Truman and Hiroshima

Union8448

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I have a personally autographed copy of David McCollough's Truman and I have read it twice, hard times call for hard choices. I have read other books on the subject of the 'bomb'. I sure as HELL don't know what I woulda done in their shoes, but I guess my first instinct would be to punch em full on in the nose and go for the K.O..
After D-Day in Europe and Okinawa, the prospect of landing troops on any of the Japanese main islands would be grim. I think I would have authorized bombing at least one undamaged city.
 

rittmeister

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I'm not in a mood for jokes about nuclear bombs, or fire bombing major metropolises.
no joke there - i'm questioning this
The sudden end to war in the Pacific kept the Russians from occupying any more of Japan.
the russians didn't occopy a squarefoot of japanese territory during the war.
 

Union8448

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What about Ike opinion on the topic...

LINK: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...wful-thing-why-dropping-the-a-bombs-was-wrong

Snip...

"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
That was a conclusion of the 1946 U.S. Bombing Survey ordered by President Harry Truman in the wake of World War II.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said in 1963
, “ the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
That wasn’t merely hindsight. Eisenhower made the same argument in 1945. In his memoirs, Ike recalled a visit from War Secretary Henry Stimson:

Snip...

That wasn’t merely hindsight. Eisenhower made the same argument in 1945. In his memoirs, Ike recalled a visit from War Secretary Henry Stimson:

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. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”
Maybe Truman wanted to shock world opinion with respect to the US' willingness to use weapons of mass destruction to freeze the strategic situation. The real target may have been the Russians.
 

O' Be Joyful

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The real target may have been the Russians.

From everything I have read yes, to stymie their aggression in Europe, but japan was #1. The aftermath sent one hell of a 'signal' sent out to the Russkies.
 

rittmeister

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I thought Sakhalin Island had been Japanese. Apparently not.
that was after the war was practically over and the japanese had illegally occupied the nothern (soviet) part since the mid '20s. the russians invaded the southern (japanese) part after the empire had capitulated to the western allies on august 15th.

it was their 'elsaß-lothringen' anyway
 

diane

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From everything I have read yes, to stymie their aggression in Europe, but japan was #1. The aftermath sent one hell of a 'signal' sent out to the Russkies.
I've thought about that, too. My problem is if it was meant to scare the Russians, it didn't work. Stalin did not scare worth a plugged nickel. It worked with the rest of the world, however. We showed everybody we were the one nation who would build that doomsday machine and actually use it.
 

Joshism

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The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War podcast just did an interview with Richard Frank about the decision to use the atomic bombs. It's on their YouTube channel.
 

rittmeister

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The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War podcast just did an interview with Richard Frank about the decision to use the atomic bombs. It's on their YouTube channel.
this?

 

rittmeister

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The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War podcast just did an interview with Richard Frank about the decision to use the atomic bombs. It's on their YouTube channel.
or more likely this

 

Union8448

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I've thought about that, too. My problem is if it was meant to scare the Russians, it didn't work. Stalin did not scare worth a plugged nickel. It worked with the rest of the world, however. We showed everybody we were the one nation who would build that doomsday machine and actually use it.
Why do you write that it didn't work? The US and the USSR did not start a shooting war in Europe. And eventually the US and the European allies won the economic war.
 

5fish

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Why do you write that it didn't work? The US and the USSR did not start a shooting war in Europe. And eventually the US and the European allies won the economic war.
You are talking about the Cold War in which I was a sailor and citizen in. Here is the man who gave us the Theory of Deterrents: Bernard Brodie an American strategist. He gave the world the Cold War...


Bernard Brodie (May 20, 1910 – November 24, 1978) was an American military strategist well known for establishing the basics of nuclear strategy. Known as "the American Clausewitz," and "the original nuclear strategist," he was an initial architect of nuclear deterrence strategy and tried to ascertain the role and value of nuclear weapons after their creation.

His most important work, written in 1946, was entitled The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order, which laid down the fundamentals of nuclear deterrence strategy. He saw the usefulness of the atomic bomb was not in its deployment but in the threat of its deployment. The book had a now-famous passage "Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other useful purpose." In the early 1950s, he shifted from academia and began work at the RAND Corporation. There, a stable of important strategists, Herman Kahn, and others, developed the rudiments of nuclear strategy and warfighting theory.

Here is more on deterrence ;


Nuclear deterrence is the threat to retaliate with nuclear weapons. In general, deterrence refers to the attempt to create risks that lead the opponent to not engage in a certain policy or action. For deterrence to work the risk must be disproportionately higher than any possible gain. For nuclear deterrence to succeed certain physical and psychological preconditions have to be fulfilled.

In summary, the components of nuclear deterrence have a physical and a psychological character. On the physical level, deterrence requires a series of military instruments, sufficient to threaten the opponent in a way that it would not even think of attacking. Successful deterrence is guaranteed, however, only if the will is there to use these weapons. Deterrence is credible only if a nation is able to successfully convey the first two points to it's opponent, that it is capable and willing. In other words, successful deterrence depends on psychological components: communication and perception.
 

5fish

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The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War podcast just did an interview with Richard Frank about the decision to use the atomic bombs. It's on their YouTube channel.
Truman was going in. He approved all the preparation for the invasion of Japan and General Marshall was for the invasion. Admiral King was against the invasion until Admiral Nimtz supported the invasion. I want to point out that all these men grew up in the shadow of the Civil War and lived through WWI. They may not like the idea of causalities and they all knew Lieber's Code "sharp and brief war" or some say 'sharp war is a just war". They understand Neopolean's quote "Men are not men are my instruments"...

Truman dropped the bomb to save American soldiers' lives and bring the war to an end. The timing was influenced by the Russians because they were planning on invading Japan sooner than us...

"Tokyo rocks under the weight of our bombs...I want the entire world to know that this direction must and will remain - unchanged and unhampered, Our demand has been and it remains - unconditional surrender." President Truman, in his initial address to Congress, 16 April 1945.

But the Army led by General of the Army George C. Marshall believed the critical element was time. A protracted war would squander public support. Therefore, the Army advocated an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands as the swiftest path to concluding the war.

This link is a good summary of the planning of the invasion of Japan... lead up...


On 8 May 1943 the American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) approved a broad plan for future operations in the war against Japan. Entitled the "Strategic Plan for the Defeat of Japan," the plan aimed at securing control of the South China coast, and the islands of Luzon and Formosa. These areas were needed to develop air bases from which to bomb Japan and sever her supply lines.(1) The memorandum also stated, "The United Nations war objective is unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers. The accomplishment of this objective may require the invasion of Japan." This is the earliest official mention of the possibility of an invasion of the Japanese homeland.(2) There were two principal commanders with the responsibility of executing U.S. war plans in the Pacific. General Douglas MacArthur, USA, as Commander-in-Chief Southwest Pacific Area (CINCSWPA), operating in the South Pacific, and Admiral Chester Nimitz, USN, as Commander-in-Chief Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPOA), operating in the Central Pacific. General MacArthur's campaign in New Guinea, and Admiral Nimitz's drive across the Pacific to take the Caroline and Marshall islands during 1943 and early 1944 were steps in the strategic plan to take Luzon, Formosa and the South China coast. However, throughout the summer and autumn of 1944 military planners in Washington argued over the timetable and priority of the Luzon and Formosa operations. There were not enough troops or ships in the Pacific to conduct both operations simultaneously. On 3 October 1944 the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided on the priorities of the strategic plan. They directed General MacArthur to invade Luzon and dropped Formosa as a target in the plan.(3) Instead of an assault on Formosa, Admiral Nimitz was directed to secure the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa as advance bases in support of the air campaign against Japan.(4)
 

5fish

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Here is Wiki's take on Operation Downfall the code name for the invasion of Japan...

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

Operation Downfall was the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of the Japanese home islands near the end of World War II. The planned operation was canceled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet declaration of war, and the invasion of Manchuria.[1] The operation had two parts: Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Set to begin in November 1945, Operation Olympic was intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island, Kyūshū, with the recently captured island of Okinawa to be used as a staging area. In early 1946 would come Operation Coronet, the planned invasion of the Kantō Plain, near Tokyo, on the main Japanese island of Honshu. Airbases on Kyūshū captured in Operation Olympic would allow land-based air support for Operation Coronet. If Downfall had taken place, it would have been the largest amphibious operation in history, surpassing D-Day.[2]

Japan's geography made this invasion plan quite obvious to the Japanese as well; they were able to accurately predict the Allied invasion plans and thus adjust their defensive plan, Operation Ketsugō, accordingly. The Japanese planned an all-out defense of Kyūshū, with little left in reserve for any subsequent defense operations. Casualty predictions varied widely, but were extremely high. Depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians would have resisted the invasion, estimates ran up into the millions for Allied casualties.
[3]

Here our National Park Service does a good job explaining President Turman's four different choices in the use of the Atomic bomb and explains each.


President Truman had four options: 1) continue conventional bombing of Japanese cities; 2) invade Japan; 3) demonstrate the bomb on an unpopulated island; or, 4) drop the bomb on an inhabited Japanese city.

Looking back, President Truman never shirked personal responsibility for his decision, but neither did he apologize. He asserted that he would not use the bomb in later conflicts, such as Korea. Nevertheless, given the same circumstances and choices that confronted him in Japan in 1945, he said he would do exactly the same thing. It was heavy burden to bear. Speaking of himself as president, Truman said, “And he alone, in all the world, must say Yes or No to that awesome, ultimate question, ‘Shall we drop the bomb on a living target?’” Every president since Harry Truman has had that power. None has exercised it.

Here is another link... the cost of the invasion could have been...


In the planned invasion of Japan, the US navy planners favored the blockade and bombardment of Japan to instigate its collapse. General Arthur MacArthur and the army planners urged an early assault on Kyushu followed by an invasion of the main island of Honshu. Admiral Chester Nimitz agreed with MacArthur. The ensuing Operation Downfall envisaged two main assaults – Operation Olympic on Kyushu, planned for early November and Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu in March 1946. The casualty rate on Okinawa was 35%; with 767,000 men scheduled to participate in taking Kyushu, it was estimated that there would be 268,000 casualties. The Japanese High Command instigated a massive defence plan, Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive) beginning with Kyushu that would eventually amount to almost 3 million men with the aim of breaking American morale by ferocious defense.


This link I think was written by the guy in episode 225... If we had done the Blockade may have resulted in fewer American deaths but the horror we would have brought upon the Japanese people would have colored our victory... more than people try today about our use of the Atomic bomb. This guy is so wrong about Admiral King's plan because it forgets "A sharp war is a just war". A note I can not find anywhere where Nimtz changed his mind except in this guy's writtings.

.

King’s alternative strategy was the Navy’s long preferred one of blockade. It was the most ruthless strategy Americans contemplated in 1945. The blockade explicitly aimed to cut off food supplies and kill millions of Japanese, mostly civilians, from starvation. Atomic weapons then available lacked the power or numbers to kill by measures more than thousands. Critics of how the war ended quote statements by Naval officers that the war could have been ended without atomic bombs. What the critics do not disclose is that this alternate means to end the war aimed to kill Japanese by the millions
 

Union8448

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Deterrence worked in part because people had seen the hideous suffering in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was not a non military demonstration of the atomic bomb. But tests of thermonuclear weapons may have served a similar purpose. It wasn't difficult to extrapolate what the death toll would be from simultaneous use of multiple H-bombs.
 

5fish

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Studio Ghibli's
This video examines the atomic bombing of Japan and its effect on Japan, using Studio Ghibli's anime films...

 

5fish

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Here is the B-29 bomber that flew on both atom bomb bombing missions over Japan... The Great Artiste... It drops instruments to study the bombings...


The Great Artiste was a U.S. Army Air Forces Silverplate B-29 bomber (B-29-40-MO 44-27353, Victor number 89), assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group. The aircraft was named for its bombardier, Captain Kermit Beahan, in reference to his bombing talents. It flew 12 training and practice missions in which it bombed Japanese-held Pacific islands and dropped pumpkin bombs on targets in Japan. It was the only aircraft to have participated in both the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, albeit as an observation aircraft on each mission.

After the war ended it returned with the 509th Composite Group to Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico. It was scrapped in September 1949 after being heavily damaged in an accident at Goose Bay Air Base, Labrador, the year before.

 
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