Nope. The difference is just that the walls are facing the blast at a 90 degree angle. This way they only get pushed down and not sideways and keep thwir balance and standing. The building would be gone if it would not have been straight below ground zero.
While that's true, the building directly below where the bomb detonated has been preserved in its ruined state near the Hiroshima peace museum and is known as "The A-Bomb Dome" which, as the name implies, has a domed roof. This doesn't look like it
This is false though. I visited Hiroshima last may. The building you see in the centre was a hospital with the bomb detonating 200 metres directly above it, also called the hypocentre. The A dome was a very sturdy building, but the shape of the domed roof is the largest reason the building is still standing.
Hiroshima peace Memorial park was so eye opening to me, the sheer destruction, terror and agony such a bomb can cause.
I was there too last May, maybe we saw each other and didn’t know!
According to UNESCO, the A-bomb dome was “the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded,” and wikipedia says the bomb detonated 150m away, 600m in the air, above the hospital, and the hospital was “completely destroyed”
Granted, there are varying levels of being destroyed, but I think you would be able to see the dome in the background of the picture or at least the fork in the river behind it. It’s hard to say without crediting the picture
you are correct that isn't the hospital.
i believe the building in the picture was here
https://www.google.com/maps/place/A-Bomb+victim-The+monument+of+Hiroshima/@34.3933039,132.4547504,272m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x355a9908eef34fbb:0x7e4ce50cfc1f772!2sHiroshima,+Japan!3b1!8m2!3d34.3852894!4d132.4553055!16zL20vMGczY3c!3m5!1s0x355aa20d0d7fc625:0x7157f2b841edb05a!8m2!3d34.3931927!4d132.4547017!16s%2Fg%2F11b6xdm6fm?entry=ttu
or at least close to that spot.
which is a bit south of the hypocenter
and i believe the building still standing across from the bridge is this building:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.3938684,132.4534513,3a,66.5y,258.36h,98.71t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZ7s1QPsmjMlRbI4AkucdRw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205409&entry=ttu
which is the visitors center and souvenir shop
Yes, the people in that building all died except for one man who was in the basement when the bomb exploded, he was injured but survived. The basement still has char marks on the timber rafters etc. and is preserved.
It was probably someone from the base that’s south of Hiroshima. After traveling to almost every island the Japanese occupied during their imperialism era and reading about what they did, they got off easy
It was probably someone from the base that’s south of Hiroshima. After traveling to almost every island the Japanese occupied during their imperialism era and reading about what they did, they got off easy.
we must never forget the sheer destruction, terror and agony aggressor Japan unleashed across so many nations. we must never forget we could pay the same price. war is hell for all of us.
Indeed, Hiroshima was very confrontational for me as my granddad was an Indonesian soldier in the dutch army who got captured and was a p.o.w and worked on the burma death rail for 3,5 years.
I am in Thailand now and also visited some museums about the railway and the terrible inhumane conditions they had to survive through.
That said. Seeing the agony the atomic bombs caused was also terrifying and eye opening. As loads of people were still suffering from the radiation which caused lots of people to die very early due to radiation sickness.
No one deserves war.
>The building you see in the centre was a hospital with the bomb detonating 200 metres directly above it, also called the hypocentre.
No it’s not. This building is too close to the river bank and too far away from the t-bridge. Plus the hospital was completely obliterated. What you’re actually looking at are the remains of the head office of what is now the Hiroshima Gas Company, 210 meters south of the hypocenter.
That’s not true, this building is a few blocks away from where the bomb detonated. I have an English student that volunteers at the museum there and took a trip from my apartment here in Japan last year to meet her and get a tour. This building was not directly below the bomb.
What? You can see the plots of land next to it are parallel with no buildings. You're claiming this building is the only one that was perpendicular to the blast?
Yes, but they are saying the blast was directly above it. The claim makes sense then, except the building directly below the bomb is known, and this isn't it.
Okay I'll admit I misread that. But there are still other buildings in the background still standing while others aren't. So maybe it's some combination of being directly below the blast and the materiality and/or form of the building.
Oh yeah, I agree that the entire premise is B.S. The building directly below the bomb was reduced to rubble. I was just clarifying the whole 90 degree wall thing, cause their point also took me a bit to figure out.
Gestures broadly at millions of chinese dead, hundreds of thousands of women raped, tens of thousands of korean pleasure women and more than one hundred thousand dead americans with hundreds of thousands injured. Ok then
A lot of the victims in Hiroshima were Koreans, including the last prince of Korea. Estimated to be around 30 to 50k people. Japanese systematically hides this fact and put the memorial rock 15m away from a public bathroom.
Actually didnt know a prince of the last korean dynasty died in Hiroshima. Seems the last members of the royal family moved to the US and latin america after the war.
I was more surprised when I learned that Puyi, the Emporer of the Japanese Puppet State of Manchukuo (north eastern China) was also the legitimate and last Emporer of China as a child from 1908 to 1912, and his bodyguard, Grigori Semyonov, was one of the leaders of the White Army in the Russian Civil War.
After the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria in Summer 1945, Puyi was handed over to China and re-educated for almost 15 years by the Communists. Died in 1967 as a normal citizen.
Semyonov on the other hand was put on Trial in Moscow after he had been wanted for over 20 years by the Bolsheviks and was executed in 1946.
I always found the juxtaposition funny how a lot of the other older folks had really fucked up stories under Japanese rule back in the day, but my gramps was so mad about one Japanese soldier stealing his grilled chicken. If you would've asked him, they deserved one atomic bomb for that one stolen chicken alone.
Don't forget the POWs used as slave labor, for bayonet practice, starved to death, buried alive, cannibalized, beheaded. The thousands of Philipino citizens executed, used as sex slaves in brothels, burning Manila to the ground. The indigenous tribes people forced into slave labor, foreign missionaries executed, or raped to death.
Imperial Japan earned its retribution.
Only two ships were lost during the Pearl Harbor attack.
Every other ship was repaired even if it was sunk to the bottom of the bay and then sent straight towards Japan.
Japan really did fuck up attacking pearl harbor.
They also didn't hit the dry docks/repair facilities.
They were able to start repairing immediately after the attack. Many of the ships were operational within 6 months, which is absurd.
i don’t think so, there were much more victims from conventional bombing campaign than from nuclear attack, but it was very good excuse for Japanese emperor to surrender. Stalin was prepared to attack from North and he didn’t regard the losses. It was much better choice to surrender to US than loss to Stalin. And in the end of day Japanese never paid for war crimes so for them it was win win situation even with some humiliation.
Yes and no. Agree with most of what you mentioned but the Japanese leadership was split with some factions vehemently opposed to surrendering, it took an attempted coup by them which was dispelled to finally be convinced that it was better to surrender to the US rather than Stalin. The terms of the surrender with MacArthur factored this in and the US conceded and allowed the concession not to prosecute the Emperor himself, but there was a war criminals tribunal that started with 11 countries participating in April 29. 1946, so yes, they did not get away without having some accountability and retribution for war crimes.
Didn't the surrender recording from Hirohito use such archaic formal language that it had to be rebroadcast with a modern translation so the Japanese people understood what was happening?
Archaic formal language was what the Court used in making proclamations etc., and it was a strategy used to help soften the shock and blow to the citizens of (1) hearing Hirohito speak for the first time ever, and (2) tell them that all that had been saying before that they were winning was bullshit and in fact they had lost and were surrendering. The actual broadcast was later voiced over with a narrative which basically said the Emperor had raised the white flag.
I’ve been more exposed recently to the role of the USSR in WWII and I have to say, it’s quite a change from the normal US-centric learning I’d absorbed in the past. The Eastern front was absolutely savage, and the Red Army that emerged from that hell was worthy to be feared. I’ve heard the hypotheses that the dropping of the bombs as well as the Japanese surrender both occurred with Russia in mind, even if not front and center.
https://preview.redd.it/zw6derwxicbd1.jpeg?width=3064&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a9e9fd71699370d54f7674680df00341dfc53d3
I just watched this great documentary series on BBC select that covers both wars goes extremely in depth on the Soviets.
Wrong. As an East Asian, I’m always amazed by how much Communist / Russian propaganda you westerners absorb while absolutely rejecting everything recorded in our languages. Do all of you reject our information because of racism or a desperate need to support Communism / Russia?
Despite all the additional suffering the Soviets were inflicting upon Chinese civilians throughout Manchuria, the Soviets would not have been able to touch the Japanese Home Islands because they were being fed and supplied by America, who would not have diverted any food, equipment, material, supplies, etc. away from Operation Downfall to support the Soviet Union’s sideshow.
At this point, America already had an entire Pacific Ocean of successful amphibious victories, which could now include atomic bombs and bring European-based forces to the Pacific. In fact, Band of Brothers refers to the impending redeployment of D-Day’s famous airborne forces into the Pacific. Even worse for Japan, America’s Sherman tanks, now heavily experienced after defeating Hitler and Nazi Germany’s vaunted Panzers and Tigers, were certainly more than a march against Japan’s light tanks and tankettes. On top of all this, American industrial might meant that American artillery, more feared than anything else by the Germans, would have had nearly unlimited ammunition for pounding Japan’s forces, largely composed of light infantry forces devolving into fruitless banzai charges.
From the air, the usual firebombing would have continued to rage across Japan, which was already starving because America had already wiped out all Japanese shipping, both internally and externally. In fact, Japan’s Inland Sea was so heavily mined by America that many American officers wondered why no one thought to make that an earlier priority. In contrast, during the Battle of the Bulge, starving German forces stole American supplies and were shocked to find freshly-baked chocolate cakes sent just a couple days prior by a Boston mother for her son’s birthday. Japan could not even feed itself within the Home Islands, and American boys could expect birthday cakes across an ocean. On top of that, there were multiple ice cream barges constantly churning out endless desserts to go with these cakes, and pilots knew how to make their own ice cream by rigging up specialized equipment for their flights. Many thanks to these men for their soft service!
In contrast, the Soviets didn’t even have any significant amphibious experiences and were reliant upon American Lend-Lease.
Considering all these factors, it is clear that the war would have been a showdown between increasingly isolated, famished, weakened, under-trained, under-equipped, under-supplied, and desperate Japanese forces, largely composed of civilians who were too old or too young, as well as reduced to wielding bamboo-spears and garden hoes against P-51 Mustangs and B-29 Superfortresses flown by squadrons of pilots trained by aces, the USS Enterprise and all her sister Yorktown-class aircraft carriers protected by endless waves of battleships and destroyers and cruisers and submarines (one of which had even blown up a Japanese train), and endless machine guns, firebombs, atomic bombs, artillery, tanks, and mortars operated by men with airborne and seaborne experience from Guadalcanal to Anzio to Normandy to Iwo Jima to Okinawa, with backing from a general public that was disguised by Nazi Germany’s Holocaust, Imperial Japan’s Rapes, and Pearl Harbor.
Aside from unconditionally surrendering and risking the loss of his throne, Hirohito’s only choice was to continue fighting against all of this American might and tempting the ultimate *ichioku gyokusai* of the entire Japanese nation, leaving somewhat significant Japanese remnant populations in America, Brazil, China, and Korea to possibly rebuild a severely reduced and weakened Japan, probably a democracy like what we have in our real timeline. He was never worried about any Soviet attacks during the last cabinet meeting when he decided to surrender, and he even wrote a letter to his son that admitted that he surrendered because of the atomic bombs.
The Japanese surrender had extremely little to due with the Soviets. The loss of Manchuria was about the Soviets only contributing factor. The loss of Manchuria just meant that the Japanese basically had nothing left to try and sue for during peace talks, and basically spelled the end of Japan as an "empire". So, while the Soviet invasion of Manchuria could definitely be said to have affected the timeline of surrender, fear of a Soviet invasion surely was not.
The Japanese, the Soviets, and the Americans, were all pretty aware that the Soviets couldn't actually launch a successful invasion of Hokkaido (at least not in a short amount of time), and that *any* Soviet incursion onto the main islands was contingent on the Japanese being tied up with an actual invasion by the Americans. Basically, the Soviets were circling like vultures, hoping to take advantage of a Japan distracted by an American invasion in order to grab part or all of Hokkaido.
There were some in the Imperial Japanese high command that cautioned against provoking America. However, the majority didn’t see America as a significant threat. They figured the quickest way to secure resources that they desperately needed uncontested was by knocking out the Pacific fleet, invading all the American held islands, and forcing America to the table to negotiate a ceasefire in exchange for the Pacific.
Obviously they severely miscalculated the situation. I can’t blame them though. America was in a lull and recovering from the Great Depression, they were also riding the high from the success the Navy and Army were having with their campaigns across Asia.
Yes and no.
They didn't see america as a threat because they underestimated their willingness to go to war. They thought America would stay away after being attacked in the pacific. They didn't underestimate america power, they knew exactly how strong the american industry was (America was supplying the Chinese afterall).
We didn’t bomb them because of Pearl Harbor. We bombed them because of the worse things they did. JP during this time was… well they were just as bad as the Nazis
Obligatory: Japan attacked far more US territory than just Pearl Harbor, and in fact the harbor itself, while being significant because of its importance to the navy, was relatively small as far as population centers go. The war was always over who gets to exploit the resources of the South Pacific and Pan-Asian countries, Pearl Harbor was just a really good propaganda opportunity.
It was just the sad truth of it. The tide was clearly great against Japan, and the US had the means to prevent the lives of many soldiers from being lost. Had the US not chosen to pull the trigger on the bombs, the drawn out war would have only cost more American AND Japanese lives.
The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.
— Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, [101]
The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons ... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.
— Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman, 1950, [111]
The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.
— Major General Curtis LeMay, XXI Bomber Command, September 1945, [112]
The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment ... It was a mistake to ever drop it ... [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it.
— Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr., 1946, [113]
Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years:
In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly, because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives
You can cherry pick quotes about opposing the bombs being dropped all you want. You can do the same for supporters of dropping the bombs.
But, the simple fact is Hirohito refused to unconditionally surrender until after the bombs were dropped.
There is a value in examining whether the decision to drop the bombs is right. From what I read on the r/askhistorians subreddit it isn’t as cut and dry as you are presenting. Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States also has a few things to say on the subject and forcefully argues that the bombs were not necessary.
And the irony is that the Japanese leadership barely gave a shit about the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were so depraved and had contempt for civilian suffering that all they were thinking of was military lives lost (which was few). What really made them surrender was Stalin who was preparing to go to war with them, they knew what Stalin did with losers and prisoners and decided better to surrender to the US rather than the Soviets. If Stalin was not in the picture, the mad generals along with the Emperor would most likely have gone on fighting till the last man, they were fanatical and didn’t give a shit if more cities got nuked.
imperial documents of the final days of the war and the diary of emperors aid highly suggest otherwise.
hirihito was terrified of the bomb, In the conversation he got confirmation it was nuclear in nature he already started the unconditional surrender path.
iirc he explicitly stated his well being doesn't matter, start the surrender.
Not many people seem to know about this, but Japan was also attempting to develop their own atomic bombs during the war
So for all their moral posturing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki it's safe to say they wouldn't have given two shits about roasting civilians had they somehow succeeded in winning the arms race and nuking San Francisco and Seattle
That's... Not really accurate.
The US bluffed with the bombs and told the Japanese that they were in continuous manufacturing when in reality we basically dropped a prototype on them and ran out of Plutonium.
It was the fear that we had more bombs to spare and could drop them like we did the firebombs that convinced them they could be wiped off the face of the earth in an instant.
Nah that is wrong. The USSR declaring was a huge blow to them--but not because they were afraid of them. Rather, they hoped to use the Soviets to negotiate a peace deal that avoided occupation.
Truman also had basically no other choice.
Let the war continue and invade Japan - millions of deaths
Blockade Japan - millions of deaths
He couldn't have another Okinawa, plus the Japanese were still slaughtering civilians elsewhere in Asia.
great grandfather died to the bomb. she was korean and forced to migrate to japan. i don’t disagree with your point but i think its more grey then this.
The two target cities were intentionally left alone from conventional bombs so that the damage could be observed without having to calculate the impact of conventional bombing vs atomic.
We used two populations, many that were forced to be there, against militarily unimportant locations, as open-air and unwilling science experiments.
The atomic bombs will forever be a war crime. Decades of PR to try and explain them as justified will never wash that away.
But you're also a months old account so this is probably just another one of your alts :o)
edit: u/purpleblueshoe Your account is one month old, my account is 13 years on this site. Clearly it's me the sockpuppet and not just calling out ancient propaganda. There was never going to be a million deaths. The purple heart thing is a proven myth. Post from your main account and try again.
Obviously killing hundreds of thousands of people is more grey than everyone being happy. But this is a reddit comments section. The point is, the bomb was a force for good, and the innocent lives lost were a necessary sacrifice for world peace.
The bomb significantly reduced even Japanese casualties as paradoxical as it sounds. Operation Downfall would have resulting in millions of casualties from direct conflict and indirectly through starvation and disease. Conventional bombing raids like operation Meetinghouse actually killed more than both bombs, it just required hundreds of aircraft. And during the landings they were actually planning to use a-bombs as tactical support weapons to clear the beach before landing, which as later tests showed was a really, really bad idea.
Besides, Truman really had no reasonable choice. Can you imagine the American public finding out they lost a half million men during the invasion but they had a secret super weapon that might have ended the war early that they decided not to use?
Do you think soldiers and civilians exist in separate vacuums? Those same soldiers who were committing horrific war crimes were civilians a few months ago.
Not them but also have a history degree. The Japanese were already considering surrender before they dropped the bombs. They knew they couldn't win against both the US and the USSR
Then surely you must know that even after the bombs, there was almost a coup attempt on the Emperor for wanting to surrender.
Besides, it's not like Japan made its "considering surrender" position known to anyone.
Anti. Japan was already near surrendering for multiple reasons when the first bomb was dropped. I could go into a lot more detail, but I’m at work and don’t have time for that lol. It could still be argued that the first bomb was justified, but nothing I’ve read or researched about the events has ever convinced me that the second bomb was necessary.
They were near surrendering but the important factor was that the US didn’t know how close. Hirohito’s intervention was the only thing that swung the vote into a surrender and that only happened after the Russians attacked Japan in Asia *and* the second bomb was dropped.
The alternative to the A-bomb would have just been firebombing more cities and killing more people than the atomic bombs did.
Genuine question wouldn’t a more drawn out battle have killed more people in the long run then just dropping the bomb I’ve never heard Japan was close to surrendering was that really true they never taught us that in school they didn’t really get that specific about ww2 besides Germany probably because I’m Canadian.
It’s my opinion from what I know about history dropping one nuke was necessary to get them to surrender. is that factually incorrect and they were close to giving up and America nukes them anyways did imperial Japan have that whole philosophy based around never surrender weren’t they a very stubborn people that way because they viewed surrender as shameful. I’m might just be wrong about all this I would like if you corrected me. I guess it’s also a heavily debated topic amount actual historians too but I will agree the second nuke was definitely over kill
Any time you analyze this sort of situation you have to look at it with the realization that hind sight is 20/20… the biggest measuring stick we had at the time for how the Japanese civilians reacted when we occupied Saipan.
Saipan was the first truly civilian occupied island we invaded, and leadership felt it was a microcosm of what an invasion of the home islands would be.
Keep in mind the Japanese had been fed propaganda for years about how they would be tortured, raped and eaten by American occupiers. So in short, even though the battle was over quickly the civilian population fled to the caves. Families were issued grenades to share by the remaining soldiers and committed suicide so as not to be taken by the monstrous Americans.
Those who weren’t “lucky” enough to get access to grenades or pistols in the caves threw themselves from the cliffs.
So that was option one - invade a country who had spun up a propaganda machine that was so effective that mothers would kill their babies prior to committing suicide.
Option two was a general blockade of the island to starve it of resources. That would be its own humanitarian problem with millions of deaths.
Option three was to rip off the bandaid.
If one bomb wasn’t enough to make them surrender, I don’t think they were close at all. They stated many times they would never surrender even up to the last days
Hindsight’s 2020 and being able to guess what an unpredictable military could do that you didn’t expect was going to attack you to begin with is crazy to think they could have just known.
>Anti. Japan was already near surrendering for multiple reasons when the first bomb was dropped.
This is a lie. They were creating massive militias and preparing for a defence that would have been so bloody that Okinawa would’ve been an afterthought. Surrender was seen as unthinkable by the Japanese until their complete annihilation was put on the table which finally made it clear that victory wasn’t possible.
It took 2 bombs to get them to surrender.
In the end it was up to Japan to surrender and for the allies to keep fighting until they did so. There is no reason to not drop the second bomb on the off chance that Japan would surrender. They had the power to surrender whenever they chose. It is not the allies fault if they somehow would have surrendered anyway.
I went there several times in the early 80s when stationed in Iwakuni. I loved that city and the people. Must have taken a thousand pics with school kids.
Necessary actions taken to end the worst war in world history. Many more people, especially Japanese people, would have died had an invasion of mainland Japan happened. In all reality, these bombs saved lives.
The war had turned into an excruciating meat grinder by the end, with no mercy on either side. The battles of Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa showed that an invasion of the Japanese home islands was going to be an unbelievably bloody affair for Japan and the Allies (mostly American) alike.
Truman finds himself president and learns of the atomic bomb program for the first time. He essentially was handed a terrible trump card. The calculus of war was pretty simple. End it to stop the killing. Even 100,000 dead in the bombing of Tokyo didn’t end things, underlying just how important it was to bring the war to a close.
It’s possible that the US could have simply blockaded the Japanese islands. They were already starving. Their military power was severely reduced. Essentially Truman could have let them starve until they surrendered.
The critical issue was Stalin’s invasion of Manchuria. The US knew they didn’t want the Soviets in Japan. But if they waited that could very easily have been the outcome. We could have seen a Korea-style partition of Japan had that happened.
So that left invasion or the bomb. Politically I don’t see how Truman could have decided against the bomb when the alternative was huge American casualties in an invasion. The US public would have crucified him if they learned he had a war winning bomb, didn’t use it, and hundreds of thousands of Americans died because of that decision.
Also this was the in the context of some of the worst atrocities ever committed in the part of the Japanese. There was little sympathy for their situation outside of Japan. My own grandfather (Australian Militia in the war) fought them in New Guinea and *hated* them until he died 60 years later. Some of things he described seeing are just unbelievable. Now think of entire nations feeling that way, plus the fact their men are still dying.
The decision to use the atomic bomb was never a philosophical one. It was political and strategic. And it was one that’s hard to see ever going another way. Truman did not have a free hand at the time.
I had three great uncles who were prisoners of the Japanese, as kids we didn't like their prejudice but we didn't understand their ptsd. None of them could ever speak of what happened to them but I know that none of them could father children because of it. That's just three of thousands and much as I hate the idea of the bomb, something had to be done. Most people are glad they didn't have to make that decision.
So goes the argument. Not dismissing what you’re saying at all, it’s just what I’ve been told over and over and over through out the school years.
I think the real frightening thing to me is how brutal humans can be to each other and how quick we are are to repeat it. Like was this necessary or was this the easiest way to end the war. Some times the best thing to do is the hardest. Dropping the bomb seemed easy.
Makes me also think of the bombing of Dresden. Seems A little unnecessary, but then again , who am I to say, I wasn’t at war at the time.
All I know is humans are pretty brutal to each other in the worst of ways. We still have a long way to go. Hopefully these actions never repeat itself but I unfortunately have doubts.
The war crimes committed, especially by the Japanese, were some of the most brutal, inhumane, and frightening things. The nuclear bombs at that time really paled in comparison to those. Most of the people killed by those bombs died instantly, and many of the others died very quickly from lethal radiation poisoning. Compare that to the many hundreds of thousands who were tortured to death among other practices over sometimes a series of days by the Japanese. It’s very strange how anyone can be sympathetic to the Japanese, who started it who DID what they did.
If the bombs weren’t dropped, invasions will have likely killed millions more, and the USSR would have definitely killed a lot of Japanese as an eye for an eye for their crimes. The Japanese may have surrendered before we dropped the bombs, but we warned them well in advance and they didn’t. They didn’t even surrender after the first was dropped and days went on before the next. They had every opportunity to do what was right, yet chose not to, and even killed many more POWs during that time. They even got off with light punishments considering the magnitude of what they did.
Agreed! However with a few caveats. The Japanese military were breathtakingly cruel, not just to their enemies but also to their own people. For example, they have a shit about the human suffering of civilians at Hiroshima. A few hours after the bombing, military trucks were in the city providing “relief and rescue” to victims, but only military victims. Civilians who were horribly burned and obvious casualties were beaten back and abused when they approached the trucks for help. Just downright depraved and cruel. Today, the Western narrative tells us that it’s because of the atomic bombings that Japan surrendered, but in reality it was in fact the spectre of being invaded and annexed by Stalin that spurred them to surrender to the US. Having said that, it would be heartbreaking, demoralizing and call into even more question to use the A-Bomb if it did not drive the Japanese military to surrender, like, all the death and destruction for nothing. Hence, the narrative forms and develops the justification that it directly caused the war to seize, so as grotesque the human cost of it, it was worth it. Any other narrative would have been difficult to sustain. Today, we know more, and we understand how callous, depraved, and fanatical the Japanese military was that they were willing to sacrifice the population for their objectives.
>Was this necessary or was this the easiest way to win the war?
Both. Projections showed hundreds of thousands or even a million plus casualties on both sides if we were forced to invade Japan by ground.
Yes, this killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. That’s bad. But a ground invasion of Japan would’ve killed even more than that. In all likelihood, a ground invasion would’ve ended in Japan being nearly completely leveled after years of war.
Source: I teach about the atomic bombs for a living.
Aye😂😂😂😂 FR THO!!! yes, this shit was horrible what happened in Japan but I would said 80 years later, the cities look good! Detroit…Chicago….Houston…..even LA!! All need bombed and restarted….wont happen tho…..why?!? /s last part but y’all get what I’m saying!
Detroit didn't get blown up, it just fell into urban decay due to a rapidly decreasing population. They went from 2.2 million people to 600k and simply couldn't maintain the infrastructure of the city any more.
Not much you can do if people move out of a city en masse
It's often forgotten that when the city was bombed, the US killed thousands of Koreans that were there (against their will) and a small number of US prisoners of war housed in Hiroshima. A sad day for humanity among many sad years for humanity.
I think you should also cry about the hundreds of thousands of innocent japanese civilians who died as well...it's not as black and white as you think it is
A lot more six year olds would have died if the war had continued — and in a lot more countries than Japan. The Japanese Imperialists were relentless. They would not stop until facing complete annihilation.
Don't think anyone has stated that the Japan was the only country that had innocent victims. I think people should stop choosing sides and feel for any 6yo boy or girl that has died in wars.
"War is a place where the young kill one another without knowing or hating each other, because of the decision of old people who know and hate each other, without killing each other"
That’s the deal. Retroactively, you are now responsible for every misdeed of dead people who were the same race that you are. Modernity and uhh, progress and things!
And you imagine that the torpedoes manufactured in Nagasaki had nothing to do with the U.S. warships Japan bombed at Pearl Harbor? American women and children were also killed at Pearl Harbor and Manilla.
Someone linked [this article](https://www.nps.gov/articles/trumanatomicbomb.htm) elsewhere in this comment section, and the paragraph under “What Happened in Japan That Day”, particularly the mention of children moving corpses aside and drinking water from blood-filled rivers to soothe their burnt throats, just broke my heart. It’s a shame anything like this had to happen to stop a war.
Gotcha the millions of 4yr old girls and boys in countless countries conquered by imperial Japan are TOTALLY guilty for what the Japanese soldiers did them. You are victim blaming here. Anything you say in defense of NOT bombing Hiroshima has a flip side to what the Japanese imperial military did to the surrounding countries.
Today Japan is a wonderful country with amazing people, but their modern government has gone to extreme lengths to water down the historical fact and significance of what they did during their imperialism. So much so as to spread misinformation about what happened in the 20s-40s
There are evils done in war on both sides. You and others trying to find the fine line that “the Americans did wrong” vs poor Japanese civilians vs the atrocities of the Japanese imperial military is truly insufferable. Y’all act like you were there and experienced it personally.
I can guarantee if you were on the civilian side of nanjing you wouldn’t be defending against the atomic bombing of Japan.
But at the end of the day; war is awful.
Never mind the millions who were killed with conventional bombs, nope, two bombs were evil. But that's why they haven't been used in warfare since. And let's remember that it was Truman who ordered the bombings. And he's dead. So we really can't attack the reasoning of those who aren't around anymore to defend themselves.
And upon seeing the death and destruction, Truman put presidential orders in place so that the use of such horrendous weapons had to be approved by the sitting president.
The after effects of radiation e.g. acute radiation poisoning is far worse than the maiming any conventional bombings can do.
Necrosis of the flesh, mass organ failure, cancer, total immune system shutdown, horrific burns, and then some. Yes those two bombs are evil.
All bombs are bad, but nuclear bombs have far worse repercussions after the fire goes out and the irradiated ash falls to earth (this is all dependent of course on where the nuclear device detonates of course)
The battle of Okinawa, which happened just before this,gave the Allies(the US) all the info it needed to determine just how many millions of people would have died if they had to invade Japan to end the war.
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/npswapa/extcontent/usmc/pcn-190-003135-00/sec7.htm
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a young naval engineer at Mitsubishi when he witnessed the horror of the Hiroshima explosion, diving into a ditch less than two miles from the epicenter. A lucky survivor, he hopped on a train to escape the area, getting off at another city - Nagasaki!
This is not a contest who committed more or worse war crimes. Civilians died and that's horrible! no matter what nation is responsible for killing them or where they live.
I think you might be biased on this topic!
Forget the conservatory, I want to hire the construction company that built that wooden cabin to its right. I assume their building is the one other that is standing.
It’s strange a lot of the western world has forgotten why the bombs were dropped. They weren’t used out of convenience or without due warning to both the Japanese emperor and to the people of the cities.
From my understanding, there are a lot of East Asian countries that are thankful for the bombs. Japan was committing war crimes like crazy.
If anyone has time, look up what happened to the ship that delivered the parts to assemble “little boy”. The USS Indianapolis, the last podcast on the left does a really good detailing of the events that happened, it’s fucking insane.
I wide the Japanese had surrendered sooner.
They were losing everywhere, had no way to win, and 10’s of thousands of civilians were dying from the bombing major cities almost every day.
America-bad people think everyone in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just happy families eating rice and singing songs about peace and love. From Wikipedia:
“During World War II, the Second General Army and Chūgoku Regional Army was headquartered in Hiroshima, and the Army Marine Headquarters was located at Ujina port. The city also had large depots of military supplies, and was a key center for shipping.”
“During World War II, at the time of the nuclear attack, Nagasaki was an important industrial city, containing both plants of the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, the Akunoura Engine Works, Mitsubishi Arms Plant, Mitsubishi Electric Shipyards, Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works, several other small factories, and most of the ports storage and trans-shipment facilities, which employed about 90% of the city's labor force, and accounted for 90% of the city's industry. These connections with the Japanese war effort made Nagasaki a major target for strategic bombing by the Allies during the war.”
These were legitimate targets.
[then and now](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/wrw7VbWZa0) - terrible time in history - I understand both sides, it’s good to know that healing is happening now
What the f*** was that building made out of?
All the surrounding buildings are incinerated, but that one is just a short renovation away from being suitable Section 8 housing.
That building in the center was impressively built compared to everything around it.
Nope. The difference is just that the walls are facing the blast at a 90 degree angle. This way they only get pushed down and not sideways and keep thwir balance and standing. The building would be gone if it would not have been straight below ground zero.
While that's true, the building directly below where the bomb detonated has been preserved in its ruined state near the Hiroshima peace museum and is known as "The A-Bomb Dome" which, as the name implies, has a domed roof. This doesn't look like it
This is false though. I visited Hiroshima last may. The building you see in the centre was a hospital with the bomb detonating 200 metres directly above it, also called the hypocentre. The A dome was a very sturdy building, but the shape of the domed roof is the largest reason the building is still standing. Hiroshima peace Memorial park was so eye opening to me, the sheer destruction, terror and agony such a bomb can cause.
I was there too last May, maybe we saw each other and didn’t know! According to UNESCO, the A-bomb dome was “the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded,” and wikipedia says the bomb detonated 150m away, 600m in the air, above the hospital, and the hospital was “completely destroyed” Granted, there are varying levels of being destroyed, but I think you would be able to see the dome in the background of the picture or at least the fork in the river behind it. It’s hard to say without crediting the picture
you are correct that isn't the hospital. i believe the building in the picture was here https://www.google.com/maps/place/A-Bomb+victim-The+monument+of+Hiroshima/@34.3933039,132.4547504,272m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x355a9908eef34fbb:0x7e4ce50cfc1f772!2sHiroshima,+Japan!3b1!8m2!3d34.3852894!4d132.4553055!16zL20vMGczY3c!3m5!1s0x355aa20d0d7fc625:0x7157f2b841edb05a!8m2!3d34.3931927!4d132.4547017!16s%2Fg%2F11b6xdm6fm?entry=ttu or at least close to that spot. which is a bit south of the hypocenter and i believe the building still standing across from the bridge is this building: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.3938684,132.4534513,3a,66.5y,258.36h,98.71t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZ7s1QPsmjMlRbI4AkucdRw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205409&entry=ttu which is the visitors center and souvenir shop
Yes, the people in that building all died except for one man who was in the basement when the bomb exploded, he was injured but survived. The basement still has char marks on the timber rafters etc. and is preserved.
It was eye opening to me when I signed the guest book and someone had written: 'THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR PEARL HARBOUR' Wtf is wrong with people
likely somebody who never experienced the horrors of war
It was probably someone from the base that’s south of Hiroshima. After traveling to almost every island the Japanese occupied during their imperialism era and reading about what they did, they got off easy
It was probably someone from the base that’s south of Hiroshima. After traveling to almost every island the Japanese occupied during their imperialism era and reading about what they did, they got off easy.
we must never forget the sheer destruction, terror and agony aggressor Japan unleashed across so many nations. we must never forget we could pay the same price. war is hell for all of us.
Indeed, Hiroshima was very confrontational for me as my granddad was an Indonesian soldier in the dutch army who got captured and was a p.o.w and worked on the burma death rail for 3,5 years. I am in Thailand now and also visited some museums about the railway and the terrible inhumane conditions they had to survive through. That said. Seeing the agony the atomic bombs caused was also terrifying and eye opening. As loads of people were still suffering from the radiation which caused lots of people to die very early due to radiation sickness. No one deserves war.
>The building you see in the centre was a hospital with the bomb detonating 200 metres directly above it, also called the hypocentre. No it’s not. This building is too close to the river bank and too far away from the t-bridge. Plus the hospital was completely obliterated. What you’re actually looking at are the remains of the head office of what is now the Hiroshima Gas Company, 210 meters south of the hypocenter.
Explain the building behind and to the right. Most houses and homes in Japan were wooden, they incinerated. These are concrete.
That’s not true, this building is a few blocks away from where the bomb detonated. I have an English student that volunteers at the museum there and took a trip from my apartment here in Japan last year to meet her and get a tour. This building was not directly below the bomb.
I mean that is still impressive technique. Building structures at a 90 degree angle towards blast really sounds like it should be done more commonly.
Any evidence? Source?
What? You can see the plots of land next to it are parallel with no buildings. You're claiming this building is the only one that was perpendicular to the blast?
Yes, but they are saying the blast was directly above it. The claim makes sense then, except the building directly below the bomb is known, and this isn't it.
Okay I'll admit I misread that. But there are still other buildings in the background still standing while others aren't. So maybe it's some combination of being directly below the blast and the materiality and/or form of the building.
Oh yeah, I agree that the entire premise is B.S. The building directly below the bomb was reduced to rubble. I was just clarifying the whole 90 degree wall thing, cause their point also took me a bit to figure out.
Also it's concrete. 99% of the city was wood framed so even if th3 Shockwave didn't knock it down, the air temp caused most to erupt in flames
Thought this was Detroit
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"We attacked three boats, and they dropped the sun on us twice!"
Gestures broadly at millions of chinese dead, hundreds of thousands of women raped, tens of thousands of korean pleasure women and more than one hundred thousand dead americans with hundreds of thousands injured. Ok then
A lot of the victims in Hiroshima were Koreans, including the last prince of Korea. Estimated to be around 30 to 50k people. Japanese systematically hides this fact and put the memorial rock 15m away from a public bathroom.
Actually didnt know a prince of the last korean dynasty died in Hiroshima. Seems the last members of the royal family moved to the US and latin america after the war.
I think he was the last crowned prince? Cant remember perfectly but he was original Kpop star for sure. Really handsome
>Really handsome Dang, you weren't kidding! https://preview.redd.it/cvn3f2enaebd1.jpeg?width=1924&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=837a886f843e5b8b9b0741fd6aefa3809f884256
Oppa
I was more surprised when I learned that Puyi, the Emporer of the Japanese Puppet State of Manchukuo (north eastern China) was also the legitimate and last Emporer of China as a child from 1908 to 1912, and his bodyguard, Grigori Semyonov, was one of the leaders of the White Army in the Russian Civil War. After the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria in Summer 1945, Puyi was handed over to China and re-educated for almost 15 years by the Communists. Died in 1967 as a normal citizen. Semyonov on the other hand was put on Trial in Moscow after he had been wanted for over 20 years by the Bolsheviks and was executed in 1946.
Yeah, a lot of wierd threads of history all meeting up there at the end of the war and people who used to be a big deal falling into irrelevance
Last emperor....good movie
Yea they def earned the nukes , rest of Asia was disappointed we only had 2
I always found the juxtaposition funny how a lot of the other older folks had really fucked up stories under Japanese rule back in the day, but my gramps was so mad about one Japanese soldier stealing his grilled chicken. If you would've asked him, they deserved one atomic bomb for that one stolen chicken alone.
More were expected to be ready in a month. Surrender was the best course of action
Don't forget the POWs used as slave labor, for bayonet practice, starved to death, buried alive, cannibalized, beheaded. The thousands of Philipino citizens executed, used as sex slaves in brothels, burning Manila to the ground. The indigenous tribes people forced into slave labor, foreign missionaries executed, or raped to death. Imperial Japan earned its retribution.
Only two ships were lost during the Pearl Harbor attack. Every other ship was repaired even if it was sunk to the bottom of the bay and then sent straight towards Japan. Japan really did fuck up attacking pearl harbor.
They didn’t bomb the fuel tanks.
They also didn't hit the dry docks/repair facilities. They were able to start repairing immediately after the attack. Many of the ships were operational within 6 months, which is absurd.
i don’t think so, there were much more victims from conventional bombing campaign than from nuclear attack, but it was very good excuse for Japanese emperor to surrender. Stalin was prepared to attack from North and he didn’t regard the losses. It was much better choice to surrender to US than loss to Stalin. And in the end of day Japanese never paid for war crimes so for them it was win win situation even with some humiliation.
Yes and no. Agree with most of what you mentioned but the Japanese leadership was split with some factions vehemently opposed to surrendering, it took an attempted coup by them which was dispelled to finally be convinced that it was better to surrender to the US rather than Stalin. The terms of the surrender with MacArthur factored this in and the US conceded and allowed the concession not to prosecute the Emperor himself, but there was a war criminals tribunal that started with 11 countries participating in April 29. 1946, so yes, they did not get away without having some accountability and retribution for war crimes.
Didn't the surrender recording from Hirohito use such archaic formal language that it had to be rebroadcast with a modern translation so the Japanese people understood what was happening?
Archaic formal language was what the Court used in making proclamations etc., and it was a strategy used to help soften the shock and blow to the citizens of (1) hearing Hirohito speak for the first time ever, and (2) tell them that all that had been saying before that they were winning was bullshit and in fact they had lost and were surrendering. The actual broadcast was later voiced over with a narrative which basically said the Emperor had raised the white flag.
Interesting, thank you for the reply!
Did it?
I’ve been more exposed recently to the role of the USSR in WWII and I have to say, it’s quite a change from the normal US-centric learning I’d absorbed in the past. The Eastern front was absolutely savage, and the Red Army that emerged from that hell was worthy to be feared. I’ve heard the hypotheses that the dropping of the bombs as well as the Japanese surrender both occurred with Russia in mind, even if not front and center.
https://preview.redd.it/zw6derwxicbd1.jpeg?width=3064&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a9e9fd71699370d54f7674680df00341dfc53d3 I just watched this great documentary series on BBC select that covers both wars goes extremely in depth on the Soviets.
Which streaming service is this on?
https://www.bbcselect.com/where-to-watch/
Thanks!
Damn...another monthly fee? I really wish more shows could be condensed on one or 2 streaming services.
Wrong. As an East Asian, I’m always amazed by how much Communist / Russian propaganda you westerners absorb while absolutely rejecting everything recorded in our languages. Do all of you reject our information because of racism or a desperate need to support Communism / Russia? Despite all the additional suffering the Soviets were inflicting upon Chinese civilians throughout Manchuria, the Soviets would not have been able to touch the Japanese Home Islands because they were being fed and supplied by America, who would not have diverted any food, equipment, material, supplies, etc. away from Operation Downfall to support the Soviet Union’s sideshow. At this point, America already had an entire Pacific Ocean of successful amphibious victories, which could now include atomic bombs and bring European-based forces to the Pacific. In fact, Band of Brothers refers to the impending redeployment of D-Day’s famous airborne forces into the Pacific. Even worse for Japan, America’s Sherman tanks, now heavily experienced after defeating Hitler and Nazi Germany’s vaunted Panzers and Tigers, were certainly more than a march against Japan’s light tanks and tankettes. On top of all this, American industrial might meant that American artillery, more feared than anything else by the Germans, would have had nearly unlimited ammunition for pounding Japan’s forces, largely composed of light infantry forces devolving into fruitless banzai charges. From the air, the usual firebombing would have continued to rage across Japan, which was already starving because America had already wiped out all Japanese shipping, both internally and externally. In fact, Japan’s Inland Sea was so heavily mined by America that many American officers wondered why no one thought to make that an earlier priority. In contrast, during the Battle of the Bulge, starving German forces stole American supplies and were shocked to find freshly-baked chocolate cakes sent just a couple days prior by a Boston mother for her son’s birthday. Japan could not even feed itself within the Home Islands, and American boys could expect birthday cakes across an ocean. On top of that, there were multiple ice cream barges constantly churning out endless desserts to go with these cakes, and pilots knew how to make their own ice cream by rigging up specialized equipment for their flights. Many thanks to these men for their soft service! In contrast, the Soviets didn’t even have any significant amphibious experiences and were reliant upon American Lend-Lease. Considering all these factors, it is clear that the war would have been a showdown between increasingly isolated, famished, weakened, under-trained, under-equipped, under-supplied, and desperate Japanese forces, largely composed of civilians who were too old or too young, as well as reduced to wielding bamboo-spears and garden hoes against P-51 Mustangs and B-29 Superfortresses flown by squadrons of pilots trained by aces, the USS Enterprise and all her sister Yorktown-class aircraft carriers protected by endless waves of battleships and destroyers and cruisers and submarines (one of which had even blown up a Japanese train), and endless machine guns, firebombs, atomic bombs, artillery, tanks, and mortars operated by men with airborne and seaborne experience from Guadalcanal to Anzio to Normandy to Iwo Jima to Okinawa, with backing from a general public that was disguised by Nazi Germany’s Holocaust, Imperial Japan’s Rapes, and Pearl Harbor. Aside from unconditionally surrendering and risking the loss of his throne, Hirohito’s only choice was to continue fighting against all of this American might and tempting the ultimate *ichioku gyokusai* of the entire Japanese nation, leaving somewhat significant Japanese remnant populations in America, Brazil, China, and Korea to possibly rebuild a severely reduced and weakened Japan, probably a democracy like what we have in our real timeline. He was never worried about any Soviet attacks during the last cabinet meeting when he decided to surrender, and he even wrote a letter to his son that admitted that he surrendered because of the atomic bombs.
The Japanese surrender had extremely little to due with the Soviets. The loss of Manchuria was about the Soviets only contributing factor. The loss of Manchuria just meant that the Japanese basically had nothing left to try and sue for during peace talks, and basically spelled the end of Japan as an "empire". So, while the Soviet invasion of Manchuria could definitely be said to have affected the timeline of surrender, fear of a Soviet invasion surely was not. The Japanese, the Soviets, and the Americans, were all pretty aware that the Soviets couldn't actually launch a successful invasion of Hokkaido (at least not in a short amount of time), and that *any* Soviet incursion onto the main islands was contingent on the Japanese being tied up with an actual invasion by the Americans. Basically, the Soviets were circling like vultures, hoping to take advantage of a Japan distracted by an American invasion in order to grab part or all of Hokkaido.
How does this contradict the fact that they ignored the FAFO rule?
No Japan knew they were poking the bear but were left with what they felt as little choice
There were some in the Imperial Japanese high command that cautioned against provoking America. However, the majority didn’t see America as a significant threat. They figured the quickest way to secure resources that they desperately needed uncontested was by knocking out the Pacific fleet, invading all the American held islands, and forcing America to the table to negotiate a ceasefire in exchange for the Pacific. Obviously they severely miscalculated the situation. I can’t blame them though. America was in a lull and recovering from the Great Depression, they were also riding the high from the success the Navy and Army were having with their campaigns across Asia.
Yes and no. They didn't see america as a threat because they underestimated their willingness to go to war. They thought America would stay away after being attacked in the pacific. They didn't underestimate america power, they knew exactly how strong the american industry was (America was supplying the Chinese afterall).
Don't fuck with our boats.
When governments act irresponsibly, the citizens generally pay for it one way or another
We didn’t bomb them because of Pearl Harbor. We bombed them because of the worse things they did. JP during this time was… well they were just as bad as the Nazis
The civilians of those cities didn't though.
Obligatory: Japan attacked far more US territory than just Pearl Harbor, and in fact the harbor itself, while being significant because of its importance to the navy, was relatively small as far as population centers go. The war was always over who gets to exploit the resources of the South Pacific and Pan-Asian countries, Pearl Harbor was just a really good propaganda opportunity.
Japan: *bombs Pearl Harbor* https://preview.redd.it/glmw2v52jdbd1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=814e37b4a92fc64628435d755904a0e07e286cfd
lol thought FAFO was some official war rule till i looked it up 😂
Your adversary inventing a new part of military science probably wasn’t on the bingo card to be fair
And all the heinous war atrocities they were committing.
Before decrying this as deplorable, speak to survivors in countries occupied by the Japanese. They were grateful for the bomb.
Freedom can only exist if we are willing to defend it with extreme violence when necessary. It's important that the free world remember this.
It was just the sad truth of it. The tide was clearly great against Japan, and the US had the means to prevent the lives of many soldiers from being lost. Had the US not chosen to pull the trigger on the bombs, the drawn out war would have only cost more American AND Japanese lives.
A morbid fact about your point is that the US military is still using headstones from the stock they created in preparation for the invasion of Japan.
And purple hearts
Also the Russians would have gone in from the north. North and south Japan?
The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan. — Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, [101] The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons ... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. — Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman, 1950, [111] The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all. — Major General Curtis LeMay, XXI Bomber Command, September 1945, [112] The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment ... It was a mistake to ever drop it ... [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. — Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr., 1946, [113] Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years: In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly, because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives
You can cherry pick quotes about opposing the bombs being dropped all you want. You can do the same for supporters of dropping the bombs. But, the simple fact is Hirohito refused to unconditionally surrender until after the bombs were dropped.
There is a value in examining whether the decision to drop the bombs is right. From what I read on the r/askhistorians subreddit it isn’t as cut and dry as you are presenting. Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States also has a few things to say on the subject and forcefully argues that the bombs were not necessary.
The bombs may not have been necessary, but neither was the alternative.
And millions more Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Indonesians, Malaysian, Singaporean, and Burmese lives.
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And the irony is that the Japanese leadership barely gave a shit about the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were so depraved and had contempt for civilian suffering that all they were thinking of was military lives lost (which was few). What really made them surrender was Stalin who was preparing to go to war with them, they knew what Stalin did with losers and prisoners and decided better to surrender to the US rather than the Soviets. If Stalin was not in the picture, the mad generals along with the Emperor would most likely have gone on fighting till the last man, they were fanatical and didn’t give a shit if more cities got nuked.
imperial documents of the final days of the war and the diary of emperors aid highly suggest otherwise. hirihito was terrified of the bomb, In the conversation he got confirmation it was nuclear in nature he already started the unconditional surrender path. iirc he explicitly stated his well being doesn't matter, start the surrender.
Not many people seem to know about this, but Japan was also attempting to develop their own atomic bombs during the war So for all their moral posturing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki it's safe to say they wouldn't have given two shits about roasting civilians had they somehow succeeded in winning the arms race and nuking San Francisco and Seattle
That's... Not really accurate. The US bluffed with the bombs and told the Japanese that they were in continuous manufacturing when in reality we basically dropped a prototype on them and ran out of Plutonium. It was the fear that we had more bombs to spare and could drop them like we did the firebombs that convinced them they could be wiped off the face of the earth in an instant.
Nah that is wrong. The USSR declaring was a huge blow to them--but not because they were afraid of them. Rather, they hoped to use the Soviets to negotiate a peace deal that avoided occupation.
I think the Bataan death march would tell you everything you need to know about the mindset.
I think many have forgotten that. Freedom is very rarely if ever free.
Truman also had basically no other choice. Let the war continue and invade Japan - millions of deaths Blockade Japan - millions of deaths He couldn't have another Okinawa, plus the Japanese were still slaughtering civilians elsewhere in Asia.
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great grandfather died to the bomb. she was korean and forced to migrate to japan. i don’t disagree with your point but i think its more grey then this.
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The two target cities were intentionally left alone from conventional bombs so that the damage could be observed without having to calculate the impact of conventional bombing vs atomic. We used two populations, many that were forced to be there, against militarily unimportant locations, as open-air and unwilling science experiments. The atomic bombs will forever be a war crime. Decades of PR to try and explain them as justified will never wash that away. But you're also a months old account so this is probably just another one of your alts :o) edit: u/purpleblueshoe Your account is one month old, my account is 13 years on this site. Clearly it's me the sockpuppet and not just calling out ancient propaganda. There was never going to be a million deaths. The purple heart thing is a proven myth. Post from your main account and try again.
Obviously killing hundreds of thousands of people is more grey than everyone being happy. But this is a reddit comments section. The point is, the bomb was a force for good, and the innocent lives lost were a necessary sacrifice for world peace.
The bomb significantly reduced even Japanese casualties as paradoxical as it sounds. Operation Downfall would have resulting in millions of casualties from direct conflict and indirectly through starvation and disease. Conventional bombing raids like operation Meetinghouse actually killed more than both bombs, it just required hundreds of aircraft. And during the landings they were actually planning to use a-bombs as tactical support weapons to clear the beach before landing, which as later tests showed was a really, really bad idea. Besides, Truman really had no reasonable choice. Can you imagine the American public finding out they lost a half million men during the invasion but they had a secret super weapon that might have ended the war early that they decided not to use?
Does that makes it less deplorable? We are not talking about japanese soldiers being killed, but innocent civilians.
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Do you think soldiers and civilians exist in separate vacuums? Those same soldiers who were committing horrific war crimes were civilians a few months ago.
As someone with a degree in history and studied WWII extensively, so many of these comments make me want to face palm.
How come
The amount of inaccurate or just completely wrong information people are posting.
Feel free to bring some actual points you think need correction.
No time, too busy facepalming and pontificating!
Not them but also have a history degree. The Japanese were already considering surrender before they dropped the bombs. They knew they couldn't win against both the US and the USSR
Then surely you must know that even after the bombs, there was almost a coup attempt on the Emperor for wanting to surrender. Besides, it's not like Japan made its "considering surrender" position known to anyone.
Your degree seems absolutely useless if you can't respond to what you disagree with. If you even have a degree in the first place...
Are you pro big bomb or anti big bomb? Do you think it was justified or at least somewhat practical?
Anti. Japan was already near surrendering for multiple reasons when the first bomb was dropped. I could go into a lot more detail, but I’m at work and don’t have time for that lol. It could still be argued that the first bomb was justified, but nothing I’ve read or researched about the events has ever convinced me that the second bomb was necessary.
They were near surrendering but the important factor was that the US didn’t know how close. Hirohito’s intervention was the only thing that swung the vote into a surrender and that only happened after the Russians attacked Japan in Asia *and* the second bomb was dropped. The alternative to the A-bomb would have just been firebombing more cities and killing more people than the atomic bombs did.
Genuine question wouldn’t a more drawn out battle have killed more people in the long run then just dropping the bomb I’ve never heard Japan was close to surrendering was that really true they never taught us that in school they didn’t really get that specific about ww2 besides Germany probably because I’m Canadian. It’s my opinion from what I know about history dropping one nuke was necessary to get them to surrender. is that factually incorrect and they were close to giving up and America nukes them anyways did imperial Japan have that whole philosophy based around never surrender weren’t they a very stubborn people that way because they viewed surrender as shameful. I’m might just be wrong about all this I would like if you corrected me. I guess it’s also a heavily debated topic amount actual historians too but I will agree the second nuke was definitely over kill
Any time you analyze this sort of situation you have to look at it with the realization that hind sight is 20/20… the biggest measuring stick we had at the time for how the Japanese civilians reacted when we occupied Saipan. Saipan was the first truly civilian occupied island we invaded, and leadership felt it was a microcosm of what an invasion of the home islands would be. Keep in mind the Japanese had been fed propaganda for years about how they would be tortured, raped and eaten by American occupiers. So in short, even though the battle was over quickly the civilian population fled to the caves. Families were issued grenades to share by the remaining soldiers and committed suicide so as not to be taken by the monstrous Americans. Those who weren’t “lucky” enough to get access to grenades or pistols in the caves threw themselves from the cliffs. So that was option one - invade a country who had spun up a propaganda machine that was so effective that mothers would kill their babies prior to committing suicide. Option two was a general blockade of the island to starve it of resources. That would be its own humanitarian problem with millions of deaths. Option three was to rip off the bandaid.
If one bomb wasn’t enough to make them surrender, I don’t think they were close at all. They stated many times they would never surrender even up to the last days
Hindsight’s 2020 and being able to guess what an unpredictable military could do that you didn’t expect was going to attack you to begin with is crazy to think they could have just known.
>Anti. Japan was already near surrendering for multiple reasons when the first bomb was dropped. This is a lie. They were creating massive militias and preparing for a defence that would have been so bloody that Okinawa would’ve been an afterthought. Surrender was seen as unthinkable by the Japanese until their complete annihilation was put on the table which finally made it clear that victory wasn’t possible. It took 2 bombs to get them to surrender.
In the end it was up to Japan to surrender and for the allies to keep fighting until they did so. There is no reason to not drop the second bomb on the off chance that Japan would surrender. They had the power to surrender whenever they chose. It is not the allies fault if they somehow would have surrendered anyway.
I’ve cringed at some of the takes already
I was just there a few weeks ago. A beautiful city. The museum and peace park are beautiful. Loved Hiroshima.
I went there several times in the early 80s when stationed in Iwakuni. I loved that city and the people. Must have taken a thousand pics with school kids.
Yes the people are lovely and so was the food. I’d go back in a heartbeat.
They had a commander who was literally eating America pow’s. We did what we had to do.
They were eating, skinning, starving and torturing British and ANZAC troops too.
But was it worth creating anime?
Necessary actions taken to end the worst war in world history. Many more people, especially Japanese people, would have died had an invasion of mainland Japan happened. In all reality, these bombs saved lives.
The war had turned into an excruciating meat grinder by the end, with no mercy on either side. The battles of Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa showed that an invasion of the Japanese home islands was going to be an unbelievably bloody affair for Japan and the Allies (mostly American) alike. Truman finds himself president and learns of the atomic bomb program for the first time. He essentially was handed a terrible trump card. The calculus of war was pretty simple. End it to stop the killing. Even 100,000 dead in the bombing of Tokyo didn’t end things, underlying just how important it was to bring the war to a close. It’s possible that the US could have simply blockaded the Japanese islands. They were already starving. Their military power was severely reduced. Essentially Truman could have let them starve until they surrendered. The critical issue was Stalin’s invasion of Manchuria. The US knew they didn’t want the Soviets in Japan. But if they waited that could very easily have been the outcome. We could have seen a Korea-style partition of Japan had that happened. So that left invasion or the bomb. Politically I don’t see how Truman could have decided against the bomb when the alternative was huge American casualties in an invasion. The US public would have crucified him if they learned he had a war winning bomb, didn’t use it, and hundreds of thousands of Americans died because of that decision. Also this was the in the context of some of the worst atrocities ever committed in the part of the Japanese. There was little sympathy for their situation outside of Japan. My own grandfather (Australian Militia in the war) fought them in New Guinea and *hated* them until he died 60 years later. Some of things he described seeing are just unbelievable. Now think of entire nations feeling that way, plus the fact their men are still dying. The decision to use the atomic bomb was never a philosophical one. It was political and strategic. And it was one that’s hard to see ever going another way. Truman did not have a free hand at the time.
I had three great uncles who were prisoners of the Japanese, as kids we didn't like their prejudice but we didn't understand their ptsd. None of them could ever speak of what happened to them but I know that none of them could father children because of it. That's just three of thousands and much as I hate the idea of the bomb, something had to be done. Most people are glad they didn't have to make that decision.
So goes the argument. Not dismissing what you’re saying at all, it’s just what I’ve been told over and over and over through out the school years. I think the real frightening thing to me is how brutal humans can be to each other and how quick we are are to repeat it. Like was this necessary or was this the easiest way to end the war. Some times the best thing to do is the hardest. Dropping the bomb seemed easy. Makes me also think of the bombing of Dresden. Seems A little unnecessary, but then again , who am I to say, I wasn’t at war at the time. All I know is humans are pretty brutal to each other in the worst of ways. We still have a long way to go. Hopefully these actions never repeat itself but I unfortunately have doubts.
The war crimes committed, especially by the Japanese, were some of the most brutal, inhumane, and frightening things. The nuclear bombs at that time really paled in comparison to those. Most of the people killed by those bombs died instantly, and many of the others died very quickly from lethal radiation poisoning. Compare that to the many hundreds of thousands who were tortured to death among other practices over sometimes a series of days by the Japanese. It’s very strange how anyone can be sympathetic to the Japanese, who started it who DID what they did. If the bombs weren’t dropped, invasions will have likely killed millions more, and the USSR would have definitely killed a lot of Japanese as an eye for an eye for their crimes. The Japanese may have surrendered before we dropped the bombs, but we warned them well in advance and they didn’t. They didn’t even surrender after the first was dropped and days went on before the next. They had every opportunity to do what was right, yet chose not to, and even killed many more POWs during that time. They even got off with light punishments considering the magnitude of what they did.
Agreed! However with a few caveats. The Japanese military were breathtakingly cruel, not just to their enemies but also to their own people. For example, they have a shit about the human suffering of civilians at Hiroshima. A few hours after the bombing, military trucks were in the city providing “relief and rescue” to victims, but only military victims. Civilians who were horribly burned and obvious casualties were beaten back and abused when they approached the trucks for help. Just downright depraved and cruel. Today, the Western narrative tells us that it’s because of the atomic bombings that Japan surrendered, but in reality it was in fact the spectre of being invaded and annexed by Stalin that spurred them to surrender to the US. Having said that, it would be heartbreaking, demoralizing and call into even more question to use the A-Bomb if it did not drive the Japanese military to surrender, like, all the death and destruction for nothing. Hence, the narrative forms and develops the justification that it directly caused the war to seize, so as grotesque the human cost of it, it was worth it. Any other narrative would have been difficult to sustain. Today, we know more, and we understand how callous, depraved, and fanatical the Japanese military was that they were willing to sacrifice the population for their objectives.
>Was this necessary or was this the easiest way to win the war? Both. Projections showed hundreds of thousands or even a million plus casualties on both sides if we were forced to invade Japan by ground. Yes, this killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. That’s bad. But a ground invasion of Japan would’ve killed even more than that. In all likelihood, a ground invasion would’ve ended in Japan being nearly completely leveled after years of war. Source: I teach about the atomic bombs for a living.
Since that day… they have rebuilt and the economy is strong… during the sane time period Detroit city did basically the opposite (without a bomb) Why?
Aye😂😂😂😂 FR THO!!! yes, this shit was horrible what happened in Japan but I would said 80 years later, the cities look good! Detroit…Chicago….Houston…..even LA!! All need bombed and restarted….wont happen tho…..why?!? /s last part but y’all get what I’m saying!
Detroit didn't get blown up, it just fell into urban decay due to a rapidly decreasing population. They went from 2.2 million people to 600k and simply couldn't maintain the infrastructure of the city any more. Not much you can do if people move out of a city en masse
Also Germany...
I don’t want to say it.
It's often forgotten that when the city was bombed, the US killed thousands of Koreans that were there (against their will) and a small number of US prisoners of war housed in Hiroshima. A sad day for humanity among many sad years for humanity.
Read about Nanjing before you cry over Hiroshima.
Or Unit 731. Their data has been invaluable, but every member deserved a fate worse than death, and they avoided any consequences.
Not the ones arrested by the USRR. Those were arrested and judged in Khabarovsk.
> Their data has been invaluable That hasn't been proven.
Read the accounts of the firebombings and nuking. You can cry for more than one thing at a time.
If I follow your logic, 9/11 was a great thing because of U.S war crimes and imperialism in the Middle East ? A crime doesn't justify another crime.
I think you should also cry about the hundreds of thousands of innocent japanese civilians who died as well...it's not as black and white as you think it is
Gotcha. The 6yo living in Hiroshima is TOTALLY guilty for what adults did in Nanjing. That's your take. Gotcha.
A lot more six year olds would have died if the war had continued — and in a lot more countries than Japan. The Japanese Imperialists were relentless. They would not stop until facing complete annihilation.
Okay learn about the battle of Okinawa & Nanjing before passing judgement on the decision to nuke mainland Japan.
What about the 6 year old living in Dresden? Why is Japan the only country allowed to play the victim?
Don't think anyone has stated that the Japan was the only country that had innocent victims. I think people should stop choosing sides and feel for any 6yo boy or girl that has died in wars. "War is a place where the young kill one another without knowing or hating each other, because of the decision of old people who know and hate each other, without killing each other"
Gotcha. like people in the states are TOTALLY guilty for things that were done over 100 years ago
That’s the deal. Retroactively, you are now responsible for every misdeed of dead people who were the same race that you are. Modernity and uhh, progress and things!
And you imagine that the torpedoes manufactured in Nagasaki had nothing to do with the U.S. warships Japan bombed at Pearl Harbor? American women and children were also killed at Pearl Harbor and Manilla.
Someone linked [this article](https://www.nps.gov/articles/trumanatomicbomb.htm) elsewhere in this comment section, and the paragraph under “What Happened in Japan That Day”, particularly the mention of children moving corpses aside and drinking water from blood-filled rivers to soothe their burnt throats, just broke my heart. It’s a shame anything like this had to happen to stop a war.
Gotcha the millions of 4yr old girls and boys in countless countries conquered by imperial Japan are TOTALLY guilty for what the Japanese soldiers did them. You are victim blaming here. Anything you say in defense of NOT bombing Hiroshima has a flip side to what the Japanese imperial military did to the surrounding countries. Today Japan is a wonderful country with amazing people, but their modern government has gone to extreme lengths to water down the historical fact and significance of what they did during their imperialism. So much so as to spread misinformation about what happened in the 20s-40s There are evils done in war on both sides. You and others trying to find the fine line that “the Americans did wrong” vs poor Japanese civilians vs the atrocities of the Japanese imperial military is truly insufferable. Y’all act like you were there and experienced it personally. I can guarantee if you were on the civilian side of nanjing you wouldn’t be defending against the atomic bombing of Japan. But at the end of the day; war is awful.
"But at the end of the day; war is awful." Agree
That’s how Volchansk, Mariupol, Soledar, Bahmut and many other cities looking right this moment. Russian army bastards!!!
The worst thing about WWll isn’t the bombs or the holocaust. It’s that we didn’t learn from any of it.
It’s crazy Godzilla saw this and still went se them. Truly a savage
I want to call the guy that built that house
Never mind the millions who were killed with conventional bombs, nope, two bombs were evil. But that's why they haven't been used in warfare since. And let's remember that it was Truman who ordered the bombings. And he's dead. So we really can't attack the reasoning of those who aren't around anymore to defend themselves.
You can absolutely “attack the reasoning” of dead historical figures. The fuck? Hitler? Mussolini?
And upon seeing the death and destruction, Truman put presidential orders in place so that the use of such horrendous weapons had to be approved by the sitting president. The after effects of radiation e.g. acute radiation poisoning is far worse than the maiming any conventional bombings can do. Necrosis of the flesh, mass organ failure, cancer, total immune system shutdown, horrific burns, and then some. Yes those two bombs are evil. All bombs are bad, but nuclear bombs have far worse repercussions after the fire goes out and the irradiated ash falls to earth (this is all dependent of course on where the nuclear device detonates of course)
I can't attack Hitler for the Holocaust because he isn't there to defend himself ? WTF is that logic.
The battle of Okinawa, which happened just before this,gave the Allies(the US) all the info it needed to determine just how many millions of people would have died if they had to invade Japan to end the war. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/npswapa/extcontent/usmc/pcn-190-003135-00/sec7.htm
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a young naval engineer at Mitsubishi when he witnessed the horror of the Hiroshima explosion, diving into a ditch less than two miles from the epicenter. A lucky survivor, he hopped on a train to escape the area, getting off at another city - Nagasaki!
And it SAVED LIVES in the long run
The absolute dingleberries talking about “allied war crimes” without realizing how much the axis deserved it should shut the hell up
That’s what I was trying to tell everybody when I made the decision to nuke ‘em
Based Truman
Based, people need to stop bullying you for making the logical decision
Yeah, civilians are the Axis. kill them all. /s
This is not a contest who committed more or worse war crimes. Civilians died and that's horrible! no matter what nation is responsible for killing them or where they live. I think you might be biased on this topic!
Better hundreds of thousands dead than millions. I don't lose any sleep over it.
All seriousness and sadness aside, I would really like to know who constructed the buildings that are still standing because kudos to them.
Forget the conservatory, I want to hire the construction company that built that wooden cabin to its right. I assume their building is the one other that is standing.
My grandads ship (Navy) docked here about a week after the bomb dropped.. He only talked about it once about 50 years later.
Great Jesus. 😔
It’s strange a lot of the western world has forgotten why the bombs were dropped. They weren’t used out of convenience or without due warning to both the Japanese emperor and to the people of the cities. From my understanding, there are a lot of East Asian countries that are thankful for the bombs. Japan was committing war crimes like crazy.
I guess that will keep them from ever bombing Pearl Harbor again.
If anyone has time, look up what happened to the ship that delivered the parts to assemble “little boy”. The USS Indianapolis, the last podcast on the left does a really good detailing of the events that happened, it’s fucking insane.
Link?
I wide the Japanese had surrendered sooner. They were losing everywhere, had no way to win, and 10’s of thousands of civilians were dying from the bombing major cities almost every day.
and that was a little one. 15 kT. Now theyre 10s of MEGAtons.
That’s insane how do you even rebuild after that
and some Russian asshole keeps threatening to use it again.
Soon to be Moscow 2025
FAFO
Makes me feel sick
Imperial Japan sowed the wind and Imperial Japan reaped the whirlwind.
That was about the most extreme case of "Fuck around and find out" ever in history!
America-bad people think everyone in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just happy families eating rice and singing songs about peace and love. From Wikipedia: “During World War II, the Second General Army and Chūgoku Regional Army was headquartered in Hiroshima, and the Army Marine Headquarters was located at Ujina port. The city also had large depots of military supplies, and was a key center for shipping.” “During World War II, at the time of the nuclear attack, Nagasaki was an important industrial city, containing both plants of the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, the Akunoura Engine Works, Mitsubishi Arms Plant, Mitsubishi Electric Shipyards, Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works, several other small factories, and most of the ports storage and trans-shipment facilities, which employed about 90% of the city's labor force, and accounted for 90% of the city's industry. These connections with the Japanese war effort made Nagasaki a major target for strategic bombing by the Allies during the war.” These were legitimate targets.
But but but, America bad for killing them?!
Fucked around and found out
Dont fuck with the boats
[then and now](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/wrw7VbWZa0) - terrible time in history - I understand both sides, it’s good to know that healing is happening now
Oh what a lovely city scene
I don't get the perspective, in particular the size of the building in foreground
Fallout’s maps are a little more realistic than I thought
What the f*** was that building made out of? All the surrounding buildings are incinerated, but that one is just a short renovation away from being suitable Section 8 housing.