do u guys think the 2 bombs dropped on japan during WW2 were really needed?
i say no because they just killed innoc3nt people in those 2 citys and it left a perment mental damage on my grandma (im japanese)
so what do u guys think

The Japenese were clearly losing even before the two bombs were dropped. They could've just surrendered through diplomatic means, but I guess the US had to make a statement of some sort.

- CHinkieeyedpnoi

the us didnt have to bomb japan. they could of done what bush is doing with iraq

no the japanese were going strong for the fight for the rising sun and the bombs were just a last attempt to stop the japanese in the war over in the pacific and even one my teachers said that. And surrendering would bring dis-honor to the japanese people thats why instead of getting captured they would kill them selfs and die for the rising sun and their familys

well... the bombs DID make the japanese surrender...
but i feel sorri for all the innocent civilians there...
stupid government. x]



just like the samurais in the last samurai!! [haha i just saw that.... x] goood movie]

To answer this question, I asked myself: Was it really necessary for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor? Was it necessary for the Kamikazes to kill themselves and take the lives of other people?

Well as much as I want to say it wasn't, I think it had quite an effect because it allowed to Japanese to surrender right away; right after the second bomb, of course. The US could also have used other means of attack strategies, such as sending troops, or sending ships to attack but that'd take too long.

Anyways, I agree with Uninspirefae.

see they had honor in their country and they attacked military but the US attacked normal citys which is pretty messed up!

What's the difference? They still killed hundreds of U.S troops.

yes that it did kill innocent ppl... but then it ended the war.. and no MORE ppl were killed... all those troops and so on... even the troops that fight are innocent ppl too!

And attacking Pearl Harbor without declaring war is honor? The declaration of war was late... very late. Where's honor is attacking when one is unprepared? (Edit:: It's like kicking a man when he's down). You call that honor?

Why attack Pearl Harbor at all?

EDIT::
I realize that Pearl Harbor was a strategic base and that there are benefits to its destruction...

BUT YOU CAN'T attack someone and not expect to be attacked back... What kind of childish thinking is that?

Oh I hit you, but you can't hit me back...

Sounds like something I would say to my older brother after I bruised him.

And they killed a couple of thousands of troops in Pearl, I think.

from a lot of european countries' point of view, the pearl harbour bombings were necessary because otherwise the united states wouldn't have joined the war and without their help, hitler would have conquered half of europe.

the point of the debate isn't that anyway. it's asking whether the use of nuclear weapons was necessary to make the Japanese surrender. quite clearly, by the stage the bombs were dropped, the Japanese were not going to win the war. however, they would probably not have stopped fighting until each and every part of their military was destroyed. but are "time" and "inquisitiveness" justifiable enough reasons for killing totally innocent people? wasn't it more morally justifiable to kill each and every fighting soldier, rather than civilians, until they surrendered?

Here is a weak attempt to justify the nuclear bombs, and you did make a good point of it being a nuclear bombing.

The Japanese were readied with the bloodiest welcoming ever had the Allies invaded Honshu, and Truman would never have been able to hold office if he had a working weapon and chose not to use it. To add to the pressure, the Alliance was growing shaky because of the Soviets, and we had to show the world that we wern't afraid to use a WMD.

The second bomb was intentionally shifted a bit off the target, which killed less people... Yes, yes, but that doesn't include the radiation effects.

The second bomb was a bit pointless wasn't it?

Agreed.

However, the WMD broke the political stalemate at that time and the Japanese would have continued fighting, albeit with less strength, but that means more firebombing of Japanese cities and the war would continue.

I think though, the bomb gave the Japanese some face to go about stoping the war. With their strong belief in honor and strong sense of patriotism, they wouldn't have stopped until they were fully and truly defeated (and who knows how long that would've taken).

But you know, after the bombs were dropped their military still withstand surrender until the Soviet decided to enter the war. They only stop then because of a threat of a third bomb, this time targeting Tokyo (they found out when the captured an American pilot lied(?) about the US having '100' more bombs).

So, I thought that the bombs was justified.

Getting Japan to surrender was just a pretext. They were about to anyway. The REAL reason we atomic-bombed Japan was to scare teh Soviets into not trying to make a grab for all of Korea. Instead, they were forced to settle for just the Northern Part. Remember, Russian soldiers were advancing on Japan from the land at this time too.

wtf?
im sure you've heard the saying "two wrongs don't make it right"

It could be close to a right, if the wrong is justified.

That saying is only for people who don't like the 'i hit you, you hit me back' scenario. It's okay for me to hit you, but don't you hit me back because you would be wrong for doing so... Right, so bullies can just steal kiddies lunch money without fear of getting in trouble.

What did the Japanese expect when the attacked Pearl? That Americans will overlook it?

The bombings were needed, just not in the place they were dropped the bombs. I understand that. They shouldn't have dropped the bobms on cities filled with innocent people they should've dropped it on thier militay bases, BUT them dropping them on the cities they did stopped the war because they didn't want to see any more of their citizens killed.

They were not going to surrender. They were into Shintoism [sp?] which is the religion of their ruler, and they wouldnt leave their ruler.

Uh... yes they were. The Emperor himself already prepared surrender transcripts on August 2, four days before the Hiroshima bombing.

Well, the US gave many warnings in advance but Japan didn't surrender until the second bomb, and also with the threat of a third bomb targeted at Tokyo.

ComradeRed: Were the surrender transcripts that the Emperor prepared meant to be an unconditional surrender? I'm not sure of the details, but I thought Emperor Showa didn't agree to it until 8/14?

To those who said that we should have bombed a military base instead of these two cities, PLEASE consider these:

During World War II, Hiroshima was a city with that contained the 2nd Army Headquarters, and one of the key storage and communication center.

As for Nagasaki, it was one of the largest sea ports responsible for various industries (ship, military equipments... etc).

It was not an unconditional surrender. It was a surrender on the condition that the Emperor would be allowed to retain his ceremonial title, similar to the Queen of Great Britain. This would have been a good idea, being a 1400-year-old tradition in Japan and all. We could've used him to gain more support and make rebuidling the country less costly and less heavy-handed. After the bombings, a group of military hardliners staged a coup and tried to arrest the Emperor to prevent the release of the surrender transcripts. This coup, obviously, failed.

The US wanted an unconditional surrender, but Japan was allowed to keep their Emperor. Doesn't that mean that the US was lenient with their demands?

Eidt:: Well, of course ridding the country of the Emperor would make them hate US wouldn't it?

Originally hardliners within the US demanded that the Emperor be tried for War Crimes and removed. This caused hardliners in Japan to stage their coup...

An unconditional surrender, by definition, has no strings attached. With an unconditional surrender, there was no guarantee from the Americans that the Emperor would not in fact be harmed.

So then back to the original topic, there were still Japanese of military importance who didn't want to surrender even after the bombings?

Yes, a lieutenant in the Eastern District Army (the one that guarded over Tokyo), placed the Emperor in House Arrest for aobut one night, before the Emperor's agents managed to publicize his tapes anyways. The lieutenant committed ritual suicide. I saw a history thing on this.

Commited suicide... Japanese's way of commiting suicide is... scary.

Anyway, so then the bombs did help to encourage Japan to surrender, right? Otherwise, there would still be a bloody resistance should the US decides to attack by land.

No, if the US guaranteed the Emperor's position, he would've released the surrender tapes and they would've surrendered peacefully.

So then the country's itself was unstable (in the sense of government) because different groups of people wanted to do different things.

But then he did surrender and he's still Emperor. So what went wrong? I mean, I still feel that the bombs were justified.

Justified, perhaps. Necessary, no.

Well, that's going to shut me up

Nope! I guess they just wanted it to feel more dominant. Besides, they wasted money.

But I wouldn't know.

Ah, personal bias. I have some personal bias too. My great grandparents were killed by the Japanese. My grandmother had to run to the mountains to escape the burning houses. They threw their dead bodies into the water wells.

You have to look at it from both sides. The Americans were trying to save lives. If the bombs weren't dropped, millions more would have died.

i am very patriotic toward my country...not like most people because i also think that my country makes bad choice...one of which being the bombing of Japan. We say that we have to stop terrorism....well in order to do that we need to look at our selves first. I mean when the US bombed Japan we had no cause to bomb those cities. They had only innoccent people there....nothing else....and to justify our selves we teach our children that they diserved it.....well hmmmm ok what im about to say may offend some people but its an example only and im sorry if i do.
We the US maybe have diserved what happened on 9/11....i mean it was a big wake up call to america....and ya kno it was no different then when we bombed Japan....just in the fact that it happened to us and not someone else. America is nothing but on big double standard. It is ok for us to do to others but if they try or do the same to us..its like oh hell no.....America is as much a terrorist group for bombing japan as Al Quaeda is for attacking the TWC's.....

The cities were not all that 'innocent'.

I think it was unnecessary for the bombs to be placed...okay, maybe one atomic bomb if it was the final resolution, but placing two (the other in Nagasaki), right after the first one was placed was not a good thing to do. The japanese were clearly going to surrender after the first atomic bomb was placed since U.S. translaters had intercepted a Japanese message stated that the emperor was clear on the way to surrendering. So that's why I think the atomic bombs were unnecessary. Have a nice day.

Theres honour in that. You risk your life for country.

Anyways, Japanese did suffer a great and tremendous loss, but war is a casualty. Theres nothing we can do about that. Just collateral damage.

They weren't placed, they were dropped. And the US wanted to be sure that the war would be over before Stalin's forces got to Japan.

no, the US just didn't want to invade japan. they invaded okinawa, and the civillians were waiting on the beach with sharpened bamboo sticks to "kill" the americans with

the japanesse were going to fight to the death. an invasion of the main island was slated to cost 1 million american lives and 75% civilian casualties.

plus, if the bombs hadn't been developed, the US invasion plan was this:::

at huntsville, al. they had already made tons of nerve gas. this was based on experience with okinawa.

they would first, gas the entire island and send troops in with gas masks to kill off the people who survived to resist.


the bombs were the lesser of two evils, but much lesser.

and the placing two was a bluff. the japanesse thought we only had one bomb. by dropping two, we tricked them into thinking we had a whole stockload. but all we had were two.

those werent needed

there was just more ppl killed and with death comes even more anger
and then the anger is passed back and forth

Ok, I know the bombs were dropped...that's not the point. Yes the US wanted to be sure that the war would be over before Stalin's forces got into Japan, but why drop two bombs. The dropping of the second bomb was completely unnecessary. It killed many innocent civilians and some of the people who died included some American POWs. Dropping one bomb was good enough because the emperor of Japan at that time was planning to surrender (the Americans found out after intercepting many messages).

Well, when Japan attacked Pearl, they killed many innocents, too. Why is that America must bare the burden of attacking "civilians" when Japan did just the same?

Two wrongs don't make a right. Yeah, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor because it was a military base. The Japanese were clearly aiming to hurt the soldiers and such (destroy aircraft and more, w/e), but the US was clearly aiming to hurt innocent civilians. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities with a bountiful amount of civilians, and was not a military base. There were many innocent people and the damage that the US did was to these civilians, not the Japanese military. And another thing about Pearl Harbor, it was clearly evident that FDR knew that the attack was coming but didn't do anything about it. It's partly his fault for caring more about the war in Europe than worrying about other enemies.

Actually, there was NO declaration of WAR until the attack ended. And if you've read some earlier posts, you would know that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not all that "innocent".



Edit:: and it was a wrong that was 'justified'.

Still...why the need to bomb Nagasaki. Why couldn't the US wait for the call of surrender. They bombed Nagasaki 2 days later.

Kryogenix stated:They weren't placed, they were dropped. And the US wanted to be sure that the war would be over before Stalin's forces got to Japan.

--Well Stalin then declared war on Japan, and he then launched an invasion of Manchuria. So eventually, Stalin's forces did get to Japan

ComradeRed told me that basically (I think) that the US needed to ensure that the Emperor would stay Emperor or else there wouldn't be a (quick) surrender ( ?).

First of all, they were the enemy, part of the Axis, why should they be asking conditions for surrender? They certainly were not in a position to ask any demands.

Second, not only were we faced with War, but also a our relationship with Russia was wavering. Japan was ready for a bloody confrontation in their country and if we had waited and Japan did not surrender, there would be more casualities and damage than the results of the two bombs combined.

Imagine a full scale attack on Japan by Russia and the US forces combined; imagine the US and Russia duking out their difference on Japanese soil...

We needed to ensure surrender, not just guess that they would surrender, and we needed to show Russia that we weren't afraid to use a WMD.

Quote: ComradeRed told me that basically (I think) that the US needed to ensure that the Emperor would stay Emperor or else there wouldn't be a (quick) surrender ( ?).

The US wanted the Emperor to drop from being emperor. The US were asking for heavy demands and of course Japan wasn't going to give in.
There's more but i forgot

The US wanted the Japanese to surrender ASAP. As you pointed out, Manchuria was invaded. Though not the same as invading the Japanese Islands, it still meant that Stalin was on the path to Japan. The US needed to end the war quick, or we might have been faced with Communist Japan.

The Japanese was in no position to make demands. They were the enemy; they chose to be the enemy; and after Pearl, they shouldn't even be thinking about making demands.

We were generous to let them keep their Emperor... of course that generosity came from a selfish motive, but we were still quite generous.