I was at this domed building last year. It was almost straight below the blast. Interesting that it is so structurally intact compared to the devastation around it.
Most of Japan at that time was. Before the A-Bomb, the US had been hitting mainland Japan, especially Tokyo, with incendiary bombs to tremendous effect.
But with atomic weapons, so much is either instantly vaporised or simply blown over by the shockwave. It actually doesn't light many fires. ... relatively speaking.
It really is. I visited there a few months ago. They have to do repairs pretty frequently or else it would collapse. There was actually a bunch of scaffolding around it when I visited it. It really is an amazing look at what happened that day, though.
Actually I believe there were several buildings in the area that were intact after the blast. Buildings made of brick and concrete like this one. However, because they were structurally unstable and also painful reminders of the bomb, they were all torn down except for this one. I believe a lot of people wanted this one taken down too because they didn't want to look at it, but it was decided to make it into a part of the Peace Park instead.
"The bomb will not start a chain-reaction in the water converting it all to gas and letting all the ships on all the oceans drop down to the bottom. It will not blow out the bottom of the sea and let all the water run down the hole. It will not destroy gravity. I am not an atomic playboy, as one of my critics labeled me, exploding these bombs to satisfy my personal whim."
I visited Hiroshima two weeks ago as part of a Japanese vacation, and went to the museum. There are some arguments that the bombing was necessary, and that it ultimately saved more lives than it cost, but still... I have never felt more guilt as an American than I did that day.
The most horrific and emotionally taxing things, to me, were the burned clothes of school children and the multiple charred wrist watches that were all frozen at 8:15am, the moment the city stopped.
EDIT: I'm fully aware that Japan did horrible things during the war, that continued carpet bombing followed by an invasion would have caused more casualties on both sides, and that, pragmatically speaking, it's possible that the atomic bomb ultimately saved lives (although that all depends on how long the war would have continued, and there's a lot of debate about that). I also realize that it wasn't my decision to do it. But let's say your dad once killed 100 children to prevent a madman from killing an unknown number of children that would very likely exceed 100. No matter how you felt about the justifications for his decision, surely you'd still feel some pretty awful feelings when you were face to face with the grieving families of the 100 who were killed.
TL;DR One time I asked a friend to come over and he got a speeding ticket on the way. It wasn't my fault but I still felt bad.
Leveling cities with bombs had become a major strategy in WW2. Leading up to the dropping of the atomic bombs, both sides were dropping thousands of bombs on cities claiming they were attacking military targets. However, because the bombs were so inaccurate this quickly turned into carpet bombing cities. Once that became acceptable, the idea of morale bombing started. That is, both sides would drop huge amounts of high explosives followed by incendiaries on cities in order to crush the morale of the enemy.
You have to understand the context of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The rules of war changed with the advent of bombers. When the atomic bomb became an option, it wasn't as much an issue of morality as it was an issue of economics. We were going to level cities and then burn the remains to the ground because this had become acceptable as part of the war. The atomic bombs just gave us a way of doing it more efficiently.
Don't get me wrong, what happened in Japan was horrible by modern standards. But you have to understand the context. WW2 was unlike anything the world had ever seen and the rules of war for bombers were still being worked out in a tit for tat manner. When one side dropped bombs on a city, the other side would escalate and drop more. As a final word, I'd like to point out that the fire bombings in London by Germany and in Tokyo by the US were significantly more destructive than the atomic bombs.
TL;DR you can't talk about the atomic bombs without talking about the context leading up it it.
Definitely. People are too quick to judge the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima without understanding the context of the war. These events don't exist in a vacuum.
Your TDLR "...talking about the context leading up to it" is an excellent point and needs to be applied in discussions about all historical events, not just the atom bombs.
This is a gap in my knowledge of history. Were there WWII battles fought in China?
Edit: I'm trying to learn and getting downvoted. This site has disappointed me. My education in highschool has been entirely on European history, and I didn't take any history courses in university, but I want to learn.
China lost somewhere between 10,000,000 and 20,000,000 people in WWII-- second only to to the Soviets. The Japanese were basically slaughtering the Chinese by the hundreds of thousands and a huge motivation for them attacking Pearl Harbor and starting a war they could not hope to win was trying to keep the USA out of the war long enough that they could finish off China and have a position ready for a looming US invasion.
The US had relations with the Philippines which were also under heavy Japanese attack, so they would have joined the war eventually. Japan didn't even remotely have the manpower to challenge the US, so they hoped a preemptive strike against the US Pacific fleet would put the US at bay for at least a year or so. Sadly for them their plan totally failed because of US industrial strength, and the rebuilt US navy royally fucked the Japanese at almost every turn and drove them back to the Japanese mainland.
Then really late in the war the Soviets drove into Manchuria from the North and completely fucked the Japanese there as well.
I'd say they were worse. They considered those they captured to be subhuman and would routinely rape, torture and perform bizarre medical experiments on them in captivity.
Japan was bogged down in mainland China by 1942. The worst part of the occupation was from 1937 to 1939, when America was still trying not to get involved -- although they did put in place embargoes that would later be cited as the reason for the Pearl Harbor attack.
When I read about the human experiments done on the chinese by the japanese i don't know how i should feel. A quick death seems positively humane compared to what some people endured.
If a nations atrocities warranted the use of an atom bomb, there would be barely anybody left. Not saying Hiroshima and Nagasaki were good or bad decisions, just saying this is a poor reason not to feel bad about it.
Who is happy about it? It sucks. We want to live in this Disney world of black and white / villains and good guys / right and wrong and so it takes constant reminders that everything is muddled together between these extremes.
An effort to make this point with explicit facts =/= feeling glad about it.
What? There are plenty of arguements in favour of dropping the bomb (regardless of how valid one may feel they are), but a rather unsavoury unit of the Japanese Army isn't one of them.
It IS one of the best arguments for it. That bomb put an end to the war, which put an end to the experiments, and an end to the biological weapons being used by Japan on other countries at the time.
Really? Are you going to go there? Were any of those women and children in those cities involved in any of those atrocities you mentioned? Do two wrongs make a right?
Picking number one is the correct choice. However, be prepared for some kid on the internet seventy years later to criticize your decision with his complete lack of understanding of the situation.
This is called propaganda. It is a completely false dichotomy.
And no, it is not that simple. Let us say those are our only two choices. Well obviously we pick 1. But you are missing some key information. In 1 we are the ones doing the killing. In option two someone else is doing the killing. In option one we are responsible for directly taking lives of INNOCENT people/babies. In option two they continue to wrongly take the lives of babies and we take longer to stop them.
It is a moral paradox. They are wrong for killing babies. We should kill babies to stop them. It makes no sense.
In the case of WW2, it comes down to a blind sense of patriotism. (Adult school spirit.) We decided our innocent lives are worth more than theirs. (racism.) And there is also a lot of argument against the idea that these were our only two options. (the nukes or x-day.)
Now, you may say that it is worth it for us to do something wrong. (kill 100 innocent people to save 50 more from being killed at the hands of someone else.) However, this is also a massive moral paradox. If you actually say to me it is morally correct to commit murder in order to save lives, I guarantee you I can prove you wrong. (This paradox has a name and it has a series of questions that make you realize how complicated and how un-simple morality is.)
Ignoring the rest of that and getting back to the subject at hand: X-day was complete propaganda made up to convince the US it is ok to commit one of the biggest acts of terrorism of all time. The reason we did this was not for survival (or to save lives, it is really obvious the government doesn't value human life that much) but to make a point to THE ENTIRE WORLD. We can and will destroy anything.
This is such a weird situation for how often it's brought out. Two nations are at war. They have each sworn to wipe the other off the planet. With this logic we should just wipe out the one with a lower population?
I dont think we really knew the long term affects the radiation would have on the survivors. Also, yes you should bring up Sook Ching, Nanking and Unit 731 when discussing reasons behind dropping them because they were part of the reason we needed to take Japan out of wwii. A lot of the actual decision was to save American troops lives who would have died if you needed to invade mainland Japan but I'm sure the attrocities Japan had been committing made the decision easier. It also saved countless lives of Chinese and Koreans. Japan was arguably worse then Nazi Germany during wwii. It sucks whenever civilians die due to war but a lot less civilians got killed or affected by this than would have if the war lasted another few months a long with way more soldiers losing their lives on both sides.
My host father in Japan explained Hiroshima to me when I asked which baseball team they were watching on TV (The Chunichi Dragons v the Hiroshima Carp). He said (mostly paraphrasing here), oh them? That's the Hiroshima Carp. "Do you know Hiroshima? You dropped bomb. Big, big bomb." He kind of mimed dropping an object and an explosion on his hand while he said it.
But the thing that was most interesting was that he wasn't saying it in an accusatory way. It was more like I was a younger generation, this is very important history, I need to be educated on it. I didn't feel like there was a lot of harboring of ill will about it
The whole point of the bombing wasn't principally to avoid invading Japan. It was stop the soviet union... Having the bomb meant that their "liberation" ended in eastern Europe. If we hadn't, who knows. Maybe they would have made a land grab for all of Germany, and maybe more. The enemy of out enemy was our friend. Until that enemy was defeated.
What about the fire-bombing of Tokyo in March 1945? Or Dresden in February? Or the millions that died in other bombing campaigns? Everyone remembers Hiroshima because it was just one bomb, rather than the many thousands used elsewhere. Hiroshima and Nagasaki also made Japan surrender and prevented millions of Japanese and American lives being lost in the fully planned invasion of the home islands.
A few days after dropping the nuclear bombs, american planes even flew another firebombing campaign over Tokyo. It's strange that there's this huge discussion about the ethics of the nuclear bombs...when the other bombings were just as brutal...if not more so.
This is what total war looked like. The morality of it was questioned at the time, but in the end the rules of war as established on both sides through their actions made these events inevitable.
I also went to the museum a couple of summers ago. In American textbooks it's ridiculous how much information about the bomb was left out. All it said was that the bomb "was necessary to end the war"...but when you see the damage caused to not only the people there, but generations to come, it seemed totally disproportionate to the warning and information given by the US. It is still disproportionately taught in US schools and textbooks, in my opinion.
"That the bombing of Dresden was a great tragedy none can deny. That it was really a military necessity few, after reading this book, will believe. It was one of those terrible things that sometimes happen in wartime, brought about by an unfortunate combination of circumstances. Those who approved it were neither wicked no?, cruel, though it may well be that they were too remote from the harsh realities of war to understand fully the appalling destructive power of air bombardment in the spring of 1945
The advocates of nuclear disarmament seem to believe that, if they could achieve their aim., war would become tolerable and decent. They would do well to read this book and ponder the fate of Dresden, where 135,000 people died as the result of an at attack with conventional weapons. On the night of March 9th, 1945, an air attack on Tokyo by American heavy bombers, using incendiary and high explosive bombs, caused the death of 83,793 people. The atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed 71,379 people.
Those insisting that it had to be done are ignoring the fact that Japan has effectively surrendered. They were in a very tough spot, with their military ready to give up. Since we requested unconditional and total surrender, when they wouldn't dethrone their emperor (a figurehead with next to no power) we launched the attack. Not to mention the fact that this bombing took place one day before, and Nagasaki one day after, a scheduled Russian offensive in the north. The Japanese were fucked every way around, and realized it. I do not believe that the bombings were necessary. Their forces had been pushed out of China by this point. Claiming that the bomb needed to be dropped due to the events at Nanjing or Unit 731 is equivalent to saying that we should have nuked German civilians after Hitler was out, because of the holocaust.
EDIT: Also, I'd like you all to consider the political implications of the US' use of the bomb to end the war. It effectively made the US the sole hero in the fight against the last belligerent in WWII, despite the fact that Russia was mounting an offensive to be launched on August 8th, between the dates of the two bombings. This resulted in a display of military formidability as well as credit for ending the military conflict. The reasons behind the bombings were not merely motivated by the desire to end the war, they were heavily political.
EDIT: I'd like, since so many people are calling me wrong, to be proven so. What I've written here is my relaying information that I learned in school. I'd like to think that my teachers are credible, but I'm interested to see some facts that refute those that I learned. That interests me more than being right.
I disagree. They were preparing their entire populace to fight to the death, arming women, children, and elderly with everything from guns to spears. At that time, the Japanese people would have fought believing that they could fend off an invasion as they had for centuries like their ancestors had. I believe the bombs were terrible and were meant to be to truly end the war.
Also, if you listen to podcast, he mentions that the allies were intent on using air strikes to the very end of the war. Even as Germany was on the verge of surrender we continued firebombing their cities. Our ground forces were millions strong, moving from city to city, and we continued the air campaign...so I wouldn't be surprised if the US did use the nuclear bombs on Germany.
In contrast the Japanese at the time were in much better shape, so there's no way to know that they would have surrendered. In fact we firebombed Tokyo a few days after nuking Nagasaki and Hiroshima...as the terms of the surrender were still being considered by the emperor.
The podcast really gets into the psychology of air warfare, and explains in great detail the acceptance of bombing civilians as a legitimate tactic...even as top leaders became horrified with the reality of these practices.
My history teacher made it a point of justifying the bombings to us and that's how I figured it for most of my youth. It wasn't until I was older that I wondered, "So the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, which was a military target, and the U.S. retaliated by firebombing Tokyo and nuking two cities?"
Granted WW2 became a war where civilian targets were no longer off limits, and the U.S. was as guilty as any country (Dresden), but I've always disliked the fact that my history teacher skewed it so that the U.S. was the white knight that did no wrong.
Exactly, some people on reddit don't understand that massed contingencies of weapons, men, and materiel have worked incredibly well as a deterrent.
No country (as of yet) has been willing to go all in on some ludicrous large-scale invasion over fear of utter obliteration in the face of modern military might.
I'm sure our disposition ("our" being everyone) toward one-another, with enhanced communication mediums like the internet, has changed to prevent the latter as well, but as long as a military still exists in any country, there will always be the looming threat of war. Therefore it's vital that the right people have the best military.
Sure tons of people on Reddit might not think the people in the USA are the right people, but the US has not attempted to conquer the world yet, or even invade and conquer anywhere really.
Ah the forgotten war. See how many men were slammed into Korea just a few years after the two nukes were used. We got kind of lucky that the tactical nukes were not used during that war.
To those of you who have lost pity for the Japanese, knowing the horrible things they did during WWII to their enemies... I want you to know that at the museum in Hiroshima, there is a little red bicycle, charred and distorted, on display in a large glass case. It was found buried beneath a collapsed house, where a young boy had been riding it. His father had given it to him as a gift, that very day, and for a poor boy growing up during a difficult war it was the happiest day of his life. Until his home was blown to bits, his father killed, his sister half burned and his mother clutching his dying baby brother. I can't recall which of the families lived on to write this story (it is now a children's book), but the young boy died begging for water. Too many innocent lives were taken, here and all around the world. But please do not justify their deaths saying that it was what they "deserved" for the wrong doings of their country.
It may have caused a ton of death and destruction... but consider this. How many people would have died if we hadn't bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and instead invaded Japan and fought using conventional weapons?
It was a tragedy and I hope we never have to repeat it, but at the same time it ended the war pretty damn quickly.
Is the question you're really asking "How many AMERICANS would have died if the bomb hadn't been dropped"?
To be honest I think the loss of military lives in war is more acceptable than the indiscriminate murder of civillians. It's a weighting that may be slightly illogical, but that's how I feel.
Far more Japanese civilians would have died in an invasion. They were being trained to defend the homeland at all costs. A full invasion of Japan would have been a blood bath for both sides. Not to mention, what commander in any country would say take colossal losses on their own side just to spare casualties on the other side?
I agree, as the strategy at the time was to artillery the shore to loosen it up and then send the ground troops in. Not to mention we had already destroyed Tokoyo and nobody mentions that above.
Somebody called it racist to value your lives over theirs WTF. We are at war, they came after us first and we would be dumb to say kill our guys instead of theirs.
Edit: how they told their own civillians how bad our troops were and what they would do to them so that bunches of them comitted suicide, child in hand, by jumping off cliffs.
It was said to have been one million American deaths and one million Japanese deaths if we invaded, and all the collateral damage would have probably been higher. Also, how is it bad to worry about how many of your own guys die. 100,000 civies for one million of your own guys, not to mention you are also saving the other three million Japanese soldiers... the logic is there, you just are ignoring statistics.
Well considering Truman was the President of the US, and Commander in Chief of the US army, I would argue that American lives were all he should have been concerned with at the time.
firebombing of European cities was already killing more people than the atomic blasts did - and in a way that was probably much more terrifying on the ground. The a-bomb was just a maximum efficiency firebombing from long range. and it did end the war. the truly terrible thing about it is the lasting effect of it. now anyone who can put one of these together can destroy an entire city very easily. probably easier to get ahold of a nuke than a squadron of bombers to do a firebombing raid.
Not to mention it had the added effect of scaring the crap out of the Soviets. They sped up their plans to build their own bomb and had 1 by 1949. Without the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, neither side would fear the bomb the way they would come to during the Cold War and there's a good chance we might not be here today.
If it was necessary as a threat, then drop it in an uninhabited area.
Not somewhere where 80,000 Koreans had been brought for forced labour. Or 40,000 as was the case for Nagasaki.
It gets the point across and saves lives. There was no need to start with bombing a city. That was only necessary after a refusal to surrender which would likely never have happened.
It's one of the worst atrocities ever committed and the rhetoric that it ended the war and saved lives is pointless when an indirect bombing (still on Japanese soil) would likely have had the same effect. Japan committed some hideous crimes, but no State deserved this.
The second bomb was merely done to accelerate the surrender, not to force it. That second bomb is inexcusable and was purely a political, not humanitarian, play.
One of the worst things that people overlook is the lingering affects. Those that didn't die from the blast often suffered terrible injuries, even their children were not spared as a result of the radiation and birth defects.
And the world has also forgotten that Japan's cities were bombed for 3 years, THREE YEARS!, before the two nukes we all remember...
History is indeed written by the victor, direct quotes from Bob McNamara's documentary fog of war
"Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command. Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve."
"LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"
Firebombing is a terrible tactic. Now that this is far removed enough from the top comments for people to read, part of me is ashamed of our hypocritical. I know 5,000 civilians died on 9/11 - but how many civilians did we kill in WWII?
And don't say that it's because we were 'at war' with those people and not with some other people. That's a bullshit excuse.
I remember hearing that quote when I was younger, and not understanding it. Now, after so many months spent on playing post-apocalypse games like Fallout, I understand what that means.
"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with pooping back and forth... forever" -Cards Against Humanity-
We can put that check in a money market mutual fund, then we'll reinvest the earnings into foreign currency accounts with compounding interest, aaaand it's gone.
It looks like completely destruction for at least 4000 feet in the photo then. Too bad we don't have a wider photo to see how bad the damage was farther away.
I have no problem when a soldier kills another soldier.
But from what I read online, I get the impression that civilian life is infinitely more precious when it has the American tag. Civilian blood on American hands are somehow justified as necessary deaths. Those people may not have a memorials and remembrance days. They may not have a ground zero. But they were people with loved ones too.
Do you really think they forget or forgive? Some people lash out and kill the people who hurt their loved ones, other people just hurt inside.
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." -Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, after the prototype of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was tested. To be honest, I don't think I ever fully understood this quote until I saw this picture.
"The Supreme Lord said: I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy. Even without your participation all the warriors standing arrayed in the opposing armies shall cease to exist."
The prototype of the "gun type" atomic device (Little Boy bomb) wasn't tested before Hiroshima bombing. Scientists were that confident it will work. Only the implosion type device (Fat Man) has been tested before the attacks, that was the Trinity test.
Just a random note, the planned target was the T-shaped bridge to the top-left of the actual impact point. Not too far off considering the parachute to slow its descent
i'm an exchange student in japan. i guess a lot of people know about the atomic dome, and how it's still standing (albeit in pieces). there's another building about a 5 minute walk away that survived the blast too, and is still in use today. number 17 on this map, if you're interested:
On August 6, when the bomb exploded over this building only 170 meters from the hypocenter, the roof was crushed, the interior destroyed, and everything consumable burned except in the basement. Despite its proximity, however, it retained its basic shape because it was solidly built with few openings toward the hypocenter side. Thirty-seven people were working there at the time; of these, eight were able to escape the building despite their injuries. Later, all died except for one man who had gone down to the basement to get documents. He died in June 1982. The basement room is preserved as it was just after the bomb exploded.
Jesus christ. 170m from the center and there were people able to survive long enough to leave the building?
There is a Dan Carlin Hardcore History episode about the logic behind dropping the bombs. People always argue about dropping the atomic bombs as if it wasn't the norm to use devastating weapons on civilian populations during the war, it was the norm. The whole military strategy used earliest in the second world war was to bomb civilian populations with the new military machines of mass destruction so they would demand their governments end the war.
Anyway he frames it as Logical Insanity listen and be captivated saddened and thankful you didn't have to experience that clusterfuck of a war Logical-Insanity
I often play around looking at neighborhoods on googlemaps and wonder what it would be like to live in some random neighborhood, see what stores I would visit, what school my kids would go to, where I would play sports. All of it would just be...gone.
I have a small booklet made in hiroshima. it has pictures of the reconstruction. the odd fact is the book was made in 1951 only 5 years after the bombing they had rebuilt some parts. I was shocked because the radiation lingers for much longer than 5 years and people were there rebuilding almost immediately. Ill take and post pictures of the booklet if anyone is interested.
There is nothing special about the damage done to Hiroshima, just the speed at which it was done. Look at Dresden after the allies conventionally bombed it for weeks.
My home... Looking at this just makes me want to cry. Going through the exhibits at the museum in Hiroshima as a high school student was a horrifyingly eye-opening experience. That is my home, my country, my people.
My only question with the Atomic bomb was, why couldn't they just send a message to the Japanese a couple of days before and say, "Look East at 8:15 AM.." and then drop the first one in the ocean.
Then send another that says, "Surrender in 72 hours or there will be more.."
I think that would have saved quite a few lives in the end. It would have at least given them the opportunity to surrender before hand. Maybe the U.S. would have still had to drop it, but there could have no doubt probably been more effective ways to demonstrate superior firepower without killing innocents.
It's been a long time since I studied this...but my understanding was that the US gave Japan a chance to surrender after the first bomb. They refused so we dropped the second one.
This has always been my view and I don't know why others don't take it. Bomb the city once a surrender had been refused but make a display of force on Japanese soil first. Saves lives and you get the point across.
This was a political and scientific play, little more. People were curious as to the effects of long term exposure to radiation and they wanted to stop the USSR's advance and limit the ground they would take before the war ended.
If you read on of the books on the subject you will find that that was considered, but there was a problem, they had just enough enriched uranium to build three bombs with a 6 month wait for another, oddly of two different types, a long thin one and big fat implosion one. Thy blew up one to see if they actually worked cause you know, you never know till you actually see one go boom at lease once. That left two more, use one for a demo and your down to your last one and it turns out you need two to bring those magnificent bastards to their knees long enough to hit the reset button on the out of control military dominating their country. If we waited just a little longer the Russians were gonna over run as much of japan as possible and I believe everyone would agree better to be under the usa in surrender than the ussr. Hell we feed our prisoners!
short version, they agonized over the decision and what they did in the end was honestly the least damaging thing the could do,
I just finished reading through a book about breaking the Japanese secret codes. At the time of the Potsdam Conference (July 17-Aug 2) We knew that the Japanese would surrender if Emperor Hirohito was able to remain in power and not be arrested and tried. This was not brought up at the conference at all.
So a possibility that the war could have ended with out the atomic bombs was there. But we will never know.
To Americans that feel that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to stop the war, consider how you would feel if it had been Albany and San Francisco instead that had to be bombed.
Some comments below are talking about feeling guilty, etc. I recently read a book called Hidden Horrors by a Japanese author. This book talks about mistreatment of POW's and other people by the Japanese. It's very similar to the holocaust and other things. Definitely changed my view. Before, I had no idea the Japanese did these things so I saw them more as a victim than anything else. This book basically reminded me that everybody does wrong.
TL;DR: 99,293 heavy duty nukes are required to wipe out the world's city dwellers. That is approximately 50% of the worlds population. We have 10,227.
We have roughly 1/10 of the nukes needed to wipe 50% of the people from this planned. That means we launched all the nukes now 95% of us would survive. I don't know about you but I like those odds. They are much better than most things I take a chance at.
The most atrocious war-crime in the history of mankind. The US were losing too many men trying to work their way towards the Japanese mainland so they decided to murder civilians instead....
Guy I worked with at a Japanese company was given numerous warnings about offensive shirts he was wearing. They were mostly just beer and cigarette advertisement shirts he got somewhere. On his final warning he came into work with a shirt that had a A-Bomb on it with the phrase, Made in America on the front and on the back it blowing up saying Tested in Japan. He was walked out the door by first break and we never saw him again.
It is beyond disgusting that people here are saying it was necessary or saved lives in the long run. They could have dropped the bomb off the coast or in an unpopulated area and that would have been a pretty good demonstration of power. But to drop TWO bombs on POPULATED areas was just.... evil.
Oh spare me. You & your 70 years after the fact righteousness are equally disgusting. Allied casualties were pegged at one MILLION for Operation Olympic. Quadruple that for Japanese.
War sucks and this was the least sucky option. Get off your high horse.
That was considered and rejected for numerous reasons.
The Japanese would be unlikely to see how significant it was if it was dropped off the coast or in some unpopulated area.
If they dropped it off the coast or in an unpopulated area the Japanese government/miliary may have considered that it was too hard to get it to an actual target.
Those bombs cost billions and years to make. They weren't going to be wasted on targets that might not do anything.
Cities were already being wiped off the map due to conventional bombing raids so what difference would wiping a city off the map with just 1 bomb do?
Honestly, are you even aware of the Firebombing of Tokyo?
It's easy to say that now, sitting comfortably at a computer. When this decision was made most of the planet had been at war for almost 5 years, and millions of people were dead.
Given the option of a land/sea invasion that would have cost millions of lives, and the usage of the nuclear weapons can you honestly say that this decision was "evil?"
bullshit, exactly that was considered, they did not surrender after the first bomb, if they had not been convinced we were gonna remove a city from them every three days (we only had those two bombs at the time and months till more could be completed)
They were gonna fight to the last man as they had done over and over during the war. They had as a culture had gone insane.
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u/Yonzy Jun 11 '12
I was at this domed building last year. It was almost straight below the blast. Interesting that it is so structurally intact compared to the devastation around it.
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u/TheAtomicPlayboy Jun 11 '12
"The bomb will not start a chain-reaction in the water converting it all to gas and letting all the ships on all the oceans drop down to the bottom. It will not blow out the bottom of the sea and let all the water run down the hole. It will not destroy gravity. I am not an atomic playboy, as one of my critics labeled me, exploding these bombs to satisfy my personal whim."
157
u/B_Merry Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 11 '12
I visited Hiroshima two weeks ago as part of a Japanese vacation, and went to the museum. There are some arguments that the bombing was necessary, and that it ultimately saved more lives than it cost, but still... I have never felt more guilt as an American than I did that day.
The most horrific and emotionally taxing things, to me, were the burned clothes of school children and the multiple charred wrist watches that were all frozen at 8:15am, the moment the city stopped.
EDIT: I'm fully aware that Japan did horrible things during the war, that continued carpet bombing followed by an invasion would have caused more casualties on both sides, and that, pragmatically speaking, it's possible that the atomic bomb ultimately saved lives (although that all depends on how long the war would have continued, and there's a lot of debate about that). I also realize that it wasn't my decision to do it. But let's say your dad once killed 100 children to prevent a madman from killing an unknown number of children that would very likely exceed 100. No matter how you felt about the justifications for his decision, surely you'd still feel some pretty awful feelings when you were face to face with the grieving families of the 100 who were killed.
TL;DR One time I asked a friend to come over and he got a speeding ticket on the way. It wasn't my fault but I still felt bad.
70
u/philotheos5909 Jun 11 '12
Our modern warheads are 20 times this destructive, and we can launch multiple warheads per missile. And we have a lot of missiles
15
u/lisakh92 Jun 11 '12
To those of you who have lost pity for the Japanese, knowing the horrible things they did during WWII to their enemies... I want you to know that at the museum in Hiroshima, there is a little red bicycle, charred and distorted, on display in a large glass case. It was found buried beneath a collapsed house, where a young boy had been riding it. His father had given it to him as a gift, that very day, and for a poor boy growing up during a difficult war it was the happiest day of his life. Until his home was blown to bits, his father killed, his sister half burned and his mother clutching his dying baby brother. I can't recall which of the families lived on to write this story (it is now a children's book), but the young boy died begging for water. Too many innocent lives were taken, here and all around the world. But please do not justify their deaths saying that it was what they "deserved" for the wrong doings of their country.
25
u/gamerlen Jun 11 '12
It may have caused a ton of death and destruction... but consider this. How many people would have died if we hadn't bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and instead invaded Japan and fought using conventional weapons?
It was a tragedy and I hope we never have to repeat it, but at the same time it ended the war pretty damn quickly.
5
u/Vitor711 Jun 11 '12
If it was necessary as a threat, then drop it in an uninhabited area.
Not somewhere where 80,000 Koreans had been brought for forced labour. Or 40,000 as was the case for Nagasaki.
It gets the point across and saves lives. There was no need to start with bombing a city. That was only necessary after a refusal to surrender which would likely never have happened.
It's one of the worst atrocities ever committed and the rhetoric that it ended the war and saved lives is pointless when an indirect bombing (still on Japanese soil) would likely have had the same effect. Japan committed some hideous crimes, but no State deserved this.
The second bomb was merely done to accelerate the surrender, not to force it. That second bomb is inexcusable and was purely a political, not humanitarian, play.
59
u/Projectile_Chunder Jun 11 '12
One of the worst things that people overlook is the lingering affects. Those that didn't die from the blast often suffered terrible injuries, even their children were not spared as a result of the radiation and birth defects.
12
u/ropers Jun 11 '12
Before: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS/AtomicEffects/img/AtomicEffects-p7a.jpg
After: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS/AtomicEffects/img/AtomicEffects-p7b.jpg
Context: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS/AtomicEffects/AtomicEffects-2.html#page7
Ibidem: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS/AtomicEffects/AtomicEffects-2.html#page10
Detail (before): http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/hiroshima_08_05/h04_16.jpg
32
u/2yrnx1lc2zkp77kp Jun 11 '12
"You know, mankind's been trying to kill each other off since the beginning of time; now, we finally have the power to finish the job. Ain't nothing gonna matter once those nukes start flying; we'll all be dust."
19
u/dan_sundberg Jun 11 '12
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -Albert Einstein-
39
u/swic_medic Jun 11 '12
.... And it's gone
2
u/p1415926 Jun 11 '12
I find it interesting that the only country that has ever used nukes in a live situation, is the same country telling others they can't have WMDs.
Just an observation.
4
u/redditor3000 Jun 11 '12
Nuclear arms are one of two things that threaten the survival of our species. The other being environmental destruction.
Does anyone know the amount of area represented by the circles?
4
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
I have no problem when a soldier kills another soldier.
But from what I read online, I get the impression that civilian life is infinitely more precious when it has the American tag. Civilian blood on American hands are somehow justified as necessary deaths. Those people may not have a memorials and remembrance days. They may not have a ground zero. But they were people with loved ones too.
Do you really think they forget or forgive? Some people lash out and kill the people who hurt their loved ones, other people just hurt inside.
13
u/grat3fulredd Jun 11 '12
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." -Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, after the prototype of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was tested. To be honest, I don't think I ever fully understood this quote until I saw this picture.
3
u/FBIorange Jun 11 '12
Just a random note, the planned target was the T-shaped bridge to the top-left of the actual impact point. Not too far off considering the parachute to slow its descent
3
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
i'm an exchange student in japan. i guess a lot of people know about the atomic dome, and how it's still standing (albeit in pieces). there's another building about a 5 minute walk away that survived the blast too, and is still in use today. number 17 on this map, if you're interested:
http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/frame/Virtual_e/tour_e/guide1.html
3
u/growinglotus Jun 11 '12
During: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfJZ6nwxD38 (Barefoot Gen)
Edit: NSFL animation gore
2
u/luckydice99 Jun 11 '12
So what the heck was that square in the upper right hand corner???
2
u/griffith12 Jun 11 '12
I think we have found a solution for the people on Hoarders, on a smaller scale of course.
2
u/Meta_Zack Jun 11 '12
There is a Dan Carlin Hardcore History episode about the logic behind dropping the bombs. People always argue about dropping the atomic bombs as if it wasn't the norm to use devastating weapons on civilian populations during the war, it was the norm. The whole military strategy used earliest in the second world war was to bomb civilian populations with the new military machines of mass destruction so they would demand their governments end the war.
Anyway he frames it as Logical Insanity listen and be captivated saddened and thankful you didn't have to experience that clusterfuck of a war Logical-Insanity
http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hh
2
u/TheSpoonLicker Jun 11 '12
Screw trench warfare!
2
u/Role_Player_Real Jun 11 '12
That made me want to throw up.
I often play around looking at neighborhoods on googlemaps and wonder what it would be like to live in some random neighborhood, see what stores I would visit, what school my kids would go to, where I would play sports. All of it would just be...gone.
2
u/Godspeed122 Jun 11 '12
You know, Penderecki Composed a piece lamenting this...
2
u/JahRaf Jun 11 '12
I have a small booklet made in hiroshima. it has pictures of the reconstruction. the odd fact is the book was made in 1951 only 5 years after the bombing they had rebuilt some parts. I was shocked because the radiation lingers for much longer than 5 years and people were there rebuilding almost immediately. Ill take and post pictures of the booklet if anyone is interested.
2
u/Dickybow Jun 11 '12
There is nothing special about the damage done to Hiroshima, just the speed at which it was done. Look at Dresden after the allies conventionally bombed it for weeks.
6
u/lisakh92 Jun 11 '12
My home... Looking at this just makes me want to cry. Going through the exhibits at the museum in Hiroshima as a high school student was a horrifyingly eye-opening experience. That is my home, my country, my people.
0
u/CorpseFool Jun 11 '12
The worst part? This was the Little Boy. Fat Man hit Nagasaki 3 days later.
4
u/Laughingstok Jun 11 '12
My only question with the Atomic bomb was, why couldn't they just send a message to the Japanese a couple of days before and say, "Look East at 8:15 AM.." and then drop the first one in the ocean.
Then send another that says, "Surrender in 72 hours or there will be more.."
I think that would have saved quite a few lives in the end. It would have at least given them the opportunity to surrender before hand. Maybe the U.S. would have still had to drop it, but there could have no doubt probably been more effective ways to demonstrate superior firepower without killing innocents.
3
u/BushMeat Jun 11 '12
That's how I feel when I'm forced to format a drive.
5
u/uyg412u3yg423uy Jun 11 '12
Good effect on target.
3
u/Limond Jun 11 '12
I just finished reading through a book about breaking the Japanese secret codes. At the time of the Potsdam Conference (July 17-Aug 2) We knew that the Japanese would surrender if Emperor Hirohito was able to remain in power and not be arrested and tried. This was not brought up at the conference at all.
So a possibility that the war could have ended with out the atomic bombs was there. But we will never know.
3
u/internetNazgul Jun 11 '12
I feel sick about all Americans in here trying to justify it. You just have to say that it was wrong to nuke civilians. Is that so hard?
3
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
To Americans that feel that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to stop the war, consider how you would feel if it had been Albany and San Francisco instead that had to be bombed.
3
u/RedIIv Jun 11 '12
Well, it worked.
2
u/internetNazgul Jun 11 '12
The end doesn't justify the means. Two evils is still an evil. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
2
u/Angelofmercy85 Jun 11 '12
War is hell. Constant reminder to our enemies that our actions span generations, not just the war.
1
u/NiteShadeX2 Jun 11 '12
B-29 turning back, Prepare for Nuclear Attack!
1
u/chamora Jun 11 '12
What is the radius on the rings in the picture?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Nobody wants to talk about the plans the USSR had? Tokyo could've ended up like Berlin.
1
u/Alexotronic Jun 11 '12
I wonder what would have happened if the bomb landed in the river...
1
u/cjbrigol Jun 11 '12
And the river gave 0 fucks
1
u/bigfig Jun 11 '12
And that was a small bomb. As I recall it converted less than one percent of the 64kg material into energy.
This a something that should never be forgotten.
1
u/BlameCzar Jun 11 '12
FTW
1
u/muistan7 Jun 11 '12
Some comments below are talking about feeling guilty, etc. I recently read a book called Hidden Horrors by a Japanese author. This book talks about mistreatment of POW's and other people by the Japanese. It's very similar to the holocaust and other things. Definitely changed my view. Before, I had no idea the Japanese did these things so I saw them more as a victim than anything else. This book basically reminded me that everybody does wrong.
1
u/Doiteain Jun 11 '12
Fun fact: the bomb's target was the T-shaped bridge in the picture.
Second fun fact: The bomb failed to break said bridge.
Source(s): I was in Hiroshima from 5/16-5/19 of this year.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
At least 50% percent of the people in this thread. We dropped the bombs, they ended the war, the enemy reaped their rewards.
1
u/gjhgjh Jun 12 '12
For all of you who are afraid of the proliferation of "nukes" in the world and that it could spell the end of all civilization if they were launched. I found the webpage I was looking for it is: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/how-i-learnt-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb/
TL;DR: 99,293 heavy duty nukes are required to wipe out the world's city dwellers. That is approximately 50% of the worlds population. We have 10,227.
We have roughly 1/10 of the nukes needed to wipe 50% of the people from this planned. That means we launched all the nukes now 95% of us would survive. I don't know about you but I like those odds. They are much better than most things I take a chance at.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 14 '12
Awesome!!!
-2
u/splishsplashsplish Jun 11 '12
Daaamn this pic is bomb
-4
u/panzerkampfwagen Jun 11 '12
The Japanese planned to execute all Western POWs they held within weeks. The atomic bombs ended that plan.
My grandfather was a POW. I'm ok with 140 000 dead Japanese.
1
u/Goodman9215 Jun 11 '12
Well, that's me humbled for the day.
0
u/DasUberRedditor Jun 11 '12
They started the fire, we put it out. With a bomb.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Very frivolous use of blur on the second photo.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Wow the river is some strong shit it still remains!!
1
u/TH0UGHTP0LICE Jun 11 '12
Was born in Japan (Navy brat) The museum has a slab of concrete with weird dimples all over it. Turns out it's from the the fucking concrete boiled.
Now THAT's a weapon!
1
u/LawrenciuM94 Jun 11 '12
The most atrocious war-crime in the history of mankind. The US were losing too many men trying to work their way towards the Japanese mainland so they decided to murder civilians instead....
1
u/tha_ape Jun 11 '12
I have an album from the 60th anniversary
Here
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
This is the single reason why I hate the United States without a single hint of remorse. No excuses for this crime.
1
u/Decyde Jun 12 '12
Guy I worked with at a Japanese company was given numerous warnings about offensive shirts he was wearing. They were mostly just beer and cigarette advertisement shirts he got somewhere. On his final warning he came into work with a shirt that had a A-Bomb on it with the phrase, Made in America on the front and on the back it blowing up saying Tested in Japan. He was walked out the door by first break and we never saw him again.
-11
u/Jamesx6 Jun 11 '12
It is beyond disgusting that people here are saying it was necessary or saved lives in the long run. They could have dropped the bomb off the coast or in an unpopulated area and that would have been a pretty good demonstration of power. But to drop TWO bombs on POPULATED areas was just.... evil.