Hiroshima and Olimpic

[RF]

I would have thought that radiation concerns would in any case have been the least of their concerns then. And whatever atomic bombs were available there was still option for full conventional bombing.
There was one other imperitive to the US timetable: the USSR declaring war on Japan three months after the end of the war in Europe, and the possible threat of its own invasion of Japan.

[RF]

Why then would Churchill suggest that the demands on the Japanese government be moderated to get their agreement quicker? Whinney and dear old Uncle Joe were both asking that this be done, so why did Truman hold out? He never openly disagreed with this suggestion and since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs caused fewer casualties than a normal bombing raid, how could it be thought to be possible to hasten the end of the war if normal bombing raids did more damage?

Churchill wanted presumably to end the war, and would have, he knew, little part in seeing the execution of its end. Stalin? Seize Manchuria without having to fight.
And Truman? Well quite possibly revenge for Pearl Harbor and to demonstrate the US can finish a war on its own.

[Vic Dale]

Churchill wanted presumably to end the war, and would have, he knew, little part in seeing the execution of its end. Stalin? Seize Manchuria without having to fight.
And Truman? Well quite possibly revenge for Pearl Harbor and to demonstrate the US can finish a war on its own.

So very little to do with saving lives then.

Revenge - US Prestige - and curtailing Stalin.

That's more like it.

[RF]

Saving lives presumably is what happens when wars finish - it makes the task easier on your own side.

[lwd]

You also seam to be forgetting that the US was planning on invading. It was hoped that the bombs would make that unnecessary and end the war sooner thus saving both allied and Japanese lives. The Truman and other allied administrations obviously gave more weight to the former as compared to the latter but post war a lot of effort was spent to prevent starvation and disease.

[RF]

This is true, but a number of motivations were behind that, not all of them benevolent. The US needed Japan to be under US influence or at least an ally of the US against the growing influence of the USSR and the situation in China.

In fact one aspect coming out of the US occupation of Japan is that American industrialists did not buy up or seize most of Japan's heavy industries, which in the light of the growth of the Japanese economy over the following 40 years would seem to be an astonishing ommission.

[tnemelckram]

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 bomb was atomic. The middle of Tokyo Bay, Inland Sea or the strait off Hiroshima would have been suitable because it would be visible to millions and would preclude the leadership from covering it up. Or it could have been dropped on a relatively sparsely populated land target with perhaps one large industrial structure to demonstrate its actual destructive capacity or dispel any notions that it somehow only worked over water.

Everyone was aware of the moral implications. It is noted in presidential and high command communications. Some of the scientists raised them as objections.

And last but not least, to put this in stunning context - Adolph Hitler had moral qualms about atomic weapons and regarded them as immoral. Although he recognized the need to proceed to keep pace with the Allies' projects, the process was somewhat half-hearted in light of adequate available knowledge and technical capability. This is probably the only good thing you can say about Hitler. Well, that and maybe he was faithful to Eva Braun and loved his dog Blondi.

I'd like to preempt a few likely responses that I have seen over and over. These are unacceptable and nonsense for the reasons stated.

1. The Japanese wouldn't surrender anyway. That was the point of a demonstration - to find out.
That is just one possibility. If they didn't you can justify more deadly use.

2. They didn't have enough bombs (or only had two, etc.). I've looked into it and as another poster noted above Truman said there would be three more in a few months. Does anyone want to propose that the program was to be ended at that point instead of making number six, seven etc.?
And in the next 50 years there was no obstacle to making another 10,000.

3. Truman would be impeached. The point was to convince the Japanese, not the American public. I doubt anyone can convincingly say this would have resulted from the following announcement to the American people.

Despite the secrecy it's common knowledge that we have been working on an atomic bomb with unprecedented destructive capacity. Today, to make sure that we can deliver it accurately and that it works, we dropped a demonstration bomb in view of millions of Japanese. It worked. Now we know it's worth making an unlimited number of these bombs. In two weeks we will drop another on a major city and proceed with a systematic bombing campaign. I'm sure you'll agree with me that obviously this will end the war without an invasion that results in enormous American casualties.

[lwd]

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.

One of the most telling arguments against a demo is much of the effect requires announcing it ahead of time. This can be counter productive for a number of reasons.

Everyone was aware of the moral implications.

Which ones? I personally don't see how the Abomb, given what was known at the time, can be considered morally worse than conventional bombing.

And last but not least, to put this in stunning context - Adolph Hitler had moral qualms about atomic weapons and regarded them as immoral.

Documentation PLS.

I'd like to preempt a few likely responses that I have seen over and over. These are unacceptable and nonsense for the reasons stated.

1. The Japanese wouldn't surrender anyway. That was the point of a demonstration - to find out.
That is just one possibility. If they didn't you can justify more deadly use.

This one is neither unacceptable or nonsense for the above. In reality it's not a good arguement because it requires knowledge of the future.

2. They didn't have enough bombs (or only had two, etc.). I've looked into it and as another poster noted above Truman said there would be three more in a few months. Does anyone want to propose that the program was to be ended at that point instead of making number six, seven etc.?
And in the next 50 years there was no obstacle to making another 10,000.

However it would have been a while (weeks? a month? more?) before the third one was dropped. A demo given what had already been experianced in the Pacfic could reasonably be concluded as unlikey to produce a surrender. The fact that two were shipped and many components of a third indicated that there was considerable doubt as to whether or not one would be enough. The point was to get the war over with as quick as possible and dropping the bomb on a real target was the best way of doing so (both based on what was known at the time and what we know now).

3. Truman would be impeached.

This is most often and most correctly viewed as the result of going ahead with an invasion instead of using the bomb.

[José M. Rico]

And last but not least, to put this in stunning context - Adolph Hitler had moral qualms about atomic weapons and regarded them as immoral.

Documentation PLS.

I know he didn't want to use chemical weapons, in fact the Germans never used them during the war. But I never heard anything about atomic weapons.

[tnemelckram]

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 contains two possibilities - surrender or no surrender.

The moral implications were known. Although I don't have time to post links at this point, I can be more concrete with my examples. A group of the Los Alamos scientists raised moral objections in writing beforehand. Discussion of the morality appears in the official communications concerning the Potsdam Conference. It may be that these were confined to the American camp and not raised or mentioned to Churchill or Stalin and/or not reflected in joint communications. However, I am confident that it is well documented that moral objections were known; so much so that I doubt the utility in trying to footnote it.

The Hitler thing is much more significant and worth documenting because I agree that it is shocking. I can't recall where I read it - in a book (perhaps a bio of Einstein that I recently read that explored in parallel colleagues such as Heisenberg) or on the net. But I have read recently on Axis history documentation that Hitler was morally opposed to gas weapons specifically as part of an overall aversion to the overall concept of such weapons. It's probably grounded in his WWI experiences. I'll try to at least find the document underlying that claim and post a link to it. I'll also try to document the claim specifically as to atomic weapons.

I think that getting the war over quickly is fallacious. Our country suffers from a collective mental disease that the best approach to a problem is to do something fast without considering whether the cure is worse than the disease, and as part of that are willing to eat whatever the leaders say including that a cat is a dog. See Iraq. So the public would have eaten up my Truman statement. But back to the point, the objective was to get the war over as quickly as possible with minimum number of casualties. In that context a two week delay is insufficient. Plus they had three bombs readily at hand, not two, and could have done what happened historically after two weeks.

[José M. Rico]

The Hitler thing is much more significant and worth documenting because I agree that it is shocking. I can't recall where I read it - in a book or on the net. But I have read recently on Axis history documentation that Hitler was morally opposed to gas weapons specifically as part of an overall aversion to the overall concept of such weapons. It's probably grounded in his WWI experiences. I'll try to at least find the document underlying that claim and post a link to it. I'll also try to document the claim specifically as to atomic weapons.

If I remember correctly, Albert Speer memories mention Hitler's dislike for chemical weapons.

[tnemelckram]

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 nuclear arms because his limited grasp of strategic warfare prevented him from seeing the ramifications of nuclear capability. It was believed that he had discouraged development of the atom bomb.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Hitler ... 9700677446

[Bgile]

As far as I'm concerned, any moral dilemma disappeared with prior acts of war. For example, The RAF deliberately bombed German civilians throughout the war, causing many more innocent deaths than the atomic bombs. The Japanese army was well known for the brutality it visited on the helpless peoples it conquered. We firebombed Tokyo repeatedly. The genie had been out of the battle for a long time, and the atomic bomb was just the latest weapon of terror in a whole series of such weapons.

[lwd]

Hi lwd!
I disagree that a demo requires advance announcement.

I think I said to get full effect. You want as many people watching as possible.

I don't understand what you mean about my idea requiring knowledge of the future. By its terms it assumes that the future contains two possibilities - surrender or no surrender.

Arguing that they wouldn't surrender any way requires knowledge of the fact that they didn't surrender after the first one. Arguing they might not surrender is valid but then they didn't surrender after Hiroshima in any case.

Part of the message that was being sent was "we have them and we will use them" a demo could be read as we were unwilling to use them. Then if one dropped on a military target wasn't enough the war goes on for at least more weeks and perhaps months.

The moral implications were known.

What moral implications. It was just a very powerful bomb.

I think that getting the war over quickly is fallacious.

You are free to think so but it was clearly on the minds of the allies.

Our country suffers from a collective mental disease that the best approach to a problem is to do something fast without considering whether the cure is worse than the disease, and as part of that are willing to eat whatever the leaders say including that a cat is a dog.

But in this case was it? I don't think so.

See Iraq.

Let's not go there. Modern politics is not a good idea here.

But back to the point, the objective was to get the war over as quickly as possible with minimum number of casualties. In that context a two week delay is insufficient. Plus they had three bombs readily at hand, not two, and could have done what happened historically after two weeks.

It's not clear when they could have dropped the third one. During that time people were dying both allied and Japanese. Even a few days might have resulted in both more allied and more Japanese casualties than were historically the result.

[RF]

The Hitler thing is much more significant and worth documenting because I agree that it is shocking. I can't recall where I read it - in a book or on the net. But I have read recently on Axis history documentation that Hitler was morally opposed to gas weapons specifically as part of an overall aversion to the overall concept of such weapons. It's probably grounded in his WWI experiences. I'll try to at least find the document underlying that claim and post a link to it. I'll also try to document the claim specifically as to atomic weapons.

If I remember correctly, Albert Speer memories mention Hitler's dislike for chemical weapons.

Hitler was indeed a victim of poison gas in WW1.

Some people may take a different view on the Germans not using chemical weapons in WW2. The victims of the Auschwitz gas chambers for starters.