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Started By
Message
You’re the President. Do you drop the bomb?
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:28 am
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:28 am
This is a spin-off of the Nagasaki A-Bomb thread. There someone posted that the decision to use the atomic bomb was “not our proudest moment” This post made me wonder, what would they do if they’d been in Truman’s shoes during the summer of 1945.
So here is the situation:
1. The US has been at war at this point for just a few months shy of four years
2. The war has already cost billions (trillions in todays dollars)
3. The US has suffered about 400,000 deaths with about 600,000 wounded in all theaters of war up to this point.
4. Japan, the only remaining enemy, has rejected all calls to surrender.
5. The Okinawa campaign just wrapped up with upwards of 70,000 American Casualties. This was right after the Philippines with another 80,000 American casualties.
6. Increasing Kamikaze attacks have thus far sunk 57 American Ships. To put this into context, that’s more ships then we lost at Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the Coral Sea Combined.
7. Japan has thousands of Kamikaze aircraft and even ships they’re holding back for defense of the home islands.
8. Your most senior commanders estimate over one million American dead will result in an invasion of Japan. That’s twice the number of American deaths than had been suffered in all theaters of war up to that point combined. They also estimate Japanese deaths will be up to three times that number, most of them civilians.
9. You are informed of a new bomb capable of destroying an entire city. It will kill hundreds of thousands. But it could possibly convince Japan to throw in the towel without an invasion.
10. The only alternative to invasion or the a-bomb is the continued blockaid of Japan which could take more than a year to convince Japan to surrender. During that year millions of Japanese (mostly civilians) will die of disease and starvation. Plus, hundreds more American ships and thousands American lives will be lost to Kamikaze attacks.
So that’s the situation. What do you do, Mr. President? And what are your reasons for whatever course you decide is best?
So here is the situation:
1. The US has been at war at this point for just a few months shy of four years
2. The war has already cost billions (trillions in todays dollars)
3. The US has suffered about 400,000 deaths with about 600,000 wounded in all theaters of war up to this point.
4. Japan, the only remaining enemy, has rejected all calls to surrender.
5. The Okinawa campaign just wrapped up with upwards of 70,000 American Casualties. This was right after the Philippines with another 80,000 American casualties.
6. Increasing Kamikaze attacks have thus far sunk 57 American Ships. To put this into context, that’s more ships then we lost at Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the Coral Sea Combined.
7. Japan has thousands of Kamikaze aircraft and even ships they’re holding back for defense of the home islands.
8. Your most senior commanders estimate over one million American dead will result in an invasion of Japan. That’s twice the number of American deaths than had been suffered in all theaters of war up to that point combined. They also estimate Japanese deaths will be up to three times that number, most of them civilians.
9. You are informed of a new bomb capable of destroying an entire city. It will kill hundreds of thousands. But it could possibly convince Japan to throw in the towel without an invasion.
10. The only alternative to invasion or the a-bomb is the continued blockaid of Japan which could take more than a year to convince Japan to surrender. During that year millions of Japanese (mostly civilians) will die of disease and starvation. Plus, hundreds more American ships and thousands American lives will be lost to Kamikaze attacks.
So that’s the situation. What do you do, Mr. President? And what are your reasons for whatever course you decide is best?
This post was edited on 8/9/18 at 9:59 am
44
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:29 am to Darth_Vader
Yes. If we hadnt, someone else may have on us
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:29 am to Darth_Vader
quote:
So here is the situation:
1. The US has been at war at this point for just a few months shy of four years
2. The war has already cost billions (trillions in todays dollars)
3. The US has suffered about 400,000 deaths with about 600,000 wounded in all theaters of war up to this point.
4. Japan, the only remaining enemy, has rejected all calls to surrender.
5. The Okinawa campaign just wrapped up with upwards of 70,000 American Casualties. This was right after the Philippines with another 80,000 American casualties.
6. Increasing Kamikaze attacks have thus far sunk 57 American Ships. To put this into context, that’s more ships then we lost at Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the Coral Sea Combined.
7. Japan has thousands of Kamikaze aircraft and even ships they’re holding back for defense of the home islands.
8. Your most senior commanders estimate over one million American dead will result in an invasion of Japan. That’s twice the number of American deaths than had been suffered in all theaters of war up to that point combined. They also estimate Japanese deaths will be up to three times that number, most of them civilians.
9. You are informed of a new bomb capable of destroying an entire city. It will kill hundreds of thousands. But it could possibly convince Japan to throw in the towel without an invasion.
10. The only alternative to invasion or the a-bomb is the continued blockaid of Japan which could take more than a year to convince Japan to surrender. During that year millions of Japanese (mostly civilians) will die of disease and starvation. Plus, hundreds more American ships and thousands American lives will be lost to Kamikaze attacks.
You forgot about showing the Russians that we could do it.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:29 am to Darth_Vader
TLDR Yes
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:29 am to Darth_Vader
on fing tokyo
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:30 am to Darth_Vader
yes I would do it.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:30 am to Darth_Vader
I feel like we do this thread fairly often.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:30 am to Darth_Vader
I think it was a solid preventative measure. The ultimate loss of life was terrible, but selfishly looking at it from the perspective of being an American, I think we made the right call.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:31 am to Darth_Vader
Answer:
Main Reason: An invasion would have cost an appalling number of AMERICAN lives. The homework on this was done.
On a personal note, since my father was in the Pacific Theatre, I probably wouldn't be typing this, right now. So for that alone I'm thankful- as are countless others....
Main Reason: An invasion would have cost an appalling number of AMERICAN lives. The homework on this was done.
On a personal note, since my father was in the Pacific Theatre, I probably wouldn't be typing this, right now. So for that alone I'm thankful- as are countless others....
This post was edited on 8/9/18 at 9:35 am
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:31 am to Darth_Vader
Considering they didn't even surrender after Hiroshima, I doubt any conventional warfare would have ended the war.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:32 am to Darth_Vader
I drop the bomb, because at that point in history nobody really knew how bad nuclear bombs were.
If I knew then what I know now about nukes and world history, I would drop it on Berlin as well and one on Moscow.
If I knew then what I know now about nukes and world history, I would drop it on Berlin as well and one on Moscow.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:33 am to idlewatcher
quote:
I think it was a solid preventative measure. The ultimate loss of life was terrible, but selfishly looking at it from the perspective of being an American, I think we made the right call.
I don’t think it was selfish at all. Look at the only two alternatives Truman had to the bomb:
1. Invasion
2. Continued blockaid
Either of those alternatives to the A-Bomb would have resulted in millions of dead Japanese and left the whole country deveststed. The bomb was the quickest and most humane way to end the war.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:34 am to DarthRebel
quote:
I drop the bomb, because at that point in history nobody really knew how bad nuclear bombs were.
At first I was like here comes hindsight BS
quote:
If I knew then what I know now about nukes and world history, I would drop it on Berlin as well and one on Moscow.
But then I was like
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:35 am to Darth_Vader
Drop several.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:37 am to btnetigers
quote:
Drop several.
If I remember correctly, I think we only had one, maybe two more bombs at that point. I believe there were plans to drop one per month if the first two didn’t convince Japan to surrender.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:37 am to DarthRebel
FACT: Dropping the bomb saved Japanese lives in the 100s of thousands, if not millions.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:37 am to Darth_Vader
Yes, with no hesitation.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:38 am to LNCHBOX
America lost a huge opportunity to shape the world as the sole atomic power.
We played too nice after WWII. If we knew how bad communism would be, it would have been criminal to not lay waste to them.
We played too nice after WWII. If we knew how bad communism would be, it would have been criminal to not lay waste to them.
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:39 am to Darth_Vader
With the benefit of hindsight, from a utilitarian standpoint, it was the right decision
I guess it's an open question whether some conditional, but still largely unfavorable (edit: to the Japanese) surrender could have been achieved without dropping the bombs or invading the mainland. It so, it probably involves starving out and firebombing Japan anyway, so hard to say that could be a better outcome.
There's also the line of reasoning about using the bombs there served as a deterrent for their future use. If they weren't used in Japan, perhaps they are used in Korea? All speculation. Given how things turned out with Japan it's hard to argue that we didn't make the best choice, IMO
I guess it's an open question whether some conditional, but still largely unfavorable (edit: to the Japanese) surrender could have been achieved without dropping the bombs or invading the mainland. It so, it probably involves starving out and firebombing Japan anyway, so hard to say that could be a better outcome.
There's also the line of reasoning about using the bombs there served as a deterrent for their future use. If they weren't used in Japan, perhaps they are used in Korea? All speculation. Given how things turned out with Japan it's hard to argue that we didn't make the best choice, IMO
This post was edited on 8/9/18 at 9:41 am
Posted on 8/9/18 at 9:39 am to choupiquesushi
Tokyo was a bad target. We had already burnt districts of it to ashes.
And killing an earthly "god" may have made more Japanese buy into their nationalistic die fighting.
As to the OP, drop the bombs without a heartbeat. American lives over all.
And then I'd probably stick my nose into salting the earth type campaigns involving missions just to incinerate food stores and cropland. Save the a bombs for the cities until they had none.
And killing an earthly "god" may have made more Japanese buy into their nationalistic die fighting.
As to the OP, drop the bombs without a heartbeat. American lives over all.
And then I'd probably stick my nose into salting the earth type campaigns involving missions just to incinerate food stores and cropland. Save the a bombs for the cities until they had none.
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