Were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?

[IGCampbell]

Not sure if anyone asked this already, as I’m loathe to read the previous six pages, but I have to ask: why does it matter? It happened. You’re better off focusing your efforts on preventing it from happening in the future than trying to decide it in hindsight. People will not agree, and the more heated the argument goes, the more both sides will polarize, more’n likely.

Can we focus on the future, instead of on deciding who to alienate more?

 

[Wirraway]

Not sure if anyone asked this already, as I’m loathe to read the previous six pages, but I have to ask: why does it matter? It happened. You’re better off focusing your efforts on preventing it from happening in the future than trying to decide it in hindsight. People will not agree, and the more heated the argument goes, the more both sides will polarize, more’n likely.

Can we focus on the future, instead of on deciding who to alienate more?

the thread’s topic is the 1945 bombings, that’s why we’ve been discussing it.

moreover, a thorough understanding of this very complex issue is critical for informed, mature decision making in the future.

 

[IGCampbell]

A thorough understanding of the issue, sure, but that’s not what this thread calls for. This thread calls for an explicit judgment many, many decades after the fact.

 

[Wirraway]

A thorough understanding of the issue, sure, but that’s not what this thread calls for. This thread calls for an explicit judgment many, many decades after the fact.

I suggest you read all six pages of this thread and understand what we’ve been discussing and why instead of jumping in at the tail end and presuming to lecture me on the same.

 

[IGCampbell]

I apologize if you felt my goal was to lecture you; in fact it was an honest question. Why do we need to make an explicit judgment about this?

I also don’t understand your belligerence; you’ve been aggressive toward the “blame America” crowd, but why at me? Does everyone that disagrees with you deserve aggression and scorn? It doesn’t serve much toward a dialog, only toward alienation.

 

[Wirraway]

I apologize if you felt my goal was to lecture you; in fact it was an honest question. Why do we need to make an explicit judgment about this?

I also don’t understand your belligerence; you’ve been aggressive toward the “blame America” crowd, but why at me? Does everyone that disagrees with you deserve aggression and scorn? It doesn’t serve much toward a dialog, only toward alienation.

ok, sorry about that

 

[IGCampbell]

Apology accepted, and I hope you accept mine!

I’ll stop sidetracking this thread now though, I promise!

 

[Wirraway]

Apology accepted, and I hope you accept mine!

I’ll stop sidetracking this thread now though, I promise!

yeah, for some reason, there are a handful of issues that do that to me so thanks for being gracious about it. there are some interesting links to outside material in this thread, a couple of books and a postwar study.

 

[GKC]

yeah, for some reason, there are a handful of issues that do that to me so thanks for being gracious about it. there are some interesting links to outside material in this thread, a couple of books and a postwar study.

And the titles of a number of other books are readily available, on request.

GKC

 

[Al_Masetti]

In case anyone is interested, there was a previous thread that was quite extensive on this topic.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=242594&highlight=atom+bomb

And here’s a shorter thread on nuclear warfare.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=270679&highlight=Hiroshima

Probably there were more such threads earlier on.

 

[GKC]

In case anyone is interested, there was a previous thread that was quite extensive on this topic.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=242594&highlight=atom+bomb

And here’s a shorter thread on nuclear warfare.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=270679&highlight=Hiroshima

Probably there were more such threads earlier on.

I’d call it exhaustive.

GKC

 

[roanoker]

It was justified. Those two A-bombs killed less than 200,000 people. If they hadn’t been used, our invasion of Japan is estimated to have caused 5 million deaths, including over 100,000 Americans. It just worked out that we ended up with a bigger bomb than Japan had. Being killed by a 500 pounder or an A-bomb doesn’t make much difference. Dead is dead.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

The ends justifies the means? Consequentialist ethics? Warning, warning, Will Robinson - that way lies hell.

Let’s try a return to virtue ethics as the Church would have us do. Before we ask the question, “What am I to do?” ask, “What kind of person ought I be and what kind of person will I be after I make this moral decision?”

The men who developed the bomb almost universally recoiled in horror. Perhaps, their vision exceeded that of the politicians, whose only interest is the next election.

Total war and unconditional surrender may not be concepts in harmony with church teaching.

- & ​

Fr. Ronald Knox (1888-1957), in his book “The Church and the Bomb” (meaning these two), suggested that it might have been better to drop one on unoccupied ground, as a warning of what the bomb was capable of doing.

Wisdom with hindsight is easy, granted - but how can it possibly be morally tolerable to bomb civilians ? It’s a crime no matter who does it, or where, or when or why

 

[GKC]

- & ​

Fr. Ronald Knox (1888-1957), in his book “The Church and the Bomb” (meaning these two), suggested that it might have been better to drop one on unoccupied ground, as a warning of what the bomb was capable of doing.

Wisdom with hindsight is easy, granted - but how can it possibly be morally tolerable to bomb civilians ? It’s a crime no matter who does it, or where, or when or why

Is that the title I know as GOD AND THE ATOM?

BTW, I’ve spent a lot of electrons covering the historical facts behind the use of two bombs here, and in similar threads. The revisionist line of a possible demonstration is covered well in a number of books I’ve recommended before, a couple earlier in this thread. Newman’s TRUMAN AND THE CULT OF HIROSHIMA, chap 4 addresses it. Or one might try HIROSHIMA IN HISTORY: THE MYTHS OF REVISIONISM, ed. Maddox.We did make a demonstration. Roughly 1900 feet above the Aoi Bridge, at the confluence of the Ota and the Motoyasu Rivers, and 800-900 feet off the aiming point, over Hiroshima. It more than adequately demonstrated what the bomb could do. The war continued.

I don’t engage in discussions on the morality of the use of those weapons, as may be taught be the magisterium, which is certainly the subject of the OP. Nor do I try to argue RCs out of adherence to such teachings. I long ago, after years of studying the relevant history, made a decision that killing fewer people is preferable to killing more people. But I do supply historical facts, or suggest where they might be found. As here.

GKC

 

[Wirraway]

- & ​

One. Fr. Ronald Knox (1888-1957), in his book “The Church and the Bomb” (meaning these two), suggested that it might have been better to drop one on unoccupied ground, as a warning of what the bomb was capable of doing.

Two. Wisdom with hindsight is easy, granted - but how can it possibly be morally tolerable to bomb civilians ? It’s a crime no matter who does it, or where, or when or why

One. the bomb was capable of doing the equivalent damage as a full raid by B-29s (and its probably easier to stop single plane raids than massed formations), so the Japanese would not necessarily have been awed. more important, the decision was the war planners of August, 1945 to make, based on their best assessment. monday morning quarterbacking doesn’t add much to understanding the issues. by the way, the option of a demonstration was explored and rejected. so unless Fr. Knox was one of those war planners, his opinion doesn’t carry much weight.

The air war against the Japanese had been ongoing since 1944 with conventional weapons achieving similar effects on similar targets. post war studies make it very clear that the air war – firebombing Japanese cities – was decisive, and that the atomic bombings hastened the end by a couple of months. also clear that without the air war, if the DOWNFALL invasions had gone forward, deaths from all causes would have been in the millions.

Two. Japanese war industry was purposefully decentralized to make it a hard to fully destroy, moreover allied planners did not bomb civilian areas just because they were civilian areas. the mission plans always identified military targets. they happened to be, often enough in civilian built up zones.

an important note repeatedly missed here. the japanese economy, managed and operated by civilians, was totally mobilized for war. it takes hundreds of people not wearing uniforms to maintain one man killing, which the Japanese soldiers had been doing to the Chinese (military and civilian) at the rate of over 200,000 per month for the past eight years. without the support of civilians, this killing machine would not have existed.

so before you wring your hands over Japanese civilians casualties, at least acknowledge their complicity in the mass death the IJA inflicted and the hobson’s choice faced by allied military planners.

 

[GKC]

One. the bomb was capable of doing the equivalent damage as a full raid by B-29s (and its probably easier to stop single plane raids than massed formations), so the Japanese would not necessarily have been awed. more important, the decision was the war planners of August, 1945 to make, based on their best assessment. monday morning quarterbacking doesn’t add much to understanding the issues. by the way, the option of a demonstration was explored and rejected. so unless Fr. Knox was one of those war planners, his opinion doesn’t carry much weight.

The air war against the Japanese had been ongoing since 1944 with conventional weapons achieving similar effects on similar targets. post war studies make it very clear that the air war – firebombing Japanese cities – was decisive, and that the atomic bombings hastened the end by a couple of months. also clear that without the air war, if the DOWNFALL invasions had gone forward, deaths from all causes would have been in the millions.

Two. Japanese war industry was purposefully decentralized to make it a hard to fully destroy, moreover allied planners did not bomb civilian areas just because they were civilian areas. the mission plans always identified military targets. they happened to be, often enough in civilian built up zones.

an important note repeatedly missed here. the japanese economy, managed and operated by civilians, was totally mobilized for war. it takes hundreds of people not wearing uniforms to maintain one man killing, which the Japanese soldiers had been doing to the Chinese (military and civilian) at the rate of over 200,000 per month for the past eight years. without the support of civilians, this killing machine would not have existed.

so before you wring your hands over Japanese civilians casualties, at least acknowledge their complicity in the mass death the IJA inflicted and the hobson’s choice faced by allied military planners.

Indeed.

GKC

 

[gus]

My only question is: with such a small percentage of Catholics in Japan. Who decided to drop the bomb on the main Catholic Church (nagasaki) I believe on a Sunday morning

 

[Wirraway]

My only question is: with such a small percentage of Catholics in Japan. Who decided to drop the bomb on the main Catholic Church (nagasaki) I believe on a Sunday morning

Nagasaki was a major seaport at the time, and a legitimate military target. the aim point was elsewhere in the industrial part of the city, but the bomb exploded between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works (Torpedo Works), Dennis D. Wainstock (1996). The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Praeger, 92.

 

[GKC]

Nagasaki was a major seaport at the time, and a legitimate military target. the aim point was elsewhere in the industrial part of the city, but the bomb exploded between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works (Torpedo Works), Dennis D. Wainstock (1996). The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Praeger, 92.

And Nagasaki was not the primary target for the 2nd bomb. Kokura was. But haze and smoke over the city eliminated Kokura, though three attempts were made by BOCK’S CAR’s crew to drop the bomb on the primary target. Nagasaki was also overcast, but fuel problems required that the bomb be dropped there anyway, there was no option. It exploded over a mile off the primary aim point, where Wirraway said. The suggestion that the RC cathedral was deliberately targeted, which I have read in threads like this before, is beneath contempt, approximately on the level of Chick. The A/C commander of BOCK’S CAR, Major Charles Sweeney, was RC.

GKC

 

[Valke2]

- & ​

Fr. Ronald Knox (1888-1957), in his book “The Church and the Bomb” (meaning these two), suggested that it might have been better to drop one on unoccupied ground, as a warning of what the bomb was capable of doing.

Wisdom with hindsight is easy, granted - but how can it possibly be morally tolerable to bomb civilians ? It’s a crime no matter who does it, or where, or when or why

It has been my understanding that after the first bomb was dropped, the Japanese did not think it was anything out of the ordinary. That is to say, the damage done was not significantly greater than damage done by traditional bombing raids. The big difference being, of course, that it only took one plane to do what multiple squadrons would accomplish.