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

Again, are you equating the effects of a conventional bomb with that of an atom bomb?

For some unknown reason, you believe this to be impossible, but can't explain why.

Yeah, that and a decimated forest which would be on fire. Again, do you really believe that a military officer wouldn't know the difference between the effects of a conventional bomb and an atomic bomb?

Keep in mind that I'm not pressing the point that the Japanese could be informed where the demonstration would take place, and that they would be given just enough time to get there. For some unknown reason, you believe this to be impossible, but can't explain why.

A WWII military officer wouldn't even know what an A-bomb was.

If they have enough time to get nuclear experts there, they also have enough time to move American POWs to the kill zone.

But they would certainly know that it wasn't a conventional bomb by virtue of both the aftermath and the mushroom cloud.

Not true. They did not need to have nuclear experts there to witness the effects. A military officer would suffice.

And they would be given just enough time to get close enough to witness the event.

You're attempting justify the incineration of cities full of people--not to mention the agony of those who were just outside the kill zone who were burned alive, and all of the ones who suffered radiation poisoning--by claiming that there was no way to demonstrate the bomb without also killing POWs.

And besides, who is going to volunteer to take POWs to the kill zone when they know that they would be just as dead as the POWs?

Very large conventional weapons have an aftermath and mushroom clouds too.

Not if they wanted someone with the expertise to know what they were seeing.

That is completely unrealistic. Wartime Japan would not instantly react and order an officer to go someplace just because the US sent them notice that they should do so.

I've already justified that, when I pointed out that the US government needed to do something to end the reign of terror that Japan was inflicting on the world.

The Japanese officers would probably abandon the kill zone with the POWs locked up cages or something.

Then why don't you tell me what kind of conventional bomb from the 1940s creates the same aftermath as that of an atomic bomb. And which one would create a mushroom cloud that would rise to a height of fifty thousand feet and be seen from a hundred miles away?

Any military officer would know that what they're seeing is not a conventional bomb. See above.

Pure speculation on your part.

This idea that you hold onto is obsolete.

This idea that you hold onto is obsolete. Every military leader and his brother knew that Japan had collapsed and was already defeated and ready to surrender due to the naval sea blockade and the destruction of nearly every major city.

And before you come out with your "But they didn't say anything while the bombs were being dropped" recital again, I will remind you that their orders were to follow orders without question.

In one breath you state that wartime Japan would not instantly react and order an officer to go someplace just because the US sent them notice that they should do so. In the next breath you state that the Japanese officers would probably abandon the kill zone with the POWs locked up cages or something. So which one of these statements of yours do you really believe?

It isn't a question of identical effects.

Even if they were impressed, that doesn't mean that people who didn't witness the explosion would trust their judgement.

But it is pretty obvious that the wartime Japanese government was not going to dispatch an officer within a couple minutes of us notifying them of an imminent demonstration.

No, it is the truth and is amply backed by historical records.

That merely confirms that I am correct that they didn't voice any opposition.

Whether they would have moved our POWs to the kill zone if we had given them time to do so, I don't know, but it was certainly a legitimate fear.

Yeah it is.

So rather than sidestep the issue, why don't you provide something to support your claim.

Doesn't mean that they wouldn't. You're overlooking the fact that the officer/s that their government would send would be sent precisely because their judgement would be trusted. That only makes sense, right?

No, it is not obvious.

The historical record shows that nearly every military leader acknowledged that Japan was already defeated and that they would have surrendered without incinerating cities full of people using atom bombs.

Your version of historical records omit those statements.

No, that merely confirms that you misinterpret their following of orders without question as not being opposed, which, in light of their later statements, is a dishonest conclusion.

No it wasn't.

Being within twenty miles of ground zero would provide ample proof that the explosion and nine-mile high mushroom cloud that followed did not come from a conventional bomb.

No. Fooling people with a very large conventional explosive does not require identical effects. It only requires something that will impress someone who doesn't know any better.

Because it isn't my claim.

In your proposed scenario they aren't sending anyone with expertise.

A random officer might be trustworthy as far as honestly describing something to the best of their ability, but that doesn't make them immune to being fooled.

There were people in the Japanese government who even suspected that the Hiroshima attack was a ruse.

No. There were no expressions of such opposition during the war when the A-bombs were actually being used.

That would be small comfort to any POWs at the center of the explosion.

Besides arbitrarily proclaiming what would, and would not, impress Japanese Military Intelligence when you have no way of knowing such a thing,

you're also trying to dismiss a nine-mile high mushroom cloud as unimpressive.

So it is your claim . . .

Oh, okay, then let me propose that they send someone from military intelligence who would understand that what they were witnessing was certainly not anything like a conventional bomb.

Again, a nine-mile high mushroom cloud and an incinerated forest.

The team that went to Hiroshima was led by Dr. Yoshio Nishina, who had been a leader on the Japanese fission research program. He and a general arrived at Hiroshima on the morning of August 8th and began examining both the characteristics of the damage (e.g., by examining knocked-down grass and trees, he could discern from what direction a uniform blast wave had traveled, for example) and the human remains (many of which showed signs of immediate high-temperature burns, and were measurably radioactive). From that he concluded very quickly that the weapon was an atomic bomb. On the evening of August 8th sent back to Tokyo the message:

What I've seen so far is unspeakable. Tens of thousands dead. Bodies piled up everywhere. Sick, wounded, naked people wandering around in a daze... Almost no buildings left standing. It's all true then? Hiroshima is completely wiped out? Completely. ... I'm very sorry to tell you this... the so-called new-type bomb is actually an atomic bomb.

You are again using their obligation to follow orders without question as a way to discredit their statements that Japan was already defeated and that incinerating cities full of people was not a military necessity.

The commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, gave a strong indication of his views in a public statement only eleven days after Hiroshima was attacked. Asked on August 17 by a New York Times reporter whether the atomic bomb caused Japan to surrender, Arnold said:

The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.

In his 1949 memoirs Arnold observed that "it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." (See p. 334, Chapter 27)

Arnold's deputy, Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, summed up his understanding this way in an internal military history interview:

Arnold's view was that it [the dropping of the atomic bomb] was unnecessary. He said that he knew the Japanese wanted peace. There were political implications in the decision and Arnold did not feel it was the military's job to question it.
Eaker reported that Arnold told him:

When the question comes up of whether we use the atomic bomb or not, my view is that the Air Force will not oppose the use of the bomb, and they will deliver it effectively if the Commander in Chief decides to use it. But it is not necessary to use it in order to conquer the Japanese without the necessity of a land invasion.

[Eaker also recalled: "That was the representation I made when I accompanied General Marshall up to the White House" for a discussion with Truman on June 18, 1945.

Even Truman himself knew that the Japanese were looking for peace:

The Americans, having broken Japanese codes, were aware of Japan's desperation to negotiate peace with the U.S. before the Soviets invaded. Truman himself described an intercepted cable from July 18, 1945, as the "telegram from the Jap emperor asking for peace."

Truman reiterated this in a letter to his wife the next day: "We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed."

We've already discussed the problem with your insistence that there is no way to time things in such a way that there would be no time to move POWs to the the kill zone. As I said, no one needs to be that close to ground zero.

You are denying the US A-bomb war crime reality, oralloy,