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

Obviously, if an infantry invasion of Japan had been necessary
to its military defeat, American troops woud have been killed in such an effort.
(I understand that the estimate had been 1,000,000 American deaths,
without even considering the deaths of POWs.)

Truman and everyone of any significance in his Administration,
certainly knew that their military decisions permit them no option
of giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" at the expense of any American troops.

If even ONE American serviceman were to be injured,
or even exposed to danger for the purpose of aiding or comforting the enemy,
that woud have been treason.

Was Truman THAT low ?

I am aware that he did, indeed, betray American Allies,
but it seems unlikely that he 'd do that to American troops.
Yet, I listen with an open mind.

David

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@oralloy,

Yes, there were informal talks via Switzerland, as you say - think about it.

As to Truman, he had been kept in the dark about the very existence of nuclear weapons by Roosevelt. His own diary (available for you to read) shows his complete incomprehension of radiation damage. The fact that many people in both the US and Japan (and in nuclear scientific establishments worldwide) understood the long-term effects doesn't make Truman's ignorance any less.

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@High Seas,

It's easy when we have 20/20 hindsight, but many things done by our government in our name is done in secrecy and shared falsehoods to not only Americans but the whole world at large.

That's not to excuse what our government has done, but I'm not sure our government will allow transparency to future decisions about how our government decides to do one thing or another.

As for using the a-bomb during WWII, I believe most feel it was justified based on the information that was available then; our potential loss from our attack on Japan's homeland (and their loss too), the fact that Japan initiated the war without warning, the cost the war had already cost our country, and most everybody's wish to end the war.

I also read the book about MacArthur many decades ago, and felt he was the perfect general in charge of Japan after they surrendered, and our occupation of that country.

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@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

Yes, there were informal talks via Switzerland,

That is incorrect. The only communication was when Japan formally passed a request to surrender so long as we would guarantee the Emperor would remain Japan's ruler, and we formally passed an answer saying that MacArthur would have the power to depose the Emperor.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

You are mistaken, Oralloy. Informal talks had been taking place for several weeks, and not only with Switzerland as intermediary.

You shouldn't be arguing while not in possession of the facts - especially since looking them up is easy, now that almost all contemporaneous documents have been declassified. Besides - you contradict what you yourself just said on the previous page of this very thread!

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@High Seas,

PS Japan, having accepted the informal assurances provided on the status of the emperor, sent word (of course in Japanese) to the Secretary of State which stopped just short of "unconditional surrender"; Truman decided it was good enough, and said so in the formal declaration of his acceptance of the surrender:

Quote:

I have received a note from the Japanese government in reply to the message forwarded to that government by the Secretary of State on August 11. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan.

http://www.ww2pacific.com/speeches.html#surr

Truman decided to take it that way - of course the only right thing to do - and that's why he had to refer to that Potsdam declaration; but that's not what the Japanese text said, precisely, though verbatim translations of nuances vary considerably.

1 Reply

@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

You are mistaken, Oralloy. Informal talks had been taking place for several weeks, and not only with Switzerland as intermediary.

Nope. No mistake. There were no talks. Just a formal exchange of brief messages after both A-bombs had already been dropped.

High Seas wrote:

You shouldn't be arguing while not in possession of the facts - especially since looking them up is easy, now that almost all contemporaneous documents have been declassified.

I am in possession of all the facts. The only communication was Japan formally asking to surrender with a guarantee for the Emperor, and us denying that guarantee.

Here are some excerpts from that exchange:

Quote:

The Japanese Government are ready to accept the terms enumerated in the joint declaration which was issued at Potsdam on July 26th, 1945, by the heads of the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, and China, and later subscribed to by the Soviet Government, with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler.

Quote:

With regard to the Japanese Government's message accepting the terms of the Potsdam proclamation but containing the statement, 'with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler,' our position is as follows:

From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms.

You can get the whole thing here:

http://www.international.ucla.edu/eas/documents/surrender-exch.htm

High Seas wrote:

Besides - you contradict what you yourself just said on the previous page of this very thread!

It is possible I misspoke somewhere, and that that was contradicted by another spot where I didn't misspeak.

But it is probably more likely that you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I try to say what I mean clearly, but sometimes I fail that goal.

Where do you think the contradiction is? Whatever the confusion is, I should be able to clear it up.

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@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

PS Japan, having accepted the informal assurances provided on the status of the emperor, sent word (of course in Japanese) to the Secretary of State which stopped just short of "unconditional surrender"; Truman decided it was good enough, and said so in the formal declaration of his acceptance of the surrender:

The "assurances" we gave Japan was that MacArthur would have the power to depose the Emperor whenever he felt like it.

High Seas wrote:

Quote:
I have received a note from the Japanese government in reply to the message forwarded to that government by the Secretary of State on August 11. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan.

http://www.ww2pacific.com/speeches.html#surr

The August 11 message is where we told Japan that MacArthur would have the power to depose the Emperor at will.

High Seas wrote:

Truman decided to take it that way - of course the only right thing to do - and that's why he had to refer to that Potsdam declaration; but that's not what the Japanese text said, precisely, though verbatim translations of nuances vary considerably.

Japan told Truman that they accepted all our terms, including the fact that MacArthur would be free to depose the Emperor at will.

It seems reasonable enough to consider it an acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation.

2 Replies

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

Quote:

The "assurances" we gave Japan was that MacArthur would have the power to depose the Emperor whenever he felt like it.

MacArthur was smart enough to know that respecting the emperor was the intelligent thing to do. The Japanese people still looked upon the emperor as their "god."

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
The "assurances" we gave Japan was that MacArthur would have the power to depose the Emperor whenever he felt like it.

MacArthur was smart enough to know that respecting the emperor was the intelligent thing to do. The Japanese people still looked upon the emperor as their "god."

The people back in Washington hoped to keep the Emperor too. But they weren't about to give him any guarantee to that effect. They retained the power to depose him just in case keeping him didn't work out as well as everyone hoped it would.

In fact, it is possible that the power to depose the Emperor actually helped things work out well. It might have quelled the Japanese military's resistance to democratic reforms, because they wouldn't have wanted to provoke MacArthur into deposing the Emperor.

1 Reply

@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

You are mistaken, Oralloy. Informal talks had been taking place for several weeks, and not only with Switzerland as intermediary.

Since it seems from your link that what you are calling informal talks were the post A-bomb surrender messages, I should make clear the dates here:

August 6: Hiroshima

August 9: Nagasaki

August 10: Japan asks to surrender "with a guarantee for the Emperor"

August 11: Byrnes replies that "MacArthur will have the power to depose the Emperor"

August 14: Japan agrees to all terms.

Note that these "talks" only happened after the A-bombs were dropped. They weren't anything that was ongoing when the bombs were dropped.

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@oralloy,

Your assumptions are totally wrong; read MacArthur's biography about his experience in Japan.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Your assumptions are totally wrong; read MacArthur's biography about his experience in Japan.

I know for a fact that Japan was forced to accept terms that gave MacArthur the power to depose the Emperor, and that people in Washington hoped to keep the Emperor in place despite not giving him a guarantee.

The part about "the possibility that the ability to depose him might have quelled resistance" is more speculation than assumption.

But it seems plausible enough. The Japanese Army would definitely not have wanted to have caused the Emperor to be deposed.

I don't see how it could really be proven right or wrong without an ability to rerun history to see how things would have turned out if we had given Japan a guarantee in the surrender terms.

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@babsatamelia,

babs, Hiroshima built military machines including the zero airplane.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

If my memory serves, I believe I read something about Hiroshima as the factory for the zero airplane, but could find nothing in my Google search.

Quote:

Hiroshima during World War II

At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of considerable industrial and military significance. Even some military camps were located nearby, such as the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It was one of several Japanese cities left deliberately untouched by American bombing, allowing an ideal environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb. Another account stresses that after General Spaatz reported that Hiroshima was the only targeted city without prisoner of war (POW) camps, Washington decided to assign it highest priority.

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As a matter of common sense,
if the Japs or the nazis possibly COUD have nuked us first,
thay CERTAINLY woud have done it ASAP.

That certainly justifies us in doing it to them first,
but NO justification is needed: that is the nature of war.
Mercy is not the nature of war
(tho in the 2 Gulf wars, we saw a lot of restraint being applied
by America to avoid collateral damage, on a voluntary basis).

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Hey, David, are you a kike?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Hey, David, are you a kike?

No; Y ?

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@OmSigDAVID,

Never mind; you'll never "get it."

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OK

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

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