Fud:
I don't get why everyone thinks that the atomic bombings were so bad. They did kill a lot of civilians. However, something that people overlook is that when the U.S. bombed Tokyo they killed just as many people as they did with either atomic bomb.

Overall, the atomic bombs probably saved many times more lives then they cost. They were meant to cause fear in Japan, causing them to lose the will to fight the war. They did this much more effectively then conventional weapons could have ever done it. If it wasn't for the bombs, the United States would have had to invade Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides. America very likely would have bombed more cities with conventional bombs, leading to just as many or possibly more civilian deaths then the atomic bombs did. Also, the much more of the country would have likely got destroyed, certainly more then the two cities that the atomic bombs destroyed.

The Americans used the Atom bombs to intimidate the Russians. The Japanese were suing for peace in the summer of 1945. The use of Kamikaze pilots and the desperate defence of Okinawa, etc. were merely baragining ploys made by the Japanese to try and encourage the Americans to accept a more favourable peace solution for the Japanese. The Japanese, however, did not reckon on the A-bomb.

Hmm, I thought the firebombings killed more people than that, well all the firebombings killed more people than any one A-bomb in WW2.

stinkychops:
Hmm, i forgot about this thread.
I have noticed upon skimming the posts that alot of people have attacked the point I raised(or misinformation IYO) about the US making money out of WW1 + WW2. I do not understand how this statement can be disputed. The US sold guns, ammo and weapons to countries throughout both and due to its lack of involvement was able to keep large amounts of the revenue. Also one person seemed to think that the US did not fight battered opposition, to which I can simply say, get an education you brainwashed, naive twit.

edit// upon reflection this is mainly directed at werepossum

Have you even heard of Lend-Lease? The USA did sell a lot of arms to the UK and its Commonwealth - you seemed to want them at the time - but GAVE even more through direct aid and Lend-Lease, which was a polite fiction in that none of that was ever paid back. It took the UK a couple of decades to even repay the loans from the straight-out sales.

As to the US fighting "battered opposition", that was true in parts of Africa, but certainly no where else. Germany took approximately 150,000 casualties, of which over half returned to duty; the Allies took well over two million. Of more than 130 Allied divisions and more than six million men at arms, barely a dozen survived the battle as intact fighting forces. Most had lost their equipment and were evacuated under fire - ever heard of the Miracle of Dunkirk? Yeah, they were battered, all right. It's so tiring chasing retreating forces, climbing over all those dead bodies and discarded equipment - you practically had them whipped before you ran out of places to run. The Germans lost about the same in the Africa campaign, although some of those were losses to American forces as well as Commonwealth. The German losses were about as high in the Italian campaign (majority American forces) as in all the Western fighting up that date, and lost more than in all those campaigns together in the first six months of the Normandy campaign.

Perhaps after your testicles drop you can get a job, buy a clue, and actually learn before you speak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Campaign
http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html

Fud:
I don't get why everyone thinks that the atomic bombings were so bad. They did kill a lot of civilians. However, something that people overlook is that when the U.S. bombed Tokyo they killed just as many people as they did with either atomic bomb.

Overall, the atomic bombs probably saved many times more lives then they cost. They were meant to cause fear in Japan, causing them to lose the will to fight the war. They did this much more effectively then conventional weapons could have ever done it. If it wasn't for the bombs, the United States would have had to invade Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides. America very likely would have bombed more cities with conventional bombs, leading to just as many or possibly more civilian deaths then the atomic bombs did. Also, the much more of the country would have likely got destroyed, certainly more then the two cities that the atomic bombs destroyed.

The problem with me is though that they weren't attacking the military in those cities, we were killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. That's just not forgivable in my eyes.

And I believe the reason they wouldn't surrender was because they wanted to keep their emperor. So we dropped the bombs, and when they surrendered we let them keep their emperor. So we killed over 200,000 people for basically nothing. It's a shame.

Fondant:
But the reason they couldn't get through the shingle was because they wouldn't use the Churchil Petard mortar carriers (designed specifically to remove anything from a roadblackto a small block of flats) to remove the German obstacles. So they got cut to bloody ribbons.

The concept that Omaha was the hardest beach is supported by the casualty figures, but they fail to take into account the atrocious planning that went into that assault.

I don't think it was the planning so much as the execution. The heavies dropped their bombs too far inland; in "protecting" the assaulting troops, they left the entrenched opposition virtually intact. The naval bombardment fell mostly where planned, but the assembly areas and reinforcing routes were mostly empty (since the garrison was not touched by the aerial bombardment there was no need to reinforce it until landing began), and those shells that did hit the emplacements were mostly ineffective, failing to penetrate the concrete walls. The rocket bombardment was launched too far out, falling on the beach and in the surf, although it still served a purpose by detonating mines - can you imagine if the troops at Omaha had hit the mines the Canadians hit?

Agree about the funnies, though.

Wow, what a massively huge dick wagging competitions.

Why fight? For a few years we were brothers fighting the motherfucking forces of evil and after the dust settles we fight over who did what the most?

But I guess the US did save china and even if the War would have been ended by the Soviets, is that really who you wanted to be in control at the end? I think the US contributions were great, but should in no way diminish the contributions of the other countries, especially Britain. And it gave the Soviets quite the predicament, instead of taking a lot more then anyone wanted to give them.

But who cares? At least we weren't the French and I think we should rejoice at that.

Btw I'm from Vietnam, that moved to the US, I don't think I live on the American fantasies.

Shivari:

Fud:
I don't get why everyone thinks that the atomic bombings were so bad. They did kill a lot of civilians. However, something that people overlook is that when the U.S. bombed Tokyo they killed just as many people as they did with either atomic bomb.

Overall, the atomic bombs probably saved many times more lives then they cost. They were meant to cause fear in Japan, causing them to lose the will to fight the war. They did this much more effectively then conventional weapons could have ever done it. If it wasn't for the bombs, the United States would have had to invade Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides. America very likely would have bombed more cities with conventional bombs, leading to just as many or possibly more civilian deaths then the atomic bombs did. Also, the much more of the country would have likely got destroyed, certainly more then the two cities that the atomic bombs destroyed.

The problem with me is though that they weren't attacking the military in those cities, we were killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. That's just not forgivable in my eyes.

And I believe the reason they wouldn't surrender was because they wanted to keep their emperor. So we dropped the bombs, and when they surrendered we let them keep their emperor. So we killed over 200,000 people for basically nothing. It's a shame.

Atleast we agree on something here. I said this earlier, then some guy pulled something saying that somehow both were tactically useful or something.

UsefulPlayer 1:

Btw I'm from Vietnam, that moved to the US, I don't think I live on the American fantasies.

I'm born and raised in the US, and I still don't have those fantasies. I think most of the people that's posted in this thread so far are nuts... and quite frankly I haven't seen too many people that actually know what they're talking about. Then again, this thread was doomed from the start.

The US didn't just firebomb Tokyo, they firebombed multiple Japanese cities.

The problems with the whole "We needed to nuke japan to make them surrender and to psyche out the russians" argument are as follows:

1. Japan was trying to surrender when we nuked them.
2. We could have nuked an unpopulated target to demonstrate the bomb's power, as every scientist on the Manhatten Project urged Truman to do.

Add to that the outrageously lie-filled speech Truman gave claiming no civilians would be killed by the bombs, and you realize he was just being a warmongering jackass.

I think this thread should be locked, its not really achieving anything. Most of you are just spouting bias crap now and with little real understanding of the subject.

Yeah, the gold is gone and now it's just back-and-forth nothingness and repeating what's been said.

Grampy_bone:
The US didn't just firebomb Tokyo, they firebombed multiple Japanese cities.

The problems with the whole "We needed to nuke japan to make them surrender and to psyche out the russians" argument are as follows:

1. Japan was trying to surrender when we nuked them.
2. We could have nuked an unpopulated target to demonstrate the bomb's power, as every scientist on the Manhatten Project urged Truman to do.

Add to that the outrageously lie-filled speech Truman gave claiming no civilians would be killed by the bombs, and you realize he was just being a warmongering jackass.

Japan wasn't trying to surrender, it was trying to negotiate an end to hostilities. In other words, what concessions do we have to make to make you stop fighting? That may sound reasonable now, but consider at the time we had just fought Germany in consecutive generations AND been seriously damaged by an attack from Japan when we were not at war with them; American leadership insisted on unconditional surrender from both Germany and Japan to avoid fighting them again next generation. The atomic bombs were very powerful indeed, but we had only two of them, and were months away from having more. Remember, the Japanese warlords didn't surrender even after both bombs - that took the emperor going over their heads directly to the people in his radio address, so the warlords could no longer claim they were still fighting in the name of the emperor. Using one of our bombs in a demonstration of its power would have been risky, especially considering that these were built with different technology and one or both could easily have failed, but arguably would have been the humane thing to do. To believe today that the demonstration would have been sufficient knowing that the warlords would not surrender even after losing the better part of two cities, that's just foolishness.

The issue with the emperor was not that we wanted him removed, it was that we required that he publicly renounce his historic claim to divinity. I'm not sure that the emperor himself had any problem doing that, but certainly the warlords running Japan were set against it. Fighting for the god on earth is a pretty powerful motivator, hence the kamikazes.

Sorry about your country, UsefulPlayer1; it's a beautiful place and I wish we had been able to keep it free. And I don't deny the contributions of other countries, especially Great Britain and the Commonwealth nations - had Britain folded, there would most likely have been no American war in Europe and most of Europe would have been part of the Soviet Union. It's just that this notion that Britain and the Commonwealth had Germany on the ropes and didn't really need the USA, they were just being polite and letting us feel like we helped, that really gets up my nose. I would agree that the freshness of US troops was our biggest and best advantage in breaking the stalemate in World War 1, but in WW2 we pulled our weight and more.

And I agree that the Soviet Union did even more than did America to defeat Germany - but don't forget that the Soviet Union was Germany's partner before being invaded, and that World War 2 was every bit as much a war of conquest for the Soviet Union every bit as much so as for Germany. What the USA took, it rebuilt and gave back; what the Soviet Union took, it kept. Too many people whose education begins and ends on the Internet try to ignore the difference, and I've heard too much America-bashing from too many useful idiots to just let it pass anymore.

Everything good America has ever done seem to lose it's significance when you factor in the dropping of the A-bomb.
Which is one of the most god awful things that has been done.
Very unnecessary!

It was rumoured that it was Roosevelt who withheld the information on Pearl Harbour to actually get the Us into the war. The Americans were still trading with the Nazis through the entirety of the war, it was either Sprite or 7up that was created because the coca cola/Pepsi corp didnt want the facists drinking the real taste of America. My mind is wandering its late and Im full of antibioyocs and nightnurse laced with scotch so if this doesnt make any sense apologies.

Oh and for the record Britain firebombed Dresden we virtually levelled the place in retaliation for Coventry. And the Russians lost more men in the war than any other nation.

Well undoubtedly the USA helped to win the war by alot,making things to much faster and less painfully. But the question of if the other Allied countries would have won without America's help is pretty hard to answer.

For Europe, I think they could've done it, mostly thanks to Russia. But as to the Pacific theatre, I mean America obviously did more there than anybody else, so if they weren't there Japan could've put alot more pressure on the other countries. If Japan managed to invade Australia, that would probably also tie up alot of British forces trying to help, and would the Russians be able to handle the Germans almost all by their lonesome? Hard to know.

If I ever invent a machine that lets me go back in time in another dimension, that'll definetly be the first new scenario I try out. After that comes the World in Conflict scenario.

Well, the idea that the Russians were kept afloat by lend-lease is slightly laughable, in particular when you consider how little was sent and how useless it often was (though they did like the Hurricanes a lot).

But insofar as I can make a judgement, this thread is not dead, it's simply being ruined by people unwilling to consider other peoples points.

For example: Werepossum and I both agree on the funnies, though I'm fairly sure that the sea mines placed around the beaches didn't do a lot of damage even on Utah, Gold and Sword.

But some people.... Christ, you don't seem capable of even debating properly. You just drop cracks like "You're wrong" and "Fuck your stupid" or so on. Please try and contest properly:

And Possum: The Germans were battered. They were up to their waists in Soviet mud, battered into pieces in North Africa, they lost Syria, and were not in the best of shape by the time Normandy or even Italy began. They're infrastructure was slowly being decimated, their logistics were riddled with 20 milimetre cannon shells and in general they weren't fighting at their best.

And dunkirk wouldn't have happened if the French hadn't lost their nerve.

werepossum:

Fondant:
But the reason they couldn't get through the shingle was because they wouldn't use the Churchil Petard mortar carriers (designed specifically to remove anything from a roadblackto a small block of flats) to remove the German obstacles. So they got cut to bloody ribbons.

The concept that Omaha was the hardest beach is supported by the casualty figures, but they fail to take into account the atrocious planning that went into that assault.

I don't think it was the planning so much as the execution. The heavies dropped their bombs too far inland; in "protecting" the assaulting troops, they left the entrenched opposition virtually intact. The naval bombardment fell mostly where planned, but the assembly areas and reinforcing routes were mostly empty (since the garrison was not touched by the aerial bombardment there was no need to reinforce it until landing began), and those shells that did hit the emplacements were mostly ineffective, failing to penetrate the concrete walls. The rocket bombardment was launched too far out, falling on the beach and in the surf, although it still served a purpose by detonating mines - can you imagine if the troops at Omaha had hit the mines the Canadians hit?

Agree about the funnies, though.

I agree on the funnies, too, but the execution side was a bit more complicated. The night of the bombing there was very low visibility over Omaha, which meant the bombs, as you said, were dropped off-target. Not so much a balls-up by the pilots as unavoidable weather.

werepossum:

Grampy_bone:
The US didn't just firebomb Tokyo, they firebombed multiple Japanese cities.

The problems with the whole "We needed to nuke japan to make them surrender and to psyche out the russians" argument are as follows:

1. Japan was trying to surrender when we nuked them.
2. We could have nuked an unpopulated target to demonstrate the bomb's power, as every scientist on the Manhatten Project urged Truman to do.

Add to that the outrageously lie-filled speech Truman gave claiming no civilians would be killed by the bombs, and you realize he was just being a warmongering jackass.

Japan wasn't trying to surrender, it was trying to negotiate an end to hostilities. In other words, what concessions do we have to make to make you stop fighting? That may sound reasonable now, but consider at the time we had just fought Germany in consecutive generations AND been seriously damaged by an attack from Japan when we were not at war with them; American leadership insisted on unconditional surrender from both Germany and Japan to avoid fighting them again next generation. The atomic bombs were very powerful indeed, but we had only two of them, and were months away from having more. Remember, the Japanese warlords didn't surrender even after both bombs - that took the emperor going over their heads directly to the people in his radio address, so the warlords could no longer claim they were still fighting in the name of the emperor. Using one of our bombs in a demonstration of its power would have been risky, especially considering that these were built with different technology and one or both could easily have failed, but arguably would have been the humane thing to do. To believe today that the demonstration would have been sufficient knowing that the warlords would not surrender even after losing the better part of two cities, that's just foolishness.

I also think that the whole "we're doing it for the divine emperor" was something that really stuck in America's craw and was something they deliberately wanted to extinguish; it's dangerous to leave a country with a leader whom military leaders could use as a heavenly justification to do whatever they felt like.

Xvito:
Everything good America has ever done seem to lose it's significance when you factor in the dropping of the A-bomb.
Which is one of the most god awful things that has been done.
Very unnecessary!

I've always found it interesting that people have a problem with Hiroshima and Nagasaki but always forget that the bombing of Tokyo killed more people - are these Japanese less worthy of our sympathy because they died to good old fire?

Let's have a good look shall we?

At the start of the war Germany's mobilisation of it's military power gave it a massive advatange, and it was equal to the size of RUSSIA's army at the time. Once Germany and Russia had gone to war, France had been taken over, and Britain had joined in on the fisty-cuffs, everything was going pretty well.. The Russians had defended Moscow successfully and were starting to push. The French resistance were actually doing things.

When operation overlord commenced, the Americans helped quite a bit, but barely in the terms of actual war. Russia could have taken out Germany almost on their own, I personally believe, without America's interference. The main way America helped was in producing ammunition. Their assaults on the Normandy beaches were the least successful, and their tanks were utterly flopped, as they refused to produce tanks with larger main guns.

No, they did not "Save everyones asses" but they ended the war faster than it would have ended otherwise, and saved lives on all sides in the process. Without them Russia would have likely taken over Germany in that time, and that would have been bad for all of us.

Dinnj:
Let's have a good look shall we?
No, they did not "Save everyones asses" but they ended the war faster than it would have ended otherwise, and saved lives on all sides in the process.

Yeah I think that sums up my opinion of it. In relation to the A-bombs though, they were dropped because it was so unlikely that Japan would surrender. Yes, they had been beaten but they were not going to admit it. Without them being dropped it is unsure how long the Japanese would have held on, but it would have been a lot longer than with them being dropped. I'm not saying its right or wrong I'm just providing some background. (I hope, I could be entirely wrong)

Xvito:
Everything good America has ever done seem to lose it's significance when you factor in the dropping of the A-bomb.
Which is one of the most god awful things that has been done.
Very unnecessary!

The dropping of the A bomb most likely saved more lives than it took, by putting a period at the end. Another theory of this is that the UK caused the war by strangling Germany in the financial markets after WW1. When Germany started to regain financial strength England cried foul. All this precedes the war but many argue that this is what caused it. Another war america was unnecessarily drawn into.

P.S. this thread should have been closed long ago...

s3cur1tr0n:

Xvito:
Everything good America has ever done seem to lose it's significance when you factor in the dropping of the A-bomb.
Which is one of the most god awful things that has been done.
Very unnecessary!

The dropping of the A bomb most likely saved more lives than it took, by putting a period at the end. Another theory of this is that the UK caused the war by strangling Germany in the financial markets after WW1. When Germany started to regain financial strength England cried foul. All this precedes the war but many argue that this is what caused it. Another war america was unnecessarily drawn into.

I don't know if it saved more lives than it took, but it certainly did it quicker.

In reference to the UK strangling Germany, it was more 'everyone' than just the UK. Many of the Germans felt that their Army had never been decisively defeated in WWI and that the Kaisers government had just rolled over for the Allied Powers. They then had to pay massive reparations and limit there army as a result of WWI. Hitler used all this to gain power and it was eventually the appeasement and lack of cracking down on Germany for breaking the treaty of Versailles that lead to WWII.

EDIT: Oh and the US weren't drawn into it, they wanted in on it, badly.

The interesting thing about this thread is that people are now looking beyond the original question. Most people seem to have said 'No America didn't save counties asses, but they did save peoples asses, because if they didn't get involved the war would have dragged on for longer'.

People are now looking at justification. Were the dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man neccessary? Did more people die in the fire bombings in Japan / Germany than in the wake of atomic destruction? The first question is one there can be no answer for partly due to the second answer. More people were killed in Dresden than in Hiroshima, and the fire bombings of WW2 were more destructive than the atomic weapons used. But that doesn't make it right.

World War 2 was the first war to directly target the civilian population to cause the nation to get demoralised. Yes, many and most wars before had civilian casualities, but the civilians weren't the targets on such a macro scale. This resulted in a change in military tactics, due mostly because long range bombing were now feasilble. Thus we end up with fire bombings, long range missles and A-bombs. None of it is forgivable, but yet we have to forgive the sins of our parents, for it is only with that stain on our souls that we can hope to learn from there mistakes and not repeat there atrocities.

I don't like raining on any revisionist parades, but I will tell you right now that...

1) England and France were defeated by Hitler before he turned around to attack Russia (driven from France back to England), and there was no way that the British (getting blasted by Axis bombers night after night) could possibly have planned and executed the invasion of Normandy themselves.

1b) In addition, Hitler defeated Eastern Europe with the help of the Russians.

2) The Japanese had already conquered much of Manchurian China, Okinawa and Taiwan; they pushed west into Korea, Thailand and Cambodia; they were pushing south into Australia, and were pushing into the American territory of the Phillipines (that is why they needed to destroy the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor). Oh, and all the while their soldiers were committing atrocities that a) mainstream America has never heard of, and b) completely justified the Hiroshima bomb (IMO, of course).

3) Italy controlled much of Northern Africa and had swallowed everything from Egypt to Morocco (watch Casablanca, anyone???).

4) The Russians had eliminated much opposition from the former Ottoman Empire before they were betrayed by Hitler. Yes, several million Russians died at Leningrad and Stalingrad.

So, in light of these facts, who exactly was the remaining power in the world that had the perfect balance of technology, numbers, and resources? AND the crucial fact, was not involved in a two front war (that's right, Russia is disqualified as it would have had to face Germany and Japan at once).

So, no, I do not believe that the shattered remnants of the remaining Allied Forces (pre-USA involvment) could have pulled the world out of the grip of the Axis of Evil.

It is amazing how the world can condemn the war crimes of Hitler and Mussloini and completely forget the atrocities done in Korea, Okinawa, Manchurian China, and Singapore by the Japanese. Brutal enemies since the dawn of time, the asian communities were committed to the total annihilation of one another.