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points by xbmcuser 4 hours ago | 0 comments

Germans had already surrendered and the Japanese were going to surrender as Russians now were able to move their force against Japan before the nuclear bombs were used. They were used to test the bombs and make sure no such war happens again specially the 2nd Bomb on Nagasaki that was used a few days after they bombed Hiroshima.

[–] defrost 4 hours ago

> They were used to test the bombs and make sure no such war happens again

The two cities were already on a "to be bombed" list and were the 73rd and 74th Japanese cities to be utterly destroyed by bombing.

So, Yes - they were literally used to test the bombs.

The "and make sure no such war happens again" is more of a post WWII retcon of the Cold War era.

[–] rightnutwingjob 4 hours ago

In all likelihood, the two nuclear bombs killed fewer people than the bombing that otherwise would have occurred.

[–] lazyasciiart 36 minutes ago

What, if Truman had accepted the telegram surrender instead of sending nukes in response?

[–] defrost 3 hours ago

Really?

They certainly killed less people than the bombing that had already occurred - the destruction of Tokyo alone likely killed more people than either atomic bomb.

There's no real consensus in the alternative history conjecture space, and no way to resolve the theories floated, Gar Alperovitz (for one example) made the argument that

  * that Japan was already defeated at the time the decision to use the bomb was made, and that US intelligence already knew this;
  * that Japan had been suing for peace and was ready to surrender without an invasion;
  * that the real reason the bomb was used was so to demonstrate its power to the Soviet Union, in an attempt to exert more influence on them in the postwar;
  * and that Japanese Emperor’s surrender statement invoked the bomb only as a politically-acceptable “excuse” for his people, when actually he surrendered primarily because of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

( in https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004FGMR3S )

[–] hunterpayne 3 hours ago

This is alternative history, not real history. Remember, there was an attempted coup even after the first bomb to prolong the war. The Japanese leadership at the time were very zealous verging on religious zeal. One of the things that got them to eventually give up was a captured US fighter pilot that (under threat of death) told the Japanese that the US had 100s of atomic bombs. This was a lie but he didn't know that and just was trying to get the insane intelligence agent to not cut his head off (literally). There were other factors too. The USSR invading Manchuria for example. Also the US was in the process of ringing the home islands with 50 fleet carriers (the big ones, 50kt displacement) which would have been able to bomb Japan at will. Even with all of this, there was a significant faction of Japanese leadership who wanted to fight on.

These claims are more about politics than anything. Its an attempt to retcon history to vilify the US. The Japanese had never been invaded and that was a huge point of pride. They were training the civilians for a guerrilla war. Just because you can find a person in the Japanese government who wanted to surrender at that point (and there were) doesn't mean that's the decision that would have been taken.

PS That 3rd point is especially specious...if it were true, no 2nd bomb would have been used. PPS Stuff like this is why historians don't like nor will engage with hypotheticals or the alternative history folks. Its clearly politically motivated, not a good faith attempt to understand history.

[–] fc417fc802 3 hours ago

> Its an attempt to retcon history to vilify the US.

An attempt to vilify ... the side that eagerly deployed nuclear weapons on civilian targets? I'm from the US and I'm not someone who is blind to pragmatism but your argument here just seems completely absurd to me. We clearly committed an atrocity with somewhere between minimal to no legitimate justification.

Then again, after seeing the adjacent comment about avoiding soviet involvement it occurs to me that perhaps we inadvertently did them a favor in a roundabout way. Japan probably would have lost a lot more than the kuril islands otherwise.

[–] nickff 3 hours ago

Where did you get the idea that the USA was “eager” to deploy the atomic bomb?

>Stimson wrote in his diary afterwards that after his briefing, Truman felt “the terrible responsibility that such destruction placed upon us here and himself.” [1]

[1] “Memorandum of Conference with the President, August 8, 1945 at 10:45am,” in Stimson diary (8 August 1945), Henry Lewis Stimson Papers (MS 465), Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

[–] fc417fc802 2 hours ago

For starters, how many days did it take before we dropped the second one again? I don't think it matters what any of the participants wrote or said given the events that we know to have transpired. There were clearly many other paths available to take.

[–] wombatpm 2 hours ago

The second bomb is the one whose use is questionable. If Truman were to be tried for war crimes it would be for that. A surrender was in play. Truman wanted no conditions. I think another week of people dying from radiation poisoning would have brought people around anyway.

[–] kstenerud 2 hours ago

Such a convenient narrative. "Yeah, a shit ton of civilians who weren't vaporized died slow, agonizing deaths from radiation exposure, but believe you me, it's more humane than the alternative! They should be thankful!"

[–] leonidasrup 1 hour ago

There is nothing humane in bombing with conventional explosives, or bombing with napalm, thermobaric weapons or nuclear bombing. Or biological or chemical weapons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon

[–] CamperBob2 2 hours ago

It was more humane, whether you like it or not. What if we had waited to learn our lesson until the Korean war, when the yield of the first atomic bomb dropped on people would have been measured in hundreds of kilotons instead of tens, and with a few hundred more bombs where that one came from?

Also, people who are ready to surrender don't need to be nuked twice.

[–] kstenerud 1 hour ago

“The question arose: what about the women and children? I decided to find a perfectly clear solution to this too. I did not consider myself justified in exterminating the men — that is, to kill them or have them killed — while letting avengers in the shape of their children grow up for our sons and grandchildren.”

- Heinrich Himmler

“I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret.”

- Oliver Cromwell

“It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of producing a sufficient moral effect, from a military point of view, not only on those who were present, but more especially throughout the Punjab.”

- Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer

[–] CamperBob2 59 minutes ago

"I wasn't there."

- kstenerud

[–] defrost 1 hour ago

> people who are ready to surrender don't need to be nuked twice.

The question remains whether in fact Japan "needed" to be nuked even once - it's unknown whether the ongoing city by city destruction would have resolved WWII.

Further, did they "need" to be nuked a second time so quickly (within three days)? That second nuke was not to force a surrender (just as the first wasn't) - the two bombings were two live tests of two separate weapon designs untested in the field of war.

[–] CamperBob2 59 minutes ago

Further, did they "need" to be nuked a second time so quickly (within three days)?

Apparently so. Most people will run up the white flag after being nuked once, you see.

It was important to make them think that we had a whole stockpile of them. Otherwise, twice might not have been enough.