Forum menu
Yes. Its only recently the USA finished up using their stockpile of purple heart medals (for those wounded/killed on active duty) that they had prepared for the invasion of Japan.
500,000 of them had been made.
and save untold American lives.
And the lives of people in countries that the Japanese had occupied and were murdering at a rate of thousands per week.
500,000 of them had been made.
So half a million Americans have been wounded/killed on active duty since the end of WWII?
The United States has been busy!
then you know as much as any of the rest of us, and have probably read the same books as the rest of us.
But he's right in saying that these weapons were used as a way to force the Japanese to surrender though.
The Japanese are estimated to have killed something between 3-10milion civilians in China (Chinese deaths alone are estimated to have been more than 6 million) , in Indonesia, Burma and other Pacific countries. They enslaved Koreans and Filipinos and worked them to death, and all that excludes their treatment of allied POW.
Any examination of the use of these weapons has to be contextual
500,00 thousand were prepared in advance and nearly 450,000 were left at the end of the war, it's a costly business protecting our right to post shit on the internet ernie 🙂
I guess most of the American casualties protecting my right to post shit occurred in Vietnam?
Edit:
500,00 thousand were prepared in advance and nearly 450,000 were left at the end of the war
So WWII = 50,000?
That's less than Vietnam.
I'm not sure @avdave numbers are right.
I think over a million Purple Hearts were issued in WW2, and I think there were 500,000 left and the end (1.5 million were made) and they've only just finished issuing the surplus stock.
But he’s right in saying that these weapons were used as a way to force the Japanese to surrender though.
I don't disagree, but I'd argue, as many others have, that a test of the weapons was almost certainly a big part in the decision to use them. How much, I don't know - that's why I said that thols2 doesn't know either when they categorically stated that it wasn't a test. There have been 70 years of arguing about this.
So WWII = 50,000?
No, the Americans made vast numbers of them, allowing for 500,000 just for the invasion of Japan. Obviously they couldn't have been produced at once, the ramp up began some time before the bomb was dropped and the net result was that by the end of the war just under 450,000 were left.
I first heard of this at the end of last week listening to The Bomb a rather good podcast from the World Service. I've just got to the end of series one and I'd highly recommend it.
There have been 70 years of arguing about this.
Yes and the people who knew didnt say and I think are all dead now.
My guess would be it was a combination of several reasons.
To try and get the Japanese to surrender.
To "test" the weapons out.
To warn the USSR.
Possibly others as well.
I’d argue, as many others have, that a test of the weapons was almost certainly a big part in the decision to use them
Based on what? Can you cite any U.S. government records of the discussions about whether to use the bombs and where to drop them that show that testing them was a "big part" of the decision? What is your almost certainty based on?
Yes and the people who knew didnt say and I think are all dead now.
My guess would be it was a combination of several reasons.
To try and get the Japanese to surrender.
To “test” the weapons out.
To warn the USSR.
Possibly others as well.
Yeah, there's something in the back of my head as well...
Hiroshima bomb is dropped, Japan refuse to surrender.
A few days later Russia declares war on Japan.
A few days later Nagasaki bomb is dropped.
A few days later Japan surrenders.
Without googling - and I can't remember if that sequence is correct - isn't part of the argument along the lines of Japan were going to surrender once Russia got involved, so the US lobbed an unnecessary second bomb. And, even if they didn't surrender, US casualties wouldn't have been horrific because Russia. But hold on, Russia is involved so we'd better win this thing before they get their boots here...
To paraphrase the mess that's in my head. 😀
I’d argue, as many others have, that a test of the weapons was almost certainly a big part in the decision to use them
Based on what? Can you cite any U.S. government records of the discussions about whether to use the bombs and where to drop them that show that testing them was a “big part” of the decision? What is your almost certainty based on?
😀
Your certainty is catching.
Ernie – the point I was making was that chewkw was suggesting the Americans were in some way morally inferior by commenting on the fact that they dropped atomic bombs. I was pointing out that they’re all barbaric. I’d also add that we’re all victims of propaganda.
No, they are Not morally inferior but Equally Bad where victory is concerned.
Interesting discussion. As an aside, the US threatened and seriously considered using nuclear weapons during the Korean war too. At a stage in the war where they weren't doing too well with conventional weapons and strategy. This was at a time when the US had a huge nuclear advantage, China hadn't yet tested any nukes and Russian tests were at an early stage and not yet readily deployable. So the US could possibly have used them with limited if any nuclear reprisals. I think it was 'tactical' nukes against Korean/Chinese troop concentrations that were envisaged, not strategic bombing of cities, but still... Worrying that it was seriously considered.
isn’t part of the argument along the lines of Japan were going to surrender once Russia got involved, so the US lobbed an unnecessary second bomb.
No, the U.S. didn't know what Japan's response would be. They only had enough uranium and plutonium to make a few bombs, but Japan didn't know how much they had. Japan had nuclear physicists who could quickly analyze the fallout and reverse engineer how the nuclear reaction must have worked. They could figure out how much fissile material must have been needed and knew that producing it would have been extremely difficult. The U.S. wanted to demonstrate that they had multiple bombs and could use them regularly, rather than just being a one-off weapon that expended all the fissile material available. Dropping a second bomb a few days later showed that it was an operational weapon and Japan had to assume that the U.S. could incinerate the entire country.
The Japanese leadership was split. They knew that the war was going very badly, but the hard-line militarists still didn't want to surrender, even after the Nagasaki bombing and the Emperor's acceptance of surrender. The Emperor recorded his famous broadcast, "enduring the unendurable and suffering the insufferable." After the recording was made, but before it was broadcast, militarists raided the imperial palace, murdered a guard, and wanted to destroy the recording because they wanted to keep fighting. The U.S. was correct in being skeptical about Japanese willingness to surrender - the militarists wanted to all die in a glorious final battle to the death. The second bomb made it clear to the Emperor that the war was lost and at least he was realistic enough to call it quits right there and then.
isn’t part of the argument along the lines of Japan were going to surrender
I think the US had intelligence traffic from various embassies around the world from the Japanse putting the feelers out about surrender terms, as early as late 1943 but the 4 conditions of surrender they suggested were thought as unacceptable and the State dept. was instructed to reject any proposal that included them. As @thols2 points out, there was an attempted military coup even after the Nagasaki bombing; Kyujo Incident. After Hiroshima the Japanese cabinet were split, Gen Korechi Anami for instance was convinced/had accepted Japan couldn't win against the Allies but argued to continue to fight regardless. It's not at all clear that they would've surrendered without the atomic weapons drops.
So we create a thread especially to talk about the Cuban missile crisis having derailed another one, and we are straight into WW2....
But I've learnt a few things I didn't know, so always good
So we create a thread especially to talk about the Cuban missile crisis having derailed another one, and we are straight into WW2….
But I’ve learnt a few things I didn’t know, so always good
So, the Tories then. What a bunch of...
😀
So, the Tories then. What a bunch of…
Gotta be better than that Starmer though, eh comrade?
Interesting discussion. As an aside, the US threatened and seriously considered using nuclear weapons during the Korean war too
There was also some fairly serious discussion about nuking the USSR during the period that the USA had a reasonable arsenal and the Russians hadnt yet made any.
Putin huffs and puffs, but he’s not actually insane.
We can speculate as to whether his messianic, death-fearing impulses are insanity or merely arseholishness, but they come to the same thing. Even if he's an arsehole, he is at the centre of a system that is designed to insulate him from bad news.
Putin thought Ukraine could be flipped in 3 days. Does it matter whether insanity or poor information inputs are the cause of his mistake?
When I was a lad I got to know my next door neighbour, he was former soldier who'd been posted to Berlin when the crisis kicked off. He told me that the British soldiers expected that the entire British garrison would've been either overrun or obliterated within minutes. He claimed to have been able to see Soviet tanks massing on the other side of the wall, as could be seen from the mess.
Dr/MrsPJM's dad was in Germany in tanks at the time too.
I can't imagine how that must've felt to those - lads - who were NCOs, aged 21-25 at that time.
Does it matter whether insanity or poor information inputs are the cause of his mistake?
I would say yes when talking about whether he might launch a nuclear attack.
His inputs would need to be really, really bad to avoid any other conclusion than it will end badly for everyone.
Whereas if he is insane then who knows.
With regards to the 3 day claim. If you look back to the lead up to the war there were lots of western commentators pretty much agreeing with the worse case for him being it would turn into a vicious guerrilla war.
There were a lot of people who called it wrong.
What is your almost certainty based on?
Human nature.
The build such a weapon, but according to your 'Utter nonsense because' point of view, they didnt care about what the results were and would use that model to create more and more exactly the same.
I cant tell if you're naive, or plain argumentative.
As an aside, the US threatened and seriously considered using nuclear weapons during the Korean war too
Plus they had them set to be used should Russia invade Germany, in a WW3 scenario. They were prepared to bury them and set them off in the face of an invading army. Plus we know that nothing is off the table when push comes to shove.
His inputs would need to be really, really bad to avoid any other conclusion than it will end badly for everyone. Whereas if he is insane then who knows.
With regards to the 3 day claim. If you look back to the lead up to the war there were lots of western commentators pretty much agreeing
1) Putin's inputs were really, really bad on the state of Ukrainian defence, and he was catastrophically wrong. He is increasingly isolated and sick.
2) A lot of "Western commentators" are just rent-a-mouths with a Twitter account, and there has always been surprising ignorance among them about Ukraine as it really is. Many of them don't even really know about Russia, let alone Ukraine. In contrast to the "commentators", Putin had access to a) the Russian military, which should have superior information about the state of the Russian war machine, and b) the Russian intelligence services, which should have superior info about the state of the Ukrainian military after 8 years of war.
And yet Putin was just as wrong as these idiots on Twitter.
An interesting article pointing to Putin's increasingly odd health-related behaviour published today: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/russian-defector-sheds-light-on-putin-paranoia-including-secret-train
They were prepared to bury them and set them off in the face of an invading army.
As were the British with Blue Peacock nuclear landmines aka the chicken bomb. There was a problem in winter where they would get to cold to detonate. One proposal was to put some chickens in since their heat would keep it warm enough.
Human nature.
The build such a weapon, but according to your ‘Utter nonsense because’ point of view, they didnt care about what the results were and would use that model to create more and more exactly the same.
I cant tell if you’re naive, or plain argumentative.
LOL. The atomic bomb was built as a weapon. It was tested in New Mexico to make sure that it worked as predicted. It was then dropped as an operational weapon to try to force Japan to surrender. That's all in the historical record.
LOL. The atomic bomb was built as a weapon. It was tested in New Mexico to make sure that it worked as predicted. It was then dropped as an operational weapon to try to force Japan to surrender. That’s all in the historical record.
They hadn't tested it in an actual combat situation, against actual people and infrastructure. Are you unable to see why that would be of interest to those who owned the weapon? Even the reactions of the aircrew who dropped would be useful for the future, never mind the way the bombs damaged the cities and the inhabitants, as opposed to the New Mexico desert.
Of course the bombs were used as a way to make Japan surrender - that's stating the bleeding obvious. The question, for 70 years, has been why the US thought they were necessary, having killed around 300,000 Japanese in fire-bomb raids over the previous few months, some of which were deadlier than the atomic bombings, and why, having dropped the first there was any need to drop the second.
A quote from Robert McNamara - later involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis: Curtis LeMay, in charge of the bombings, 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?
has been why the US thought they were necessary
Because it was increasingly clear that they (the Allies) had to do something as the Japanese were very much prepared to not only try to kill as many allied soldiers, enslaved Koreans and Filipinos and Chinese and Burmese civilians as they could (there are reports that in the weeks preceding the Hiroshima bomb that the Japanese had murdered at least 100,000 civilians), that they were also prepared/had every intention to allow the deaths of every Japanese civilian as well
The US considered dropping a bomb on an uninhabited island as a display of power but judged that that probably wouldn't have been sufficient pressure for them to surrender - Japanese cabinet officials (interviewed after the war) have confirmed that this would've likely been the outcome, as even after the Hiroshima bomb was dropped the Japanese cabinet decided unanimously that although they accepted victory was now out of the question, they should continue to fight.
having dropped the first there was any need to drop the second.
See the Japanese decision to continue to fight after the Hiroshima bomb was dropped but also because they decided that in order to convince the Japanese that the weapon wasn't just a one-off created to trick them into surrendering, they should drop another soon after to show them that they had more weapons ready to go and were prepared to use them, and if that hadn't persuaded the Japanese, further bombs were planed in the coming weeks.
Even the reactions of the aircrew who dropped would be useful for the future
On the Enola Gay none of the flight crew (apart from Col Tibbets and I think the weapons expert on board) had any idea as what exactly the bomb was and what it could do. They were simply issued very strongly shaded googles and told not to look directly at the blast. They mostly just said "Oh my God" reported Tibbets in his after-mission debrief
Because it was increasingly clear that they (the Allies) had to do something as the Japanese were very much prepared to not only try to kill as many allied soldiers, enslaved Koreans and Filipinos and Chinese and Burmese civilians as they could (there are reports that in the weeks preceding the Hiroshima bomb that the Japanese had murdered at least 100,000 civilians), that they were also prepared/had every intention to allow the deaths of every Japanese civilian as well
This is post-fact justification by a side that won the war but knew they had done something terrible, with a huge lump of 20th century Western racism thrown in. (The US weren't interested in who the Japanese were killing in China before Pearl Harbor but became defenders of everyone post-PH?)
You said something earlier about context being important - quite patronisingly, I thought, considering that most people contributing have an idea of why context is necessary - but you are only looking at it in the context of the western combatants. The bit you, and thols2, are deliberately missing, is that the Russians were coming and grabbing land as they came. The bombs weren't just weapons, they were statements.
Btw, I have no need to defend the acts of the Japanese, my great-Uncle was on the Burma railroad. What I'm arguing against is the quite old fashioned view of this that you are both suggesting.
but you are only looking at it in the context of the western combatants.
there are reports that in the weeks preceding the Hiroshima bomb that the Japanese had murdered at least 100,000 civilians
the Russians were coming
The US had made very real plans to invade mainland Japan. The Russians didn't have anything like the capability to do the same. The Invasion plan for Kyushu was called Operation Olympic and was planned for Oct/Nov 1945 and Operation Coronet (planned for Mar '46) was the subsequent invasion of Honshu, the US military had planned for casualty rates of 35%. The Japanese defence plan was called Ketso-Go (Operation Decisive) and planned for the deaths of at least 3 million Japanese. As has been pointed out there was an attempted coup by the Japanese military so that they could go on fighting after the bomb drop over Nagasaki.
I don't think that anyone with any knowledge of the weapons at the time didn't think that was going to be terrible. They just realised that other than this, their only other way to end the war was going to be at least another years worth of fighting and millions of deaths.
The bombs weren’t just weapons, they were statements
In February 1945 the Germans tested a "dirty" bomb in Thuringia killing several hundred concentration camp victims in the process. These weapons were coming. This conflict went from biplanes to jets, The US in particular went from having an Army smaller than Portugal's in 1940 to the worlds first superpower in 1945 everything about it (the war) was a political statement.
(The US weren’t interested in who the Japanese were killing in China before Pearl Harbor but became defenders of everyone post-PH?)
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because the U.S. imposed an economic embargo in response to Japan's invasion of China. The U.S. ended up in the war because they demanded that Japan stop killing Chinese. You could try reading some basic history and you'd learn some stuff.
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because the U.S. imposed an economic embargo in response to Japan’s invasion of China. The U.S. ended up in the war because they demanded that Japan stop killing Chinese. You could try reading some basic history and you’d learn some stuff.
Are you talking about the embargo because Japan invaded Indochina in 1940? That's quite a while after Japan invaded China. I can remember nothing about the US's actions being linked to Chinese deaths, and google throws nothing up. and the US Department of State's Archive https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwii/88734.htm doesn't back up your claim either.
Can you link to your claim?
Are you talking about the embargo because Japan invaded Indochina in 1940?
1. Japan didn't invade Indochina in 1940.
2. The embargo was for the invasion of China, not for Indochina (which came after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941).
Try reading a history book.
Edit. Ahh, you probably mean French Indochina (i.e. Vietnam), not the Indochina region. The U.S. embargo was the result of Japan's invasion of China, not Vietnam. The economic embargo started long before the Japanese invasion of Vietnam. After Pearl Harbor, Japan invaded the Indochina region. The embargo was because of China, not Indochina.
During World War II, on September 22, 1940, Japan invaded Vietnam and began constructing military bases to strike against the Allies in Southeast Asia. Japanese troops remained in Vietnam until their surrender to the Allies in 1945.
In the 1930s, Japan expanded slowly into China, which led to the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. In 1940, Japan invaded French Indochina in an effort to embargo all imports into China, including war supplies that were purchased from the US. That move prompted the US to embargo all oil exports, which led the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) to estimate it had less than two years of bunker oil remaining and to support the existing plans to seize oil resources in the Dutch East Indies.
Japan expanded slowly into China, which led to the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937
Which is when the U.S. began the economic embargo against Japan. It didn't become a total embargo until 1941, but it was the invasion of China that started the ball rolling.
and why, having dropped the first there was any need to drop the second.
The answer there is one is Uranium and the other plutonium. Which works best on people and infrastructure. If they weren't interested in the results(as someone here is suggesting), both bombs would have been made of the same stuff.
both bombs would have been made of the same stuff.
They'd already realised that plutonium was "better" for bombs. Gadget, the bomb in New Mexico was a plutonium bomb. the Hiroshima bomb was a "gun type" (fires something into something else) and research had started earlier on that type, then they realised that imploded cores were "better" and stopped development in favour of the Mk3 (Fat Man) There was only ever going to be one Little Boy bomb. If they'd have waited, both would've been plutonium imploded core types.
The answer there is one is Uranium and the other plutonium. Which works best on people and infrastructure. If they weren’t interested in the results(as someone here is suggesting), both bombs would have been made of the same stuff.
That was explained above. Uranium bombs are much simpler to make, but implosion bombs can be made much more powerful. The U.S. made both because they weren't sure if the plutonium bomb would succeed. The uranium bomb was a fall back. Bombs of the same explosive yield give the same results, apart from how much fallout is produced. The atomic bomb attacks weren't tests of the effects of atomic bombs, they were intended to force Japan to surrender. If the U.S. wanted to compare the bombs' performance, they would have done it under controlled conditions, not an operational mission.
I can remember nothing about the US’s actions being linked to Chinese deaths
USS Panay Incident was 1937 wasn't it? Most folks now think that the Japanese deliberately targeted it and the US Oil tankers. Bombed by the Japanese while it was rescuing Chinese civilians in Nanking.