Hiroshima and Nagasaki-American Brutality?

[rspeirs]

I attend a Catholic school, and as such, I took a Christian Scripture class the first semester. During the course, I often tackled arguements with the liberal teacher who taught the course. Needless to say, every other kid in that class was liberal too. So here I am, a lone Conservative Republican, defending my beliefs, while this highly liberal class jumps on me for everything I say.

Anyhoo, one day, our teacher brings up the topic of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He says it was a act of American brutality that should have never happened. That it was an unjustifiable attack on the Japanese, and overall, it was only an act to show our superiority to the Russians. I politely raised my hand, and I gave my disagreement. This is where it got interesting.

Soon, every indoctrinated liberal (Seriously, none of these kids have a clue on history. I would know. The course was simple, yet some of these kids were getting terrible grades) jumped on me. I didn't even have time to support my beliefs.

So I stayed after class and debated the teacher on the idea to a stale mate. He said Japan was a defeated army, but I brought up the fact that at the last battles in places like Peleliu, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima, the Japanese became even more brutal. I believe it was at Iwo Jima that every thirty seconds, a Marine died. At the end of these battles, we would often have to flush the Japanese out of caves, because they were so indoctrinated by Japanese, like Hideki Tojo, into believing into Bushido, which teaches Hira Kiri over surrendur. I don't call that a defeated army.

He went on to say that there were plenty of other ways to end a war, but I pointed out that the Japanese were intent on not surrenduring. We had given many warnings before Paul Tibbets dropped that bomb on Hiroshima. Not only this, but the bombs were dropped over a three day period. We gave Hirohito plenty of warning before dropping the second bomb on Nagasaki. It was only after the drop of the second bomb that the Japanese surrendured. Furthermore, at the time, our only other option was full scale invasion, which would have killed thousands of marines in the process.

Then he went on to talk about the Catholic Just War doctrine, which is a highly ironic term, seeing as no war can be considered "just." "War is cruelty" said William Sherman. Even Robert E. Lee admitted that war was cruel and harsh in his quote "It is a good thing war is cruel, lest we grow to fond of it." And even then, it's not like the Japanese were perfect little angels themselves. Dare I talk about the Rape of Nanking?

Anyways, whats your opinion on the whole topic? Do you think it was the right course of action taken by Harry Truman?

[Mac Bargett]

If the Japanese didn't want to be on the receiving end of American Brutality, they shouldn't have sneaked attacked a neutral country. I have nothing else to add that you didn't already say, except that they planned for close to a million American casualities from invading Japan's home island.

[PuNk! ™]

War is what it is.
The Japanese, Russians, Germans, Americans, British; No matter what nationality, beneath all that skin, we're all the same. Russians have been known for their excessive rape charges during the war, but Stalin recalled it as being "They're just soldiers, they need that release" and even the Germans, some considered them to be just as bad as the Russians.

Stories of the British and Americans even had rape charges in France, heck, the Germans at one point in the war, went around crucifying Allied soldiers. On several occassions, bodies were found nailed to barn doors by the palms and ankles, in a manner that represented a crucifixion. Like you've said, the Japanese hid in caves and dug out manholes where they hid beneath in a brush of foliage; So what did the Americans do? Burn them out.

War is war...
Right now in Afganistan, British and American troops use a tactic known as "Goading" to lure Taliban forces out to fight. They set up some loudspeakers, wire up a mic and taunt the Taliban into fighting them. Where of course, our beloved saints for soldiers kill them.

So when you think about it, your teacher is right.

He went on to say that there were plenty of other ways to end a war

There is plenty of ways to end a war and there is plenty of ways to fight a war. I believe that war will never be fair and men will do what they have to do, to survive or win. You could call the Japanese being brutal, but the Americans were brutal back. It's like, the Germans kept bombing Britain, but the British bombed them bleeding well back! This world is just an eye for an eye and you may agree with the American side of the war fought during the second world war, but you most probably would, as it's your heritage, understandably.

Whereas myself, I try to look at things from a broad perspective and sure, the Japanese were cruel bastards during the war, but I guess you can't neglect the fact that everyone was cruel during that war. Even now.

So my point being, your teacher is quite right, there is plenty of different ways to end a war; But I'm not thinking on the perspective of it being peaceful. So I agree with you too.
~Danny

[MAJ Patterson]

Well you know I've gotta add my contribution now don't you.

I'll start with the ever so popular, "War is war"...why? Because there is no other word that I know that can describe the horrible events, large or small, that occur durring such a stressful time. Yes your teacher is right that there are multiple ways to win a war. You can win or you can lose, but look back through history, doesn't matter how you win, people are not going to like how you did it, PERIOD. But that is perfectly fine, there are many dead veterans looking down at those ungrateful people and smiling, why? Because they died for them to have the right to be ignorant, to hate freely upon who they wish, to love freely, to complain without reprocusions. In the end, it doesn't matter what is done or how it's done, people will like it, people will hate it, just remember that men died for it, men died so you could openly discuss it. Please just remember them when you do so, and don't get upset at the guy you debate with, they died for what he has to say to.








But on topic, yeah I agree 110%, but that is just my nature, when it comes to combat, there is never enough you can do to break your enemy in any sense of the word.



-JT

[deutschlandschutze]

My thoughts on this are this. Incinerating thousands of Japanese civilians instantly may be considered brutality of America by some but not I. I know many suffered afterword as a result of radiation and burns and such and that is a shame but I don't think it was brutal.

Our other option was to launch an all out invasion of the japanese home land. The fighting was bitter on the other islands of the Pacific. The Japanese ferocity in fighting on their home soil, which in Japan's history, has never been successfully invaded, would have undoubtedly sky rocketed. The Japanese government had already begun propaganda campaigns against the U.S. soldiers, telling the Japanese populace that the Americans would not take prisoners and would only murder them. Estimated U.S. casualties alone would have been over one million service men killed. This figure does not include losses to the Japanese army or population. The population which had been outfitted with arms and equipment to rise up against our men if they landed. They were brainwashed to the extent that on one Japanese held island an entire village jumped off a cliff to their deaths, women clutching their babies as they jumped, because the Americans were coming near.

In reality the American soldiers had been given supplies to give to the Japanese villagers who had already been ravaged by the war. Not that the population could be blamed for fighting us if we landed in Tokyo or the like. How would you feel if a foreign country's army landed and began its invasion of America. You can bet thousands if not millions of Americans would raise up with weapons to fight against it. In this way, our men would have had to fight a large part of the Japanese population which would most likely have caused more Japanese civilians' lives than not.

Don't believe that the civilians would fight? In one village in the Pacific, my grandfather, who was a captain, and his men had to kill several villagers including women. They had approached the U.S. soldiers with laundry baskets on their head, but inside they had concealed weapons. When they drew near they pulled them out and tryed to open fire at our men.

I think it is horrible what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it should never have had to come to that. Was it the only way to end the war? No. The other options however would have proved more costly to Japan than the atomic bombs. In this way, only two cities were ravaged by the bombs rather than the entire country being torn open by a full scale war on its turf.

[Werner von Maybach]

I am absolutely your opinion here. A large scale invasion of Japan would have demanded even more victims than the two A- bombs did.

But what about Dresden?
A city filled with even more refuges than citiziens
Sorry to say, but in my opinion that was senseless brutality.

[PuNk! ™]

But what about Dresden?
A city filled with even more refuges than citiziens
Sorry to say, but in my opinion that was senseless brutality.

In my opinion, it's no different to dropping an A-Bomb on Japan, as stated above.
America was never bombed daily over a period of five to six years, Britain was and I guess over time, the British had enough and with the American support, this was a display of "power" and "Brutality" to get back at Germany.

As I mentioned in my previous post - Eye for an eye.
I don't agree with any of the bombings, but it is simply war and Germany did get away with a lot bombing sprees on Britain. Damaging thousands of buildings and killing thousands more.

The recorded deaths of the Blitz and numerous smaller bombing sprees launched are; 51,509.

The recorded deaths of the Dresden bombings are; 24,000 and 40,000. The rough estimate for this figure, was due to the "Firestorm" that had erupted from the mass bombings of four raids, none the less, just by the figures, you can see the similarity of casualties and that's what I call an eye for an eye.

Now I'm not saying it's right and I'm not saying it's wrong either.
You and Wil obviously agree that Japan could not have been taken by invasion, so A-Bombs were dropped until they surrendered. However, Germany could have been taken by invasion, but I guess this also saved a lot of aggravation and time.

I may be biased towards the British side here (being British/English), but I do quite agree with those bombings, because Britain was constantly bombed throughout the war and let's face it, Britain could have been taken by invasion it's self - but the Germans kept bombing us? Britain. So I see the logic in making this fatal move back, in a political and war perspective. Not by a human-right's perspective.

So calling it brutality, sure, but don't forget that Germany was displaying this exact type of brutality way before this incident occured - in regards to the Blitz. The exact same scenario, but the tables had turned. So I don't condemn the American and British for the bombing, but neither is it right at the same time. All I do hope, is that you remember the Blitz incurred far worse casualties, even when Britain could have been invaded, way before this incident on Germany even came to light.
~Danny

[deutschlandschutze]

Well, I agree PuNk! except in one aspect. You said Britain could have been invaded too but instead they kept bombing. That's not quite true unless the Germans wanted to fail and lose their army. The entire reason that the Battle of Britain was started was to cripple Britain's airforce. Why? Britain's navy was too strong and dominating to allow a seabourne invasion. How to get rid of that navy? Airplanes obviously because the German fleet wasn't strong enough to fight it and their own ships, especially U-Boats were being destroyed by Allied air power. In order to sink the British fleet the Germans first had to get the Brit airforce out of the way. We now know that it was a lopsided exchange due to the heroic efforts of the RAF. When Germany had failed to beat the Brit airforce and therefore they could not take out the navy. This meant that a military invasion was not possible. In fact many troops had already been in training for the large scale invasion of Britain. It even had a code name in the German plans, I believe it was Operation: Sea Lion but you might want to double check me. Anyhow when that failed, they turned to terror bombing, trying to get the people of Britain surrender because they could not do it militarily. So that's my two cents but at the end of the day war is war.

[Deleted]

That was our policy, for better or worse. "Burn 'em out."

To tell you the truth, I would have rather stayed on the beaches of Normandy for a year than an hour on Peleliu against the Japanese. They were horrible people to fight. Their suicidal, double-or-nothing ideals, and the skill to back it, made them one of the hardest adversaries America has ever seen, if not THE hardest.

We were justified in dropping the atomic bombs, for every reason. They would not relent, no matter what. The incediary bombings of Tokyo had little to no effect on their resolve. They simply would not give in. After the first atomic bomb, I'm sure many were shocked, but it was only after the second that they realized that they would either surrender, or their entire society would be destroyed. I'm still surprised they surrendered. One Japanese soldier did not surrender until 1974, after fighting a guerrilla war for nearly thirty years. His Arisaka Type 99 was still operable, and he had five-hundred rounds of ammo, and several grenades.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onada

Sure, dropping the bombs was brutal, but it ended the war, and undoubtedly saved the lives of many a marine. No use regretting that.

[Sgt. Howard Jefferson]

War is a horrible fact of life we have to deal with. It'll never go away, it'll only change.

Now, I consider myself a more liberal person than conservative. However, I fully agree that the atomic bombings were necessary to end the war without the cost of millions of more lives. I think thousands of Marines being killed would be an underestimate. Maybe a thousand on the first day.

The Japanese would have fought us on their own land, civilians and soldiers a like. It would have been more brutal and destructive than the bombs that were used.

And if anyone wants to call what we did to them brutal, need we remind them of Burma? The torture of Allied soldiers in POW camps? Bataan? The execution of the Chinese?

Not to say Allied soldiers were absolute innocent angels, but when comparing crimes, the Japanese stand alone, minus the Holocaust. They were brutal, cruel, and worst of all, mislead by a corrupt leader who was misguided himself.

As sad as it was, and it was a sad event, the bombings were necessary. I don't like that it was done, but it had to be. And really and truly, after all the crimes the Japanese had committed, how can the finger be pointed at just us?

I'll say it like everyone else... War is war. It's a cruel and unforgiving event that takes no one's side.