Did nuking Japan save more lives than an invasion of Japan?

[Spiderman]

I can't imagine what the innocent survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima went through emerging from a fire ball more than 7,000 degrees in temperature, burned from head to toe, with skin and hair melted off, covered with purple sores and filled with toxins, looking like ghosts or zombies from science fiction/horror movie.

Watching a documentary or photographs is one thing that can kind of make you ill or arouse feelings of heartache. But using our imagination or visually seeing it would be nothing compared to being the innocent human beings and children that had to live such a nightmare that in a sense you never wake up from.

But if the atom Bomb had not been used, there would have most likely been an all out invasion of Japan as well as a long drawn out bombing campaign of Japanese cities and factories, that likely would have killed far more people.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Questions like this invite wild speculation and equally wild web-surfing.

 

[Nietzsche]

There is a solid argument to be made either way. I think the most reasonable view is that we(the US) didn't give the Japanese time after the initial attack to truly understand what had happened. Mostly because, well, we're the ones who destroyed the telegraph lines and other sources of communication from the Target City to the Imperial Capital. However, this ignores the greater purpose of the atomic bombings. It was meant to shake Japan into surrender, yes, but the ulterior motive was to show the Soviet Union that it should seriously reconsider any plans on continuing past the lines marked for the division of Germany.

Now, at the time we didn't know that the Soviets had no intention of invading Western Europe at the time. The Soviet War Machine, much like the British & American one, was running on empty. There were plenty of men, but they still had material shortages, and they would only get worse had they decided to push into Western Europe.

So yes, the initial attack was necessary. The second attack was as well, but not for defeating Japan.

 

[Spiderman]

There were two girls in a bombshelter/bank that survived being inside the fireball. When they woke up and went outside it was a vision of hell. the city was black...flames everywhere and piles of naked, dead charred bodies up and down the streets.

Now if you were one of those survivors, I wonder if it would increase or decrease your faith in God? Despite how horrifying it all is, it must make you feel like someone was looking out for you in such a bizzare instance where everyone within a three mile radias was turned into carbon instantly and you are still alive.

 

[metis]

Truman was talked into dropping the bombs primarily because the military and some scientists wanted to see what they would do on a major city, not so much that it save lives. Where did I get this from? Truman's own memoirs.

The fact of the matter is that Japan's days were numbered, we had the country surrounded, and a land invasion may not at all have been necessary as they were running out of fuel and food..

 

[Spiderman]

Yeah that could be.

If one could thing came out of it...I hope that seeing the horror that such a thing does, and what all the years of medical tests on the victims, it will serve to discourage anyone who is thirsty for World War 3

 

[metis]

Yeah that could be.

If one could thing came out of it...I hope that seeing the horror that such a thing does, and what all the years of medical tests on the victims, it will serve to discourage anyone who is thirsty for World War 3

The country I think is most apt to use it today is Pakistan. BTW, there's been border skirmishes between they and India over the last couple of days in Kashmir, and people are fleeing the region.

 

[JayJayDee]

Yeah that could be.

If one could thing came out of it...I hope that seeing the horror that such a thing does, and what all the years of medical tests on the victims, it will serve to discourage anyone who is thirsty for World War 3

One thing is certain....this atrocity, and indeed any similar acts of mass murder were not committed by Christians. The use of such heinous and indiscriminate weapons could never have God's approval.

Only those drunk with power could use such weaponry on innocents. This simply demonstrates how corrupting such power is.
There is no sanction by God to take innocent lives as if they are sacrificed for the good of others. Only God has that prerogative, since he can restore lives if he chooses.

 

[Nietzsche]

Truman was talked into dropping the bombs primarily because the military and some scientists wanted to see what they would do on a major city, not so much that it save lives. Where did I get this from? Truman's own memoirs.

The fact of the matter is that Japan's days were numbered, we had the country surrounded, and a land invasion may not at all have been necessary as they were running out of fuel and food..

That ignores everything we saw on Okinawa.

 

[metis]

That ignores everything we saw on Okinawa.

Please explain because I'm not really sure which part of what I posted you're responding to.

 

[Ingledsva]

I can't imagine what the innocent survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima went through emerging from a fire ball more than 7,000 degrees in temperature, burned from head to toe, with skin and hair melted off, covered with purple sores and filled with toxins, looking like ghosts or zombies from science fiction/horror movie.

Watching a documentary or photographs is one thing that can kind of make you ill or arouse feelings of heartache. But using our imagination or visually seeing it would be nothing compared to being the innocent human beings and children that had to live such a nightmare that in a sense you never wake up from.

But if the atom Bomb had not been used, there would have most likely been an all out invasion of Japan as well as a long drawn out bombing campaign of Japanese cities and factories, that likely would have killed far more people.

The war was already winding down, and they had already lost.

This was straight out murder. This was not an action between fighting troops, but an attack on a civilian population.

It was purposefully done to test the bomb on people, and they withheld medical information that they knew would help the people with the medical problems.

They used these Japanese noncombatants as guinea-pigs.

That is murder.


*

 

[Ingledsva]

Truman was talked into dropping the bombs primarily because the military and some scientists wanted to see what they would do on a major city, not so much that it save lives. Where did I get this from? Truman's own memoirs.

The fact of the matter is that Japan's days were numbered, we had the country surrounded, and a land invasion may not at all have been necessary as they were running out of fuel and food..

Absolutely correct. It was murder of a civilian population.

*

 

[Spiderman]

And then to already have tested it and dropped another one makes my hair stand on end.

What goes around might come around.

 

[gnomon]

I can't imagine what the innocent survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima went through emerging from a fire ball more than 7,000 degrees in temperature, burned from head to toe, with skin and hair melted off, covered with purple sores and filled with toxins, looking like ghosts or zombies from science fiction/horror movie.

Watching a documentary or photographs is one thing that can kind of make you ill or arouse feelings of heartache. But using our imagination or visually seeing it would be nothing compared to being the innocent human beings and children that had to live such a nightmare that in a sense you never wake up from.

But if the atom Bomb had not been used, there would have most likely been an all out invasion of Japan as well as a long drawn out bombing campaign of Japanese cities and factories, that likely would have killed far more people.

That's not the right question.

The facts are this. The United States military has planned and organized an invasion of the Japanese mainland before the invasion of Okinawa. Here's something to know about Okinawa. For many centuries Okinawa, or the Ryukyu Islands, was an independent realm from Japan. Over time the Japanese immigrated to and eventually annexed the Ryukyu Islands about a half a century before WWII. When the U.S. forces invaded Okinawa it turned out to be one of the most costly battles of the Pacific War in that the Japanese military dug in and fought out to the last man. Despite the fact that their numbers were far outnumbered by U.S. forces leading the invasion of Okinawa the fierce battle of a relatively annexed island chain by the Japanese led military intelligence to believe that an invasion on the homeland of Japan would result in even a greater ratio of casualties among U.S. forces. The fierceness that the Japanese exhibited in defending Okinawa was one of the factors in determining to use a new form of warfare to bring an end to the war.

And let's never mind the fact that the atomic bombs were dropped some days apart and that the first bomb didn't even lead to a Japanese surrender. The idea of total war, based upon the sheer brutality of what the Japanese forces exhibited upon not only the Koreans who they enslaved as well as the Manchu, the Chinese and every ethnic group they took over in their Pacific campaign and Southeast Asian campaign, left only a single lasting impression that Japan would not be defeated short of a victory of total war.

And quite frankly, I have no problem stating this in light of the Japanese militaristic culture and what it exhibited among so many other peoples in terms of mass murder, the desecration of prisoners and even the singular event of Nanking.......the atomic bombs and their destruction pale in comparison. Absolutely pale in comparison. And that the dropping of those two bombs did most likely result in saving more lives not only of U.S. soldiers but what would have transpired in more traditional fire bombing campaigns leading up to and continuing after a tradition invasion mean that overall the bombing of two strategic cities by two atomic bombs whose death tolls don't meet fire bombings seen throughout World War II..........I wonder why people continue to bring up this question.

They don't study history.

I would ask the survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima to visit the many nations the Japanese Army visited throughout their invasion of China and the Pacific Islands instead and the perversion of the Bushido culture that led to the devastating atrocities and loss of life those campaigns exhibited.

Yes, an outright invasion of Japan with the accompanying and far more numerous bombing campaigns against many more centers of population would have made the atomic bombing campaigns pale in comparison.

Never mind the effect the actual two bombs had in bringing at least a stale mate in the West preventing a Stalinist Soviet Union from pushing forth more claims in Europe and Asia than it could have made.

 

[Spiderman]

So, how many non Japanese countries were still being occupied by Japan when the US dropped the A bomb?

 

[LuisDantas]

But if the atom Bomb had not been used, there would have most likely been an all out invasion of Japan as well as a long drawn out bombing campaign of Japanese cities and factories, that likely would have killed far more people.

I have heard that before, and I have no idea how anyone would come to such a conclusion. Those explosions alone killed about two hundred thousand people. Even if it were just a matter of comparing the numbers (which it isn't), it really stretches imagination to attempt to conceive a scenario which made them somehow save lives overall.

 

[Ingledsva]

That's not the right question.

The facts are this. The United States military has planned and organized an invasion of the Japanese mainland before the invasion of Okinawa. Here's something to know about Okinawa. For many centuries Okinawa, or the Ryukyu Islands, was an independent realm from Japan. Over time the Japanese immigrated to and eventually annexed the Ryukyu Islands about a half a century before WWII. When the U.S. forces invaded Okinawa it turned out to be one of the most costly battles of the Pacific War in that the Japanese military dug in and fought out to the last man. Despite the fact that their numbers were far outnumbered by U.S. forces leading the invasion of Okinawa the fierce battle of a relatively annexed island chain by the Japanese led military intelligence to believe that an invasion on the homeland of Japan would result in even a greater ratio of casualties among U.S. forces. The fierceness that the Japanese exhibited in defending Okinawa was one of the factors in determining to use a new form of warfare to bring an end to the war.

And let's never mind the fact that the atomic bombs were dropped some days apart and that the first bomb didn't even lead to a Japanese surrender. The idea of total war, based upon the sheer brutality of what the Japanese forces exhibited upon not only the Koreans who they enslaved as well as the Manchu, the Chinese and every ethnic group they took over in their Pacific campaign and Southeast Asian campaign, left only a single lasting impression that Japan would not be defeated short of a victory of total war.

And quite frankly, I have no problem stating this in light of the Japanese militaristic culture and what it exhibited among so many other peoples in terms of mass murder, the desecration of prisoners and even the singular event of Nanking.......the atomic bombs and their destruction pale in comparison. Absolutely pale in comparison. And that the dropping of those two bombs did most likely result in saving more lives not only of U.S. soldiers but what would have transpired in more traditional fire bombing campaigns leading up to and continuing after a tradition invasion mean that overall the bombing of two strategic cities by two atomic bombs whose death tolls don't meet fire bombings seen throughout World War II..........I wonder why people continue to bring up this question.

They don't study history.

I would ask the survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima to visit the many nations the Japanese Army visited throughout their invasion of China and the Pacific Islands instead and the perversion of the Bushido culture that led to the devastating atrocities and loss of life those campaigns exhibited.

Yes, an outright invasion of Japan with the accompanying and far more numerous bombing campaigns against many more centers of population would have made the atomic bombing campaigns pale in comparison.

Never mind the effect the actual two bombs had in bringing at least a stale mate in the West preventing a Stalinist Soviet Union from pushing forth more claims in Europe and Asia than it could have made.

I don't agree with you - but that is beside the point!

Nothing you have said makes it OK to MURDER a civilian population! NOTHING!


*

 

[LuisDantas]

Now if you were one of those survivors, I wonder if it would increase or decrease your faith in God? Despite how horrifying it all is, it must make you feel like someone was looking out for you in such a bizzare instance where everyone within a three mile radias was turned into carbon instantly and you are still alive.

I suppose one has to guess. I would like to believe it would utterly destroy my faith in God (if I had any), though.

 

[gnomon]

I don't agree with you - but that is beside the point!

Nothing you have said makes it OK to MURDER a civilian population! NOTHING!


*

I'm not going to go into the minds of the millions of people who suffered during WWII and saw the mass murder by the Axis upon civilians and responded with total war against civilians working for the military complex of those nations in order to protect the lives of their own people.

It's so easily and quite frankly morally juvenile to just state that "nothing you have said makes it OK to MURDER a civilian population! NOTHING!" I don't possess the moral high ground in order to make a backwards proclamation among people who saw their own innocent civilians murders by a nation complex and their resultant retaliation in self defense.

Maybe one day I could enter that fantasy land. But none of the drugs I've taken in my lifetime have ever led me to that delusional world to retroactively make such a simplistic proclamation.

It must be nice to live in such a fantasy that overrides the military experience of the numerous logisticians and military leaders who lived through those experiences and pushed so many innocent civilians who became soldiers to their death in taking island after island that the Japanese conquered and enslaved to make such a proclamation. The numerous blood baths they witnessed along with the factual accounts of the abhorrent conditions the enslaved populations endured, that captured soldiers endured in Southeast Asia and never mind the fact that by the time the U.S. was pushing back the Japanese occupation in the Pacific and China the fact of what their ally in Germany had achieved against the native Jewish population among other native populations in mass genocide......

That they decided to drop two bombs to end the war forgoing an ongoing conflict which the best military minds determined would have resulted in far more allied casualties against a nation industrial complex that exhibited the same atrocities their allies had done.

I wish I could be that much of a moron to retroactively damn after the fact based upon no legitimate argument anyone has presented in this thread such a condemnation of murder.

Go ask the Koreans. Go ask the Chinese. Go ask the many peoples of the Pacific. Go ask the Jews. Go ask the Roma. Go superimpose your idealistic world view upon the actual human beings who lived through that tragedy of mass warfare with your enlightened sense of armchair morality.

The actions of the U.S. and her allies were an act of total war that the Axis nations presented against the rest of the world. The firebombing of Japan was as devastating as what the atomic bombs presented but no one brings that up in the uber moralistic standards of what they think warfare should comprise. That peoples of a nation would react in kind to the extreme destruction aggressor nations presented among them or their allies.

Whenever people try to make absolute proclamations of morality in regards to what transpired in World War II most reasonable people must take a grain of salt. But the absolute condemnation of the accusation of outright murder by people who have obviously not presented an interest in the history of the war only leads to once conclusion.................

yawn.

I'm sorry. The absolute campaign conducted against Korea, Manchuria, China, Southeast Asia and the numerous Pacific Islands by the Japanese is not in question. Never have I read anyone complaining the outright enslavement, genocide and rape of the peoples of those numerous nations but the ultimate response by the U.S. and it's Allies to put an end to that campaign......suddenly they mount a moral high ground of ignorant proportion.

It's boring.

Any intelligent argument someone wants to add to counteract mine I would welcome. Screaming banshees of retroactive moralistic notions......boring.

I'm sorry. But the best estimates place the casualties at 200,000. These numbers pale in comparison to what the Japanese campaigns in Korea, Manchuria, China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, etc. came to. The loss of civilian life in those arenas while the Japanese civilians were engaged in carrying out the military industrial machine of the Japanese Army and Navy that led to the loss of life in those areas I mention.

I don't adhere to a simplistic minded view of immediate snapshots of war. There is a totality that must be remembered. The bombing of Nagasaki alone doesn't compare to what the Japanese military with it's civilian backing did in Nanking and the rest of China. The mass loss of life and rape that occurred there. Never mind the culture of not surrendering which I mentioned in my previous post about the Allied invasion of Okinawa and the casualties sustained there compared to what the Allies believed they would sustain in invading Japan to bring an end to the war.

But I'm sure you have jumped on forums denouncing such claims about the disallowance against civilian murder against what the Japanese and German military machines achieved against civilians knowing full well that those machines, as our all military machines, backed by a civilian population.

edit: Please don't bore me and say something intelligent other than "war is wrong". Of course it is. But let's not retroactively place our own moral superiority among people we know nothing of without at least a decent argument.

 

[Valjean]

Terrorist bombing of purely civilian populations, to undermine civilian support of the government, was a common allied strategy in WWII.
But for the new technology, why are Hiroshima and Nagasaki singled out as exceptional cases?