No. We should have taken into account that only the surface would get obliterated. Weebs in their parents' basements were safe and came to rule the nation.
I can't decide whether to write up another primer specifically on this topic, or to just start posting this video in every "Japan dindu nothing" thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4uDfg38gyk
1. It wasn't militarily justified because Japan was starving, blockaded, and on the brink of surrender regardless. Basically the only hang-up in surrender negotiations was the fate of the Emperor, who America let live anyways.
2. Nuking the Japs was morally justified for the Rape of Nanjing, the Bataan Death March, and a thousand other crimes against humanity. When the Nazi attache appeals to Hitler on humanitarian grounds that the Japs are being too evil, you know you've fricked up.
Nope. Even after the 2 nukes they wanted to fight. They only surrendered because Russia was planning to invade and they didn't want to fight 2 great powers.
It’s not popular to say but this is the truth, Russia scared the ever loving shit out of the nips higher up and American bombings were so thoroughly destructive that to them there was very little difference between a firebombing raid and the nukes
War ended right after, didn't it? I don't believe anyone who says that had no impact on the decision for unconditional surrender.
>Basically the only hang-up in surrender negotiations was the fate of the Emperor, who America let live anyways.
No they also wanted to keep all the shit they colonized in the time since.
They were given fair warning. They did not heed the warning.
Besides, the firebombing of Tokyo was worse and the firebombing of Dresden happened without proper warning to civilians.
Justification is for pussies, Japs plague bombed China which was legal because they didn't sign any treaty against it. Killing is killing the method of death doesn't matter. Is dying of plague or getting blasted apart at the cellular level by neutrons any worse than dying in a ditch of sepsis over a period of five days?
War his hell and hell is an asylum run by the inmates, deal with it.
Yes it was a brutal war that would have dragged on with even more deaths and destruction. Also, the previous fire bombings were worse in terms of loss of life.
>ends the war >prevents what would've been the unmatched horror of an invasion of mainland Japan >doesn't rely on continuing to starve them out with subs
Yes. It was the most humane solution bar none. Peaceniks and Japs will seethe, but it's true.
>kept the Soviets from making a grab for any of the Home Islands and half of the Korean Peninsula, saving tens of hundreds of people from being subjected to slavery and murder under the Communist system
not interested in making the full argument, but I'll respond to a common criticism - that the two cities were civilian targets that weren't valuable to the war effort. Both had the majority of their industry geared toward the production of war materiel. Hiroshima was the site of the HQ for the command charged with defending Kyushu, which is where the invasion of the Japanese mainland would have taken place if surrender hadn't come. Almost 100% of Nagasaki's population was employed by Mitsubishi in war industries, and both cities were major ports
This is post war justification cope. Japan was completely exhausted industrially. Ive seen similar cope about dresden being a “major supply line” for the Nazis
The two atomic bombings were deliberate acts of mass destruction against civilians purely to force a surrender. Whether or not you think its justified is another matter
>this is cope
nice argument moron. Someone should've told the Japanese who were still shooting at Americans in 1944 and 1945 that they were exhausted industrially and shouldn't have had any ammunition left. When were the two deadliest battles in the Pacific for the US? Oh yeah, in the last months of the war
The US had a specific list detailing the target criteria. One of the biggest factors was the cities' contribution to Japan's war effort. Hiroshima had a major army depot and HQ there, and its close proximity to rivers meant incendiary bombs would have little effect.
Nagasaki was chosen because it had a major naval base.
The war was not over at this point, and the US was still expecting to be forced to stage an amphibious invasion of Japan.
One of them was a secondary or tertiary target just chosen by happenstance of cloud coverage. Whatever, it's brutal, and I'm sure that no kid who has only lived a short few years on this earth "deserves," it, but it was a textbook reason for the greater good to get the war over with sooner than later.
It was Nagasaki because the original primary target on the raid was Kokura where Ted Fujita lived and was studying/teaching at the time. The nearby area of Yahata was firebombed to shit and so the smoke coverage obscured Kokura too much and they ended up hitting Nagasaki with the bomb. Coincidentally, Ted ended up studying the damage associated with the wind from the explosion and that went into downburst and tornado damage research in the USA and the famous F/EF scale
No, the Japanese tried to send diplomats to negotiate a surrender because they were worried about the emperor, the US refused because they demanded unconditional, the Japanese interpreted this to mean the Emperor would be prosecuted for war crimes and fought even harder, the Americans nuked, and then the Americans decided to keep the Emperor alive after the unconditional surrender to maintain stability.
Absolutely not, humiliation was the better weapon. Doing that would have caused retaliation.
Do you think we took prisoners because we gave a shit about the enemy? No, it saves our own men if we end it as soon as possible.
12 months ago
Anonymous
Manlets eternally blown the frick out
12 months ago
Anonymous
This b***h looks sub 4’10”, macarthur was around 5’9” or so
Absolutely, both cities were of high strategic value so they were gonna get bombed regardless when we had to invade. Moreover it prevented 2 far worse outcomes that would've definitely resulted in far more death, prolonged the war, and worst of all give Russia an opportunity to take more Japanese territory. Lastly, given Japan's conduct throughout the war, the fact they didn't declare war before bombing our harbor and executing a fricking brilliant invasion across the Pacific, and starting the whole fricking thing by invading Manchuria gives us carte blanche to do whatever we want
No, not because I believe the Japanese were ready to surrender, (they weren't, and wouldn't have unless they were allowed to at least keep their pre-war colonies and avoid a US occupation/change of government), or because taking another course of action would have saved lives, civilian or military, (the necessary invasion would have been far more destructive), but because I believe nuclear weapons should never be used.
Truman and the military didn't understand what the implications of using nukes was, and probably wouldn't have done it if they had the benefit of hindsight. That's why you have so many military leaders posting cope about how they were unnecessary in the post-war era. However you'll notice there's no record of anyone, from Eisenhower to MacArthur to LeMay, voicing objections at that time, because no one really knew what they were getting into.
Is it? I think it's quite likely that if leaders were given time to reflect on the use of nuclear weapons, rather than dropping them at literally the first possible opportunity, they would choose not to. But regardless my opinion wouldn't change, even if it was necessary to have a 'first blood' I would still oppose dropping them on Japan, because I believe nuclear weapons should never be used.
The firebombings of Tokyo were more lethal, it served a post-WWII era that quite literally created the Cold War which we won't just go full-scale warfare between developed nations because otherwise the big boys get fricked. It was a show of force between us and the Soviets that even though they can win in conventional attritional warfare, we could still have legitimate wunderwaffles up our coatsleeves.
Firebombing was only more lethal in the short term. Long term the radiation sickness killed far more and maimed others. The firebombing also occurred in a mostly intact and populated city. By the time the nukes were dropped both cities had lost over half their populations. Ironically the firebombing campaign saved lives because without it Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have had hundreds of thousands more people in them, most of whom would have been killed or mortally wounded immediately, and either city individually would have had more dead than the firebombing of Tokyo claimed, to say nothing of combined casualties.
And how so many more would have died in the next few years to radiation turning their organs into soup.
Hiroshima was chosen because it was only lightly hit, presenting a target with more shock effect to the japanese
Thanks to autistic japanese records we know the exact statistics of rad damage
About 1-in-3 of people within the blast zone had increased cancer risk, though most survived to live regular lifespans
12 months ago
Anonymous
The blast zone was enormous and included many people who suffered minimal or no radiation exposure.
340,000 people resides in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped. Oppenheimer suggested earlier that year an atomic bomb might kill 20k people. The initial blast killed 70,000, and another 100,000 to 160,000 died in the next month to injuries and radiation sickness. At a low estimate half of the city died to a single bomb in the short term. At a high estimate two thirds of the cities populace died. Then of the survivors who existed mostly on the outskirts, many were spared thanks to the low nuclear fallout radius and rapid decay. But almost everyone in the immediate and highest concentrations of fallout and radiation exposure died.
The bombs basically killed everyone in the city in 5 years or less due to radiation poisoning. That was not understood or well known or in some cases really known at all. In hindsight it’s beyond reproach but given the basic understanding of the war and weaponry to many at the time it was just another weapon in a long history of deadly weapons. Even things like gas or firebombing or saturation strikes didn’t kill to the 98th percentile the way radioactive bombs did. The only reason the bombs didn’t kill a million Japanese is because the cities had experienced massive amounts of emigration to the countryside over the war and partially because many civilians fled prior to the bombings because of leaflet drops.
What a stupid fricking take. They tested the bombs and knew God damned well what they were about to do to Japan. Japan deserved every bit of that, not just for the atrocities, but because their leader was a coward and couldn't take full control of the country from his generals.
They knew the technical capabilities of the bombs but didn't understand them spiritually. It's not by accident that every American general washed their hands of the decision after the war and blamed it all on Truman, erroneously claimed Japan was about to surrender, etc., they knew what they had done was wrong. And again, I admit Japan deserved it, I just don't think that nuclear weapons should be used even against people who deserve it.
Yes, and people even more cold-blooded than Truman shied away from it. That should give you pause.
The firebombings of Tokyo were more lethal, it served a post-WWII era that quite literally created the Cold War which we won't just go full-scale warfare between developed nations because otherwise the big boys get fricked. It was a show of force between us and the Soviets that even though they can win in conventional attritional warfare, we could still have legitimate wunderwaffles up our coatsleeves.
I agree that the firebombings were more lethal, but I support them, because they're not nuclear weapons. And I agree that they may have set an example, (though I think the point would have been recognized regardless), but it's an example that never should have been set and a door that never should have been opened.
>I agree that the firebombings were more lethal, but I support them, because they're not nuclear weapons.
Ah so you’re just moronic and made an arbitrary decision with no actual thought >killing thousands with normal bombs?
OK >killing thousands with one bomb
BAD
12 months ago
Anonymous
thousands with normal bombs? >OK
thousands with one bomb >BAD
Correct. There is a qualitative difference. Weapons that could exterminate the entire human race (or close to it) should never be used.
12 months ago
Anonymous
Anon we can exterminate humanity with fire bombs, and a hundred different things, you’re just a fricking idiot who’s somehow ok with mass murder, just not THAT mass murder
12 months ago
Anonymous
Why
12 months ago
Anonymous
>Weapons that could exterminate the human race
That's every weapon in sufficient quantities you clown
You don't know what's on the other side of the door unless you open it. What's the difference? Both are equally as horrible. But this gives you political leverage. This entire debate series is good, but I think in the second half is a good discussion on nuclear arms in general and why all of the generals don't want to use the nuclear option in this proposed scenario. They would not have had this opinion if we didn't have real world examples of using nuclear warfare. >https://www.learner.org/series/ethics-in-america/under-orders-under-fire-part-ii/
12 months ago
Anonymous
Interesting, I'll give it a look.
Anon we can exterminate humanity with fire bombs, and a hundred different things, you’re just a fricking idiot who’s somehow ok with mass murder, just not THAT mass murder
Your near miss is telling. I am not okay with mass murder, I am okay with war. Bombing, including firebombing, is war. Nuclear weapons are mass murder, and also suicide, genocide, and ecocide. They are not even truly a weapon of war, they are a weapon of pointless but total annihilation. They should never be used.
12 months ago
Anonymous
>war isn’t mass murder
12 months ago
Anonymous
>I am not okay with mass murder, I am okay with war
You're the most moronic fricking person I've ever seen.
The sheer magnitude and power of the bomb is the reason why Oppenheimer made the meme quote in the first place you moron. Because now that he had created the bomb and witnessed its raw power, he knew that others would make the bomb bigger and in larger quantities.
yes. Invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been horrific. For the Japanese, and for the US. And Russia probably would have invaded too, and perhaps even turned it into another North/South Korea situation. The bombs were pretty awful, but in the long run, the Japs came out on top. 3rd most powerful economy on earth, basically an ethnostate, full autonomy. We can only imagine how horrible it would have been if Russia got involved with the surrender.
>Japs: suing for peace for nearly a year >unconditional surrender! we'll stop killing you when it pleases us >Jap imperial cabinet nearly call your bluff correctly assuming they had only enough refined uranium for those two strikes and not more (because a shipment the germans intended for them was diverted, probably as a result of Paperclip talks thus accelerating Manhattan Project timetables by at least 4 months)
Not remotely when the Soviets could have been pushed all the frick the way back out of Europe and preventing the Cold War as we know it with 2 big ones still in the can through big swinging dick diplomacy alone. Manhattan Project Soviet spies (and endemic convergence throughout the FDR administration) made it imperative to keep them in reserve, and the "oh no the Russians are finally doing what we asked and threatening the Home Islands at the last fricking gasp" was a convenient lie.
The firebombings' kill counts were cheaper and higher anways, the decision was political and to rubber stamp Soviet partition of Europe at the behest of mongoloidal Anglo geostrategic Zero Sum Game thinking that still ended up ripping their own colonial dick off in the end and opened the west and world to the hazard of nuclear proliferation and the Cold War with International Communism still playing out to this day in blowback out in Ukraine.
Yes. If you attack the USA directly, you'd better be prepared to fight to the end. I respect modern Japan for what they've done since then, and even for their rapid modernization before the war. But, the moment the first shot was fired at Pearl Harbor, it became not just allowable, but a moral imperative for the USA to completely destroy the Empire of Japan.
Should've dropped one right on the Imperial Palace. The fact that Hirohito was basically let off scot free is moronic. At least Tojo was executed I guess.
He had leverage. Up until that point, no Japanese unit had surrendered en masse, and very few individuals surrendered. The Emperor was literally the only person on the planet who could have issued an order to the IJA to lay down their arms and accept occupation by the enemy army and expect to have it actually obeyed. As guilty as he was, he was indispensable.
They saved Japan from the soviet menace, which would objectively be worse and lead to more deaths as a result
It's not about good or bad, it's about minimizing the losses, japan recovered quickly from the nuke, you can't recover like this from the russian influence
>Soviet menace
Yeah, how dare Japan receive the decades of peace and prosperity that Eastern Europe experienced. Japan was better off as a US military base.
Ah yes. "Western coups" it has nothing to do with the fact none of those people wanted to live under Russian boots. Even so Japan and Korea were in a golden age under American guidance. Meanwhile places under Soviet influence remained shitholes. Take a look at Central Asia for example.
Absolutely, think about the cruelty that conquering nations have shown the vanquished over the course of human history. And then think about the lack of technology that the conquerors have had in the past.
Can you imagine if we had demonstrated the same type of cruelty present in the first century AD? We would have kept the war going until we had glassed the entire island.
Absolutely, it was a choice to either surrender to the Russians or surrender to us. And the nuke may have suck but it was the right call in the long run
Yes, as always, everytime you make this shit thread. The japs started it and talked a bunch of shit, especially in how they handled POWs and conducted themselves with civilian populations. They don't get to complain because the culling was metered out by atomic fire instead of Hito's bayonet
No Japanese ww2 veteran ever complained about whether the nukes were "necessary" or "justified".
Even their offsprings only appeal to the west instead of asking them anything about the war because they knew precisely the kind of whoop ass they'd get for bringing it up.
While the use of the bombs themselves were completely justifiable, I think the selection of cities full of civilians (albeit major hubs of war production) as targets was questionable at best.
Perhaps the most demonstration would have deployment of a single bomb at the mouth of Tokyo Bay or on the adjacent Chiba Prefecture, which was relatively sparsely populated but still easily within viewing distance of Tokyo. Force Hirohito and his court to witness the flash, feel the heat radiating from the bomb tingle their skin, and have them understand once and for all what we were capable of doing, and that there will be no more chances and warnings.
Two bombs were immediately available, but there were additional ones under construction. IIRC there was a Department of Defense memo that stated that an additional 5-10 bombs would be ready by September, 1945 for use in Operation Downfall.
And if the Japs call our bluff? Taking out two strategically significant targets instead of an inconsequential show of force makes a lot of sense when you don't have the benefit of hindsight to tell you that they're going to panic after you drop the second bomb.
>And if the Japs call our bluff?
Well then we could have used one on a city (for real this time). My point is that there would probably be considerably fewer naysayers if the bomb had been given a (mostly) non-lethal live demonstration and the Japanese still hadn't taken the hint and vainly attempted to fight on.
Even though it was a war that had already ended the lives of 100 million people, I don't think that we necessarily had to kill an additional 300,000 in order to conclude it.
That said, the pressing need to end the war at the time makes it understandable why American leadership decided to take the easy way out and just flat out use the bombs on a pair of cities rather than look for an alternative.
The IJA was flat-out murdering ~100,000 civilians *each month* in the lands they had conquered--not including China. They also had orders to murder every Allied POW they had upon news reaching them of an invasion of the Home Islands.
>The IJA was flat-out murdering ~100,000 civilians *each month* in the lands they had conquered--not including China.
Source on that? Don't get me wrong, I completely believe you and I have cited the suffering of the peoples of Japanese-occupied Asia in arguments with people who assert that use of the bombs was completely uncalled for (let me make it clear again, I am NOT one of THOSE people). Anyway moving on...
The thing is that we didn't kill 300,000 IJA soldiers in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but 300,000 non-combatants (plus 20,000 IJA soldiers), including people who weren't even Japanese such as impressed laborers from various parts of Asia and prisoners of war. It's specifically the fact that the final American act of the war was to slaughter hundreds of thousands of non-combatants in 72 hours that I find somewhat objectionable.
But I do see your point. There was a pressing need to bring an immediate end to the war and wiping a few Japanese cities off the map (something we had already done via conventional means at scores of Japanese cities) was the seemingly most expedient way to do so.
google the Vietnam famine, that was essentially orchestrated by the IJA killed like 1-2 million in one year alone. That doesn't even account for their brutality towards the Chinese.
>300,000 non-combatants
My Black person, what exactly are those people doing?
This sort of argument works for pissant border skirmishes where the involved parties are relying on prewar stockpiles of trained soldiers and munitions, but when you commit to le total war, bending every aspect of your nation toward supporting the war effort, there are no noncombatants. Everyone you kill hampers the war effort, no matter how tangentially.
And if the Japs call our bluff? Taking out two strategically significant targets instead of an inconsequential show of force makes a lot of sense when you don't have the benefit of hindsight to tell you that they're going to panic after you drop the second bomb.
Yes. Every single thing the USA or any of our allies do is 100 percent justified at any time. This is because we are the good guys and anyone against us is therefore a bad guy. It's impossible for the United States to commit "war crimes" or do anything "unjustified" and even acts of full on genocide are acceptable because we're the good guys in all aspects.
At the time? Maybe not the nukes were intended for a Germany first plan, but they lost too quick. There were alot of things that could have ended the war without Nukes or an invasion.
In retrospect? No, However it was definitely for the best that we ended up using them where we did. Dropping them anywhere near Russians would have been a bad move, also being the only ones to use them offensively set the tone, if everyone working with it at the time keeps producing them, and America never drops them who knows what the frick happens and who uses one first?
I really think we could have had the real world Dr Strange Love happen with MacArthur in Korea giving us Nuclear Armageddon in the 50s without Truman's hindsight of the effects of the Nukes in Japan, i could see Truman being taken less seriously and MacArthur getting more ballsy to go full moron
They probably sped up the end of the war by about a week or two, but the main thing that convinced the japanese to surrender was the soviet invasion of manchuria, not the bombs. Up until the soviets declared war the japanese genuinely believed they could use the soviets to negotiate a peace with the allies that was short of unconditional surrender. The nukes sped up the timetable of the russian invasion and in that regard it did shorten the war (which is the only reasonable justification to use the nukes in the first place).
I'm not sure why people are so sensitive about this topic, honestly. In the grand scheme of it, years of strategic bombing with conventional munitions did vastly more damage to both german and japanese cities overall than both A-bombs, but there's still this weird perception around them. Obviously nukes are bad and no one should use them, but it wasn't like the amount of death and destruction they caused were particularly out of the ordinary. The militarists on the jap high council even saw it this way, they really didn't give a shit about the nukes because their cities had been getting destroyed from the air for years at that point.
>they really didn't give a shit about the nukes because their cities had been getting destroyed from the air for years at that point.
they cared a lot about the nukes
as it totally upended their defense plans of the island, which revolved around causing enough casualties on the beaches that it would cause the allies to lose the stomach for war and negotiatie
they had no idea how many bombs the US had left and if they still had several bombs then it was obvious that if they dropped them at the same rate they did regular bombs than there would be no costly ground campaign and they would pry unconditional surrender out of their radioactive fingers
>they cared a lot about the nukes
No, the militarists definitely did not. They felt their best chance was to defeat an anglo invasion >as it totally upended their defense plans of the island, which revolved around causing enough casualties on the beaches that it would cause the allies to lose the stomach for war and negotiatie
Do you have a source for this? Because everything I've ever seen points to the fact that the nukes really didn't affect their strategic planning. In fact, from what I've read the militarists basically just saw the nukes as yet another devastating air raid. >they had no idea how many bombs the US had left
While this is true, the militarists still claimed that the US had zero bombs left when they were arguing against unconditional surrender. They had no actual way to prove that the US had no more bombs, they were literally just saying it, but still.
japanese strategic planning to oppose downfall was a forward defense with little reserve units, because their only hope was to maximize american losses even if it meant throwing girls with a kitchen knife and hand grenade at them
nukes entering the equation made such a defense untenable as there would be no massive american losses, just a total wipe out of their army
>japanese strategic planning to oppose downfall was a forward defense with little reserve units, because their only hope was to maximize american losses even if it meant throwing girls with a kitchen knife and hand grenade at them
Yes. To add to this, the militarists hoped that they would cause so many casualties that the americans would eventually just give up and accept a conditional surrender. >nukes entering the equation made such a defense untenable as there would be no massive american losses, just a total wipe out of their army
No. Like I said, the militarists had convinced themselves the US didn't have any more nukes.
>the militarists had convinced themselves the US didn't have any more nukes
After Hiroshima, yes. Japan had the second-best atomic program on the planet. Japanese scientists were able to correctly determine how much HEU was used, and that the US would only be able to produce enough for ~2 Bombs a year. So, US propaganda that there were "hundreds" of Bombs ready to go was a bluff.
And then Nagasaki blew up. Worse, there were traces of plutonium left behind, which was supposed to be impossible to make a Bomb from. Suddenly, it seemed like the US wasn't kidding about the "hundreds" of Bombs available.
Hirohito blinked, and stabbed the hawks in the back (and almost got couped and placed under house arrest in retaliation). And of course, it turned out that it *was* a bluff, sort of; there weren't hundreds of Bombs ready to go, but one being assembled every ~10 days.
In the critical political moments that decided for an unconditionnal surrender, the situation about hiroshima and nagasaki was confused, most believed they had been destroyed by normal firebombing and the important matter was thatthe soviet just destroyed the kwantung army and there was no hope of a negociated peace.
Anyone thinking operation dawnfall was avoided because of the nukes is delusionnal.
>the situation about hiroshima and nagasaki was confused
the japanese were leaders of nuclear science in the pre-war and knew exactly what they were dealing with
they knew that building bombs were hard and argued back and forth whether or not the US had more, before nagasaki shut them up
>I'm not sure why people are so sensitive about this topic
Decades of Soviet agitprop against anything nuclear (remember the "die-ins" whenever NASA launched a probe with an atomic battery?).
Do you understand what "unconditionally" means?
It means "you put down your weapons, let us take over and do what the hell we want with you and yours".
Only a fool would accept that unless faced with total annihilation and Japan WANTED to surrender. They knew they had lost way before Hiroshima but United States wouldn't let them.
When Japan finally surrendered unconditionally it was when Soviet Union started to attack Japan from the north.
I guess they thought that it would be better to surrender unconditionally to United States than to let USSR to invade them.
They were probably right about that but the conduct of the US in the Pacific War was appalling. Genocidal even.
Just like it was in Europe.
The entire point unconditional surrender was that the Allies didn't want the Axis trying to negotiate separately with individual Allied nations, and they didn't want a repeat of the Treaty of Versailles where Germany fooled itself into thinking it only lost because of being backstabbed by upper leadership. Unconditional surrender was meant to send the message that the Axis were thoroughly beaten on the field.
And the funniest thing is, Japan STILL tried to negotiate a separate deal with Russia, or at the very least, hoped that Russia would act as a mediator between them and the US. Japan's surrender shortly after Russia's declaration of war on them wasn't so much fear of Russian invasion as it was them realizing Russia wouldn't back them in negotiations with the US.
Shut the frick up b***h, you don’t get to start a war and then lose it on your own terms. Japan could have surrendered unconditionally but chose not to. Do you understand that? They CHOSE to not surrender. It literally DOESN’T MATTER that they wanted to surrender on THEIR terms. After everything the japanese empire had done to not just the US but the whole of the pacific suggesting they have even the slightest right to dictate the terms of their surrender is downright insulting to the millions they butchered and tortured.
Japan, objectively, got off easier than they deserved.
Butt hurt Americans detected.
How does it feel to know that the "one good war" wasn't so good after all?
I don’t have shit to be mad about my guy, the US won, Japs lost, krauts lost, Hiroshima justified, Nagasaki justified, Tokyo firebombing justified, dresden justified, simple as.
The entire point unconditional surrender was that the Allies didn't want the Axis trying to negotiate separately with individual Allied nations, and they didn't want a repeat of the Treaty of Versailles where Germany fooled itself into thinking it only lost because of being backstabbed by upper leadership. Unconditional surrender was meant to send the message that the Axis were thoroughly beaten on the field.
And the funniest thing is, Japan STILL tried to negotiate a separate deal with Russia, or at the very least, hoped that Russia would act as a mediator between them and the US. Japan's surrender shortly after Russia's declaration of war on them wasn't so much fear of Russian invasion as it was them realizing Russia wouldn't back them in negotiations with the US.
Shut the frick up b***h, you don’t get to start a war and then lose it on your own terms. Japan could have surrendered unconditionally but chose not to. Do you understand that? They CHOSE to not surrender. It literally DOESN’T MATTER that they wanted to surrender on THEIR terms. After everything the japanese empire had done to not just the US but the whole of the pacific suggesting they have even the slightest right to dictate the terms of their surrender is downright insulting to the millions they butchered and tortured.
Japan, objectively, got off easier than they deserved.
Yes just because the Americans developed the technology to bomb a city with one plane and one big bomb as opposed to 100 planes carrying 1000s of bombs it doesn't suddenly become a moral wrong to do the exact same thing every other party on both sides of the largest war in human history had already been doing.
Further more it was a practical inevitably that the US was going to use their new multi billion dollar super weapon with the war still dragging on, every one talks a big moral game without ever delving into what other options if any were available and practical to those actually making the decision at the time.
Controversial take, not justified but probably deserved. We knew the japs wouldn't hold out much longer, there was no threat of a land invasion. We did it to frick over Russia and threaten the globe with our capabilities. It was spectacle.
>We knew the japs wouldn't hold out much longer,
starving them out the old fashioned way would have taken until 1946 or 1947
while this was going on, they would need to wait for several ongoing campaigns to come to a close, costing several hundred allied troops and thousands of civilians every day it continues
and the public was getting war weary, they wanted the war to end, and every day they delay the outcome is a day they might just give the japanese their demands
>there was no threat of a land invasion.
downfall was real, with men and material being stockpiled in the philippines, australia, and forward islands in preparation for the invasion
No, we did it to make the Japs capitulate. Once again every one in a thread ignores basic history. The Japs had a childish and wrong point of view that they would be able to dictate terms. The Allies told them to frick off and they wanted to play hardball. The options on the table were 1) land invasion with a million projected casualties and mass civilian death expected in both fighting and suicide (mimicking other areas), 2) blockade and starve resulting in a million dead civvies minimum (motherfrickers always forget Macs first major move as defacto Emperor was a massive food drive that saved millions of Nips from dying), 3) bomb em good and hard. The Nips had already had plenty of 3 but assumed we would be unwilling to truly take them to task. We warned them each time and offered a chance to surrender. In their arrogance they called our bluff. Then after the first bomb we said surrender and they listened to their theorists (who were top notch) and they told them that it would not be possible for us to have another bomb so quickly. When we did it a second time they were forced to admit their knowledge was out of date and that they would have 0 say in the terms. The Japs deserved a third and fourth bomb not to mention quite a few executions, but they got off easy. We brought them into the fold, fed them, fixed their nation and gave them a sparkly new Constitution that gave rights to their women and created a brand new Japanese Golden Age. At the same time we paid them, protected them, and shared our culture. They are lucky. Lucky the worst they got is 2 Abombs. Talk to any Pacific Islander alive back then and you'll find stories that make those bombs sound like a weekend at Bernies. No tears should be shed. It was their own bullshit and unwillingness that brought the bomb down on them. Not the US showing off, not anything else. They had their opportunity and they had the evidence to see they should take it, but they mistook themselves as equal partners.
Considering the nukes played barely any decision in the surrender process and that the decision to use thrm was officially because the Japanese had refused the Potsdam declaration (they didnt), No.
Considering it was a good way to test the weapon for real and flex at the soviet and any military to show who was in charge now : yes. Could it have happened without killing hundreds of thousands : probably.
Did anyone care back then ? No, 99 % considered the japs had it coming and its only after sobering up that people considered it might not have been a really nice thing to do, especially when they were prosecuting their defeated opponents for terror bombing and shit.
No. The nuclear bombings were basically a demonstration of power and technological superiority over a defeated opponent.
Absolutely, Japan could and should have surrendered. Realistically, the US wanted to try out their new toys and show off a little, and Japan have them "reasonable justification" to do it.
Nuclear weapons are not used for a reason. They escalate conflict to absolute destruction, and thankfully there was no opportunity for retaliation like there is nowadays. Whilst extremely unlikely, nuclear war is terrifying and probably the quickest way to end the world.
Literally the only people who debate whether or not it was "justified" are Westerners and butthurt Japanese nationalists. If you talk to literally any Asian from a country occupied by the Japanese, you'd struggle to find someone who thinks it wasn't justified.
My aunt’s neighbor was a B29 pilot who felt it was excessive. He said the Japanese had absolutely nothing left by the end; the B29s operated with total impunity. If it were me, I’d have dropped one in a rural area just outside a major city. It would have the same intimidation factor without the need to kill a bunch of people. I would drop a second one a short time later, slightly closer to the city. This would create the impression that we have a large number of these bombs and they weren’t just a wunderwaffe.
moron here, if most of Japanese buildings at the time where made of wood and so easy to catch fire, why didn't they just drop the bomb outside city limits and level everything without all the " literally burning people's ashes into the sidewalk" and mass radiation poisoning stuff?
That was a consideration but they believed that Japan wouldn’t be deterred by a show of force, it didn’t help that Yamato’s explosion could be seen from Japan
It's justified when you realize that the other option was. A full scale apocalyptic invasion of Japan. People who talk about how they were trying to surrender often forget that the Japanese higher ups had all agreed to defend Japan to the last child and only wanted to "surrender" with all their aquired land and power.
I hear people say obliterating the civilian population does not win wars but that seems to be how the US won the second world war in the european and asian theaters.
1- Japs never surrender.
In the rest of the world, statistics say that 1 out of 3 soldiers surrender when over-run.
So 2 soldiers die for every 1 soldier who surrenders.
Wanna know the rate of surrender in Imperial Japan?
It's 1 in 12. You have 11 dead japs for every 1 jap who surrenders.
2- Propagnda.
Anti-American propaganda was so insane, Japanese civilians were either used as meat shields or just straight up An Hero / Hara Kiri themselves on the Pacific islands the Americans landed on.
It was a straight up massacre.
Jonestown level horror.
Even the women and the children.
They thought that americans were so savage they would rape and kill everyone on sight, so they decided to go out on their own terms.
Of course we know this is absolue bullshit.
If anyone treated POWs and civilians badly, it was the fricking Japs.
Ask the Koreans and Chinese, especially Nanking.
Anyways
3- Diplomatic Miscomunication
The Americans said they would ONLY accept "Uncconditionnal Surrender".
The Japs heard than and thought "they wan to kill/behead our DEAR EMPEROR! Nooooo!"
But the americans didn't think that at all.
If anything the Japanese Imperial Family, the Emperors cousins and nephews tha were officers and paricipated / gave orders durng the Rape of Nanking, they were given full immunity from prosecution after the war.
Because he Japs loved their emperor so much, they wanted to literally fight to the death to protect him, even if every other jap has to di to save him.
4- Saved lives.
When you tally all of the above points : Rate of surrender of troops, Propagnada leading to mass suicide, and fear of their Emperor being killed, the japs considered that surrender wasn't an option, with these terms.
The Firebombing campaign and Invasion of mainland Japan would have killed Tens of millions more.
My grandfather was an RAF fighter pilot.
We have the letter from the british government telling him he would have to go firebomb japan after the war in Europe came to an end.
Thankfully that never happened.
Also worth pointing out to everyone, even thoughyou guysalready should know that a single Firebombing raid on Tokyo killed more people than both nukes combined.
Regular bombing is just as bad as nuclear bombing when done on a large scale.
Think of Dresden. Same shit really.
The only difference is "Muh Invisible Radiation".
People have Nuclear-phobia.
Anything radioactive is like a litreral invisible Satan.
And also consder this :
Some morons, like some /misc/ schizos think "Nuclear Bombs don't exist".
Obviously they do.
But imagine 2 seconds if the US never used them, and we never got to see """the horror""" of a nuke going of in a big city, would never even be a "Nuclear Peace" / Mutually Assured Destruction type Peace in the world today?
If there was less stigma aroundusing nukes, wouldn't they have used one in a war already?
Nukes were a justified and "necessary evil" if you will.
Nuks have saved WAY more lives than they've killed.
That's a fact.
I hope my posts weren't too long or boring.
I also hope I didn't say anything that is outright wrong.
If I did, feel free to correct me.
My personal opinion on war is that although it is technically murder, involvement of willing participants, either by desire or necessity can be just. Killing non combatants or total warfare is immoral. That doesnt mean that killing everyone isnt "effective", it means that you have standards above "anything goes". People that cheer on civilians getting destroyed and humiliated or wiped out, in a metaphysical sense, deserve to witness their most beloved people raped and murdered in front of their eyes. Not because that's right, just because there has to be limits, one who doesnt respect limits on harm done to others, shouldnt shed a tear when the same or worse is returned on them with interest. With the atom bomb, obviously, that was just a game of the israelites. They now have proliferated stolen nuke tech they developed from ww2 and into the 50s. It would be poetry if the USA someday gets in a shooting war with israel and they escalate with nuke attacks. It would serve us right in a cosmic way, for ever trusting and willingly working for them.
I have a small pet theory that the only reason there hasn't been a nuclear war yet is due to the atomic bombings in Japan and the effect they had in popular culture.
So in retrospect I think that yes, it was justified, otherwise we would be living in an irradiated hell.
Their air force was basically wiped out, they had very primitive radar compared to what we'd consider at the time, we'd been doing many bombing raids on the Japanese home islands for a bit, and they flew in force. It wasn't just one B29 sent over there at a random time, the people in power weren't stupid. They ensured every action would make it so that bomb would go through. >(and even that fricked up, how do you miss a city? Nagasaki was a secondary target 'cuz of cloud coverage. Shit happens in war)
The firebombing was worse.
No. We should have taken into account that only the surface would get obliterated. Weebs in their parents' basements were safe and came to rule the nation.
Yes. Nuking Japan would still be justified if it happened tomorrow because Squeenix and anime are there.
yes
reminder that they printed so many Purple Hearts in anticipation for high casaulties in a home islands invasion that they are still issuing them today
I think that supply has been used up anon
Only recently, but still
no they made like 3 million. you think there has been 3 million US casaulties in the past 80 years?
they had 200,000 in stock for iraq and afghanistan
so many that officers could carry them in their pockets to hand out on the spot
Absolutely not. There hasn't even been 500,000 causalities since WW2.
I wonder if the first purple heart made post WW2 will make news
not weapons
Every side bombed population centers.
America just built a REALLY good bomb.
>America just
stole a really good bomb from the germans and we're all living in the wrong timeline.
Germans kind of gave it away because of their autistic ideology
Germany couldn't build a good transmission for their supposed wundervaffen, what makes you think they'd make an atomic bomb?
old pol brainrot
yes
civilian populations were already fair game
Yes.
Frick dem nips
>Japanese started the war with an attack that killed civilians
I don't see the issue with using the same trick to end the war.
I can't decide whether to write up another primer specifically on this topic, or to just start posting this video in every "Japan dindu nothing" thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4uDfg38gyk
Probably meant less Japanese died in WW2 than would have died from a conventional invasion, or an extended starvation siege and bombing campaign.
1. It wasn't militarily justified because Japan was starving, blockaded, and on the brink of surrender regardless. Basically the only hang-up in surrender negotiations was the fate of the Emperor, who America let live anyways.
2. Nuking the Japs was morally justified for the Rape of Nanjing, the Bataan Death March, and a thousand other crimes against humanity. When the Nazi attache appeals to Hitler on humanitarian grounds that the Japs are being too evil, you know you've fricked up.
>the only hang-up in surrender negotiations was the fate of the Emperor
And all the land they wanted to keep.
>Basically the only hang-up in surrender negotiations was the fate of the Emperor
>and on the brink of surrender regardless
Nope. Even after the 2 nukes they wanted to fight. They only surrendered because Russia was planning to invade and they didn't want to fight 2 great powers.
It’s not popular to say but this is the truth, Russia scared the ever loving shit out of the nips higher up and American bombings were so thoroughly destructive that to them there was very little difference between a firebombing raid and the nukes
Russia could not have successfully invaded you dumbfrick
Tell it to the Japs.
War ended right after, didn't it? I don't believe anyone who says that had no impact on the decision for unconditional surrender.
>Basically the only hang-up in surrender negotiations was the fate of the Emperor, who America let live anyways.
No they also wanted to keep all the shit they colonized in the time since.
Now I am become Bloody b***h Bastard, Redeemer of Gift Cards.
yes but not as justified as the atomic bombing of Moscow and St Petersburg will be
They were given fair warning. They did not heed the warning.
Besides, the firebombing of Tokyo was worse and the firebombing of Dresden happened without proper warning to civilians.
Justification is for pussies, Japs plague bombed China which was legal because they didn't sign any treaty against it. Killing is killing the method of death doesn't matter. Is dying of plague or getting blasted apart at the cellular level by neutrons any worse than dying in a ditch of sepsis over a period of five days?
War his hell and hell is an asylum run by the inmates, deal with it.
Yes it was a brutal war that would have dragged on with even more deaths and destruction. Also, the previous fire bombings were worse in terms of loss of life.
>ends the war
>prevents what would've been the unmatched horror of an invasion of mainland Japan
>doesn't rely on continuing to starve them out with subs
Yes. It was the most humane solution bar none. Peaceniks and Japs will seethe, but it's true.
You forgot
>kept the Soviets from making a grab for any of the Home Islands and half of the Korean Peninsula, saving tens of hundreds of people from being subjected to slavery and murder under the Communist system
Another moralgay thread
Yes
Checked, yes... but were they real?
>summons fake nuke poster
well it was pretty effective
I'm confused, what does this have to do with Ukraine?
Are the Jap's the Russians that we shouldnt feel sorry for slaughtering? I mean what is this thread?.....
not interested in making the full argument, but I'll respond to a common criticism - that the two cities were civilian targets that weren't valuable to the war effort. Both had the majority of their industry geared toward the production of war materiel. Hiroshima was the site of the HQ for the command charged with defending Kyushu, which is where the invasion of the Japanese mainland would have taken place if surrender hadn't come. Almost 100% of Nagasaki's population was employed by Mitsubishi in war industries, and both cities were major ports
This is post war justification cope. Japan was completely exhausted industrially. Ive seen similar cope about dresden being a “major supply line” for the Nazis
The two atomic bombings were deliberate acts of mass destruction against civilians purely to force a surrender. Whether or not you think its justified is another matter
>this is cope
nice argument moron. Someone should've told the Japanese who were still shooting at Americans in 1944 and 1945 that they were exhausted industrially and shouldn't have had any ammunition left. When were the two deadliest battles in the Pacific for the US? Oh yeah, in the last months of the war
The US had a specific list detailing the target criteria. One of the biggest factors was the cities' contribution to Japan's war effort. Hiroshima had a major army depot and HQ there, and its close proximity to rivers meant incendiary bombs would have little effect.
Nagasaki was chosen because it had a major naval base.
The war was not over at this point, and the US was still expecting to be forced to stage an amphibious invasion of Japan.
One of them was a secondary or tertiary target just chosen by happenstance of cloud coverage. Whatever, it's brutal, and I'm sure that no kid who has only lived a short few years on this earth "deserves," it, but it was a textbook reason for the greater good to get the war over with sooner than later.
It was Nagasaki because the original primary target on the raid was Kokura where Ted Fujita lived and was studying/teaching at the time. The nearby area of Yahata was firebombed to shit and so the smoke coverage obscured Kokura too much and they ended up hitting Nagasaki with the bomb. Coincidentally, Ted ended up studying the damage associated with the wind from the explosion and that went into downburst and tornado damage research in the USA and the famous F/EF scale
It was either that or a few dozen more nukes for the landing operations.
Why invade at all? The Japanese were willing to surrender conditionally.
They did surrender conditionally. The US agreed to not hang Hirohito.
No, the Japanese tried to send diplomats to negotiate a surrender because they were worried about the emperor, the US refused because they demanded unconditional, the Japanese interpreted this to mean the Emperor would be prosecuted for war crimes and fought even harder, the Americans nuked, and then the Americans decided to keep the Emperor alive after the unconditional surrender to maintain stability.
It was a clown world situation.
They should have nuked the emperor. Fitting weapon to kill a god.
Absolutely not, humiliation was the better weapon. Doing that would have caused retaliation.
Do you think we took prisoners because we gave a shit about the enemy? No, it saves our own men if we end it as soon as possible.
Manlets eternally blown the frick out
This b***h looks sub 4’10”, macarthur was around 5’9” or so
The interpretation I saw was
>Nuke the leadership
>They can't surrender
Which would be silly
>the Japanese interpreted this to mean the Emperor would be prosecuted for war crimes
Sounds like that's their problem then.
Absolutely, both cities were of high strategic value so they were gonna get bombed regardless when we had to invade. Moreover it prevented 2 far worse outcomes that would've definitely resulted in far more death, prolonged the war, and worst of all give Russia an opportunity to take more Japanese territory. Lastly, given Japan's conduct throughout the war, the fact they didn't declare war before bombing our harbor and executing a fricking brilliant invasion across the Pacific, and starting the whole fricking thing by invading Manchuria gives us carte blanche to do whatever we want
>Justified
Total War is what they wanted, and it's what they got
yeah, definitely
frick japs, we should do it again too
No pity for Nips. Savages worse than Nazis as bad as russians. Thanks to the them, among other things, we have the CCP.
Yes. That was the humane option.
>t. Grandfather saw what they did in Manila in '45
It was wrong but I would have dropped them too.
No, not because I believe the Japanese were ready to surrender, (they weren't, and wouldn't have unless they were allowed to at least keep their pre-war colonies and avoid a US occupation/change of government), or because taking another course of action would have saved lives, civilian or military, (the necessary invasion would have been far more destructive), but because I believe nuclear weapons should never be used.
Truman and the military didn't understand what the implications of using nukes was, and probably wouldn't have done it if they had the benefit of hindsight. That's why you have so many military leaders posting cope about how they were unnecessary in the post-war era. However you'll notice there's no record of anyone, from Eisenhower to MacArthur to LeMay, voicing objections at that time, because no one really knew what they were getting into.
What in the frick are you talking about? It's because of those nukes that they probably will never be dopped again unless we're going total Teotwki.
Is it? I think it's quite likely that if leaders were given time to reflect on the use of nuclear weapons, rather than dropping them at literally the first possible opportunity, they would choose not to. But regardless my opinion wouldn't change, even if it was necessary to have a 'first blood' I would still oppose dropping them on Japan, because I believe nuclear weapons should never be used.
The firebombings of Tokyo were more lethal, it served a post-WWII era that quite literally created the Cold War which we won't just go full-scale warfare between developed nations because otherwise the big boys get fricked. It was a show of force between us and the Soviets that even though they can win in conventional attritional warfare, we could still have legitimate wunderwaffles up our coatsleeves.
Firebombing was only more lethal in the short term. Long term the radiation sickness killed far more and maimed others. The firebombing also occurred in a mostly intact and populated city. By the time the nukes were dropped both cities had lost over half their populations. Ironically the firebombing campaign saved lives because without it Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have had hundreds of thousands more people in them, most of whom would have been killed or mortally wounded immediately, and either city individually would have had more dead than the firebombing of Tokyo claimed, to say nothing of combined casualties.
And how so many more would have died in the next few years to radiation turning their organs into soup.
Hiroshima was chosen because it was only lightly hit, presenting a target with more shock effect to the japanese
Thanks to autistic japanese records we know the exact statistics of rad damage
About 1-in-3 of people within the blast zone had increased cancer risk, though most survived to live regular lifespans
The blast zone was enormous and included many people who suffered minimal or no radiation exposure.
340,000 people resides in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped. Oppenheimer suggested earlier that year an atomic bomb might kill 20k people. The initial blast killed 70,000, and another 100,000 to 160,000 died in the next month to injuries and radiation sickness. At a low estimate half of the city died to a single bomb in the short term. At a high estimate two thirds of the cities populace died. Then of the survivors who existed mostly on the outskirts, many were spared thanks to the low nuclear fallout radius and rapid decay. But almost everyone in the immediate and highest concentrations of fallout and radiation exposure died.
>But regardless my opinion wouldn't change
Christ why even respond
The bombs basically killed everyone in the city in 5 years or less due to radiation poisoning. That was not understood or well known or in some cases really known at all. In hindsight it’s beyond reproach but given the basic understanding of the war and weaponry to many at the time it was just another weapon in a long history of deadly weapons. Even things like gas or firebombing or saturation strikes didn’t kill to the 98th percentile the way radioactive bombs did. The only reason the bombs didn’t kill a million Japanese is because the cities had experienced massive amounts of emigration to the countryside over the war and partially because many civilians fled prior to the bombings because of leaflet drops.
What a stupid fricking take. They tested the bombs and knew God damned well what they were about to do to Japan. Japan deserved every bit of that, not just for the atrocities, but because their leader was a coward and couldn't take full control of the country from his generals.
They knew the technical capabilities of the bombs but didn't understand them spiritually. It's not by accident that every American general washed their hands of the decision after the war and blamed it all on Truman, erroneously claimed Japan was about to surrender, etc., they knew what they had done was wrong. And again, I admit Japan deserved it, I just don't think that nuclear weapons should be used even against people who deserve it.
>spiritually
>understand them spiritually
Im not joking, please have a nice day. I didn't read the rest of your post.
Yeah and Truman knew damn fricking well it needed to be done and accepted responsibility, Christ what a bunch of after the fact hand wringing
Yes, and people even more cold-blooded than Truman shied away from it. That should give you pause.
I agree that the firebombings were more lethal, but I support them, because they're not nuclear weapons. And I agree that they may have set an example, (though I think the point would have been recognized regardless), but it's an example that never should have been set and a door that never should have been opened.
>I agree that the firebombings were more lethal, but I support them, because they're not nuclear weapons.
Ah so you’re just moronic and made an arbitrary decision with no actual thought
>killing thousands with normal bombs?
OK
>killing thousands with one bomb
BAD
thousands with normal bombs?
>OK
thousands with one bomb
>BAD
Correct. There is a qualitative difference. Weapons that could exterminate the entire human race (or close to it) should never be used.
Anon we can exterminate humanity with fire bombs, and a hundred different things, you’re just a fricking idiot who’s somehow ok with mass murder, just not THAT mass murder
Why
>Weapons that could exterminate the human race
That's every weapon in sufficient quantities you clown
You don't know what's on the other side of the door unless you open it. What's the difference? Both are equally as horrible. But this gives you political leverage. This entire debate series is good, but I think in the second half is a good discussion on nuclear arms in general and why all of the generals don't want to use the nuclear option in this proposed scenario. They would not have had this opinion if we didn't have real world examples of using nuclear warfare.
>https://www.learner.org/series/ethics-in-america/under-orders-under-fire-part-ii/
Interesting, I'll give it a look.
Your near miss is telling. I am not okay with mass murder, I am okay with war. Bombing, including firebombing, is war. Nuclear weapons are mass murder, and also suicide, genocide, and ecocide. They are not even truly a weapon of war, they are a weapon of pointless but total annihilation. They should never be used.
>war isn’t mass murder
>I am not okay with mass murder, I am okay with war
You're the most moronic fricking person I've ever seen.
The sheer magnitude and power of the bomb is the reason why Oppenheimer made the meme quote in the first place you moron. Because now that he had created the bomb and witnessed its raw power, he knew that others would make the bomb bigger and in larger quantities.
Seeing how Japan and the two cities turned, I'd say it was the right call.
all means of retaliation in war are justified, there is no rule.
So Japan was justified?
Contrarian homosexual
80iq relativist pottery
No.
yes. Invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been horrific. For the Japanese, and for the US. And Russia probably would have invaded too, and perhaps even turned it into another North/South Korea situation. The bombs were pretty awful, but in the long run, the Japs came out on top. 3rd most powerful economy on earth, basically an ethnostate, full autonomy. We can only imagine how horrible it would have been if Russia got involved with the surrender.
It’s funny how people bemoan the bombs and laugh at the US about Korea when they turned into their crown fricking israeliteels of nation rebuilding
>Japs: suing for peace for nearly a year
>unconditional surrender! we'll stop killing you when it pleases us
>Jap imperial cabinet nearly call your bluff correctly assuming they had only enough refined uranium for those two strikes and not more (because a shipment the germans intended for them was diverted, probably as a result of Paperclip talks thus accelerating Manhattan Project timetables by at least 4 months)
Not remotely when the Soviets could have been pushed all the frick the way back out of Europe and preventing the Cold War as we know it with 2 big ones still in the can through big swinging dick diplomacy alone. Manhattan Project Soviet spies (and endemic convergence throughout the FDR administration) made it imperative to keep them in reserve, and the "oh no the Russians are finally doing what we asked and threatening the Home Islands at the last fricking gasp" was a convenient lie.
The firebombings' kill counts were cheaper and higher anways, the decision was political and to rubber stamp Soviet partition of Europe at the behest of mongoloidal Anglo geostrategic Zero Sum Game thinking that still ended up ripping their own colonial dick off in the end and opened the west and world to the hazard of nuclear proliferation and the Cold War with International Communism still playing out to this day in blowback out in Ukraine.
Most bizarre take I’ve seen in a while
Justification was not required other than lack of surrender. A demand to surrender is not a request.
Suing for peace is not surrender.
^This too.
Yes. If you attack the USA directly, you'd better be prepared to fight to the end. I respect modern Japan for what they've done since then, and even for their rapid modernization before the war. But, the moment the first shot was fired at Pearl Harbor, it became not just allowable, but a moral imperative for the USA to completely destroy the Empire of Japan.
Should've dropped one right on the Imperial Palace. The fact that Hirohito was basically let off scot free is moronic. At least Tojo was executed I guess.
>The fact that Hirohito was basically let off scot free is moronic.
strictly speaking, IJA entered China against orders from home islands
Indeed. And Tojo and his ilk had all the real power. The Emperor was basically a puppet.
He had leverage. Up until that point, no Japanese unit had surrendered en masse, and very few individuals surrendered. The Emperor was literally the only person on the planet who could have issued an order to the IJA to lay down their arms and accept occupation by the enemy army and expect to have it actually obeyed. As guilty as he was, he was indispensable.
They saved Japan from the soviet menace, which would objectively be worse and lead to more deaths as a result
It's not about good or bad, it's about minimizing the losses, japan recovered quickly from the nuke, you can't recover like this from the russian influence
I dunno. Poland seems to be alright, from my extremely limited knowledge.
>Soviet menace
Yeah, how dare Japan receive the decades of peace and prosperity that Eastern Europe experienced. Japan was better off as a US military base.
>the decades of peace and prosperity that Eastern Europe experienced
>decades of peace and prosperity
Yeah just ignore the Soviets putting down all the revolts in Romania, Hungry, Czech, and the Baltic
There were no 'revolts', there were several attempted western coups.
Ah yes. "Western coups" it has nothing to do with the fact none of those people wanted to live under Russian boots. Even so Japan and Korea were in a golden age under American guidance. Meanwhile places under Soviet influence remained shitholes. Take a look at Central Asia for example.
> There are ziggers even in non-Ukraine related threads.
Frick off tankie, eastern Germany still looks like fricking shit today.
I think it was proportional to our goals in the conflict
a million times yes. Frick the Nips.
>Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.
Yes. The nips fricked around and found out. They’re lucky that we’re such loving and forgiving people that we didn’t nuke every city twice.
Absolutely, think about the cruelty that conquering nations have shown the vanquished over the course of human history. And then think about the lack of technology that the conquerors have had in the past.
Can you imagine if we had demonstrated the same type of cruelty present in the first century AD? We would have kept the war going until we had glassed the entire island.
Absolutely, it was a choice to either surrender to the Russians or surrender to us. And the nuke may have suck but it was the right call in the long run
Yes, as always, everytime you make this shit thread. The japs started it and talked a bunch of shit, especially in how they handled POWs and conducted themselves with civilian populations. They don't get to complain because the culling was metered out by atomic fire instead of Hito's bayonet
If the Nips had nookz they would have used it against America, Russia, China, Southeast Asia and Australia.
America's biggest mistake is only nuking them twice and only nuking irrelevant flyover cities, should have hit Osaka, Kyoto and even Tokyo.
No Japanese ww2 veteran ever complained about whether the nukes were "necessary" or "justified".
Even their offsprings only appeal to the west instead of asking them anything about the war because they knew precisely the kind of whoop ass they'd get for bringing it up.
The alternative would have been extremely painful.
They were a big empire
For you.
>Hiroshima
Yes
>Nagasaki
No
While the use of the bombs themselves were completely justifiable, I think the selection of cities full of civilians (albeit major hubs of war production) as targets was questionable at best.
Perhaps the most demonstration would have deployment of a single bomb at the mouth of Tokyo Bay or on the adjacent Chiba Prefecture, which was relatively sparsely populated but still easily within viewing distance of Tokyo. Force Hirohito and his court to witness the flash, feel the heat radiating from the bomb tingle their skin, and have them understand once and for all what we were capable of doing, and that there will be no more chances and warnings.
What do you guys think?
because one of the devices was used in a test, only two remained to begin with
Two bombs were immediately available, but there were additional ones under construction. IIRC there was a Department of Defense memo that stated that an additional 5-10 bombs would be ready by September, 1945 for use in Operation Downfall.
>And if the Japs call our bluff?
Well then we could have used one on a city (for real this time). My point is that there would probably be considerably fewer naysayers if the bomb had been given a (mostly) non-lethal live demonstration and the Japanese still hadn't taken the hint and vainly attempted to fight on.
Even though it was a war that had already ended the lives of 100 million people, I don't think that we necessarily had to kill an additional 300,000 in order to conclude it.
That said, the pressing need to end the war at the time makes it understandable why American leadership decided to take the easy way out and just flat out use the bombs on a pair of cities rather than look for an alternative.
The IJA was flat-out murdering ~100,000 civilians *each month* in the lands they had conquered--not including China. They also had orders to murder every Allied POW they had upon news reaching them of an invasion of the Home Islands.
How far will you go to defend them?
>The IJA was flat-out murdering ~100,000 civilians *each month* in the lands they had conquered--not including China.
Source on that? Don't get me wrong, I completely believe you and I have cited the suffering of the peoples of Japanese-occupied Asia in arguments with people who assert that use of the bombs was completely uncalled for (let me make it clear again, I am NOT one of THOSE people). Anyway moving on...
The thing is that we didn't kill 300,000 IJA soldiers in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but 300,000 non-combatants (plus 20,000 IJA soldiers), including people who weren't even Japanese such as impressed laborers from various parts of Asia and prisoners of war. It's specifically the fact that the final American act of the war was to slaughter hundreds of thousands of non-combatants in 72 hours that I find somewhat objectionable.
But I do see your point. There was a pressing need to bring an immediate end to the war and wiping a few Japanese cities off the map (something we had already done via conventional means at scores of Japanese cities) was the seemingly most expedient way to do so.
Every Japanese man woman and child was a combatant. S
google the Vietnam famine, that was essentially orchestrated by the IJA killed like 1-2 million in one year alone. That doesn't even account for their brutality towards the Chinese.
>300,000 non-combatants
My Black person, what exactly are those people doing?
This sort of argument works for pissant border skirmishes where the involved parties are relying on prewar stockpiles of trained soldiers and munitions, but when you commit to le total war, bending every aspect of your nation toward supporting the war effort, there are no noncombatants. Everyone you kill hampers the war effort, no matter how tangentially.
Outside china was wrong
ps. china shills have caused everyone to hate China, good job
And if the Japs call our bluff? Taking out two strategically significant targets instead of an inconsequential show of force makes a lot of sense when you don't have the benefit of hindsight to tell you that they're going to panic after you drop the second bomb.
Nanking says yes
Yes. Every single thing the USA or any of our allies do is 100 percent justified at any time. This is because we are the good guys and anyone against us is therefore a bad guy. It's impossible for the United States to commit "war crimes" or do anything "unjustified" and even acts of full on genocide are acceptable because we're the good guys in all aspects.
At the time? Maybe not the nukes were intended for a Germany first plan, but they lost too quick. There were alot of things that could have ended the war without Nukes or an invasion.
In retrospect? No, However it was definitely for the best that we ended up using them where we did. Dropping them anywhere near Russians would have been a bad move, also being the only ones to use them offensively set the tone, if everyone working with it at the time keeps producing them, and America never drops them who knows what the frick happens and who uses one first?
I really think we could have had the real world Dr Strange Love happen with MacArthur in Korea giving us Nuclear Armageddon in the 50s without Truman's hindsight of the effects of the Nukes in Japan, i could see Truman being taken less seriously and MacArthur getting more ballsy to go full moron
They probably sped up the end of the war by about a week or two, but the main thing that convinced the japanese to surrender was the soviet invasion of manchuria, not the bombs. Up until the soviets declared war the japanese genuinely believed they could use the soviets to negotiate a peace with the allies that was short of unconditional surrender. The nukes sped up the timetable of the russian invasion and in that regard it did shorten the war (which is the only reasonable justification to use the nukes in the first place).
I'm not sure why people are so sensitive about this topic, honestly. In the grand scheme of it, years of strategic bombing with conventional munitions did vastly more damage to both german and japanese cities overall than both A-bombs, but there's still this weird perception around them. Obviously nukes are bad and no one should use them, but it wasn't like the amount of death and destruction they caused were particularly out of the ordinary. The militarists on the jap high council even saw it this way, they really didn't give a shit about the nukes because their cities had been getting destroyed from the air for years at that point.
>they really didn't give a shit about the nukes because their cities had been getting destroyed from the air for years at that point.
they cared a lot about the nukes
as it totally upended their defense plans of the island, which revolved around causing enough casualties on the beaches that it would cause the allies to lose the stomach for war and negotiatie
they had no idea how many bombs the US had left and if they still had several bombs then it was obvious that if they dropped them at the same rate they did regular bombs than there would be no costly ground campaign and they would pry unconditional surrender out of their radioactive fingers
>they cared a lot about the nukes
No, the militarists definitely did not. They felt their best chance was to defeat an anglo invasion
>as it totally upended their defense plans of the island, which revolved around causing enough casualties on the beaches that it would cause the allies to lose the stomach for war and negotiatie
Do you have a source for this? Because everything I've ever seen points to the fact that the nukes really didn't affect their strategic planning. In fact, from what I've read the militarists basically just saw the nukes as yet another devastating air raid.
>they had no idea how many bombs the US had left
While this is true, the militarists still claimed that the US had zero bombs left when they were arguing against unconditional surrender. They had no actual way to prove that the US had no more bombs, they were literally just saying it, but still.
japanese strategic planning to oppose downfall was a forward defense with little reserve units, because their only hope was to maximize american losses even if it meant throwing girls with a kitchen knife and hand grenade at them
nukes entering the equation made such a defense untenable as there would be no massive american losses, just a total wipe out of their army
>japanese strategic planning to oppose downfall was a forward defense with little reserve units, because their only hope was to maximize american losses even if it meant throwing girls with a kitchen knife and hand grenade at them
Yes. To add to this, the militarists hoped that they would cause so many casualties that the americans would eventually just give up and accept a conditional surrender.
>nukes entering the equation made such a defense untenable as there would be no massive american losses, just a total wipe out of their army
No. Like I said, the militarists had convinced themselves the US didn't have any more nukes.
>the militarists had convinced themselves the US didn't have any more nukes
After Hiroshima, yes. Japan had the second-best atomic program on the planet. Japanese scientists were able to correctly determine how much HEU was used, and that the US would only be able to produce enough for ~2 Bombs a year. So, US propaganda that there were "hundreds" of Bombs ready to go was a bluff.
And then Nagasaki blew up. Worse, there were traces of plutonium left behind, which was supposed to be impossible to make a Bomb from. Suddenly, it seemed like the US wasn't kidding about the "hundreds" of Bombs available.
Hirohito blinked, and stabbed the hawks in the back (and almost got couped and placed under house arrest in retaliation). And of course, it turned out that it *was* a bluff, sort of; there weren't hundreds of Bombs ready to go, but one being assembled every ~10 days.
In the critical political moments that decided for an unconditionnal surrender, the situation about hiroshima and nagasaki was confused, most believed they had been destroyed by normal firebombing and the important matter was thatthe soviet just destroyed the kwantung army and there was no hope of a negociated peace.
Anyone thinking operation dawnfall was avoided because of the nukes is delusionnal.
>the situation about hiroshima and nagasaki was confused
the japanese were leaders of nuclear science in the pre-war and knew exactly what they were dealing with
they knew that building bombs were hard and argued back and forth whether or not the US had more, before nagasaki shut them up
>I'm not sure why people are so sensitive about this topic, honestly.
One word, radiation.
Which is ironic, given that, 80 years later, people still periodically get killed when they dig up an unexploded bomb somewhere.
>I'm not sure why people are so sensitive about this topic
Decades of Soviet agitprop against anything nuclear (remember the "die-ins" whenever NASA launched a probe with an atomic battery?).
>surrender unconditionally or we'll nuke you
>no
>okay *nukes*
Yeah it was fricking justified, moron.
Do you understand what "unconditionally" means?
It means "you put down your weapons, let us take over and do what the hell we want with you and yours".
Only a fool would accept that unless faced with total annihilation and Japan WANTED to surrender. They knew they had lost way before Hiroshima but United States wouldn't let them.
When Japan finally surrendered unconditionally it was when Soviet Union started to attack Japan from the north.
I guess they thought that it would be better to surrender unconditionally to United States than to let USSR to invade them.
They were probably right about that but the conduct of the US in the Pacific War was appalling. Genocidal even.
Just like it was in Europe.
Japan wanted a white peace and the United States was right not to give them one. The nips, the wops, and the krauts brought it all on themselves.
Butt hurt Americans detected.
How does it feel to know that the "one good war" wasn't so good after all?
I don’t have shit to be mad about my guy, the US won, Japs lost, krauts lost, Hiroshima justified, Nagasaki justified, Tokyo firebombing justified, dresden justified, simple as.
>implying they all weren’t good wars
Japan never offered even a conditional surrender to the US, if you have any evidence to the contrary I’m open to hearing it.
The entire point unconditional surrender was that the Allies didn't want the Axis trying to negotiate separately with individual Allied nations, and they didn't want a repeat of the Treaty of Versailles where Germany fooled itself into thinking it only lost because of being backstabbed by upper leadership. Unconditional surrender was meant to send the message that the Axis were thoroughly beaten on the field.
And the funniest thing is, Japan STILL tried to negotiate a separate deal with Russia, or at the very least, hoped that Russia would act as a mediator between them and the US. Japan's surrender shortly after Russia's declaration of war on them wasn't so much fear of Russian invasion as it was them realizing Russia wouldn't back them in negotiations with the US.
Shut the frick up b***h, you don’t get to start a war and then lose it on your own terms. Japan could have surrendered unconditionally but chose not to. Do you understand that? They CHOSE to not surrender. It literally DOESN’T MATTER that they wanted to surrender on THEIR terms. After everything the japanese empire had done to not just the US but the whole of the pacific suggesting they have even the slightest right to dictate the terms of their surrender is downright insulting to the millions they butchered and tortured.
Japan, objectively, got off easier than they deserved.
Yes just because the Americans developed the technology to bomb a city with one plane and one big bomb as opposed to 100 planes carrying 1000s of bombs it doesn't suddenly become a moral wrong to do the exact same thing every other party on both sides of the largest war in human history had already been doing.
Further more it was a practical inevitably that the US was going to use their new multi billion dollar super weapon with the war still dragging on, every one talks a big moral game without ever delving into what other options if any were available and practical to those actually making the decision at the time.
Controversial take, not justified but probably deserved. We knew the japs wouldn't hold out much longer, there was no threat of a land invasion. We did it to frick over Russia and threaten the globe with our capabilities. It was spectacle.
>We knew the japs wouldn't hold out much longer,
starving them out the old fashioned way would have taken until 1946 or 1947
while this was going on, they would need to wait for several ongoing campaigns to come to a close, costing several hundred allied troops and thousands of civilians every day it continues
and the public was getting war weary, they wanted the war to end, and every day they delay the outcome is a day they might just give the japanese their demands
>there was no threat of a land invasion.
downfall was real, with men and material being stockpiled in the philippines, australia, and forward islands in preparation for the invasion
No, we did it to make the Japs capitulate. Once again every one in a thread ignores basic history. The Japs had a childish and wrong point of view that they would be able to dictate terms. The Allies told them to frick off and they wanted to play hardball. The options on the table were 1) land invasion with a million projected casualties and mass civilian death expected in both fighting and suicide (mimicking other areas), 2) blockade and starve resulting in a million dead civvies minimum (motherfrickers always forget Macs first major move as defacto Emperor was a massive food drive that saved millions of Nips from dying), 3) bomb em good and hard. The Nips had already had plenty of 3 but assumed we would be unwilling to truly take them to task. We warned them each time and offered a chance to surrender. In their arrogance they called our bluff. Then after the first bomb we said surrender and they listened to their theorists (who were top notch) and they told them that it would not be possible for us to have another bomb so quickly. When we did it a second time they were forced to admit their knowledge was out of date and that they would have 0 say in the terms. The Japs deserved a third and fourth bomb not to mention quite a few executions, but they got off easy. We brought them into the fold, fed them, fixed their nation and gave them a sparkly new Constitution that gave rights to their women and created a brand new Japanese Golden Age. At the same time we paid them, protected them, and shared our culture. They are lucky. Lucky the worst they got is 2 Abombs. Talk to any Pacific Islander alive back then and you'll find stories that make those bombs sound like a weekend at Bernies. No tears should be shed. It was their own bullshit and unwillingness that brought the bomb down on them. Not the US showing off, not anything else. They had their opportunity and they had the evidence to see they should take it, but they mistook themselves as equal partners.
>gave rights to their women
Japan bros.... I'm sorry
Considering the nukes played barely any decision in the surrender process and that the decision to use thrm was officially because the Japanese had refused the Potsdam declaration (they didnt), No.
Considering it was a good way to test the weapon for real and flex at the soviet and any military to show who was in charge now : yes. Could it have happened without killing hundreds of thousands : probably.
Did anyone care back then ? No, 99 % considered the japs had it coming and its only after sobering up that people considered it might not have been a really nice thing to do, especially when they were prosecuting their defeated opponents for terror bombing and shit.
>Played barely any role
Yeah. MacArthur didn't go far enough though.
Sure was. They fricked around and found out. Plus it rendered japs to become willing vassals of the US to this day.
No. The nuclear bombings were basically a demonstration of power and technological superiority over a defeated opponent.
Absolutely, Japan could and should have surrendered. Realistically, the US wanted to try out their new toys and show off a little, and Japan have them "reasonable justification" to do it.
Nuclear weapons are not used for a reason. They escalate conflict to absolute destruction, and thankfully there was no opportunity for retaliation like there is nowadays. Whilst extremely unlikely, nuclear war is terrifying and probably the quickest way to end the world.
Literally the only people who debate whether or not it was "justified" are Westerners and butthurt Japanese nationalists. If you talk to literally any Asian from a country occupied by the Japanese, you'd struggle to find someone who thinks it wasn't justified.
In a full scale war you use the weapons you have at hand, everything else comes second
My aunt’s neighbor was a B29 pilot who felt it was excessive. He said the Japanese had absolutely nothing left by the end; the B29s operated with total impunity. If it were me, I’d have dropped one in a rural area just outside a major city. It would have the same intimidation factor without the need to kill a bunch of people. I would drop a second one a short time later, slightly closer to the city. This would create the impression that we have a large number of these bombs and they weren’t just a wunderwaffe.
>if it were me , I would do dumb shit
You are dumb
not an argument
I bet they should have done that with the fire bombs too hmm?
>If it were me, I’d have dropped one in a rural area just outside a major city
I bet you let black immigrants frick your wife too, you fricking cuck
No if it included Germany it would have been justified
ok mr oppenheimer, back to work now.
In hindsight, dropping nukes did less damage than what Soviet occupation would have caused.
Bombing japan gave us anime
Now imagine if we had nuked china too
moron here, if most of Japanese buildings at the time where made of wood and so easy to catch fire, why didn't they just drop the bomb outside city limits and level everything without all the " literally burning people's ashes into the sidewalk" and mass radiation poisoning stuff?
>Let us drop a bomb but not cause casualties.
That isn't the point of a bomb during wartime. Bombs were made to kill people.
That was a consideration but they believed that Japan wouldn’t be deterred by a show of force, it didn’t help that Yamato’s explosion could be seen from Japan
The other choice was to send Chuck Norris.
Yes and I'm tired of being told otherwise.
It's justified when you realize that the other option was. A full scale apocalyptic invasion of Japan. People who talk about how they were trying to surrender often forget that the Japanese higher ups had all agreed to defend Japan to the last child and only wanted to "surrender" with all their aquired land and power.
>genocides Christians in japan
wow who could have guessed they had ulterior motives
I hear people say obliterating the civilian population does not win wars but that seems to be how the US won the second world war in the european and asian theaters.
Yes.
Many reasons, i'll try to be concise.
1- Japs never surrender.
In the rest of the world, statistics say that 1 out of 3 soldiers surrender when over-run.
So 2 soldiers die for every 1 soldier who surrenders.
Wanna know the rate of surrender in Imperial Japan?
It's 1 in 12. You have 11 dead japs for every 1 jap who surrenders.
2- Propagnda.
Anti-American propaganda was so insane, Japanese civilians were either used as meat shields or just straight up An Hero / Hara Kiri themselves on the Pacific islands the Americans landed on.
It was a straight up massacre.
Jonestown level horror.
Even the women and the children.
They thought that americans were so savage they would rape and kill everyone on sight, so they decided to go out on their own terms.
Of course we know this is absolue bullshit.
If anyone treated POWs and civilians badly, it was the fricking Japs.
Ask the Koreans and Chinese, especially Nanking.
Anyways
3- Diplomatic Miscomunication
The Americans said they would ONLY accept "Uncconditionnal Surrender".
The Japs heard than and thought "they wan to kill/behead our DEAR EMPEROR! Nooooo!"
But the americans didn't think that at all.
If anything the Japanese Imperial Family, the Emperors cousins and nephews tha were officers and paricipated / gave orders durng the Rape of Nanking, they were given full immunity from prosecution after the war.
Because he Japs loved their emperor so much, they wanted to literally fight to the death to protect him, even if every other jap has to di to save him.
4- Saved lives.
When you tally all of the above points : Rate of surrender of troops, Propagnada leading to mass suicide, and fear of their Emperor being killed, the japs considered that surrender wasn't an option, with these terms.
The Firebombing campaign and Invasion of mainland Japan would have killed Tens of millions more.
small cont.
cont.
My grandfather was an RAF fighter pilot.
We have the letter from the british government telling him he would have to go firebomb japan after the war in Europe came to an end.
Thankfully that never happened.
Also worth pointing out to everyone, even thoughyou guysalready should know that a single Firebombing raid on Tokyo killed more people than both nukes combined.
Regular bombing is just as bad as nuclear bombing when done on a large scale.
Think of Dresden. Same shit really.
The only difference is "Muh Invisible Radiation".
People have Nuclear-phobia.
Anything radioactive is like a litreral invisible Satan.
And also consder this :
Some morons, like some /misc/ schizos think "Nuclear Bombs don't exist".
Obviously they do.
But imagine 2 seconds if the US never used them, and we never got to see """the horror""" of a nuke going of in a big city, would never even be a "Nuclear Peace" / Mutually Assured Destruction type Peace in the world today?
If there was less stigma aroundusing nukes, wouldn't they have used one in a war already?
Nukes were a justified and "necessary evil" if you will.
Nuks have saved WAY more lives than they've killed.
That's a fact.
I hope my posts weren't too long or boring.
I also hope I didn't say anything that is outright wrong.
If I did, feel free to correct me.
Hiroshima, yes, Nagasaki, no
No, but they were necessary. An invasion of Japan would have cost more Japanese lives.
Yes, and it always will be. I don't know why all nuclear tests where also not conducted on Japan.
My personal opinion on war is that although it is technically murder, involvement of willing participants, either by desire or necessity can be just. Killing non combatants or total warfare is immoral. That doesnt mean that killing everyone isnt "effective", it means that you have standards above "anything goes". People that cheer on civilians getting destroyed and humiliated or wiped out, in a metaphysical sense, deserve to witness their most beloved people raped and murdered in front of their eyes. Not because that's right, just because there has to be limits, one who doesnt respect limits on harm done to others, shouldnt shed a tear when the same or worse is returned on them with interest. With the atom bomb, obviously, that was just a game of the israelites. They now have proliferated stolen nuke tech they developed from ww2 and into the 50s. It would be poetry if the USA someday gets in a shooting war with israel and they escalate with nuke attacks. It would serve us right in a cosmic way, for ever trusting and willingly working for them.
I have a small pet theory that the only reason there hasn't been a nuclear war yet is due to the atomic bombings in Japan and the effect they had in popular culture.
So in retrospect I think that yes, it was justified, otherwise we would be living in an irradiated hell.
Dumb question but why couldn't the Japanese intercept the bombers? They were flying too high for japanese planes to attack it?
Their air force was basically wiped out, they had very primitive radar compared to what we'd consider at the time, we'd been doing many bombing raids on the Japanese home islands for a bit, and they flew in force. It wasn't just one B29 sent over there at a random time, the people in power weren't stupid. They ensured every action would make it so that bomb would go through.
>(and even that fricked up, how do you miss a city? Nagasaki was a secondary target 'cuz of cloud coverage. Shit happens in war)
Without a doubt
https://lmgtfy.app/?q=japanese+denial+of+war+crimes
https://lmgtfy.app/?q=japanese+war+crimes