One for Des

(SteveH) spouted the following in

Steve, sorry mate, there are just too many if's for me to work through
there. Lets leave it to the armchair generals OK?

 

I have to take issue with you here, despite agreeing with some of your
points.

1) The Japanese soldiers and people firmly believed the Emporer Hirohito to
be a living deity.
2) Hirohito, largely influenced by his military advisors, basically said
surrender was not an option. Japanese military strategy called for "no
Japanese survivors". As long as you killed 10 American soldiers first, your
death was honourable.
3) As witnessed during the recapture of Okinawa/Iwo Jima/Saipan, the
Japanese military was not only willing to die en-masse, but they also
instructed the civilians to commit suicide, in order that the army did not
have to defend them.

By the time the atomic bombs were dropped, the United States had absolute
air superiority over the entire Japanese mainland, and had already dropped
incendiary and high explosive bombs over *every* military target of *every*
priority. The Japanese military and the vast part of their economy had
simply disappeared. The problem was that they would still not surrender
until the Emporer instructed them to do so.

The civilian population, having been told that the Americans would rape all
the women and murder the men, felt they had nothing to lose by giving their
lives honourably Hence the queues of people volunteering to be kamikaze
pilots. The practical upshot of this is that the Americans would have had to
invade the mainland and subdue the entire country by force, which could
entail massacring a huge number of civilians and losing thousands of troops.

It was a different mindset back then, where honour and saving face were
*everything*, and even your own life was a price worth paying to serve the
Emporer. This is why one of the first things the Americans did on receiving
the Japanese surrender was to make the Emporer renounce his "godhood".

Thus whilst the atomic bomb(s) were horrific, the final result of their use
was an earlier end to the Pacific war, undoubtledly saving several times as
many lives as they cost by their use.

Just my 2p worth, plus remembering keenly watching "The World at War"...

 

You got a reference for the possible life saving? Does it include the
effects of the aftermath of the bombs that are still evident today?

 

petrolcan said...

^^^^
Why is it that only *you* could decide to have an imaginary shite old
moped in his .sig?

 

"Dan White" <> spouted the following in

Please read at least the last few chapters of 'Brighter than a thousand
Suns' by Robert Junck. It may serve as a useful counterpoint to the heavily
propogandized documentary you keenly watched.

The Japs were trying to surrrender before the bomb was dropped according to
other evidence.

 

Calum's delighted with it, he refers to it as his bike

 

I'm not going to argue this one (shock horror)(1). It's too cut and dried in
my mind. I don't agree and that's it TBH.

(1) other than to suggest they could have nuked Hirohito and to remind you
that they failed to hang him.

 

OK. A display of naval ignorance. Can anyone explain to me what all
the different types of boats are?

 

Fairly accepted fact. President Trueman publicly stated that it was in
the interests of the US for WW2 to go on as long as possible.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Hog

Japanese armed forces would not have surrendered without the emperor's
say-so. If he'd died, they would have fought on indefinitely.

Hanging him after the event could well have seen it all kick off again.

 

I suspect elements of urban legend in both TBH.

 

How can you have a reference for something that didn't happen?!

Base it on the points I made: The vast majority of the civilian population
were willing to die rather than see Americans on their home soil, or to die
trying to kill as many of them as possible. They implicitly believed the
words of the Emporer (who was a living God to them), when he told them of
the atrocities them Americans would inflict upon them should they ever
defeat them.

My limited research has 140,000 people killed at Hiroshima and 100,000 at
Nagasaki, including aftermath effects. Prior to the atomic bombs, the
Japanese had lost 1,700,000 soldiers and 120,000 civilians. Given that Japan
had eight million more servicemen, virtually all of which were prepared to
die rather than surrender, I think saying that they saved several times as
many lives as they cost is justified.

It's a difficult one. I hate the thought of their existence and usage, but I
*am* certain that more lives were saved by their usage in those
circumstances.


--
Dan White
()
Perform an exorcism when replying.





1.700.000 360.000


360.000

 

Have you been to Asia? It's still the case.

This I simply do not accept.

 

Is it usual policy for a foreign power to hang heads of state *after* they
surrender?

I thought they usually left that to the locals

 

<genuinely confused>

In which case, assuming that this is true, why go on to use nuclear weapons
and thus shorten the war by several months? Why not drag out the war for as
long as possible by surrounding the island and starving them into
submission. Dropping the bomb(s) meant that the Japanese surrendered within
days.

 

Remove the political officers and I'll bet they weren't.
I've spoken to a few Japs about that.

 

The reason I know the latter is that my brother wrote an article about
it. I have a clipping somewhere; I'll try to dig it out.

 

Because he thought they'd fight back. Which goes along with your theory
that they'd do anything for honour and "face".

 

Go for it.

Something else that bothers me is the juxtaposition around the willingness
to wreak havoc on those jap civilians and the failure to wave the nuclear
card to put a stop to Uncle Joe in the 40's.

 

Complicity in war crimes.