Soldato
I've been watching a lot of World War 2 documentaries and I am interested in people's opinions in this.
By 1945 the US was fighting a long drawn out war with Japan, island hopping and meeting more and more fanatical resistance from the Japanese army who thought it a great honour to die for their Emperor.
On the one hand you had US General Leary who didn't want to use the bomb - his favoured approach was to essentially blockade all of Japan and starve the country. Minimal bloodshed, but a pretty grim way to go for millions.
A lot of the US Generals and jolly important people were gearing up for Operation Downfall, which was anticipated to be a long, gruelling invasion of Japan with (I think) casualties estimated up to (or over?) a million.
After (in my opinion) substantial warnings, even tailored to convey that the Emperor would not be removed, Japan did not surrender. Little Boy which was dropped onto Hiroshima and according to Wikipedia immediately killed 80,000 people immediately and 140,000 had died by the end of 1945. There are horrific accounts of devastation on the ground with melting people crawling into the lack on top of each other and drowning as everyone was incredibly thirsty, people wandering around without much skin.
Then Fat Man was dropped onto Nagasaki, after the Japanese were given further opportunity to surrender. This killed 80,000 by the end of 1945.
Some numbers context I found interesting:
The fire bombing of Dresden by the Allies was responsible (again according to Wikipedia) for 25,000 casualties and that shocked the UK press, public and the US shied away from their involvement. Some people at the time (and now) think that it was a step too far, and had equally as horrific conditions with fire storms moving faster than running speed and creating wind powerful enough to suck people into fire coming out of doorways etc.
However, the US firebombing raid on Tokyo in 9th and 10th March 1945 killed an estimated 100,000 civilians across two nights. I hadn't heard about this raid until a documentary I watched the other day.
So anyway,
I think that the bombing was, with hindsight, the least bad option for "the world". Hitler starved the citizens of Leningrad and the Polish ghettos and it sounds worse than being eradicated in a flash of light, not to mention the casualties from the war grinding on. Would it even have been successful? Would just have many deaths been caused by starvation and continued conventional aerial bombardment?
The invasion would likely have resulted in more casualties than the nuclear bombs and extended the war by however many months, and may have caused a longer trail of destruction as fighting went from south to north.
I also think by dropping a "low power" bomb, it also showed the world the stakes at when playing with nukes. When the Cuban Missile Crisis rolled around with hydrogen bombs now at play, and everyone knew that it could, literally, be the end of the world. Not to mention the multiple "close shaves" that only weren't nuclear Armageddon due to a human or two going against orders / computer data. Would they have been so hesitant if the human cost of even a small bomb hadn't been known? Would any of us be here today?
Would the cold war have become immediately hot if no nukes had been used and were still "off the table"? and a conventional war started in Berlin?
I wonder what would have happened if Nagasaki was not bombed. Perhaps bombing an unpopulated region to show the Japanese that it wasn't just a one off... Perhaps if the Potsdam declaration and ultimatum had been clear about what would happen?
Any thoughts?
By 1945 the US was fighting a long drawn out war with Japan, island hopping and meeting more and more fanatical resistance from the Japanese army who thought it a great honour to die for their Emperor.
On the one hand you had US General Leary who didn't want to use the bomb - his favoured approach was to essentially blockade all of Japan and starve the country. Minimal bloodshed, but a pretty grim way to go for millions.
A lot of the US Generals and jolly important people were gearing up for Operation Downfall, which was anticipated to be a long, gruelling invasion of Japan with (I think) casualties estimated up to (or over?) a million.
After (in my opinion) substantial warnings, even tailored to convey that the Emperor would not be removed, Japan did not surrender. Little Boy which was dropped onto Hiroshima and according to Wikipedia immediately killed 80,000 people immediately and 140,000 had died by the end of 1945. There are horrific accounts of devastation on the ground with melting people crawling into the lack on top of each other and drowning as everyone was incredibly thirsty, people wandering around without much skin.
Then Fat Man was dropped onto Nagasaki, after the Japanese were given further opportunity to surrender. This killed 80,000 by the end of 1945.
Some numbers context I found interesting:
The fire bombing of Dresden by the Allies was responsible (again according to Wikipedia) for 25,000 casualties and that shocked the UK press, public and the US shied away from their involvement. Some people at the time (and now) think that it was a step too far, and had equally as horrific conditions with fire storms moving faster than running speed and creating wind powerful enough to suck people into fire coming out of doorways etc.
However, the US firebombing raid on Tokyo in 9th and 10th March 1945 killed an estimated 100,000 civilians across two nights. I hadn't heard about this raid until a documentary I watched the other day.
So anyway,
I think that the bombing was, with hindsight, the least bad option for "the world". Hitler starved the citizens of Leningrad and the Polish ghettos and it sounds worse than being eradicated in a flash of light, not to mention the casualties from the war grinding on. Would it even have been successful? Would just have many deaths been caused by starvation and continued conventional aerial bombardment?
The invasion would likely have resulted in more casualties than the nuclear bombs and extended the war by however many months, and may have caused a longer trail of destruction as fighting went from south to north.
I also think by dropping a "low power" bomb, it also showed the world the stakes at when playing with nukes. When the Cuban Missile Crisis rolled around with hydrogen bombs now at play, and everyone knew that it could, literally, be the end of the world. Not to mention the multiple "close shaves" that only weren't nuclear Armageddon due to a human or two going against orders / computer data. Would they have been so hesitant if the human cost of even a small bomb hadn't been known? Would any of us be here today?
Would the cold war have become immediately hot if no nukes had been used and were still "off the table"? and a conventional war started in Berlin?
I wonder what would have happened if Nagasaki was not bombed. Perhaps bombing an unpopulated region to show the Japanese that it wasn't just a one off... Perhaps if the Potsdam declaration and ultimatum had been clear about what would happen?
Any thoughts?