70 years ago: Day 1 of the Nuclear Age

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

Full-scale test over Hiroshima: one giant leap for science, one small step backward for mankind...

[+whiteknight06604 934]

I see no moral difference between killing a bunch of people with one big bomb or a crap ton of smaller ones. Durring WW2 it was common to target cities with even the slightest ties to being millitary targets so I see no difference between the 2 atomic bomb drops on japan and any other attack targeting similar targets. A nuclear bomb is no more or less "moral" than any other weapon. dead is dead and if you are killed in a bombing raid I doubt anyone is going to feel better about being dead simply becaus it came at the end of a convention detonation rather than nuclear.All loss of life is a bad thing but durring a war i'm not going to worry about how people 50,60 or 70 years are going to wring their hands over a bombing that in the context of the war and it's time was just fine. I seem to remember there was a time when the crossbow was considered evil and was condemed by the moral authorities of the time. Same goes for the bolt action rifle. Heck today the word "drone" carries an "evil" overtone. a tool is a tool and it's how it is weilded that makes it good or evil.

[Tirak 4]

A nuclear bomb leaves devastating radiation that kills thousands. The fallout can travel for hundreds of miles poisoning and killing those no where near the site of the man blast. It causes birth defects in the next generation thanks to the same poisoning affects, so even if you don't die, your children might. That's what makes a nuclear bomb immoral. It's not just burning the city, it's salting the earth, and casting fallout across hundreds of miles requiring massive cleanup operations that endanger the lives of those doing the cleanup and murdering your future.

[+streakeagle 867]

So let me get this straight, the effects of a nuclear bomb are immoral compared to conventional warfare?

WW2 covered far more area than any single atom bomb.

The effects of fighting a large scale (global) conventional war for just a few years lasted decades, certainly affecting children not even born yet.

There were (and still are) minefields and unexploded ordinance all over Europe.

 

Does Japan surrender without dropping the A-bombs? Probably not. Those two bombs saved millions of lives in exchange for the thousands that suffered their effects. It would have been immoral to invade Japan D-Day style when the bombs were available to avoid that blood bath. Japanese women, children, and elderly were supposed to fight to the death. Based on the the island hopping campaigns, I believe a large majority of them would have done so.

 

Jump ahead to the Cold War. The frightening potential of atomic warfare ensured that even big conflicts like Korea were carefully fought to avoid an all-out World War 3 fight between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

 

I can fully understand why Iran would want nuclear weapons. Once a country has them, they will never be invaded and they get to sit at the big boys table in the United Nations. Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea get a level of respect from their enemies that ensures most conflicts are at best minor skirmishes. Unless some odd situation triggers a major nuclear exchange, nuclear weapons have been the most sane, humane, and moral weapons to ever be created. Unlike all conventional weapons created before or since, they were only used once and dramatically reduced the number of lives lost over the long haul.

[Tirak 4]

Nuclear warfare is immoral, use of nuclear weapons is immoral, the question is are you willing to accept that immorality to achieve your goals. Japan very likely would have been forced to surrender without either a ground invasion or a nuclear strike. The US had been bombing conventionally, and due to Japanese construction techniques, was extremely vulnerable to fire bombing attacks, as was demonstrated prior to the use of the bomb. Japan simply would have been unable to continue the war. And while the common mythos is that the Japanese were mindless in their devotion and as a whole were willing to commit collective suicide to avoid defeat, this is simply not the case. Opinion was divided, and without too much push, would have gone towards surrender, as was being discussed at the highest level. The unconditional surrender could have been achieved without unleashing the atomic bomb, and the murder of a quarter of a million men, women and children, not even counting children not yet even born.

 

The use of the Nuclear weapons on Japan was not to induce Japan to surrender, but to warn the Soviets not to get greedy, to that end, we committed an atrocity to demonstrate to the world that you do not mess with the US, but that doesn't make it moral.

[+whiteknight06604 934]

lol

[TheWarrior 62]

My grandfather was with the 5th Armored Division during WW2.  He landed at Normandy in June of 44 and fought across western Europe into Germany.  When Germany surrendered, his division started making preparation to deploy to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan.  Not to come home.  Those two nuclear weapons allowed him and many other GIs to come home.  I don't buy this BS Japan was going to surrender. 

[Wrench 9,801]

including my father, then in the Philipines, and another cousin, serving on Okinawa.

 

The debate on whether or not to use The Bomb, can and probably will go on forever. But for those of us that heard the stories of the Pacific War, firsthand from the people that were there, is another thing.

 

Bottom Line:

It ended the 2nd World War, and probably saved several orders of magnitude of casualties over and above those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nuclear weapons, as horrible as they are, have kept the world from another all encompassing conflict for more than 50 years.

 

Anything else, clouded in liberal, "politically correct", rewritten history rehetoric, is bullshit.

I'm quite sure if the Nazis had perfected their weapon, and detonated it over, say London, the debate would be completely opposite.

[+logan4 847]

All conscious beings needs evolution otherwise they stagnate and deteriorate. The application of a weapon of such scale is a step in that evolution. What follows is the result of that step. Either learn to control and work out ways to cooperate with one an other or just wipe out the entire civilization as a whole and give a chance to the planet to start anew with hopefully a better result. 

The truth is no conventional nor nuclear weapons are morally correct. No one has a right to apply them with any reason, no one has a right to an other piece of land more than those who already live there regardless what resources or opportunities that land provides. 

If mankind would have learnt to live in piece with each other regardless of skin color, language, religious orientation/belief, possession of a piece of land or ideology no one would pursue the false hope of the safety of nuclear arsenal possession and no one would have need them anyway.

If people had learned then only a hunting rifle or a bow would be the most someone needs to get fed properly or save themselves from larger predators like lions, bears and such, everything else would be a waste of resources that could be used for more noble goals.

 

Lucky as we are there was only that 2 occasion to use it in anger ; aside the several hundred aerial and underground "tests" - which have plenty of side effects for the planet and populace. If it was to the Germans to use it first, the end result more likely would have been a bit different and with a lot more serious aftermath. 

Wanting to own a weapon of such scale or the environment that dictates you need one to take you seriously is still a sad state on the evolutionary steps. There is still a long way to go for those who yearn such a toy, those should all step back and do a self evaluation on what at all they do on the face of Earth....

 

Using any scientific evolvement for military purpose (even if you are cornered into such constraint) as a First step is a faulty thinking, regardless how much you want to say "the weapon race made all this possible what we have today". That statement is with a big chance - false. Since we (our elders) went this road we do not know how far we would have gotten throughout cooperation and mutual respect and share of resources.

 

Honor the fact that we only had to use 2 times as the OP intended (with the notion kept of what was lost or gained regardless of sides during the war, because we DID lost and gained at the same time) and hope that we can have better sense and learn from that fact 70 years later what others previously failed to conclude or learn up to this time. It will be our children and grand children whom benefits from it, of course if we do learn something otherwise it will be their task to solve and work out. Wouldn't you want them to have a better life then you had, without all the fuss, nerve-racking, etc?

[Tirak 4]

Not bullshit at all. I've studied this issue and discussed it with Japanese historians. I've lived in the country during  a year abroad during University and been to those sites. My major has focused on the history and politics of Japan and its relationship with the US. Japan had already been defeated, it was simply a matter of time until the exact outcome the Allies wanted came about. A concentrated bombing campaign, in conjunction with the already in place blockade would have ended the war without direct invasion being necessary. The anecdotes of GIs and members of family may be easily accepted, they were not in a position to actually judge what was going on in the upper echelon of a Japanese government that was becoming erratic, unreliable and starting to fray. World War 2 wasn't ended by the bomb, it was ended by superiority of the US Navy and the blockade on the home islands. With the capture of Okinawa allowing US bombers to range the islands, and the announcement of the Soviet Union that it would be ending its neutrality, all hope was crushed.

 

It's not politically correct rewritten history, if anything, the necessity of the bombs to defeat a country that had run out of fuel and resources such that it couldn't fight back even if it wanted to, is the rewritten for palatable consumption version. The Atomic bomb was a threat to the USSR, written on the back of Japan.

[Fubar512 1,350]

, and the announcement of the Soviet Union that it would be ending its neutrality, all hope was crushed.

 

 

 

Which did not take place until 2 days after Hiroshima. 

 

and....

 

Was the use of two nuclear weapons which ended a bloody conflict and prevented the deaths of possibly a million more any less immoral then what took place at Unit 731 in Harbin?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Edited August 7, 2015 by Fubar512

[+whiteknight06604 934]

so it would have been moral to use conventional weapons and kill upwards of a million but it was immoral to use 2 bombs that killed a couple hundred thousand and ended things right then.....yeah makes sense. Things have changed but I don't give 2 shits how many Japanese died as a result of the bombings. they were at war with my country. All loss of life is a horrible thing but the bombing saved thousands of allied lives. The Japanese were arming women and children with pikes to attack allied landing troops. they had thousands of aircraft and almost a million men under arms on the home islands. that was a force that while low on fuel and supplies would and could have cost tens of thousands of allied lives. Sorry the bombings saved lives and it was done. I still see no difference between using 1000 bombers to destroy a city or 1.The sheer magnitude of the destruction and it's shock value was very helpful in saving millions of lives on both sides since the Japanese had already shown that large scale use of conventional weapons had little effect on them thinking about peace. I think if they ignored 300 thousand deaths in Tokyo firebombings they would be highly resistant to further such bombings. yeah maybe in time they would have but what after another half million deaths? yeah that seems much more moral than using 2 bombs and ending things there and saving at least a million further deaths including an estimated 250,000 Allied troops

[fallenphoenix1986 603]

 the common mythos is that the Japanese were mindless in their devotion and as a whole were willing to commit collective suicide to avoid defeat, this is simply not the case. 

 

Thing is that it wasn't a myth... on Okinawa and Saipan Japanese civilians DID commit mass suicide... sorry but it simply IS the case....

 

Craig

[macelena 1,070]

If i recall correctly, they had such a surplus of purple stars made that up to this day, purple stars being awarded are taken from the lot stocked for the invasion of Japan.

 

 don´t see bombing civilians as anything fancy either conventionally or by nukes, but if that worked, well, i guess that if i was to make a decision, i would have dropped them, i just wish there had been a cleaner target to drop them against, but honestly, i don´t think i could have found a better solution.

[+daddyairplanes 10,134]

Purple Hearts macelena. They are awarded for being wounded (or killed) in combat and yes the current batch derives from preparation for the invasion of Japan. IIRC theres someting like 100000 left in that batch

[+Dave 2,322]

Tirak 

 

Sorry you are dead wrong. Both my grandfathers were in the Pacific. They saw how the Japanese fought. There were not going to surrender, not at all. The theories it was a message to Russia is 100% bullshit. It's the excuse people to use when they cannot accept that using it saved more lives than an invasion would of been. How can you even compare what we did by dropping those bombs to what Stalin did to his own people or the Nazis did to the Jews. They murdered MILLIONS.  

Thing is that it wasn't a myth... on Okinawa and Saipan Japanese civilians DID commit mass suicide... sorry but it simply IS the case....

 

Craig

 

Right on Craig, the average Japanese was totally obedient to the Emperor and would of fought to the death. 

[+daddyairplanes 10,134]

With mention of the Nazis one should keep in mind the bomb was developed for use against Germany. If the Luft 46 folks had their way we would be talking about Munich or Nurnberg instead. Hitlers decision to eat a bullet and his successors decision to pack it in are what got Japan the title of only country to have been nuked.

[Wrench 9,801]

 

the average Japanese was totally obedient to the Emperor

 

in every aspect of their lives.

 

case in point, would be the reception our troops received when finally stepping on Home Island soil ... I'm sure they were scared nearly shitless, given what they'd seen in the Western and Central Pacific battles.

BUT ... because the Emperor ORDERED the surrender, my research has turned up no incidents of anything but cooperation, almost to be point of complete subjugation.

 

from the 'technical' standpoint, I'd recommend reading this bit on DOWNFALL

 

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/MacArthur%20Reports/MacArthur%20V1/ch13.htm

[2skicomrade 34]

Sorry for this thought train (I'm pretty conflicted in my view of Nuclear arms).

 

On one hand, I'm very thankful that the Soviets developed the bomb as quickly as they did (to being to create a situation where MAD was applicable).  Even if they could not develop true parity in the number of warheads and their delivery vehicles until the mid-70s, the fact that the USSR possessed the bomb gave pause to the more hawkish among us.  I can think of at least three instances from the Cold War when the use of atomic weapons was considered: MacArthur in Korea, to stave off the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu, and Cuba.  Hell, Churchill pressed quite hard to nuke Moscow when he became PM again after the war.             

 

Now, from a more balanced perspective, I can say the same thing about the Soviets considering the use of Nuclear weapons against Israel in 1967/73, and against China to prevent it from testing its first A-bomb in 1964.  I believe that MAD, considering the likely-hood of conflict between east and west, prevented a global war.  

 

I can also see the Cold War from the perspective of 3rd world countries like India and Yugoslavia, whose leaders saw the world falsely divided between East and West and did not want to be dragged into a manufactured conflict with the threat of nuclear weapons.  For these counties, before they were inevitably made to choose sides (for economic, political, and other reasons), nuclear weapons were a curse, and something that they, initially, fought very hard to ban through international institutions like the UN.                  

[Tirak 4]

The Japanese upper echelon of government was fast becoming fractured over the course of the war. Deprived of fuel, food and other essential war materials, it had quickly become apparent that Japan could do nothing. They could not mount offensive warfare anymore, they quite literally lacked the fuel to do so. By this point in the war, Japan wasn't looking for anything other than some way of going to the negotiating table to argue for anything other than complete surrender. This is what Okinawa was, a final last stand in the hopes that they could repel an allied assault for long enough that the allies would be willing to negotiate a settlement without forcing total capitulation, and thus was fought in a way to attempt to force the Allies to pause.

 

When Okinawa fell, it was absolutely crystallized that nothing more could be done, but still a majority of the high command seemed to be in favor of continuing the war. However, despite what your grandfathers may have told you, the Japanese were not mindless robots. While your average citizen had been indoctrinated since a very young age, the people who made it to the top of the military structure were ambitious and intelligent individuals. Often western educated, these men had run out of options. So, identifying the more stringent members of the government, a portion of the Japanese government began to put into motion a plan to force the government to accept peace terms, while outwardly still professing support for the war. An even basic understanding of Japanese politics in the run up to the war will make it plain to see why public and private actions were so significantly different. When even the Prime Minister could be easily assassinated by the military if it so desired, these men needed to work in secret until the time was right. A continued blockade would make the conditions perfect for them to act, to overturn the military control and get the Emperor to declare that Japan would surrender. The pact with the Soviet Union was announced that it would be annulled was made on April 5, 1945, well before the dropping of both bombs. What was needed was time, blockade and patience, and because of our stranglehold by this point, America had the time. It is important to also take note, that one of the largest stumbling blocks in the peace process, was the status of the Japanese Emperor. In negotiation attempts prior to use of the Atom Bomb, the Allies insisted on his removal, yet after the bomb was dropped, that condition was dropped, and all mention of the Emperor was removed from the surrender.

 

As to those saying "The Japanese were worse," to this I can only respond that America seeks to be better than our enemies. We do not, and cannot compare ourselves to the atrocities of others, but rather hold ourselves to our higher standard. Saying that our atrocities aren't as bad, does not resolve them of being atrocities.

 

And to White Knight, the reason why the atomic bomb is worse, is not because of who it kills directly, but the side effects. Bombing a city does not make it uninhabitable. Shooting an enemy does not make their descendants die of birth defects. I am not saying the Atomic Bomb is an atrocity for how many it killed, but by the fact that the Atomic weapon, corrupts human DNA, and murders the future of a family. While war is an immediate thing which we seek to end in the fastest way possible, western culture has rejected the concepts of the past of salting the earth. We do not kill the future of a people, when fighting is done, we aid them and bring them back to par with the rest of the world, as we did with both Germany and Japan after the war, but no amount of economic aid can repair chromosomes. The Atomic Bomb is the ultimate regression, as it seeks not just to kill the living, but the next generation as well.

[2skicomrade 34]

Tirak, that is a very intelligent, thoughtful, and mature comment.  The only thing I can add, is that the Japanese twice asked the Soviet Union to negotiate a conditional surrender with the Western Allies while it was still neutral.  Of course, Stalin threw this straight into the trash basket, as he had already agreed with Churchill and FDR to invade Manchuria, and that unconditional surrender was the only option.  Of course, at the end of it all, the Pacific peace treaties ended up making several concessions to the Japanese (such as not bringing the Emperor to war-crimes trials and allowing him to retain his position in Japanese society).... we needed a friend in the region considering the gathering clouds of conflict with the Soviets.       

Edited August 8, 2015 by 2skicomrade

[+daddyairplanes 10,134]

We know the effects of nuclear weapons today. Who knew those effects back in the summer of 1945? Some of the plans for Downfall included nukes on the beachheads 90 mins prior to US troops wading ashore. We can look back in 2015 and ssy how horrible. But from 1945 through the early 50s nukes were just another tool too be used.

 

Edit tablet did a quadruple post

Edited August 8, 2015 by daddyairplanes

[TheWarrior 62]

 

 

And to White Knight, the reason why the atomic bomb is worse, is not because of who it kills directly, but the side effects. Bombing a city does not make it uninhabitable. Shooting an enemy does not make their descendants die of birth defects. I am not saying the Atomic Bomb is an atrocity for how many it killed, but by the fact that the Atomic weapon, corrupts human DNA, and murders the future of a family. While war is an immediate thing which we seek to end in the fastest way possible, western culture has rejected the concepts of the past of salting the earth. We do not kill the future of a people, when fighting is done, we aid them and bring them back to par with the rest of the world, as we did with both Germany and Japan after the war, but no amount of economic aid can repair chromosomes. The Atomic Bomb is the ultimate regression, as it seeks not just to kill the living, but the next generation as well.

Oh.  Like Unit 731

[+CrazyhorseB34 937]

Listen. Bottom Line.

 

Fuck the Japanese in WWII.

 

The HONEST answer is they would not have given up. Because of their twisted melding of Nationalististic and Fake ass religious Ideaology.

 

I am proud of the fact we nuked those people.

 

I exist today because we did.

Fuck them. BOOM!

 

We won. Shut up.

You want to talk about morals.... I can do that all day.

 

They deserved a stronger tribe showing them the power of God in their face.

Especially after they lied to us.

 

Back channeled us and sneak attacked us like a bunch of cowards.

[+CrazyhorseB34 937]

America did not screw up the entire world by showing it that we have the ability to destroy its's self.

 

We actually saved it by showing that if we ever do something like that again, ALL of us might die.

 

Think about it.... might of been the MOST compassionate act any Tribe ever did!