds of similar massacres of
| surrendered allied troops, and rape and murder of nurses
| and civilians, across the Pacific, no one was going to
| allow the Japanese leadership or military off the hook.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It strikes me as odd that practically any victorious military
| finds all of its actions optimal. If it had not done as it
| did, then the outcomes would be worse. The regularity of the
| superiority of the action taken is fascinating.
|
| Curiously, this website has a large number of commentators
| that believe that luck is one of the biggest factors in
| startup success. Yet, in this other domain of antagonistic
| participants, war, the victor is always the better
| strategist, having seen through the flaws of his enemy. Mere
| luck plays no part here. A curious result to me. It appears
| that Man is elevated to supreme intelligence when tasked with
| war, and finds himself a mere leaf on air currents otherwise.
|
| Of course, I'm no peacenik. I have no problem over-bombing a
| population so I don't really see Hiroshima and Nagasaki as
| tragedies. Since no one has an incentive to reveal the true
| minimum that would cause them to capitulate, it is usually a
| good idea when you're almost winning to make sure you're
| definitely winning. I have no problem with the death of those
| who would prefer my death. Just fascinated at how we conquer
| luck in this sphere alone.
| PhantomGremlin wrote:
| _I have no problem with the death of those who would prefer
| my death._
|
| The most memorable line from the movie Patton (I don't know
| if General Patton said this IRL):
|
| _Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war
| by dying for his country. He won it by making the other
| poor dumb bastard die for his country._
| the_af wrote:
| > _I have no problem with the death of those who would
| prefer my death_
|
| What about those who have no opinion one way or the other
| about your death, or are incapable of having an informed
| opinion, such as very young children?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, this is a personal position so I don't see the
| value in sharing it, but since you asked: I'd rather be
| alive and evil than dead and good. After all, alive and
| evil I can be redeemed and die good after a fulfilling
| life. If I win, presumably following generations will
| talk about my courage at having turned my life around and
| any detractors of mine will find themselves outdone by my
| supporters - who will either be more numerous or will
| have the ability to call my detractors hypocrites since
| they only exist by my actions.
|
| So the children will die if they must die. And they will
| live if it does not affect victory.
| renewiltord wrote:
| A fascinating comparison with British steadfast resolve in the
| face of overwhelming force. Britons would fight on the beaches,
| and on the landing grounds and streets. They would never
| surrender, even against overwhelming odds.
|
| Truly inspiring in comparison with the robotic obedience of the
| Japanese who would dig in to protect their island, whatever the
| cost may be.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| * A rousing public speech is very different from actual
| policy. A sibiling comment to yours make reference to a plan
| by the Japanese, made in secret and actually started, that
| was known to cost millions of Japanese lives and wasn't even
| meant to secure victory but just better surrender terms. Your
| quotation doesn't come close to showing that the British
| would be prepared to do something similar. (In fact I'm sure
| I read about a plan Churchill had to surrender if Germans did
| make it onto British soil, but I'm not going to search for it
| now - the burden is on you to show that the British wouldn't
| have surrendered.)
|
| * Aside from broad policy, the difference in attitude is
| clearly shown by actions of individual soldiers. Individual
| Britons in theatre would usually be prepared to surrender if
| their situation was hopeless, as shown by the number of
| actual British PoWs in WW2, whereas this was much rarer for
| Japanese soldiers.
| valuearb wrote:
| To meet the first American invasion of their home islands,
| the Japanese had 10,000 kamikaze planes prepared. They had
| millions of civilians prepared to serve as suicide bomb
| carriers against the allied ground troops.
|
| Let me know if the British prepared troops and civilians to
| use suicide as a weapon against a German invasion in any
| significant quantity.
| jmknoll wrote:
| I see the point you're trying to make, and by no means am I
| saying that the British were without fault, but there is a
| very significant difference between the the British defending
| their liberal democracy from Nazi domination and a largely
| rural, largely uneducated Japanese population being
| conscripted into fighting a war of aggression on behalf of a
| totalitarian state.
| claudiawerner wrote:
| >Truly inspiring in comparison with the robotic obedience of
| the Japanese who would dig in to protect their island,
| whatever the cost may be.
|
| That's not quite the case. The conditions of surrender
| proposed, which the Japanese government rebuffed (or,
| 'mokusatsu'[0]) particularly included that Japan surrender
| its control over Korea and the island known now as Taiwan.
| It's more accurate to say that the Japanese empire would dig
| in to protect the areas they'd acquired, not just their
| island. In Korea, they'd put a lot of effort into trying to
| integrate the peninsula into Japan proper, for example
| linguistically.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokusatsu
| senand wrote:
| Even assuming it did bring an end to the war: was it really
| necessary to drop two bombs for that?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Conventional wisdom is that you have to prove you can do it
| on demand rather than it being a one and done. If you have
| one, it could be the last one. If you have two, you could
| have infinity.
| claudiawerner wrote:
| An interesting point here, in the Wikipedia article on the
| atomic bombings, that Japanese nuclear scientists reported
| to their government that the US could be expected to have
| between two and four more such bombs ready to go. They were
| under no illusions that the US had hundreds of these
| sitting around.
| eska wrote:
| And the first one was likely to be a dud, thereby
| completely removing the psychological effect from further
| atomic bombs, of which there was only one for the next
| couple months.
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| Wiping out one city in one single gigantic unprecedented
| flash was pretty convincing.
| catalogia wrote:
| Not to everybody it wasn't. Some Japanese officers wanted
| to keep fighting even after two cities were wiped out.
| (Three if you count the firebombing of Tokyo, which you
| probably should...)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident
|
| As proven earlier with Operation Ten-Go / The Battle of
| the East China Sea, many in the Japanese military
| preferred spiteful suicidal attacks to surrender, even
| when the hopelessness of their situation was abundantly
| clear.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ten-Go
| userbinator wrote:
| _If you have one, it could be the last one. If you have
| two, you could have infinity._
|
| For some reason, this reminds me of the refactoring advice.
| catalogia wrote:
| Even after the second bomb, some Japan's military leadership
| wanted to keep fighting.
|
| > _The Kyujo incident (Gong Cheng Shi Jian , Kyujo Jiken) was
| an attempted military coup d 'etat in the Empire of Japan at
| the end of the Second World War. It happened on the night of
| 14-15 August 1945, just before the announcement of Japan's
| surrender to the Allies. The coup was attempted by the Staff
| Office of the Ministry of War of Japan and many from the
| Imperial Guard to stop the move to surrender._
|
| > _The officers murdered Lieutenant General Takeshi Mori of
| the First Imperial Guards Division and attempted to
| counterfeit an order to the effect of occupying the Tokyo
| Imperial Palace (Kyujo). They attempted to place the Emperor
| under house arrest, using the 2nd Brigade Imperial Guard
| Infantry. They failed to persuade the Eastern District Army
| and the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army to move
| forward with the action. Due to their failure to convince the
| remaining army to oust the Imperial House of Japan, they
| performed ritual suicide. As a result, the communique of the
| intent for a Japanese surrender continued as planned._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident
|
| Would resistance to surrender have found more support if only
| a single bomb had been dropped? We will never know.
| walleeee wrote:
| Similarly, can someone explain why the bombs weren't dropped
| a few miles out to sea? It would still have clearly
| demonstrated the capability.
| stu2b50 wrote:
| After the two bombs, there was an attempted coup to prevent
| the Emperor from surrendering.
|
| And you think bombs at sea would scare them?
| valuearb wrote:
| The bombs barely performed their intended effect being
| dropped on cities. Even after Nagasaki the Japanese
| military argued they could continue to fight from
| underground bunkers.
| Someone wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_
| a...:
|
| "...many U.S. officials and scientists argued that a
| demonstration would sacrifice the shock value of the atomic
| attack, and the Japanese could deny the atomic bomb was
| lethal, making the mission less likely to produce
| surrender. Allied prisoners of war might be moved to the
| demonstration site and be killed by the bomb. They also
| worried that the bomb might be a dud since the Trinity test
| was of a stationary device, not an air-dropped bomb. In
| addition, although more bombs were in production, only two
| would be available at the start of August, and they cost
| billions of dollars, so using one for a demonstration would
| be expensive."
| valuearb wrote:
| The second bomb coming so quickly was key to convincing
| Hirohito's to surrender. The military had argued that
| Hiroshima was a one time thing, and the US couldn't possibly
| build another bomb any time soon.
| Larrikin wrote:
| The main argument against this, which I personally believe,
| is that the first bomb should have been dropped on a remote
| Japanese island or area. I don't believe this would have
| lead to an end to the war but I believe a second one in a
| more populated area would have, saving Nagasaki at least
| valuearb wrote:
| The worry was that a remote nuclear explosion would not
| carry the same impact and they only had two bombs at the
| moment. It would have been easy for the Japanese
| militarists to downplay its effect.
|
| And it turns out the Japanese military was exactly in
| such a deep denial. After Hiroshima they said it would
| take a longtime for the US to build another. After
| Nagasaki they said so what, we will just retreat to
| bunkers and force the Allies to invade. After Hirohito
| decided to surrender, the military attempted a coup.
| overkalix wrote:
| I don't know how accurate this information is but they way it
| was completely explained to me, the Japanese government and
| population were not that affected by the first bomb in terms
| of morale. They had already suffered horrible large-scale
| bombings (e.g. Tokyo) and regardless of the initial effect,
| the US leadership had already decided to drop two bombs to
| give the impression that these bombs could keep coming 2-3
| times a week.
| valuearb wrote:
| The second bomb coming so quickly was key to changing
| Hirohito's mind. The military had argued that Hiroshima was
| a one time thing, and the US couldn't possibly build
| another bomb any time soon.
| gambiting wrote:
| Emperor Hirohito was nearly overthrown in an
| (unsuccessful)coup after he announced the desire to
| capitulate after the second bomb dropped, as his generals
| wanted the war to continue. So if anything, the two bombs
| were nearly not enough.
| ChomskyNormal4m wrote:
| > horrors of the Japanese war machine, and maybe actually more
| the non-horrific but relentless robotic support for the war (or
| obedience towards the emperor, government, etc) among the
| people
|
| When you think of the black ships of the Perry expedition, and
| then forward to the Japanese attack on England's Hong Kong
| colony, the French colonies in Indochina, America's colony in
| the Philippines (and Hawaii!) - then you see the above blurb is
| a perfect encapsulation of the western bourgeois mind.
| kingkawn wrote:
| A quote from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Japan at the moment
| was seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of face. It
| wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." There are
| more quotes, but basically everything you were taught about the
| necessity of wiping out hundreds of thousands of people in a
| flash was after the fact American propaganda to justify a war
| crime.
| valuearb wrote:
| Dwight was being disingenuous, as the terms the Japanese were
| seeking to "save face" including keeping all their conquered
| possessions, especially in China.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _Japan at the moment was seeking a way to surrender with
| a minimum loss of face_ "
|
| Not really; some in Japan were seeking a surrender and some,
| notably nearly all of the Japanese military, were quite
| definitively not. Had the internal coup intended to prevent
| the surrender succeeded
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident),
| Eisenhower's quote would have been entirely false instead of
| a half-truth.
| kingkawn wrote:
| You know more than Eisenhower?
| Entwickler wrote:
| I've heard the idea that atomic bombs were the deciding factor
| in ending the war is in large part American propaganda. The
| fact is the Soviets had far superior divisions (in both
| manpower and fire power) lined up against the Japanese in
| Manchuria, and shattered them within weeks.
|
| From wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Jap
| anese_War), "Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to
| conclude that the atomic bombings were not the principal reason
| for Japan's capitulation. He argues that Japan's leaders were
| impacted more by the swift and devastating Soviet victories on
| the mainland in the week after Joseph Stalin's August 8
| declaration of war because the Japanese strategy to protect the
| home islands was designed to fend off an Allied invasion from
| the south and left virtually no spare troops to counter a
| Soviet threat from the north. Furthermore, the Japanese could
| no longer hope to achieve a negotiated peace with the Allies by
| using the Soviet Union as a mediator with the Soviet
| declaration of war. That, according to Hasegawa, amounted to a
| "strategic bankruptcy" for the Japanese and forced their
| message of surrender on August 15, 1945.[39][16] Others with
| similar views include the Battlefield series
| documentary,[2][11] among others, but all, including Hasegawa,
| state that the surrender was not caused by only one factor or
| event."
| trhway wrote:
| yes, USSR squashing Kwantung army may have naturally led to a
| scenario where USSR forces could flood down south into China,
| Korea, may be even invade the North Japan, etc. with US
| having no troops there to "meet" USSR forces like it happened
| in Europe. Whether USSR had such plans doesn't matter really.
|
| It is very telling that USSR offensive on August 9 was
| according to the plans made together with US months in
| advance, and so US could hardly time the 2 bombs better - one
| on August 6 and another several hours after the start of the
| offensive - to make such an extremely clear message.
| [deleted]
| purple-again wrote:
| In the surrendering words of the emperor himself the atomic
| bomb is directly mentioned as one reason for the surrender.
| catalogia wrote:
| Words which almost weren't heard at all because some parts
| of the Japanese military attempted to prevent the surrender
| from being published.
| EarthIsHome wrote:
| For those interested in arguments about whether the bombings
| were necessary, there's a good Wikipedia article:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombi...
|
| I do believe the bombings were a strategic show-of-force to the
| Soviet Union since they were coming out of the war as a global
| power; USSR were instrumental in ending the war.
| mholt wrote:
| I also recommend The Shadow Peace, a short 14-minute video
| analysis on the utility of nuclear weapons and their role in
| our modern era of relative peace:
| http://www.fallen.io/shadow-peace/1/ (unfortunately no HTTPS)
|
| It's a slightly more optimistic take on the tragedies of the
| 20th century.
| growlix wrote:
| An interesting perspective summarized here [0] is that the
| bombings were not just unnecessary to end the war and were
| conducted as a show of force to the Soviets. They were
| conducted in an attempt to end the war ASAP, before a planned
| Soviet ground invasion of Japan so that the US wouldn't have
| to share control over post-war Japan with the Soviets.
|
| [0] https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-reason-america-
| used-n...
| iguy wrote:
| Not mentioned on that list: It made the sort of stories that
| circulated in post-WWI Germany, about the old men selling out
| while they could still have kept fighting, much less
| plausible.
|
| If the war aim was the permanent political defeat of Japanese
| fascism, then this was important. You don't just want the
| leader's signature on paper, you want defeat to be undeniable
| to everyone.
|
| In both cases, the naval blockade left a lot of civilians
| hungry, and was great military value-for-money. But
| politically, that was easier to forget afterwards. Your
| adversary's ability to destroy whole cities with one plane
| was not.
|
| (In germany's case, having two different armies in Berlin for
| half a century was also kind-of hard to forget.)
| pasabagi wrote:
| I don't think the war aim was the defeat of japanese
| fascism - perhaps, japanese militarism. After all, the
| basic element of japanese fascism (the Zaibatsu)
| essentially persists today. It's also notable that japan,
| while technically a democracy, has had the same party in
| power since 1955.
| missedthecue wrote:
| The fact that the military is still awarding Purple Hearts
| that were manufactured for the invasion of Japan tells me
| that it was more than justified. Japanese intelligence itself
| estimated 20 million casualties during an invasion.
| manfredo wrote:
| We also have Germany as a point of comparison. 1945 Was the
| bloodiest year of the European theater, a fact made even
| more palpable considering that the European war ended in
| May. Compound this with the fact that the ratio of troops
| killed vs surrendered for Germany was about 4:1 versus
| 120:1 for Japan (granted this isn't really a
| straightforward comparison, Japan was often fighting over
| heavily fortified islands that afforded little opportunity
| to encircle large formations which is what precipitates
| most surrenders).
| pmachinery wrote:
| Regardless of the number, there was no need to invade
| Japan.
|
| It was already defeated, and offering to surrender, before
| the USSR joined the fight.
|
| Totally surrounded/blockaded, no allies left in the world,
| bombed at will, what else could it do but accept defeat?
| [deleted]
| manfredo wrote:
| Offering to surrender _conditionally_. Specifically, on
| the condition that it keep Korea and Taiwan (and maybe
| Manchuria, too), and that it 's military government
| remain largely unchanged. This is was not a surrender
| that was acceptable to the Allies.
|
| This thread is being rate limited, reply in edit:
|
| Denying Korea and Taiwan is easier said than done.
| Remember that Japan essentially won the continental war
| against China. It's best equipped and most experienced
| troops are there. Japan is also in an optimal position to
| control ocean access to Korea. Any boats have to travel
| through the East China Sea, or sea of Japan to reach
| Korea. Both of which are in range of the thousands of
| kamikaze planes built for the purpose of destroying
| vessels that sail close to Japan.
|
| At this point, you're talking about conducting an
| invasion of a landmass even larger than the Japanese home
| islands, against better troops, and with more difficult
| naval access. It would undoubtedly incur substantially
| more losses than the 100 to 200 thousand inflicted by the
| atomic bombings. And to what end? A hostile military
| government would still be in power back in Japan.
| goatlover wrote:
| Even so, doesn't mean you have to do a land invasion or
| drop atomic bombs. You can just deny Korea and Taiwan and
| leave Japanese mainland be.
| valuearb wrote:
| Not invading or dropping nukes would mean the deaths of
| millions. The Japanese would still fight, Japanese and
| Allied planes would still get shot down and warships
| sunk. Japanese Civilians would still be dying at a high
| rate, from bombings, starvation, lack of medical
| supplies, etc.
|
| Before these bombs were dropped, tens of thousands were
| dying on days with no large military operations.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| > [Japan was] offering to surrender, before the USSR
| joined the fight.
|
| This is blatantly false. Even after two atomic bombs had
| fallen on Japan, their military leaders -- and indeed
| most of their population -- remained committed to fight
| on until the nation of Japan ceased to exist. It was only
| the intervention of the emperor himself (who never gets
| involved in matters of war) that convinced the military
| and the people to surrender after the bombs were dropped.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Surely, we have the tools and desire, don't we? I hope.
|
| Military conflicts through out the world since suggest we do
| not.
| the_af wrote:
| > _I realized that it actually did bring an end to the war_
|
| This may be the mainstream opinion in the US, but do note it's
| not the mainstream opinion in other countries. Alternative
| explanations include that the _real_ purpose of the two bombs
| was to show the Soviets the nuclear might of the US (this view
| is suggested in the Hiroshima museum in Japan, but just in case
| you discount it because Japan is obviously not a neutral party,
| this opinion is also held in some countries in Latin America --
| even some people in the US believe this). Even at the time,
| some people in the US army opposed the bombing and believed it
| had no military justification.
| xenocyon wrote:
| As someone who grew up outside of the US, I have found that
| Americans have a unique view on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
| American schoolchildren are raised to believe that it was
| morally justified because it won - and therefore ended - the
| war. This attitude is so deeply and fundamentally ingrained
| into most Americans (including many who would self-identify
| as liberals) that it is very hard for them to see it as a war
| crime despite obviously meeting the criteria for such.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Honest question: can it not be both a less fatal end to the
| war and a war crime? This classification of something as a
| war crime, even if appropriate, isn't the ending of a
| discussion.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| It is hard to overstate how many civilians suffered and
| died in war crimes perpetrated by Japan before and during
| the war. The number vastly exceeds the number who died as a
| result of the American atomic bombs. Breaking Japan's will
| and ability to make war was the entire world's highest
| priority in late 1945. Any discussion of "American war
| crimes against Japan" is meaningless without discussing
| Japan's crimes against half the world, together with the
| very real possibility that the nation of Japan continues to
| exist today solely because those two bombs were dropped.
| valuearb wrote:
| The nuclear bombings saved at least a million Japanese
| lives. It can easily be argued it would be a war crime not
| to drop them.
| manfredo wrote:
| Necessity and justification are two different concepts. Few
| believe it was necessary - the United States' overwhelming
| industrial capacity was bound to prevail over Japan. The
| state of the two countries warmaking capacity was totally
| lopsided by 1945. Thus it was not necessary to achieve
| victory.
|
| That is brought an end to the war with fewer casualties, both
| American and Japanese even moreso, is not a difficult claim
| to support. Japan planned to fight a defensive war against an
| amphibious invasion in order to negotiate more favorable
| surrender terms. The Japanese estimated that this would incur
| 20 million Japanese casualties, and this plan was approved.
| Even if we assume that Japan's war machine would collapse
| before this figure of lives lost was reached, it is almost
| certain that the death toll would be in the millions.
| Germany, without the advantage of being a mountainous island
| nation and having a lower population than Japan, fought on
| its own soil in 1945 to the effect of several million dead.
| Thus, it's almost certain that the atomic bombings resulted
| in an order of magnitude fewer Japanese lives lost than an
| conventional invasion.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Yes, but maybe the bombs would have had the same effect, if
| dropped on actual military targets (or even unhabitated
| land, but close enough to demonstrate the power) instead of
| an civilian city.
|
| (a city with military production, sure sure, but they were
| choosen not because of military value, but because they
| were relatively undamaged, so the effect of the bombs could
| be studied. Concern for loss of japan civilian live was
| never an issue)
| manfredo wrote:
| Remember, it took not one, but two atomic bombs dropped
| on cities for Japan to surrender. And even after that,
| there was an attempted coup to continue fighting the war:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident
|
| There only existed two bombs at the time. Had the bombs
| been dropped as a show of force, it is very likely the US
| and Japan would have to suffer through a costly invasion
| anyway.
| dboreham wrote:
| Hmm. I think the US had at least one more core for a fat
| man type weapon.
| hpcjoe wrote:
| Specifically, the demon core[1]. It was the core-in-
| waiting for a third bomb if needed, and I believe that
| the uranium and plutonium production lines were ramping
| up by that time[2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
|
| [2] https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/timeline
| search for 1945 July 23 entry.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| 40 years ago I wrote a paper on nuclear weapons. My
| memory isn't perfect and the sources are 40-50 years out
| of date. But here goes.
|
| The US built a massive manufacturing pipeline to make
| nuclear weapons. Little boy was a once off. Fat man was
| basically a functional prototype. And the manufacturing
| pipeline was running and kept running after the war. How
| much weapons grade plutonium they had left over after
| they bombed Nagasaki is kind of a quibble.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Given that the Japanese military wanted to continue the
| war even after both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, your
| conjecture is demonstrably untrue. Remember, the military
| was the primary power in the Japanese government, second
| only to the emperor, and were the driving force behind
| starting the war as well. Also remember that the
| firebombing campaign across all of the other major cities
| had already inflicted combined casualties far greater
| than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined; immense deaths of
| their own civilians was seen as an unavoidable necessity
| to defend their homeland.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Minor elaboration: Nagasaki was not an undamaged city. It
| had been bombed multiple times by conventional American
| bombs. But then Nagasaki was just a backup target anyway.
| Kokura was the primary target for the second bomb but it
| was obscured by clouds and smoke during the bombing run
| on August 9 so the plane went to Nagasaki instead. By the
| time they got there it too was socked in by clouds which
| is why the Nagasaki bomb fell so far off target.
| rbecker wrote:
| You misunderstand - the belief is not that the US could
| have won the war even without the bombs, but that "bombs
| vs. invasion" was a false dichotomy, and that Japan would
| have unconditionally surrendered around the same time
| without the bombs, or perhaps even sooner had the
| _conditional_ surrender they were _already seeking_ been on
| the table.
| manfredo wrote:
| Japan had actually repeatedly offered conditional
| surrenders. Specifically, surrenders on the condition
| that it keep some of its colonies (Korea and Taiwan),
| that the Japanese military government remain intact, and
| that nobody be charged for war crimes. This is as if
| Germany offered a surrender on the condition that it keep
| western Poland and Czechoslovakia, that the Nazi party
| remain in power, and that nobody be tried for war crimes.
| This is not remotely close to an acceptable surrender.
|
| And the US ultimately did accept a surrender on the
| condition that the imperial family not be tried for war
| crimes (a particularly contentious point for China, since
| a royal family member was the commanding officer in
| charge of the forces that perpetrated the crimes at
| Nanking).
| valuearb wrote:
| The Japanese offered to surrender if they could continue
| to control their captured territories, essentially
| continuing to rape China. That's a hell of a condition to
| allow them.
| rbecker wrote:
| I'm curious where you found this information, because the
| best I could find was that negotiations regarding those
| conditions were never finished:
|
| _To this end, Stalin and Molotov strung out the
| negotiations with the Japanese, giving them false hope of
| a Soviet-mediated peace. [..] The Japanese would have to
| surrender unconditionally to all the Allies. To prolong
| the war, the Soviets opposed any attempt to weaken this
| requirement.[56] This would give the Soviets time to
| complete the transfer of their troops from the Western
| Front to the Far East, and conquer Manchuria, Inner
| Mongolia, northern Korea, South Sakhalin, the Kuriles,
| and possibly Hokkaido_ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su
| rrender_of_Japan#Soviet_inte...
|
| _However, the Japanese presented no formal terms,
| because details were to be worked out by negotiation._ -
| https://www.quora.com/When-Japan-offered-conditional-
| surrend...
| valuearb wrote:
| That is a reference to what the Russians wanted, and this
| is after the nuclear bombs. Once the bombs were dropped
| terms acceptable to some of the Japanese changed. Japan
| wasn't a monolithic government, you had competing
| leadership, the empowered, the military, the politicians,
| etc.
|
| The military fervently wanted a US invasion, believing it
| could inflict millions of casualties and then negotiate
| better terms. And many Japanese didn't feel like they had
| even lost yet, they were willing to endure bombings
| feeling their fortress island was unassailable.
|
| https://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/world-war-
| ii-th...
| gen220 wrote:
| It's worth noting that many in Japan sincerely believed it
| was the best way to end to the war.
|
| I've changed my opinion on this topic many times over the
| years. Today I think it's just arrogant to say it was
| obviously wrong or obviously right. Reality is too
| complicated. Counterfactuals abound.
|
| One dimension that people _haven't_ discussed in this thread,
| is that ending the war with atomic bombs and napalm prevented
| a bilateral invasion of Japan, which would have led to a
| Korea or Germany-like partitioning of postwar Japan.
|
| Instead of a speedy recovery and track to self determination,
| there would have been 50 years of Cold War tensions, perhaps
| proxy wars.
|
| But maybe not! It's very complicated.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > I realized that it actually did bring an end to the war.
|
| Then you have been fed propaganda. The bomb had nothing to do
| with Japan surrendering.
| antisthenes wrote:
| You've recreated the Ultimate Ideal from movie Hero (2002)
|
| 1. Mastery of a weapon and combat (the nuclear weapon)
|
| 2. Weapon not in hand, but in the hearts and minds (loyalty and
| devotion to the cause)
|
| 3. The ultimate ideal - the weapon disappears altogether, and
| the warrior is at peace with the world.
| rland wrote:
| We had a discussion about this in high school, I think my
| junior year. Most of these types of discussions were very
| lopsided, so the teacher would usually have to encourage people
| to take the "bad/unpopular" position somehow. But this one was
| right down the line in my class and produced a lively debate. I
| still think about it, but my opinion hasn't changed -- it was
| the correct decision.
| j-james wrote:
| My Modern World History class in high school also did this.
|
| Our debate came down to whether or not directly / immediately
| killing hundreds of thousands of citizens was justified by
| potentially preventing even more dying in a subsequent
| invasion. The class was similarly split.
| jacobush wrote:
| There's no consensus it ended the war. Rather the opposite. The
| Japanese generals had larger problems to consider, such as the
| fact that most targets were _already_ rubble, and the fact that
| the Soviets were on their doorstep.
| rbecker wrote:
| This article elaborates that the bombings probably weren't
| necessary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24093814
| valuearb wrote:
| Strange, as the Japanese military mutinied when the Emperor
| ordered the surrender.
| Hokusai wrote:
| > and maybe actually more the non-horrific but relentless
| robotic support for the war (or obedience towards the emperor,
| government, etc) among the people
|
| That is a lot of words to say "civilians trying to survive
| during a war".
|
| To make it even worse, the war criminals, that ones that were
| part of the "horrors of the Japanese war machine" were spared
| by the USA after the war. Fearing an increase influence of
| Communism in Asia, the USA let the war criminals go unpunished.
|
| Targeting civilians while sparing war criminals is hardly a
| moral stand point.
| sorokod wrote:
| Kazutoshi Hando, The Pacific War Research Society, Japan's
| Longest Day (Tokyo: Kodansha International, Ltd., 1968), pp.
| 11-53.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20110225124451/http://www.mtholy...
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| If you have never read it, I high recommend "The Atomic Bombings
| of Hiroshima & Nagasaki" by the Manhatten Project [1].
|
| There are some facinating technical details (in particluar the
| way heat reflected in the hills of Nagasaki) but in general it
| makes for grim reading.
|
| I was always struck by the contrast between the dispassionate
| analysis in the report and the final eye witness account in the
| appendix.
|
| I always had the feeling that they knew what they had done and
| knew that it was wrong.
|
| [1] https://www.abomb1.org/hiroshim/hiro_med.pdf
| traceroute66 wrote:
| Nuking the Japanese was just the culmination of rather horrific
| methods used by the US against Japan.
|
| Another one the US was quite keen on is firebombing (aerial
| incendiary bombing of urban areas). Grave of the Fireflies is a
| movie well worth watching that provides a depiction of the effect
| of war on society.
| dkyc wrote:
| The pop-up advertising a 'flash sale' over the first paragraph
| couldn't have been placed worse.
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