"Nagasaki" Topic

We remember today as the day the USA got even with Japan for Pearl Harbor. Happy Nagasaki Day.

Who are the we?

Being British (rather than from the USA) whenever I hear that word my first associated thought is "Back in Nagasaki where the fellers chew tobaccy and the women wicky wacky woo".

😉

Could just be me but I don't find the deaths of 35,000 people by an atomic explosion anything to celebrate. I accept it helped end the war and all the death a suffering it caused.
But it was a horrible way to die.

So was a slow death trapped in an upside down Battleship. So, yeah I'm not sorry.

I understand Grattan's point. But I celebrate the tens of thousands of lives saved on both sides because the Japanese surrendered, and we didn't have to invade the home islands.

Grattan54, I completely agree.

Its always so Easy looking back on a event in the past and take on the position of Judge/Jury/Exacutor. You wern't there and really have no Skin in the game.
My father was training in B-29 after getting screwed out of his Points earn in the ETO. So no Bomb and maybe he dies and there by me. For me its a personal and I would trade 35,000 Enemy Civilians for my Father Living and there by Me.

Pearl Harbour 68 Civilians dead

Nagasaki 40-80 000

Dwight D. Eisenhower about the Atomic Bombs: 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. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.

Celebrating Nagasaki is weird

Not a single Japanese unit surrendered during the Asian/Pacific War. Only a tiny percentage had been engaged by U.S. Forces. There were three million Japanese troops on the Asian Continent. The Japanese home islands had never been conquered.

What was the alternative to an atomic bomb? The Navy and Air Force wanted to blockade and bombard. Millions of Japanese would have starved to death. The 1945 rice crop had failed. Not to mention the fate of our POWs. It would have been horrific.

The Army wanted to invade. The Japanese had amassed a huge Army in Kyushu. The invasion went from being a three-to-one ratio in favor of the Allies, by late July it was one to one. Even Marshall was having second thoughts. It is estimated that 20 million Japanese would have perished in an invasion.

Marshall feared that support for continuing the war was waning. There was a movement afoot to negotiate an end to the war which was exactly what the Japanese were hoping for. American industry was already clamoring to go back to producing civilian products. Was there time for a blockade and bombardment to take effect?

The firebombing of Tokyo killed more Japanese than either atomic bomb, the Japanese government didn't care about the suffering of their people. You tell me what the alternative was?

Do you want to be the President who had a way of ending the war but did not take advantage of it, condemning so many American and Japanese to their deaths? After the war, he would have been impeached.

Real, actual war is nothing to celebrate.

Well I celebrate it. My father was a sniper/scout USMC and had a 17minute life after he fired his first shot. So he was told. He was to be ashore 8 hrs before first naval "prep" of landing area.

Old Contemptible wrote:
"Real, actual war is nothing to celebrate."

Exactly

One more item in the cost of not ending the war with Japan with the bomb, the Soviets were on the verge of joining the war against Japan. Anybody want to guess how much of Asia would get the same occupation as Eastern Europe?

Imagine, if you will, Japan divided as was Germany.

A North and South Japan was an issue at the time. However, the Soviet Union did not have the sea lift capacity in the Pacific. The Soviets wanted a zone of occupation in Japan as they did in Germany since they contributed to the Allied victory over Japan although belatedly.

The Soviets managed to occupy some of the Kuril Islands using torpedo boats, mine trawlers, and what few transports they had to land troops. They had planned to land in Hokkaido but abandoned the plan due to the lack of transport and political concerns.

remember, every Japanese person over 15 was a potential "soldier", trained to use pikes or anything to repel the invaders.

The mere fact that it took being nuked twice before surrendering speaks volumes about the will of the Japanese military to continue fighting.

I know its a cold sentiment, but I am sure people wanted to know the true effect of nuclear weapons on populated cities.
They have provided lots of useful data.

In a way the atomic bombings helped both sides in the future Cold War develop their M.A.D policies, which, it can be argued, kept the world from a nuclear apocalypse.