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Was it a war crime when US nuked Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

 
 
HofT
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Mar, 2005 11:03 am
Cicerone - would you be able to check the usual translation of the Emperor's radio speech (first ever) announcing the surrender?

The translation I've seen quoted starts:

"The war situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage."

Thanks!
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Ray
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Mar, 2005 04:02 pm
What I want to know is, why did they not drop it on a military or industrial base instead of a city?
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Mar, 2005 04:04 pm
Ray, Hiroshima was a industrial city that made the Zero airplanes.
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Mar, 2005 04:07 pm
HofT, Here's something I found on a search, but it only summarizes his speech. I'll look further.
http://kwc.org/memorylane/mit/523/Embracing%20Defeat.htm
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Mar, 2005 04:13 pm
This is an excellent link on Hirohito and WWII. http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/h/hi/hirohito.html
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Mar, 2005 04:16 pm
Here's the English translation of his speech.
http://www.star-games.com/exhibits/rescript/rescript.html
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timberlandko
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Mar, 2005 05:58 pm
Boh Hiroshima amd Nagasaki were industrial centers, transportation nodes, and homes to significant military instalations and assets.

Of interest would be that immediately prior to the first bomb and again during the interim period between bombs, the Japanese Government publically repudiated the Potsdam Ultimatum, defyin' the demand of immediate surrender. Hardly the behavior of an adversary ready to quit the contest.

Japan was told, unambiguously, "Halt and drop your weapons or I will shoot". Japan's government chose to not halt, and to continue to train her weapons on her opponents. The choice, and the consequences, were Japan's.
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Ray
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 01:21 am
Embarrassed that makes sense.
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oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 05:13 am
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
"When we dropped the bombs it seemed to us that Japan was nowhere near accepting our terms."

Can you back this up or is this just speculation on your part Orally?


It is well-represented in books written by mainstream historians.

I'd recommend these books:

Robert James Maddox, "Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later"

Leon Sigal, "Fighting to a Finish: The Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan, 1945"

Paul Kecskemeti, "Strategic Surrender: The Politics of Victory and Defeat"

Richard B Frank, "Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire" (specifically the parts of this book that describe Japan's reaction to Potsdam, what the MAGIC intercepts said, and what our analysts said of the MAGIC intercepts)
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oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 05:27 am
Ray wrote:
What I want to know is, why did they not drop it on a military or industrial base instead of a city?


They needed a target large enough to demonstrate the size of the bomb so as to shock the Japanese government with the overwhelming scale of the destruction.


The first choice, Hiroshima, was a major military town. It had the highest soldier/civilian ratio of all their major cities. 20,000 fresh conscripts were killed when the bomb went off.

Hiroshima also had the most important military headquarters outside Tokyo: the headquarters for the Japanese Second General Army, which was in charge of repelling any invasion in the southern half of the Japanese home islands (which is where we were going to begin our invasion if it came to that).


The primary target for the second bomb was Kokura Arsenal, a huge (4100' x 2000') arms-production complex, but the bomber got diverted to an alternate target.

However, the second bomb did manage to destroy both the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, and the Mitsubishi munitions plant that designed and made the special "shallow water" torpedoes that were made specifically for Pearl Harbor.
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oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 05:34 am
cicerone imposter wrote:
Ray, Hiroshima was a industrial city that made the Zero airplanes.


Nagasaki was the industrial city. Hiroshima was the military city.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works made Zeros, but haven't heard whether or not they did.
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oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 05:41 am
timberlandko wrote:
Of interest would be that immediately prior to the first bomb and again during the interim period between bombs, the Japanese Government publically repudiated the Potsdam Ultimatum, defyin' the demand of immediate surrender. Hardly the behavior of an adversary ready to quit the contest.


What I've always heard was they didn't make any additional response in the interim. They were waiting for the Soviets to agree to help them negotiate an end to the war on absurd terms.
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oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 05:51 am
cicerone imposter wrote:
This is an excellent link on Hirohito and WWII. http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/h/hi/hirohito.html


Quote:
The following day, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Koichi Kido prepared a draft document which summarised the hopeless military situation and proposed a negotiated settlement. In private, the Emperor warmly approved of it and authorised Kido to circulate it discreetly amongst the less hawkish cabinet members. By mid-June the cabinet had agreed to approach the Soviet Union to act as a mediator, though not before the bargaining position had been improved by a repulse of the coming Allied invasion of mainland Japan.


The MAGIC intercepts indicated that the full cabinet did not support having the Soviets mediate negotiations until after the Potsdam declaration.

In mid-June, it was only the peace faction of the cabinet, operating without the support of the war faction.

That is probably a minor quibble though. The full cabinet did support Soviet-mediated negotiations after Potsdam, and before the A-bombs.



Quote:
On June 22, Hirohito broke tradition once again to speak to his ministers, saying "I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts be made to implement them." The attempt to negotiate a peace via the Soviet Union came to nothing: the Allies were determined not to settle for anything short of "unconditional surrender", and as late as July 1945 neither the Emperor nor his government were prepared to consider that option.


The Soviet gambit did indeed come to nothing.

The only way for Japan to end the war was by accepting the Potsdam terms.
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 06:52 am
Hi Au1929

I admit that my take on the atomic bombings is coloured by scepticism of the motives of American administrations then and now. However, I keep an open mind, (but not so open, as Carl Sagan said, that your brains fall out).

It is on record that diplomatic channels were open through the Swiss before Hiroshima. And surely no one disagrees that the building of the atomic bomb was the most significant military/industrial project of the war.
Political leaders didn't know everything about the a-bomb, but they knew enough to understand how it would completely change the character of future wars. (Unless you were of the opinion that the atom bomb would make war redundant...a surprising number of people did). And of course they realised that possession of nuclear weapons gave any country a massive military power advantage.

There was no doubt that the uranium device bomb would work. The plutonium implosion "gadget" proved itself in the desert in July 1945. What remained to be seen was what this new wonder weapon would do to a real city. Was it feasible to actually deploy it as a war winning weapon? What would radiation do to the enemy's capacity to continue war fighting? How can we best protect ourselves from possible enemy use of atomic weapons?

These were big questions that could only be answered by using it against a live target.

Many scientists working on the bomb were absolutely horrified, thinking that their work on the weapon entitled them to some say as to how it would be used.

But as scientists they must have known that the only real test of a new weapon is its affect on the enemy. And statesmen knew that they could not gain the full power advantage that possession of nuclear weapons promised unless they demonstrated the reality of atomic warfare.

I believe the argument that the a-bombing avoided the necessity of invasion and hence saved lives should be weighed against arguments of American strategic interests in 1945.

An excellent book btw is Richard Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb".
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au1929
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 07:53 am
Steve (as 41oo)
All flavors of reasoning relative to the use of the atomic bomb were expressed on this thread. In effect it boils down to the basic need to demoralize ones enemy to the extent that he surrender on your terms. That was exactly what the dropping of the bombs accomplished and therefore IMO was justified and correct.
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oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 08:12 am
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
It is on record that diplomatic channels were open through the Swiss before Hiroshima.


The Japanese embassy in Switzerland did take it upon themselves to defy their national government and try to pursue peace. But since they were not acting in the name of the Japanese government, they had no real authority to achieve anything.

The actual government of Japan did not try to surrender through the Swiss until August 10, after Nagasaki. We responded by pausing the third A-bomb for three days to see if they were about to accept our surrender terms.


Now, the Japanese government did try to contact the Soviets before Hiroshima, but this was not an attempt to accept our terms, but rather a scheme to get us to let them get away with unacceptable terms.



Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
What would radiation do to the enemy's capacity to continue war fighting?


That certainly wouldn't have been answered by the bombings, as we used airbursts.



Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
How can we best protect ourselves from possible enemy use of atomic weapons?

These were big questions that could only be answered by using it against a live target.


The question as to how to protect against A-bombs was answered mostly by tests done under controlled conditions, where we could demonstrate how various shocks would damage various types of construction.

The same testing would also have provided an adequate answer as to what it would do to a city.



Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
I believe the argument that the a-bombing avoided the necessity of invasion and hence saved lives should be weighed against arguments of American strategic interests in 1945.


Our strategic interests in 1945 were largely concerned with making the enemy accept our surrender terms.
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oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 08:25 am
au1929 wrote:
All flavors of reasoning relative to the use of the atomic bomb were expressed on this thread. In effect it boils down to the basic need to demoralize ones enemy to the extent that he surrender on your terms. That was exactly what the dropping of the bombs accomplished and therefore IMO was justified and correct.


Well, I'll agree that demoralizing them into accepting our terms was our motive for dropping the bombs.
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 09:34 am
Quote, "I wouldn't be surprised if the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works made Zeros, but haven't heard whether or not they did."

oralloy, I believe the information I have was from the book "MacArthur," but it was many years ago.
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timberlandko
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 10:27 am
http://www.aviation-central.com/1940-1945/images/aej2d-st.jpg

Mitsubishi A6 Reisen

Designed by Mitsubishi in the late 1930's, the Reisen - Japanese for "Model Zero ("Zero" for 1940, its year of adoption) Fighter" - was produced both by Mitsubishi and by Nakajima, with Mistsubishi, the design's originator, the prime contractor. In production throughout WWII, over 11,000 of the type were manufactured and delivered, in several variants, more than any other Japanese aircraft of the era. The Allied codename for the type was "Zeke"
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Fri 4 Mar, 2005 02:15 pm
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
What would radiation do to the enemy's capacity to continue war fighting?


That certainly wouldn't have been answered by the bombings, as we used airbursts.

something wrong with my quotes facility...so work it out yourselves

Don't understand how airburt nuclear weapons minimises radiation damage. However it maximises damage from pressure waves.
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