disturbing Japanese anime' (hiroshima 1945)

[Bill G.]

I'm refering to this and most of previous posts in this thread. You can not justify a crime by saying that opposing side commited war crimes as well.

Don't get me wrong. Axis powers did comitted horrible war crimes, magnitude of which is unparallel in human history!! But in my oppinion bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaky (and Dresden for that matter) was also crime against humanity, more so becouse it couldn't be justified by military reasons.

In august 1945 - with Soviet Union finally engaged in the war in Far east, with US and Royal Navies dominating the Pacific and entering unopposed in Japans teritorial waters, with Japanese cities and industry bombed to submition and with bulk of japanese army isolated on numerous island across Pacific or all but defetaed in Burma and in China - final surrender of Japan was only matter of weeks in not days. Indeed only obstacle for imediate peace was the fate of their emperor. Japans will to resist was allready broken by that time.

And then came bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaky, when they weren'n needed any more. The only reason for this atomic raids was one of prestige and demonstration of military power of the United States. Atomic bombs haven't shortened the war which was allready over and haven't saved millions of lives of American troops since those lives weren't in danger any more.

Hiroshima and Nagasaky will remain eternal remainders of the horrors of atomic war.

You are looking at history. President Truman didn't have the huge advantage you do of 68 years of hindsight. The choice to use atomic weapons was based on what he knew then. If you was The President in August, 1945, I'll bet you would have used the bombs too.

Japan was ready to fight as bloody of a ground war as possible if we had invaded. Okinawa showed that we were going to have huge casualities when we invaded.

Using the atomic bombed ended Japan's will to fight. And even then it took almost a week before it did.

My best guess is that if we had not used the atomic bombs on Japan, either the USSR or America would have used them in Korea. But because of the public horror/fear of these weapons, they have not been used in battle since August 9, 1945. So their use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has kept the nukes "in the holster" for 68+ years. Let us hope that continues.

Bill G.

 

[imalko]

My best guess is that if we had not used the atomic bombs on Japan, either the USSR or America would have used them in Korea. But because of the public horror/fear of these weapons, they have not been used in battle since August 9, 1945. So their use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has kept the nukes "in the holster" for 68+ years. Let us hope that continues.

Bill G.

I agree on that one 100%. That would be the only "good" thing that came out of this two raids.

 

[ToughOmbre]

You can not justify a crime by saying that opposing side commited war crimes as well.

You have a distorted view of what a constitutes a "war crime".

In august 1945 - with Soviet Union finally engaged in the war in Far east.....

The Soviet Union entered the war against Japan on August 8, two days AFTER Hiroshima.

Japans will to resist was allready broken by that time.

Then why did the Japanese refuse to surrender after the August 6 raid on Hiroshima?

Also, after the August 9 raid on Nagasaki, the Japanese refused to surrender on August 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. Only when the emporer spoke to the people on the 15th did Japan finally agree to unconditional surrender.

And then came bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaky, when they weren'n needed any more.

Have you ever heard of the Potsdam Declaration?

The only reason for this atomic raids was one of prestige and demonstration of military power of the United States.

That was an inevitable fringe benefit of the raids, not the "only reason".

Atomic bombs haven't shortened the war which was allready over and haven't saved millions of lives of American troops since those lives weren't in danger any more.

Your "facts" are the classic arguments that revisionist historians have been putting forth for 60 years. And they are no more accurate today than they were in 1945.

TO

 

[imalko]

Please continue with stating the "facts" and you might persuade me that atomic raids on Japan were absolutely necessary and inevitable. 8)

I was just stating my opinion and speaking from standpoint of humanity. What urged me to join this thread in the first place is the way that in some earlier posts people automatically started to justify atomic raids with crimes that were commited by the Japanese. (Issue of some kind of collective pricks of conscience maybe?) That's the reason for my "you can't justify crime with a crime" statement.

You have pointed on some historical facts that clarify the situation in the Pacific theatre in august 1945 so I can grant you that atomic raids were perhaps war ending, but crimes against humanity none the less. Call me naive, but that is my opinion as a human being and not as a "revisionist historian" which I am not.

What would be your standpoint about Dresden raid? Could that too be justified, when there was no war industry or German troops in the city and when even a number of allied prisoners of war which happened to be there perished?

 

[ToughOmbre]

What would be your standpoint about Dresden raid? Could that too be justified, when even a number of allied prisoners of war which happened to be there perished?

War is hell imalko. And no part of it is pretty.

And for the record, I do not believe that the atomic raids were payback for the many Japanese atrocities that occurred during the war. They were meant to spare us from having to invade the Japanese home islands and thereby save countless American lives, pure and simple.

Actually the bombing of civilian population centers was status quo, even an accepted strategy, back in the 30s and 40s, ever since the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

TO

 

[imalko]

You have a distorted view of what a constitutes a "war crime".

For me the deliberately bombing of civilian targets is a war crime. And that goes for German raids on Guernica, Warsaw, London, Belgrade... same as for Allied bombing of Dresden, Tokio and other cities.

And for the record I did heard about Potsdam declaration.

 

[ToughOmbre]

For me the deliberately bombing of civilian targets is a crime. And that goes for German raids on Guernica, Warsaw, London, Belgrade... same as for Allied bombing of Dresden and other cities.

By today's standards yes. But as I previously posted, the mindset was different during WW II.

War itself is a crime, but many times a necessary evil.

TO

 

[imalko]

"For a smart man every war is lost!"
(Đorđe Balašević)

 

[GrauGeist]

Actually, Hiroshima was a huge army embarkation and depot center and Nagasaki was a strategic naval and seaport complex. So both were very much active military/industrial targets. On the otherhand, the fire-bombings of Tokyo were a "conventional" bombing and accounted for over 100,000 deaths, over 125,000 wounded and over 1,000,000 displaced from thier homes.

Make no mistake about it, Japan was not going to surrender and was prepared to resist an invasion at any cost. Even after the first bomb was dropped, Japan refused to surrender. The Japanese military command had been preparing for invasion by not only stockpiling weapons throughout the homeland, but they had over 10,000 fighter aircraft and other assets saved for the invasion. Additionally, they had massed a good number of army divisions into strategic areas on Kyushu that were well fortified, numbering close to 900,000 men in 14 divisions, 3 tank brigades and a number of smaller specialized units. The Japanese had over 65 divisions in the homeland by August of 1945.

Also, the civilian population was prepared to fight alongside thier military and the Allied command was aware of this fact. The Japanese defense plan was called Operation Ketsugo and was accurately predicting the areas the Allies were to invade, mainly because of the geography of the islands.

The Allied commanders were projecting that at least 1,000,000 Allied casualties would result from the invasion, starting with "Operation Downfall", set to commence in October 1945. This was just the southern island of Kyushu...and that was*if* the initial invasion went well. The second invasion, "Coronet" was set for spring 1946 targeting the area near Tokyo. The Allied commanders also estimated a Japanese casualty figure of well over 10,000,000 deaths.

All one has to do, is look at the savage battle for Okinawa and see just how prepared the Japanese were to defend thier native soil.

The fact that the A-bombs stopped all this from happening served a purpose, and while they may have been a horrific method, consider just how hideous the alternative would have been...

 

[Shinpachi]

Hi, imalko. Thank you very much for your so educational and thoughtful comments.

I believe that your opinion and wisdom come from many war experiences for thousands of years in European history. Japan has also long history but had only a few countable war experiences outside the islands as we are isolated from the continent.

We were so hysteric about the international war with no cool judgment and less experience that our leader was unable to decide when we should withdraw or compromise with the opponents. It was a lack of diplomacy.

How Japan would have been if no atomic bombs were dropped?
I know the allies were planning their land invasion in November, 1945. The war would continue till the end of the year or early 1946 when our headquarters evacuated into the deep shelters of mid-mountains area to controll guerrilla warfare. But it would have made no sense any longer because Japan would have been devided into the North and the South sooner or later. The longer we fought, the deeper the former Soviet Union would have invaded into the islands from the north.

Please don't misunderstand. I can never say 'Thank you very much for dropping the atomic bombs on us'. They were too much.

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Sorry Imalko, but I have to disagree with you. By today's standards yes, the deliberate bombings of civilians is frowned upon, but the mindset of 1945 was different. Condemning the bombings today would be like condeming the colonialism back in the 18th and 19th centuries, different times. I firmly believed that the atomic bombings saved more lives then they took. The projected casulties for the invasion were higher then the casulties sustained from the bombings. Besides, to my knowledge the fire bombings of Tokyo had more casulties.

 

[comiso90]

Sorry Imalko, but I have to disagree with you. By today's standards yes, the deliberate bombings of civilians is frowned upon, but the mindset of 1945 was different.

I think you mean in the context of all out war where nations are fighting for their very survival instead of referencing 1945 / 2009?

If anything, I think we're less civilized.

It was equally abhorrent back then. We shouldn't minimize civilian casualties by thinking it was somehow more acceptable in the '40's. We're not above it now... the weapons are even more efficient for incinerating civilians. The next time we have an all out war, it will happen again.

If it seems less palatable in 2009 it's cause of all the video and communication we ingest.

.

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

I guess, sorry if I'm being confusing. I forgot that it was total war by 1945.

 

[Konigstiger205]

Honestly, the whole WW2 was a bloody war crime. There were killings everywhere, some justified, others no so justified. I was horrified by the atrocities committed by the Japanese army, but also horrified by the atomic bombs. In every war civilians get caught in the middle of it and suffer the most, because politicians...War and politics are dirty because we make them dirty! Its like Iraqi civilians taking revenge on American civilians for the bombing of the US Air Force...its a vicious circle...One thing is for sure, aliens won't invade and kill us, or some natural cataclysm, the human race will kill itself, its what we do best...

 

[timshatz]

Well, we can allways agree that we disagree on some topic, but remain respectfull of eachother. I am just stating my oppinion.

Thanks for recomended reading. I don't believe I could find those books in Serbia, even if we have several good book stores with wide selection of books in English. Can this books be somehow found through the internet?

Imalko, you can definitely get "Retribution" on the net. Here's a link to it at Amazon:

Amazon.com: Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 (Vintage): Max Hastings: Books

Tenozan is a harder book to find. But it is also at Amazon. Link:

Amazon.com: Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb: George Feifer: Books

Both books are well written and cover the topic of the last year of the war in the Pacific very well. Retribution is more recent and has more work on the CBI (China-Burma-India) theatre in it (a side of the war that is pretty much forgotten these days). Tenozan covers the American invasion of Okinawa and the dropping of the bomb. Okinawa is covered more closely, the Atom bomb details are almost an afterthought but they do give some perspective on it, in terms of the battle of Okinawa.

As I said, both are good reads. Well researched and written. Good luck!

PS- It's been my experience that used books are just as good as new books. Unless you are building a library, why bother paying for the new stuff?

 

[timshatz]

Timshatz, I see what you ment with that hornet's nest remark.
QUOTE]

Yeah Man! This is a topic where the only opinions are strong ones

 

[Njaco]

Thats 10 minutes I won't get back.

 

[Gnomey]

Thats 10 minutes I won't get back.

Yep, I didn't think it was anything special or particularly disturbing.

Certainly the is the reasons for the event itself but that is pretty self explanatory and has already been covered in this thread very well by others.

 

[comiso90]

imalko



>>I do think they were about to surrender, even if there was many faction within Japanese government opposing this.

You think they were about to surrender?.... read:





Japanese leader thought his country "weak" for surrendering after Hiroshima



By Julian Ryall in Tokyo
Last Updated: 11:37PM BST 12 Aug 2008

General Hideki Tojo lashed out at his countrymen in his journal even after atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The journal, found in the National Archives of Japan, covers the two-week period from Aug 10, 1945, a day after the second atomic bomb had struck Nagasaki.

"The Japanese government has accepted the notion that Japan is the loser and it appears to be going to accept unconditional surrender," Tojo wrote. "Such a position frustrates the officers and soldiers of the imperial armed forces.

"Without fully employing its abilities even at the final moment, the imperial nation is surrendering to the enemies' propaganda," he wrote. "I never imagined such torpor in the nation's leaders and its people."

Tojo ordered the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into the Second World War. But he was forced out as premier in 1944 as the tide of the conflict turned.

He was hanged in December 1948 as a Class-A war criminal after being found guilty at the Tokyo war crimes tribunal.

The journal, published in the Nikkei newspaper in the run-up to Friday's 63rd anniversary of Japan's surrender, provoked a strong reaction in Japan. Professor Tsuyoshi Amemiya, a military historian, said that Tojo's bitterness at the people and leaders aware that there was no hope of withstanding the Allies' onslaught was misplaced.

"His feelings towards the Japanese people were completely wrong," said Prof Amemiya, 73. "I was a militaristic 10-year-old when I heard the emperor announce the surrender and I cried and cried because I never thought Japan would be defeated.

"But Japanese people, in their real hearts, were exhausted by the war," he said. "We had no guts left to fight. We were poor, hungry, tired from working so hard, the cities were burned to ashes and every day we were attacked from the air."

In the diaries, Tojo is critical of Japanese leaders' acceptance of the 1945 Potsdam Declaration, which called for Tokyo to surrender unconditionally, lambasting them as being "frightened by new types of bombs and scared of the Soviet Union entering the war" in the Pacific theatre.

Tojo anticipated a "humiliating surrender" but refused to criticise the emperor when the capitulation was announced over the radio.

"Now that the government has decided to proceed to diplomatic processes after gaining the emperor's judgment, I have decided to refrain from making any comments about it, although I have maintained a separate view," he wrote.



Japanese leader thought his country "weak" for surrendering after Hiroshima - Telegraph

Japan



Japanese leader thought his country "weak" for surrendering after Hiroshima - Telegraph

 

[imalko]

Hi comiso90!
I have read your post carefully and here are some of my observations.

Professor Tsuyoshi Amemiya, a military historian, said that Tojo's bitterness at the people and leaders aware that there was no hope of withstanding the Allies' onslaught was misplaced.

"His feelings towards the Japanese people were completely wrong," said Prof Amemiya, 73. "I was a militaristic 10-year-old when I heard the emperor announce the surrender and I cried and cried because I never thought Japan would be defeated.

"But Japanese people, in their real hearts, were exhausted by the war," he said. "We had no guts left to fight. We were poor, hungry, tired from working so hard, the cities were burned to ashes and every day we were attacked from the air."

Will of Japanese people to resist broken?

In the diaries, Tojo is critical of Japanese leaders' acceptance of the 1945 Potsdam Declaration, which called for Tokyo to surrender unconditionally, lambasting them as being "frightened by new types of bombs and scared of the Soviet Union entering the war" in the Pacific theatre.

Atomic raids are not the only reason for surrender of Japan. Soviet Union entering the war was also a major factor.

Tojo anticipated a "humiliating surrender" but refused to criticise the emperor when the capitulation was announced over the radio.

"Now that the government has decided to proceed to diplomatic processes after gaining the emperor's judgment, I have decided to refrain from making any comments about it, although I have maintained a separate view," he wrote.

Even the hard militarists were prepared to accept the surrender upon emperor's judgment?

So, I believe that crucial question is this - were Japanese people ready to accept surrender upon their emperor's judgment even without atomic raids, or not?

I believe they were. But I admit that I'm no expert about Japanese culture or mentality of their people, so I might be wrong. The real person to answer this question for us is Mr. Shinpachi to whom I send my regards.

One other remark. I think (by some of previous posts in this thread) that battle for Okinawa was exeptionaly traumatic for Americans. Would you agree that this was perhaps one of the major reasons for final decision on using the atomic bombs?