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War is hell, but the 200k dead from the a-bombs was certainly preferable to the tens of millions who would have died if they hadn't been dropped and the Allies forced to go ahead with the planned land invasion of Japan. It's also highly likely that while the US was struggling with tackling Southern Japan, that the Soviets who had already invaded Japanese controlled Manchuria and Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands would have moved further into Northern Japan, and today we would have a communist North Japan much like North Korea. What the Japanese politician said was true and it's a shame he lost his job because of the ultra-nationalist backlash. The people that saw to his demise are the same ones who still deny that Comfort Women existed, even though there are many who survive today.

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Operation Downfall was the overall Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The operation was cancelled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan.

Operation Downfall consisted of two parts — Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Set to begin in November 1945, Operation Olympic was intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island of Kyūshū, with the recently captured island of Okinawa to be used as a staging area. Later, in the spring of 1946, Operation Coronet was the planned invasion of the Kantō plain near Tokyo on the Japanese island of Honshū. Airbases on Kyūshū captured in Operation Olympic would allow land-based air support for Operation Coronet.

Japan's geography made this invasion plan obvious to the Japanese as well, who were able to accurately deduce the Allied invasion plans and adjust their defense plans accordingly. The Japanese planned an all-out defense of Kyūshū, with little left in reserve for any subsequent defense operations. Casualty predictions varied widely but were extremely high for both sides: depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians resisted the invasion, estimates ran into the millions for Allied casualties[1] and the tens of millions for Japanese casualties.

Unbeknownst to the Americans, the Soviets were preparing to follow up their invasions of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands with an invasion of the weakly defended island of Hokkaidō by the end of August, which would have put pressure on the Allies to do something sooner than November. On August 15, the Japanese agreed to surrender, rendering the whole question of invasion moot.[32]

Read about the planned invasion here: Operation Downfall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Douglas MacArthur believed Japan was very close to surrender, and that argument is not without merit. He was not consulted, and was livid when the bombs were dropped. I agree. I believe Japan would have surrendered without the atomic bombs and before a catastrophic mainland invasion.

And of course, even the atomic bombs did not bring about a so-called "unconditional surrender."

"The Potsdam declaration in July, demanded that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the Imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."

-- William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512.

Anyway, it has been too many years now to debate the use of atomic bombs in Japan. I hope instead of debating them, we can agree that they should never be used again.

MacArthur was fucking insane. Go ask the Koreans.

Watch white light black rain..

Consider that even though the U.S. tried persistently to tell the Japanese that they(U.S.) would use deadly measures, the Japanese refused to respond. And I agree with the person before me who said that it would have been a much heavier loss to not just Japan but the United States as well, dropping the A-Bomb and killing only 200k as opposed to some more million and going on a scale war with Japan in their own mainland. Consider the likely outcome: The Japanese are very very respectable to their homeland, so countless civilians would have attacked the intruders(U.S. forces in Japan) and the US would have no other way to stop them unless they either shot them or put them down somehow. That would be a much more bloodier outcome and would have been much more costly in the number of people lost.

On a somewhat different side of the story, the US could have made the damage and devastation multiply by much more if they aimed it towards a bigger city such as Kyoto or Nagoya or even, Tokyo.

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Originally Posted by Suki (Post 192441)

MacArthur was fucking insane. Go ask the Koreans.

MacArthur's performance during and after WWII in Japan and the Philippines was famously and spectacularly successful, but yes, by the time of the Korean war he seemed to have gone mad, threatening China with nuclear attack against the US governments demands and eventually having to be removed from power by Truman.

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Angered by Truman's desire to maintain a "limited war," MacArthur began issuing important statements to the press, warning them of a crushing defeat. In March of 1951, after a painful U.N. counterattack commanded by Matthew B. Ridgway turned the tide of the war in the U.N.'s favor, Truman alerted MacArthur of his intention to initiate 'cease-fire' talks. Such news ended any hopes the general had retained of leading a full-scale war against China, and MacArthur quickly issued his own ultimatum to Red China. Mocking the Chinese lack of military power and industrial strength, MacArthur's declaration threatened the expansion of the war, and was by his own aide's later admission 'designed to undercut' Truman's negotiating position. Such an act unquestionably qualified as rank insubordination, and was so contrary to MacArthur's long and distinguished military service that General Omar Bradley later speculated that MacArthur's disappointment over his inability to wage war on China had "snapped his brilliant but brittle mind." On April 11, 1951 President Truman relieved General MacArthur of his military command. General Matthew B. Ridgway replaced MacArthur and stabilized the situation near the north 38th parallel.

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Originally Posted by XBokuNoKuraiMayuX (Post 202450)

As I posted above, it's clear that 200k dead was certainly better than the tens of millions an invasion would have caused, but also I don't totally see why we couldn't have just dropped the first a-bomb on a completely uninhabited area of Japan as a massive warning shot with the threat that the next one would be dropped on Tokyo if they refused to surrender.

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Originally Posted by BillyT (Post 202480)

Well I guess this answers my question:

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U.S. President Harry S. Truman was unaware of the Manhattan Project until Franklin Roosevelt's death. Truman asked U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to head a group of prominent citizens called the Interim Committee, which included three respected scientists and had been set up to advise the President on the military, political, and scientific questions raised by the possible use of the first atomic bomb. On May 31, Stimson put his conclusions to the committee and a four-man Scientific Panel. Stimson supported use of the bomb, stating "Our great task is to bring this war to a prompt and successful conclusion." But Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the Scientific Panel members, stated that a single atomic bomb would probably kill twenty thousand people, and the target should be a military one, not civilian. Another scientist, Dr. Arthur Holly Compton, suggested dropping the bomb on an isolated part of Japan to demonstrate its power while minimizing civilian deaths. But this was soon dismissed, since if Japan was to be notified in advance of an attack, the bomber might be shot down; alternately, the first bomb might fail to detonate.

What? the A bomb was the only way?

School children and catholic communities are sooo deadly.

I am sure some japanese during the time of the war did not support the war much the same with the usa war and the war on terror.

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Originally Posted by Gorotsuki (Post 202976)

School children and catholic communities are sooo deadly.

... and military camps and Army Headquarters.

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At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of some industrial and military significance. A number of military camps were located nearby, including the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It was one of several Japanese cities left deliberately untouched by American bombing, allowing an ideal environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb. Another account stresses that after General Spaatz reported that Hiroshima was the only targeted city without prisoner of war (POW) camps, Washington decided to assign it highest priority.