WWII

[Mamala Bay]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: andrewg


I can't agree that a land invasion of Japan would have had only one outcome.

You are dancing around all the issues. You are for prolonging the way, Costing more American Lives, and ultimately killing more Japanese. Admit it.

BTW would you have stopped the firebombing which could kill 20K+ Japanese each and every day. And could have gone higher. And we were in the process of destroying German cities at the end of the war. Yes we would have nuked Germany. Problem was there were too many American Troops and Russian Troops in the country.

And one American Solder's death was not worth 1,000,000 Japanese. That's the way I feel and that's the way they felt. I am a Student of WWII for at least 15 years..I know. You also may know. Not saying you don't.


Spoke to a 93 year old WW11 veteran a doctor you should speak to him. He would told you kid you got all wrong. He has no hate or regress he KNOWS man himself.

He said it was economics that caused WW11 the pressure of the Industrial Revolution during the hard times depression era got his [censored] kicked from the '29 stock crash a college student.

When he pass away at 94 with cancer gave his wealth to cancer research for man himself...$100 million(stock market), he never lived rich a simple life his diet was his wealth. Wore a cheap $10 watch, the ugliest Honda Accord a homeless man would spit on it. Never wanted to be bothered.

He was born in Florida....live in Hawaii after WW11 as a civilian doctor.

 

[Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Vuflanovsky
I think people have to contextualize it more than some folks do. I think it's less about the hypotheticals of what would've happened and more how they managed the decisions that occurred. The U.S. didn't really have the luxury of listening and mulling over after-the-fact think tank intellectuals giving a prognostication...the world had been at war for almost six years and upwards of 50 million people had already died. Japan wasn't going to surrender without a coercive force and Allies weren't waiting x years for cracks to appear regarding the military regimes overthrow...and, of course, the scenarios involving a ground invasion were not very pretty. Bombing them for another year and a ground invasion with ( insert number of casualties very likely > 100K here ) was certainly less prudent than what was at their disposal...rightly or wrongly...in the context of ending a World War.




Regardless what the United States would have done in the world of today the United States would have been condemned anyway. It matters little to people with no knowledge of history that the USA did not start WWII, tried to not get involved in WWII, and actually helped to rebuilt Germany and Japan and other countries after the war. What would have happened to the USA if Germany and Japan had won the war?

I think it is very clear that far more Japanese and a huge number of allied soldiers would have died if there had been an invasion. The fire bombing of Tokyo alone killed some 100,000 people. If instead of nuclear bombs there had been fire bombing of all major Japanese cities how many people would have died? And what would have been left of Japan?

We can second guess the people who made the decisions as much as we want. But we were not in their shoes at the time having to make the decisions.

In any case, it is history. We can't change history. Germany and Japan are actually doing pretty well and now we have to worry about the problems we face today. There are big enough problems in the Middle East.

 

[Evanson]

Yes the Japanese attacked first so in a way it was their own fault that their civilians were bombed. That's probably why the Japanese don't blame America. The Germans are the same.

And you certainly don't see the US attacking countries for no reason and then whining about the consequences, blaming everyone and everything else but themselves.

 

[expat]

"We can second guess the people who made the decisions as much as we want. But we were not in their shoes at the time having to make the decisions."

Agree.

The interesting thing, to me, is the Atomic bomb was a 'Game Changer' in terms of warfare.

It would be interesting to speculate how WWII might be fought if the weapons of today were available

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: andrewg


I can't agree that a land invasion of Japan would have had only one outcome.

You are dancing around all the issues. You are for prolonging the way, Costing more American Lives, and ultimately killing more Japanese. Admit it.

BTW would you have stopped the firebombing which could kill 20K+ Japanese each and every day. And could have gone higher. And we were in the process of destroying German cities at the end of the war. Yes we would have nuked Germany. Problem was there were too many American Troops and Russian Troops in the country.

And one American Solder's death was not worth 1,000,000 Japanese. That's the way I feel and that's the way they felt. I am a Student of WWII for at least 15 years..I know. You also may know. Not saying you don't.


Hardly dancing my friend. Just having a discussion.

Kind of presumptuous of you to state that you are a "student of WWII for at least 15 years". That honestly doesn't mean anything to me. I've been reading and learning about WW2 for...oh....35 years. Does that make me a highly qualified "student" or have any more valid opinions than the next guy? No. Same for you.

Anyway, lets leave that aside.

First, let me say that while I certainly would not any Americans to have died fighting the Japanese that already did...I do not think that one American life is worth a MILLION Japanese lives. That's an awful thing to say and emotionally and morally ignorant in my opinion...and kind of indicative that you have some serious continued animosity toward the Japanese.

Secondly...you ask me to "admit" that I wanted more lives lost to have been able to avoid using those atomic bombs. Well, nothing for me to "admit" here except to say that you shouldn't paint a circle around me and then attach words/conclusions to my opinions. That's not very fair in a discussion nor valid.

For the record, I believe the bombs COULD have been avoided AND at the same time LESS lives could have been POSSIBLY lost.
How? According to available records/information readily available to examine...the Japanese HAD in fact been sending peace overtures MONTHS before August of 1945. They knew that soon after the defeat of Germany, and with Russian help, the allies would quickly decimate them into submission. These peace overtures were made through Sweden and Portugal (neutral nations).
Why did the allies (99% decided by the U.S.) reject these overtures? The emperor HAD submitted conditions for a Japanese surrender. He was rejected because he wanted conditional terms of surrender. The U.S. demanded 100% UNCONDITIONAL terms.
Seems reasonable then that we decided to kill thousands of Japanese and radiated them for decades in response...right? I mean those nasty yellow devils should just fry, right? Well, it's not that simple...and the allies (U.S. primarily) were completely hypocritical. Why would I say that?? Because AFTER Nagasaki and Hiroshima was bombed (thousands of innocent civilians were incinerated) and the Japanese surrendered....almost ALL of the original requests the emperor had made in a conditional surrender had in fact...been met!!

I'm sure you think you know otherwise or refute this claim (available to research if you like).

But how sad that all we had to do was to have allowed most of the original conditions of surrender BEFORE we dropped those bombs. Thousands of Japanese civilians would have lived. But instead...and for more reasons than just the defeat of Japan...we decided to go ahead and lay waste to those cities.

 

[Panzerman]

Its pitiful to see how people think. Remember Pearl Harbor. I don't think we should have excepted anything but unconditional surrender from the Japanese. Do Americans have the determination to fight if another major war ever happens? I am afraid not until many, many Americans die and they actual figure out the enemy is just that the enemy and the logic to warfare is to make them suffer and die, until they lose all will to fight. That means killing, destroying and laying waste to everything important to them with out regret. This isn't a football game, its not chess, its war and people get killed , maimed and broken. Mercy is not for the enemy. As Napoleon once told his Imperial Guard, I don't expect one of you to lay down your life for your country, I expect you to make everyone of the enemy die for theirs.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: andrewg
.I do not think that one American life is worth a MILLION Japanese lives. That's an awful thing to say and emotionally and morally ignorant in my opinion...and kind of indicative that you have some serious continued animosity toward the Japanese.

Please don't put words in my mouth. Its indicitive that you were not following me. I thought you would understand I was speaking in the context of the feeling of our leadership and American people in WWII. This was the feeling at the time. I assumed too much.

Quote:
Hardly dancing my friend. Just having a discussion.

On Bob is the Oil Guy we can all have our opinions.

 

[Evanson]

Originally Posted By: Panzerman
That means killing, destroying and laying waste to everything important to them with out regret.


I suppose that includes the unborn child as well.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: Panzerman
Its pitiful to see how people think. Remember Pearl Harbor. I don't think we should have excepted anything but unconditional surrender from the Japanese. Do Americans have the determination to fight if another major war ever happens? I am afraid not until many, many Americans die and they actual figure out the enemy is just that the enemy and the logic to warfare is to make them suffer and die, until they lose all will to fight. That means killing, destroying and laying waste to everything important to them with out regret. This isn't a football game, its not chess, its war and people get killed , maimed and broken. Mercy is not for the enemy. As Napoleon once told his Imperial Guard, I don't expect one of you to lay down your life for your country, I expect you to make everyone of the enemy die for theirs.


The mother tending to her child....the old man trying to care for his ailing wife....the young boy smiling at the pretty girl in his classroom.....they aren't your enemy. They did nothing to cause you harm when those bombs burned them to a crisp.

Sorry, but as a decent human being I do differentiate the enemy from the innocent.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Panzerman
As Napoleon once told his Imperial Guard, I don't expect one of you to lay down your life for your country, I expect you to make everyone of the enemy die for theirs.

And as Patton Said"I want you to remember, that no poor dumb [censored] ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it, by making the other poor dumb [censored] die for his country.”
― George S. Patton Jr., War as I Knew It

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: andrewg

Hardly dancing my friend. Just having a discussion.

On Bob is the Oil Guy we can all have our opinions.

I completely agree.

 

[andyd]

Language was propaganda. They were Japs and had green skin in the Sunday comics. They set booby traps and were sneaky. They liked to harass and torture. They ate livers. They brutalized their underlings. They were bucktoothed and needed glasses. After a few amphibious invasions, the Japanese developed a defense in depth and had to be killed in order to gain any land. They didn't give up their positions, they died instead. The old timers at the ship yard were WWII or Korean War vets. I knew a man who was at Pearl Harbor. and more than one ship wreck survivor of the Coral Sea battles. A bunch of kids who got to fight to the death 12,000 miles away from home. There was no real experience with modern mechanized warfare. The high Command were junior officers in WWI and barely hanging on in the 20s and 30s. They were learning to use what they had as it supplied to them. Some things worked and some things didn't. Air power was a game changer. The capital ships of te 5-5-3 talks were reduced to targets in actual fact.

 

[Nickdfresh]

Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
Can anyone explain to me why Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the recipients of the atom bombs?

Why not Tokyo? Maybe these two cities were building crafts of war.


I haven't read the whole thread, and apologize if I'm repeating here. But:

There are several different factors involved, but not least of which is that we firebombed Tokyo so badly that we were afraid the Japanese gov't might not have noticed any dramatic demonstrations of power. We actually killed many more in firebombings than the use of the atom bombs by tens of thousands...

 

[Nickdfresh]

Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
And while we are at it, dont get mad.....did Japan do the world a favor by getting the USA involved, wheras Ive heard the president didnt want to get involved,, or, was the Pacific totally seperate from Europe.


No, not really

 

[Nickdfresh]

Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
And while we are at it, dont get mad.....did Japan do the world a favor by getting the USA involved, wheras Ive heard the president didnt want to get involved,, or, was the Pacific totally seperate from Europe.


I'm sort of a WWII buff also. Not sure I understand your question. The Japanese got the US involved because the US cut off their oil supply. The US was a major oil exporter at the time. Their choice was to either attack the US or pull their military out so that the US would restore their oil supply. The US thought that maybe Japan would pull back, but the military in charge of the government felt that if they struck the US quickly, they could negotiate a peace. Of course the timing of the attack made that unlikely.

The US wasn't involved in Europe at the time, they were just supporting the British but wasn't at war with Germany yet. It was Hitler's mistake to declare war on the US a few days after Pearl Harbor because he thought the Japanese would attack the Russian from the West and help out his armies in the east but they didn't end up doing that.


Yeah, there is some truth to this. But respectfully I think you come a bit close to making the Japanese a bit too sympathetic. We embargoed them because they were busy raping, murdering, and plundering their way across China on a human scale untold of in modernity. (you know, like having beheading contests between officers that was publicly covered in Japanese papers as if they were talking about professional tennis in the sports pages) I am not a fan of the bombings but the Japanese CANNOT be considered victims on par with the Chinese or Koreans!

 

[Nickdfresh]

Originally Posted By: dailydriver
....
The Nippon 'army' rivaled, and may have even surpassed, the heartless, cold, cruel, inhumanity of the Nazis in what they did to the people of that city.

Probably yes, and no...

 

[Trajan]

http://www.dannen.com/decision/targets.html

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp5.shtml

One other reason for not choosing Tokyo was that the risk of killing the Emperor, the one person who could order the surrender of the Imperial military from one end of the Empire to the other was considered intolerable.

Had Olympic launched, General Marshall desired to us the eight bombs that would of been ready by Nov as tactical weapons on Kyushu

 

[Nickdfresh]

I think one glaring omission in this thread is that the Imperial Japanese surrendered at least as much due to the shock of the Soviet victories in Manchuria during the "August Storm" operations that crushed a dilapidated Japanese "Kuomintang Army" in short order than they did in response to the bombings. The offensive and subsequent Soviet advances threatened a possible partition of Japan along the lines of post war Korea and Germany. The Emperor feared a communist takeover, or competition, and was then willing to make peace without continuing the attrition strategy where he was willing to fight to the death of his last subject in order to maximize Allied casualties - to force a political settlement to keep his throne...

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: Nickdfresh
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
And while we are at it, dont get mad.....did Japan do the world a favor by getting the USA involved, wheras Ive heard the president didnt want to get involved,, or, was the Pacific totally seperate from Europe.


I'm sort of a WWII buff also. Not sure I understand your question. The Japanese got the US involved because the US cut off their oil supply. The US was a major oil exporter at the time. Their choice was to either attack the US or pull their military out so that the US would restore their oil supply. The US thought that maybe Japan would pull back, but the military in charge of the government felt that if they struck the US quickly, they could negotiate a peace. Of course the timing of the attack made that unlikely.

The US wasn't involved in Europe at the time, they were just supporting the British but wasn't at war with Germany yet. It was Hitler's mistake to declare war on the US a few days after Pearl Harbor because he thought the Japanese would attack the Russian from the West and help out his armies in the east but they didn't end up doing that.


Yeah, there is some truth to this. But respectfully I think you come a bit close to making the Japanese a bit too sympathetic. We embargoed them because they were busy raping, murdering, and plundering their way across China on a human scale untold of in modernity. (you know, like having beheading contests between officers that was publicly covered in Japanese papers as if they were talking about professional tennis in the sports pages) I am not a fan of the bombings but the Japanese CANNOT be considered victims on par with the Chinese or Koreans!


Just stating the facts. They just didn't attack for no particular reason. It was thought that the oil embargo had a chance of getting them to back off, but their military decided not to and decided on war instead of peace.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: Nickdfresh
I think one glaring omission in this thread is that the Imperial Japanese surrendered at least as much due to the shock of the Soviet victories in Manchuria during the "August Storm" operations that crushed a dilapidated Japanese "Kuomintang Army" in short order than they did in response to the bombings. The offensive and subsequent Soviet advances threatened a possible partition of Japan along the lines of post war Korea and Germany. The Emperor feared a communist takeover, or competition, and was then willing to make peace without continuing the attrition strategy where he was willing to fight to the death of his last subject in order to maximize Allied casualties - to force a political settlement to keep his throne...


One thing that doesn't get mentioned is the US demands of unconditional surrender. I think Japan had indicated that it was willing to surrender if the Emperor kept the throne, but the US rejected that. Then they dropped the bomb and then said that the emperor could keep his throne.