The atomic bombs dropped in WW2 were unecessary.

Uhhh, the problem is that we had already done that.

Operation Meetinghouse was a single run of B-29 Superfortress bombers that conducted a firebombing raid on Tokyo on the night of 9-10 March 1945. It was conducted by 279 bombers, and was the most destructive bombing attack in the entire war. Only 14 of the 279 bombers were lost, yet over 100,000 Japanese were killed, one million were left homeless, and over 19 square miles of the city were razed.

Firebombing was suspended because of the imminent invasion of Okinawa. After that battle was over, you had more conventional bombing attacks on Tokyo. Among those were 49 missions with the "Pumpkin Bomb", essentially an inert bomb that matched the size and weight of the Fat Man device. These were dropped on 14 different targets, including the Imperial Palace.

We could have firebombed them into ashes, they would not have surrendered. Remember, this was a culture that believed their Emperor to be a God. And that some sort of miracle or event would have arisen to protect them. Like the "Divine Winds" (Kamikaze) that protected them from Mongolian invasions in 1274 and 1281.

 

Like Eisenhower, most American generals were not very keen on dropping an atomic bomb on Japan. Probably FDR would have never used the atomic bombs to end the war, based on his comments. Truman made the call to save “many thousands of American troops [that] would be killed in invading Japan.” But even Henry Stimson was not sure the bombs were needed to reduce the need of an invasion. Truman wanted to drop the bombs to boost his statue as FDR's replacement and the atomic bombs certainly established US dominance immediately after the Second World War. Roosevelt had not bothered to brief Truman on the project either at the time as Truman was treated like a virtually illiterate hick, with a bad temper and a foul mouth.

 

Japan had not surrendered. The bombs dropped and Japan surrendered. Nuff said.

Of course the real answer is more complicated than the rattlings of a few internet armchair experts.

Would Japan have surrendered without the atomic bombings?

 

Cold War politics could have played a role, too. The missing factor from the American narrative of Japanese surrender is a Soviet invasion of Japan. Soviet troops would have taken Tokyo easily within weeks because the northern half of Japan was sparsely populated and largely defenseless. The second largest Japanese island of Hokkaido was originally planned by the Soviets to be part of the territory taken. But the Soviets were held off due to apprehension of the United States' new position as an atomic power. In this scenario similar to Nazi Germany's surrender, Japan would have been divided into Communist East Japan and American-controlled West Japan and the emperor could have committed suicide in the underground bunker of the Palace. In the worst case scenario, Japan might have been entirely taken by the Soviet Union, while the American troops were stuck in Okinawa.

 

Even if the USSR had the ability to successfully invade & occupy part of Japan's home islands - and I remain to be convinced they had the sealift to do it - the bomb wasn't the reason Stalin held off.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/05/stalin_japan_hiroshima_occupation_hokkaido/

 

Their culture counted for nothing. They were the enemy. Only our culture counted.

Killing 10 million Japanese to get one US Marine out of POW prison in Japan before he succumbed to death would have been well worth it.

 

And how exactly would they have gotten there, swim? The Soviets had no significant amphibious assets in the region at all. They only invaded Manchuko and Chosin, something they could reach by land. The only amphibious assault they made was the occupation of the Kuril Islands, days before the surrender on 18 August 1945. They landed with a whopping force of 15,000 troops. And doing that took all of their naval assets in the theater.

And in case you did not know it, the Battle of Okinawa was already over with months before the surrender. The Island was becoming a massive staging area for the US forces that would participate in Operation Downfall. And to make a comparison, while the Soviets had to scrape to have the equipment to land 15,000 troops in the Kuril Islands (a few hundred miles from Soviet naval bases). Meanwhile the US had already brought over half a million men across the Pacific to take Okinawa, and were already assembling the ships and manpower for an invasion force of over 5 million to invade the mainland of Japan.

And you really believe the Soviets would have gotten there first?

 

I guess you give no consideration to "knowing your enemy" then.

And I will ignore the silly second sentence, it means nothing.

 

The B-36 exceeded the ceiling of the B-29 by more than 8,000 feet. The zeroes could not have touched a B-36 at all and no B-36's would have been lost by air combat. Much bigger payload, too. It's a shame they were not operational.

A man I once met, Capt. James Tootle, USMC ret., recently passed. He was in a contingent that MacArthur ordered to destroy arms and surrender on Corregidor, and was in the death march of Cabanatuan and then rode a hell ship to Japan.

I would favor leaving nothing breathing in Japan to have gotten this one man out.

 

The Soviets had already captured the Kuril Islands (a chain of islands in the Russian Far East). Stalin ordered Soviet troops to prepare to land on mainland Japan at the time Japan surrendered. Hokkaido, the second largest island of Japan, was just a mile away from the Kuril Islands. Japanese islands are located so close to each other that it's technically possible to swim to the next island.

 

Yes they would according to the military experts of the time

 

Sure, that's why they didn't surrender after we dropped the first one.

 

The war was over according to the generals

 

The war isn't over until the enemy surrender.
While their navy and airforce were depleted, they still had a big army assign to the defense of the mainland in fortified positions. So no the war wasn't over.

 

Name 2 generals or admirals that agreed with you

 

Ground threat[edit]
Through April, May, and June, Allied intelligence followed the buildup of Japanese ground forces, including five divisions added to Kyūshū, with great interest, but also some complacency, still projecting that in November the total for Kyūshū would be about 350,000 servicemen. That changed in July, with the discovery of four new divisions and indications of more to come. By August, the count was up to 600,000, and Magic cryptanalysis had identified nine divisions in southern Kyūshū—three times the expected number and still a serious underestimate of the actual Japanese strength.

Estimated troop strength in early July was 350,000,[69] rising to 545,000 in early August.[70]

The intelligence revelations about Japanese preparations on Kyushu emerging in mid-July transmitted powerful shock waves both in the Pacific and in Washington. On 29 July, MacArthur's intelligence chief, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, was the first to note that the April estimate allowed for the Japanese capability to deploy six divisions on Kyushu, with the potential to deploy ten. "These [six] divisions have since made their appearance, as predicted," he observed, "and the end is not in sight." If not checked, this threatened "to grow to [the] point where we attack on a ratio of one (1) to one (1) which is not the recipe for victory."[71]

By the time of surrender, the Japanese had over 735,000 military personnel either in position or in various stages of deployment on Kyushu alone.[72] The total strength of the Japanese military in the Home Islands amounted to 4,335,500, of whom 2,372,700 were in the Army and 1,962,800 in the Navy.[73] The buildup of Japanese troops on Kyūshū led American war planners, most importantly General George Marshall, to consider drastic changes to Olympic, or replacing it with a different invasion plan.[citation needed]

 

I'm not seeing those names. MacArthur was quoted as very against the use of the bomb at that time. Marshall was the only general I can find that showed any support for the bomb and that was a brief terse statement....since he had to issue the order.

The generals and admirals said we didn't need to invade....Japan was ready to surrender

 

Are you blind or did you just not read what I posted. MacArthur's intelligence chief, Major General Charles A. Willoughby is cited right there, which means that MacArthur had also that information AND ONLY HIS VIEWPOINT MATTERS AS HE WAS THE CiC OF THE PACIFIC THEATER!

 

He said nothing about the use if the bomb or the war being over. He said they have lots of ground troops. So what. The war was over and Japan knew that. An invasion would never be necessary according to the generals.

And he worked for MacArthur who said we did not need the bomb. Was he lying?

 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/08/08/we_didnt_have_to_drop_the_bomb_127709.html

You can see clearly MacArthurs opinion here

 

--“When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the Emperor.” That’s from “The Pathology of Power,” by Norman Cousins.

Mac Arthur was also a politician. But you seriously believe the guy that want to nuke the chinese during the korean war and was fired by Truman didn't want to get his revenge on Truman while dictating a book years later?

 

I am still waiting on those two names. Did you read the rest of the quotes? Do you have excuses for all of them? Lol

 

By late in the war, the Zero was no longer a threat to aircraft. They were primarily being used as a form of not-so-smart bomb.

Take for example the previously mentioned Operation Meetinghouse. They launched 325 bombers at Tokyo. During the entire flight to and from the various air strips (Saipan, Guam, and others) they only saw 70 enemy fighters, and took fire from 40. And no aircraft were shot down by any of these engagements. The only losses were 14 shot down due to ground fire.

So you see, you are arguing a point that did not matter. We were already doing massive bombing raids and not taking losses due to fighters. Yet you seem to believe waiting another 2 years for a bomber makes sense for some reason.

And for attacks like firebombings, the actual payload does not matter all that much. The strategy is to simply surround an area with the bomblets and the fires themselves spread and call all the damage. That is why these attacks were so deadly. The firestorm did far more damage than any bombs could have done.

 

What I see is that no amount of data I could post would have any impact whatsoever on your opinion concerning this matter.
You take the opinion of people years after the fact and try to retrofit them to 1945, which is silly considering that many had incentive to try to whitewash their part in that.

 

So I guess I am not going to get those names. We have your opinion and the opinions of the greatest military experts of the time.


Tough choice. Lol