re: 80th anniversary of the 2nd atomic bomb

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This simply is not true. Sure we can judge historical decisions. Is this meant to stifle debate?

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Nonsense. Pure nonsense. If you try to understand history, but do so though the prism of hindsight and 80 years of postwar propaganda, you’ll never actually understand anything about history.

ETA: the fact you’re arguing the bombs were an unnecessary war crime is proof of this. Your view on the matter is clouded by postwar propaganda while ignoring the actual conditions that lead to the decision to use the bomb. You have proven by your own words in this thread that you lack even the most basic understanding of the matter.

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Typical of his generation, he spoke little of his time in war, and we realized too late to gently press him about it.

"The Greatest Generation" indeed.

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That's a pretty neat piece of family history to pass from one generation to the next.

My Dad was the same way. Just never much talked about the war. When we just kids his stock answer was. "it was so long ago I don't remember". As we became teenagers, he'd answer general questions, but he never initiated the conversation.
I'm like you-wished we'd pressed a little harder.
I do know he was proud of his service. At his funeral he asked for the flag ceremony instead of a casket spray.

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It’s really not that difficult. We incinerated approximately 200,000 civilians. The morality of that can and should be debated.

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I settled that debate several pages ago when I laid out the case that, of the options available at that time, dropping the bomb was the least horrible option that offered to end the war the quickest with the fewest deaths.

If you think there was a better option, I’m all ears. Lay out your case.

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If you think there was a better option, I’m all ears. Lay out your case.

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Agree. What is your concrete solution to ending the war with less loss of life than dropping those bombs? What’s the plan to invade mainland Japan and not have millions of casualties? You are talking about a culture where surrender was shameful no matter the situation. This is a culture with kamikazes and mothers who fling their children from cliffs rather than surrender. Please tell me your plan to minimize casualties in a scenario where we have to invade mainland Japan.

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If you think there was a better option, I’m all ears. Lay out your case.

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Options?
Wait. We knew through talks with Russia in 1944 and early 1945 that they would declare war on Japan after Germany was finished. Sure enough, Russia declared war on Japan in early August and invaded Manchuria. In a few weeks the puppet Japanese regime was done. Japan would have shortly been in a vise… Russia on their west. U.S. on their east.
I’m certainly no expert. And good people will disagree on this matter. I’m just giving thought to the use of nuclear weapons, war, and civilian vs enemy casualties. Peace.

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Wait. We knew through talks with Russia in 1944 and early 1945 that they would declare war on Japan after Germany was finished. Sure enough, Russia declared war on Japan in early August and invaded Manchuria. In a few weeks the puppet Japanese regime was done. Japan would have shortly been in a vise… Russia on their west. U.S. on their east.

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We dropped the first bomb on Aug. 6, 1945.

Russia declared war three days later on Aug 9, the same day we dropped the second atomic bomb.

Thus, when the decision was made to drop the bomb, Russia had not yet entered the war with Japan. No one knew for sure if Russia’s entry into the war would compel an immediate Japanese surrender. In fact, none of the Allied leaders thought it would lead to an immediate surrender or even compel Japan to ask for a truce to discuss surrendering. It was entirely possible the war could have dragged on for another six months. Only in HINDSIGHT is it possible to know what the effect of Russian entering the war would have or how long it would take their entry into the war to compel Japan to surrender. Again, you have to judge the actions and decisions of the summer of 1945 by the information available in the summer of 1945, not what happened after those decisions were made and how those decisions panned out.

You have to remember that while Russia was poised to attack Japanese occupied Manchuria, Russia lacked the naval means to launch an invasion of Japan proper. Based on the strategic picture available to the Allied leaders in the Spring and Summer of 1945, it appeared entirely possible, even likely, that Russia’s entry would indeed overwhelm Japanese forces on mainland China, but no one had the illusion that would negate the necessity of either months of continued blockade, or an American invasion of the Home Islands.

And then there is the matter of the other areas under Japanese occupation at that time. I mean places like Indochina, Thailand, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, and Formosa. What about the millions of people there who were on the cusp of starving to death? As I pointed out earlier, even at the start of 1945, the death toll in the areas was approximately 14,000 civilians dying daily of malnutrition and disease. By late spring, and early summer of 1945, that daily death toll was exploding. Had the war gone on even a few more months, you’d have have close to 100,000 people in these areas dying daily.

Which is more cruel?

A. Incinerating 100K people in an instant?

B. Allowing millions of people to slowly die of starvation and disease?

Again, no one knew in July 1945 how quickly Russia’s entry into the war against Japan would compel the Japanese government to sue for peace. Every indicator up until then was that the Japanese were prepared to fight to the last with no surrender. Battles like Saipan, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima had shown how fanatical Japanese forces were when defending what they considered Japanese home territory.

That was the choice Harry Truman faced when he made the decision in late July 1945 to drop the bomb, either take a chance to end the war immediately with the bomb, or face months more of war either the millions of deaths to Asians, Japanese, and Americans.

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I genuinely appreciate your thought out arguments Mr. Vader. God bless.

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Thank and same to you.

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Agin, when discussing matters like this, you have to do so from the perspective of that time. Hindsight cannot be allowed to factor in when judging decisions made at that time.

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I understand that. I just hold a ton of skepticism of our government, their actions, and the "official" narrative of things they do or why they did them.

Being told we HAD to embark on a ground invasion of an island that for all intents and purposes was cut off for months via blockades. Their infrastructure was badly damaged, they were running low on supplies.

Could there have been any ulterior motive to drop the bombs? Especially with Russia just about to get into the Eastern front.

What "ulterior motives"? There are zero historical facts to back up this excuse. Russia at been at war on the Eastern front 6 mths before the U.S. got involved in WWII.....thanks to Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Sitting safe & sound in your ivory tower 80+ years after the fact you either have no idea or are ignorant of the immense, pure raw hate of Japan back then. Many Americans back then by then had lost family members in the Pacific War, plus the "evil" attack on Pearl alone was still more than enough to stoke the hate. WWII was a horrible war, the worst ever perhaps, but to call the U.S. war policy "evil" is crazy. Or is there an "ulterior motive " involved?

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Could there have been any ulterior motive to drop the bombs? Especially with Russia just about to get into the Eastern front.

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People keep brining up Russia while ignoring the fact that even though Russia had the world’s largest army in 1945, it had no blue water navy. Everyone knew Russia had the capability to overrun all Japanese occupied areas on mainland Asia. And Russia could perhaps land some troops on Sakhalin Island, and in fact they did just that in the last days of the war.

But what Russia could not do, and everyone knew they could not do, was launch a full scale invasion of the Japanese home islands themselves. They simply lacked the naval power to launch and support a ground force large enough to even consider invading Japan proper.