Admiral Nimitz: Three Mistakes Japan Made At Pearl Harbor

I think more importantly, they wanted to make it easy for the Japanese to make a damage assessment of what an atomic bomb could do to a city. The United States seriously did not want to try a D-Day on the Japanese shore --losses would have been astronomical-- so they wanted the Japanese to be terrified into surrendering.

But I have to tell you, it's great that there are people out there who would rather have sent their sons to die on Japan's beaches than see any innocent Japanese civilians killed. What saints you are. It's pretty sweet to sit back at your computer and pass judgement on others who had to make real life-and-death decisions during a time of all-out war against an implacable enemy, isn't it? You always get to be the saint.

 

That's an interesting point. How many Allied casualties (plus Japanese military and civilian casualties) would Frosty, et al., consider acceptable in lieu of the Japanese casualties caused by the bombs, had we stuck to conventional warfare and invaded Japan instead?

 

Toy has once again lost the plot re read what I said about Gaddafi,--Im on your side.

Its infuriating when people speed read,--why do you do that.

 

No. the real question is, 'why do you speed-write?' Because the situation in Libya has squat to do with the bombing of Hiroshima; why did you even bring it up?

The UN hasn't been purposely avoiding Gaddafi.

On the other hand, I can give you good reasons why we didn't drop the bomb on Japan's Imperial Palace. For starters, the Emperor wasn't the brains or driving force behind the war, and killing him wouldn't have knocked out the military leaders who were.

But having him alive and in office was very useful after the war. Keeping him as a symbol of national unity legitimized the new Japanese government in the eyes of the populace, and made it much easier for them to accept the occupation of their homeland.

 

What ever --your too hard to talk to,--always have been.

No such thing as speed type --you talk crap.

Frosty out.

 

Amazing how you can go so fast and still not keep up...

But I'll admit I mostly missed your point about Gaddafi when I first read it, if it makes you feel better. Of course, once I understood it I still disagreed with it.

 

In reality, no one in the USA wanted the emperor to remain on the throne. Most wanted him held for war crimes. The only reason the Potsdam resolution was "modified" was to end the war immediately, as the USSR was poised to invade from the west. Fearing communist expansion as much as the imperial dreams of Japan, forced the USA to permit the changed resolution from unconditional to "one conditional", so the emperor remained as a figurehead only, literally taking orders from MacArthur (can I have a ham and cheese on rye). It was reported as an unconditional surrender, even though it wasn't.

The imperial palace wasn't targeted because it would have done the same thing that bombing London did. They'd have stiffened up, rather then capitulated and it wasn't a strategic item, having no military value and pretty much a waste of one of the two weapons we had. It would be 6 months before another two could be built and delivered, at which point the USSR would have invaded, as well as it over lapped our own invasion plans.

 

I might disagree that no one in the USA wanted the Emperor to remain on the throne. I think MacArthur and some of our strategic thinkers saw the advantages.

But I have no doubt the average person on the street wanted him hanged.

For those who are appalled by the casualty count at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I suggest reading up on the **** of Nanking and the Manila Massacre, perpetrated by the Japanese forces. In Nanking over a six week period, up to 300,000 civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered, and up to 80,000 women *****. In Manila at least 100,000 people were murdered over the space of a month. As Wikipedia says,

 

The Japanese war lords finally gave up since they did not know how many more nuclear bombs we would drop on Japan. In their minds of total war, they were merciless and figured their enemies were also like minded, totally merciless against them, unless they agreed to our terms of unconditional surrender. So they likely thought, out of our extreme contempt and hatred, we would completely destroy their island nation with an unknown great number of nuclear bombs and that for them was unthinkable.

After the second bomb dropped, they must have been an extreme emotional panic within them that they knew they could not continue to risk more war and have an utterly destroyed Japanase nation.
If there had been no nuclear bombs, then they would have fought on till they could not create war anymore and that would have taken 2 more years.

 

717 you are gifted, incredibly simple explanation of the obvious.

So you saying that Japan surrendered because they did'nt want any more bombs, Hmmm interesting theory.

 

Works for me--and beats !@#$ out of trying to do a Pacific D-day on a rocky island nation with a warrior code....

If you want a sample of what that invasion could have been like, don't look at D-Day for a comparison. Instead, look at the Gallipoli Campaign in World War I.

Specifically, look up Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal and his order to the Ottoman 57th Infantry Regiment: "I do not expect you to attack, I order you to die. In the time which passes until we die, other troops and commanders can come forward and take our places."

Every single soldier in the 57th Regiment died in action, from its senior officers down to the lowliest privates -- and the Allies had their butts handed to them on silver platters before that action was over. To honor them, modern-day Turkey has basically retired their jersey; it has never fielded another 57th Infantry Regiment.

As an aside: Winston Churchill was undeniably an inspirational political figure, who rallied his nation during what may have been its darkest hour. But as a military strategist, he was a complete weenie. He was one of the major proponents of the Gallipoli Campaign in WWI. And in spite of the results, in WWII he was pushing for a re-do -- another idiotic foray against "the soft underbelly of Europe." Thank God that Allied commanders let him stick to rallying the country, while completely ignoring his military advice.

 

Any person who has reasonable study of the Pacific war, fully understands why Japan eventually surrendered and it had absolutely nothing to do with the "bomb". As I mentioned earlier, they surrendered when they realized the USSR was massing a couple of million troops in the Kavalerovo area. It was fully expected they would launch a full scale invasion, as part of the grand land grab campaign, the USSR planned at war's end. They knew precisely what the Russian army would do to them and preferred to accept American terms with a "decorative" emperor as a better deal. In fact, this is also the very reason the USA accepted the puppet emperor condition, rather then stick with the unconditional terms. The USA also knew about the 2 million Russian troops and were afraid they'd beat the USA to the punch and take Japan as spoils, much like eastern Europe. To Japan, it was the lesser of two evils and to the USA it was an end to an increasingly unpopular war.

As far as fearing the bomb, there was no such thing. Their army would have fought until the last man and their civilian loses would have been well over 50%. They were invincible, undefeated and fearless for centuries. Lastly, communications was such in 1945 Japan, that few really knew what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Very few in their own senior officer corps knew about the two bombs, though I suspect many rumors were flying around.

 

What the hell has it got to do with America what Emperor was in charge of Japan.

. Us could not wait to try out their new toy and see what devestation it did to the human body -after all if it didnt devestate it wasnt worth the trouble. It was not fully understood and many scientist thought that the nuclear chain would not stop and cause world annihilation, that fact that it didnt does not lesson the fact that they did not know and risked the entire human race.

The 2 bombs were in fanatical retaliation for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour yet lets be fair it was a legitimate military target all perfectly displayed in a nice easy shallow harbour. As said they bombed on Sunday morning while most were out enjoying a weekend and only 3.800 people were killed. Americas attack was to the town centre of Hiroshima yards from a school totally void of compassion in the slightest.

Lets get this straight this was not the result of angry solders running am mock as has been previously compared but that of the US leaders instructions of pin pointed bombing with full knowledge of the destruction of 100,000 innocent people and "could" have been avoided if tried.

Us could have displayed the performance of their new devastation machine on some spare land -maybe 2 or 3 or what ever it took to show them the futility of continuing with the war with this weapon available to the US.

Hiroshima had docks and ship building? --- so why not bomb that then ?

This was 50 years ago and is no more considered to be of any political concern however let me tell you as a non American it raises the eye brows of many youngsters hearing these tactics for the first time.

I am more scared of America and its little anex Isreal than I am of anyone else, yet as your closest ally I stand with you holding your hand terrified of your potential anarchy as Im sure you are too.

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...2270673&dq=nuclear bomb ended japan war&hl=en

from a newspaper of the time

Atomic bomb amazes world, to speed end of war.

Another factor was Russia entering the war. US wanted the war over ASAP, If a new long war campaign began to take the island nation, Russia would claim large parts of Japan, just like Germany.

So a little revisionism is underway saying the USA did not need to end the war with Japan using a most inhuman bomb which likely saved another million people from death in furthering the war. But they did end it.

History is written the first time by the victors and later on by the revisionists.
So you will believe your myths, and I will believe mine.

 

Frosty, are you also the sort of person who lets your drunken friends drive you home from the bar every Saturday night but won't fly because it seems too dangerous? With Communists and their history of mass murder, Islamists and their history of mass murder, blowing up school buses full of kids, and fighting from behind women and children, you are worried about the US and little Israel?

I guess you are some sort of historic genius, though, because without having actually lived through it, you are qualified to pass judgment on the men who saved civilization. You know all about what it was like to live during WWII, when horrific mass-murdering superpowers were threatening to take over the world and massacre everyone who didn't fit their profile. I guess you know all about what it was like to watch thousand of men get killed and maimed trying to take a beach on some worthless pacific island, to see the enemy fight with unbelievable ferocity to the last man, and to think about trying to take Japan itself with tens of millions of these people defending it. I guess you know all about what's it's like to know that these people allied with the nation that fire-bombed London, massacred the Poles and threw millions of Jews into ovens. I guess if you knew about all of this and about the horrors of the Japanese treatment of American POWs and Chinese civilians, that would not at all make you think that they had surrendered the right to have their own civilians considered off-limits, because that's just the sort of saint you are.

If only all of the major decisions in the world could be made by perfect saints with perfect knowledge like you, Frosty, wouldn't everything be so nice?