Yes. It did succeed in its goal of forcing Japan to surrender, but at a cost of a high civilian casualty rate. I didn't do any research as of typing this comment, but I'm sure it took out more civilians and civilian infrastructure than military targets. But then again, if Japan wasn't nuked, God knows what would've happened to the country if they were invaded by the US from the south and the Russians from the north. We might have the similar situation in the Korean Peninsula if that had happened.
The 4th Geneva Convention did not exist at the time so you'd have to fall back on the Hague Conventions. I'm sure the total war practiced by Japan and Germany made everyone study up on that during ww2.
Yes. They stand as irrefutable definitions of war crimes. Indiscriminate, brutally destructive and launched at cities with large civilian populations. The campaign of fire-bombing Japanese cities can be added to the list, alongside the Nanking massacre, the bombing of Dresden and the Blitz. No government came out of WW2 with their honour intact.
No. They were aimed explicitly at bringing the war to a swift end, which they did. As for the civilian targeting argument, Japan's industrial facilities were blended in with urban residential areas at the time, so Japan would have never surrendered if its main cities were left untouched and functioning.
No. The Japanese government/military leadership (with a handful of exceptions) were quite prepared to sacrifice those same civilians had the US invaded. They would have ordered them to fight down to the last person regardless of how futile that would have been, all in the name of some insane "honour". The fact that it took them another 6 days to surrender after Nagasaki indicates just how rotten they were.
Under the circumstances, given the war situation, the bombings were not war crimes. They were the most horrific acts of the war, but civilians were targeted in bombing every where that WWII was happening.
That being said, I wish the US, where I'm from, had not used them. We are the only country in history to drop a super bomb. They were beyond terrible. It certainly is not something for the US to celebrate.
No...but it was a the worst option that the US could have taken, and the was no real need to use them, the US could have just use normal bombs if they wanted to.
The reason for using nukes was to show to the world (manly to the Sovient Union), the MIGHTY PROWLESS of THE US of A (and how much of a d*ckhead the US is).
There were also options to end the war using diplomacy or just keep Japan blocked, or even promoting a civil war (the US favorite way to wage war after WWII though)... so it was not a war crime.. it was a Showoff of force and experimenting their new toys.
five of the six u.s. 5-star officers at the time are on record saying they were unnecessary. japan was already defeated and japan would surrender when russia declared war.
which is exactly what happened.
you can read truman’s hand-written diary online and get it straight from the horse’s mouth. it’s an enlightening read. truman refused to authorize the use of the next device, which was still in production, after reading the reports of the effects.
in his words, he didn’t have the stomach to kill more women and children. and he also said japan would surrender when russia declared war.
he had to fight against the senate after the news of the bombs became public. there was a faction in the senate that said no surrender should be accepted. they wanted every future device dropped on japan until there was not a single japanese person left on earth.
go read it before you vote down facts. if you base your opinions on high school history books, you don’t know half the story.
Five of the six u.s. 5-star officers at the time are on record saying they were unnecessary.
Oh dear, you've left out Nimitz and MacArthur - the Pacific theatre commanders, ie, the ones who really counted, who were both in favor of it. The revisionist love to cherry pick though.
Japan was clearly defeated.
Half of the Supreme War Council certainly didn't think so. in their final deliberations, they opted to continue fighting until very last Japanese person was dead. The deadlock was only broken when the matter handed over to Hirohoto to make his unilateral decision in favor of surrender. Then there was an attempted coup. It was a very close-run thing.
Seven of the United States’ eight five-star Army and Navy officers in 1945 agreed with the Navy’s vitriolic assessment. Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and Henry “Hap” Arnold and Admirals William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, and William Halsey are on record stating that the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both.
MacArthur said it was inexcusable.
admiral leahy from his memoir: “that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender …. In being the first to use it we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”
Many in the us military, especially the Navy, resented the bomb, for fear that their own huge sacrifices and efforts would be overshadowed by the bombs' immediate and powerful effects in forcing Japan into a quick surrender.
In truth, the US defeat of Japan came about as a result of the conventional forces' long slog of victories capped by the abomb's shock effect. The emperor mentioned the bombs in his surrender speech as a main reason for his decision for surrender. Don't tell that to the revisionists, though.
of course hiroshima and nagasaki were important considerations. truman’s diary during potsdam says he had no doubt of surrender when russia declared war.
he wrote of dismissing the japanese peace proposal through stalin. he needed the word “unconditional” domestically.
but, the final peace treaty were the exact same conditions offered. i don’t anyone realized how destructive the bombs were.
he was also fighting the senate faction after the surrender that wanted the next 50 devices to be used in a sneak attack on russia, which lemay was lobbying for.
ironically, the tokyo fire bombing killed more people and was more gruesome.
The reason for using nukes was to show to the world (manly to the Sovient Union), the MIGHTY PROWLESS of THE US of A (and how much of a d*ckhead the US is).
And just pretend like that didn't save Hokkaido from becoming a communist hellhole.
truman’s diary during potsdam says he had no doubt of surrender when russia declared war.
Yeah, but you missed the sentence preceding that one. He said he was quite certain the A--bombs' would promptly effect Japan's surrender. He added that in the event they didn't, then the Soviet involvement surely would.
memoirs and handwriting are not revisionism.
Based on what you've posted, you don't understand the context of the passages you cite, using them as argumentative talking points rather as a way of gaining a comprehensive understanding of the situation. Err... revisionist cherry picking.
No …. The US does not start wars ! It ends them ! Despite many warnings, Japan dragged America into WW2! Japan was given ample time to surrender and end the conflict! They ignored those warnings! Unfortunately, in all wars , there are those killed as collateral damage! Japan is to blame for the US using WMDs! Fast forward 80 years and the world is a safer place! There will always be bad actors, Russia … bit off a whole lot than they can chew ! And who has helped Ukraine to defend itself ? The US as always was 1st to respond! Why hasn’t China invaded Taiwan??? 1st, their military has never been tested! 2nd… no one wants to take on America! It would be suicidal! The lessons learned by Japan and the world from WW2, are still educational today!
How do you align your comment with the history of US involvement in coups and military dictatorships , all around the world, but particularly in Latin America.
100% war crime! Japan was already on it's knees there was no need to trial these bombs on human populations. Worst case scenario they could have used it in an isolated area to show what it could do but never on cities!
Japan was already on it's knees there was no need to trial these bombs on human populations. Worst case scenario they could have used it in an isolated area to show what it could do but never on cities!
Why would the Japanese War Cabinet have taken heed of a bomb dropped in an isolated area? They did not even surrender after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
How do you align your comment with the history of US involvement in coups and military dictatorships , all around the world, but particularly in Latin America.
The US is a bloody tyrant power.
And how do your comments align with Iranian terrorism throughout the Middle East? Iran is a bloody tyrant power.
And many countries "take on America "
Vietnam, Afghanistan come to mind.
Not leaving their home country like Iran does all of the time.
Japan was acting like a number of western powers when it invaded and annexed China...a version of colonialism.
This caused ructions in "The League of Nations " who imposed many trade embargoes on Japan, designed to cripple it's supply of energy and raw materials.
The attack on Pearl Harbour {not a surprise: read "At Dawn we Slept "} was an attempt to destroy US hegemony in the Asia , Pacific and allow Japan to access {steal } raw materials from affected nations.
Japan was ruled by a concentration of wealth sectors {Zibatsu ...spelling ?} that Mac Carther initially wanted to disband post WW2 but did not when "communism " began to appear as an alternative in Japan's ordinary people.
My reference source is mainly "Embracing Defeat "...a scholarly tome well worth a third reading.
Every year, they post the same question. How about asking if the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Nanking and the Unit 731 experiments are war crimes? The U.S. did what it had to do to take down an evil expansionist empire. Saved a lot of lives, not just American ones either.
Both the Japanese Army (Ni-Go) and Navy (B-Research and F-Go Project) were doing research separately into their own atomic bombs, but a shortage of uranium, both domestic and imported led to the programmes being abandoned. If they had succeeded, would they have used them to try to turn the tide of the war?
japan was miles away from any nuclear device. it didn’t have the industrial capacity or knowhow.
was the pearl harbor attack a poor decision? of course. japan got sucked into the mindset that to remain independent, it should copy the playbook of other countries.
japan was surrounded by colonies under control of the u.s., france, u.k., dutch, russia (mongolia and manchuria), even portugal.
to colonize was the playbook. china was essentially under the joint control of the u.s. and u.k.
the u.s. and other countries were not going to allow that to happen. asia was theirs.
They targeted cities. That's where most of Japanese industrial facilities were located at the time, with not a lot of zoning. The US air force released millions of pamphlets warning civilians to leave, stressing that they were not the ones being targeted.
Japan was surrounded by colonies under control of the u.s., france, u.k., dutch, russia (mongolia and manchuria), even portugal.
Well, let's take a look at a map. "Surrounding countries" were: the Soviet Union, Korean Peninsula, Formosa , Mainland China. More than half of those were actually Japanese colonies at the time. Yet another one of your revisionist fantasies.
wonder how many Japanese were actually able to relocate ?
The Japanese police punished people caught reading them, so not as many as possible. Japanese civilians were also thoroughly brainwashed to believe falsely that the Americans lied about everything.
No, there was no complete surrender after Hiroshima. If they surrendered one could then argue Why couldn't the USA navy dropped it offshore as a warning of the damage that USA now had. No the Japanese imperial forces decided to barging after Hiroshima was hit. If a war crime was laid it should be laid on the Japanese Imperial Forces for wasting those days barging which lead to another atomic bomb attack and only then did the Japanese Imperial force move immediately for complete surrender.
At the time, previously nobody thought a bomb could do what a nuke could do. Bombing of cities with military necessity was accepted as part of war at the time - everybody did it. Because it was part of war. Because nobody thought a bomb could do what a nuke could do. So everybody did it.
The nuke changed that thinking. But not before the nuke. It was after the war that the thinking change. Not just because of the nuke, of course. The fire bombings helped change that thinking too.
A lot of thinking have changed due to the war. Before the war, nations thought battleships are the mainstays of the navy. And battleships are meant for non-precise mass bombardment of cities too - they're meant to raze cities, just not in one shot, but a mass of shots. Weapons prior to the war were not so precise, so the way to use them was en masse, meaning a lot of collateral damage and civilians. So that was accepted as part of war
hiroshima, nagasaki and some other cities were untouched so the destructive effect could be measured with virgin targets.
ports, army and naval facilities weren't damaged at all, they were not near ground zero - the city centers.
the idea of detonating in an uninhabited area as a display was eliminated very quickly. there was not enough confidence that it would work, the hiroshima device construction had never been tested.
you need to look at a map before japan began copying the colonizing method, not after it began.
you do realize that western countries wanted to colonize japan, right?
japanese military were brutal, allied military were brutal. japanese were told not to surrender because they would only be killed, which was true. the u.s. killed all japanese troops that surrendered after searching them.
the u.s. intelligence people were frustrated at not have prisoners of war to interrogate, they put a bounty to bring in live prisoners. the u.s. began offering ice cream to anyone who brought a prisoner in. only then were some prisoners captured later in the war.
go ahead and search for japanese prisoners of war. see how many there were compared to those held by japan. you'll struggle to find any information at all.
the u.s. killed all japanese troops that surrendered after searching them.
Really, 100% of Japanese pows. Why do I think that is nonsense?
the u.s. intelligence people were frustrated at not have prisoners of war to interrogate, they put a bounty to bring in live prisoners. the u.s. began offering ice cream to anyone who brought a prisoner in. only then were some prisoners captured later in the war.
So they didn't kill 100% of them. Interesting...
go ahead and search for japanese prisoners of war. see how many there were compared to those held by japan. you'll struggle to find any information at all.
Could that be because the Japanese didn't like surrendering because they knew what would await them when they returned home?
According to the findings of the Tokyo Tribunal, the death rate of Western prisoners was 27.1 per cent, seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians.
Just admit that 15 million Chinese didn't die because Japan was a respectful law abiding power.
japanese were told not to surrender because they would only be killed, which was true. the u.s. killed all japanese troops that surrendered after searching them.
the u.s. intelligence people were frustrated at not have prisoners of war to interrogate, they put a bounty to bring in live prisoners.
No, that is not true!
The Japanese didn't surrender because it was considered a dishonor to surrender. They'd rather die than be burdened with the shame of living. The only honorable way out is to die fighting the enemy or commit seppuku
Go watch the latest Godzilla Minus One movie made by the Japanese studio. See how it was for a Japanese who returns alive instead of dying in the battlefield
56 Comments
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Toshihiro
Yes. It did succeed in its goal of forcing Japan to surrender, but at a cost of a high civilian casualty rate. I didn't do any research as of typing this comment, but I'm sure it took out more civilians and civilian infrastructure than military targets. But then again, if Japan wasn't nuked, God knows what would've happened to the country if they were invaded by the US from the south and the Russians from the north. We might have the similar situation in the Korean Peninsula if that had happened.
TaiwanIsNotChina
The 4th Geneva Convention did not exist at the time so you'd have to fall back on the Hague Conventions. I'm sure the total war practiced by Japan and Germany made everyone study up on that during ww2.
GBR48
Yes. They stand as irrefutable definitions of war crimes. Indiscriminate, brutally destructive and launched at cities with large civilian populations. The campaign of fire-bombing Japanese cities can be added to the list, alongside the Nanking massacre, the bombing of Dresden and the Blitz. No government came out of WW2 with their honour intact.
JeffLee
No. They were aimed explicitly at bringing the war to a swift end, which they did. As for the civilian targeting argument, Japan's industrial facilities were blended in with urban residential areas at the time, so Japan would have never surrendered if its main cities were left untouched and functioning.
Chairman Rexton
No. The Japanese government/military leadership (with a handful of exceptions) were quite prepared to sacrifice those same civilians had the US invaded. They would have ordered them to fight down to the last person regardless of how futile that would have been, all in the name of some insane "honour". The fact that it took them another 6 days to surrender after Nagasaki indicates just how rotten they were.
Eastmann
definitely YES.
no one country in the world used nuclear weapon against people except one dont need to be named here.
Gene Hennigh
Under the circumstances, given the war situation, the bombings were not war crimes. They were the most horrific acts of the war, but civilians were targeted in bombing every where that WWII was happening.
That being said, I wish the US, where I'm from, had not used them. We are the only country in history to drop a super bomb. They were beyond terrible. It certainly is not something for the US to celebrate.
Mr Kipling
The winner decides on whether war crimes were committed so in this case, no.
Daniel Neagari
No...but it was a the worst option that the US could have taken, and the was no real need to use them, the US could have just use normal bombs if they wanted to.
The reason for using nukes was to show to the world (manly to the Sovient Union), the MIGHTY PROWLESS of THE US of A (and how much of a d*ckhead the US is).
There were also options to end the war using diplomacy or just keep Japan blocked, or even promoting a civil war (the US favorite way to wage war after WWII though)... so it was not a war crime.. it was a Showoff of force and experimenting their new toys.
Patricia Yarrow
Hell YES. Many other solutions to end the war. Japan was clearly defeated.
Peter Neil
five of the six u.s. 5-star officers at the time are on record saying they were unnecessary. japan was already defeated and japan would surrender when russia declared war.
which is exactly what happened.
you can read truman’s hand-written diary online and get it straight from the horse’s mouth. it’s an enlightening read. truman refused to authorize the use of the next device, which was still in production, after reading the reports of the effects.
in his words, he didn’t have the stomach to kill more women and children. and he also said japan would surrender when russia declared war.
he had to fight against the senate after the news of the bombs became public. there was a faction in the senate that said no surrender should be accepted. they wanted every future device dropped on japan until there was not a single japanese person left on earth.
go read it before you vote down facts. if you base your opinions on high school history books, you don’t know half the story.
JeffLee
Oh dear, you've left out Nimitz and MacArthur - the Pacific theatre commanders, ie, the ones who really counted, who were both in favor of it. The revisionist love to cherry pick though.
Half of the Supreme War Council certainly didn't think so. in their final deliberations, they opted to continue fighting until very last Japanese person was dead. The deadlock was only broken when the matter handed over to Hirohoto to make his unilateral decision in favor of surrender. Then there was an attempted coup. It was a very close-run thing.
Peter Neil
Seven of the United States’ eight five-star Army and Navy officers in 1945 agreed with the Navy’s vitriolic assessment. Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and Henry “Hap” Arnold and Admirals William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, and William Halsey are on record stating that the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both.
MacArthur said it was inexcusable.
admiral leahy from his memoir: “that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender …. In being the first to use it we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”
JeffLee
@Peter neil
Many in the us military, especially the Navy, resented the bomb, for fear that their own huge sacrifices and efforts would be overshadowed by the bombs' immediate and powerful effects in forcing Japan into a quick surrender.
In truth, the US defeat of Japan came about as a result of the conventional forces' long slog of victories capped by the abomb's shock effect. The emperor mentioned the bombs in his surrender speech as a main reason for his decision for surrender. Don't tell that to the revisionists, though.
Peter Neil
memoirs and handwriting are not revisionism.
of course hiroshima and nagasaki were important considerations. truman’s diary during potsdam says he had no doubt of surrender when russia declared war.
he wrote of dismissing the japanese peace proposal through stalin. he needed the word “unconditional” domestically.
but, the final peace treaty were the exact same conditions offered. i don’t anyone realized how destructive the bombs were.
he was also fighting the senate faction after the surrender that wanted the next 50 devices to be used in a sneak attack on russia, which lemay was lobbying for.
ironically, the tokyo fire bombing killed more people and was more gruesome.
TaiwanIsNotChina
And just pretend like that didn't save Hokkaido from becoming a communist hellhole.
TaiwanIsNotChina
That proposal never made through Stalin and would have left Japan with China and Korea.
Peter Neil
TaiwanIsNotChinaToday 02:27 am JST
no, it was the same as the final terms that kept the emperor.
GuruMick
Can history buffs confirm or deny that the napalm raids on Tokyo killed more than Hiroshima ?
My view is they did.
JeffLee
Yeah, but you missed the sentence preceding that one. He said he was quite certain the A--bombs' would promptly effect Japan's surrender. He added that in the event they didn't, then the Soviet involvement surely would.
Based on what you've posted, you don't understand the context of the passages you cite, using them as argumentative talking points rather as a way of gaining a comprehensive understanding of the situation. Err... revisionist cherry picking.
GuruMick
Brittanica confirms my view....Incendiary bombs estimated to have killed 100,000 in one night and left 1000,000 homeless.
Jesus wept.
Japanese people suffered enough....
Steven Mccarthy
No …. The US does not start wars ! It ends them ! Despite many warnings, Japan dragged America into WW2! Japan was given ample time to surrender and end the conflict! They ignored those warnings! Unfortunately, in all wars , there are those killed as collateral damage! Japan is to blame for the US using WMDs! Fast forward 80 years and the world is a safer place! There will always be bad actors, Russia … bit off a whole lot than they can chew ! And who has helped Ukraine to defend itself ? The US as always was 1st to respond! Why hasn’t China invaded Taiwan??? 1st, their military has never been tested! 2nd… no one wants to take on America! It would be suicidal! The lessons learned by Japan and the world from WW2, are still educational today!
zulander
I think what we think about it doesnt matter.
Just make sure it should never ever happen again.
GuruMick
Stephen above.
How do you align your comment with the history of US involvement in coups and military dictatorships , all around the world, but particularly in Latin America.
The US is a bloody tyrant power.
GuruMick
And many countries "take on America "
Vietnam, Afghanistan come to mind.
Sanjinosebleed
100% war crime! Japan was already on it's knees there was no need to trial these bombs on human populations. Worst case scenario they could have used it in an isolated area to show what it could do but never on cities!
BurakuminDes
Why would the Japanese War Cabinet have taken heed of a bomb dropped in an isolated area? They did not even surrender after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
TaiwanIsNotChina
And how do your comments align with Iranian terrorism throughout the Middle East? Iran is a bloody tyrant power.
Not leaving their home country like Iran does all of the time.
David Brent
Nope. Don't start wars you cannot win.
GuruMick
I cant justify the attack on Pearl Harbour...but
Japan was acting like a number of western powers when it invaded and annexed China...a version of colonialism.
This caused ructions in "The League of Nations " who imposed many trade embargoes on Japan, designed to cripple it's supply of energy and raw materials.
The attack on Pearl Harbour {not a surprise: read "At Dawn we Slept "} was an attempt to destroy US hegemony in the Asia , Pacific and allow Japan to access {steal } raw materials from affected nations.
Japan was ruled by a concentration of wealth sectors {Zibatsu ...spelling ?} that Mac Carther initially wanted to disband post WW2 but did not when "communism " began to appear as an alternative in Japan's ordinary people.
My reference source is mainly "Embracing Defeat "...a scholarly tome well worth a third reading.
Politik Kills
Yes. Using the argument that they saved many lives from being lost in continuous fighting is plug bull.
V Campbell
War crimes? What a silly question. Of course not.
Mocheake
Doesn't matter.
Mocheake
Every year, they post the same question. How about asking if the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Nanking and the Unit 731 experiments are war crimes? The U.S. did what it had to do to take down an evil expansionist empire. Saved a lot of lives, not just American ones either.
Garthgoyle
As criminal as the rest of what the invaders did. But maybe a necessary evil.
wanderlust
Both the Japanese Army (Ni-Go) and Navy (B-Research and F-Go Project) were doing research separately into their own atomic bombs, but a shortage of uranium, both domestic and imported led to the programmes being abandoned. If they had succeeded, would they have used them to try to turn the tide of the war?
Peter Neil
japan was miles away from any nuclear device. it didn’t have the industrial capacity or knowhow.
was the pearl harbor attack a poor decision? of course. japan got sucked into the mindset that to remain independent, it should copy the playbook of other countries.
japan was surrounded by colonies under control of the u.s., france, u.k., dutch, russia (mongolia and manchuria), even portugal.
to colonize was the playbook. china was essentially under the joint control of the u.s. and u.k.
the u.s. and other countries were not going to allow that to happen. asia was theirs.
englisc aspyrgend
No.
Strangerland
They targeted civilians, so it was definitely a war crime.
JeffLee
They targeted cities. That's where most of Japanese industrial facilities were located at the time, with not a lot of zoning. The US air force released millions of pamphlets warning civilians to leave, stressing that they were not the ones being targeted.
Well, let's take a look at a map. "Surrounding countries" were: the Soviet Union, Korean Peninsula, Formosa , Mainland China. More than half of those were actually Japanese colonies at the time. Yet another one of your revisionist fantasies.
TaiwanIsNotChina
That must come as news to the supporters of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek.
TaiwanIsNotChina
So not criminal at all. An ambitious claim.
GuruMick
Check colonialisation in Asian countries to determine where Europe was
GuruMick
"Pamphlets were dropped " by allied bombers warning of this new bomb.
I wonder how many Japanese were actually able to relocate ?
JeffLee
The Japanese police punished people caught reading them, so not as many as possible. Japanese civilians were also thoroughly brainwashed to believe falsely that the Americans lied about everything.
Strangerland
They wiped out cities full of civilians.
They knew these weapons would take out a city. They dropped them on a city. Civilians live in a city. They targeted civilians.
TaiwanIsNotChina
You know what was also in cities? Docks and factories. Practice total war and total war will be practiced against you.
Strangerland
It was a war crime.
Are they acceptable under certain circumstances?
TaiwanIsNotChina
Dunno but the starting point is the Hague Conventions and not the Geneva Conventions. I am glad, however, that Japan was spared Russian occupation.
John-San
No, there was no complete surrender after Hiroshima. If they surrendered one could then argue Why couldn't the USA navy dropped it offshore as a warning of the damage that USA now had. No the Japanese imperial forces decided to barging after Hiroshima was hit. If a war crime was laid it should be laid on the Japanese Imperial Forces for wasting those days barging which lead to another atomic bomb attack and only then did the Japanese Imperial force move immediately for complete surrender.
lostrune2
At the time, previously nobody thought a bomb could do what a nuke could do. Bombing of cities with military necessity was accepted as part of war at the time - everybody did it. Because it was part of war. Because nobody thought a bomb could do what a nuke could do. So everybody did it.
The nuke changed that thinking. But not before the nuke. It was after the war that the thinking change. Not just because of the nuke, of course. The fire bombings helped change that thinking too.
A lot of thinking have changed due to the war. Before the war, nations thought battleships are the mainstays of the navy. And battleships are meant for non-precise mass bombardment of cities too - they're meant to raze cities, just not in one shot, but a mass of shots. Weapons prior to the war were not so precise, so the way to use them was en masse, meaning a lot of collateral damage and civilians. So that was accepted as part of war
Peter Neil
hiroshima, nagasaki and some other cities were untouched so the destructive effect could be measured with virgin targets.
ports, army and naval facilities weren't damaged at all, they were not near ground zero - the city centers.
the idea of detonating in an uninhabited area as a display was eliminated very quickly. there was not enough confidence that it would work, the hiroshima device construction had never been tested.
you need to look at a map before japan began copying the colonizing method, not after it began.
you do realize that western countries wanted to colonize japan, right?
japanese military were brutal, allied military were brutal. japanese were told not to surrender because they would only be killed, which was true. the u.s. killed all japanese troops that surrendered after searching them.
the u.s. intelligence people were frustrated at not have prisoners of war to interrogate, they put a bounty to bring in live prisoners. the u.s. began offering ice cream to anyone who brought a prisoner in. only then were some prisoners captured later in the war.
go ahead and search for japanese prisoners of war. see how many there were compared to those held by japan. you'll struggle to find any information at all.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Really, 100% of Japanese pows. Why do I think that is nonsense?
So they didn't kill 100% of them. Interesting...
Could that be because the Japanese didn't like surrendering because they knew what would await them when they returned home?
Just admit that 15 million Chinese didn't die because Japan was a respectful law abiding power.
Peter Neil
who said they were a respectful law abiding power? no one.
war is a brutal business, by all sides.
mao was a brutal war criminal against his own people. how many deaths was he and his wife responsible for? about 45 million people.
lostrune2
No, that is not true!
The Japanese didn't surrender because it was considered a dishonor to surrender. They'd rather die than be burdened with the shame of living. The only honorable way out is to die fighting the enemy or commit seppuku
Go watch the latest Godzilla Minus One movie made by the Japanese studio. See how it was for a Japanese who returns alive instead of dying in the battlefield
Peter Neil
go read official documents from the time. or maybe talk to some of the japanese soldiers who returned. i did 25 years ago.