I’m a bit confused and want to learn more about the bombing of world war two. I’ve read many sources but I beleive many of these’s were biased oppinions. It would be greatly appreciated if I could get someone to answer with an unbiased oppinion.
Thank you very much.
J-chan
It ended the war almost immediately after the second bomb, meaning the Allies wouldn’t have to do a land invasion loosing thousands of troops and also killing thousands more. Thousands of civilians would have died in the fighting as well.
The Japanese were tanacious fighters. They would gladly die for their emperor. Over 99%
chose death rather than surrender. Invading Japan would cause a huge amount of casualties.
The devastation of the atomic bomb actually shortened the war.
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The reasoning was to save lives. The Japanese culture at the time was one of superiority and dominance, and they would have fought until the last man in the country was dead if we had a ground war on their soil. The bombs actually saved lives, both American and Japanese.
EDIT: Sullivan, I do not like this revisionist spin you are trying to put on the bombings, and it sounds akin to the Japanese movement to remove all the imperialistic history from their history books and instead just paint the Japanese as innocent victims of cruel American bombings (a real movement that I read about in an English newspaper when I was visiting Ikebukuro, Tokyo). Let’s not forget about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Let’s not forget about comfort women. Let’s not forget about Guadalcanal. Let’s not forget about the Bataan Death March. Let’s not forget the American, Filipino, and Chinese prisoners that were sent back to Japan and forced into slavery and prostitution. The Japanese psyche was one of superiority over other races, which is what fueled their imperialistic tendencies to begin with, and what fueled a mindset that allowed them to enslave other people. For you to suggest that they would have peacefully surrendered to "inferior" people in a ground war is naive. It took something as shocking as the bombs to prove that they were not superior to their enemies. And for you to imply that we only dropped the bombs as a function of sadism or cruelty is preposterous. If you are an American suggesting this, I feel sorry for the ancestors that died only to have you hating yourself and your culture enough to suggest these things.
EDIT: Let us also take note of the fact that the contemporary Japanese psyche is one of peaceful coexistence in the world. The Japanese now believe that war is awful and unnecessary, regardless of the cause. It was those bombs that turned them from aggressive imperialists to docile pacifists. Even if some terms of peace might have otherwise been reached (which I doubt would happen), it would not have involved the pacification and complete de-militarization of Japan. Therefore, it would not have broken the Japanese mindset of superiority and would have left Southeast Asia and the rest of the world at risk of another Japanese invasion and another war in the Pacific.
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A Sony PlayStation and a Subaru .
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It made Japan realize they could not win the war against the US. It showed our superior firepower and that we would go to almost any means to win. Japan had no choice but to surrender or face annihilation.
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It ended the war almost immediately after the second bomb, meaning the Allies wouldn’t have to do a land invasion loosing thousands of troops and also killing thousands more. Thousands of civilians would have died in the fighting as well.
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the pros and reasons y they did it are
-end war
-save american lives
-get payback from pearl harbor
-japanese werent giving up till death
-show the world what new weapon the U.S had
-they wasted billions of dollars on it and they werent just going to waste them
the cons were
-japanese were already asking for peace treaty
-they killed around 100,000 civillians
-U.S was the only country to use the bomb(are remembered as cruel for that)
-lots of land was destroyed
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recently took it for history and got an A+ on the test
Good ~
- Literally nothing I can think of. (History says it neither ended WWII nor saved any lives – both those statements were created by American politics and a bit of revised history to suit American audiences).
Bad ~
- First and foremost, they were militarily unnecessary.
- As of 2010, there are 400,000 people who are affected by the atomic bombs. For almost 65 years they’ve suffered all sorts of discrimination and health problems. Their children will suffer too.
- Killed 200,000 Japanese civilians immediately.
- Killed 20,000 Korean civilians immediately. (One in seven of the Hiroshima victims were Korean).
- Killed 3,000 Japanese American civilians immediately. (The fact that only 2,300 Americans were killed at Pearl Harbor means that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more Americans than the attack on Pearl Harbor).
- It created the FALSE image that the atomic bombs ended WWII when it was in fact Russia’s declaration of war on Japan on August 9, 1945 followed by their subsequent invasion of Manchuria.
- It created another unbelievable statement that atomic bombs "saved lives", when in fact they were militarily unnecessary. With no navy, no air force, their armies losing against the Chinese, their people at home starving, an American sea blockade in place, American bombers ruling their skies, Russia declaring war on them, and with martial law imposed, Japan was essentially defeated by August 1945. Do atomic bombs or a US invasion sound necessary to you? How people can justify the atomic bombs as necessary to end the war and saving lives is beyond me.
EDIT: Dave – it is not a historical spin. It is historical fact that the Russian intervention played a key role in Japan’s surrender. Russia’s role in ending the Pacific War is taught in almost every school worldwide except America. I wouldn’t be surprised if the average American knew nothing about the Russian intervention. Ultimately, Japanese civilians were as innocent as Chinese and American civilians. Civilians shouldn’t have to pay the price for crimes committed by soldiers. To suggest that they deserved to be atomic bombed for war atrocities and racial superiority displayed by the IJA is just wrong. Do you think it’s fair for you to pay the price for any brutality committed by US soldiers in Iraq? Nobody has forgotten about Japanese war crimes, but does this mean that America can commit a war crime just because the IJA did? Those Japanese men responsible for the war crimes were hanged. To kill anybody else for those war crimes is fundamentally immoral. Do you seriously believe that all Japanese people were duped by militarism? More than 600,000 Japanese soldiers of the Kwantung Army surrendered freely during the Russian invasion of Manchuria in August 1945. All Japanese civilians were evacuated from Iwo Jima before the battle. This is all historical fact and doesn’t suggest in any way the fierce Japanese civilian resistance that some claim. At Okinawa, none of the Okinawans were Japanese in the first place. While many Japanese soldiers fought to the death particularly against Americans, it isn’t a crime for servicemen to prefer to die for their country. I am an American, love the country, but I refuse to endorse American propaganda. The atomic bombs killed a vast majority of Koreans and even more Americans than Pearl Harbor. It was militarily unnecessary as agreed by Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Chester Nimitz, William Leahy and Carl Spaatz, yet some people today who wern’t even alive in 1945 claim it ended the war and saved lives, which is just a joke. If atomic bombs were necessary to end WWII then I wouldn’t condemn them, but the fact is they wern’t. It wasn’t as if atomic bombs were the difference between victory vs. defeat, ending the war vs. prolonging the war, or saving lives vs. heavy casualties.
Japanese peaceful psyche has been around in there country for centuries, long before America even became a nation. To suggest that the Japanese only became pacifists after atomic bombs were dropped on their nation is just downright ridiculous. Please don’t make such ignorant statements without knowing the history to support it.
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