Nagasaki, Hiroshima: your Catholic alternatives to dropping the atomic bombs

[Ani_Ibi]

manualman:

What am I, chopped liver? WAAAY back in post 34 I wrote:

Sorry if I missed your post. I am having a lot of difficulty finding the posts which answer the question posed in the thread. There are so many posts on here which are way off topic. Thank you for your suggestion.

manualman:

This could, in theory, be done without ever INTENTIONALLY targeting civilians specifically. But my modest knowledge of history says that MANY more human beings would have died horribly. I just can’t yet conclude that is what should have been done.

Thank you for being forthcoming. It indeed was not an easy decision. There was a ponderous cost/benefit no matter which course of action or inaction was taken.

 

[Bobby_A.Greene]

vern humphrey:

Notice that this post is number 73 in this thread, and no one has answered the original challenge, to propose an acceptable alternative.

Many posts, when pursued to their ultimate basis seem to say when you face a sufficiently evil enemy, it’s your duty to surrender.

That can’t be right!

I tend to agree with you. One proposed alternative than to dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was “blockade”. But since the Japanese government had refused to surrender under the massive firebombings of major Japanese cities, why would they surrender to a simple blockade? Plus wouldn’t a blockade cause massive famine in Japan starving innocent Japanese children and senior citizens to death? And how long do you maintain a blockade if the Japanese government refused to surrender? A hundred year blockade?
The only alternative to the atomic bomb was a massive invasion and that would have caused a lot more deaths than the firebombings and the atomic bombs combined.

Also it is a historical fallacy to be present minded, you cannot interpret the events of 1945 using the knowledge of 2005, the information of all the horrors of nuclear war came after the fact of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Bobby A. Greene:

Also it is a historical fallacy to be present minded, you cannot interpret the events of 1945 using the knowledge of 2005, the information of all the horrors of nuclear war came after the fact of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Generally true. I do however believe that Truman had a good idea of what a low-yield atomic bomb would do. They had three bombs. They tested the first bomb. The other two they dropped on H & N. He would have gotten a fair sense that this bomb was big just from the look on the faces and the intonation changes of the people who briefed him. He didn’t get to be President without being able to read people. The test underlined what people were theorizing.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Bobby A. Greene:

I tend to agree with you. One proposed alternative than to dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was “blockade”. But since the Japanese government had refused to surrender under the massive firebombings of major Japanese cities, why would they surrender to a simple blockade? Plus wouldn’t a blockade cause massive famine in Japan starving innocent Japanese children and senior citizens to death? And how long do you maintain a blockade if the Japanese government refused to surrender? A hundred year blockade?
The only alternative to the atomic bomb was a massive invasion and that would have caused a lot more deaths than the firebombings and the atomic bombs combined.

We were, of course, already blockading them. We couldn’t not blockade them. Without a blockade, they could have imported food, fuel and raw materials and greatly strengthened their forces in the home islands.

The Japanese response to the blockade was predictably callous and brutal – what resources they had went to the armed forces, and the ordinary people were reduced to a below-subsistance level.

When we entered Japan after the surrender and saw how bad things were, we were in a virtual panic to get enough food and fuel into the country to prevent a mass die-off that winter. The evidence is that had the Japanese put off surrendering for just a few more weeks, we’d have failed, and up to half the population of Japan would have died that winter.
Bobby A. Greene:

Also it is a historical fallacy to be present minded, you cannot interpret the events of 1945 using the knowledge of 2005, the information of all the horrors of nuclear war came after the fact of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

One of the greatest fallacies of military historians (and others who study or discuss warfare) is the unspoken assumption that leaders and commanders are telepathically linked to their subordinates, and that they know the future.

 

[Bobby_A.Greene]

Ani Ibi:

Generally true. I do however believe that Truman had a good idea of what a low-yield atomic bomb would do. They had three bombs. They tested the first bomb. The other two they dropped on H & N. He would have gotten a fair sense that this bomb was big just from the look on the faces and the intonation changes of the people who briefed him. He didn’t get to be President without being able to read people. The test underlined what people were theorizing.

One of the beauties and attractions of the atomic bomb in 1945 was that just one atomic bomb could do the job of hundreds or even thousands of conventional bombs. That is one of the considerations which made the atomic bomb such a novel concept and a desirable weapon to use. One bomb One city was a new concept in warfare, it just had to be tried out.

Since the Japanese refused to surrender after the massive firebombings on their cities, and they even refused to surrender after the first atomic bomb was dropped, it was apparent that the Code of Bushido was going to prevent the Japanese government from losing face by surrendering; it was necessary to continue to drop the new weapon, the atomic bomb, until this intractable foe capitulated. After the second bomb was dropped and Stalin promised to invade Japan from the north with his Mongol troops, the Japanese surrendered.

But it should still be realized that more Japanese people died from the massive firebombings than perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

It just seemed that the radiation poisoning and sickness from the two bombs were more propaganda worthy than all the surviving burn victims from Tokyo and other cities and towns which were napalmed into oblivion.

 

[JOHNYJ]

The creeping pacifism of Catholic teaching about war is dangerous.War as an absolutly last resort is dangerous. Often by that time you may have no chance at survival.
It might be argued that Chamaberlain in the 1930’s was using a christian policy in dealing with Hitler.His continuous appeasment and inaction to Hitlers invasions. What did this christian policy acomplish in the end, 32 million dead.
More recently in the Balkans, the church’s opposition to the war against Serbia.Serbia had used Hitlers diplomatic strategy of the 1930’s .Against the same countries, Britain and France in the 1990’s and it had worked ! As Serbia destroyed the Yugoslav Republic .Britain and France just stood bye, Serbia made promises and than broke them and no one did anything. The UN made noises and than wimped out. At Screbnenica 8,000 murdered by the Serbs. It wasn’t until the USA decided to rescue Europe,again. That Serbia was stopped.War is often necessary that is a regretable fact !

 

[Bobby_A.Greene]

JOHNYJ:

The creeping pacifism of Catholic teaching about war is dangerous.

One of several reasons I firmly believe in the separation of Church and state.

 

[Tom444]

Okay, with no atomic bomb, and knowing only what Truman actually knew in 1945, I probably would have done one of the following:

1. Accept conditional surrender:
   Continue with the war as we had been doing, and by the end of August 1945, the Japanese would likely have been willing to sign an armistice. The Japanese military would cease all fighting and withdraw from the rest of the Pacific Theater and mainland Asia, and agree to disarmament. In return, we would lift the blockade and provide aid to their people.

This option would involve the least killing, of both military and civilians, so it seems reasonable. However, it would have been Versailles II. We learned our lesson from WWI, and the American people never would have accepted anything but unconditional surrender from the Japanese. Truman loses the next election and leaves office in disgrace, and once our military has withdrawn from the area, Japan rebuilds its military, goes back to its old tricks, and we’ve got WWIII on our hands in addition to the Cold War. Great.

So, let’s assume we’re only going for unconditional surrender now. What’s left?

1. Isolate Japan, clean up the rest of Asia, and wait it out: Continue with the naval blockade of the Japanese home islands. Wipe out any remaining Japanese resistance in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, and let the USSR invade China. This would eliminate the Japanese military from everywhere but Japan itself.

Using airstrikes, attack Japanese air bases, wiping out most of their air force (what was left of it) and giving us complete control of the skies. Concentrate resources into building more battleships and smaller naval vessels, and attack Japanese naval bases and shipyards from the sea. This would remove their capability to effectively fight outside their own borders. At this point, we could simply continue the blockade, and wait for Japan to surrender.

All of this could be done with relatively low civilian casualties, and Japan would no longer pose an immediate threat. In addition, once this was finished, American casualties would virtually cease. At first glance, it seems like a pretty good option. The problem is, we didn’t realize how bad the situation already was was for the people of Japan. Just in the first winter, millions would have starved and frozen to death, and instead of seeing pictures of burn victims from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we’d now be seeing pictures of mass starvation. Even if we allowed food, medicine, and coal (since it can be used for heat but not for military vehicles) through the blockade, the Japanese government would still have kept most of it for themselves and their military, and left their people to starve. Under this plan, which appears the most humane at first, Japan in 1946 would look much like North Korea does today.

1. Attack the Japanese military-industrial complex:
   This would be pretty much what we had been doing up to that point, except without going through with the invasion. Again, the blockade would continue and we would eliminate Japanese resistance throughout the rest of Asia and the Pacific, but we would attack any military and industrial targets we could. Hopefully, once Japan was no longer able to wage war, they would surrender. If not, this option would still prepare us well for an invasion.

This would be even worse than the first option. We’d still cause all the starvation, but now we’d be killing more civilians in the bombings, too. We wouldn’t stop their weapons production, as they’d continue decentralization of their industry. Smaller plants would be scattered all throughout cities, with weapons being made in homes and schools - this is what the Japanese were doing anyway. If we wanted to continue this way, we’d have to accept that their civilians were all actively supporting the war effort, and destroy entire cities from the air, one at a time, as we had already been doing. Hmmm, now if only we had a more efficent way of wiping out their cities…

(Continued…)

 

[Tom444]

1. All-out invasion:
   Step up the air campaign even more, and hit their military everywhere we can. Hit their costal regions with naval gunfire and napalm, and mount an amphibious assault an order of magnitude larger than D-Day. Fight them throughout the countryside, and when the Japanese fall back to their cities, hit them with bombs and artillery before moving in and taking them over in urban combat. Continue until the Japanese surrender, or there’s nothing but a bunch of American and Russian soldiers sitting around a charred, barren rock.

American casualties would have been massive, a million or more, and probably more than we’d suffered in the entire war up to that point. As had been pointed out before, the Japanese were well-prepared for an invasion and knew where and how it would probably happen. Geography would limit where we could come ashore and still effectively move inland, and the basic principle of the invasion is pretty simple to figure out - blow up everything you can, then come ashore in boats and start shooting.

We also would have faced the Japanese civilians, brainwashed into their nation’s twisted version of Bushido, mounting suicide attacks on our soldiers, many of them with nothing more than bamboo spears. Still, we’d have no choice but to gun them down as they attacked our troops. Japanese casualties would be massive, maybe 10 million or more, most of them “civilians” (really military reserves at that point). Even in small villages we passed through, the Japanese would not respect any standards of civilized warfare, and would shoot at us from schools and hospitals, and use civilians as human shields. Our soldiers would be faced with the option of either suffering massive casualties, avoid those villages entirely (and thereby leave their flanks vulnerable, or to attack and kill more civilians in the process. If the Japanese continued to refuse surrender, and the war progressed to urban warfare, their major cities would end up under seige, and many of the civilians would succumb to starvation and exposure over the winter - imagine dozens of Stalingrads. Eventually, we’d win, but not without massive American casualties, enormous numbers of Japanese civilians dead, and the almost total destruction of the nation of Japan.

For all of the possibilities we had, they boiled down to two basic options:
-Stop the war as soon as possible, under any terms, and face the likelihood of another war with Japan in the future.
-Accept that unconditional surrender is the only way to eliminate the threat posed by Japan, accept that there are barely any true non-combatants among the Japanese populace, and wage some form of “total war.”

There isn’t really any “morally acceptable” option that doesn’t involve attacking civilians or causing mass starvation, and still removes Japan as a threat entirely. I think I’m beginning to see why General Sherman said, “war is hell.”

 

[vern_humphrey]

Tom444:

There isn’t really any “morally acceptable” option that doesn’t involve attacking civilians or causing mass starvation, and still removes Japan as a threat entirely. I think I’m beginning to see why General Sherman said, “war is hell.”

There you have it. The nature of war is such (and this war particularly) that there in NO option that doesn’t involve the “indiscriminate” killing of civilians. And all the non-nuclear options result in more deaths (by an order of magnitude or more.)

 

[Al_Masetti]

Tom444:

Okay, with no atomic bomb, and knowing only what Truman actually knew in 1945, I probably would have done one of the following:

1. Accept conditional surrender:
   .

So, let’s assume we’re only going for unconditional surrender now. What’s left?

1. Isolate Japan, clean up the rest of Asia, and wait it out:
2. Attack the Japanese military-industrial complex

This would be even worse than the first option. Hmmm, now if only we had a more efficent way of wiping out their cities…

(Continued…)

These three items (plus the carryover stuff on the next posting) constitute an erudite and well formed set of alternatives and conclusions.

Nicely done.

We need a tread about the moral theology of US involvement in Iraq. The same kind of analysis would be very beneficial to that discussion as well.

 

[bekalc]

My question with Nagasaki and Hiroshima is a couple. First of all I wonder if given the option we would have done it against the White Germans? Could this have been something of a revenge for Pearl Harbor.

Besides their is the issue of the bomb itself. Unlike other bombs and the fire bombings of Toyko were just as devestating, the Atomic weapons carry long lasting consquences of radiation poision. In my opinion those kind of weapons are illegal.

It also led the arms race. We had it the Russians had to have, etc. Now, we have a situation that with our weapons one angry leader could destroy the entire world.

the Japanese did not have unconditional surrender anyways, they kept their Emperor. We could have got them to surrender eventually and received the same results we have now. Maybe our soldiers might have lost more lves, but they were soldiers that’s what happens. The danger those kind of weapons place upon our world, that’s scary… I don’t agree with it.

 

[PaulKorb]

Isn’t this question kind of like asking the Pope to come up with a cure for Alzheimer’s before he condemns the killing of embryos?

And his cure must of course be based on Catholic teaching !

 

[mjdonnelly]

There was very little known about radiation poisoning. No one knew it would cause cancer, or how much of an indirect effect it would have aside from the blast wave of the explosion.

 

[vern_humphrey]

bekalc:

My question with Nagasaki and Hiroshima is a couple. First of all I wonder if given the option we would have done it against the White Germans? Could this have been something of a revenge for Pearl Harbor.

The Germans were the primary target. The only reason we didn’t use it on them was because they surrendered before the bomb was ready.

bekalc:

Besides their is the issue of the bomb itself. Unlike other bombs and the fire bombings of Toyko were just as devestating, the Atomic weapons carry long lasting consquences of radiation poision. In my opinion those kind of weapons are illegal.

You mean “In my opinion those kind of weapons should be illegal.”

For something to be illegal, there has to be a law in place. There isn’t one in the case of nuclear weapons.

bekalc:

It also led the arms race. We had it the Russians had to have, etc. Now, we have a situation that with our weapons one angry leader could destroy the entire world.

The arms race was inevitable. Had there been no atomic bomb, it would have been a race with conventional weapons (in fact, it WAS a conventional weapons arms race – look at the Russian tanks, aircraft and submarines.)

But the atomic bomb was inevitable – we knew, the Germans and Japanese knew, and the Russians knew it was possible to make one. Had we NOT made one, the Russians certainly would have come up with one within a few years.

bekalc:

the Japanese did not have unconditional surrender anyways, they kept their Emperor. We could have got them to surrender eventually and received the same results we have now. Maybe our soldiers might have lost more lves, but they were soldiers that’s what happens. The danger those kind of weapons place upon our world, that’s scary… I don’t agree with it.

I love the way people who have never been in combat are willing to throw away soldiers’ lives.

I suppose the death by starvation of half the population of Japan is another consequence you’d be willing to accep?

 

[Al_Masetti]

mjdonnelly:

There was very little known about radiation poisoning. No one knew it would cause cancer, or how much of an indirect effect it would have aside from the blast wave of the explosion.

Actually, Marie Curie died of radiation poisoning. I suspect scientists knew a lot more then than we are aware of here on this bulletin board.

The other interesting thing is the the United States has been on the receiving end of more nuclear explosions than any other country. At the Nevada Test Site about an hour north of Las Vegas. About 100 above ground detonations and 700 underground detonations, with some of them being part of the Plowshare Project - so there was some radiation release.

 

[mjdonnelly]

Al Masetti:

Actually, Marie Curie died of radiation poisoning. I suspect scientists knew a lot more then than we are aware of here on this bulletin board.

Just because she died of it, it doesn’t mean we knew about exposure limits. Doctors working during the Manhatten project knew nothing of radiation sickness on the cellular level or what happens at various levels of exposure.

Most of our information about how much a person may safely recieve has been calculated from the blasts, or from other accidents.