Was truman right to drop two atomic bombs on Japan?

in the 2012 movie "emperor" , elements of the Japanese military try to kill Hirohito so he can't call for surrender, or for having done so . I can't remember exactly, or what the exact plan was trying to accomplish, but as far as I know what the movie portrayed was factual. Can't find a thing about this part of the movie on the internet. There was a ferocious battle at the palace and the emperor has a narrow escape.

It certainly suggests notions that Japan was 'about to surrender anyway' are not true.

PS: as for the question posed, for me to be consistent I have to say that I find the decision understandable, but I would have been opposed to its use without warning as was done, and I am opposed to how it was used on cities [targets should have been more purely military]

Quote: Mosca

There was no way to see the future. There was no "right" and "wrong"..

Of course it was right. We wanted the war
over NOW, enough already. The world was
war weary and if that meant wiping the entire
main island off the map, so be it. They attacked
us, remember.

Quote: odiousgambit

in the 2012 movie "emperor" , elements of the Japanese military try to kill Hirohito so he can't call for surrender, or for having done so . I can't remember exactly, or what the exact plan was trying to accomplish, but as far as I know what the movie portrayed was factual. Can't find a thing about this part of the movie on the internet. There was a ferocious battle at the palace and the emperor has a narrow escape.

It certainly suggests notions that Japan was 'about to surrender anyway' are not true.

PS: as for the question posed, for me to be consistent I have to say that I find the decision understandable, but I would have been opposed to its use without warning as was done, and I am opposed to how it was used on cities [targets should have been more purely military]

The Kyujo Incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident

The emperor and his council had effectively accepted the Potsdam declaration (Hirohito had suggested that Japan accept it before the A-bombs were dropped), but some of the others officers outside the top echelon did not accept this decision.

Quote: TheCesspit

I think that was a secondary 'benefit' from dropping the implosion type bomb rather than a second gun-type, yes. No doubt planned for, but I'm not sure that was reason for dropping the second, or came into the balance of the question for Truman.

Oh, no. It was dropped because there was no surrender after the first. Simple as that. But you can be sure Truman might have been told they wanted to try it out.

Quote:

Radioactive-related cancers at both sites amounts to around 2,000. That's the long term effects, not the short 6-12 month window.

That is pretty near zero all things considered. My thinking is that the radiation is a bigger threat for a thermonuclear device, a simple A-Bomb not as bad.

When we dropped the bombs on Japan,
all we knew was they made a big boom
for the size of the bomb. We didn't
know squat about radiation yet. We all
know about the tests they did in the Vegas
area in the late 40's, with volunteers
standing outside when a bomb was set
off. That's how they learned about the
radiation danger.

Quote: Mosca

There was no way to see the future. There was no "right" and "wrong".

There is always a right and wrong. the problem is that war changes such standards, in particular when the enemy is cruel, ruthless and downright inhuman (Dissecting live subjects and carrying out extermination of millions of people is inhuman, no matter who does it or why).

I mean, compared to what the Nazis did in extermination camps, and how they treated the Slavic populations they conquered, fire-bombing Dresden is not as wrong morally speaking. true, few people in Dresden had anything to do with the atrocities directly, but a majority were engaged in supporting the regime committing such atrocities.

I won't recommend reading or listening to Max Hastings' "Inferno." But if you want a good compendium of what life was like during WWII, that's the one to use. It draws a great deal from primary sources.

Quote:

It is actually sort of surprising that nuclear weapons have not been used since.

I think nukes are too horrible for rational people to contemplate using.

What's surprising, to me, is that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and after the effects of radiation were better understood (they were always known*, just not quantified until later), the NATO countries nevertheless developed tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use. Many of these were the equivalent of swatting a fly with an anvil, though. I don't know if any were deployed, beyond "small" tactical nuclear bombs carried by fighter jets.

* Fallout was a concern during the testing of the first nuclear weapons. Fallout is basically bomb debris, made more highly radioactive by the detonation, which sticks to dust and dirt particles. In general, the closer to the ground you set a bomb off, the more fallout will be produced. The first test of a nuke was detonated atop a 30 meter-tall tower.

Quote: Evenbob

When we dropped the bombs on Japan,
all we knew was they made a big boom
for the size of the bomb. We didn't
know squat about radiation yet. We all
know about the tests they did in the Vegas
area in the late 40's, with volunteers
standing outside when a bomb was set
off. That's how they learned about the
radiation danger.

I wish I could go back in time and get the feel of the nation when this "new bomb" was known for the first time. I doubt most people understood how it worked. All that explosion from mass the size of a US Nickel.

As a side note I saw where at some point they proved that you could make a working bomb sans uranium with published plans and a good machine shop. Face, you up for it?

Quote: AZDuffman

As a side note I saw where at some point they proved that you could make a working bomb sans uranium with published plans and a good machine shop. Face, you up for it?

By next Monday. Doesn't even need a work bench.

Quote: AZDuffman

I wish I could go back in time and get the feel of the nation when this "new bomb" was known for the first time. I doubt most people understood how it worked. All that explosion from mass the size of a US Nickel.

Well, only about half-a-gram actually went to energy (E=MC^2 and all that). There was about 60kg of fissionable material in the bomb, and about 1kg of it under went a nuclear reaction.

Quote:

As a side note I saw where at some point they proved that you could make a working bomb sans uranium with published plans and a good machine shop. Face, you up for it?

I have a twelve inch record by The New Model Army called "Here comes the war". The pull out sleeve contained plans to make an implosion type nuclear device. The gun type is simpler, but makes a smaller boom, as it's not as effective.

The Castle Bravo and Tsar Bomba explosions were the two biggest nuclear tests on each side. The latter created an aerial fireball 5 miles in diameter. There's photos of it, it's impressive. And scary. The Castle Bravo explosion ended up being twice the yield expected, created a whole bunch of fall out, and changed the US's test plans. Tsar Bomba was really efficient, and create much less fallout.

Tac Nukes were considered to be used at Dien Ben Phu, in 1954, when the French special force outpost became isolated and on the verge of falling (it fell after 6 weeks of sustained attacks by the Viet Minh and led to the first peace accords with the Vietnamese Communists in Indochina). The use of conventional bombing and air power didn't stop the advance by the besiegers. The French has assumed they could blunt the Vietnamese force by created a well supplied outpost (based on early experiences). They were very wrong.

More than a thousand marines died in the fighting for the Tarawa atoll. This might not seem significant until you realize that the fighting was for an island less than one square mile in area and it lasted for just 76 hours. An American soldier fighting in the Pacific remarked,"You can surround a 100,000 Germans and they will surrender, but surround one Japanese, and he will keep fighting." In Tarawa almost 5000 Japanese died as they fought until the last man was dead.

Iowa Jima was the first and only time American deaths outnumbered Japanese.

An invasion would easily have put American deaths in the Pacific to a number higher than that in Europe

Quote: odiousgambit

It certainly suggests notions that Japan was 'about to surrender anyway' are not true.

The movie "Fat Man and Little Boy" suggested that the real ethical question should not be about dropping the bomb in the war, but the decision to produce large numbers of bombs from 1945 to 1949 when the USA was the sole possessor of the technology.

Quote: Hamlet: the dialogue most often quoted about the Falklands War, but applicable to all wars where soldiers give up their lives for a "little patch of ground"

CAPTAIN
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it.
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
CAPTAIN
Yes, it is already garrisoned.
HAMLET
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw.
This is th' impostume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.—I humbly thank you, sir.
CAPTAIN
God be wi' you, sir.