Come up with a feasible alternative. Casualties of a ground war would be in the millions, both civilian and military as Japanese civilians were willing fight to the last man. And there was no way in hell the Emperor would accept a truce. And this America was the bully mentality? Look up what the Japanese did in China and Indochina.

At the risk of sounding morbid; Nuking Japan was the most humane way to end the war in terms of casualties. Look at the other options on the table; A ground war would be much much worse. Millions were killed in combat in Europe. Japan would be even higher because they don't surrender. If we had continued firebombing the death toll would be exponentially higher. There had been more death in single incendiary raids than both nukes combined.

The Japanese wouldn't surrender to conventional means. Nukes had the shock and awe factor that could finally end it. Relatively speaking, 100k deaths is nothing compared the scale of the war.

anon, I hope you realize how inconsiderate and how much of an asshole you are. As terrible an atrocity the dropping of the bombs was, enormous casualties would have been suffered by the Americans and the Japanese if the mainland had been invaded. Do you know how brutal the warfare in the pacific was? How can a human being be so insensitive? You sicken me.

Not gonna lie, I really do wish there were some other way to end our fight with Japan. But if you think about it, it worked, didn't it? I feel like maybe we should've dropped just ONE bomb and let them know we had another. Either way, we didn't have much choice and of the choices there were, I'm sure the bombing would've resulted in fewer casualties on our behalf. It just had to happen.

After the second one, the japanese actually thought that the US had another 7, which coupled with soviet entry to the war, caused their surrender

You are only embarrassing yourself

Yeah and invading would have beeen SOOOO much better. Japanase DONT surrender. MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of civilians would have died

it was to END the war.
the ends to the means.
whether you agree with it or not is up to you, but you cant argue with the results, since no one i know speaks german or japanese.

Biggest war crime? I believe we can have a retaliation for pearl harbor...

pearl harbor was an attack on a military installation, nagasaki and hiroshima were civilian cities.

You make yourself hate America because you can't wrap your tiny brain around the fact that it was to shorten the most horrific war the world has ever seen and it happened almost a century ago you arrogant fuck. I am sick and tired of retards saying it was uncalled for to drop the bombs and kill a few innocent lives then and save a lot more then if they had a siege of japan which would of taken longer and killed millions more on both sides not counting other nations such as Russia that would of been involved as well. such a euro fag state of mind, oh America dropped a bomb during the largest conflict ever and killed millions, oh haha lol 9/11 was funny

Ok, I am American, but i completely disagree. Yes, it shortened a war. Yes, it saved many lives. But killing thousands of innocent civilians? Is that truly fine? Many might not have taken part in the war, might not have cared or been on the Americans side because they believed in what we were doing. The true question here is, is it right to kill many that are against the greater good, or to kill many that have no part in the conflict? And I find it amazing that you can sit there and say "it happened almost a century ago you arrogant fuck.", we killed millions of innocent people, but that was a long time ago, so who gives a fuck, right? I mean, Germany gassed a fuckton of Jews, but that was around the same time, so who cares, right? I mean, it is only an unimaginably large amount of people who's lives we ended. Before you say it, no, not butt hurt, just people like you making me feel bad to be American.

A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7-4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities... I think the bombs were a better idea with a roughly 200,000 casualty rating for the Japanese from the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unamerican asshole.

*sigh* going down with my post, if another country threw around fliers saying they were going to shoot us with a giant orbital anti-matter cannon, and we didn't take it seriously, and they hit a big city, that would be close to the same thing in the case of modern times and what we would/wouldn't have. It is just that taking any life, no matter for any reason, should never be played down, due to time, or reasons. But i admit it was worded wrong, and yes, cut down the loss by a lot, but for many lives, of children, women, men, elderly, many that did not have a part in the war.

The Japanese civilians played a role in the war though. Zeroes were willingly being made in people's houses for god's sake. They were just as fanatical and would have fought against us troops by choice. My casualty projections include Japanese civilian fatalities as well.

I'm going to assume that You don't know what This is.

I believe that was the leaflets dropped via air by the US WARNING the Japanese that we have a weapon capable of leveling a city and causing mass devastation and that we would use it on August 6, 1945 (Hiroshima) and August 9, 1945 (Nagasaki) if the emperor did not surrender unconditionally. The emperor laughed and disregarded it as a meaningless threat.

Wasn't so meaningless. They dropped millions of these all over the city. They dropped the warning first before the bomb.

Oh, I know. but the emperor thought it was a meaningless threat. We all know it wasn't. My point is, though. That they had warning well before hand. WE WARNED THEM They had time to evacuate and they had the chance to surrender. They didn't and they got what they deserved. It was not a war crime.. it wasn't random... it was justified to save the lives of millions of not only our soldiers but theirs as well.

PS. Europe, you're welcome that we SAVED YOUR ASSES in WWII. YOU'RE WELCOME

It's fags like you that are in our government (politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats... etc.) that get in the way. IT'S A FUCKING WAR! in WWII we did not have precision guided anything and radar was a relatively new development. It's funny how you look at dropping the nuclear weapons and bitch but prior to we were carpet bombing them with incendiary bombs that burned down ENTIRE CITIES. Dropping atomic weapons was a power play, yes. It did in seconds what it took hours or even days what fires did after we carpet bombed them. Either way, lives were lost, it is an inevitability of war but it was a drop in the bucket compared to what it could have been. So, sit your faggot ass down, shut the fuck up and shove your shit faced comments about how "OMG it was soooo wrong" up your gaping asshole that your boyfriend bubba so graciously helped you obtain. Grow a pair and if you so happen to be old enough to join the military, Please, Do so. You will see how limited our soldiers are and how because of attitudes like yours within the government and even the UN, this "Show them what we have without hurting anyone" really affects your ability to save your own ass.

Oh, I forgot to add... "throwing a punch at a kid with no arms" Japan was far FAR from defenseless, mother fucker. Learn your history before you shit through your mouth in this manner.

japan didn't have a nuke.

But they had an extensive navy. And, does the word Kamikaze mean anything to you? Japan was so fucking CRAZY they deliberately crashed their own planes into our ships. They killed themselves for their country. Honerable, sure. Stupid? most definitely. They were a great threat, greater then you think.

not to knock you or anything but the Jap. Zero was easily mass produced. as dwindled their numbers may have been they were still a threat.

look, i'm not saying japan didn't deserve a nuke, i'm saying there were better ways of delivering it.
sure, i think the kamikaze were stupid, but then i think people that are devoutly religious are stupid, to them, then, it was simply what was required of them, they died for something they believed in

Please, form a comprehensible post next time. I will respond to the gibberish you gave me to the best of my abilities.

First. The material needed to make one bomb was insanely hard and expensive to obtain at the time. We managed to get two bombs out of it by the time we used them after testing.
Second. We weren't entirely sure they would work with a 100% success rate.
Third. there was 3 days between the bombings. the 2nd one was because the emperor called the bluff that we could not do it again.
FOURTH. Let me put this into terms you will understand.... Bubba can tell you his penis is bigger then yours... He can SHOW you that it is.. but it doesn't mean shit till it's ripping your asshole open.

it cost 20 billion in r&d just to produce the first, the actual bombs themselves were pittance in comparison, they had made tens within the first 5 years following the war.

at the end of the day, were you any other nationality, god forbid japanese, you would be butthurt, if the war had gone the other way, if japan had nuked america, you would be butthurt, america seem to think they are justified in doing whatever they please, and their people seem to think they are the only people in the world that suffer, not all, just the vocal ones.

Japan uses Yen, China uses Yuan more commonly known as R&B

Sorry not R&B my friends call it that RMB

He meant R&D. research and development.

I feel silly

They made more AFTER the war, yes. But at the time they only had two. and those we dropped.

Pearl Harbor was an unprovoked attack on the US from the Japanese. Completely unwarranted. Military installation, city.. it's all fair game in war. at least it was back then. They had no reason to attack us, in fact we were not even in WWII at the time of the attack. They should have let sleeping dogs lie. it was THEIR actions that brought us into the war and because of those actions they ultimately got nuked. Sorry, but Japan technically did it themselves.

i'll agree, their attack was unprovoked, but were you aware that a huge part of the reason they didn't manage to immobilize the US navy was because the jap high-command refused to bomb ship repair-yards because they were manned by civilians, against the advice of their US expert.

they lost because they fought fair, i see your point, they ended the war in the fastest way, but that doesn't mean it was right.

(i use the term fought fair in a relatively loose fashion, there's little fair about war for the soldier.)

What do you consider "Right" The small loss (comparatively) of civilian lives in two bombings or the extraordinary greater loss of military AND civilian lives in multiple carpet bombings?

the difference between incendiary bombings and a nuke is that incindiaries are slow, they destroy plenty of buildings, people die, but many will escape, a nuke is instant, you can't outrun a nuke like you can a house-fire, millions are killed instantly, innocent, guilty, pacifists, perhaps even some that supported the us, it was wrong, sure, it won the war, it saved many american lives, but at what cost? most of the world will never forgive america for what they did, least of all japan.

If I remember correctly, the casualty rating for the incendiary bombing of Tokyo were higher than the dropping of the atomic bombs. If you don't believe me, look it up.

i believe you, but they dropped millions of incendiaries through several different raids, they only dropped 2 a-bombs.

i apologize that you didn't learn to read, but i won't be repeating myself.

"and what's to stop them then dropping a bomb on a city after the first demonstration"

How is this a proper and comprehensible sentence?

Them then? wtf is that?

what is to stop the airforce, upon demonstration of detonation, were the japanese to not heed the warning, from then dropping a second device upon a city, it wasn't perfect english, but it was perfectly comprehensible.

I agree with what you're saying.

They were proud to kill the people at pearl harbor and the Japanese people that made it home where honored as heroes by a lot of the population. A lot of the country hated America.