PugJesusJapanese schoolgirls training with a machinegun for the anticipated American invasion of Japan, WW2, 1945
Semi-Hemi-DemigodIn 9th grade US history we held a mock trial about the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I was assigned the role of Harry Truman, one of the defendants. I did a ton of research about the plans for invasion of Japan on both sides, and it was terrifying. The Japanese were teaching children to fight with garden tools, and US casualty estimates were over a million soldiers.
However, in the end I came to the conclusion that the nuclear strikes weren't necessary, and I wouldn't have ordered them simply because a the war was already incredibly one-sided, and an invasion wouldn't have been necessary in the first place since Japan was already on its last legs.
The class ended up convicting me of a war crime, which was nice.
However, in the end I came to the conclusion that the nuclear strikes weren't necessary, and I wouldn't have ordered them simply because a the war was already incredibly one-sided, and an invasion wouldn't have been necessary in the first place since Japan was already on its last legs.
Then how does the war end, in your scenario?
If I'd have been president I'd continue the (not very) strategic bombing and implement a blockade. Japan has very few natural resources and relies a lot on imports, so this would have hamstrung their military effectiveness. It would have taken a bit longer but based on my half-remembered research from almost 30 years ago it would have worked without an invasion or nukes.
IMHO the nukes were signals to Stalin that he better stop at Berlin.
There were studies done on the loss of human life that a blockade without an invasion would incur.
It was horrific. Literal millions of deaths were projected.
The terror bombing (and that's what it was, by 1945) was considerably bloodier than the atomic bombings.
mozzWar is weird.
Firebombing wooden cities night after night? All good carry on.
Poison gas? Whoa WTF are you some kind of monster.
There was a weird little side note in a debate about using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Someone in the Pentagon on the pro side said, more or less: War is total. People die. If you're killed in a war, it makes absolutely no difference whether it was from being shot, or stabbed, or blown up by a nuclear bomb. People die and that's the end for them. That's war, that's what we're talking about, don't get all squeamish about it now.
I don't agree with bombing Vietnam obviously, but I do feel like there's an essential point about war there that is often papered over; people become horrified by some things about war while remaining fine with other things.
War is weird, but ultimately the concern is generally escalation/normalization of weapons. If nukes get normalized, then every military worth its salt needs one, and can use them, and that means suddenly warfare becomes much, much more bloody as a matter of averages, not just as a matter of a bomb or two vaporizing a few hundred thousand people in the occasional high-intensity war.
Yeah, agreed. I think it's by far a good thing that we've been lucky enough so far that they haven't been used beyond that one time.
I actually think there's an unspoken factor that is why people actually treat nuclear weapons so differently: There is no way in the modern day that any leader anywhere in the world can start a nuclear war and be sure it won't come back and impact them and their family. Unlike other war things, it's never safely insulated in some faraway place happening to other people.
It would be nice to think that the taboo is because of the horrible consequences, but we're doing things with horrible consequences every day. I think it's because of the pure calculus of what might happen to me and people I care about, right away.
BiptaI feel that reaching your conclusion on that basis would have been all but impossible without the benefits of hindsight.
I meant in reference to the post-war attempts at nuclear restraint, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
dual_sport_dork đ§đĄď¸That wouldâve worked, but âworkingâ would involve a large portion of the civilian population of Japan starving to death.
The use of the nukes was dual purpose, and yes, one of the purposes was to show to the Soviets that we not only had nukes but were willing to use them.
The other purpose was to demonstrate to Japan that continuing the war was hopeless, regardless of the number of schoolgirls with machine guns they had. It was to show that we didnât need to invade to flatten their cities. One plane, one bomb, one parking lot. Perhaps luckily for all involved they did not know we did not have the capability readily available to make any more atomic bombs just yet.
One minor point: We had already flattened their cities with firebombs, so they knew we could do it without invading.
So the best case weâd have ended with another North Korea pariah state.
Unfortunately a brighter future sometimes requires brutal action, but you can never tell in the moment whether you saved something or are just a monster
continue the (not very) strategic bombing
This wouldâve most likely resulted in just as many deaths as was caused by the two A-bombs, if not significantly more. In totality of firebombing conducted already during the war, the deaths caused in Japan had already exceeded the number caused by the deployment of those nukes.
The US accepts Japanâs conditional surrender, the one that Japan was sending in hopes that the US would offer them a better deal now than after the USSR finished kicking them off the mainland.
Geopolitically it was beneficial for the US to end the war without the Soviets getting involved, because then we'd have had two Iron Curtains
Japan as another USSR satellite to be stripped for parts
Jo MiranEven though I am an American, my primary school education is from a school for British expats so my WWII knowledge is mostly European focused. What was the beef between the US and Japan that led to the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
The US stopped selling oil to Japan. Japan needed oil to maintain their empire and fight the USSR, so they interpreted it as the US weakening Japan for a near-future war.
I thought it was copper? Ah, looks like both were factors. And we wanted them to leave all their neighbors alone.
*leave their neighbors for us to exploit
America was still directly administering its empire in the pacific.
Oh Iâm not going to say that pre-WW2 America was benevolent or anything like that. We bought Guam and the Philippines from Spain and were perfectly happy for France to have Vietnam. Itâs a good clarification though, thanks.
According to Googleâs new AI:
The attack on Pearl Harbor wasnât caused by a single disagreement, but rather a buildup of tensions between the United States and Japan for decades. Here are some key points:
- Competing Interests in Asia: Both countries wanted access to resources and markets in China and Southeast Asia [National WWII Museum]. This led to friction as Japan invaded Manchuria and later most of China.
- U.S. Opposition to Japanese Aggression: The U.S. disapproved of Japanâs military expansion and imposed economic sanctions, including an oil embargo, to pressure them to withdraw [Asia for Educators].
- Resource Scarcity for Japan: Japan needed oil and other resources to fuel its war machine. The embargo threatened to cripple their military [Imperial War Museums].
- Failed Negotiations: Diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Japan broke down as neither side was willing to concede [National WWII Museum].
Japanâs leaders hoped a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor would cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet and force them to negotiate a peace that allowed Japan to continue its expansion. Their gamble backfired, uniting the U.S. in anger and leading to Americaâs entry into World War II.
NeatoIn 9th grade US history we held a mock trial about the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Holy shit. Thatâs a hell of an assignment for 14 year olds. Military historians and experts today debate the efficacy of the nuclear strikes and the jury is still out on if they were better than not.
I had a really great teacher. She was very much about us learning from original sources and thinking critically about the historical context of them.
My 11th grade history teacher, on the other hand, showed us Monty Python and the Holy Grail as part of our study of the medieval period.
US casualty estimates were over a million soldiers
Those estimates have actually grown enormously as the years have passed, not surprisingly in parallel with the growth in criticism of the US for using the atomic bombs on Japanese cities. Estimates at the time were in the neighborhood of 50,000 allied casualties (where âcasualtiesâ include wounded and captured as well as killed); Truman at one point started throwing out 500,000 dead as a round number, and now in modern times we have âover a millionâ as a common estimate. In reality, who knows? One of the options being considered at the time as an alternative to invasion was just to continue the conventional firebombing as well as the submarine-based blockade of all of Japanâs shipping, and starving Japan into eventual surrender without incurring a very high number of allied casualties in the process.
Itâs worth noting that a three-day firebombing campaign against Tokyo in March 1943 (using conventional ordinance) produced more Japanese casualties than did the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings combined.
Thatâs a pretty fair argument, I was taking the 1 Million at face value previously and if it were true then the bombs would be an obvious choice. Basically, as long as the reliable estimate stays below the 226,000 (althought we only have that upper estimate in hindsight) casualties from the bombs then the bombs should not be dropped because all lives should be considered equal.
However, there are a total of 1,326,076 killed or missing Japanese Soldiers from 1937 to 1945 not including the injured or captured, so maybe youâre being a bit silly with the lowball 50,000 estimate from Operation Downfall.
maybe youâre being a bit silly with the lowball 50,000 estimate from an Operation Downfall
Well, it wasnât me saying that. However, itâs worth considering that the US only had about 90,000 soldiers killed in France and Germany from D-Day through to the end of the war, and while they were only facing about a fourth of the German military (the rest being occupied with the Soviets), that still represented manpower greater than what Japan had available with most of its army being trapped in China. And Germany had a still-mostly-intact industrial base more than capable of equipping its troops with as much modern weaponry (guns, artillery, ammunition, tanks and armored vehicles and airplanes) while Japanâs industrial base (which had never been anywhere near Germanyâs in terms of productive capacity to begin with) had been smashed almost to nothingness. Schoolgirls with machine guns (and very little ammo) have much less military effectiveness than perhaps people imagine.
If 50,000 casualties would have proved to be an underestimate of the cost of an invasion, it likely would have been the result not of angry common Japanese armed with sharp sticks and fighting to the bitter end, but of the 6,000 to 10,000 planes the Japanese had amassed and hidden away for use as kamikazes. These piloted bombs (which were really one of the most devastating weapons of the war) caused considerable carnage despite the USâ air supremacy; unleashed against large troop transports carrying thousands of soldiers each which of necessity would have had to have come very close to the Japanese coast, they might well have killed a lot more than 50,000 soldiers.
In reality the USSR was planning the invasion of Japan and was strongly prepared for it, no American lives would have been lost and Hiroshima and Nagasaki werenât actually a factor in Japanâs surrender anyway.
In reality the USSR was planning the invasion of Japan and was strongly prepared for it,
... Jesus give me strength.
LinkerbaanI donât understand why they threw two bombs. Only would have been plenty if they wanted to prove a point.
PugJesusAfter the first bomb, there was still hesitance in Japanâs high command about surrendering. After the second, a group of officers tried to coup the Japanese government to stop it from surrendering in response to the bombs.
So much emphasis is put on the fanatical atrocities of the Nazis that the fanatical atrocities of the Japanese are often overlooked in popular history. It wasnât a matter like fascist Italy, where they were ready to give up as soon as they lost.
Supernova in the East is an amazing series as part of Hardcore History and goes into detail about how one works their way up to bombing someone with nuclear weapons as a perceived act of mercy. Many voices thought the only way to make war less terrible was to make it quick.
If you only detonate one they think you only have one. If you detonate two they know you can make more than one, and they don't know how many you have.
You came to the conclusion that it was better to kill 1,000,000 people bare minimum than 226,000 people upper estimate?
I feel like when presented with those options youâre directly responsible for every life you didnât save.
People donât seem to understand how fucking hard if would have been to do a land invasion. It would have made D-Day look like a Kindergarten Macaroni project.
harkThatâs assuming a land invasion was required.
Up to that point in the war every single interaction showed that the only way to take territory from Japan was a land invasion. You couldnât bomb shell out starve them out of any of the Pacific islands, what would make anyone think you could do that too them in their homeland?
There was as far as the US was concerned no approach that ended the war without landing troops in Japan.
That girl on the left has some cool-ass cyberpunky hair.
Thatâs most likely the result of a lot of dust/dirt and wind I think.
Do you think? I couldnât figure out why she had dreadlocks.
My hair gets that way after a nightâs sleep or when taking it down sometimes. That expression on her face makes it seem like she just doesnât care any more and let it go.
We canât see her hands well either. Maybe sheâs AI.
Maybe you are, even. Brave new world, isnât it?
therealjcdentonJapan was really desperate huh
The level they were willing to go would have made insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan seem tame. even the elderly in some cases were being given sharp sticks and expected to train on how to defend their given area.
I know a lot of people in the modern age abhor nuclear weapons and consider their existence crimes against humanity and their use in WW2 the greatest atrocities ever committed, but their use in 1945 factually saved the lives of hundreds of thousands on both sides, Japanese commitment to defending the home islands that intense itâs entirely likely literal millions would have died in their defense, despite knowing it was inevitable a US force would eventually successfully gain control of most if not all the population centers and resources.
As a matter of fact, more people died in Tokyo from daily bombing raids in a single day than both atomic bombings.
BlackmistWho isnât when faced with very real threat of invasion?
This doesnât seem real.
Dreadlocks would have been extremely abnormal for the period. Hell, itâd be extremely abnormal now.
You sure this isnât some indy photoshoot or AI or something?
cheesymoonshadowNot sure if youâre serious, and I donât know if the pic is authentic, but I donât see dreadlocks, just thick Asian hair.
Source: Iâm Asian and had classmates with the same kind of hair.
The one on the left has half her hair in dreadlocks.
I guess the shutter could have blurred it to look exactly like dreadlocks, but it looks pretty definitive to me
If anything, itâs caked in mud.
Could be. I tried a reverse image search to find more context, and didnât find anything but posts like this with no citations, starting from 2017.
Iâm not convinced itâs real.
Believe it or not deadlocks arenât indigenous to modern era afor Americans
Did I say it was? My point was that it would be very odd in 1945 Japan
Jfc. Nevermind, Iâm not getting anywhere in this thread. I guess this isnât a community for discussion, just neat pictures.
I thought the same thing tbh, but upon zooming in I think it may just be a combo of shadows/sunlight and a shitty 1945 camera. Some of the âdreadsâ look kinda like normal hair towards the tips.
Identifing AI humans is getting difficult.
We need a gun expert
Donât think theyâre dreads. Look at the top of her head, it looks like itâs just very thick hair thatâs covered in dirt/ dust.
Were women allowed in school in Dai Nippon Empire? They barely get accepted nowadays.
The fuck you on about
It was a jab at women being rejected from universities in Japan, ongoing cultural problem. Also a legitimate question as well, I have no idea what sort of rights were afforded to women in Japan before their occupation by the USA, but I know historically they were treated like objects and dealt with footbinding or other body modifications.