I think I will, because:
If I don't drop the bomb immediately, maybe japanese will attack one of U.S. military base in pacific like Pearl Harbor. Can you imagine the outcry if americans found out I'd the weapon to stop japanese but didn't use it?
It's a hard choice, but it's the only choice Truman had.
Glad you answered your own question.
share"maybe japanese will attack one of U.S. military base in pacific like Pearl Harbor"
Japan was done, allegedly they dropped the bomb to avoid a ground invasion, i.e. "slaughter 100k japs to save 100k usamerican lives".
To answer your question, no I wouldn't.
That's nowhere near the whole picture. It also saved millions of Japanese lives. Look at what happened to Okinawa, complete destruction and loss of most human lives on the island. The same would have happened on the main islands, and Japan would have been a complete wasteland. It's tragic, but it saved untold lives on both sides, and really allowed Japan to rebuild sooner.
shareYes. It's a pretty classic example of the trolley problem, where you're saving many lives by directly taking the lives of a fewer number of people.
In past ground invasions, such as in the Battle of Okinawa, over 200 thousand people died, mostly Japanese soldiers and civilians. The ground invasion that was to come on the Japanese home islands (Operation Downfall) was estimated to massively exceed all of this, with between 250-thousand to 1 million American lives expected to be lost and several million Japanese lives lost. Even the low estimates of deaths were far more than what was lost due to the dropping of the atomic bombs (somewhere around 129,000 and 226,000).
As far as the Japanese being "done" and ready to surrender, that's a topic of a lot of debate. However, just 11 days before the bombs were dropped the Allies warned the Japanese (the Potsdam Declaration) that if they didn't unconditionally surrender they would face "prompt and utter destruction" and Japan refused to go along with it. Thus, the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. After this, Japan still refused unconditional surrender. So, three days after that, the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Almost a week after that (and the Soviet Union declaring war on them) they finally gave up.
'In past ground invasions, such as in the Battle of Okinawa, over 200 thousand people died, mostly Japanese soldiers and civilians. The ground invasion that was to come on the Japanese home islands (Operation Downfall) was estimated to massively exceed all of this, with between 250-thousand to 1 million American lives expected to be lost and several million Japanese lives lost. Even the low estimates of deaths were far more than what was lost due to the dropping of the atomic bombs (somewhere around 129,000 and 226,000).'
Those figures are really interesting. Thanks.
good post .
i wonder if "they would face "prompt and utter destruction" " , included the full , or even partial, facts about the power of the bomb, otherwise it might seem like a casual threat that they would assume meant more of the same conventional warfare.
I doubt it would matter either way, considering that even after the first bomb was dropped, and they saw the power firsthand, they were still refusing to surrender.
shareYou're going to get a resounding yes from the far right on this forum.
shareI would have dropped only one and given the Japanese a chance to surrender. I also would've invaded Russia and dropped a bomb on them too because you know they wouldn't have surrendered. America could've owned the world. Instead we keep spending trillions just fighting small conflicts all over the world. Americans basically paid for western security for 100 years.
shareBuilding on that. I would have invited Japanese officials and drop the first bomb at an unmanned area, and threaten to drop the second one on Tokyo.
Then again, their purpose was to test the destructive power of the 2 bomb designs and how many civilians it can kill, that is why 2 bombs were dropped 3 days apart.
I don't think humanitarian concerns were ever their focus.