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EphelDuath
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What was Pope Pius XII’s reaction to it?
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aggiecatholic05
Guest
i dont know his reaction, but i think it was justified. 2 attacks several hundred thousand dead(granted mostly civillian), however that probably saved millions of lives on both sides. and as we were defending against an agressor(they did start the war) more force is justified.
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EphelDuath
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Yes, but we killed millions of innocent civilians – not soldiers – in doing so. The Church teaches that evil cannot be done in order to accomplish good.
Even if Hiroshima was justified, what is the justification for Nagasaki? We barely gave any time at all for Japan to surrender.
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moville_man
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they wouldnt have done so. they didnt give up after the first bomb, i doubt a bomb threat would persuade them.
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EphelDuath
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They didn’t give up because we only gave them three days to deliberate. Why wouldn’t they have given up?
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aggiecatholic05
Guest
we didnt kill millions with those 2 bombs, even if you add up the decades of radation victims it was still less than 1 million. and just like in this country every civilian was involved directly in the war effort in some way. in a way there were no true civillians.
the justification for nagasaki is that the emperor rufsed our offer. now if there was no response i’d conceede your point, but they made up their mind.
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Mike_Dye
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This is a really hard question. On one hand we were attacked without provocation. We did have an obligation to defend our country and I have no problem with that. I guess I would have been more in favor of us letting rip a couple of BIG BOYS in uninhabited areas as a warning , if there was no response I would have aimed at more Military targets rather than civilian inhabited areas.
Regardless, It’s Monday morning quarterbacking.
Regardless, It’s Monday morning quarterbacking.
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aggiecatholic05
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the problem with droping them in an uninhabitated place is you lose effect. these bombs were like noting else ever seen. the whole point was the bluff that we had tons of these things as opposed to two. we didnt have spares immeditealy on hand.
and most estimates indicate that in the island to island fighting it would take to invade and defeat japan in a traditional way, more lives would have been lost than had been lost in the entire pacific theater up to that point. i dont think we were obliged to knowingly take a course of war that would not ensure sucess and would have cost more lives in the long run.
and most estimates indicate that in the island to island fighting it would take to invade and defeat japan in a traditional way, more lives would have been lost than had been lost in the entire pacific theater up to that point. i dont think we were obliged to knowingly take a course of war that would not ensure sucess and would have cost more lives in the long run.
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Mike_Dye
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I know, I have heard and do believe that this was a necessary action.I was just thinking what could have been better. Hey, I am a Vietnam Vet. I know everything you could ever imagine about being badmouthed for your best efforts. Been there and done that.
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Muzhik
Guest
True, and the only way you can have a reasonable round of MMQ is to look at the situation given the information that was available at the time, not what we know now.
We know that a message was transmitted via the Soviets (who were our allies against Germany but neutral with Japan – at the time) to the Japanese Government explaining what they could expect in terms of destruction. The descriptions were not detailed but they were explicit. The Japanese government responded in a way that COULD have been interpreted in softer terms and opened the way for negotiations. Given Japanese behavior in the past (remember, the war in the Pacific had been going on for 10 years, starting with the Japanese invasion of China), and the fact that the reply didn’t contain any softening language, the translators used the harsher meanings. This sealed the fate of the Japanese.
We know that in addition to invading Japan as an alternative to using the Bomb, a traditional embargo/siege could have been used: The Navies of the US, the UK, and other allies would have interdicted all shipping and sea traffic to and from Japan: no oil, no rubber, no fish (since the fishing boats would have been sunk as civilian enterprises supporting the war effort) while continuing to bomb railroads, bridges, etc. The effect would be slow starvation of the civilian population. There was no intel supporting the idea that the military units would have suffered, or would have considered the civilian suffering worth losing honor over a defeat.
The problem with using the BIG BOYS as warnings is that once the warning was given, if it doesn’t deter then you HAVE TO use the bombs. As I noted earlier, a warning was sent through diplomatic channels. The emperor was not stupid and recognized the reality of the warning. However, the military on the War Cabinet could not sanction any defeat.
Japanese industry was built in and around civilian areas. Every attack on a military target produced civilian casualties, simply because you would find homes built within 10 feet of a rifle factory. It’s one of the reasons the Geneva Accords were re-written to state that a belligerant country that hides or builds military factories, etc. within a civilian area with the hope of using the certainty of civilian deaths as a deterrent, is itself guilty of those deaths and so guilty of war crimes.
Hiroshima is a sea port. The bomb was dropped there to impede its use as a port and to destroy factories producing naval materiel. Nagasaki was a major manufacturing center. The bomb was supposed to land on the main bridge across the river; unfortunately it went several dozen feet off target and landed next to a hospital. It’s obvious from these statements that the planners truly did not recognize the destructive power of the Bomb, which means decisions were made regarding targets based on faulty assumptions (as opposed to today, where the military simply does not make false assumptions.)
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Wirraway
Guest
there’s a lot of monday morning quarterbacking in any discussion like this,especially since the Bomb has taken on a much more sinster aspect since 1945. you don’t see much handwringing over the firebomb/high explosive mix that turned Japanese cities into matchwood and then firestorms, and they could be equally as desctructive as these first generation Bombs.
to put things in perspective,
“The Survey (read its foreward for methodology and purpose) has estimated that the damage and casualties caused at Hiroshima by the one atomic bomb dropped from a single plane would have required 220 B-29s carrying 1,200 tons of incendiary bombs, 400 tons of high-explosive bombs, and 500 tons of anti-personnel fragmentation bombs, if conventional weapons, rather than an atomic bomb, had been used.”
that’s the equivalent of about two big raids on Hiroshima with conventional bombs (the equivalent for Nagasaki was one raid). among the conclusions of the* Survey*:
*“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” *
but here’s the cost of those conventional air attacks:
*“Total civilian casualties in Japan, as a result of 9 months of air attack, including those from the atomic bombs, were approximately 806,000. Of these, approximately 330,000 were fatalities. These casualties probably exceeded Japan’s combat casualties which the Japanese estimate as having totaled approximately 780,000 during the entire war. The principal cause of civilian death or injury was burns. Of the total casualties approximately 185,000 were suffered in the initial attack on Tokyo of 9 March 1945. Casualties in many extremely destructive attacks were comparatively low. Yokahoma, a city of 900,000 population, was 47 percent destroyed in a single attack lasting less than an hour. The fatalities suffered were less than 5,000.” *
the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bywords to day because they were atomic attacks. with the Bomb, these cities could have been subject to much the same destruction by conventional means. and, most important, similar conventional raids with comparable fatalities totalling hundreds of thousands of dead and more destroyed cities would have continued throughout August, September, October and possibly through November, 1945.
so, yeah, the Bombs were the right choice.
to put things in perspective,
“The Survey (read its foreward for methodology and purpose) has estimated that the damage and casualties caused at Hiroshima by the one atomic bomb dropped from a single plane would have required 220 B-29s carrying 1,200 tons of incendiary bombs, 400 tons of high-explosive bombs, and 500 tons of anti-personnel fragmentation bombs, if conventional weapons, rather than an atomic bomb, had been used.”
that’s the equivalent of about two big raids on Hiroshima with conventional bombs (the equivalent for Nagasaki was one raid). among the conclusions of the* Survey*:
*“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” *
but here’s the cost of those conventional air attacks:
*“Total civilian casualties in Japan, as a result of 9 months of air attack, including those from the atomic bombs, were approximately 806,000. Of these, approximately 330,000 were fatalities. These casualties probably exceeded Japan’s combat casualties which the Japanese estimate as having totaled approximately 780,000 during the entire war. The principal cause of civilian death or injury was burns. Of the total casualties approximately 185,000 were suffered in the initial attack on Tokyo of 9 March 1945. Casualties in many extremely destructive attacks were comparatively low. Yokahoma, a city of 900,000 population, was 47 percent destroyed in a single attack lasting less than an hour. The fatalities suffered were less than 5,000.” *
the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bywords to day because they were atomic attacks. with the Bomb, these cities could have been subject to much the same destruction by conventional means. and, most important, similar conventional raids with comparable fatalities totalling hundreds of thousands of dead and more destroyed cities would have continued throughout August, September, October and possibly through November, 1945.
so, yeah, the Bombs were the right choice.
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Militant_Ellen
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You Becha!
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Appleby
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A very large percentage of my generation would not have been born if those bombs had not been dropped. Daddy was being mustered out of Europe after VE day and was headed for an attack on the Japanese Mainland, as were the fathers-to-be of many others I know, and all indications are that most of them would have been killed in the effort.
Yes, they were justified. War is Hell.
Yes, they were justified. War is Hell.
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Wirraway
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Dad was on an attack transport and would have been there too.
But the indications are that Japan would have surrendered before the invasion because of the air attacks regardless of whether the Bombs were used. BUT – continued conventional air attacks would have caused far more casualties than resulted from the two Bombings.
planners estimated horrendous US casualties if the invasion had been necessary (which it probably wouldn’t have been).
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quasimodo
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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.
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.
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Wirraway
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because your kind of hell where a total war by dictators was met and ended by the total war response of western democraices would be preferable to the hell of a nazi death camp? or the human-subject experimentation lab the Japanese ran in Manchuria? or the Warsaw ghetto? or a kempeitai or gestapo or SS interrogation cell?
and your moral advice to the Chinese in Manchuria, the Filipinos, Jews everywhere, the Brits, Canadians, South Africans, Belgians, Finns, Dutch, Poles, Czechs, Russians, French, Norwegians, Danes, Australians, New Zealanders, et al. circa 1940 would be – it is moral to submit to slaughter, don’t take up arms, God will prevail??? you’d be a better person starving to death in a labor camp, next stop the ovens?
pacificists and totalitarian all ditctators agree: submission is Korrect!
see, I can plan the Platitude Game much better than you.
I’m going to hazard a guess that you don’t even understand the concept of unconditional surrender in 1945.
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quasimodo
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edit: Actually You were trying to defend consequentialist ethics total war and unconditional surrender, but get the point I’m sure.
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Wirraway
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strawmen noted. evasions noted. want to try again? what would your advice be to people caught up in a total war by brutal dictatorships bent on complete domination and murder of your fellow citizens? that’s a fairly direct question.
submission? a hand wave argument? have you thought any of this through yet?
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quasimodo
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The thread is about the use of the Atomic bomb, not Just War Doctrine. Certainly the war was just. And yet the ends do not justify the means.
I find the “every civilian was involved in the war effort and therefore a legitimate target” argument specious and self serving.
The allies said they would not bomb the rail lines used to transport Jews to concentration camps because it would divert resources away from military targets from and the real task of winning the war. They also intentionally dropped tons of munitions and two atomic bombs on essentially civilian populations but did not seem to notice they were not military targets. That’s total war for ya.
How to win the war without the bombs? Can’t help you there, but that does not mean that the ends justify the means.
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Wirraway
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the atomic bombs and the air war were fully justified.
- argument from personal incredulity is flawed reasoning. testimony from the Japanese themselves shows how they intentionally decentralized and dispersed manufacturing facilities among the population to make targeting more difficult, for how and where this was done, see the postwar United States Stragetic Bombing Survey. the military significance of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been explained numerous times on many threads.
- unless you show a lot more familarity with the problems facing air war planners in WW2 (e.g., among hundreds of other issues, the misnomer of “precision” bombing and the ability of repair crews to repair RR damage as fast as it could be inflicted), you are simply not qualified to render any opinion on targeting choices.
- how to win the war without the atomic bombs? Japanese miiltary and civilian officials stated (see the above cite) that the air war would have compelled surrender by November or December 1945 at the latest. the damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have been duplicated by three full scale B-29 raids. but the war would have continued for months afterwards with successive Japanese cities being subjected to firebombing on a regular basis, causing, ultimately far more casualties than the atomic bombings themselves, not to mention, most important, the loss of allied lives as the war continued.
- so, here I’m asking again, so you can again evade the question. you don’t like total war, so what would you advise the victims of nazi and imperial japanese total-war agression at the onset?
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