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In reply to the discussion: Hiroshima - quit lying to yourselves [View all]wercal
(1,370 posts)For starters, the US was already killing hundreds of thousands of civilians - through firebombing.
But then look at prior experience with invading Japanese islands:
Okinawa - up to 150,000 civilians were killed, and 94% of Japanese troops were killed.
Iwo Jima - 99% of Japanese troops were killed.
What logical conclusion would this lead you to? Oh, the Japanese were on the verge of surrender? Of course not. The fighting for these two islands had been unprecedented, and we could only expect it to get tougher on the main island. Nothing points to a Japanese propensity to surrender.
Hell, they didn't even surrender AFTER Hiroshima. It took a second bomb to get a surrender.
As to the target selection, the history books paint a clear picture. We had already demonstrated that we could kill tens of thousands of people in firebombing raids...and the Japanese didn't surrender. So, the idea was to demonstrate the power of the A bomb, as a psychological blow, so they understood there was no point in continuing to fight (this by the way probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides). Deploying the A-Bomb in an empty field would not demonstrate its capabilities. Not even deploying it in a previously bombed out city would work. So, a city was picked that had been largely untouched by the war. There were still military targets within the city, but the untouched city was the real target.
Leaflets were dropped for months. And then the bomb was dropped. The bombing of Hiroshima was not extraordinarily more dreadful or deadly than other bombing runs - the fire bombing of Tokyo killed 125k in one night...and the bombing lasted many nights. The point of the A Bomb wasn't to kill more civilians than usual...it was to do it in an instant. And that's what it took to get a surrender...well it took two demonstrations.
I'm not sure why you're so convinced the Japanese would have suddenly surrendered, without an invasion. And I think you are completely discounting what the Russians may have been capable of doing to the Japanese. Doesn't it make the most sense to end the war ASAP? Well, that's what the A bomb did. Theories that prolonging it would have somehow been more humane and less deadly are the worst form of Monday morning quarterbacking.