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Obediah
Mohicanland Statesman
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
August 16 2006
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 Posted - April 13 2007 : 12:29:54 PM
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Serious questions time...instead of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki, why didn't the US cut to the chase & nuke Tokyo? The USAF could have dropped it right on top of the Imperial Palace. Which brings me to my other question: even while the US was fire-bombing Tokyo back to the stone age, why did they always spare the Imperial Palace and Hirohito? I assume FDR/Truman/et al thought they had a good reason for what they did or didn't do, but I don't have a clue what that was. Any WWII experts in this forum who can give us some wisdom here?
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lonewolf
Colonial Settler
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February 12 2004
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 Posted - April 13 2007 : 7:41:41 PM
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FDR and Truman both knew that Hirohito would be needed to unite Japan at the conclusion of World War Two. So did Gen. MacArthur. A civil war would have ensued following the surrender of Japan, if Hirohito would have been hanged or killed by bombing. We made the correct decision, based on what we were facing, even though Hirohito deserved to have been hanged. He never had power sfter WW2, but was only a figurehead. Thus, he was spared. There was enough evidence to put him on trial and hang him. He could easily have been tried as a war criminal. Sometimes tough decision have to be made for the overall good. There was no question that he was involved in WW2 decision making, and even in instigating and, going along with the military leaders in the warmaking process. The attrocities committed by Japan against millions of Chinese civilians alone, was enough to hang Hirohito as a war criminal.
As far as nuking Tokyo, there wasn't much sense to it, since we already burned it to the ground with fire bombs. Nuking Tokyo would have been a waste of a nuke. We actually killed more Japanese in Tokyo using firebombs than we did with nukes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
There is a lot of controversy over the U.s. using nukes, but the Japanese left us no choice. A land war in Japan would have cost the U.S. and Japan many times the numbers killed in the dropping of the two nukes.
War is pure hell, and there really are no winners in war, just losers all the way around. War is inhumane and should be avoided at all costs.
Glory in war? It brings out both the best and the worst in humans.
We only had two nukes available, so they had to be dropped on carefully selected industrial targets. Hiroshima and Nagasaki fit the bill.
When we firebombed Dresden and Hamburg in Germany, those were psychological targets designed to break the spirit of the German populace. This they failed to do, but we reduced the skilled work force by hundreds of thousands. Sadly, innocent children die in wars. |
Ken Lonewolf |
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Obediah
Mohicanland Statesman
USA
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August 16 2006
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Posted - April 13 2007 : 11:39:46 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by lonewolf
... There is a lot of controversy over the U.s. using nukes, ...
There may be controversy for using nukes now, but there was absolutely NO controversy back in 1945. But you already knew that...
BTW, thanks for the info. It cleared up what I thought I knew.  |
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Dances with Beagles
Colonial Settler
USA
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May 19 2002
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Posted - April 14 2007 : 1:32:35 PM
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| I'm not expert on this at all, but my understanding is that part of the reason Hiroshima was chosen was because it was relatively intact from the war, and bomb blast studies could be done to see the impact of the atomic bomb. If they picked an already-bombed-out city, it would be hard to assess what the bomb did. |
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Nuking Japan...
