ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
Just think of the situation before the war when the US wanted the Japanese to leave China. Japan may have been willing to leave China but not Manchuria. But the Americans did not mean Manchuria and the Japanese did not ask if the Americans also meant Manchuria. Maybe the whole war in Asia could have been avoided. But that is something else.
One other thing about the atomic bombs and the surrender, many of the Americans - and I presume other Allied military personnel - in the Pacific said "Now I know that I will survive."
Avoiding a general war in Asia would be extremely unlikely. After 1931 Japan had committed itself in a major way to the Asian mainland, and in a way which was at direct loggerheads with the KMT in China.
Irrespective of the outcome of the Chinese Civil War, a military confrontation between China and Japan on the cards, and one that strikes me as likely to have settled into roughly the same situation as it did historically - Japan with the large military advantage but unable to effect a victory.
ORIGINAL: Alamander
ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
One other thing about the atomic bombs and the surrender, many of the Americans - and I presume other Allied military personnel - in the Pacific said "Now I know that I will survive."
My grandfather fought in the Pacific. He had the opposite opinion (of course, he was a contrary fellow and often differed in his opinion from others). He felt, throughout his entire life, that Truman was a war criminal and should have been put on trial at Nuremburg. He was of the opinion that that the U.S. could have easily blockaded Japan for a few months and
received the same terms without much loss of life. He was opposed, in general, to war all of his life after his experiences in the Pacific.
Did he realize that that blockade in the context of Japan in 1945 was synonymous with "mass starvation"?
ORIGINAL: tolsdorff
I once read a (one of the) biography of Nimitz, i forgot which one really. Anyway, he is quoted as saying the following, loosely paraphrased: ".. there was no doubt in the minds of me (Nimitz), spruance, turner, halsey, king even, that the A-bomb was completely unnecessary. It did not play a part in any surrender. but the politicians in Washington wanted to see the effects of the bomb.. " I should look the book up. You can verify it then. The memoirist quoted Nimitz as having said this. He did not want to use this weapon, nor did many of his commanders.
To note, all senior naval officers.
What's worth consideration is the inter-service context of the US armed forces in relation to the atomic bomb. The Army Air Force (which is agitating for its own separate branch), just deployed a fearsome new weapon from an exceptionally capable air frame.
Any admiral worth their salt will be downplaying that capability in an environment of post-war cuts to military spending.
it's got nothing to do at all with the big evil satan.. But the throwing of that bomb had 2 major reasons.
1. Hi Soviet Union, we got a big bomb!
2. see the effects of this weapon when employed on a densely populated area.
There was no other reason to throw it. just another mass murder war crime.
As above, is it less criminal to kill approx 200,000 people over the course of two afternoons or a few million via starvation?
; Julia Child
