Did U.S. Have to Drop Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[Don]

Its hard to feel sorry for Japan at that time.

From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.

Total Japanese losses including military and civilian were somewhere between 2,500,000 to 3,238,000 including the approximately
129,000 to 246,000 killed in the atomic bombings.

[Bob]

Well, @Bob was in his 40s, I think.

The bombs fell on Japan when I was days short of being seven. It was Summer and I was not far from going to the second grade in school. We had no kindergarten in those days.

*thanks for the mention.

[Bob]

NYT opinion poll.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/wo...smtyp=cur&_r=0

What are the thoughts of people here?

First things first. Was the A Bombs as bad as commonly supposed them to be?

Things like this must be compared to other cities, other deaths to come up with the truth.

Dresden Germany vanished from the face of earth as a viable city. Tokyo was a pit of death and so were a number of Japanese cities.

If your body is rendered into body parts and slush by regular bombs, how much more dead can one get than that? Burning to death in Tokyo surely was no fun.

So, the population of Hiroshima was what at the time? In the neighborhood of 100,000.

So what about the fall out? What about it? It was no bomb like the others for sure. But it produced this
Fire
Heat
radiation

Those not in the killing zone were not instantly killed.
Those a mile away from Hiroshima had a good chance to live.

Question is... was the two bombs necessary?

If you wanted to save hundreds of thousands of US Casualties, sure it was.

If you don't mind losing those Americans, of course not. The Japanese would have ended up defeated. So in terms of time, 1945 was the end of the war. With no bombs used on the two cities, could have taken a year or two to finish off the Japanese with the cost of many more Japanese and Americans.

Had Russia been able to arrive in time, they would have shared in running Japan.

All in all, Truman was correct as I see it.

[Bob]

NYT opinion poll.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/wo...smtyp=cur&_r=0

What are the thoughts of people here?

Back to this again.

I am thinking of how destroyed Japan was. Had the USA simply walked away from Japan and said we were out of the war, things would be different today.

Japan more than likely would have reverted to it's old way of thinking. The emperor would have taken back over and who knows what would happen later on. Japan could have became what North Korea became.

We stuck a fork in Japan and really they ended up better off that we used both the A bombs.

Use this site to evaluate the A bombs damage.


http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-0...ma-atomic-bomb

You want to start the application and then click to mark the part of the target for the center.

[Redrose]

The bombs fell on Japan when I was days short of being seven. It was Summer and I was not far from going to the second grade in school. We had no kindergarten in those days.

*thanks for the mention.

Nice avatar @Bob.

[Bob]

None of us where alive during Hiroshima, my father was. My direct knowledge comes from him. His words were we were fighting on two fronts, two wars at once. The japanese and the germans were pitbulls, they refused to give an inch we had to take it.

My father believed that they had no idea just how much damage the bomb would do. From the news reports at the time, he had the impression they were going to drop the bomb on the emperors lap and scare them into Waving the white flag realizing we could get to him. He truly didnt think the govt knew the devestation it would cause.

He felt the bombing was necessary and without it we had a chance of defeat in the pacific.
Thats all I know any other opinions by younger people is just backseat driving because you know the results. To understand it you have to have some understanding of the mindset then, not todays.

I was in grade school when the bombs fell. To be frank, we were dirt poor. I found out WW2 ended by the sounds of the train whistles at Roseville, CA then a hub railroad equipment repair shops. Suddenly they let off those steam whistles till it seemed all of them were making this enormous sound. Mom had a radio at the house i believe.

I had not heard that Germany surrendered when it did. I only recall the day the Japs quit by the trains making one heck of a racket.

[Bob]

Nice avatar @Bob.

My precious youngest daughter is next to me with that huge smile on her face. I and her were picking out photos for her to keep in her collection. We were at Lake Elizabeth park that day. When she was tiny, she loved playing there. Her own children played there that day and also enjoyed the park. She has a step daughter and her own son.

[Bob]

I would have to say yes. The European Theater was a conventional war and we won that. The Japanese in the Pacific Theater were a different kind of enemy, they had suicide attacks on our ships and we had never fought an enemy like that. They were a formidible enemy, that fought with 'honor' and were willing to die for their country. They were not going to stop, and we needed to wrap it up before we lost more people. The bomb did it.

As a side note, if we were the America we were 70 years ago and our enemies feared us, I truly believe much of the terrorism and unrest in the ME directed at us would not exist.

The two bombs saved lives for sure. Theirs and ours.

I know, using the A bombs seems awful until you see what happened to a lot of other cities during that war. Cities all over Germany had all but vanished. Japan was heavily bombed prior to the A bombs being used. Tokyo was burning. Back then, this country did not mind one bit using firebombs to try to incinerate the Japanese type of buildings. Germany used a lot of stone and masonry. Not so in Japan.

[Ransom]

My precious youngest daughter is next to me with that huge smile on her face. I and her were picking out photos for her to keep in her collection. We were at Lake Elizabeth park that day. When she was tiny, she loved playing there. Her own children played there that day and also enjoyed the park. She has a step daughter and her own son.

Very cool pic, Bob. You're a blessed man.

[Bob]

Very cool pic, Bob. You're a blessed man.

She had flown here from the Hawaiian Islands. She is so loving. Both my daughters are very loving.