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Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald
The first bomb was indeed a show of force. I don't think it needed to be used on a civilian center though. That was very calous IMO. They could have wiped out a small island instead, but that is hindsight. Destroying Nagasaki was just plain wrong. We both agree it was a warning to the Russians to back the hell off, but was it worth 125K people to make that show of force?
I used to be in the corner that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a requirement to end the war, but after seeing this documentary, and the evidence it presented (from both the American and Japanese side) it altered my view greatly. The politics of the day was something I was foggy on, but this cleared it up substantially. I'll have to see if I can find the title of it. It was very interesting and informative.
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My gut feeling is that the oppossition movement in the Japanese government had not progressed to the point that they had any real power to push things through (On a side note Lanny, if you can find the name of that documentary I would appreciate it).
The underlying feeling from the Japanese when they were interrogated after the war was that the first weapon was the only one that they had that was functional because at that time the materials needed to build a bomb (uranium) was in extremely short supply and the enrichment process was so inefficient that it would take a long time to build a second bomb. The Japanese Military would have also seen the dropping of that bomb on an island or deserted area as a sign of weakness or a lack of resolve by the American Military, therefore sadly, they had to use what the American's saw as a limited weapon in the most effective way. They demonstrated it on a city.
The Japanese screw up in all of this was that they didn't capitulate after the first bomb, again because they didn't believe that the American's didn't have a second one ready, and this would buy time to build defenses on thier remaining land holdings on the main islands.
Sorry to ramble, but lets play some what ifs
The American's drop the bomb on a deserted Island, the Japanese look at that as a weakness based around thier Militarys interpretation of war, therefore they believe now that the Yanks don't have the guts or the heart to carry through on thier threats, the war might drag on for years, there might be an invasion of Japan, but the American's will pay a incredibly steep price in blood and bodies and the war might turn unpopular forcing a quick diplomatic solution on Japanese terms.
The American's drop the first bomb on Hiroshima destroying it, they threaten a second bomb. The first natural inclination is that its a bluff. Remember that the Japanese had lost thier main source of intelligence in the U.S. when the third Reich fell, and the Japanese internment had one benefit in that it cut off a rich source of Intelligence in the states. So based on what is a wag (Wild ASSed guess) the Japanese Military decides to inform the Emperor that the Allies are bluffing, and encourage the Emperor that the only way out is to fight to the end, bloody the allies badly and then force a diplomatic solution on thier terms.
Meanwhile if the American's had wasted thier superweapon on an Island they would have lost faith with thier allies, particularly the Russians who were still angry at the mismanagement of the war at the start and the betrayal of the Germans. Stalin also saw a great opportunity with a new and weaker president, and Churchill who's only desire for Britain after the war was a quick exit from the European continent so the UK could lick its wounds and rebuild from a war that from every measure was particularly brutal to the British.
I don't see where the American's could have done much different when you consider who thier enemy was and how they had fought the war, and when you consider that one friend (Britain) was battered to the point where they were no longer going to be a strong influence in Europe, and another (Russia) who was using the end of the war to increase its buffer zone and spread its influence throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.
In a lot of ways the Japanese at the end of the war weren't so much a influence as a catalyst to how history would be shaped over the next 50 years.
But to put the blame of this all on the American's and to simply dismiss them as butchers and killers dosen't really describe the whole story.
Just my two cents.
Sorry for the ramble