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

Not with the "system." We're hitting "Submit" more than once.

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I believe that bombing Japan was indeed unncessary. Despite all the contrarian opinion, they were defeated militarily, and they had already offered numerous instances of surrender, the infrastructure destroyed, therefore mitigating any threat they posed to the U.S.

Therefore, anyone who argues that the A-bomb was justified is usually a court historian, or someone who hasn't read Ronald Takaki. The fact that America did not accept Japans surrender was to have an excuse to drop the A-Bomb insisting on "unconditional surrender", when in fact, such a thing was never official policy, it was merely a stupid slogan by muscular nationalists. And before the term "unconditional surrender" the plans were already laid out for the A-bomb, making the American public relations stunt look embarrasing, considering they wanted to drop the bomb all along. America's "unconditional surrender" was never policy, even though the attitude entailed that the Japanese had to relinquish their emperor if any peace negotiations were to be made. Japan obviously disagreed but was willing to surrender as long as the Emperor was kept. And supposedly that is one of the reasons the bomb had to be dropped. However, what happened in the end? America accepted Japan's "conditional" surrender, showing once and for all that the "unconditional surrender" hokum was pointless and in fact a lie.

Furthermore, another myth that we must blow away right now is that the A bomb was used to save "half a million American lives". That is simply untrue. Truman stated that phrase, but where did he get the figure? It was stated in his memoirs ten years after the bombing of Hiroshima, when Truman knew if they would invade the Japanese home islands the casualties would have been far fewer than proclaimed because in 1945 Truman ordered the military to calculate the cost of troops that would take to invade Japan. Starting from southern Kyushu and all the way to Tokyo plain the casualties would have been roughly 40,000 and not 500,000, as the myth goes.

So based on the situation of the time, it would be absurd to characterize Japan as being of any threat to America, militarily, ideologically, economically, therefore, the bomb was simply useless, unless you're in the imperialist camp which then translates to showing "American muscle" to the Soviets. Oh who cares, a few hundred thousand of those yellow people don't matter as long as we show Uncle Joe what we're made of.

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Without arguing the merits of your disquisition here, i would point out that when you use an inflamatory term such as "court historian," you make yourself appear to be looking to pick a fight. Simply because someone does not agree with a revisionist view of history does not make them a court historian, any more than offering a revisionist point of view automatically makes someone else wrong. I suggest you will do better in such discussion if you avoid such terms.

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Anon, You are evidently not a person who understands history too well. If you know anything about how the Japanese fought in Okinawa, you will get a hint as to the extreme military control Japan was under. You can't rationalize current American standards and sensibilities to how the Japanese fought the war during WWII.

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On Saipan, women and children who would not voluntarily leap to their deaths were herded over the cliffs at bayonet point. Small wonder so many American military men foresaw an invasion as a blood bath on a vast scale.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Anon, You are evidently not a person who understands history too well. If you know anything about how the Japanese fought in Okinawa, you will get a hint as to the extreme military control Japan was under. You can't rationalize current American standards and sensibilities to how the Japanese fought the war during WWII.

Well, isn't it fitting that I actually have a Bachelors in history, but that's beyond the point.

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Setanta wrote:

Without arguing the merits of your disquisition here, i would point out that when you use an inflamatory term such as "court historian," you make yourself appear to be looking to pick a fight. Simply because someone does not agree with a revisionist view of history does not make them a court historian, any more than offering a revisionist point of view automatically makes someone else wrong. I suggest you will do better in such discussion if you avoid such terms.

I am not asking you to agree with me, nor was it my intention to post in order to get people to agree with me. Perhaps I am a bit passionate on this topic, but beyond that, I was only making a point, the point being that dropping the bombs on Japan was senseless.

As far as history being "revisionist" or not, I cannot tell, can you? All I know is that history is a process and is always changing, and how we interpret depends greatly on how we have been conditioned. History, like anything else, is a social institution. Historiagraphy is greatly influenced by the structure of all our other social institutions, and the ideas that pervade the ruling circles. The problems that historiography entangles are ideas that it uses in investigating those problems, even the so called results that come out of the historian, are all influenced by preconceived ideas and predispositions that derive from society in which we live. Historians don't start life as historians, but as social beings, immersed in a family, a state, and the ideological structure that pervades.

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"Well, isn't it fitting that I actually have a Bachelors in history, but that's beyond the point." At least even you, a history major, understands "that's beyond the point."

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I hated history while in school, but know a little about the battle of Okinawa. I suggest you read the following article.

Battle of Okinawa
Okinawa was the largest amphibious invasion of the Pacific campaign and the last major campaign of the Pacific War. More ships were used, more troops put ashore, more supplies transported, more bombs dropped, more naval guns fired against shore targets than any other operation in the Pacific. More people died during the Battle of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Casualties totaled more than 38,000 Americans wounded and 12,000 killed or missing, more than 107,000 Japanese and Okinawan conscripts killed, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians who perished in the battle.

The battle of Okinawa proved to be the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. Thirty-four allied ships and craft of all types had been sunk, mostly by kamikazes, and 368 ships and craft damaged. The fleet had lost 763 aircraft. Total American casualties in the operation numbered over 12,000 killed [including nearly 5,000 Navy dead and almost 8,000 Marine and Army dead] and 36,000 wounded. Navy casualties were tremendous, with a ratio of one killed for one wounded as compared to a one to five ratio for the Marine Corps. Combat stress also caused large numbers of psychiatric casualties, a terrible hemorrhage of front-line strength. There were more than 26,000 non-battle casualties. In the battle of Okinawa, the rate of combat losses due to battle stress, expressed as a percentage of those caused by combat wounds, was 48% [in the Korean War the overall rate was about 20-25%, and in the Yom Kippur War it was about 30%]. American losses at Okinawa were so heavy as to illicite Congressional calls for an investigation into the conduct of the military commanders. Not surprisingly, the cost of this battle, in terms of lives, time, and material, weighed heavily in the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan just six weeks later.

Japanese human losses were enormous: 107,539 soldiers killed and 23,764 sealed in caves or buried by the Japanese themselves; 10,755 captured or surrendered. The Japanese lost 7,830 aircraft and 16 combat ships. Since many Okinawan residents fled to caves where they subsequently were entombed the precise number of civilian casualties will probably never be known, but the lowest estimate is 42,000 killed. Somewhere between one-tenth and one-fourth of the civilian population perished, though by some estimates the battle of Okinawa killed almost a third of the civilian population. According to US Army records during the planning phase of the operation, the assumption was that Okinawa was home to about 300,000 civilians. At the conclusion of hostilities around 196,000 civilians remained. However, US Army figures for the 82 day campaign showed a total figure of 142,058 civilian casualties, including those killed by artillery fire, air attacks and those who were pressed into service by the Japanese army.

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Anonymouse: As i pointed out, one of our members once observed that all history is revisionist. You seem to avoid the central issue of what i wrote--your use of the term "court historian" was slighting and tendentious. I really don't need any short lessons in historiography. Nor do i need to see someone prefacing their disagreement with a blanket dismissal of anyone who may challenge them as court historians. You do others a disservice, and you lessen the value of your contribution.

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c.i. I am aware of the ferocity with which Japanese fought at Okinawa and the horror of that battle. I never questioned that. Even during the war, Truman was assured by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the invasion of the Japanese home islands with Kyushu would not be like Okinawa. As Admiral Ernest King explained:

"There had been only one way to go in Okinawa. This meant a straight frontal attack against a highly fortified position. On Kyushu, however, landings would me made on three fronts simultaneuously and there would be much more room for maneuver." Source: Minutes of Meeting at White House, June 18, 1945, reprinted in Sherwin, World Destroyed, appendix, pp.357, 359

Setanta: Contrary to what you think I did address you. That you did not like it, is not my fault, and nor is it my fault that you don't like my views. I don't understand why you are offended by my use of court historian. Unless you consider yourself a court historian and defend the official and mainstream line of history then there is no need to be offended. Even then I was using it merely to make a distinction between the conventional line and the unpopular one among historians, as those that do not uphold the conventional view are ipso facto "revisionist".

Also I was not giving you any lessons on historiography, merely pointing out that historiography, and how we view history and defend certain aspects of history, greatly depends on our status as social beings. My intention was not to smear you or belittle those who oppose my views. It wasn't I who thought people can't disagree with me. Strangely enough, you brought that up. I hope you see that your disagreement is welcomed not shunned.

Regards.

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Anon, The part the Joint Chiefs of Staff seemed to have ignored is the toll it would have taken irregardless of our landings on less fortified areas in Kyushu. Less fatalities (which they could not have predicted) compared to Okinawa does not equate to "successful" landings. We can't ignore the way the Japanese fought on the other islands in the Pacific. An invastion into their homeland would have demanded more civilian and children casualties unforseen by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Even women and children were preparing with bamboo spears for the American invasion.

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Anonymouse wrote:

Setanta: Contrary to what you think I did address you. That you did not like it, is not my fault, and nor is it my fault that you don't like my views. I don't understand why you are offended by my use of court historian. Unless you consider yourself a court historian and defend the official and mainstream line of history then there is no need to be offended. Even then I was using it merely to make a distinction between the conventional line and the unpopular one among historians, as those that do not uphold the conventional view are ipso facto "revisionist".

Also I was not giving you any lessons on historiography, merely pointing out that historiography, and how we view history and defend certain aspects of history, greatly depends on our status as social beings. My intention was not to smear you or belittle those who oppose my views. It wasn't I who thought people can't disagree with me. Strangely enough, you brought that up. I hope you see that your disagreement is welcomed not shunned.

My point is precisely that, absent anyone making a charge against you as a revisionist, you seemed to feel the need to make a slighting remark about those whom you are please to describe as "court historians." There is no such thing as a court historian. Anyone who is engaged in the study of history, and not the dissemination of propaganda, cannot by definition be a court historian. That someone's historical analysis leads them to agree with what you are pleased to characterize as "official and mainstream" and as "conventional" does not make them a propagandist, a court historian--any more than taking an "unconventional" point of view makes them a revisionist in the pejorative sense. I have no personal stake in your view of the opinions of others, it is a matter of indifference to me. However, it seems that you made your remarks with a chip on your shoulder, expecting to be criticized, and therefore immunizing yourself in advance with your remark about court historians. That term is very much a pejorative and came into currency with the Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory nonsense which became popular immediately after that war. As for who brought it up, had you not been inclined to make such a statement about court historians, you'd have never heard from me on the subject. What you have opined here on these matters is neither new nor necessarily unpopular, and has been articulated in this thread before more than once--i'd say that in fact in our times, yours is much more the conventional, the "mainstream" view.

My remark was not about addressing me, but about addressing the use of the term court historian. I don't happen to have a dog in this fight, so at no time did i take personal offense. And when you responded to me, you did not at all address the issue of using the term court historian absent any criticism by the participants here of your point of view, which of course could not have been done, as you were just then airing your views.

My remarks concerning revision in history were in reference to the cogent statement a member made here once that all history is revisionist. The term revisionist has an unfortunate pejorative sense because so much self-serving claptrap gets spread around, mascarading as history, but actually serving the financial interests of those peddling conspiracies or a political point of view. It is bad form to label someone revisionist.

It is equally bad form to label someone a court historian. It is also rather silly to do so in advance of any comment on your contribution.

EDIT: By the by, anyone whose status as a social being has a profound influence on their practice of historiography needs to find a new line of work--they'll never be an historian. Being unable to see certain things for cultural reasons is a given, and something the honest student of history works to overcome; one's status as a social being has nothing to do with the ability to judge of the value of historical testimony.

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Anonymouse wrote:

I believe that bombing Japan was indeed unncessary. Despite all the contrarian opinion, they were defeated militarily, and they had already offered numerous instances of surrender,

The government of Japan did not show an interest in surrender until August 2nd, 1945. And at that point, all they were interested in was having negotiations where they intended to (with Soviet help) get us to let them surrender on unacceptable terms.

Their first actual attempt to surrender came on August 10, after the second A-bomb. But that still had an unacceptable term in it.

Their second attempt to surrender was accepted on August 14th.

Anonymouse wrote:

the infrastructure destroyed, therefore mitigating any threat they posed to the U.S.

The destruction was of little use in actually preventing their emplaced soldiers fighting to the death in a bloody battle.

Anonymouse wrote:

The fact that America did not accept Japans surrender was to have an excuse to drop the A-Bomb

Japan's first attempt to surrender came on August 10th, after the second A-bomb.

Anonymouse wrote:

insisting on "unconditional surrender", when in fact, such a thing was never official policy, it was merely a stupid slogan by muscular nationalists. And before the term "unconditional surrender" the plans were already laid out for the A-bomb, making the American public relations stunt look embarrasing, considering they wanted to drop the bomb all along. America's "unconditional surrender" was never policy, even though the attitude entailed that the Japanese had to relinquish their emperor if any peace negotiations were to be made.

Unconditional surrender was very much policy.

And there was nothing that said the Japanese would have to relinquish their Emperor. Unconditional surrender meant that we could remove him, or not remove him, as we pleased.

And what's this nonsense about peace negotiations. The whole point of unconditional surrender is that their are no negotiations. Japan was going to have to accept the terms that we gave them.

Anonymouse wrote:

Japan obviously disagreed but was willing to surrender as long as the Emperor was kept. And supposedly that is one of the reasons the bomb had to be dropped.

Before August 2nd, 1945, Japan wasn't willing to surrender at all.

Between August 2nd and August 10, Japan was willing to surrender, but only if they could get the following terms:

Complete sovereignty of Hirohito as Japanese ruler
No occupation of the Japanese home islands
Japan be in charge of trying their own war criminals
Japan be in charge of demobilizing their own military

On August 10th, after both A-bombs, then Japan tried to surrender just with a guarantee of complete sovereignty of Hirohito as ruler of Japan.

We were about a week away from nuking than a third time when they came to their senses and accepted our terms without condition.

Anonymouse wrote:

However, what happened in the end? America accepted Japan's "conditional" surrender, showing once and for all that the "unconditional surrender" hokum was pointless and in fact a lie.

That is completely backwards.

We were the ones who gave the surrender terms and Japan was the one who accepted them.

None of the conditions that Japan wanted were in the surrender terms.

Anonymouse wrote:

Furthermore, another myth that we must blow away right now is that the A bomb was used to save "half a million American lives". That is simply untrue. Truman stated that phrase, but where did he get the figure? It was stated in his memoirs ten years after the bombing of Hiroshima, when Truman knew if they would invade the Japanese home islands the casualties would have been far fewer than proclaimed because in 1945 Truman ordered the military to calculate the cost of troops that would take to invade Japan. Starting from southern Kyushu and all the way to Tokyo plain the casualties would have been roughly 40,000 and not 500,000, as the myth goes.

Truman got the figures from estimates of the casualties if we had to subdue the entirety of Japan by military force.

The thing about "from Kyushu all the way to the Tokyo plain" is nonsense. That low estimate is for one invasion of the southern half of Kyushu, and one invasion of the Tokyo plain, and for nothing in between the two.

And the reason it is so low is because it only covers the cost of two amphibious operations, while the larger figure was for if we had to subdue all Japan.

Anonymouse wrote:

So based on the situation of the time, it would be absurd to characterize Japan as being of any threat to America, militarily, ideologically, economically,

The ability to cost us half-a-million dead and millions injured seems like it would be considered a threat.

Anonymouse wrote:

unless you're in the imperialist camp which then translates to showing "American muscle" to the Soviets. Oh who cares, a few hundred thousand of those yellow people don't matter as long as we show Uncle Joe what we're made of.

That is a fiction. Truman's motive was to try to shock them into accepting our surrender terms before an invasion was necessary.

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Anonymouse wrote:

c.i. I am aware of the ferocity with which Japanese fought at Okinawa and the horror of that battle. I never questioned that. Even during the war, Truman was assured by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the invasion of the Japanese home islands with Kyushu would not be like Okinawa. As Admiral Ernest King explained:

"There had been only one way to go in Okinawa. This meant a straight frontal attack against a highly fortified position. On Kyushu, however, landings would me made on three fronts simultaneuously and there would be much more room for maneuver." Source: Minutes of Meeting at White House, June 18, 1945, reprinted in Sherwin, World Destroyed, appendix, pp.357, 359

Like the room for maneuver at Normandy lead to low casualties there?

About the time the A-bombs were dropped, King was actually preparing to undermine and oppose the then-current invasion plans because of the sheer folly of invading against such large numbers of defenders.

The outcome of this confrontation would have been to change the invasion plans to include use of A-bombs to clear the regions ahead of the invasion force.

The use of tactical A-bombs would have made the invasion feasible, but it still would have been an incredibly bloody affair.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

I just found this, which certainly is of some important historical information:

A Nagasaki Report

Interesting article.

Quote:

NAGASAKI, Sept.8 -- The atomic bomb may be classified as a weapon capable of being used indiscriminately, but its use in Nagasaki was selective and proper and as merciful as such a gigantic force could be expected to be.

That was somewhat accidental.

Had the second bomb gone where they wanted it to (Kokura Arsenal) the main force of the bomb would have hit mostly arms-production facilities.

However, the bomb was diverted to Nagasaki. At Nagasaki the aimpoint was the Mitsubishi Shipyards, which would have done massive damage to the civilian portions of the city.

However, they could not get a fix on that either. They dropped the bomb on the industrial outskirts of Nagasaki because that was all they could get a fix on.

Quote:

B-29 raids before the Atomic bomb failed to damage them and they are still hardly scarred.

Nagasaki was one of the cities that could not be readily located using radar guidance, and so was spared the large napalm raids that hit many other Japanese cities.

Quote:

Dr. Uraji Hayashida shakes his head somberly and says that he believes there must be something to the American radio report about the ground around the Mitsubishi plant being poisoned. But his next statement knocks out the props from under this theory because it develops that the widow's family has been absent from the wrecked area ever since the blast yet shows symptoms common with those who returned.

The ground was made mildly radioactive from neutron activation, but it was not a serious problem.

The radiation casualties all came from the fireball in the first minute of the explosion. Most of them were sustained in the first second of the explosion.

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Setanta wrote:

Anonymouse wrote:
Setanta: Contrary to what you think I did address you. That you did not like it, is not my fault, and nor is it my fault that you don't like my views. I don't understand why you are offended by my use of court historian. Unless you consider yourself a court historian and defend the official and mainstream line of history then there is no need to be offended. Even then I was using it merely to make a distinction between the conventional line and the unpopular one among historians, as those that do not uphold the conventional view are ipso facto "revisionist".

Also I was not giving you any lessons on historiography, merely pointing out that historiography, and how we view history and defend certain aspects of history, greatly depends on our status as social beings. My intention was not to smear you or belittle those who oppose my views. It wasn't I who thought people can't disagree with me. Strangely enough, you brought that up. I hope you see that your disagreement is welcomed not shunned.

My point is precisely that, absent anyone making a charge against you as a revisionist, you seemed to feel the need to make a slighting remark about those whom you are please to describe as "court historians." There is no such thing as a court historian. Anyone who is engaged in the study of history, and not the dissemination of propaganda, cannot by definition be a court historian. That someone's historical analysis leads them to agree with what you are pleased to characterize as "official and mainstream" and as "conventional" does not make them a propagandist, a court historian--any more than taking an "unconventional" point of view makes them a revisionist in the pejorative sense. I have no personal stake in your view of the opinions of others, it is a matter of indifference to me. However, it seems that you made your remarks with a chip on your shoulder, expecting to be criticized, and therefore immunizing yourself in advance with your remark about court historians. That term is very much a pejorative and came into currency with the Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory nonsense which became popular immediately after that war. As for who brought it up, had you not been inclined to make such a statement about court historians, you'd have never heard from me on the subject. What you have opined here on these matters is neither new nor necessarily unpopular, and has been articulated in this thread before more than once--i'd say that in fact in our times, yours is much more the conventional, the "mainstream" view.

My remark was not about addressing me, but about addressing the use of the term court historian. I don't happen to have a dog in this fight, so at no time did i take personal offense. And when you responded to me, you did not at all address the issue of using the term court historian absent any criticism by the participants here of your point of view, which of course could not have been done, as you were just then airing your views.

My remarks concerning revision in history were in reference to the cogent statement a member made here once that all history is revisionist. The term revisionist has an unfortunate pejorative sense because so much self-serving claptrap gets spread around, mascarading as history, but actually serving the financial interests of those peddling conspiracies or a political point of view. It is bad form to label someone revisionist.

It is equally bad form to label someone a court historian. It is also rather silly to do so in advance of any comment on your contribution.

EDIT: By the by, anyone whose status as a social being has a profound influence on their practice of historiography needs to find a new line of work--they'll never be an historian. Being unable to see certain things for cultural reasons is a given, and something the honest student of history works to overcome; one's status as a social being has nothing to do with the ability to judge of the value of historical testimony.

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Here's a bit of history for you, Anonymouse, from way back in the history of this thread

The Invasion That Never Happened

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Note to Mouse--i have not once used the term interpret. If you're going to try to make a case about what i wrote, then don't try to make it based upon something which i did not write. I don't believe in the "interpretation" of history. History is not a foreign language which need be translated for the ignorant. I believe in ascertaining, as best one is able, the course of events, and the character of the people influencing events, and then offering one's own opinion. Having offered as faithful a description of said course of events and the characters of those involved as i am able, i fully expect that any reasonably intelligent person--which is to say, the great majority of the population--are as capable of coming up with an informed opinion as am i. If they filter their opinions through a politically partisan agenda, or their "social position," so much the worse for their understanding.

Revisionist did not in fact first arise with regard to the study of history. It was a term first applied to Socialists who were revising Marxist dialectic--most notably, Vladimir Ulyanov, known as Lenin. That term was only applied to historians much later by those who objected to denials of the holocaust in Germany in the Second World War. The term "court historian" was applied to historians by other (alleged) historians in the creation of the Pearl Harbor conspiracy thesis--those individuals only had the name revisionist applied to them retrospectively. So in fact, you have got it completely wrong. The Pearl Harbor conspiracy writers first applied the term court historian, just as you used it here, before anyone had even had the opportunity to have commented on what you'd written. These people only came to be known as revisionists long after they had attempted to do what you attempted to do--immunize themselves against criticism by condemning in advance any who might disagree with them, through the use of "court historian" as an epithet.

You preen yourself, apparently, on your knowledge of historiography. Yet you seem not to have done some basic work to find out the origin of the term court historian, nor that of revisionist as applied to (alleged) historians. Basic historiographical practice makes such homework necessary for those who would be taken seriously. I have less and less reason to take what you write seriously. Political and ideological "tugs-of-war" only take place between those who "interpret" history, and have an agenda to forward in the process. Those who do such things are propagandists, and they have poisoned their own wells of knowledge with the "history as tool" concept embodied in Marxist dialectic--one thing they assuredly are not is historians. I haven't denied that there might be an "official" version of events--i've just denied that such a thing constitutes history. Those who wish to forward their political agenda by issuing an "official version" of events are propagandists, not historians. Those who make it their business to forward their own agenda by denying such "official versions" are very likely to be engaged in the same sort of propagandizing. You have fun "interpreting" history for the ignorant masses. I intend to continue to work from the assumption that literate people are as capable as i am, and as you are, of coming to their own reasonable conclusions based on the available evidence.

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opinions are interesting, but facts are sacred.

all we can ever do is build up a picture from what we know to be factual (in so far as truth can ever be known for certain).

Now oralloy wrote

"Before August 2nd, 1945, Japan wasn't willing to surrender at all."

It might be unfair to pick out this one sentence and examine it, but in order for me to better understand the question under discussion, I would like to know is that statement true?

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

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