<p>Those 20,000 atomic weapons may just have kept us from having a WW III. We’ll never know for sure but mutually assured destruction seemed to have calming effect on both sides. I don’t doubt for a second that Japan and or Germany would have used them if they had them.</p>
<p>Yes, documentaries I’ve seen indicate that the prisoners of the Japanese Army were mercilessly abused. And the Japanese believed that only cowards surrendered, and they summarily executed them. One of the worst torturers of “River Kwai” fame (even the name of the location is wrong) was either [not] prosecuted or pardoned immediately following the war. He was a senior commander who became quite a successful businessman in Japan and was still alive in about 2000.</p>
<p>Whether or not the existence of nuclear weapons and mutually-assured-destruction assured a peace or not, it’s still sad.</p>
<p>Fundingfather, as a student of technological history, I had not heard of any Japanese efforts (other than as recipients of German efforts) to build an A bomb. COuld you please give citations, books, etc? I’m clearly either out of date or just plain wrong. </p>
<p>I believe the question of what was happening in Germany regarding the A bomb is quite controversial. They had, of course, lost many of their atomic scientists–including Meitner and Einstein–but still had others, such as Hahn. Hitler might indeed have used an atomic bomb–but we did manage to defeat Europe without it. And the Soviet Union didn’t develop the technology independently, they stole it.</p>
<p>dmd, my original source was a show on the history channel that included interviews with the japanese scientists that were involved. However, these links are essentially consistent with what was on the show:
<a href=“http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/[/url]”>http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/</a>
<a href=“http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/mcnair41/41bom.htm[/url]”>http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/mcnair41/41bom.htm</a></p>
<p>“have no sympathy for the Japanese of that era. The German death camps were humane, by comparison.”</p>
<p>Do you have a soul, heart, or brain?</p>
<p>Fighting for peace is like <em>doing</em> (edited for content) a virgin for virginity.</p>
<p>“Their doctors had to nearly kill them to get rid of their cancer. There are lasting effects–but the alternative was worse. I see Hiroshima/Nagasaki in the same way” </p>
<p>Agreed. If someone is happy with the deaths that the bombings caused then they are…evil. It was something that had to be done, but that doesn’t make the innocent casualities GOOD. Yes it was justifiable…JUSTIFIABLE. The innocent deaths were horrible and noone should ever “smile” at them. Have a heart!</p>
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…please, such overwrought drama! Is it beyond the pale to–after the fact and the horror of it all–look back at history with a clear and discerning eye to draw out evil and the degrees of evil? Or do we all need to show our indignation all the time–because our heart just feels so much pain and suffering and besides, someone might be watching? </p>
<p>We can make distinctions with out wringing our hearts in so doing—for effect, if nothing else.</p>
<p>Clearly, you feel the pain of other, even the deceased, more than most; that’s admirable.</p>
<p>I beg to differ about “German death camps were humane by comparison”.</p>
<p>Well one of the things I was talking about wat the above poster said</p>
<p>and how you are talking about these people like they are a group of items. These were people who led lives just like us and had families just like us. Going to the extreme of insulting people, like one poster did, for feeling bad for them is horrible. These were PEOPLE. Many were innocent…many were children…many were women. There was no trial, just death.</p>
<p>FundingFather–thanks for the links. The information you gave and what I remembered was consistent–where we differ is in interpretation.</p>
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<p>This whole topic strikes very close to home for me, because my dad was one of those wretched, beaten, and starved American POWs who rotted away in Japanese prison camps. He was wounded in battle in the lost cause of defending the Phillpines. The American field hospital he was put in was then captured by the Japanese Army. He was eventually sealed into the hold of a rust bucket freighter with hundreds of other POWs and shipped to Japan to be used as slave labor in factories, farms, and mines.</p>
<p>Three ships full of US POWs were sent to Japan in that convoy, but only his made it - the other two being sunk by American submarines along the way. He ended up being a POW for three and half years. Working first in a steel mill until it was destroyed by B-29s, killing more US POWs, and then being shipped off to a copper mine.</p>
<p>The atomic bombs snuffed out a lot of Japanese lives (and a few more American POWs too), but it sure saved my Dad’s. The camp guards made no secret of the fact that when the US invasion came that they would have to kill all the prisoners and report for front line duty to help repel the invaders. But the sudden and unexpected end to the war canceled all that. And just in the nick of time (for me) – when my 6’ tall dad first came out of the POW camp he weighed less than 100 lbs and most of his teeth had fallen out (at age 26). He had survived a lot, but I’m not sure how much longer he could have held on.</p>
<p>Happy ending: he was welcomed back to his home town as a war hero. They sent over to the local college to hire a band to play for the party. The cute sophomore music major who played the keyboards in the combo eventually became my mother. </p>
<p>So my own opinion on the use of the atomic bombs is that there was no question both militarily and politically that we should and would have used them. Had the bomb not been used, Truman’s political opponents would have endlessly paraded every widow or parent who lost a husband or son after the bomb became available. And militarily it was a no-brainer. The whole point of fighting a war in the first place is to win. If you have a new weapon that permits you win the war with what amounts to a single blow, why on earth would you NOT use it? </p>
<p>The only point on which I’m willing to second-guess Truman is <em>how</em> it was used. I would have escalated it’s use stepwise - giving the Japanese plenty of opportunity to surrender after each bomb. I would have dropped the first bomb on some remote place, say flatten a forest or sheep farm somewhere. Then I would have hit some isolated MILITARY base somewhere. Only on the third strike would I have considered bombing a city.</p>
<p>I know the demo use of the bomb was consdered and rejected by the military, but their reasoning seems weak to me (basically: “What if it doesn’t go off?”). I think they were too eager to fully test drive their new toy to seriously consider alternatives.</p>
<p>And Fundingfather you seriously exaggerate Japan’s nucelar weapons capabilities. It’s true that they had a program, but they were nowhere close to “turning the tables” on us. The theoretical possibility of building a bomb became obvious to top physicists everywhere, including Japan, in the late 1930s after the chain reaction splitting of the atom was achieved. But the post-war investigations showed that Germany was far ahead of Japan and posed a much greater threat of successfully building one. But due to resource limitations and Allied bombing, Germany fell well short and eventually pretty much gave up trying, and Japan was farther behind still. I think that first link you provided summed it up best at the end of the first paragraph: </p>
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<p>Wow coureur your father is an amazing person and more power to him. That is an emotional story and I hope that your family is doing great now!</p>
<p>What was it that changed Japan from a centuries-old, war-mongering juggernaut of the far east, to a pacifist nation with little stomach for war? The Atomic Bomb.</p>
<p>BTW Driver. I’ve not forgotten that I owe you a PM. I had family staying over the weekend and things were hectic around here.</p>
<p>They can’t war anymore because they don’t have a military. We are their military.</p>
<p>I read A Peoples History of the United States for my AP US History class last year, not for diehard conservatives though. Anyway it claimed that the US had gotten a proposal for surrender which the US rejected BEFORE the atomic bombings. The proposals had one request, that the Emperor of Japan be able to keep his post.</p>
<p>The US could have accepted this and allowed thousands of innocent Japanese civilians to live. The Emperor could have just been reduced to a figurehead like the English Monarchs.</p>
<p>The ‘claims’ are right. The deal was this: unconditional surrender or nothing.</p>
<p>And in the end, we took back unconditional surrender and let them keep the Emperor. Wonder what would’ve happened if we’d done that first?</p>
<p>(I first learned this not from Zinn, but in my junior year history class.)_</p>
<p>courer, there is one small problems with your strategy of escalation - we only had two bombs. </p>
<p>As to the timing of them, one of the links that I was reading quoted a former POW who as a child was held captive with his family. He said that after the first bomb went off the Japanese were going to retaliate by loading up all of the POWs (including women and children) onto barges and then sink them. The fact that the second bomb went off so soon and the war came to a quick and merciful conclusion brought an end to the Japanese plans for retaliation.</p>
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<p>They had only two bombs in August, 1945, but there were plenty more on the way, as the vigorous post-war atomic testing program shows. They didn’t have to start out by killing thousands of civilians. They could have chosen to spare lives if they wanted, but they didn’t.</p>
<p>One other factor in the decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan was to pre-empt a Soviet invasion of Japan and to demonstrate US power to Stalin.</p>
<p>“One other factor in the decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan was to pre-empt a Soviet invasion of Japan and to demonstrate US power to Stalin.”</p>
<p>***** ur right I forgot about that. We didn’t want to have to share control with the Soviets. Good point</p>