August 6th 1945, USA dropped the atomic bomb 'Little Boy' on the city of Hiroshima.

August 9th 1945, USA dropped the atomic bomb 'Fat Man' on the city of Nagasaki.

Around a quarter of a million people died due to these attacks.

So, what do you all think? Was it right that they dropped bombs of this scale? Should they of even developed such technology in the first place? Morale decision? Saved many lives?

Discuss.

I personally think that they were right in doing this. Looking at it from their point of view, they could have invaded and lost hundreds of thousands of US citizens/soldiers. The alternative, people from our enemy country die and not ours. I think that was the major view of thinking back then. Now days there is no way anyone could get away with dropping a nuke on someone, you would more than likely have the whole world against you....Plus, it would escalate into WWIII.

The United States of American didn't think it was right, because they spent billions to repair the area after the war, but I personally think 1 atomic bomb would have been plenty and dropping two showed a little too much swagger. What would we have done if the USSR had the bomb also, and yet we just used the only two we had?

USSR did not have that capability at the time, but of course we couldn't have known that for sure at the time.

Had the US not dropped those bombs on Japan, it is likely that the war would have waged on considerably longer and many more people would have died than were killed as a result of these attacks. I know that doesn't make it any easier for the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it is difficult to justify the morality in such an act, but perhaps by killing these 250k, millions more lives were saved.

The Japanese government had been training millions of citizens in the art of guerrilla warfare, in the case that they were invaded. Just imagine that. Their values already had them fighting to the death. Millions would have been lost on each side had the bombs not been dropped.

Had another country had the resources to build these bombs at the time, we might not have done it, so that point is moot. Just look now, as nobody as used a major bomb on any other country since then. If we were the only ones that still had the bomb, we would have used them several more times, I bet.

I do see the flip side of the argument, but when you are truly at war, you worry more about your soldiers and citizens than the other side.

They looked heavily into the areas they hit, including historical sites in the area and civilian populations, etc, to hit areas that would be least important long-term.

In my opinion, 2 bombs were necessary as Japan didn't announce surrender until Aug. 14th (or 15th depending on who's pov you're looking at).  It took 6 days for Japan to surrender after the second bombing.  Two bombs were needed to prove the first was no fluke, and the US had the capability to level their metropolitans.

The morality of using atomic weaponry to end a war is up for debate.  We can only speculate how it might have turned out otherwise.  One thing is almost assured, it would have taken years to take Japan if they dug in as zjoker states.

This post was last modified: 09-22-2008 02:15 PM by Harmonica.

Take this into consideration, the Japanese DIDN'T surrender even after the first bomb was dropped. Now, imagine how HARD it would have been to take them over if they were willing to lose so many? There would have been no way to defeat them by invading.

As sad as it is, the atomic bombs were simply necessary in this situation.

The majority of the citizens were surprised by their Emperor's surrender after the second one. They were truly ready to fight to the death.

I still think that war is no excuse to end human lives. It was necessary to end a conflict, but that doesn't mean we have an excuse.

This post was last modified: 09-22-2008 05:09 PM by Rooster.

you have your answer. anything that ends a war such as the 2nd world war needs no judgment.

does it? Have we truly fallen that far as a race that we must blow each other up before we can resolve things? That kind of thinking is what makes stuff like that happen.

Put simply, yes, at least as it pertains to this situation. Do you really believe there was a quick, diplomatic way to end WWII without further significant loss of life? Maybe from certain leaders' points of view there was, but clearly there were powerful forces involved in this war that were not interested in diplomacy.

Although their was a military base at Hiroshima, it was not in use when the bombs where dropped. (Almost all Japanese troops where either in China or Taiwan taking care of riots to maintain their power there)

I'm all for ending wars. However, killing civilians I'm against. They purposely chose Hiroshima for the psychological factor of the destruction of civilians. And for my own benefit I'll give the pilots the benefit of the doubt and believe that it was "wind" that caused the bomb to go directly over a hospital.
Would it not have made more sense to attack the main barracks/airports?
That's like Japan attacking New York City instead of Pearl Harbor.

And yeah, it was 6 days after the second bombing that the allies agreed to Japan's surrender.
Japan was asking for peace as soon as the discovered the damage of the first bombing. However the allies didn't agree to their demands (the preservation of the kokutai (Imperial institution and national polity), assumption by the Imperial Headquarters of responsibility for disarmament and demobilization, no occupation, and delegation to the Japanese government of the punishment of war criminals.)

Which they eventually agreed to after the second bombing because the URSS began invading Japan and they didn't want the "reds" to have control of Japan.

In short. I oppose the bombing of Hiroshima; Nagasaki was at least a major port of the Japanese military. That should have been the first (and only) strike, not the second.

War is the quickest, most efficient way to settle a dispute, and the a-bombs were the most efficient way to fight a war.

War does a lot of good for the world as well. It's a natural population limiter, if nothing else. There is great advancement in science, and economies can grow dramatically, during and after (US and Japan are now the world's leading economies, but only since WWII).

For every good-natured person who will not push the button to drop a bomb, there's 1000's of nuts that will do it in an instant. That's why we have to have intelligent people in charge that won't go cowboy or commando when something happens, and can make good choices as to when we should use force.

Stimulates the economy of the non-fighting countries in the war. (Take a look at the war in Afghanistan and Iraq)
Why do you think the USA wanted to end it as soon as they got involved?

I'm not faulting the USA for ending it, or for doing what's best for them long-term as opposed to others.

is it the quickest? Or have we made it the quickest? People refuse to discuss anything. It's always 'shoot first, ask questions never'.

Rooster, for starters, governments don't choose war as the first step, they discuss logical was to end something, but sometimes war is necessary.

And you're thinking that everyone doesn't want to go to war, I mean, what other option BUT war could we have taken with Hitler? I don't think we could have just sat down with him and said: "Could you stop?". People are twisted sometimes and when that happens war is the only answer.

I'm afraid you're too quick to point out the faults of war and not quick enough to diagnose the situation, sometimes things don't turn out the way you'd like it.

^Your mistaking the fact that WW2 started with Hitler; it was between Japan, China and Russia at first.

A quick fix though would have been assassinating Hitler. Which governments where against (They had plenty of chances though). If we did do that though, it would be hit and miss as to whether selling arms to China and Japan could stimulate the world's economy enough to bring us out of the depression.
The question was how to pull out of the depression first, then how to end/prevent the war. Not the other way around.

WW2 was necessary, though not at the level of hate that Hitler made it. WW1 was a "nice" war compared to the second.