Why not "besiege" Japan?

[bladerunner69]

I understand this point of view but still cannot realise how the so smart humanity could have designed a weapon able to wipe itself from the surface of the Earth.....
May be a another user suggested, drop the bomb directly on the enemy fleet

I am wondering if Japanese lives would does under siege
Does Japan may live with the resources on the Home Islands (food, wood...) ?

If yes, leave them alone and let the Soviet and the Chinese do the dirty job on the Mainland
As a said, may be target all symbols from the dictatorship

Generally, All the bombing of civilian during the war were claiming hundred of thousand civilian if not millions lives for poor military value. Why bombing German cities at night or above the clou ? Hitting a factory is just a mere bonus. Why set Tokyo afire ? Why killing the Jews ?

That is war I know, war is cruel and atrocities are carried out by both side. I just don"t forget that history has always been written by the winners

[Truckman]

If yes, leave them alone and let the Soviet and the Chinese do the dirty job on the Mainland

The Soviets and Chinese would have then turned Japan into another satellite republic subjugated to the will of the communist powers, just another steppingstone into the Pacific...

As it is, Japan today is a democracy serving as a buffer against the mainland powers...I'd say the bomb was the right decision for all concerned... ...Ben

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi bladerunner,

What enemy fleet? Japan's fleet was already on the verge of annihilation anyway and was no longer a significant asset.

Even if the first bomb had been dropped on an unpopulated area as a demonstration, the second would have to be dropped on a real target. We know this because it took the bombing of a second city to make Japan sue for peace. The US had no third bomb at the time.

We don't really know how effective conventional bombing of cities was in military terms, because it is impossible to accurately quantify production never undertaken because of it. However, we do know that German military output in 1944 was far below what was planned. At least some of the shortfall was due to the bombing.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Plain Old Dave]

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Battle-of-Okinawa

Pull:

In total, an estimated 110,000 Japanese troops were killed, whereas fewer than 8,000 surrendered. The civilian population of Okinawa was reduced by perhaps one-fourth; 100,000 Okinawan men, women, and children perished in the fighting or committed suicide under orders from the Japanese military.

It is impossible to overestimate Japanese fanaticism. Its not hard to see the Home Islands resembling Masada and Jonestown. Ritual mass suicides once the siege took hold.

[DocHawkeye]

I doubt Anglo American Leaders and citizens were ever much concerned with the suffering of Japanese peoples one way or the other. Perhaps a minority of them with humanist lines of thought of were, but the idea that the Americans were using the A-Bomb to diminish the suffering of the Japanese is an apocryphal invention of post-war politics to me. The intention was always to inflict the maximum amount of suffering on the Japanese people until the Empire capitulated. What's the point in trying to rationalize it on some kind of nebulous pseudo-humanitarian grounds? I simply cannot see how peddling this myth makes the claimant look like he's either informed or logical, as long as he trying to claim the Americans were honestly considering that.

What American military and civilian leaders were probably much more concerned about, for which they actually can claim credit for honestly, was further casualties upon US troops conducting the blockade. It was apparent by 1945 that the war proper was over and now it was all only a question of how long it was going to take the last Axis holdout to come to the table. Though supplies for everything were short, the Japanese could still lash out occasionally and one lucky kamikaze or submarine could still sink a ship. A lucky burst from AA fire could still down a US airman. The desire to hurry up and end the war to prevent further American casualties has always been the more credible story. Just not the one American leaders adopted after the war because it also made them look weak. Can't look weak with the Reds so close!

This is how politics can distort reality and create myths that are so enduring they are circulated to this day.

[Plain Old Dave]

Truman was a battery commander in the Argonne. Olympic and Coronet would have borne great resemblance to that fight, and it's reasonable to assume Truman was simply trying to win the war by the most prompt means available. Material existed to immediately build 4-6 more atomic bombs, and the K25 and Y12 enrichment facilities in Oak Ridge had just reached full capacity in the Summer of 1945. Very reasonable to conclude atomic attacks would continue until the Japanese government surrendered.

[OpanaPointer]

I doubt Anglo American Leaders and citizens were ever much concerned with the suffering of Japanese peoples one way or the other. Perhaps a minority of them with humanist lines of thought of were, but the idea that the Americans were using the A-Bomb to diminish the suffering of the Japanese is an apocryphal invention of post-war politics to me.

The atomic bomb was considered a big fire bomb at the time. Singling it out ex post facto is just revisionism.

[OpanaPointer]

Truman was a battery commander in the Argonne. Olympic and Coronet would have borne great resemblance to that fight, and it's reasonable to assume Truman was simply trying to win the war by the most prompt means available. Material existed to immediately build 4-6 more atomic bombs, and the K25 and Y12 enrichment facilities in Oak Ridge had just reached full capacity in the Summer of 1945. Very reasonable to conclude atomic attacks would continue until the Japanese government surrendered.

Gen. Marshall was to be given ten atomic bombs for the Downfall operations, four for Kyushu and six for Kanto Plain/Tokyo. The NSA documents support the availability of those bombs.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi DocHawkeye,

You post, ....."the idea that the Americans were using the A-Bomb is an apocryphal invention of post-war politics to me."

This is the first I have heard of such a proposition. What is your source?

It is certainly argued that the dropping of the A-bombs may well have incidentally saved a lot of Japanese lives, compared with a continuation of the war and conventional invasion, and I am inclined to this view myself.

However, I have never seen it suggested that one aim of the dropping of the A-bombs was ".....to diminish the suffering of the Japanese."

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Double post.

[OpanaPointer]

The Japanese were starving. They were being bombed mercilessly, a "rain of ruin", as Truman put it. The quicker the war ended the sooner infants and old people stopped dying of malnutrition. If the Big Six had managed to continue the war the suffering of the Japanese people would have continued and gotten much worse. They would have had a round dozen "Hiroshimas", at least. AND there may have been "a Saipan from one end of Japan to the other."

[DocHawkeye]

Hi DocHawkeye,

You post, ....."the idea that the Americans were using the A-Bomb is an apocryphal invention of post-war politics to me."

This is the first I have heard of such a proposition. What is your source?

It is certainly argued that the dropping of the A-bombs may well have incidentally saved a lot of Japanese lives, compared with a continuation of the war and conventional invasion, and I am inclined to this view myself.

However, I have never seen it suggested that one aim of the dropping of the A-bombs was ".....to diminish the suffering of the Japanese."

Cheers,

Sid.

Sid, your own words start of the thread.

The A Bomb was horrible, but it was perhaps the "least worst" option available - certainly for Allied servicemen and very possibly for the Japanese.

You are peddling a myth. You are my source for that.

Really, this is a statement men the likes of which Reinhard Heydrich would've been proud of. Oh we're doing them a service by killing them.

Good day.

[OpanaPointer]

You realize who dies first in a siege, right? Suckling infants, the elderly, the sick. Who dies last? The men with the guns.

Add to the above the fact that Gen. Anami declared that all men age (IIRC) 16 to 60 and all women 18 to 45 were to be considered as being in the Army. During an invasion they would have been ordered to the front lines and slaughtered there, bullet sponges to cover the trained troops' operations.

So yeah, we speak of GIs were thank the bomb for allowing them to live to VJ Day, but another group that should be thankful are the people who didn't die fighting the invasion of the Home Islands or eating grass if they still had the strength to chew it.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi DocHawkeye,

Whilst I am deeply flattered that you consider me a source worth quoting, I regret that you have not read what I posted accurately.

You wrote, "....but the idea that the Americans were using the A-bomb to diminish the suffering of the Japanese is an apocryphal invention of post-war politics to me."

I asked you for a source and you correctly quoted me thus: "The A Bomb was horrible, but it was perhaps the "least worst" option available - certainly for Allied servicemen and very possibly for the Japanese."

As you can see, my post did not say that the "Americans were using the A-bomb to diminish the suffering of the Japanese", only that this was very possibly a consequence.

So I ask again, what is your source for the proposition that ".....the idea that the Americans were using the A-bomb to diminish the suffering of the Japanses is an apocryphal invention of post-war politics to me".

I, of course, am not a post-war politician, so you must presumably have other people in mind as well. Who were they and what did they say?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi OpanaPointer,

Yup.

Sid.