How could US drop the a-bomb on Civilians?

[GeoffP]

OK, no reason to put the boots in. How about everyone play nice and no one inject personal issues?

Ice, I gather that you feel the Japanese weren't adequately warned. I think Bells' links demonstrate they were warned, although obviously not specifically of what. No warnings were given to anyone in the Western theatre.

 

[Bells]

Not one single flyer was dropped informing the Japanese of what was going to happen. That is why they were not in fact informed. The idea that an informed Japanese public would have collected its doctors and nurse at the centers of the targets, set teams of schoolgirls to clearing the streets in the open under the incoming bomb, etc, is just - what's the word - bizarre.

And yet, the Japanese civilians were warned repeatedly that their cities would be destroyed and they were advised to evacuate from those cities immediately. They were given a time frame, told which cities would be targeted and told that in order to survive, they had to evacuate.

If the Japanese leadership forced civilians to remain, that is not the fault of the US, but of the Japanese leadership.

And if the Japanese sent schoolgirls and doctors and nurses into their industrial zones in the cities they were told would be destroyed, then the deaths of those people rest squarely on the heads of the Japanese.

There were millions of flyers dropped prior to the bombs being used. They were warned repeatedly that those cities would be destroyed. Whether you believe reality or not is beside the point. That is what actually happened. The Japanese demanded those flyers be collected and turned in and if anyone held onto them or tried to do as the flyer advised, would be executed. That is also reality.

Not half as bizarre as dropping one on a city full of schoolchildren without warning, or loudly and insistently claiming to have warned them without having done so.

That second bizarre event is a psychological symptom, btw.

They were warned by millions of leaflets dropped numerous times over Japan and by radio broadcasts.

There was no element of surprise that these bombs destroyed those cities.

S

omeone who has invented an atomic bomb, knows their enemy can do nothing to defend themselves from it, and knows that knowledge will quickly end the war they are fighting.

The point was to force a surrender. Not to have the enemy that had killed millions of people be able to defend themselves against a bomb and not surrender.

And the Japanese leadership were not afraid of 'the bomb'. They cared nothing for it. As evidenced by the fact that they still did not surrender after it was dropped the first time. Nor did they order the evacuation of the rest of the cities on the lists given by the Americans, that could be bombed next.

It's a unique situation.

Not really. The Japanese never warned the US for Pearl Harbour, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and all other Asian nations and the Pacific Islands that they attacked and invaded. Not once. Nor did they warn Australia when they attacked Darwin and tried to attack Sydney.

Usually in war, you don't warn the enemy of what you are planning on doing. The US went above and beyond by dropping millions of flyers and giving warnings on radio every 15 minutes for weeks prior to dropping the bombs, not just to try to make sure as few civilians were killed as possible, but also in the hope that the Japanese leadership would surrender before the bombs were dropped. That was a unique situation.

They would do that in the hope of ending the war as soon as possible, and in the hope of never having used such a weapon to kill doctors and nurses in hospitals, burn schoolgirls alive, and so forth, merely to demonstrate it. One does not want that on the national conscience - look at the mental contortions being employed to deny the event.

If doctors and nurses and school children were killed, it is because the Japanese leadership ordered the citizens to ignore the warnings with threats of death if they did take heed of those warnings.

No one is denying that the bombs were dropped, just as no one is denying that people died from it. No one is denying that the bomb was horrid.

However, if you want to look at denial of the event, then I suggest you look at the people who are bending themselves backwards, trying to deny the fact that the Japanese ordered their citizens to remain there and to ignore all the warnings or face death, just as they are trying to deny the brutality of the Japanese armed forces, and just as they are denying why the countries in the region needed the war to end because if it did not, then more Japanese civilians would have died in an invasion.

And if you want to complain about the killings of doctors and nurses, why don't you look at the Alexandra Hospital massacre. I'd suggest you not read it if you have a weak stomach.

Or what about Nanking? Did the Japanese warn the Chinese that they would mass rape, mass murder and massacre millions of people if they did not evacuate? No they did not. Why not? They didn't even drop leaflets. If you want to know why the region needed to have the Japanese surrender quickly, just that massacre is enough. But there were many more massacres, each as bad or worse than the other. What? No complaints about the schoolgirls raped and had swords stabbed in their vaginas? What about the pregnant women who were gang raped and then had their bellies sliced off? No complaints about no warnings for them?

Please, spare me the complaints about your personal beliefs that the Japanese were not warned. They were warned and were warned for weeks. Their leadership forced them to remain there. No one else did. Even after the first bomb was dropped, the Japanese refused to allow their civilians to evacuate the cities, despite warnings before and after the first bomb was dropped. On the contrary, they threatened them with death if they even kept the flyers. In that sense, the Japanese treated their citizens the same way they treated the millions of others they had massacred in the lead up to and during the war. While the US warned them to leave, the Japanese saw its citizens as being nothing more than fodder to support their war effort and thus, as fodder, they were expendable.

So spare me. Spare me the denials of history because it does not match how you think things should be. They received a lot of warnings, the leadership refused to take heed and forced the civilians to ignore them as well.

 

[Repo Man]

Remember, after all that had already happened, the peace negotiations were dragging and: "Negotiations appeared to be stalled, and on 14 August Spaatz received orders to resume the bombing campaign. Arnold requested the largest attack possible, and hoped that USASTAF could dispatch 1,000 aircraft against the Tokyo region and other locations in Japan. In fact, 828 B-29s escorted by 186 fighters (for a total of 1,014 aircraft) were dispatched; during the day precision raids were made against targets at Iwakuni, Osaka and Tokoyama and at night the cities of Kumagaya and Isesaki were firebombed." Wikipedia

After all that had been destroyed, and as hopeless as the situation was for the Japanese, there was still this hesitation; so we set the war machine back in motion. It could have been avoided easily enough by surrendering. I don't understand why Iceaura thinks a warning would have been effective when, after having two of their cities destroyed by these new devices, they still dragged things out so long that we fell back on conventional weapons and massive numbers of aircraft. And, as I pointed out in my earlier post, even after the ceasefire was nominally in effect, the Japanese still attacked our aircraft!

 

[iceaura]

OK, no reason to put the boots in. How about everyone play nice and no one inject personal issues?

It's Ok, I'm the guy with the boots on here.

And "personal issues", meaning whatever Joe has made up this time or yet another analogy the Marquis has got backwards, is all they have.

I think Bells' links demonstrate they were warned, although obviously not specifically of what.

I rest my case, about the psychological issues visible in this bizarre denial of what happened in broad daylight.

How in hell does "not specifically of what" translate into "they were warned"?

If you haven't warned somebody that you have an atomic bomb and you intend to use it, they haven't been warned about your atomic bomb. Warning them about your violent mood, ambitions of destruction, intentions to commit violence upon them, etc, does not warn them about your atomic bomb. Those flyers wouldn't even be "warnings" now, when we know about the Bombs and we know they exist and we know what they can do.

The entire issue, the central point, the big kahuna, the end of the War, pivoted on the US having atomic bombs in its arsenal. That's the piece of information that was intended to end the war, and did end the war just as expected. That's the only thing the Japanese needed warning about - we'd been bombing their cities, dropping threatening flyers, invading their territories and destroying their stuff, etc, for months. They already knew about that. They'd been warned for years about the US military. They had seen it coming months ago.

I don't understand why Iceaura thinks a warning would have been effective when, after having two of their cities destroyed by these new devices, they still dragged things out so long that we fell back on conventional weapons and massive numbers of aircraft

1) In the first place, none of my posting is based on "thinking a warning would have been effective". I think the US would have been much better off, then and now, with even an ineffective warning delivered sometime between January and March of 1945 - as many in the US thought was the best thing to do. The chance of a big win, from a regular US citizen's point of view - Japanese capitulation months before Hiroshima, before the Tokyo firebombings, before the battle of Okinawa - was of course an attractive feature, from that point of view anyway, but the actual event of a big win is not a necessary feature of my argument. Maybe an actual warning, the honest use of the Bomb as negotiation leverage, the discovery by the Japanese that their ace in the hole, the pain of their last ditch resistance to invasion, was not something the US needed to worry about any more, would have had no effect. So?

2) It doesn't matter to my posting how long the Japanese negotiated after Hiroshima - starting negotiations as early as possible, months before dropping the thing, is the option I am insisting existed and was known to exist at the time, thus providing the moral and ethical context for the decision to a) keep the Bomb a secret until the implosion design could be readied for use, and b) announce its existence by coordinated surprise attacks on two cities full of civilians. If such negotiations had gone nowhere for months, so what? There were still going to be cities full of schoolchildren to burn alive, whenever the US thought the timing would be the best.

3) Individuals in the Japanese high command got their first solid information about the fact and nature of the Bomb on August 8th - two days after Hiroshima. The decision to surrender immediately on some terms had been made by the 9th, and the first formal offer had been made and rejected by the 12th. The amended offer was made by the Japanese and accepted by the Americans by the 14th, and was announced officially on the 15th.

The Japanese went from full preparation for an invasion of the home island, an invasion they fully expected to do to them what they had done in China and worth whatever it took to resist, an invasion they had already accepted massive civilian bombing casualties to resist and were preparing to accept just as many in the future,

to complete capitulation and occupation by the American military, based on learning from scratch and comprehending a weapon completely new to humanity or warfare and completely unexpected by them.

within 72 hours of Nagasaki (144 hours of Hiroshima). Those 72 hours, or even less if one counts discovery time after communication with Nagasaki was disrupted, is what I read described as "they dragged things out so long".

And that "dragging" after the event is offered as an argument for not having informed the Japanese in good time about this weapon, given them more time to get a grip on their new situation, and instead surprising them with an unimaginable blow.

That is denial, folks. That's what it looks like.

There was no element of surprise that these bombs destroyed those cities.

That is complete proof of my contention that the psychological need to deny what the US did at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has done and is doing psychological harm.

Usually in war, you don't warn the enemy of what you are planning on doing.

Usually, in attempting to end a war, you do exactly that. "Surrender, or we will do such and so" is kind of standard operating procedure.

So one would have looked for "Surrender, or be utterly destroyed by this utterly terrible and unstoppable new weapon". Looked for it in January, February, or March of 1945. If the US had been attempting to end the war as soon as possible, that is.

The US went above and beyond by dropping millions of flyers and giving warnings on radio every 15 minutes for weeks prior to dropping the bombs, not just to try to make sure as few civilians were killed as possible, but also in the hope that the Japanese leadership would surrender before the bombs were dropped.

Nobody in the US command expected the Japanese to capitulate until the Bomb was revealed, because they had already withstood massive aerial bombardment and severe privation without abandoning their attempts to negotiate surrender rather than capitulate. None of the regular stuff had worked yet, and there was no reason to think it would work now.

The Bomb, however, was expected to work. Several members of the US command expected surrender after Bomb revelation to be coming so quickly that the Nagasaki bomb was rushed, dropped in suboptimal conditions on a secondary target - and that was a good decision, as it turned out, because an offer of surrender came only 4 days after, and complete capitulation came only six days after, the Emperor learned about what had happened to Hiroshima. So if they hadn't rushed the Nagasaki bomb, got it in within 72 hours, they might not have been able to drop it at all.

From a PR standpoint.

 

[Bells]

That is complete proof of my contention that the psychological need to deny what the US did at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has done and is doing psychological harm.

No one is denying that the bomb resulted in physical and psychological harm to the Japanese and to Americans (especially psychological). They were bloody awful.

But the US had informed the Soviets that they had the atomic bomb in the days before they used it. The Soviets did not believe they would be as big as the Americans had claimed.

The Americans did warn that they would destroy cities and told the civilians for over a month, to evacuate those cities and seek safety. They gave them enough of a heads up to have them leave. The Japanese denied its citizens the right to do so.

Usually, in attempting to end a war, you do exactly that. "Surrender, or we will do such and so" is kind of standard operating procedure.

And they did. They told the Japanese to surrender or their cities would be destroyed. When the first bomb was dropped, they said the same thing and with added measure of the first bomb having been dropped. The Japanese ignored it and refused. Just as they refused to evacuate any of the other cities that was on the list of cities that would be destroyed.

So one would have looked for "Surrender, or be utterly destroyed by this utterly terrible and unstoppable new weapon". Looked for it in January, February, or March of 1945. If the US had been attempting to end the war as soon as possible, that is.

And they still refused to surrender after the first "utterly terrible and unstoppable new weapon" was dropped. Just as they did not surrender when the second "utterly terrible and unstoppable new weapon" was dropped. They only surrendered when they realised the Russians were about to invade them in a matter of days, if not hours, because they knew that they could not win or continue the war with both the Soviets invading and the possibility of more atomic bombs destroying their industrial zones where the war machine was fed and the Allies would also have invaded..

What makes you think giving them a warning that an atomic bomb was going to be dropped on them would make them surrender, when the actual atomic bomb did not force them to surrender?

Nobody in the US command expected the Japanese to capitulate until the Bomb was revealed, because they had already withstood massive aerial bombardment and severe privation without abandoning their attempts to negotiate surrender rather than capitulate. None of the regular stuff had worked yet, and there was no reason to think it would work now.

So, carpet firebombing which killed more people than both atomic bombs did not force them to surrender. The threat that their cities would be destroyed in a particular time period and those warnings issued more than a month before the bombs were dropped did not force them to surrender. Dropping the atomic bomb did not force them to surrender. None of the regular and then above normal bomb did not force them to immediately surrender.

I am trying to figure out how and why you think warning them about the atomic bomb would force them to surrender, when the atomic bombs being dropped did not force them to surrender..

The Bomb, however, was expected to work. Several members of the US command expected surrender after Bomb revelation to be coming so quickly that the Nagasaki bomb was rushed, dropped in suboptimal conditions on a secondary target - and that was a good decision, as it turned out, because an offer of surrender came only 4 days after, and complete capitulation came only six days after, the Emperor learned about what had happened to Hiroshima. So if they hadn't rushed the Nagasaki bomb, got it in within 72 hours, they might not have been able to drop it at all.

The Japanese only surrendered when the Soviets declared war and were about to invade. The bombs alone did not force the surrender. It was Stalin who forced the surrender when he told them he was about to invade. The knowledge that the US would destroy other military facilities in other cities with the atomic bomb and the Soviets invading is what forced the surrender. Not the bombs alone.

Which still begs the question why you think warning of the atomic bomb (which they did not believe the Americans had, even when the first bomb was dropped) would force the surrender when the bombs themselves did not immediately force a surrender, but they dragged their feet until they realised the Soviets were just about to invade?

 

[iceaura]

I am trying to figure out how and why you think warning them about the atomic bomb would force them to surrender, when the atomic bombs being dropped did not force them to surrender.

I don't. I have never posted, or even considered, the notion that using the Bomb as negotiation leverage, to trump the Japanese "fight to the last man" card, would have "forced" the Japanese to do anything.

But seeing Hiroshima's defenders now claiming that dropping the Bomb was not what ended the war anyway is surreal. Entertaining, but surreal.

The Americans did warn that they would destroy cities and told the civilians for over a month, to evacuate those cities and seek safety. They gave them enough of a heads up to have them leave. The Japanese denied its citizens the right to do so.

The Japanese government didn't know about the Bomb either. They were not warned.

It's at least possible that had the government known about the Bomb, the doctors and nurses and schoolgirls and so forth would not have been assembled in Hiroshima to prepare for the air raids they had been warned about - sent to a safer place outside of town, rather than being deliberately gathered together under the detonation point to ready the medical care resources in a place they were sure to be destroyed and clear the fire lanes no one was ever going to need. At least possible, no?

It's at least reasonable, going merely by the evidence of behavior, that the US deliberately conned the Japanese into gathering their doctors and their children into the blast and burn zone so as to inflict as much pain and terror as possible on the citizenry. That interpretation of those flyers and such at least makes sense, unlike the ludicrous claim that the Japanese were being warned about the Bomb.

Usually, in attempting to end a war, you do exactly that. "Surrender, or we will do such and so" is kind of standard operating procedure.
And they did. They told the Japanese to surrender or their cities would be destroyed.

The part about destroying cities was old news - the Tokyo firebombing, among others, had been a long time ago. So no one expected much effect from that.

Meanwhile, they left out the part about the Bomb. The "or we will do such and so" was missing the "such and so". They wanted that to be a surprise, apparently. Any idea why?

 

[Bells]

I don't. I have never posted, or even considered, the notion that using the Bomb as negotiation leverage, to trump the Japanese "fight to the last man" card, would have "forced" the Japanese to do anything.

But seeing Hiroshima's defenders now claiming that dropping the Bomb was not what ended the war anyway is surreal. Entertaining, but surreal.

How is this new or entertaining to you? Everyone knows they did not surrender immediately after both bombs were dropped and it was only after the Soviets declared war on Japan and their intention to invade, did they then surrender, because 1) they believed the US had more bombs and 2) because they could not sustain more bombings and an invasion at the same time.

This is high school level history. Ergo, I am intrigued that you think discussing those points is surreal.

The Japanese government didn't know about the Bomb either. They were not warned.

Why should they have been?

The Japanese were trying to develop their own atomic bomb. They did not believe the US was capable and probably would not have believed that the US had managed to complete the bomb even if they were warned about it, Iceaura.

They were warned that their cities would be destroyed within a certain time frame and told they had to evacuate if the Japanese leadership refused to surrender.

It's at least possible that had the government known about the Bomb, the doctors and nurses and schoolgirls and so forth would not have been assembled in Hiroshima to prepare for the air raids they had been warned about - sent to a safer place outside of town, rather than being deliberately gathered together under the detonation point to ready the medical care resources in a place they were sure to be destroyed and clear the fire lanes no one was ever going to need. At least possible, no?

They wouldn't have believed that the Americans had managed to actually complete a bomb. And frankly, I find it bizarre that if you are told that cities are going to be destroyed and that people should evacuate that they send in doctors and nurses, along with schoolgirls. Why didn't they evacuate their civilians? Why bring more civilians in?

The targets were military and industrial which fed the military. Why bring in more civilians to those areas when they knew those areas would be targeted?

It's at least reasonable, going merely by the evidence of behavior, that the US deliberately conned the Japanese into gathering their doctors and their children into the blast and burn zone so as to inflict as much pain and terror as possible on the citizenry. That interpretation of those flyers and such at least makes sense, unlike the ludicrous claim that the Japanese were being warned about the Bomb.

You take a warning that there will be absolute destruction and to get out and evacuate as soon as possible as being an invitation to bring in doctors, nurses and little girls? I don't quite understand how you can get that from the clear and very present warnings and demands they evacuate flyers and radio Saigon warnings that were issued there every 15 minutes. Or are you suggesting that the Japanese are really into reverse psychology or something?

The Japanese were told by the Government and the military that if they did evacuate or take heed of the warnings, they would be punished by death. Why aren't you questioning those orders, I wonder?

The part about destroying cities was old news - the Tokyo firebombing, among others, had been a long time ago. So no one expected much effect from that.

The firebombing that killed more people than both the atomic bombs combined, you mean? Were they more acceptable and palatable for you? I don't think they were warned before the firebombing, which did kill more people. I am surprised you aren't complaining about that. They were more deadly and more destructive.

Let's see. They knew the Allies had the capability to flatten cities and kill hundreds of thousands of people. And when they are warned that more cities will be destroyed, they bring in civilians, including school girls by your reckoning, with the full knowledge that the Allies could and have flattened their cities before. Why didn't they evacuate their civilians from those areas? Why bring more in? Why force them to remain with threats of death?

Meanwhile, they left out the part about the Bomb. The "or we will do such and so" was missing the "such and so". They wanted that to be a surprise, apparently. Any idea why?

The Japanese wouldn't have believed them or cared. They didn't care enough to evacuate the other cities when the first bomb was dropped. What makes you believe they would have cared with a mere warning? They didn't care enough with the knowledge that the Allies could flatten their cities with fire bombing, instead bringing in more civilians and schoolgirls to the cities they were warned would be destroyed. And you think a warning that an atomic bomb was going to fall on them would make them care enough to evacuate? An atomic bomb they were trying to develop and did not believe anyone else had the capability of developing?

In the early summer of 1940 Nishina met Lieutenant-General Takeo Yasuda on a train. Yasuda was at the time director of the Army Aeronautical Department's Technical Research Institute. Nishina told Yasuda about the possibility of building nuclear weapons.[10]However, the Japanese fission project did not formally begin until April 1941 when Yasuda acted on Army Minister Hideki Tōjō's order to investigate the possibilities of nuclear weapons. Yasuda passed the order down the chain of command to Okochi Masatoshi, director of the Riken Institute, who in turn passed it to Nishina, whose Nuclear Research Laboratory by 1941 had over 100 researchers.[11]

Meanwhile, the Imperial Japanese Navy's Technology Research Institute had been pursuing its own separate investigations, and had engaged professors from the Imperial University, Tokyo, for advice on nuclear weapons. This resulted in the formation of the Committee on Research in the Application of Nuclear Physics, chaired by Nishina, that met ten times between July 1942 and March 1943. It concluded in a report that while an atomic bomb was, in principle, feasible, "it would probably be difficult even for the United States to realize the application of atomic power during the war". This caused the Navy to lose interest and to concentrate instead on research into radar.[11]​

And yet you think they would have believed any warning that the US had an atomic bomb? The Army continued to try to make an atomic bomb and then the Navy went back to it and some historians believe they got very close. Do you think the Japanese would have given a warning if they used them against the Allies or the Chinese? Did they warn any of the countries they invaded? Did they warn them before they committed the massacres and tried to commit genocide in China? No, they did not. They didn't even warn that they were going to be destroying and killing millions. On the other hand, they were warned that their cities would be destroyed and great loss of life if people did not evacuate. They refused to allow them to evacuate and you blame the Allies for something the Japanese should have done right from the start? Why in the world would you bus in civilians, and school girls no less, into areas they were warned would be destroyed? That makes sense to you? Is that the first reaction that comes to mind if you are told that an area is going to be destroyed? 'Yes, bus in civilians and school children, just because we must pick up the flyers before people believe them and try to evacuate!'. This is essentially what the Japanese did.

 

[Russ_Watters]

What I don't get here is that after 70 years, in a war that killed tens of millions of people, why it is so important to argue that the US should have done more to warn Japan about the atomic bombing? If someone were to concede that yes, the US should have done more to warn Japan, what do you win, iceaura?

 

[iceaura]

The Japanese wouldn't have believed them or cared.

1) So they weren't warned. We've got that settled.

2) So? I mean, that's probably false - a few months of warning, with design descriptions and yield calculations and maybe a demo of the Hiroshima design, seems likely to have at least persuaded them not to collect their children and doctors at the target detonation centers. But even if it were true, so what?

They didn't care enough to evacuate the other cities when the first bomb was dropped

The sheer goofy craziness of these reactions to straightforward descriptions of US decisions in this matter is a primary item of interest.

Not that it isn't obvious, but the Japanese had 72 hours between Bombs. The US was in a hurry. At least 24, and more reasonably 48, of these 72 hours was spent in the command finding out what the hell had happened to Hiroshima - they had no warning, see? All they had was a sudden radio silence. They had to send somebody there, physically, to check out the wild rumors. So you are requiring that the Japanese high command have evacuated all their major cities in about 30 hours. Millions of people moved to a countryside without food or shelter, without using the wrecked transportation system for anything except local traffic.

And yet you think they would have believed any warning that the US had an atomic bomb?

So on the one hand you know the Japanese had physicists fully capable of evaluating US claims, and you recognize that the military was paying attention to these physicists. On the other you claim the Japanese were completely and assuredly incapable of recognizing a credible claim, complete with photographs and so forth, by US physicists known to the Japanese physicists (we had Einstein available), that they had solved the problems and built a Bomb.

And to top it off, you offer that Japanese mental incapability as some kind of justification for not using the threat of the Bomb in negotiations, months before Hiroshima. You are claiming the US was justified in passing up a chance to end the war months before Hiroshima and without atrocity, by the supposition that the Japanese would not listen anyway.

So if they weren't going to listen, and they weren't going to believe, and they weren't going to do anything different regardless of how we presented things, and we knew all that for sure, tell me again why the US kept the Bomb a secret. Why was the US refusing to meet with Japanese envoys offering surrender?

Why in the world would you bus in civilians, and school girls no less, into areas they were warned would be destroyed?

They were already there, and going to school in their schools. It's what human beings do, unless they have reason to do otherwise. There was food in Hiroshima - unlike some places. Their parents lived there. It was not a major air raid target. They were set to work clearing fire breaks, so that when the air raids came the city would not be engulfed in fire storms like Tokyo et al. The Japanese used schoolgirls for this because everybody does their part in war and because that's who they had left in residential Hiroshima - the men were in the military or working at the outlying and port area industrial plants they assumed would be the main targets of the threatened assaults. The schoolgirls had plenty of time to get to shelter from the massive US bombing campaigns, and they were in a fairly safe place - far from military targets, near the hospital, nowhere the Americans would focus on, and provided with shelters.

The Japanese were told by the Government and the military that if they did evacuate or take heed of the warnings, they would be punished by death. Why aren't you questioning those orders, I wonder?

I'm an American. The only relevance of those orders to my issues with my country and government is that the American command knew about them - knew, in other words, that the Japanese had no idea what was coming, and were still planning on resisting an invasion.

What I don't get here is that after 70 years, in a war that killed tens of millions of people, why it is so important to argue that the US should have done more to warn Japan about the atomic bombing?

So who here seems to you the most emotionally invested in arguing this? Look at the language, the personal attacks, the sputtering and incoherent flailing. It's sure important to some folks more than it is to me.

You mistake the matter of my own posting. For one, I'm not arguing the US should have done more to warn Japan - i'm observing that the US did nothing to warn Japan, and in fact went out of its way to avoid warning Japan. Meanwhile, that secrecy was only one aspect of what the US did. It's a significant little item of attention, because it reveals so much, and because the defenders of Hiroshima put such store in it, but it's not the major point here.

My contention is that the deliberate refusal to inform the Japanese, any of them, in any way, about the Bomb, is part of the evidence (other aspects mentioned earlier, this thread temporarily narrowed) for something that America has refused to acknowledge about its behavior before and since, and in that denial done continuing and significant harm to its national character. I'm suggesting that you can't lie to yourself in such a significant way, as a country, without weakening yourself, corrupting yourself.

 

[Russ_Watters]

So who here seems to you the most emotionally invested in arguing this? Look at the language, the personal attacks, the sputtering and incoherent flailing. It's sure important to some folks more than it is to me.

Then why are you here, making this argument? The discussion doesn't currently exist without you leading it.

You mistake the matter of my own posting. For one, I'm not arguing the US should have done more to warn Japan - i'm observing that the US did nothing to warn Japan, and in fact went out of its way to avoid warning Japan. Meanwhile, that secrecy was only one aspect of what the US did. It's a significant little item of attention, because it reveals so much, and because the defenders of Hiroshima put such store in it, but it's not the major point here.

My contention is that the deliberate refusal to inform the Japanese, any of them, in any way, about the Bomb, is part of the evidence (other aspects mentioned earlier, this thread temporarily narrowed) for something that America has refused to acknowledge about its behavior before and since, and in that denial done continuing and significant harm to its national character. I'm suggesting that you can't lie to yourself in such a significant way, as a country, without weakening yourself, corrupting yourself.

Fine. Again: why? If you can satisfactorily prove your point, why does it matter? Your last sentence somewhat suggests an answer, so I'll focus on that a bit more: why is this so significant?

 

[iceaura]

Then why are you here, making this argument? The discussion doesn't currently exist without you leading it.

You mean my side of it doesn't exist? I think it does - look at the OP.

Fine. Again: why? If you can satisfactorily prove your point, why does it matter?

I'm not sure what you think my point is.

Regardless: Ask the folks who are tying themselves in logical pretzels trying to deny Hiroshima. Just the most recent aspect: There have to be a dozen posts from a half dozen people insisting that we "warned" the Japanese before we dropped the Bomb on a city full of people. That's manifestly deluded, nowhere near a reasonable opinion. Why are they so caught up in it?

If there's nothing at stake in getting the facts straight and owning up, why is so difficult and emotional to manage the task?

 

[joepistole]

You mean my side of it doesn't exist? I think it does - look at the OP.

I'm not sure what you think my point is.

Regardless: Ask the folks who are tying themselves in logical pretzels trying to deny Hiroshima. Just the most recent aspect: There have to be a dozen posts from a half dozen people insisting that we "warned" the Japanese before we dropped the Bomb on a city full of people. That's manifestly deluded, nowhere near a reasonable opinion. Why are they so caught up in it?

If there's nothing at stake in getting the facts straight and owning up, why is so difficult and emotional to manage the task?

Except as has been repeatedly proven by a half dozen or more people, the Japanese were warned with leaflets and radio broadcasts by the US and told to evacuate their cities because they would be bombed into oblivion. The only one who has repeatedly denied the evidence and stretched himself into logical pretzels in this and other threads is you. You should be asking yourself why? Why are you so emotionally connected? It's really pointless to argue with someone such as yourself because you simply ignore inconvenient facts and rewrite history (i.e. invent fiction) in order to perpetuate your irrational beliefs.

You want an affirmation of your delusions. You desperately seek affirmations of your beliefs. I don't think you will find them here in a science forum. You should ask yourself why are you so caught up in it.

 

[Russ_Watters]

You mean my side of it doesn't exist? I think it does - look at the OP.

No, I mean the thread itself, not the position. The thread is driven by people arguing the side you are arguing. I'm wondering why it is so important to you that you or people like you start and keep going such threads.

(Caveat: the OP may have been genuinely ignorant of the overall history, but the thread was dormant for about six weeks before you brought it back to argue a relatively narrow point. So I'm asking: why?)

I'm not sure what you think my point is.

All the suff you just said. But again, the particulars of your point are not what I'm asking about. I'm asking why are you here, arguing it?

Regardless: Ask the folks who are...

I understand why they are here. I don't understand why you are here. That's why I am asking you. Why can't you answer this simple question?

 

[iceaura]

I'm wondering why it is so important to you that you or people like you start and keep going such threads.
- - -
Why can't you answer this simple question?

And as noted several times, the importance of Hiroshima is illustrated in the responses - [something pretty significant is involved in that level of pain and denial.

If you don't like my answer - a culture and people lying to itself about matters of central importance to its own moral and ethical identity is probably doing itself serious and continuing harm, which is unsurprisingly painful - what do you think it is?

Look at this:

Except as has been repeatedly proven by a half dozen or more people, the Japanese were warned with leaflets and radio broadcasts by the US and told to evacuate their cities because they would be bombed into oblivion.

That is not just one person's confused misperception and bizarre denial, but a central delusion of an entire society. The Warned Japanese and the Savior Bomb slot into place among the Pilgrim and his Religious Freedom, The Happy Darky and the End of Slavery, the Domino Vietnam and Communism Defeated, the Liberated Muslim and the Citizen Corporation, in the cartoon world of a US that would never - because it never has, see? - join the wrong side, do the bad thing, shoot the wrong gooks, build the horrible wall and prison, make the wrong friends, kill the good and the innocent for the bad reasons in the wrong cause,

make itself odious to itself, the performer of abominations before its very own eyes.

There are Bad Apples and occasional Errors such as Everybody Makes, but the Decent American is never actually setting out to do evil. This cannot happen, and as proof we see that it never has yet.

So the matter of whether it has, yet, does come up. As we see.

I understand why they are here.

Not if I'm right about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you don't.

So look at what happened, physically. The timeline, the situation faced by the Decent Americans and the decision they actually made and their own presented justifications for it. Start in January, 1945, and track the events - and compare them with the claims on the 18 pages of this thread.

 

[joepistole]

And as noted several times, the importance of Hiroshima is illustrated in the responses - [something pretty significant is involved in that level of pain and denial.

If you don't like my answer - a culture and people lying to itself about matters of central importance to its own moral and ethical identity is probably doing itself serious and continuing harm, which is unsurprisingly painful - what do you think it is?

Look at this: That is not just one person's confused misperception and bizarre denial, but a central delusion of an entire society. The Warned Japanese and the Savior Bomb slot into place among the Pilgrim and his Religious Freedom, The Happy Darky and the End of Slavery, the Domino Vietnam and Communism Defeated, the Liberated Muslim and the Citizen Corporation, in the cartoon world of a US that would never - because it never has, see? - join the wrong side, do the bad thing, shoot the wrong gooks, build the horrible wall and prison, make the wrong friends, kill the good and the innocent for the bad reasons in the wrong cause,

make itself odious to itself, the performer of abominations before its very own eyes.

There are Bad Apples and occasional Errors such as Everybody Makes, but the Decent American is never actually setting out to do evil. This cannot happen, and as proof we see that it never has yet.

So the matter of whether it has, yet, does come up. As we see.

Not if I'm right about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you don't.

So look at what happened, physically. The timeline, the situation faced by the Decent Americans and the decision they actually made and their own presented justifications for it. Start in January, 1945, and track the events - and compare them with the claims on the 18 pages of this thread.

Just a note, it's not society who is ignoring history, evidence and reason here Ice, it's you.

 

[Russ_Watters]

....matters of central importance to its own moral and ethical identity is probably doing itself serious and continuing harm...

What, exactly, is this "matter of central importance" and what "serious and continuing harm" is it doing? This happened 70 years ago and the thread would have died if you hadn't resurrected it.

If you don't like my answer...

Since you are now just starting to answer, I can't say whether I like it or not -- I still really don't know because you are still being awfully vague about it.

...what do you think it is?

I think it is improper and bizarre for you to invite me to put words in your mouth rather than just telling me what you are thinking.

....in the cartoon world of a US that would never - because it never has, see? - join the wrong side, do the bad thing....

Is that what this is all about? You think Americans think America can never do any wrong and as such you feel the need to slam it here, over a tiny bit of minutae? Has anyone in this thread actually made the claim that the US can never do any wrong? If not, then why do you need to assume it? That's quite a broad and sweeping generalization that you are trying to combat with a very specific bit of minutae, in a place where it hasn't occurred.

There are Bad Apples and occasionally Errors such as Everybody Makes, but the Decent American is never actually setting out to do evil.

Evil is a poorly defined word, but regardless, could you please be specific as to what the "evil" is that you think the US did here?

Not if I'm right about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you don't.

Ok, then by all means, tell me why you think they are here. And, of course, if you think they are lying, then why would you invite me to ask them if you don't think the answer would be correct?

This is all very bizarre.

 

[iceaura]

Since you are now just starting to answer, I can't say whether I like it or not

The thread's 18 pages long now, and I am not going to go back through and find where I first posted that answer to your question or how many times in how many different wordings I've posted it. But your failure to read any of these posts is not my fault.

You think Americans think America can never do any wrong and as such you feel the need to slam it here, over a tiny bit of minutae? Has anyone in this thread actually made the claim that the US can never do any wrong? If not, then why do you need to assume it?
- - - -
Ok, then by all means, tell me why you think they are here. And, of course, if you think they are lying, then why would you invite me to ask them if you don't think the answer would be correct?

This isn't stupidity. It's a symptom - a mental dysfunction with a cause.

Why do these people need me to be accusing them of lying? Making unreasonable and false assumptions about what Americans think? Not recognizing the atrocities and fanaticism of the Japanese? What is the root cause of their inability to read my posting?

And why can't they get their facts straight? Most of my posting here has been devoted to simple recountings of well-documented events in the face of repeated and vociferous and fantastic denial: That the US attack on Hiroshima was a surprise, delivered without first informing the Japanese of the existence of atomic bombs in the American arsenal; that the US command expected the revelation of the Bomb to persuade the Japanese to capitulate and most likely soon; that the US had a working and reliable atomic bomb designed by January of 1945, ready for manufacture in February, built and ready for final drop assembly in March, and set aside while building and testing a more advanced design over the next five months; that the drop on Nagasaki was hurried, delivered as quickly as possible after recon verification of the effects of the Hiroshima drop; that the Japanese were fully capable of comprehending the nature and implications of successful nuclear bomb development; that the US accepted capitulation on conditions (informal, not terms) quite similar to those the Japanese envoys were prepared to offer months earlier; that the Japanese had no realistic defense against the Bomb and thus invasion of Japan was never going to be necessary once it was developed; and so forth and so on.

This is just history. It is being treated as if it were an accusation, a threat.

 

[Russ_Watters]

This thread's 18 pages long now, and I am not going to go back through and find where I first posted that answer to your question or how many times in different wordings I've posted it.

I'm not asking you for a complete history of your posts here, just a simple, concise answer to why you are here: you could have answered the question in less words than it took you to refuse to answer it. I guess my only recourse here is to guess, as you suggested. So here's my guess:

It appears to me that you hate the US and Americans and you are looking for *anything* you can find to rip the US over, no matter how old, how irrelevant or how thin. So you are focusing on a thin, vague problem you see in a peripheral issue as an entry-point into a grand conspiracy which you won't even describe, much less actually have/provide any direct evidence for. I could be wrong though: maybe you just like to argue and flame, for no reason at all.

...stupidity....mental dysfunction...

That flaming rant is too unfocused and unconnected to what I was asking you for a response to (ie, irrational) to be useful. But with all the insults you are throwing-out, creates some irony, since you are blaming others for the things that you yourself actually injected into the thread.

And why can't they get their facts straight? Most of my posting here has been devoted to simple recountings...

Well, for the particular issue you are arguing, you are arguing against a simple fact, using a line of logic that has no direct evidence to support it. Whether it is right or wrong, you must recognize it for what it is: The US dropped leaflets on Japan, even if not specifically mentioning the atomic bomb (until after Hiroshima). You made flat-claims that no warnings were issued, which belies the fact that what you actually apparently mean was that the warnings that were dropped were actually a trick. You are trying to use logic to turn this fact into the opposite of what it actually says at face value. Even if you are right, you've done a very poor job of it: First, you have to acknowledge that the evidence you are claiming doesn't exist actually does, then you need direct evidence that is clear at face value to prove that what the evidence shows is a trick. All you have right now is an hypothesis that what happened was a trick (after first claiming that what happened actually didn't).

Moreover, if you are arguing this with eyes open, you should be able to openly recognize/acknowledge that you are claiming a face-value fact to be the opposite of what it seems, rather than insult people for not seeing it, while falsely claiming it is as it seems at face value.

It's a bizarre set of tactics, to say the least. I'm not sure if it indicates that you really didn't know and tried to argue your way out of it or if you knew and hoped no one would notice.

...of well-documented events...

Wait, are you suggesting that you believe your account of the events matches the mainstream/commonly accepted version? If so, can you provide a mainstream/commonly accepted source that agrees with you?

I know this takes it a bit off-track, but as is common for you, your incredulity implies disingenuity: I find it difficult to believe that you actually believe you are arguing the mainstream/accepted view, so I find it difficult to believe you are surprised that people disagree with you.

Note, of course that this issue permeates the entire discussion: you should be aware that the very words of the people who lived the history contradict almost everything you are saying, so even if you think those people lied about their own motivations, you shouldn't be surprised, much less suspect mental ilness for the disagreement with you.

That the US was....

Setting aside whether you can provide any direct evidence for any of that (as yet, you have provided little or none), the question remains: so what? Why do you think the US government did that? You're describing the deails of the conspiracy without stating what the conspriacy theory itself is.

This is just history. It is being treated as if it were an accusation, a threat.

Um...but that's what your first (and more, your second) post in the thread was. A person posted a perfectly reasonable post that acknowledged validity to both of the typical sides to the argument and you responded with an apparent vicious insult, calling the action "evil" and then with your next post describe someone's argument as "Utter bullshit - a level of self-delusion, if not simple dishonesty...It's poisoned this country...".

More of an attack, really, than a threat or accusation, but along the same lines.

And that's why I'm asking: I'm asking why this issue upsets you so much/is so important to you that you come into the thread with guns-blazing like that? No one was using that kind of language when you injected it into the thread. At this point, I'm left to conclude some deep-seated, blind hatred.

Note, that's two questions now. For clarity:
1. Why are you here/why are you approaching this with such a hostile attitude?

2. What, specifically, do you think the "evil" was? In other words, you say that the warning was actually meant as a trick to gather together civilians in the center of town, and that he purposely delayed ending the war. To what end? Are you saying that Truman had a desire to kill as many Japanese civilians as he could? To what end? Was he just a mean, Jap-hating racist? Did he want to demonstrate the destructive power of the bomb to the Russians by providing the highest possible death toll? Something else?

For question number 2, I've heard variations of the idea that Truman was motivated in part by a desire to demonstrate the nuclear bomb's power to Russia. While I'm not sure I've ever seen any direct evidence of that, it at least seems plausible. If so, so what? In the context of WWII, is that what you consider a significant "evil"?

 

[iceaura]

I'm not asking you for a complete history of your posts here, just a simple, concise answer to why you are here: you could have answered the question in less words than it took you to refuse to answer it

I didn't refuse to answer it. I reposted my answer, for the fifth or sixth time, and complained about the necessity of doing that - it seems to me that one or two repetitions of something like that should be enough in any one thread, at least for those pretending to be reading and responding to my posts.

It appears to me that you hate the US and Americans and you are looking for *anything* you can find to rip the US over,

So you're not the brightest bulb on the tree, and you don't bother to read what I actually post. That's supposed to be news to me?

Wait, are you suggesting that you believe your account of the events matches the mainstream/commonly accepted version?

Absolutely. I've been using Wikipedia, for chrissakes. Every single fact, event, date, time, location, etc, that I've posted here is from the standard, conventional, historical, account. You can look any of it up anywhere.

Contrast that with the posts of those on the "other side" - chock full of factual errors, denials of simple reality, rewritings of history, irrelevancies of emotional appeal (all that fanatical and ugly Japanese behavior) - stuff you can correct with a twenty second Google search.

It's not my account of the events that's at issue - it's the obvious implications of that account, what that sequence of events means.

A person posted a perfectly reasonable post that acknowledged validity to both of the typical sides to the argument

No, they didn't.

In other words, you say that the warning was actually meant as a trick to gather together civilians in the center of town, - - .

No, I don't. I contrast that supposition, which we all agree is implausible despite its agreement with the events, with the supposition that the Japanese were warned, which doesn't even manage that.

It was an illustration of just how crazy the claim that the Japanese were "warned" is. They were in plain historical fact, by their documented behavior, baited, not warned - not intentionally, we assume, but that would be the issue if there was one. There's no issue of their having been warned - that's ludicrous.

In the context of WWII, is that what you consider a significant "evil"?

One trusts that not only I, but Americans generally, would consider the burning of women and children wholesale in order to demonstrate one's new weapon to a third party a not so good thing to have done. In the context of WWII, it would be worse than arranging the direct and more humane killing of such people in order to get rid of them, which we executed people for doing.

In the context of having denied the possibility of an earlier end to the war in order to arrange such a demonstration, I'm not sure what the appropriate significance would be, or what the American public's reaction would entail - but I am sure that this is not how Hiroshima has been justified or even admitted to have occurred.

 

[Russ_Watters]

I didn't refuse to answer it. I reposted my answer...

You most certainly did not. Your response to the first time I asked was:

My contention is that the deliberate refusal to inform the Japanese, any of them, in any way, about the Bomb, is part of the evidence (other aspects mentioned earlier, this thread temporarily narrowed) for something that America has refused to acknowledge about its behavior before and since...

"Something"....but you dont' say what.

Then:

You mean my side of it doesn't exist? I think it does....

As if you didn't understand my question.

Then:

I'm not sure what you think my point is.

Instead of stating what your point is.

Then:

Regardless: Ask the folks....

Deflecting, suggesting I ask someone else instead of asking you.

Then:

If you don't like my answer - a culture and people lying to itself about matters of central importance to its own moral and ethical identity....

Again, non-specific: what "matter of central importance"?

Absolutely. I've been using Wikipedia, for chrissakes. Every single fact, event, date, time, location, etc, that I've posted here is from the standard, conventional, historical, account. You can look any of it up anywhere.

*Boggle* One of your first key claims was:

They prolonged the war by a couple of months at least, avoiding negotiations and carefully keeping the thing a secret, so they could drop at least two different bombs by surprise on cities full of people....
The US had to move quickly to get the Nagasaki bomb dropped before the Japanese could surrender.

You are claiming the US avoided ending the war, so that it could drop the two atomic bombs. That's quite a claim and it most certainly does not appear in any of the wikipedia articles linked. You have never posted a single shred of direct evidence of those claims.

No, they didn't. [acknowledge the typical two sides of the argument]

This is an excerpt of the first post you responded to:

There are many actions which seem like a good idea & are later regretted. I do not classify the use of A-bombs in WW2 as such an action, although I do not consider it to be an outrageous POV.

That's a clear acknowledgement that there are two sides to the argument and while he disagrees with the other side, he can recognize it.

One trusts that not only I, but Americans generally, would consider the burning of women and children wholesale in order to demonstrate one's new weapon to a third party a not so good thing to have done.

So, you ignored my direct restating of my questions to you, but you are slowly fleshing-out this grand conspiracy, and I think we have it now: So you think the US prolonged the war for months in order to give themselveselves time to prepare and execute the atomic bombings as a demonstration to Russia. Ok, fair enough: again, you have provided no direct evidence of such an intentional delay, but if you know your history as well as you claim to, you will recognize that the pace of the war and selection of theaters to focus on was a part of strategic decision-making from day 1, with the decision to focus on Germany immediately after Pearl Harbor instead of Japan. Later, the US command tried to keep a leash on Patton, prolonging the war for political reasons, to satisfy the Brits, then later raced to Berlin to beat the Russians. Even if what you suggest were true (and again, I've never seen any evidence of it), it would not have been as big of a deal as you claim.

In the context of WWII, it would be worse than arranging the direct and more humane killing of such people in order to get rid of them, which we executed people for doing.

Whoa. You're saying that the use of the atom bomb was worse than the Holocaust, which killed 6 million people and was intended to wipe out an entire race? Really? You are aware that the atomic bombings were not even the worse bombing raids that year, right? You are aware they killed a total of an order of magnitude fewer people, than the Holocaust right? You are aware that bombing civilian populations was standard operating procedure in WWII, right? You are aware that 60 is a larger number than 2, right?

That's horrific and disturbing.