Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
I'm not interested in contemporary estimates, I'm interested in the arguments at the time that were used to drop two nuclear bombs on a country within days of each other.
No one at the time believed American casualties would number greater than 50 thousand, especially once the Soviet Union had entered the conflict.
The casualty rate was an argument created after 1945 in an effort legitimize their use after the fact.
In fact, one of the motivations for using the bombs when they did was the fear that contemporary firebombing (that had already destroyed Yokohama) and the pending assault from Russia would leave the US without suitable 'test' sites that would show the devastation from the weapon. What good is blowing up a blown up city when you can blow up an intact city? Further to this point, this is one of the reasons Kyoto was spared, Secretary of Warm Stimson personally removed it from the list because Kyoto was too valuable for it's antiquities and cultural artifacts to risk destroying.
Even more disturbing is the argument that Truman himself may have never actually authorized their use. That is according to General Marshall himself, as well as several others. It speaks to the momentum of the project. It was a runaway train that 'needed' to be used to justify its existence.
Further to this, there is more evidence that the timing of dropping the bomb (and thus, the decision to do so at all) was predicated upon the Soviet invasion of Japan. According to Japanese diplomatic messages to the soviets (who up until the invasion characterized their involvement with Japan as 'neutral'). The Americans wanted an unconditional japanese surrender prior to a Soviet invasion so they could renege on their Yalta agreements with Stalin. Stalin had told Truman that they had planned their invasion for August 15th. The Soviets declared war on the Japanese , and then the next day the Americans dropped the first bomb.
Talk about a coincidence.
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If we're going to put ourselves back in 1945, how about this? You're in year four of a war that has cost untold thousands of lives for your side and tens of millions worldwide. You face the prospect of a hugely bloody battle even if the projected casualties are 'only' 50,000 dead on your side. Or you can drop a couple of bombs and end it immediately. Does the decision look so bad from that perspective?