Why Truman Dropped the Bomb

[Haggis@wk]

The Weekly Standard

Will we ever know everything? I don't know. I can't understand why 60 year old intel and intercepts still deserve some level of protection. But as more of this comes out I have to think that Truman's decision is more black and white than the shades of grey I grew up hearing.

"There are a good many more points that now extend our understanding beyond the debates of 1995. But it is clear that all three of the critics' central premises are wrong. The Japanese did not see their situation as catastrophically hopeless. They were not seeking to surrender, but pursuing a negotiated end to the war that preserved the old order in Japan, not just a figurehead emperor. Finally, thanks to radio intelligence, American leaders, far from knowing that peace was at hand, understood--as one analytical piece in the "Magic" Far East Summary stated in July 1945, after a review of both the military and diplomatic intercepts--that "until the Japanese leaders realize that an invasion can not be repelled, there is little likelihood that they will accept any peace terms satisfactory to the Allies." This cannot be improved upon as a succinct and accurate summary of the military and diplomatic realities of the summer of 1945."

[BigJon@Work]

Questions for the historians in the group:

Do we know how many atomic bombs the US was prepared to drop on Japan? Do we know what the next target was?

Before the war, who ran the Japanese companies that supplied the weapons and military machinery? Were they privately owned firms or did the military control the corporations?

BigJon

<small>[ 08-01-2005, 09:16 PM: Message edited by: BigJon@Work ]</small>

[Haggis@wk]

BigJon.
Dunno about the ownership of the companies. I do believe that the 2 nukes were the only ones we had. I don't know how long it would have been until we could have built more.

My father was an infanty officer who had been in Okinawa. His outfit (the 24th Infantry Division, I believe) had been pulled off of Oki and were training for "Olympic" at the time the bombs were dropped.

Years later he said that at the time he knew how a condemned prisoner felt when he was reprieved.

He was convinced that he would not have survived the landings based on what he knew about the potential opposition.

It now appears from reading the linked article that the potential opposition was 10 times greater than the most pessimistic projections in 1945!

My father's unit was sent to Japan as a component of the the Army of Occupation until he was discharged in Spring / Summer 1945. He and my mother were married in November, 1945.

[Nicole Marie]

Hello BigJon-

Being a big fan of Japanese mechanics... (I have a JDM - Japanese Domestic Motor - in my prelude, had to ship it direct from Japan. I also own a Yamaha R1... just to name a few of the fun toys I have from Japan.)

Honda for example built automobiles right after WWII. They used salvage metal to build the cars. Some of the metal came from destroyed US Naval ships. Although they did not build directly for the war, Suzuki did.

Suzuki started as a loom manufacture but would build light engineering for the war.

The biggest was Mitsubishi. They built war planes.

These are a few of the companies that financially survived the war, they are the most recognizable. These companies were privately held by the families of Mitsubishi, etc but like some US companies they turned their factories for the war effort.

In Germany for example the best company that folks know is BMW. They built planes for the war. Even their symbol (the Blue and White circle divided into four sections) represents propellers of a plane and the blue is the sky and the white the clouds.

<small>[ 08-02-2005, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: Nicole Marie ]</small>

[dai bread]

The only people I know of who oppose the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 are the over-educated lot whose views on pretty well anything haven't moved since their University days.

The rest of us are eternally grateful that our parents didn't have to contest the Japanese mainland. Anyone who reads or watches documentaries about the war in the Pacific knows that the Japanese were an extremely formidable enemy. Casualties in any engagement with them ran into the thousands, just on our side. Their losses were higher. They kept going until they simply had to stop- no ammuntion, or no personnel.

For instance, I remember a missionary telling us in high school (1953 or so) about the fall of Hong Kong. The British had machinegun posts all around the place. The Japanese just sent in wave after wave of troops, knowing that, sooner or later, a machinegun jams.

If they'd do that for foreign places, what would they do for the Homeland? I don't care to think about it, and I don't know anyone who does.

The prewar Japanese economy was dominated by a military-industrial complex of the sort that President Eisenhower warned Americans about in his valedictory speech in 1961.

[Rob Richardson]

Read Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". It's a fascinating history of the scientific, milirary and political aspects of the project and the decision to use it.

Then read "Dark Sun", his sequel discussing the H-bomb. Probably the scariest book I ever read!

Rob

[Haggis@wk]

At some point in the next few days, I suppose, someone in the moral equivalence industry will try to argue that the dropping of the atomic bomb was an act of terrorism.

But since that argument will probably be in English instead of Japanese, German or Italian, it's a moot point

<small>[ 08-04-2005, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: Haggis@wk ]</small>

[shostakovich]

Looks like I've been headed off at the pass.
Oh, well.
Shos

[rwcrooks]

Casualties from the Battle of Okinawa:
US: 12,000 dead; 36,000 wounded; 34 ships sunk (mostly by kamikazes); 763 aircraft lost.

Japanese: 130,000 military killed (probably another 100,000 civilian deaths); 10,000 captured; 16 ships sunk; 7,830 aircraft lost.

While all of this was going on, civilians on the Japanese mainland were being trained in how to attack US soldiers with sharpened bamboo poles, etc.

How many lives would have been lost if the US had to invade the Japenese mainland? Seeing as how the Japanese lost 130,000 just on that tiny speck called Okinawa, a million is not beyond belief.

Let us not forget, that by ending the war, the atomic bombs also saved the lives of a million Japanese.

[OperaTenor]

To my knowledge, there were only the two bombs built for the job, and the real hope was that only one would do the job of convincing the Japanese to surrender unconditionally.

For those who are unaware, there were a great many wild fears associated with the detonation of the atomic bomb. The scientists involved with the development weren't completely sure that the fission would stop, that the detonation might possibly trigger a global chain reaction. They had no inkling of the effects of ionizing radiation until after the bombs were dropped(hence all of the military experiments in the Nevada desert in the fifties).

I don't see that anyone has posted on this thread to the effect that dropping the bombs was wrong, a mistake, etc. Apparently, we here on the BBB aren't in that over-educated lot. I'm certainly not. IMO, dropping the bombs was a far better alternative for all sides involved than the invasion of the Japanese mainland, for all of the reasons stated above.

DB's right, the Japanese were in the process of building their "Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", and had expansionist aspirations for the sake of acquiring raw materials. It was an ego trip on the order of what some elements are taking on here in the U.S.....................oops, wrong thread...............



So Haggis, with this thread, were you either trying to post a topic eveyone would agree on, or were you trolling for a loonie the rest of us could dogpile onto, figuratively speaking?

[juan j]

I was reading this thread. Up to the late 1940s, atomic weapons were assembled one at a time. Series production did not begin until about 1950.

Some historians report that General Groves had a list of nine or ten cities in Japan to bomb in case there was no surrender after Nagasaki. There was enough fissile material for the same number of weapon cores, and this inventory remained unchanged until 1950. Thus the beginning of the Cold War caught the US with just a handful of nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, it is little remembered that the strategic bombing of Japan cost more than one million lives as of early 1945, most of them civilians. If the Japanese took such heavy casualties and kept fighting, only the power of a superarm could force them into surrender.

Japan may have almost run out of oil and steel in 1945 but was willing to fight to the last man should an invasion occur. An invasion would have been long and costly, both in resources and lives. It took two nuclear attacks to make them consider surrender.

In dropping the bombs the US saved many lives, both American and Japanese. The price paid was high but helped to bring an end to the war.

[Shapley]

Juan,

Welcome to the B.com BB.

You are correct. The USS Indianapolis transported the bomb components to the island of Tinian, where it was assembled.

I'm not sure of the structure of those original bombs, but most atomic bombs divide the nuclear core into two components, which are joined together to produce the denotation. I assume this one was no different. Most likely, the bomb was pre-assembled, but half the core was not installed until ready for final deployment, in order to prevent accidental detonation. Modern safeguards installed to prevent such an occurance were likely nonexistent in 1945.

If, for instance, the Indianpolis had been lost on the way to Tinian, rather than on the return home, and the bomb detonated, the results would not only be disasterous for the crew, but also for the secrecy of the atomic weapon programme.

V/R
Shapley

[OperaTenor]

Hi Juan, welcome to the Pit!

Okay, nuclear trivia time for everyone except Shapley, Hal and Analog:

What is a "scram", and where did the term originate?

[BigJon@Work]

I know a scram is an emergency reactor shutdown of the highest speed, but I have no idea where the acronym came from. Let me guess . . .
Speedily
Cram (in all the)
Rods
Averting
Meltdown

[OperaTenor]

Hi *igJon,

You got the first half right. The second half, however, is not even close.

[Shapley]

Well, it was a good guess, if you axe me.

V/R
Shapley

OT,

Bonus points if they can give me his name!

<small>[ 08-16-2005, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: Shapley ]</small>

[OperaTenor]

You know the guy's name?!!

I can only find the name of one of the bucket-holders!

[Shapley]

I PM'd you a link to that info, along with an alternative story of the origin of the word.

I'll be happy to post it later, after we've had time for others to post their guesses.

[Shapley]

OT,

Moving this from PM's, since I don't think it gives the answer away.

Here's another link:

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Photos/CP1/image5.shtml

listing the alumni, with other information. I found it interesting because of the causes of death. I had always heard that radiation effects weighed heavily in the deaths of the scientists, but the list here does not support that. I had heard that the SCRAM was the first to go, but that isn't true, either. He was president of Argonne Nat'l. Labs for a time.

V/R
Shapley

[BigJon@Work]

I found this from Google, but it doesn't make as much sense as mine.
Safety
Control
Rod
Axe
Man

So they actally sent someone up there to cut the rope with an axe to drop the rod into the core? Wow