Japan would have surrendered in August, 1945, without the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Truman knew it

[unogueen]

You don't care for those takes because they do not inform your past. For me those were my grandparents. But the use of the bombs was discriminatory. There's supposed to be a Churchill quote that no such weapon would be used upon the 'west', in a sneering manner.

[best3444]

How many died from the bombing?

[CastlevaniaNut18]

7 minutes ago, best3444 said:

How many died from the bombing?

Both bombings combined, around 200k, though estimates vary. 

[Uaarkson]

6 minutes ago, best3444 said:

How many died from the bombing?

About 200,000 between the two cities. Of particular note, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not even the deadliest of the war. That title goes to Operation Meetinghouse earlier that year (firebombing of Tokyo)

[best3444]

200,000! I would have NEVER of guessed that!

 

8 minutes ago, Uaarkson said:

About 200,000 between the two cities. Of particular note, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not even the deadliest of the war. That title goes to Operation Meetinghouse earlier that year (firebombing of Tokyo)

 

I'll have to look up the firebombing of Tokyo. Jesus Christ. 

[best3444]

In the space of a few hours, they dropped 1,667 tons of napalm-filled incendiary bombs on the Japanese capital, killing more than 100,000 people in a single strike, and injuring several times that number. It was the highest death toll of any air raid during the war, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

[mclumber1]

1 minute ago, best3444 said:

200,000! I would have NEVER of guessed that!

 

 

I'll have to look up the firebombing of Tokyo. Jesus Christ. 

 

Aerial bombing of German and Japanese cities towards the end of the war was absolutely brutal.  But given the tenacity and motivation of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese, there was really no way around it.  

[unogueen]

6 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

Aerial bombing of German and Japanese cities towards the end of the war was absolutely brutal.  But given the tenacity and motivation of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese, there was really no way around it.  

The OP is a challenge of that notion.

[unogueen]

wtf

[mclumber1]

7 minutes ago, unogueen said:

The OP is a challenge of that notion.

 

Sure, and I would contend that there was no way the Allies could have negotiated with the Nazis and Japanese to end the war without crushing their morale and inflicting huge losses to their ability to wage war. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

This isn’t a jab at best or anyone here, but it’s disappointing how little Americans know of our own history. Failure of the education system to teach this stuff. 

[unogueen]

And the article in the OP addressed that.

[best3444]

Just now, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

This isn’t a jab at best or anyone here, but it’s disappointing how little Americans know of our own history. Failure of the education system to teach this stuff. 

 

No, I blame myself for not paying any attention in school. I went to a great school from grades 1-8 then a VERY good High School but I was extremely lazy and never focused. Especially history. Totally my fault.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Just now, best3444 said:

 

No, I blame myself for not paying any attention in school. I went to a great school from grades 1-8 then a VERY good High School but I was extremely lazy and never focused. Especially history. Totally my fault.

I know we didn’t get much into 20th century at my high school. Most of what I’ve learned has just been from avid reading. And we’ve seen how schools want to gloss over the more unsavory aspects. 

[Uaarkson]

When I was in high school, WWII discussion was often centered around the atrocities committed by the Nazis and Imperial Japan, and NEVER around the numerous war crimes committed by the allies and the US in particular. Operation Meetinghouse, by the numbers, was the second-worst war crime in modern human history, after the Holocaust itself.

[Uaarkson]

With that said, every major power involved in WWII was committing war crimes. The area bombing of cities was not an American invention, but as usual we had to go and turn it up to 11.

[johnny]

US History in school barely mentions bad things that the united states does. they also are supposed to spend a ton of time talking about colonial times which leaves less time for the 20th century because of the teaching standards. for example, coverage of japanese internment camps is an abomination. you might find one paragraph about it in a textbook. a lot of adults have no idea the US did that. 

 

World History is even worse. if you follow the standards you barely get to touch on important things. 

 

i don’t pay any attention to the standards so i basically do what i want 

[Massdriver]

Grade school history is propaganda in the US. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

14 minutes ago, Uaarkson said:

When I was in high school, WWII discussion was often centered around the atrocities committed by the Nazis and Imperial Japan, and NEVER around the numerous war crimes committed by the allies and the US in particular. Operation Meetinghouse, by the numbers, was the second-worst war crime in modern human history, after the Holocaust itself.

Lemay said about the firebombing of Japan, he’d have been convicted of war crimes if the US had lost. 

[Uaarkson]

2 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Lemay said about the firebombing of Japan, he’d have been convicted of war crimes if the US had lost. 

Meanwhile, the American public was very much in support of, basically, Japanese genocide. As was typical during the war, the enemy was viewed as “sub-human.”

[thewhyteboar]

I think the only thing I learned about Japanese internment in grade school was when we read an illustrated children’s book that was like “this little boy and his family had to live in a camp. That’s sad! But he loves baseball. That’s fun! Sometimes he played baseball with a white boy. They became friends. Sometimes, things aren’t so bad. The end.”

[Uaarkson]

Just now, thewhyteboar said:

I think the only thing I learned about Japanese internment in grade school was when we read an illustrated children’s book that was like “this little boy and his family had to live in a camp. That’s sad! But he loves baseball. That’s fun! Sometimes he played baseball with a white boy. They became friends. Sometimes, things aren’t so bad. The end.”

If I had a dollar for every time I heard the phrase “necessary evil”…

[TUFKAK]

1 hour ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Both bombings combined, around 200k, though estimates vary. 

With the resulting deaths from fallout after significantly increasing that number.

 

I still stand by the bombs were necessary and saved lives, may we never experience total war again. 

20 million dead Chinese again guys.

42 minutes ago, thewhyteboar said:

I think the only thing I learned about Japanese internment in grade school was when we read an illustrated children’s book that was like “this little boy and his family had to live in a camp. That’s sad! But he loves baseball. That’s fun! Sometimes he played baseball with a white boy. They became friends. Sometimes, things aren’t so bad. The end.”

My dad before he went full maga took me to three internment camps on the west coast as a kid so thankfully I was aware of these horrors in my formative years.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

41 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

Grade school history is propaganda in the US. 

It’s very interesting to note that elementary education is a vast oversimplification in many, many aspects. It’s only when you get to more advanced concepts that the previously held assumptions are particularly torn apart. Now this works out fine for most people in most situations. Like you wouldn’t need to know that valence electron theory starts to make less and less sense as you get into advanced chemistry, but it’s a good approximation for the purposes of getting a basic understanding of how things work the way they do. 
 

but for concepts that affect our society that we live and breathe in every day, the simplifications that we used to introduce children to history and society never get examined on a deeper level and these simplifications never really get challenged. As an easy example, we get a passing education in that the civil rights movement in the 1960s happened and MLK had his speech, but you only usually get the choice quote of “I have a dream that one day …” while probably ignoring the other 16 1/2 minutes of that speech itself, or at least not gone into any further detail. 
 

it also doesn’t help that we teach from the oldest to newest stuff in history, when it should be the other way around (outside of like the revolution and civil war/reconstruction eras)

[Link200]

I recall being taught that the bombs weren't necessary but where used to save American lives that would have been lost in a direct invasion of Japan.

 

A hint of truth within what is likely propaganda.

[Keyser_Soze]

I was never great at History but I do remember learning about internment camps. We even had field trips to The Museum of Tolerance and stuff like that. So maybe where I'm from they really wanted to hammer the point home.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I never knew Arkansas had an internment camp and George Takei was imprisoned there as a little boy. Learned that a few years back. 

[Ghost_MH]

4 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Lemay said about the firebombing of Japan, he’d have been convicted of war crimes if the US had lost. 

 

And I don't recall learning about the fire bombing throughout grade school and high school. I only ever knew they happened pre-Internet because I watched Grave of the Fireflies when I was like ten.

[Spork3245]

5 hours ago, TUFKAK said:

 

I still stand by the bombs were necessary and saved lives, may we never experience total war again.

Estimated casualties post X-Day (planned invasion of Japan) were something like 800-900k, and that’s just Allied forces (mostly US) casualties. Unless I’m grossly misremembering, Japanese soldiers were encouraged to fight to the death with them being brainwashed into thinking that surrender or capture were the worst and most shameful things they could ever do. Yea, the bombs were atrocities, but an invasion of Japan likely would’ve been an even worse hellscape. I know there are arguments that Russia finally declaring war on Japan pushed them over the edge into the surrender (as the article talks about - and it’s something I learned in high school as well), but I really doubt Japan would’ve surrendered unconditionally without the bombs or a full on invasion and this article is using a hell of a lot of hindsight, IMO; Japan being demilitarized and the emperor no longer being worshipped as part of the surrender were two incredibly important things that needed to happen and shouldn’t be dismissed.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Japan was getting civilians ready to fight to the death with whatever makeshift weapons they could scrounge up. Including children. 

[Spork3245]

Just now, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Japan was getting civilians ready to fight to the death with whatever makeshift weapons they could scrounge up. Including children. 

Yup, it was likely going to be an even worse Vietnam-style guerrilla war. The History Channel has a great documentary on X-Day plans (this was made back when the History Channel was actually educational like 20 years ago instead of filled with garbage  )

[TUFKAK]

4 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

Estimated casualties post X-Day (planned invasion of Japan) were something like 800-900k, and that’s just Allied forces (mostly US) casualties. Unless I’m grossly misremembering, Japanese soldiers were encouraged to fight to the death with them being brainwashed into thinking that surrender or capture were the worst and most shameful things they could ever do. Yea, the bombs were atrocities, but an invasion of Japan likely would’ve been an even worse hellscape. I know there are arguments that Russia finally declaring war on Japan pushed them over the edge into the surrender (as the article talks about - and it’s something I learned in high school as well), but I really doubt Japan would’ve surrendered unconditionally without the bombs or a full on invasion and this article is using a hell of a lot of hindsight, IMO; Japan being demilitarized and the emperor no longer being worshipped as part of the surrender were two incredibly important things that needed to happen and shouldn’t be dismissed.

I posted the emperors surrender speech in this thread, he directly referenced nuclear weapons as the proximal cause for their surrender because “civilization” would be destroyed. Not all civilization, because even in defeat at that time they viewed themselves as the only civilized people on the planet. That was the mindset of imperial Japan. This modern day “oh the US is bad for using the bombs therefore Japan is the victim” is ridiculous.

 

200k dead Chinese per month on average throughout the war, but I guess bayoneting babies isn’t as bad as nukes.

[mclumber1]

If the Soviet Union had invaded the main islands of Japan, it's likely the country would have been divided just like Korea was.   That wouldn't have been good for the Japanese, that's for sure.