Japan In Wwii

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]In a 1986 study, historian and journalist Edwin P. Hoyt nailed the "great myth, perpetuated by well-meaning people throughout the world," that "the atomic bomb caused the surrender of Japan." In Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict (p. 420), he explained:

The fact is that as far as the Japanese militarists were concerned, the atomic bomb was just another weapon. The two atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were icing on the cake, and did not do as much damage as the firebombings of Japanese cities. The B-29 firebombing campaign had brought the destruction of 3,100,000 homes, leaving 15 million people homeless, and killing about a million of them. It was the ruthless firebombing, and Hirohito's realization that if necessary the Allies would completely destroy Japan and kill every Japanese to achieve "unconditional surrender" that persuaded him to the decision to end the war. The atomic bomb is indeed a fearsome weapon, but it was not the cause of Japan's surrender, even though the myth persists even to this day.

In a trenchant new book, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb (Praeger, 1996), historian Dennis D. Wainstock concludes that the bombings were not only unnecessary, but were based on a vengeful policy that actually harmed American interests. He writes (pp. 124, 132):

... By April 1945, Japan's leaders realized that the war was lost. Their main stumbling block to surrender was the United States' insistence on unconditional surrender. They specifically needed to know whether the United States would allow Hirohito to remain on the throne. They feared that the United States would depose him, try him as a war criminal, or even execute him ...

Unconditional surrender was a policy of revenge, and it hurt America's national self-interest. It prolonged the war in both Europe and East Asia, and it helped to expand Soviet power in those areas.

General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of US Army forces in the Pacific, stated on numerous occasions before his death that the atomic bomb was completely unnecessary from a military point of view: "My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender."

General Curtis LeMay, who had pioneered precision bombing of Germany and Japan (and who later headed the Strategic Air Command and served as Air Force chief of staff), put it most succinctly: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war."[/quote]

it's interesting LeMay noted that. he's one of the biggest hotheads in the war, and even he admitted it. if you want to see more from him and his hot headed nature, watch 'fog of war'

[toledo_jesus]

I've had enough. Glad you guys weren't making the calls.

[dominicansoul]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='02 April 2010 - 09:28 PM' timestamp='1270258120' post='2085792']
very, very easily. Pat answers from the Catechism don't address the issues that come up when people are killing each other.
[/quote]
except this is military dropping atomic bombs on civilians....pretty cut and dry...

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='03 April 2010 - 01:07 AM' timestamp='1270267676' post='2085870']
I've had enough. Glad you guys weren't making the calls.
[/quote]
you will note that I surrendered much more easily than the Japanese would have had we not dropped atomic bombs on them.

[dominicansoul]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='03 April 2010 - 12:07 AM' timestamp='1270267676' post='2085870']
I've had enough. Glad you guys weren't making the calls.
[/quote]

'cos we would still be fighting the japanese?

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='dominicansoul' date='03 April 2010 - 01:16 AM' timestamp='1270268219' post='2085875']
'cos we would still be fighting the japanese?
[/quote]
this is the type of soldier we were fighting: http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/soldiersurr.htm

[Saint Therese]

[dominicansoul]

for those who claim that "we just don't know...it's history and we weren't there..."

how do you know for sure the atomic bombs were absolutely necessary to end the war? you guys sure make it sound like you know exactly how it was...

(yeah...that argument works both ways...)

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='dominicansoul' date='03 April 2010 - 12:52 AM' timestamp='1270266738' post='2085859']
we should have avoided them because they were civilian towns...NOT military!
[/quote]
No they were not. They both had major factories, ship yards and military headquarters. Any one of the three makes them a military target.

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='Saint Therese' date='03 April 2010 - 01:31 AM' timestamp='1270269096' post='2085883']

[/quote]
seconded

[dominicansoul]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='03 April 2010 - 12:50 AM' timestamp='1270270241' post='2085897']
No they were not. They both had major factories, ship yards and military headquarters. Any one of the three makes them a military target.
[/quote]

my hometown has one military factory...i guess this makes it a military town...

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='dominicansoul' date='03 April 2010 - 02:03 AM' timestamp='1270271029' post='2085903']
my hometown has one military factory...i guess this makes it a military town...
[/quote]
If its a big enough factory making stuff critical for a war, it does. I live in a densely populated area as well, but for various reasons it has always been a first strike area.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='02 April 2010 - 02:50 PM' timestamp='1270237812' post='2085631']
The Japanese didn't have to attack Pearl Harbor. You are denying that war changes things, which is preposterous.
[/quote]
I specifically alluded to Japanese war crimes in my poll. I don't see how evil actions by one side justify further evil form the other. Did Pearl Harbour justify military response? In my opinion, yes. Did it justify killing civilians? No. I find that to be unjustifiable.

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='02 April 2010 - 04:12 PM' timestamp='1270242754' post='2085668']
The combined death toll at wiki is 246,000 as a result of the atomic bombs. The total of 1 million is from all the bombing over the course of 3 years. And in every case leaflets were dropped over the cities and people were urged to leave. If you live in a town with a military depot and you are at work you can expect to be bombed.

In case of war in the US, I live in a prime target area and expect to be blown to bits.
[/quote]
I'm referring to both the atomic bombs and the firebombing. 1 million is an appalling amount of civilian deaths. It's an appalling amount of deaths period.

[KnightofChrist]

If memory serves the Japanese Emperor who was still considered a god at the time, effectively drafted every Japanese citizen. And planed to fight for every inch of the Japanese mainland.

[Skinzo]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not "critical targets". The factories which were there had never been bombed prior to the atomic attacks. Of the 33 prime targets the USA had listed in Japan, it is a fact that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were never mentioned. And, as the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey noted in 1946 : " "all major factories in Hiroshima were on the periphery of the city – and escaped serious damage." At Nagasaki it was the Catholic cathedral that was destroyed first, as Karl Keating puts it:
"Fat Man exploded directly above the Catholic cathedral in Nagasaki. Thecity was the historical center of Catholicism in Japan and containedabout a tenth of the entire Catholic population. The cathedral wasfilled with worshipers who had gathered to pray for a speedy and justend to the war. It is said their prayers included a petition to offerthemselves, if God so willed it, in reparation for the evilsperpetrated by their country."

From the National Catholic Register, Aug. 31, 2005:
"PopePaul VI called America's use of the atomic bomb "butchery of untoldmagnitude." Pope John Paul II called it "a self-destruction of mankind"and named Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Auschwitz as places marked by man'ssin that should now be places of pilgrimage. <br style=""><br style="">TheSecond Vatican Council condemned our nation's use of the atomic bomb.The Catechism repeats its denunciation verbatim in No. 2314:

"Everyact of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole citiesor vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man,which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation."

No matter howvicious the Japanese war tactics were, and they were cruel and brutal,America crossed a line we never should have crossed.

Though wewere surprised at the intensity of readers' response, we can understandthe concern that many letters expressed. The Church's condemnation ofthe bomb is severe and unsettling. It could seem that, by calling ouruse of the atomic bomb a "crime against God and man" and comparingHiroshima and Nagasaki to Auschwitz, the Church is making America'sposition in World War II the moral equivalent of our enemies'.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Americansacrifices in World War II are not in the least impugned by thejudgment that our president was wrong to use the atomic bomb. WithoutAmerica's contribution to the war, the world would be a very different,and much darker, place. Pope John Paul II himself said he was"personally grateful for what America did for the world in the darkestdays of the 20th century."

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in hisseries of talks titled "What Now America?" said that, by our tacitrefusal to recognize the evil of the atomic bomb, Americans becamesusceptible to a new notion of freedom -- one divorced from morality.<br style=""><br style="">

"When,I wonder, did we in America ever get into this idea that freedom meanshaving no boundaries and no limits?" he asked. "I think it began on the6th of August 1945 at 8:15 am when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.... Somehow or other, from that day on in our American life, we say wewant no limits and no boundaries."





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