there are some rumours that america blocked japan from oil and also that they were goaded into the attack by the u.s. there is also some question that they were not allowed to surrender so that they could test the a-bomb. if either or any of this is true, then of course not.
Rumors are best ignored.
The US saw Japan as an economic threat and imposed an oil embargo.The US did not prohibit Japan from surrendering, however the terms and conditions of the US were "unconditional" surrender and the emperor must abdicate.
That assumption is invalid. There was little possibility of a ground war, especially since Japan was about to starve. Its islands had been disconnected, its transportation destroyed, and its food supply isolated.
That statement is false, since the US was already taking action. Troops and equipment were being transferred from the European Theater to the Pacific Theater, the US was assembling amphibious landing craft, the army and marines were training to invade Japan and the actual invasion plans were being finalized. You can get copies from the national archives if you want.
We settled for a slightly less that completely unconditional surrender after using two of these horrifying new weapons on them.
How do you figure that?
The US terms were simple: "Unconditional" surrender and the emperor abdicates.
Japan surrendered unconditionally, and the emperor abdicated. The US then wrote the constitution and established the government for Japan. In the interim, the US (vis-a-vis a military governor) governed Japan.
Yeah lets nuke people to save us having to kill them.
That's an emotional response not based on logic or reason (or facts).
The lost lives during the attack itself was maybe not so 'high', in your opinion, but the consequences for future generations living on these grounds were absolutely negative. Till today there are still crippled kids being born, because of those bombs, and so on.
Do you have peer-reviewed science to back that up? Because even the Japanese admit the damage from radiation isn't as bad as everyone has been led to believe.
I don't accept that. Perhaps in other times, it is unacceptable to target civilians, but this was a special case, total war encompassing most of the world. It was also payback for Pearl Harbor and the hell that our troops went through in the Pacific. Not so fucking militant now, are they?
The targets were justifiable. The target in Hiroshima was the 2nd Imperial Army Headquarters, who would be directing the defense of Japan in that region.
If anyone can produce the name of a survivor of the 2nd Imperial Army Headquarters, then please do, and contact me immediately. I will get us on TV, radio and the lecture circuits and we'll be rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice, because we'll be the only people on Earth who know a survivor of the 2nd Imperial Army Headquarters.
The Nagasaki target (an alternate) was the Mitsubishi industrial complex.
There is no question under international law that those were valid targets (even today).
Targeting innocent civilians to reach higher collectivist goals is...this is akin to terrorism...
Is it?
And were those civilians really "innocent?"
When does a government become legitimate?
When it is accepted by a simple majority of people. All governments are "by the people, of the people, for the people." The form of government, a dictatorship, a monarchy, a constitutional monarchy, an oligarchy, a republic or a pure democracy does not matter. It is an issue of self-determination.
Thus, the government and the people are one-in-the-same. There is no distinction.
Legally, if I were to give you bullets and a gun knowing full well that you intended to commit murder and you did so, then I would be guilty by law of murder for complicity; aiding and abetting; an accessory before, during and after the act; and possibly conspiracy to commit murder.
The man who pays taxes to his government to wage war is equally guilty, just as the man who makes bullets, bombs, tanks, planes and other war materiel.
So, civilians are not innocent. An innocent civilian is one who refuses to pay taxes, and who refuses to support the war-effort, who actively engages in dissent through civil disobedience or armed rebellion, or who flees the country.
So merely informing the Japanese of their existence, six months earlier at the negotiating table, might have ended the war much sooner. If evidence was needed, inviting Japanese experts to witness Trinity was an obvious option.
That is a total fail.
Hiroshima was destroyed, and the emperor didn't blink an eye.
Nagasaki was destroyed, and still the emperor was not moved.
It was three days after Nagasaki when the US was preparing to drop a third bomb on the following day that the emperor finally threw in the towel.
Detonating a device off of the coast of Japan to impress the emperor would have failed miserably, since he was not moved to surrender when Hiroshima was destroyed.
Even after Nagasaki, it still took the emperor a few days to figure it out.
We look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as horrific events, but the allies bombed Dresden Germany to smithereens, and then there was the Bombing of Tokyo on one night in March 1945.
That is absolutely correct and it raises the question, "What is the real issue here?"
If the US developed a conventional bomb that killed 79,000 people would that be more or less moral than a nuclear bomb?
The message I'm getting here from some people is that it is A-OK to drop 80,000 white phosphorus incendiary bombs and kill 120,000+ but that it is "morally wrong" to drop a single bomb that kills 79,000 people.
It seems to be based on an ignorance of "things nuclear" and the mere mention of "nuclear" invokes the typical knee-jerk gut wrenching emotional reaction.
With regards to whether the Japanese were provoked, this is really interesting. Firstly, there is a considerable body of evidence that suggests that although President Roosevelt portrayed Pearl Harbour as an unprovoked, surprise attack, in actual fact, the American's had been actively provoking Japan, in the hope that the Japanese would commit what the American's referred to as an "overt act of war".
Yes, there is a strong body of documented evidence that the US was provoking the Japanese, and that the US was aware of the pending attack on Pearl Harbor.
The evidence suggests the US was attempting a classic "counter-ambush" at Pearl Harbor. The US placed early warning radar on an outer island, transferred B-17 bombers from the mainland to Hawaii, armed and fuel all attack aircraft and left them parked wingtip-to-wingtip on airfields in the Hawaiian Islands, and move the carriers without their escorts (for speed) out of Pearl Harbor to a position northeast of the Islands.
Japanese aircraft would be detected by radar giving ample warning, aircraft from various airfields would take off already armed and fueled and strip away the fighter coverage, while aircraft already armed and fueled on other airfields would attack torpedo dive bombers. The other bombers would be handled by land and ship-based air defenses. When the Japanese fled, they would be pursued and once the location of the main body of the fleet (the Japanese carriers) was known, carrier-based aircraft would be vectored in to attack the Japanese fleet and the B-17s would finish them off.
On the face of it, it was a great plan, but it would seem things went awry when the Japanese showed up a few days earlier than expected. It is known that the Allies had a spy at the Reich Embassy in Tokyo, a Black Sea German (from Ukraine) who was feeding information. Knowing that Japan was going to attack the US allowed Stalin to start shifting units from Manchuria to Central Russia (Stalin correctly guessed that if Japan were to attack the US they would not attack Russia through Manchuria).
The problem seems to be the spy misidentified a Japanese ship. He believed the misidentified ship was heading to the assembly area and that it would arrive their within 12 hours and the fleet would depart shortly after that, when in fact the Japanese attack force had left 3 days earlier.
The remaining classified documents (about 1 Million pages worth) are scheduled for review sometime in 2023, so hopefully it will shed more light.
I've also heard that when the last veteran of WW II dies, many of the documents will be released.
As outlined in McCollum's memo, the American administration / military considered war with Japan to be inevitable...
Yes, that is also why the US did not invade Mexico to seize the oil fields formerly owned by US oil companies after President Cardenas expropriated all US assets for failing to comply with the orders of the Mexican Supreme Court.
I think it was highly unethical of the allies (and I say allies, because I'm sure their was British involvement at some level) to drop an atomic bomb on a primarily civilian population center in Japan.
It was the Headquarters of the 2nd Imperial Japanese Army, so it was a valid target.
They were industrial port cities, yes, but that hardly justifies the A bomb attacks on urbanised territories
Industrial facilities are valid targets.
... just slight changes so that they would not lose face entirely (in other words, that their Emperor be not humiliated)
Why shouldn't the emperor be humiliated?
Are you suggesting the emperor is somehow special, different, above other humans? I hope not, because that would be absurd.
Your logic is flawed. If the Japanese are in a position to be issuing demands, then the Japanese are not as defeated as you would mislead people to believe.
One can only make demands from a position of strength.
They weren't innocent, they were contributing to the war effort.
Yes, indeed.
When the culture is such that they would rather kill themselves than surrender, only a devastating blow could have ended the war decisively.
Mass suicides by Japanese civilians as US troops were landing in order to avoid dishonor would not be out of the question.
In which case the very same people who oppose the use of nuclear weapons would then be wringing their heads saying,
"Why didn't you nuke them to prevent the mass suicides?"
hold up. your point is off here. the civilians don't have a choice but to contribute to the war effort. they will or they will be killed or starve if they can't get a job.
Yes, they most certainly do have a choice, they just lacked the moral courage to exercise that choice.
The Japanese could have written to their government and to the editors of news papers protesting the actions of in Korea, China and elsewhere.
If that failed, they could have put others in power.
If that failed, they could have engaged in mass strikes.
If that failed, they could have engaged in sit-down strikes on the job, work slow-downs, work stoppages, and even sabotaged production facilities.
If that failed they could have begun to sabotage rail lines and bridges.
If that failed, then they could have started assassinating government officials.
And if that failed, then they should have overthrown the government and constituted a new one.
What did the Japanese people do? Nothing.
Well actually they did something. They sang rousing choruses of
"O Glorious Nation of the Rising Sun" while bombs rained down on Korean civilians and Korean women were enslaved and forced to function as prostitutes in brothels for Japanese military officers, and while Nanking was raped and destroyed and many Chinese civilians were killed and enslaved.
And then the Japanese have the unmitigated gall to whine and snivel because someone drops a bomb on them.
They should have thought of that before they violated the sovereignty of Korea, China, Britain, France, the Netherlands, the US, Australia, Vietnam, Burma, India, Thailand and many other countries and started killing people.
More to the point, we wanted said victory to be ours entirely and not shared with the Soviets (who were by that time massing forces for an invasion of Japan from the north).
That was also part of the equation.
Russia declared war on Japan after the US actions at Hiroshima.
