Should we have dropped Atomic bombs on Japan

[JimG]

This is a false dilemma. You can’t say “Well, looks like I’m going to be evil either way, so I’ll pick this form of evil.” You can ALWAYS choose not to do evil. You just wouldn’t like the choice. Target the military. Not the civilians.

Yes, a different choice could be made. My only point is that all other choices result in greater loss of life.

 

[GKC]

I entirely agree. That’s why in post #8, I linked to a couple of previous threads. No point in covering all the same ground again.

I checked. At least 8 relevant threads over past 4 years. I posted approx 500 times in them.

The subject still interests me: I bought one relevant new book last week, have two more on order, and bought a small study of DOWNFALL today. Total of maybe 120 books on the specific topic or closely related ones, accumulated over the past 15 years.

But it gets so tiring, repetitively correcting errors of historical fact. Futile, too.

All those merely working over the moral question, and not the facts of the history, best of luck to you.

Of course, since I have not read the thread, maybe the history is more accurate this time.

Doesn’t matter, anyway.

GKC

 

[Mar044]

I checked. At least 8 relevant threads over past 4 years. I posted approx 500 times in them.

The subject still interests me: I bought one relevant new book last week, have two more on order, and bought a small study of DOWNFALL today. Total of maybe 120 books on the specific topic or closely related ones, accumulated over the past 15 years.

But it gets so tiring, repetitively correcting errors of historical fact. Futile, too.

All those merely working over the moral question, and not the facts of the history, best of luck to you.

Of course, since I have not read the thread, maybe the history is more accurate this time.

Doesn’t matter, anyway.

GKC

I don’t think anything i write about people listen to, if i ran up to people and said a torpedo was headed toward us, they would just say a huh…

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Yes, a different choice could be made. My only point is that all other choices result in greater loss of life.

And that is irrelevant, since the ends don’t justify the means. It was morally wrong. A difficult decision, and I’m judging nobody’s personal culpability, but the act itself was objectively wrong.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

I don’t think anything i write about people listen to, if i ran up to people and said a torpedo was headed toward us, they would just say a huh…

I have no idea how that worked as a response to his post.

 

[JimG]

And that is irrelevant, since the ends don’t justify the means. It was morally wrong. A difficult decision, and I’m judging nobody’s personal culpability, but the act itself was objectively wrong.

It was a war. I’m not disagreeing about Catholic morality. I’m just agreeing with GKC and his 500-some previous posts that the decision made, immoral though it may be in the context of the war, was the option which saved the most lives on both sides.

That may be a paradox. That’s just the conclusion I’ve reached after all those prior threads.

 

[Mar044]

I have no idea how that worked as a response to his post.

 

[aragonjohn1]

I argue no.

Here is my reasoning:

At this point, the japanese economy was in shambles. Their navy was ruined. Their soldiers starving. They were at the breaking point. There were cracks in the glass.

But instead of shooting the glass, we dropped 2 atomic bombs.

Some people may argue that dropping the bombs saved more human life (if the war would have continued, more soldiers would have likely died than the number of citizens)…

But, my point is that the soldier knows what he is up against. THe citizen is completely innocent.

**It just seems morally wrong to drop 2 atomic bombs in large citizen populated areas on a country that is at the breaking point. **

Thoughts?

i agree with most of you’re reasoning

Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan’s air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.

What was left of Japan’s factories and workshops struggled fitfully to turn out weapons and other goods from inadequate raw materials. (Oil supplies had not been available since April.) By July about a quarter of all the houses in Japan had been destroyed, and her transportation system was near collapse. Food had become so scarce that most Japanese were subsisting on a sub-starvation diet.

On May 23, came the greatest air raid of the Pacific War, when 520 giant B-29 “Superfortress” bombers unleashed 4,500 tons of incendiary bombs on the heart of the already battered Japanese capital. Generating gale-force winds, the exploding incendiaries obliterated Tokyo’s commercial center and railway yards, and consumed the Ginza entertainment district. Two days later, on May 25, a second strike of 502 “Superfortress” planes roared low over Tokyo, raining down some 4,000 tons of explosives. Together these two B-29 raids destroyed 56 square miles of the Japanese capital.

Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were “driving them [Japanese] back to the stone age.” Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold, commanding General of the Army air forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: “It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.” This was confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said: “Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s.”

Months before the end of the war, Japan’s leaders recognized that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them.

American officials, having long since broken Japan’s secret codes, knew from intercepted messages that the country’s leaders were seeking to end the war on terms as favorable as possible. Details of these efforts were known from decoded secret communications between the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and Japanese diplomats abroad.

to be cont…

 

[aragonjohn1]

i agree with most of you’re reasoning

Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan’s air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.

What was left of Japan’s factories and workshops struggled fitfully to turn out weapons and other goods from inadequate raw materials. (Oil supplies had not been available since April.) By July about a quarter of all the houses in Japan had been destroyed, and her transportation system was near collapse. Food had become so scarce that most Japanese were subsisting on a sub-starvation diet.

On May 23, came the greatest air raid of the Pacific War, when 520 giant B-29 “Superfortress” bombers unleashed 4,500 tons of incendiary bombs on the heart of the already battered Japanese capital. Generating gale-force winds, the exploding incendiaries obliterated Tokyo’s commercial center and railway yards, and consumed the Ginza entertainment district. Two days later, on May 25, a second strike of 502 “Superfortress” planes roared low over Tokyo, raining down some 4,000 tons of explosives. Together these two B-29 raids destroyed 56 square miles of the Japanese capital.

Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were “driving them [Japanese] back to the stone age.” Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold, commanding General of the Army air forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: “It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.” This was confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said: “Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s.”

Months before the end of the war, Japan’s leaders recognized that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them.

American officials, having long since broken Japan’s secret codes, knew from intercepted messages that the country’s leaders were seeking to end the war on terms as favorable as possible. Details of these efforts were known from decoded secret communications between the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and Japanese diplomats abroad.

to be cont…

funny that you take the catholic church side in this element of the war

(1) Just cause — The war must confront an unquestioned danger. "The damage inflicted by the aggressor or the nation or community of nations must b lasting, grave and certain, assets the Catechism (#2309).

(2) Proper authority — The legitimate authority must declare the war and must be acting on behalf of the people.

(3) Right Intention — The reasons for declaring the war must actually be the objectives, not a masking of ulterior motives.

(4) Last resort — All reasonable peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted or have been deemed impractical or ineffective. The contentious parties must strive to resolve their differences peacefully before engaging in war, e.g. through negotiation, mediation, or even embargoes. Here too we see the importance of an international medial body, such as the United Nations.

(5) Proportionality —The good that is achieved by waging war must not be outweighed by the harm. What good is it to wage war if it leaves the country in total devastation with no one really being the winner? Modern means of warfare give great weight to this criterion.

(6) Probability of success — The achievement of the war’s purpose must have a reasonable chance of success.

If a country can meet these criteria, then it may justly enter war. Moreover, a country could come to the assistance of another country who is not able to defend itself as long as these criteria are met.

• catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0182.html
• catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0183.html

hope this helps
Shalom
God Bless

 

[Marc_Anthony]

It was a war. I’m not disagreeing about Catholic morality. I’m just agreeing with GKC and his 500-some previous posts that the decision made, immoral though it may be in the context of the war, was the option which saved the most lives on both sides.

That may be a paradox. That’s just the conclusion I’ve reached after all those prior threads.

Oh, I agree with that completely. But as long as we agree the ends don’t justify the means, there is no paradox.

 

[Ghosty]

It was a war. I’m not disagreeing about Catholic morality. I’m just agreeing with GKC and his 500-some previous posts that the decision made, immoral though it may be in the context of the war, was the option which saved the most lives on both sides.

That may be a paradox. That’s just the conclusion I’ve reached after all those prior threads.

We don’t know if other options would or wouldn’t have saved more lives; that’s pure speculation. We’re talking about the facts and the morality of those facts.

Peace and God bless!

 

[austenbosten]

Compared to the alternatives, yes the US was just in dropping the atomic bombs; despite the horror that has ensued. Let us look at it from this point.

The USAAF was already causing massive casualties with its Tokyo firebombing campaign. In fact the casualties from one mission Operation Meetinghouse was the most deadliest and destructive bombing mission of the war with over 100,000 casualties (much more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic bombings)

So already one cannot argue the death toll in regards to the atom bomb droppings, because the United States was already inflicting massive casualties with conventional weapons.

Now some would argue the war was over and it was overkill.

USAAF account on Japan’s Bushido code

“The Japanese code of bushido—‘the way of the warrior’—was deeply ingrained. The concept of Yamato-damashii equipped each soldier with a strict code: never be captured, never break down, and never surrender. Surrender was dishonorable. Each soldier was trained to fight to the death and was expected to die before suffering dishonor. Defeated Japanese leaders preferred to take their own lives in the painful samurai ritual of seppuku (called hara kiri in the West). Warriors who surrendered were not deemed worthy of regard or respect.”

And this is prevalent throughout all first-hand accounts in dealing with Japanese soldiers in battle. From US accounts, to Chinese accounts, to British and Soviet accounts of mass suicidal attacks with no regard for human life (be it the enemy or their own)

Now taking this Operation Downfall (the invasion of Japan) would have cost 250,000 to one million American lives and 600,000 to 10 million Japanese deaths, simply because of Japanese fanaticism. Now while some could argue that civilians would not have been as fanatical as the soldiers, just read up on the Battle of Saipan and the mass suicide that occurred and Saipan wasn’t even “sacred ground”

So is it moral to inflict roughly 11 million deaths to end the war? or just 200,000…at what point do the numbers even matter when one will be months and the other a matter of minutes.

On top of all of this, Japan’s military leaders still did not believe in surrendering and Emperor Hirohito did absolutely nothing to bring the war to an end. Hirohito could have avoided all of this had he came down from his throne and decided to intervene to end the war…however he was “god” in his mind and didn’t feel the need to…that was until he saw two massive fireballs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Instead of blaming the US…(again ) people should instead ask the question. Is Hirohito and the military hawk cabinet to blame for the atomic droppings?

And isn’t Imperial Japan in WWII the perfect case of Pride being a sin and how much damage can be wrecked from the pride of sin?

 

[Marc_Anthony]

austen, you’re arguing that the bomb saved lives. You’d be right. It was still morally wrong.

 

[austenbosten]

austen, you’re arguing that the bomb saved lives. You’d be right. It was still morally wrong.

On what grounds would the dropping of the bombs be morally wrong?

 

[Ghosty]

On what grounds would the dropping of the bombs be morally wrong?

You can’t commit an evil action for a good end. St. Paul mentions this in Scripture.

Intentionally targeting civilians is an evil action, and we know from the Targeting Committee that civilians were intentionally targeted by the atom bombs.

Therefore the atomic bombings were immoral.

Peace and God bless!

 

[RobbyS]

Pope Pius XII condemned the atomic bomb and said at the time that, “every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man.” The Vatican newspaper *Osservatore Romano *commented in its August 7, 1945, issue: “This war provides a catastrophic conclusion. Incredibly this destructive weapon remains as a temptation for posterity, which, we know by bitter experience, learns so little from history.”

It is interesting to note that Eisenhower and other American leaders who were in a position to know the facts **did not **believe, either at the time or later, that the atomic bombings were needed to end the war.

When he was informed in mid-July 1945 by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson of the decision to use the atomic bomb, General Dwight Eisenhower was deeply troubled. He disclosed his strong reservations about using the new weapon in his 1963 memoir, T*he White House Years: Mandate for *Change:

During his [Stimson’s] recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”

“The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing … I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon,” Eisenhower said in 1963.

Once a decision to go to war has been made, the Church also requires that it be prosecuted justly (jus in bello). The point cannot be overstressed. It is a common belief that once the shooting starts all means to win a war are licit. The term for that is “total war,” and the Church condemns it. Non-combatants may never be targeted, and the force used while fighting a war must be governed by proportionality. In the decision to use the atom bomb, neither of these terms was met.

If the atomic bomb was wrong then so was Allied Strategic bombing of German cities. We had already fire-bombed Tokyo and were doing that to other cities in Japan. Fact is that we only had two of the bombs, and if the Japanese had know this, probably they would not have surrendered when they knew that. Probably the invasion would have gone forth with what results we do not know, but given that the Japanese were very different from the Germans, we would have had to put up with more than a few thousand “werewolves.” Probably as many Americans would have died as in the Battle of Normandy. The Japs had not a chance of beating us in Okinawa, but we know how they reacted. The people of the mainland would have behaved the same. Only the Emperor could make them stand down. How much authority he had over them can be seen in how they welcomed us after the surrender. Now, of course, atomic weapons are really not weapons. Which is why we have not had another world war.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

You can’t commit an evil action for a good end. St. Paul mentions this in Scripture.

Intentionally targeting civilians is an evil action, and we know from the Targeting Committee that civilians were intentionally targeted by the atom bombs.

Therefore the atomic bombings were immoral.

Peace and God bless!

NEVER, ever, no matter how many people are involved or lives are at stake, do the ends justify the means. To make exceptions is to make the concept irrelevant.

 

[austenbosten]

You can’t commit an evil action for a good end. St. Paul mentions this in Scripture.

Intentionally targeting civilians is an evil action, and we know from the Targeting Committee that civilians were intentionally targeted by the atom bombs.

Therefore the atomic bombings were immoral.

Peace and God bless!

Thank you for your response.

While I agree with that statement, you are wrong in your argument. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not chosen because of there were civilians present. Otherwise, why not drop the atom bomb on Yokohama and Tokyo?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen based on their military and industrial value.

From the Target Committee

1. Status of Targets

A. Dr. Stearns described the work he had done on target selection. He has surveyed possible targets possessing the following qualification: (1) they be important targets in a large urban area of more than three miles in diameter, (2) they be capable of being damaged effectively by a blast, and (3) they are unlikely to be attacked by next August. Dr. Stearns had a list of five targets which the Air Force would be willing to reserve for our use unless unforeseen circumstances arise. These targets are:

(1) Kyoto - This target is an urban industrial area with a population of 1,000,000. It is the former capital of Japan and many people and industries are now being moved there as other areas are being destroyed. From the psychological point of view there is the advantage that Kyoto is an intellectual center for Japan and the people there are more apt to appreciate the significance of such a weapon as the gadget. (Classified as an AA Target)

(2) Hiroshima - This is an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focussing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target. (Classified as an AA Target)

(3) Yokohama - This target is an important urban industrial area which has so far been untouched. Industrial activities include aircraft manufacture, machine tools, docks, electrical equipment and oil refineries. As the damage to Tokyo has increased additional industries have moved to Yokohama. It has the disadvantage of the most important target areas being separated by a large body of water and of being in the heaviest anti-aircraft concentration in Japan. For us it has the advantage as an alternate target for use in case of bad weather of being rather far removed from the other targets considered. (Classified as an A Target)

(4) Kokura Arsenal - This is one of the largest arsenals in Japan and is surrounded by urban industrial structures. The arsenal is important for light ordnance, anti-aircraft and beach head defense materials. The dimensions of the arsenal are 4100' x 2000'. The dimensions are such that if the bomb were properly placed full advantage could be taken of the higher pressures immediately underneath the bomb for destroying the more solid structures and at the same time considerable blast damage could be done to more feeble structures further away. (Classified as an A Target)

(5) Niigata - This is a port of embarkation on the N.W. coast of Honshu. Its importance is increasing as other ports are damaged. Machine tool industries are located there and it is a potential center for industrial despersion. It has oil refineries and storage. (Classified as a B Target)

(6) The possibility of bombing the Emperor's palace was discussed. It was agreed that we should not recommend it but that any action for this bombing should come from authorities on military policy. It was agreed that we should obtain information from which we could determine the effectiveness of our weapon against this target.

From this the only city really considered being chosen for its civilian population was Kyoto and that was ultimately not chosen.

 

[Ghosty]

Read criteria #1: Targets had to be in a large urban area. This means civilians by definition, and it was criteria #1 for targeting the bomb.

Tokyo was ruled out for initial use because Tokyo had already been essentially destroyed, and they wanted to provide a full demonstration of the destructive power of the bomb. They wanted a fresh city that hadn’t suffered much damage yet.

As for Yokohama, I don’t know the specifics of why Kokura was chosen over it (Nagasaki was the back-up target because Kokura was clouded over), except that it had also been nearly wiped out by previous conventional bombing therefore wouldn’t provide a suitably shocking demonstration of power, and it was also quite far away from the staging area for the bombing compared to the other targets.

In the targeting documents we find this little nugget which contradicts your assertion:

1. Psychological Factors in Target Selection
   A. It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released.
   B. In this respect Kyoto has the advantage of the people being more highly intelligent and hence better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. Hiroshima has the advantage of being such a size and with possible focussing from nearby mountains that a large fraction of the city may be destroyed. The Emperor’s palace in Tokyo has a greater fame than any other target but is of least strategic value.
2. Use Against “Military” Objectives
   A.** It was agreed that for the initial use of the weapon any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb.**

From the first bolded portion we see that widespread destruction and psychological terror were a significant, if not the most significant, factor in determining placement of the bombs. From the second bolded section we see that strictly military targets were ruled out unless they were in the midst of an urban (read: civilian) area. They intentionally targeted urban areas, and did not at all seek to minimize the devastation, but rather maximize it (hence them talking about the amplifying effects of the terrain around Hiroshima).

Peace and God bless!

 

[CaptFun]

Personally, I view the atomic bombings as unnecessary, no different from the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo as a display of earthly power. I wonder if the pilots of Enola Gay had used smaller, conventional bombs with lesser blast radii, targeted only at military installations in Hiroshima.

Was the Imperial Family of Japan open to peaceful negotiations with the Allies when the first atomic bomb began to be dropped at Hiroshima?

On the last part of your post: I have heard that the Japanese leadership (whoever that was) was trying to negotiate a peace … and who they picked to negotiate THROUGH was the Vatican.

BUT America (the main adversary) had no diplomatic relations with the Vatican. There was still quite a bit of anti-Catholicism in America and enough people were against the US having relations with the Vatican that it was a political hot potato.

When THAT didn’t “work” the Japanese tried plan “B” in looking for an armistice.

They contacted America’s “ally” the Soviet Union (an Atheistic Communist Nation openly trumpeting worldwide revolution - but one FDR DID establish relations with!).

Stalin kept their entreaties to himself and prepared for War and booty. Truman never knew
the Japanese were seeking back channels apparently … and on another track … Stalin was poised to possibly take over most all of Europe - and they were negotiating the “peace” in Potsdam.

So Truman had another reason to drop the bomb. Scare Stalin into settling for what FDR had negotiated away to him at Yalta! Which was most of what became the “Iron Curtain” countries.

Truman dropped the bombs - but Stalin had known about their existence and wasn’t afraid.
His spies were busily stealing our secrets. But Stalin did back off a little in Europe -
only to demand Sakhalin Island in the Far East and get in on the end of the war in Asia.

The bombs did cause Japan to unconditionally surrender to the US. And the Japanese people were quite surprised at the Americans’ benevolence in the occupation. They had been propagandized into fearing unending reprisals, the rape of their women etc. etc.
and when American law was put in … and the US soldiers behaved (for the most part) like gentlemen and were punished when they didn’t … a wave of pro-westernism swept Japan

Everything from baseball to American look dress for women was IN. The Catholic Church may have missed a bet by not sending missionaries at that precise moment actually!

The horrors suffered by the living bomb victims actually healed some wounds too.
Most Americans wanted to help those people (especially the civilians) who were so badly
burned.

Ironically the US had full relations with the new state of Israel from the moment of its inception in 1948. Before the Vatican received that kind of treatment. Some say its because 1948 was an election year, Truman needed New York, and the large Jewish contingent there was needed to beat Thomas E. Dewey.

But alas, the lack of a link to the Vatican (to please a voting block of US anti-Catholics) probably doomed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to destruction, at least in part.

It is hard to imagine a better post-war scenario had the bombs NOT been dropped (except for the suffering of the victims). An invasion would certainly have happened with even suicidal resistance similar to what was seen on some of the outlying islands, where fear of the Americans caused some women to jump off cliffs, others to detonate grenades in caves to kill themselves and even ritual harakiri.

The command of the Emperor to cooperate with the occupying Americans, coupled with Mc Arthur’s widely publicized stepping off the plane unarmed in Tokyo - led to a surprisingly quick and peaceful transition. Though Tojo and a few others were given
Nurnberg like trials and executed.

It is worth revisiting that cataclysmic moral decision for direction I suppose … but since
we don’t know the possibly more negative outcomes that were avoided by the bombings,
we run the risk of beating an old dead horse and wasting our time.