Was The Bombing of Hiroshima Necessary?

[Feuer Frei!]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Not this again.

I wasn't here the other times this has been discussed.
Otherwise i wouldn't have bothered posting it.
And is it such a drag, this being posted?
Seems a few of you think so.
EDIT: seems after reading my post, i may have come across a bit rude, sorry, i'll remember next year
Just thought it may invite some interesting discussions, t'was my only motif.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

And is it such a drag, this being posted?

It's one of those eternal historical what if questions that pop up on many forums multiple times, including here. And usually the same things are being said time after time. And it can become heated.

I for one enjoy reading this, while can't say enough about the subject to really participate. But I can also see why it's "this again".

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

It's one of those eternal historical what if questions that pop up on many forums multiple times, including here. And usually the same things are being said time after time. And it can become heated.

I for one enjoy reading this, while can't say enough about the subject to really participate. But I can also see why it's "this again".

I agree. If there was new information to add to the discussion it is worth bringing up. But usually it is just a re-hash of the old information that did not sway anyone the last time, and probably won't this time.

Since alternative history is not a science, there is really no way to accurately predict what would happened if......

There are so many external factors involved in history, it makes such discussions difficult.

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

I wasn't here the other times this has been discussed.
Otherwise i wouldn't have bothered posting it.
And is it such a drag, this being posted?
Seems a few of you think so.

I think it's important to consider the events in the landscape in which it happened. Not just from the lofty post of 66 years of hindsight later. To grasp the context in which the commitment to bomb Hiroshima was made, it seems necessary to acknowledge the chaos amidst which all were involved, the political and military leaders of the Allies were men in their fifties and sixties, weary after years of perpetual crisis such as a world war imposes. In the case of Roosevelt literally dying.

Europe was in ruins and chaos, with the Western Allies striving to contend with Stalin's ruthlessness and greed, Britain's bankruptcy, the starvation of millions. Each day brought to the desks of Truman, Stimson and Marshall projections relating to the invasion of the Japanese homeland. The US found itself obliged to arbitrate upon the future of half of the world, while being implored to save as much as possible of the other half from the Soviets, as even as war with Japan continued and mankind recoiled from from newsreel films of Hitler's death camps. What could be done about Poland, about millions of displaced Jews and peoples? About escaping Nazi war criminals and the civil war in Greece? Could power in China be shared? Might the rise of the communists in France and Italy be checked? Japan's beleaguered Pacific garrisons continued to resist even though the Allies initiated no major offensive operation after combat on Okinawa ceased in June 1945. The British were preparing to land in Malaya. Almost every day Curtis LeMays' Super-fortresses set forth from Guam and Saipan to incinerate more Japanese. Carrier aircraft strafed and bombed the home islands. Causality lists broadcast grief to homes all over the US and Britain. In judging the the behavior of those responsible for for ordering the atomic attacks, it seems necessary to acknowledge this since so many of these events have been forgotten or downplayed since. The bomb was only the foremost of many big issues of the time which these mortal men strove to grapple. Without the atomic bombs, it is by no means clear that the Emperor would have intervened to provide the first essential steps in the process of an organized capitulation of Japan's government and armed forces. Without an organized capitulation, it is not clear whether the final end of the war would have come in months or years, The atomic bombs were awful, but the alternatives could have been worse.