Naval History Forums

Adding to point 5 above, Command Decisions (which is an official Army publication) never mentions the casualties from ongoing operations in August 1945 as a reason to use the bomb as soon as possible. Instead it says this at 516-517: The close sequence of events between 6 and 10 August, combined wit...

Hi lwd! Good debate with you capably advocating the other side. First of all I made a mistake by using August 1943 instead of August 1945 to arrive at Army and AAF August 1945 Pacific Theater casualties. Here are the correct August 1945 figures from the same Pacific Theater table: Killed in action.....

Since the Hiroshima bomb didn't cause the Japanese to surrender, a demo bomb wouldn't have either. Wouldn't we just have wasted a bomb? My answer is no. For two reasons: First this uses the benefit of hindsight. Second, setting hindsight behind, I am proposing following up with the historic two bom...

Hi lwd! Thanks for the response. 1. You are correct that there were other relevant concerns and I didn't mean to say that there weren't. I intended a narrower context for my statement " The only relevant concern is whether the long term U.S. political position would have been stronger by creati...

Hi RF! The above post is basically concerned with political correctness aspects to dropping the bomb, in conjunction with not prejudicing American interests. Your right, I'm trying to strike a balancing act but it's not driven by PC. I'm not critical of Truman as I explain in one of my above posts. ...

Hi Bgile, lwd and RF: I'm going to try to respond to both of your above three posts that ably explore what I think are some of the real issues with demonstration bomb v. bomb used in earnest on a city. 1. lwd is concerned that dropping a demonstration bomb will give the leadership hope that a better...

A couple of "original Sources" indicating that the moral issues and their after effect were known and a factor in the decision.

Truman's Diaries: http://www.doug-long.com/hst.htm

Navy Undersecretary Bard's 6-27-45 Memorandum: http://www.doug-long.com/bard.htm

Hi lwd! The reason why I raised the demonstration v. actual use question was the hope of narrowing down the relevant issues and considerations known at the time that affect the decision. As you have noted, I started by trying to preempt some of the shorthand reasons and peer behind them. Thanks for ...

A tidal wave is a good thought. I don't know how it would complicate things but back then we might not know about that effect anyway. The wave would be impressive for demonstration purposes. I'm not averse to some casualties in a demonstration, just deliberately taking out a city without a demonstra...

Hi Bgile and lwd! 1. Bgile I like your informed and impartial account of employment of terror in WWII. The Germans also earned their place on the list. To keep this on topic, I put a brief digression about the Russians in a footnote.* However, the kind of equivalence or natural progression you posit...

As an American and in keeping with the tradition of doing something - anything - fast, here is a German 2005 newspaper article that gets me part way home but only says discouraged development without saying the reason was moral: It was also surmised that Hitler had favoured conventional weapons over...

Hi lwd! I disagree that a demo requires advance announcement. You drop it so it will be seen by millions without pre announcement. As I said, the Japanese would know what it was. I don't understand what you mean about my idea requiring knowledge of the future. By its terms it assumes that the future...

I don't think the bombing of a city was right without dropping a highly visible demonstration bomb first in an area where deaths would be minimal. The Japanese would know what it was because they had been working on one themselves and sent their scientists to Hiroshima afterward to confirm that the ...

HI Dave Saxton, JtD and lwd! Thanks for your responses to my comments about "first operational use of radar" and the relative vulnerability of Bismarck and Hood to lucky hits. Here's some additional explanation and/or clarification of my comments in light of your responses. Dave Saxton - O...

Hi Dave Saxton, Bgile and JdT Dave In response to my initial scenario, you alerted me to problems with 30 knot speed and 25,000 yard effective radar range so I did some research. Tovey states his belief that Bismarck was faster in his After Action Report. If Tovey and Holland have this belief before...