American in Hiroshima...

[Enkidu22]

Originally Posted by MMM

You have a lot of "what ifs" and I don't think the facts support there would have been a vote for surrender without the Emperor stepping down earlier. They were planning to go out in battle, and were planning a final battle that would not win the war (they knew that wasn't going to happen) but would, very literally, kill as many Americans as possible. Yes, some leaders wanted to surrender. Others wanted to fight to the death. Even after the first A-bomb the surrender votes couldn't come to a majority.

Same after the second one. Japanese government first debated capitulation on 22 july so before the A-bombs. They agreed when Truman accepted their demands to leave Hirohito alone and let him keep his throne, and it was all thanks to the Swiss ambasador who negociated with japanese government and convinced Truman that's it's the only way. US politics just didn't care, they would just bomb Japan back to the stone age rather than negociate.

[noodle]

Originally Posted by MMM

Last thing's first. They were training to become soldiers, and you are right, they didn't have weapons. That's why they were sharpening bamboo sticks to uses as spears.

Invasion: You can't simply divide the estimate number of deaths over number of days you invade. In an invasion you don't have the same death toll on day 1 as you do on day 15. On D-Day 10,000 soldiers (out of an invasion of 150,000) were killed in just a few hours. The invading force would have been much higher, and so would have the casualties on both sides. Keeping the random number 3 months (though I doubt they planned on it taking that long) I would say half of the deaths would have occurred within the first 1/4 of that time period. That's 3 weeks and 250,000 deaths. Still higher than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Good military leaders don't get into situations where "the death tolls increase and increase and increase for NO REASON". Switching strategies mid-stream ALWAYS leads to higher death tolls, so you have to engage in a winnable plan. That's just military strategy.

So I am afraid that option wouldn't have been on the table very long.

Last thing's first as well... I see, so that's the reason why Bush is still in Iraq? hmmm, that makes sense, don't change to a better plan because its guranteed to cost you more deaths than the plan you are on now...?????

You're not getting the point i'm trying to make. This idea was off the top of my head in a couple of seconds... With careful planning, and real strategy, an A-bomb could have been a last resort... Just like it is now... Please, tell me, why doesn't Bush use them right now? Civilians are attacking american soldiers... oh sorry, civilians fighting back/attacking = soldiers... i forgot...

Joint Chiefs of Staff in April made a study saying a 90-day (the 3 months i was talking about) Olympic campaign would cost 456,000 casualties (the rougly 500,000 we've been talking about)
In a conference with President Truman on June 18, Marshall, taking the Battle of Luzon as the best model for Olympic, thought the Americans would suffer 31,000 casualties in the first 30 days (and ultimately 20% of Japanese casualties, which implied a total of 70,000 casualties).

Anyway, i'm gonna stop here because this isn't getting anywhere... The point that you're not seing is Truman made a mistake... A HUGE mistake that even officials in America called it a cowerdly act to save american lives and to show off power when the japanese were on the brink of defeat anyway!!!

Here's a quote from an american!!!!

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."

[MMM]

Originally Posted by Enkidu22

Same after the second one. Japanese government first debated capitulation on 22 july so before the A-bombs. They agreed when Truman accepted their demands to leave Hirohito alone and let him keep his throne, and it was all thanks to the Swiss ambasador who negociated with japanese government and convinced Truman that's it's the only way. US politics just didn't care, they would just bomb Japan back to the stone age rather than negociate.

It took the Emperor to make the deciding vote to decide to surrender. After two A-bombs were dropped on two cities, half of the Japanese leadership wanted to continue to fight...which essentially was suicide, but by the code of bushido, was the honorable way to go.

I don't quite understand your last sentence. Truman was NOT interested in killing as many Japanese as possible. Quite the opposite. He knew the leadership, especially Toho (who I think was out by then, but I could be wrong) would lead every man, woman, and child to their deaths unless it was shown they would be killed without dying in battle. Where is JAPAN'S responsibility in this argument?

[MMM]

Originally Posted by noodle

Last thing's first as well... I see, so that's the reason why Bush is still in Iraq? hmmm, that makes sense, don't change to a better plan because its guranteed to cost you more deaths than the plan you are on now...?????

You're not getting the point i'm trying to make. This idea was off the top of my head in a couple of seconds... With careful planning, and real strategy, an A-bomb could have been a last resort... Just like it is now... Please, tell me, why doesn't Bush use them right now? Civilians are attacking american soldiers... oh sorry, civilians fighting back/attacking = soldiers... i forgot...

Joint Chiefs of Staff in April made a study saying a 90-day (the 3 months i was talking about) Olympic campaign would cost 456,000 casualties (the rougly 500,000 we've been talking about)
In a conference with President Truman on June 18, Marshall, taking the Battle of Luzon as the best model for Olympic, thought the Americans would suffer 31,000 casualties in the first 30 days (and ultimately 20% of Japanese casualties, which implied a total of 70,000 casualties).

Anyway, i'm gonna stop here because this isn't getting anywhere... The point that you're not seing is Truman made a mistake... A HUGE mistake that even officials in America called it a cowerdly act to save american lives and to show off power when the japanese were on the brink of defeat anyway!!!

Here's a quote from an american!!!!

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."

Yes. That is exactly the reason Bush is still in Iraq. He wasn't able to see his strategy wasn't working, and he waited too long to change it. But let's not try and compare Iraq and Japan, and Bush and Truman.

I agree with you 100% that the dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are two of the saddest acts America ever committed as acts of war. They are truly tragic events. Yes, it brought a speedy end to a very bloody and devasting war, but it erased the lives of 105,000 instantly, and that number doubled as a result soon after.

But even by your own numbers and facts America's other option: a ground attack, would have led to at least twice that number of casualties, soldiers and civilians, over a much longer and drawn out period of time.

Initially the thoughts are 100,000 vs. 500,000. End the war in a week, or stretch it out over three months. Zero American deaths vs. Massive American deaths. Every number. Every statistic. Every estimate. Every strategy points at using the bomb.

How could a President, whose job as the top military leader is to protect his country and protect his soldiers choose a strategy which took 1) More time, 2) More human loss of life 3) More civilian loss of life and 4) more American soldier loss of life? How could he turn to his country and say "We have a way that will end this war tomorrow, and protect our troops and our country, but instead, I am going to put our boys on the ground, in the most dangerous form of combat in war."? He would have been impeached, if not worse, in days.

I don't feel the need to go on much more either. It's been interesting reading up on this topic, as it is certainly a fascinating one...(look how far we got from the original question). I want to be able to agree with you, I really do. But War is Hell. Sometimes decisions have to be made where there is no good option. I think this was one of those decisions. He chose what he beleived to be the lesser of the two evils.

[Enkidu22]

Well the truth is we will never know what US politics were really thinking, or if Japan would surrender if they didn't use A-bomb and negociate instead. It's a very hard subject and there aren't any hard evidences for either of our teories, which means we will just stick to our opinions.

But my opinion is: US just didn't try to end war without killing innocent people. They didn't care that Japan would never agree to put Hirohito on trial, they preffered to just force them with carpet bombing and A-bomb, killing hundreds of thousands civilians and burning cities to the ground. They didn't try to negociate nor try to understand japanese mentality and beliefs. They simply wanted to make Hirohito an asian Hitler and sentence him in show-off trial. If Swiss diplomats in Japan didn't started to negociate on their own it's possible that war would end a lot later.

[samurai007]

Originally Posted by Enkidu22

Same after the second one. Japanese government first debated capitulation on 22 july so before the A-bombs. They agreed when Truman accepted their demands to leave Hirohito alone and let him keep his throne, and it was all thanks to the Swiss ambasador who negociated with japanese government and convinced Truman that's it's the only way. US politics just didn't care, they would just bomb Japan back to the stone age rather than negociate.

That's not quite correct. Truman didn't need convincing to leave the Emperor in power, it was the plan all along. General MacArthur, who was put in charge of post-war Japan, and General Marshall both felt it was the right course of action and planned on doing that all along. However, WW1's Treaty of Versailles, and the separate negotiated peace agreements after WW1 led the Allies in WW2 to make an agreement that they would settle for nothing less than unconditional surrender from the Axis this time.

Some Japanese diplomats then sent 3 "feelers" out to see if the US would accept a conditional surrender. There is no evidence that these feelers were serious about the offers, or if they were just trying to gauge US commitment to the war. They were making massive preparations to defend Kyushu, hording bombs, planes, guns, etc, and digging fortifications, training millions of civilians how to commit suicide bombs and fight with sticks and spears, etc. Why do all of that if they were truly on the verge of surrender? That makes no sense.

Also, the notion that the US didn't want Russia to invade Japanese holdings makes little sense considering the US lobbied strongly for Russia to declare war on Japan and join the battle, in order to take care of the massive Japanese army in Korea and Manchuria while the US invaded the main islands. In fact, Sec of War Stimson devised a 1-2-3 plan to greatly demoralize the Japanese and hopefully get them to surrender without having to resort to a bloody invasion...

step 1: Hiroshima
step 2: Soviets declare war on Japan
step 3: Nagasaki (if necessary)

They refused to surrender even after steps 1 and 2... again, if they were so very close to surrendering anyway, why not surrender at that point? But they refused. So step 3 was Nagasaki, and it very nearly wasn't enough either. Many Japanese were shocked when word of the surrender came, and some Japanese even committed suicide over the dishonor. Many feared what life would be like, since the Japanese treated the Chinese and POWs who surrendered very badly.

One more point about the cost of a "short invasion", followed by the A-bombs if it didn't go well. The Japanese constantly threatened to execute all POWs and foreign civilians the day their homeland was invaded. The total number of such people were several hundred thousand, possibly as many as 450,000 according to 1 estimate, but at least 300,000. The Japanese were not known for idle threats, so if they were truthful about that, even 1 day of an invasion would have ended up costing far more lives than were lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[samurai007]

Originally Posted by Enkidu22

Well the truth is we will never know what US politics were really thinking, or if Japan would surrender if they didn't use A-bomb and negociate instead. It's a very hard subject and there aren't any hard evidences for either of our teories, which means we will just stick to our opinions.

But my opinion is: US just didn't try to end war without killing innocent people. They didn't care that Japan would never agree to put Hirohito on trial, they preffered to just force them with carpet bombing and A-bomb, killing hundreds of thousands civilians and burning cities to the ground. They didn't try to negociate nor try to understand japanese mentality and beliefs. They simply wanted to make Hirohito an asian Hitler and sentence him in show-off trial. If Swiss diplomats in Japan didn't started to negociate on their own it's possible that war would end a lot later.

There were never any plans to put Hirohito on trial. First, he was just a figurehead... Tojo was the one really in charge, along with the generals and admirals. All of the anti-Japanese propaganda in the US centered on Tojo, not Hirohito. Second, it was felt leaving the Emperor as a figurehead would keep the populace calmer, and maybe he could even be convinced to go along with some of the rebuilding efforts and such.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by Enkidu22

But my opinion is: US just didn't try to end war without killing innocent people. They didn't care that Japan would never agree to put Hirohito on trial, they preffered to just force them with carpet bombing and A-bomb, killing hundreds of thousands civilians and burning cities to the ground. They didn't try to negociate nor try to understand japanese mentality and beliefs. They simply wanted to make Hirohito an asian Hitler and sentence him in show-off trial. If Swiss diplomats in Japan didn't started to negociate on their own it's possible that war would end a lot later.

It worries me a little that you think any civilized and sane modern leader would even choose the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians over accepting surrender. As Samurai said, they were not trying to make the emperor the bad guy. Imagine how the post-war rebuilding would have gone if they had. It would be like Iraq now...suicide bombers, complete social unrest, progress impossible.

[samurai007]

Something else to consider... there was a very real possibility of the Soviets taking a lot of ground very quickly once they mobilized. Possibly Tokyo would have become a divided city like Berlin, and all of northern Honshu and Hokkaidu controlled by the Soviets and trapped behind the iron curtain for 40-50 years. 171 people died trying to cross the Berlin wall, many more died trying to escape across other parts of the border, and millions suffered under Communist rule for decades. North Korea continues to suffer even today.

Had Japan been divided between the US and Russia, I don't think it would be nearly as prosperous or vibrant as it is today. Decades of oppression and starvation in the north would have prevented all the brilliant and successful Japanese who were born there from ever achieving what they were able to do in a free Japan. How many inventors, artists, businessmen, and leaders were born in the northern half of Japan, and could Japan have succeeded as it has, become the country it is today, without them? For that matter, how many such people had the misfortune of being born in North Korea in the last 50 years, and either starved, killed, or were never given the opportunity to make vital contributions to the world? What would Korea be like today had it been a united, free, whole country for the past 50 years?

[Tenchu]

Originally Posted by MMM

People use grotesque pictures when they run out of arguments. The anti-abotionists have been doing it for years.

MMM, I dont think so, not in my case. You people are analyzeing a situation, you are useing statistics and figures to deal with peoples lives. Here Samurai (she?) is telling me what a soldiers greatest greatest ability is, when I am not sure, but I suspect Samurai is never been a soldier, and I have, and am now full time martial artist who practices better ways to kill people all day long, and she is trying to tell me what my greatest strength is. Charts and math might be great and all, but when all is said, I am the one who is going to be dealing in bodies and corpses. I kinda hoped seeing the pictures would help her understand what I deal with. They are just a tad different than the numbers she is working in.

Samurai,

A soldier on the ground doesn't always choose his victims. There are accidents, there's artillery fire, there's collapsing buildings, grenades, mortars, a massive bombing and shelling campaign that would precede any land invasion, and so on. If you are a soldier, you ought to know that.

This is only true for American soldiers. The massive amounts of casualties the US causes in a war is in the numbers considered grossly unacceptable by the ADF (Australian Defence Force). US marines have a nack for causeing massive destruction. The method they use to invade is part of this reason. The US Infantry resupplies every day, most armies only resup every 3 days. This means the US keeps firepower close to its Infantry protecting its resup. The marines use in 1 day the ammo I use in 3. If they get in trouble they dont try and out smart like the aussies do, they just blow the fuck out of it. Like I said, these are not honorable people. Australia lacks the numbers, but if it were Australian divisions that took Japan, the statistics used would have been a lot different. Anyway, this is not my point. The US gave up, and took the easy way out. I dont think saveing the lives of civilians has ever been the goal of the US, their tactics prove that. Fighting with a bullet and knife would have been the honorable choice. A soldier can choose his victims, even if an american soldier chooses not to. Om, why do I say the same things twice. It is because it is so basic, but you are so blind. I want you to say it, it is true, this is the way you think, so just say it: "It is okay that some innocent children die here and there, and some innocent men and women, it is okay that they die, so long as the war runs smoother there after". Just say it. That is what all your facts and history evidence is saying anyway. Admit that and I will leave you alone. I dont want to humiliate you, I just want you to acknowledge who you are.

"grabbing children as they run screaming to burn their skin off".

Well, maybe they didnt physically lay their hands on them, but the running and burning part is true.

Finally, your comment about a soldier's greatest ability is to kneel is completely backwards IMHO. His greatest ability is to stand strong, defending the country and free people the world over from tyranny and oppression.

You overstep your boundary a bit here. If your motive is to protect others, you will be able to kneel and take the tumble for this cause. Selflessness is kneeling. Something the US is lacking. Majority of their soldiers would rather kill the enemy civilians than risk looseing their own life. That is why so many are dead in Iraq (civilians), because when insurgeants put up a good fight and the soldiers are at risk, they just bomb the buildings killing civilians too. The honorable thing would have been to approach on foot, hook in and kill them by hand. It is greater risk, but the innocent people would still be alive. The government has also proved it is not willing to endure financial hardship or anything for the sake of others, they are just as selfish. And kneeling to Hitler is not what I meant.

Anyway, just say it: "It is okay that some innocent children die here and there, and some innocent men and women, it is okay that they die, so long as the war runs smoother there after". If you understand what you are supporting then I will leave you be, if you dont agree that the above is your thoughts, explain why not.