As a Catholic, What do you think about Hiroshima?

[GKC]

I love it.
From here onward I am going to simply post a link there on each of the anniversary threads that start.

If everyone would just go and reread the older threads, top to bottom, I’d be delighted.

GKC

 

[Tenofovir]

I do not believe religion played into the decision making process.

I didn’t suggest it. I wanted to know what you folks thought. Would it have been better if a less Christian city was hit?

 

[Tenofovir]

Has anyone that believes we should have dropped the bomb elsewhere considered that it was not the destructive power alone that made the Japanese surrender?

A huge explosion elsewhere is not going to have the impact of a city suddenly disappearing.

Drop the bomb on one of their remaining fleets?

It would persuade the generals/politicos. The ordinary people dindn’t matter much anyway.
However I think that was avoided because there wasn’t an endless supply of these bombs, as I understand it.

 

[GKC]

Drop the bomb on one of their remaining fleets?

It would persuade the generals/politicos. The ordinary people dindn’t matter much anyway.
However I think that was avoided because there wasn’t an endless supply of these bombs, as I understand it.

A third bomb could have been assembled, before the end of Aug. The casing for it (it was a plutonium bomb) was on Tinian, the plutonium was being held at San Francisco. The estimated schedule for delivery of more bombs was around 6-7, over the next two months. Serious consideration was being given to using these in tactical support of the invasion of Kyushu. It could have been much, much worse.

GKC

 

[GKC]

Has anyone that believes we should have dropped the bomb elsewhere considered that it was not the destructive power alone that made the Japanese surrender?

A huge explosion elsewhere is not going to have the impact of a city suddenly disappearing.

You are correct. And that didn’t result in surrender, either, the first time. The Supreme Council for the Conduct of the War was a hard group to convince. Korechika Anami, in particular, was a hard man to convince.

GKC

 

[GKC]

I do not believe religion played into the decision making process.

You are correct. Nagasaki was not the original target city for Bocks Car. It was supposed to be Kokura. For various reasons I have posted repeatedly, that was not possible, and Sweeney went to the alternate target.

GKC

 

[Tenofovir]

A third bomb could have been assembled, before the end of Aug. The casing for it (it was a plutonium bomb) was on Tinian, the plutonium was being held at San Francisco. The estimated schedule for delivery of more bombs was around 6-7, over the next two months. Serious consideration was being given to using these in tactical support of the invasion of Kyushu. It could have been much, much worse.

GKC

So a bomb could have been detonated over a remnant Japanese fleet or perhaps a less populated island or area.

I gather that you wanted to end the war as quickly as possible because your own people were dying every day - and blood is thicker than water, so you didn’t want to take chances. But I don’t think you can say with certainty that the Japanese would not have been convinced had you tried to aim for a less civilian populated region. Well the people who made the decision stood before God and only He can decide if it was a moral action at the time or not and how culpable or not they were.

 

[GKC]

So a bomb could have been detonated over a remnant Japanese fleet or perhaps a less populated island or area.

I gather that you wanted to end the war as quickly as possible because your own people were dying every day - and blood is thicker than water, so you didn’t want to take chances. But I don’t think you can say with certainty that the Japanese would not have been convinced had you tried to aim for a less civilian populated region. Well the people who made the decision stood before God and only He can decide if it was a moral action at the time or not and how culpable or not they were.

After 12+ years of studying the question, I can say with reasonable assurance that you are wrong in your assumptions,including your assumption about just who I might be concerned about, if the killing had not ceased. This is a long thread, and I’ve been involved in many such, over the years. If you read over this one, you might see the pertinent points. Consider that the detonation of a bomb, 1900 feet above and 800 feet off of the Aioi River bridge, while quite adequately demonstrating the effects of the pika-don, did not end the war. It took a second one. History, the sort I am speaking of, explains why.

DOWNFALL/Richard Frank, is a good place to start.

I do, indeed, leave the moral issue to God. I deal in the history.

GKC

 

[Barbkw]

What is your opinion on the matter?

I was stationed in Japan and visited Hiroshima and the museum there.

The immorality was where the bomb was dropped and on whom the bomb was dropped.

This show of force could have been accomplished in a smaller fashion on the governmental branch or on the military. It shouldn’t have been dropped on civilians in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yes, it stopped the Japanese. It didn’t need to be that brutal.

In addition, those bombs started the arms race with Russia. And atomic bombs are now nuclear. One day, we may well experience the disaster that these bombs are able to create.

If so, those two atomic bombs were the start of our Pyrrhic victory.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, GKC,

St. Paul tells us not to weary of doing good.(Gal 6:9) I think this also applies for those who try and imitate the actions of mythical Sisyphus…

God bless

Sometimes I wonder why I took up this burden. It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. Or going on CARM to explain that no, RCs don’t worship Mary. Useless.

The mention of unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces was in the Potsdam Declaration, from the first (26 July 1945). and is the only use of the term in the surrender demands prior to the use of the bombs. No change. Truman’s primary reason for the use of the bombs was an attempt to ensure the fastest end to the war, with the minimum casualties. Which was the result.

I am not acquainted with a Secretary of War Stanton, during WWII. As you are possibly unacquainted with Roosevelt and Truman’s Secretary of War Henry Stimson. You got the wrong war there.

The point about the casualties which any given scenario for ending the war might cost I have discussed to the point of satiety. It’s a Sisyphean task, and I weary of it. But I will say again, any other possible ending of the war, given the total ongoing casualties in the PTO, would have exceeded the deaths from the two bombs. I’ve posted many references: here’s 2 more - Giangreco’s HELL TO PAY and Gruhl’s IMPERIAL JAPAN’S WORLD WAR II:1931-1945.If you want to consider anything relative to the possible result of a Soviet land invasion of the Home Islands, consider that the cost of the roughly 10-12 days of fighting (which extended past the Japanese surrender, brought about by the bombs primarily) after the Soviets invaded Manchuria, and swept up portions thereof, China and southern Sakhalin, was over 90,000 deaths. That is, in roughly 2 weeks, the Soviets and Japanese lost more than the cost of the Hiroshima bomb. Which I’ve posted before.

I’ve suggested an extensive reading list on the subject, and expounded on the facts, replying to endless bits of revisionism and otherwise just plain bad history over the (literally) years I’ve been posting on this, based on the 10+ years I’ve been actively studying the subject. I don’t know why I bother. As to seeing Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s book, that’s easy for me to do. I own two copies. Among the roughly 100 books and papers I own on the end game in the PTO in WWII.

Last word: Richard Frank/DOWNFALL:THE END OF THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE EMPIRE.

GKC

 

[GKC]

Hi, GKC,

St. Paul tells us not to weary of doing good.(Gal 6:9) I think this also applies for those who try and imitate the actions of mythical Sisyphus…

God bless

Dang rock keeps rolling down. And the same historical inaccuracies keep showing up, year after year. Which is natural. I’m going to start to C&P myself, from previous posts.

Ah, well. Hi, to you, too.

GKC

 

[FLGreg]

Sorry, but I’m not going to read the previous forty-eight pages of this discussion to weigh in on this. I apologize in advance. I saw the poll and voted and was shocked that almost 60% felt the bombing of Hiroshima was wrong.

Perhaps history has been lost over the last sixty-six years but the United States was engaged in a fierce battle with Imperial Japan at that time. It is sad to learn what is being taught in school these days. Allied forces had already defeated the German/Italian Axis in Europe and were anxious to end World War Two in the Pacific.

All of the conditions of the Just War Theory were met when the United States bombed the city that housed the Japanese Second Army, Chugoku Regional Army, the Marine Headquarters, large depots of military supplies, and the center of shipping for the defense of Tokyo.

If we hadn’t taken out Hiroshima, it was theorized that the Allies would have lost more than a million troops to eventually defeat Japan with ground forces - hand-to-hand fighting across Japan, an archipelago of 6,852 islands. I remember reading about Japanese soldiers being found, and killed, as late as the 1970’s still thinking WWII was still going on.

 

[GKC]

Sorry, but I’m not going to read the previous forty-eight pages of this discussion to weigh in on this. I apologize in advance. I saw the poll and voted and was shocked that almost 60% felt the bombing of Hiroshima was wrong.

Perhaps history has been lost over the last sixty-six years but the United States was engaged in a fierce battle with Imperial Japan at that time. It is sad to learn what is being taught in school these days. Allied forces had already defeated the German/Italian Axis in Europe and were anxious to end World War Two in the Pacific.

All of the conditions of the Just War Theory were met when the United States bombed the city that housed the Japanese Second Army, Chugoku Regional Army, the Marine Headquarters, large depots of military supplies, and the center of shipping for the defense of Tokyo.

If we hadn’t taken out Hiroshima, it was theorized that the Allies would have lost more than a million troops to eventually defeat Japan with ground forces - hand-to-hand fighting across Japan, an archipelago of 6,852 islands. I remember reading about Japanese soldiers being found, and killed, as late as the 1970’s still thinking WWII was still going on.

If you think reading all that stuff is onerous, posting it over and over was a drag, too.

And Hiroshima, in addition to hosting Hata’s Second Army, was the port of embarkation for the troops being shipped to Kyushu, the site of the planned initial DOWNFALL landing, Operation Olympic. Hiroshima had probably the highest ratio of military to civilians of any major Japanese city. Around 45,000 military were in the city that day.

All of which is germane to the point that Hiroshima, like all the cities on the target list, was a conventional military target, though it was not conventionally targeted. But while that was quite true, the destruction of that military capacity in itself was not the anticipated cause of the post-haste Japanese surrender. Such destruction of military capacity/urban infrastructure had taken place in many other places in the Home Islands (most noticeably in the raids on the six major cities between March and July 1945) and could have been done with multiple B-29 raids on those two cities, and the Japanese still would not have been prepared to surrender. Rather, it was the shock of the destruction realized from a single B-San/single bomb that was counted on to end the war. That is, it was not the destruction of that military capacity in itself that was the primary goal of the bombing, it was the breaking of the Japanese will to continue the fighting, by doing so with such economy of effort.

As you suggest, I’ve found history to be a mystery to most posting on this subject. I do my best.

GKC

 

[vz71]

I didn’t suggest it. I wanted to know what you folks thought. Would it have been better if a less Christian city was hit?

If religion did not play into the decision making process, then it would not matter one way or the other.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Sorry, but I’m not going to read the previous forty-eight pages of this discussion to weigh in on this. I apologize in advance. I saw the poll and voted and was shocked that almost 60% felt the bombing of Hiroshima was wrong.

Perhaps history has been lost over the last sixty-six years but the United States was engaged in a fierce battle with Imperial Japan at that time. It is sad to learn what is being taught in school these days. Allied forces had already defeated the German/Italian Axis in Europe and were anxious to end World War Two in the Pacific.

All of the conditions of the Just War Theory were met when the United States bombed the city that housed the Japanese Second Army, Chugoku Regional Army, the Marine Headquarters, large depots of military supplies, and the center of shipping for the defense of Tokyo.

If we hadn’t taken out Hiroshima, it was theorized that the Allies would have lost more than a million troops to eventually defeat Japan with ground forces - hand-to-hand fighting across Japan, an archipelago of 6,852 islands. I remember reading about Japanese soldiers being found, and killed, as late as the 1970’s still thinking WWII was still going on.

People opposed to the atomic bomb on Hiroshima basically believe that everything was peaceful … just another Monday morning … and then for no reason at all, the United States nuked Hiroshima.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Monte RCMS,

A truly excellent idea!

God bless

People opposed to the atomic bomb on Hiroshima basically believe that everything was peaceful … just another Monday morning … and then for no reason at all, the United States nuked Hiroshima.

 

[stevegravy]

why the angst over Hiroshima???

FWIW, today people have no idea of the mass carnage a real modern war can be. We grew up watching Viet Nam in living color in our air-conditioned rooms and that was fairly bloodless for Americans. 50,000 over ten years with a population around 200,000,000 at the time. That is 2.5 deaths per 100,000 population per year. That is less than the murder rate of a big city. Now compare that to the killing rate of WWII at 64.7 per 100,000 per year, or for real kicks think of the civil war at 250. (Only counting combat deaths not accidental or sickness number would go up quite a bit for both WWIi and Civil war.)

WWII was a real industrial sized killing spree and everyone wants to wring their hands and second-guess destroying cities. Well guess what the cities exist because that is where the work is and that work makes the war effort possible. Stabbing a city in the heart or blowing it out of existence is no different from stabbing a soldier in the belly or blowing his existence to kingdom come. Wring your hands all you want parse double effect and unintended consequences to pieces, it won’t make any difference to men in mortal terrible combat fighting to stay alive or countries trying to retain their sovereign entities. War is killing always has been always will be. So for whatever reason Truman held, it proved Sherman right, the more the killing the better. The sooner the war will be over and everyone can go home.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

why the angst over Hiroshima???

FWIW, today people have no idea of the mass carnage a real modern war can be. We grew up watching Viet Nam in living color in our air-conditioned rooms and that was fairly bloodless for Americans. 50,000 over ten years with a population around 200,000,000 at the time. That is 2.5 deaths per 100,000 population per year. That is less than the murder rate of a big city. Now compare that to the killing rate of WWII at 64.7 per 100,000 per year, or for real kicks think of the civil war at 250. (Only counting combat deaths not accidental or sickness number would go up quite a bit for both WWIi and Civil war.)

WWII was a real industrial sized killing spree and everyone wants to wring their hands and second-guess destroying cities. Well guess what the cities exist because that is where the work is and that work makes the war effort possible. Stabbing a city in the heart or blowing it out of existence is no different from stabbing a soldier in the belly or blowing his existence to kingdom come. Wring your hands all you want parse double effect and unintended consequences to pieces, it won’t make any difference to men in mortal terrible combat fighting to stay alive or countries trying to retain their sovereign entities. War is killing always has been always will be. So for whatever reason Truman held, it proved Sherman right, the more the killing the better. The sooner the war will be over and everyone can go home.

And World War I was killing on an industrial scale. Sort of a confused mess … with mass infantry charges into water cooled machine guns.

 

[Seamus_L]

To put it in simple terms. The end does not justify the means.

 

[SaintPatrick333]

As a Catholic AND an american I think hiroshima and nagasaki were horrible acts of evil. They were both cowardly and simply beyond words in its scale of evil. Self preservation at all costs is the human condition. It is because of incidents like that that we NEED Christ in our lives. Christ would NEVER support such an act of evil, under any circumstance EVER. It was immoral and horrible. All there is to it.