Japan Was Already Beaten and Starving When We Dropped Nukes

You A-bomb defenders/Truman apologists are fighting a war that was lost at least two decades ago. After the 1995 Smithsonian Enola Gay controversy, there is no excuse for anyone who claims to be well read on Japan's surrender to continue to repeat the government myth on the subject. In 1995, the government myth crashed head-on with scholarly reality, and the leaders of the veterans groups, who presumed to speak for all veterans, discovered that they could muster very few genuine scholars on Japan's surrender who would support their defense of the myth.

I suggest you read the 1998 book Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy, edited by Kai Bird and Lawrence Lifschultz. The book consists of chapters written by scholars from all over the world, including six Nobel Prize recipients, who tackle the denial of history practiced by some elements in our society. The book methodically debunks every major myth that has been put forward to justify the nuking of Japan, and it does so by reviewing the 1995 Smithsonian Enola Gay controversy. Here are some of the myths that it refutes:

* Japan would not have surrendered if we had not nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Released Japanese records, and other sources, make it undeniably clear that it was the Soviet invasion that led to Japan's surrender, not the atomic bombings. Anyone who says otherwise is either dissembling or has not read the documentation.)

* Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers would have died in an invasion of Japan.

* The Japanese peace feelers were meaningless efforts done by low-level officials who acted without government approval. (At least two of the peace feelers were supported by senior figures in the government.)

* Hiroshima was a valid "military target." (It was nothing of the kind.)

* Japan's senior military leaders were committed to fighting to the last man. (Actually, even most of the senior militarists did not want this but wanted to wait until the army had inflicted Okinawa-like casualties on the American forces when they invaded the home islands.)

* We dropped leaflets over Hiroshima warning of the impending nuclear attack. (Not a shred of evidence supports this claim.)

Here is more information about the book:

Hiroshima's Shadow—The Pamphleteer's Press (pamphleteerspress.com)

 

Not that you will, but I'd suggest you read "Truman and the Hiroshima Cult," which roundly shows the lie of your thesis. So, Mikey, you can disparage and call all the names that you want, but you are full of it.

Magic does not lie.

 

Gee, I wish Truman lived till 1995 so that he can finally see that he made a mistake. But back in 1945, he would have decided for the nuke, as with most normal thinking people.

 

Regardless of the BS you're spreading your points are blatantly false to even a cursory look at the situation.

1.)* Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers would have died in an invasion of Japan.
While no one can know the true toll if the invasion had gone off, a hundred thousand dead is not an unreasonable estimate for the costs of invading Japan itself. If you take Okinawa as an example; there were 77,00 Japanese soldiers and 9,000 Japanese naval personnel at Okinawa (86,000), there were in excess of 2 million Japanese Armky troops in the home islands. The US suffered 20,195 KIA/DOW deaths and tens of thousands of wounded. 150,000 Okinawan civilians died. 100,000 combat deaths would seem to be on the lower end of what could be expected.

2.)* Hiroshima was a valid "military target." (It was nothing of the kind.)
20,000 Japanese soldiers died in the bombing, so how is it not a military target? That does not consider that it was a major port, supply source and manufacturing site.

3.)* Japan's senior military leaders were committed to fighting to the last man. (Actually, even most of the senior militarists did not want this but wanted to wait until the army had inflicted Okinawa-like casualties on the American forces when they invaded the home islands.)
So, saving 20,000+ American lives is not sufficient cause to drop the bomb? I'd have dropped it if it saved one. In what world are Okinawa like casualties, the costliest battle in the Pacific War, not a significant factor?

4.)* We dropped leaflets over Hiroshima warning of the impending nuclear attack. (Not a shred of evidence supports this claim.)
A strawman argument. We had dropped leaflets all across Japan warning of the fire bombings, to include Hiroshima. We did not drop a leaflet specifying we were going to drop an atomic bomb. Two reasons, the citizens we were trying to influence would not have known what it was, and the Interim Committee thought it ill-advised in case the bomb didn't detonate.

 

I take exception to the qualification "military target." During a total war, there's hardly any "non-military" target to speak of. Hiroshima and Nagasaki (along with Niigata and Kokura) were cities, with mainly civilians living there. In strategic bombing, one really targets cities; to demoralize the civilian population, and pressure their Government to re-direct the course of the war (either win now or surrender.) Well, those four cities were spared the fire bombing that happened to other Japanese cities only because they were on a "special list."

 

I recall having read that the Japanese civilians were taught to attack the US soldiers with sharpened poles etc so perhaps instead of killing all attacking Japanese soldiers and civilians the A bombs saved a lot of Japanese people in the end ??

 

Well, Mikey, you and your ilk are dissembling, as your are vainly attempting to prove only one side - the Soviet invasion led to a Japanese surrender. This is not an either/or answer, but all the above...
Even with the bombings and Soviet invasion, the Militarists wanted to fight on, hence the 3-3 split in the Council...Or have you and your ilk forgotten that part.

Most probably that would be the correct number of US deaths if the invasion had gone forward, of which there is plenty of evidence for this number.

The peace feelers were meaningless, because no senior figure OFFICIALLY supported it! What the senior figures said behind closed doors, with the lights out, shades drawn, to a confidant is meaningless(or said in self-serving post-war memiors too).

Already dealt with these so-called "Nobel prize winners who cannot read a map in a previous post.
Nor do they explain the high number of military deaths in the Hiroshima bombing...Why is that? Do they have some sort of bias for dissembling Hiroshima deaths.

You do realize this completely subverts your second argument concerning the number of US deaths.

This is what is called "Own goal."

We dropped leaflets warning Japanese cities would be bombed during the fire bombing campaign. They warned the Japanese cities would be bombed and for the civilians to evacuate Japanese cities. This is often confused by both sides of the argument.

 

Isn't the whole "Ukraine" thing a vast conspiracy...

 

It was a joke...Everything else to him is some big conspiracy...But, OMG! OMG! The Ukraine is the gospel truth.

What a tool Mikey is.