Thought provoking Read on 75th Anniversary

[KateR]

I can see various sides of this discussion but have not reached a final conclusion on what I would personally do, where as I think I would encourage/support others if they did it in terms of the 1 for the 5.


https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2020 ... -justified

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Good read that.

In hindsight, dropping the bomb somewhere out of the way had a 50/50 chance of ending the war, but it's quite possible that idea was never an option or presented as one.

I'm against nuclear weapons, always have been and the money wasted on them is astounding and there are better ways to spend it.

Unfortunately we are caught between a rock/hard place with Russia and USA dick waving at each other and China lurking around.

Interesting certain countries are barred from having them yet the only country to ever use one is the USA..

[KateR]

Yes I enjoyed reading it and having to think about the situation, even if it was dropped somewhere just to show them and it did end that war my thoughts are that someone might have used it just because they want to show what would happen, I have to say from a personal perspective I'm glad it was the Americans at the times and not the Germans a little earlier. The fact they were basically willing to lose the Vietnam war rather than use it was a good thing though, I think as it could have been all to easy to have pulled that trigger so to speak.

I am also against nuclear weapons but think nuclear power stations are good and expect to see more of a different design employed in the next couple of decades. While it seems a necessity for some for the UK to have it, I could understand the argument not spend any more money on this, other than maintaining and even totally dismantling.

India and a few others having this power is a worry, Iran and N Korea seeming bound and determined to have it is another worry.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Is it anymore of a worry than USA and Russia having them?
I don't think it is in all honesty as they're the two that keep facing off around the world in various ways.

[Rowls]

I think the further into the past this momentous event moves, the easier it is to forget the attrocities and aggression that led to the dropping of the bomb.

There is a lot of ignorance of Japanese brutality and their despicable wartime record. And partly because of the sympathetic response they received because of the aftermath of the two bombs there is far too little will to teach people just how nasty, vicious and despicable they were.

It's easy, when you understand what they did during the war to consciously justify the nuclear bomb. Only the most ardent of pacifists would have dared oppose it publicly at the time, even though Truman and most of those involved thought long and hard about its use.

But for me and tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands others in the UK alone I am infinitely grateful that the USA had the character to end the war swiftly and clinically.

If they hadn't I would likely never have been born. None of my family as I know it would have come to be either. My grandfather would probably have died from disease, malnutrition, starvation or even brutality or murder in a hellish wartime Jap POW camp.

Please take a short moment to look at the link below:

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

[LeadBelly]

Terrible suffering for the Japanese civilians in those two cities but their armed forces inflicted huge suffering in mainland Asia and to allied prisoners.

I doubt that many of the allied troops (predominantly US forces of course) preferred the alternative of battling yard by yard as they got closer and closer to Japan and then across the Jap main islands. As the link includes, it could've cost up to 1 million allied soldiers lives to use conventional warfare to subdue Japan. Even more numerous would be the deaths of Japanese servicemen and civilians.


What makes me shudder is thinking what would've happened if Japan or Germany had developed the bomb first.

[Jeffbfc]

Even after the second bomb, some of the Japanese milatery still wanted to fight on.
Raided the Royal palace to stop the tapped message of the Emperor calling for surrendered before it was broadcast.
There was still Japanese soldiers being found in jungles in the late 60'S & early 70's who still were ready to fight because they didn't know the war was over.
Death before dishonour.

[Clarets4me]

My Dad worked out in Kansas City, Missouri for a short time in the early 70's and came back with a story he'd been told. He met William Hennegan, who was the son of Robert E Hennegan, at a function.

Hennegan Snr. was a trusted friend of Truman's, being party leader of the Democrats in Missouri, and was a numbers man, and by the war's end was Head of the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ). Truman had made his name chairing a Senate Committee, rooting out rampant overcharging & corruption in contracts awarded by the U.S. war-time Government. Estimates reckon that Truman's oversight saved over $15bn ( $210bn in today's money ) for the U.S. Government.

Truman took over the Presidency on April 12th 1945, but was not told the details of the Atom Bomb until 25th April. When the Japanese refused to surrender after the ultimatum sent to them after the Potsdam conference ( 3rd August ), Truman was faced with his " moral " dilemma, of whether to use the Bomb. The invasion of mainland Japan was imminent, and it was calculated that a total invasion of Japan would cost 250,000 American & Allied lives, with 400,000 military & civilian deaths for the Japanese, as well as a total of 500,000 people suffering life changing permanent disability on both sides ..... At a meeting with his senior advisors, Truman read out these numbers and asked for opinions, the room went silent, and then Hennegan just said firmly, " Drop it, Harry ! " ....

A decision that none of us will have to make, thank God !!

[KateR]

Is it anymore of a worry than USA and Russia having them?
I don't think it is in all honesty as they're the two that keep facing off around the world in various ways.

yes it is, most definitely to me that is.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

yes it is, most definitely to me that is.

Those two have enough between them to wipe us all out several times over and it very nearly happened over Cuba.

Both keep interfering in their affairs of other countries to further their own agendas etc.

[KateR]

totally agree with what you say, it's not how many you have, it's the willingness to use it first, regardless of the cost, just my perception but I trust them more not to use it than I do some others, it's only a perception, it doesn't keep me awake. More around why I would prefer others don't have it and also the vast sums of money spent which as pointed out could be used for better purposes, particularly the UK.

[grapidianclaret]

Easy to criticize Truman for the first bomb,with hindsight. And we all know much more about the effects than Truman did. The snuffing out of 100,000 lives is awful and terrifying, but personally I believe in the context of when it was dropped it was justified. The second one however was more for the benefit of the Soviets than it was for the Japanese.The second A-bomb should not have been dropped in my opinion.
I have always wondered what Churchill would have done, had he been leading the country that developed the bomb. I have a great amount of admiration for Churchill, the right man, at the right time in history for Great Britain and Europe. But I am not sure how he would have dealt with such a weapon at his disposal.

[Jeffbfc]

I have always wondered what Churchill would have done, had he been leading the country that developed the bomb. I have a great amount of admiration for Churchill, the right man, at the right time in history for Great Britain and Europe. But I am not sure how he would have dealt with such a weapon at his disposal.

I wonder what Mr Hitler would have had thought about using a weapon like this at his disposal.
Different times different logic.
Think safe to say London would have been gone.
If not the war.

[Vintage Claret]

The decision for Hitler would have been easy as he was a bit of a cnut.

I'd like to think Truman and Churchill would have found the decision to use the A-Bomb harder to make.

[KateR]

lot's of these things are around timing and circumstances. I think Churchill would have used it at one point had he access to it, Hitler would certainly have used I think but probably on somewhere like Liverpool with the threat to London tomorrow unless there is total surrender, thankfully that would be an alternative history and is all guesswork.

[Oshkoshclaret]

Some well-informed and mature comments here, especially about the context of the times and the nature of the Japanese regime.

And IMHO Churchill would not have hesitated for a second before saying 'drop it'.

[Clarets4me]

Churchill had no qualms about attacking the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, after the French surrender and the installation of the Vichy Government, fearing that the whole French fleet would fall into Axis hands ..... and sacrificed the defenders of Calais, to allow the Dunkirk evacuation.

If you add in the fact that Arthur " Bomber " Harris was heading up Bomber Command, and his famous quote, ( paraphrasing Bismark ), that " I don't consider any city in Germany to be worth the bones of one British Grenadier ! " ... then I think we have our answer !

To declare an interest, my wife's Grandfather was a Royal Artillary Gunner, captured at the fall of Singapore, and a prisoner in Saigon1 Camp until being freed in 1945. He came home virtually a " living skeleton ", and never recovered, dying in the early 1960's. My Great Uncle was part of the forces sent in to liberate the camps, he held a lifetime hatred of the Japanese Military, ( he always said, not " the people " ), until his death in 2011.

[nil_desperandum]

If you add in the fact that Arthur " Bomber " Harris was heading up Bomber Command, and his famous quote, ( paraphrasing Bismark ), that " I don't consider any city in Germany to be worth the bones of one British Grenadier ! " ... then I think we have our answer !

Not necessarily relevant to the A bomb question, but Churchill is on record as being very uneasy / critical about Harris indiscriminate bombing of (essentially) civilian cities such as Dresden.

[Rowls]

Bump.

Is it possible to merge these threads?

[KateR]

I read the other thread and like this one it morphed into whether it was right or wrong to do what was actually done.

However, I started this thread more with the intent as to the article, "would people/you actually deliberately kill one person to save 5 other people", as per my original post, not to agree or disagree with what was done 75 years ago.

Unfortunately no one actually replied to that point, which might just help people to morally justify what was done 75 years ago, because it appears that this is a scenario being taught, if nothing else it's thought provoking (for me) as per the thread title.