WWII footage of axis crew trapped in burning tank

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by Scipio:

and to show Stalin that the USA is able and willing to do this.

This is actually somewhat of a misunderstanding of what was happpening in 1945, since the cold war indeed was not really on in that year, at least for the United States. Churchill was very much more perceptive than the US leaderships of the true desires for an extended hegemony that Stalin had. Of course Churchill was in a position to feel much more threatened than the US and to have much better data than the US on Russian Soviet intentions, his misgiving started as early as 1944 and indeed ran from before the war, and he was receiving information from the colonies that would soon break from England.

Truman and most other leaders saw a very rapid climb down from the world stage, as it had seen from other conflicts with the US involved. As to the use of the bomb to scare Russia, the writings of the people involved do not support this at all. Franck Report was against the use of the atom bomb except as a demonstration, and was followed by the personal writings of Leo Szilard. However Oppenheimer, Fermi, and Lawrence wrote in June 1945 “…emphasize the opportunity of saving American lives by immediate military use…” and that “…we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

Truman agonized over the dropping of the bomb. Already, plans were underway to invade the Japanese homeland in order to bring the war to a close. Using the campaign on Okinawa as a guide, a million US and sixteen million Japanese casualties were expected, something that haunted Truman’s mind as much as the bomb. In the case of the Japanese, Okinawa fought without major industry or succor and even completely isolated still did not result in the surrender of the garrison or the civilians. The sixteen million casualties would likely be mostly dead.

The bomb represented one of the only two options Truman had to end the war in the next year as his diary shows and as war time studies presented. In some ways Truman was very naive though. When he signed the order to use the atom bomb, he wrote in his diary, “This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. “

In fact, the order that got to Spaatz did not include the requirement that no civilians be harmed: “1. The 509 Composite Group, 20th Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. To carry military and civilian scientific personnel from the War Department to observe and record the effects of the explosion of the bomb, additional aircraft will accompany the airplane carrying the bomb. The observing planes will stay several miles distant from the point of impact of the bomb.”

The reason was that no military target existed that did not also lay in close proximity to a area in which bombing was nominally forbidden, industry was diffused across small shops at this point in the war, and no fleet concentrations existed. The ideal targets, discussed by many planners, where in China, and were nixed completely

So the target list was the least of evils as seen at the time. Russia had nothing to do with it.

[Scipio]

Slapdragon:

Yet in the week before the 5/17 meeting with Truman, Forrestal had questioned the wisdom of having Russia participate in an invasion of Japan. The Dept. of War believed that Russian entry would help save American lives. Forrestal, on the other hand, feared control of additional occupied territory by Russia. He also hoped that postwar Japan might become a counterweight to Russia in the Far East. The Navy favored their blockade as the primary means of defeating Japan. A psychological warfare plan, focusing on non-military methods of winning the war, that Forrestal had backed had been largely rejected. (Ellis Zacharias, "How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender", Look, 6/6/50).]

The decision to drop the bomb was made by Harry Truman, who never regretted his actions. When he ordered the attack, the usefulness of the bomb was incredible. Not only would this device end the war, but it would demonstrate the superiority of the United States over the Soviets. Hiroshima was destroyed by the atomic bomb just a few days after the Potsdam conference in which Truman announced the existence of the bomb to his allies in order to show military superiority. http://www.pjhealy.com/coldwar/yalta.html

The main argument advanced by the revisionists is that policymakers, while knowing that Japan was on the verge of surrender in the summer of 1945, rushed to use the bomb because they thought that the Soviet Union’s entry into the Pacific might produce a speedy surrender and therefore not allow the U.S. to use the bomb in combat to “impress’ the soviets6 (Bernstein, 1976, xvi). General Groves described the bomb’s larger purpose more explicitly in his testimony to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission: “There was never from about two weeks from the time I took charge of this Project any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis” (Takaki, 1995, 7). http://www.umich.edu/~historyj/papers/winter2002/oh3.html

[ May 27, 2002, 12:05 PM: Message edited by: Scipio ]

[The Vyrdolak]

Originally posted by Scipio:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Zaraath:

I have heard that this site [ ogrish.com ] installs Trojans or spyware on visitors' machines. I went there once to DL something, but my firewall may have blocked it. [/qb]</font>

[Scipio]

Originally posted by Zaraath:

Kiss my ass, Scipio.

I would really like to know what Freud had said about that statement...

[Slapdragon]

"The decision to drop the bomb was made by Harry Truman, who never regretted his actions. When he ordered the attack, the usefulness of the bomb was incredible. Not only would this device end the war, but it would demonstrate the superiority of the United States over the Soviets. Hiroshima was destroyed by the atomic bomb just a few days after the Potsdam conference in which Truman announced the existence of the bomb to his allies in order to show military superiority. "

Unfortunately, Truman's own diary, which this author ignores in his attempt to rewrite history, shows that he was very disturbed about the prospects of the bomb, second guessed his own thoughts on the matter extensively, and only after long consideration and a great deal of plannning gave the go ahead to use it. I am afraid that your thesis here falls squarely into the "Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor" brand of history. That is, the people who think Hiroshima was aimed at impressing the Soviets have to ignore huge amounts of writing and correspondence and accept each other's assements at face value.

Again, you need a lot more than an uncited website, a biased historical paper (whose interesting comment "No serious historian today fully believes that the bomb was used primarily as a means of saving American lives." in fact shows how out of touch with historical research the author is. Most historican with no axe to grind and access to the papers of the people involved recognize that the "impress the Soviets argument" was not applied until the 1950s, and then only by a very few people.), and a uncritical piece in Look magazine, to revise the work of hundreds of scholars on a very well documented event.

For example, to see how flawed the Oh paper was, one has to only look at how much was left out. Oh does not cite either the Japanese correspondence of the time, or the major American correspondence of the time. They refute the theory and thus seem to have been misplaced. Oh fails to look at Japanese preperations to defend the home islands, the very extensive studies done after Okinawa of Japanese intentions, the internal papers of any person involved in the decision making, or anything of the sort. Very sloppy historical methods. One would almost guess that he first wrote his conclusion, then skimmmed some generalities to support the conclusion from which no evidence could be unearthed.

After all, the earliest true threat assessments at the level of the JCS and the President of Soviet intentions occur in 1947 after the British point out provocative actions of the Soviets. In that year only a few Generals were looking at the Soviets as potential enemies, namely Patton and MacArthur. Truman, who Oh calls unrepentent, was very worried before and after about using the bomb. And, although second guessing is easy today, there was no evidence in 1945 that showing a weakness to the Japanese would result in a lasting peace. Certianly experience with Germany and Japan at the start of the war showed that totalitarian states did not easily deal with shows of anything but strength. Appeasement, councilled before the war and by revisionists afterward, would never have worked.

I think, when you get a chance to read critically the papers on the subject, that of all the comments spoken off camera and not to the world audience, this one of Truman's is most interesting, (In a letter to Senator Russel from President Truman:)

"I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can't bring myself to believe that, because they are beasts, we should ourselves act in the same manner.

"For myself, I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the 'pigheadedness' of the leaders of a nation and, for your information, I am not going to do it until it is absolutely necessary...

"My object is to save as many American lives as possible but I also have a humane feeling for the women and children in Japan."

There is only one oblique reference in Truman's private papers to using the Atom Bomb for any other purpose than to save US lives.

[Scipio]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

"The decision to drop the bomb was made by Harry Truman, who never regretted his actions. When he ordered the attack, the usefulness of the bomb was incredible. Not only would this device end the war, but it would demonstrate the superiority of the United States over the Soviets. Hiroshima was destroyed by the atomic bomb just a few days after the Potsdam conference in which Truman announced the existence of the bomb to his allies in order to show military superiority. "

Unfortunately, Truman's own diary, which this author ignores in his attempt to rewrite history, shows that he was very disturbed about the prospects of the bomb, second guessed his own thoughts on the matter extensively, and only after long consideration and a great deal of plannning gave the go ahead to use it. I am afraid that your thesis here falls squarely into the "Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor" brand of history. That is, the people who think Hiroshima was aimed at impressing the Soviets have to ignore huge amounts of writing and correspondence and accept each other's assements at face value.

Again, you need a lot more than an uncited website, a biased historical paper (whose interesting comment "No serious historian today fully believes that the bomb was used primarily as a means of saving American lives." in fact shows how out of touch with historical research the author is. Most historican with no axe to grind and access to the papers of the people involved recognize that the "impress the Soviets argument" was not applied until the 1950s, and then only by a very few people.), and a uncritical piece in Look magazine, to revise the work of hundreds of scholars on a very well documented event.

For example, to see how flawed the Oh paper was, one has to only look at how much was left out. Oh does not cite either the Japanese correspondence of the time, or the major American correspondence of the time. They refute the theory and thus seem to have been misplaced. Oh fails to look at Japanese preperations to defend the home islands, the very extensive studies done after Okinawa of Japanese intentions, the internal papers of any person involved in the decision making, or anything of the sort. Very sloppy historical methods. One would almost guess that he first wrote his conclusion, then skimmmed some generalities to support the conclusion from which no evidence could be unearthed.

After all, the earliest true threat assessments at the level of the JCS and the President of Soviet intentions occur in 1947 after the British point out provocative actions of the Soviets. In that year only a few Generals were looking at the Soviets as potential enemies, namely Patton and MacArthur. Truman, who Oh calls unrepentent, was very worried before and after about using the bomb. And, although second guessing is easy today, there was no evidence in 1945 that showing a weakness to the Japanese would result in a lasting peace. Certianly experience with Germany and Japan at the start of the war showed that totalitarian states did not easily deal with shows of anything but strength. Appeasement, councilled before the war and by revisionists afterward, would never have worked.

I think, when you get a chance to read critically the papers on the subject, that of all the comments spoken off camera and not to the world audience, this one of Truman's is most interesting, (In a letter to Senator Russel from President Truman:)

"I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can't bring myself to believe that, because they are beasts, we should ourselves act in the same manner.

"For myself, I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the 'pigheadedness' of the leaders of a nation and, for your information, I am not going to do it until it is absolutely necessary...

"My object is to save as many American lives as possible but I also have a humane feeling for the women and children in Japan."

There is only one oblique reference in Truman's private papers to using the Atom Bomb for any other purpose than to save US lives.

Slapdragon, Adolph Eichmann said about himself always that he wasn't guilty, that he only followed orderes, that he was only a specialist blah blah blah. What someone write or say about his own intentions, especially regarding things like dropping a-bombs, must be seen at least with caution.

The sources I given were the result of a quick search for the terms 'Hiroshima' and 'Stalin'. But there is much more. At least I can base my arguments on several different sources, not only on something that a politician said about himself. What makes you believe that Trueman does not simply tried to justify it for himself and for history?

[flamingknives]

Churchill, although not directly involved with the A-bombs was, during the closing stages of the war, already working to limit Soviet gains post-war.

With this in mind, I find it logical that the US command, be it military or elected civilian, were not ignorant of the dual effect of the use of A-bomb. If they just wanted to show the Russians that they had it, they might have dropped it somewhere unpopulated.

As they had a still active enemy, and were not prepared to accept conditional surrender, they apparently decided to use it where it could aid them further and serve as a warning to Stalin.

[Panzer Leader]

You know they did test that bastard before dropping it right? And I would suppose that the Soviets would be fully aware of any successful tests. The great nuclear arms race extended throughout the war and I think (feel free to prove me wrong) that EACH power was intimately familiar with the progresses made by both allies and enemies through intelligence and boastfulness.

The only thing discovered in Japan was the sheer destructivity of the bomb, but even those with knowledge of what they were working towards could foresee what fate would befall those two unfortunate cities.

I am sorry I did not back this post up with facts and resources, but I believe that these things are common knowledge.

[Madmatt]

Moving to General Forum.