Eh... Possibly to measure results, but more likely to create a scene of mass casualty that would scare the holy crap out of them. It worked.... I'm glad it did too. My Uncle Ray was trained and shipped to the Pacific for the invasion of mainland Japan. I'm glad he didn't have to follow through, and rather sold cars for 40 years and was a cool guy that I was able to know.

In that situation, you either win and keep your life, or you lose and they keep theirs. In that case, I'm glad we kept ours.

As I wrote earlier, freedom of speech do have limitation, only for the very reasonable reason that granting the right should not be an excuse to abuse other rights which are by law equally valued.

Her is a citation from Wiki
that brings a nice summery of the right and it's limitations. You might want to read it before you farther continue defend the use
of "heil hitler" as a legit nick name publicly.

"According to the Freedom Forum Organization, legal systems, and society at large, recognize limits on the freedom of speech, particularly when freedom of speech conflicts with other values or rights.[38] Limitations to freedom of speech may follow the "harm principle" or the "offense principle", for example in the case of pornography, or hate speech. Limitations to freedom of speech may occur through legal sanction or social disapprobation, or both.[39]"

True, the U.S. government's motivation in WW2 engagements can be debated as multifaceted and certainly not un-self-serving. In these modern political and manipulative times, there can hardly be a war participation that can be claimed as "cleanly ethical."

However, let's be careful how we paint WW2 Imperial Japan. Japan's leadership was obsessed with conquering, as attested to by its occupation of country after country around the Pacific Rim. My parents and their families were all part of the occupied, and it sucked. However motivated, the U.S. involvement in WW2 after 1941 and, quite specifically it's decision (again, however tainted, or not) to use the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the end of horrible atrocities throughout the Pacific Rim. My parents have told us stories of the immediate aftermath of the bomb drops, including the radio announcements of Japan's surrender, and occupation soldiers (who otherwise were owning the streets) simply laying down their rifles and kneeling, waiting to be arrested.

Note that even with the bombs, surrender was not recognized by factions of the Japanese military for years following 1945 in various occupied countries. And yet, there is still debate as to whether the bombs were necessary. I understand that the U.S. government was experimenting, and other odd factors were played. But my parents and their families don't doubt for a minute that the bombs were necessary, because they were there in Southeast Asia. Imperial Japan was on some sort of psychotic wild ride down the continent, and despite the accumulating Allied powers, Japan wasn't backing down. Even in the face of Potsdam, they remained undeterred. Something game-changing needed to happen. Perhaps there were other ways to do it, but the chosen path, for all its problems, effectively ended the Pacific war.

Note that all of my Japanese friends today disavow imperial Japan during those times. I wish all races, nationalities, and religions would disavow the extremists among them.

Just needed to round out that part of the exchange. This is one man's opinion, based on a few dozen opinions of those who were victims of the Pacific occupation that is often overlooked as being part of WW2. For millions of people, this *was* WW2.

Manfred

So, back to Hitler wannabes.

The reason it is acceptable, in some places, to arrest people for doing the Nazi salute is that it is a form of "hate speech". Why else would someone do it other than to be offensive.? (To the point of intimidation) If you really believe that fascism is the way to go why would you choose symbolism which is fairly universally despised instead of diplomatically advocating for your beliefs?

I think that anyone who chooses to use the name Adolf Hitler or who uses the Nazi flag and other Nazi specific symbols knows that they are making people very uncomfortable and is doing so with malicious intent. There may be rare exceptions but I think it is reasonable for them to expect to take some heat for it.

I once read about some actors who were dressed as Nazis for a theater performance. They went out back to have a smoke before the show and were confronted by several people and the police were summoned. No arrests were made but they decided to remove the hats and jackets when they were not on or backstage.

HONESTLY I AM FINISHED WITH THIS SUBJECT, IT ERKS ME TO THE HILLS!!!! HERE IS MY FINAL SAY, I FLEW HONORABLY FOR MY COUNTRY FROM 1984 -1989!!! I WAS PART OF THE RAID ( the first time) in 1986 LYBIA, ON MOMAR KADAFI, WE JUST MISSED HIM, BUT WE DID GET SOME OF HIS BREEDERS!!! AND SOME OF THE YOUNG ONES IN TRAINING!!!! I DID MY DUTY!!! I WOULD DO IT AGAIN!!! AS YOU SEE ON MY BANNER THAT IS THE JET I USED TO FLY IN I WAS PART OF A TACTICAL TEAM WHO WAS CALLED TO DO TACTICAL MISSIONS!!! AIRCRAFT LIKE THIS ARE BUILT FOR ONE PURPOSE ONLY!!!! SO THAT BEING SAID!!! GREAT CONVERSATION, HITLER IS STILL A DOOSH FOR FLYING UNDER THAT NAME, SEE YOU IN THE SKIES, PRAY YOUR NOT RED!!! TO ALL THOSE WHO WERE PART OF THIS, YOUR ALL GOOD PEOPLE, (Except HITLER), I ENJOY FLYING WITH YOU ALL, I HOPE YOU FEEL LIKE WISE, THIS IS THE BEST GAME OUT IN MY OPINION!!! TO ALL THOSE WHO SERVED THIER COUNTRY HONORABLY, A BIG THANKS!!!!!!!! I SALUTE YOU!!!!!!!!!!

MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES ALWAYS( EXCEPT HITLER)

HD, WHEN I DO A HIGH SPEED FLY BYE NEAR YOU , GONNA MAKE MY NUTS ON THE BACK OF MY PLANE SLAP YOU UPSIDE YOUR HEAD!!!! ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!! Just kidding!!!!!

Wrong....I'm sorry you do not know your history...The facts of what an amphibious assault on mainland Japan has been studied by historians and military scholars for decades....The fact is hundreds of thousands of lives were saved....It was tragic and all war is terrible....Im sorry that lives were lost.....but many many more would have been lost if otherwise.

Pistolpete59 wrote: HD, WHEN I DO A HIGH SPEED FLY BYE NEAR YOU , GONNA MAKE MY NUTS ON THE BACK OF MY PLANE SLAP YOU UPSIDE YOUR HEAD!!!! ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!! Just kidding!!!!!

You really want your nuts to get that close to a spinning wooden prop?

Manfred wrote: True, the U.S. government's motivation in WW2 engagements can be debated as multifaceted and certainly not un-self-serving. In these modern political and manipulative times, there can hardly be a war participation that can be claimed as "cleanly ethical."

However, let's be careful how we paint WW2 Imperial Japan. Japan's leadership was obsessed with conquering, as attested to by its occupation of country after country around the Pacific Rim. My parents and their families were all part of the occupied, and it sucked. However motivated, the U.S. involvement in WW2 after 1941 and, quite specifically it's decision (again, however tainted, or not) to use the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the end of horrible atrocities throughout the Pacific Rim. My parents have told us stories of the immediate aftermath of the bomb drops, including the radio announcements of Japan's surrender, and occupation soldiers (who otherwise were owning the streets) simply laying down their rifles and kneeling, waiting to be arrested.

Note that even with the bombs, surrender was not recognized by factions of the Japanese military for years following 1945 in various occupied countries. And yet, there is still debate as to whether the bombs were necessary. I understand that the U.S. government was experimenting, and other odd factors were played. But my parents and their families don't doubt for a minute that the bombs were necessary, because they were there in Southeast Asia. Imperial Japan was on some sort of psychotic wild ride down the continent, and despite the accumulating Allied powers, Japan wasn't backing down. Even in the face of Potsdam, they remained undeterred. Something game-changing needed to happen. Perhaps there were other ways to do it, but the chosen path, for all its problems, effectively ended the Pacific war.

Note that all of my Japanese friends today disavow imperial Japan during those times. I wish all races, nationalities, and religions would disavow the extremists among them.

Just needed to round out that part of the exchange. This is one man's opinion, based on a few dozen opinions of those who were victims of the Pacific occupation that is often overlooked as being part of WW2. For millions of people, this *was* WW2.

Manfred

Manny, nicely put but going to post a hypothetical here. Let's say the us didnt nuke japan. Both bombs were dropped after v-e day, and the invasion plans weren't scheduled to be implemented for the several months it was going to take to transfer all those allied soldiers to the pacific for the invasion. With that kind of sheer firepower amassed and converging on one place the japanese would've hardly stood a chance and they knew it. I think hirohito took as long as he did to surrender not bc he was that fanatical but bc he was worried about the fanatics right in front of him. I think its entirely possible that had we positioned ourselves and the full might of the allied armada for invasion that he'd have surrendered without needing to be nuked. At the end of the day its important that we not forget the lessons of the past lest we repeat our mistakes. Warfare is an ugly, violent, traumatizing hell and noone who engages in it ever returns the same. Were civilized enough. I dont see any reason why the people of the world cant eliminate war altogether if they just banded together and worked in,the interest of the greater good.

|111th| tSwopCaml wrote: Wrong....I'm sorry you do not know your history...The facts of what an amphibious assault on mainland Japan has been studied by historians and military scholars for decades....The fact is hundreds of thousands of lives were saved....It was tragic and all war is terrible....Im sorry that lives were lost.....but many many more would have been lost if otherwise.

Yes i do know my history swop. To prove it the projected allied casualties on the first day of the invasion were calculated at 1,000,000 killed wounded and captured. However, the part of that that is given very little attention is the amount of overwhelming conventional airpower we had. We had so many planes that we could have swept through and destroyed every defensive position the japanese had without using nukes. And we could have done it as many times as necessary to make them capitulate. The japanese, like the germans at the end, lacked the fuel, raw materials and the industrial strength needed to continue the fight. Plain and simple, hirohito knew it was over long before we nuked him. And i tend to think that had we not nuked him, he would've still been smart enough to surrender before being invaded.

I dont believe they knew that they didnt stand a chance....They were all willing to fight to the last man...that is why they rejected multiple times the offer to surrender before the bombs were dropped and even with the US amassing all the military ready for a ground invasion. You only seem to focus on the plane power...but the fact remains a land invasion would still be necessary...in ever possibility outside of the bombs it would have made for many 100,000's of lives lost much more than the 2 bombs caused.

HD..I dont think you realize that the US still would need to do a land invasion.....thats just a fact.

"And i tend to think that had we not nuked him, he would've still been smart enough to surrender before being invaded."

I also dont believe this statement that you said...otherwise there wouldnt have been the bombs dropped. You fail to recognize that the US was already amassing this. Also the Japanese didnt believe we had the nuclear bomb or the affects of the nuclear bomb. The quotations by the Japanese at this time stated this. If they believed the truth they would have surrendered prior to the bombs being dropped. In fact the Japanese after the first bomb STILL rejected the terms of surrender.....thereby requiring a SECOND bomb...That doesnt give an indication of "Hirohito smart enough" as you describe.

McFate wrote: So, back to Hitler wannabes.

The reason it is acceptable, in some places, to arrest people for doing the Nazi salute is that it is a form of "hate speech". Why else would someone do it other than to be offensive.? (To the point of intimidation) If you really believe that fascism is the way to go why would you choose symbolism which is fairly universally despised instead of diplomatically advocating for your beliefs?

I think that anyone who chooses to use the name Adolf Hitler or who uses the Nazi flag and other Nazi specific symbols knows that they are making people very uncomfortable and is doing so with malicious intent. There may be rare exceptions but I think it is reasonable for them to expect to take some heat for it.

I once read about some actors who were dressed as Nazis for a theater performance. They went out back to have a smoke before the show and were confronted by several people and the police were summoned. No arrests were made but they decided to remove the hats and jackets when they were not on or backstage.

Mcfate, while i agree with some of the things you said, it occured to me that even hate speeches, while malicious are still a form of free speech. As much as i dont want to use another hate filled organization as an example, the kkk still holds its rallies out in the middle of nowhere, where they aren't bothering anyone. Now if they were to do so in a more public venue, i.e. a major city,they ultimately could not be arrested and prosecuted in the us as long as they demonstrated peaceably. Now, we all know that the likelihood of that is pretty slim. And the public outcry would be tremendous. At the end of the day though in the states, police would be powerless to intervene until someone became physically violent.

|111th| tSwopCaml wrote: I dont believe they knew that they didnt stand a chance....They were all willing to fight to the last man...that is why they rejected multiple times the offer to surrender before the bombs were dropped and even with the US amassing all the military ready for a ground invasion. You only seem to focus on the plane power...but the fact remains a land invasion would still be necessary...in ever possibility outside of the bombs it would have made for many 100,000's of lives lost much more than the 2 bombs caused.

HD..I dont think you realize that the US still would need to do a land invasion.....thats just a fact.

"And i tend to think that had we not nuked him, he would've still been smart enough to surrender before being invaded."

I also dont believe this statement that you said...otherwise there wouldnt have been the bombs dropped. You fail to recognize that the US was already amassing this. Also the Japanese didnt believe we had the nuclear bomb or the affects of the nuclear bomb. The quotations by the Japanese at this time stated this. If they believed the truth they would have surrendered prior to the bombs being dropped. In fact the Japanese after the first bomb STILL rejected the terms of surrender.....thereby requiring a SECOND bomb...That doesnt give an indication of "Hirohito smart enough" as you describe.

Hirohito and members of his cabinet were ready to surrender before they were nuked swop. Hirohito was sick of war at the end. He was even more sickened by the loss of civilian life during the firebombing campaign. The civilian cabinet members were also ready to surrender. The problem he had were the fanatical generals and admirals on his cabinet staff. He needed their support to surrender for several reasons. The first was bc of an attempted coup de etat (not suite if i spelled that right) by military members who were on his cabinet staff. The second reason was bc when he ordered the surrender he wanted his military to follow the surrender order. This could only be guaranteed if he had the support of those generals and admirals. In the end he ordered the surrender without their support, and exactly what he'd feared happened: elements of his military ignored the order.the behind the scenes activity was in some ways worse than the actual fighting.

History doesnt support what you said here....They RESPONDED to the order to surrender.....THATS the fact....and REJECTED it.....after the first bomb the US offered another term of surrender and THEY REJECTED that.....

I'm sorry...I have no idea where you get your history that they were planning on surrendering...but the historical facts do not support what you say.

In fact there are many many statements by the Japanese government of their lack of belief of the US having a nuclear weapon BEFORE the two bombs were dropped and therefore didnt accept the terms of surrender...After the first one was dropped they still rejected the terms of surrender and made statements of themnot believing the US had multiple nuclear bombs. The second nuclear bomb was dropped and they accepted cause 1) they now changed their belief and believed that the US had multiple nuclear bombs and 2) the intelligence of the amassed military arsenal around them was overwhelming....Much of the intelligence Japan had was limited and they didnt see what the US actually had....US conterintelligence operation was amazing at this time.

|111th| tSwopCaml wrote: History doesnt support what you said here....They RESPONDED to the order to surrender.....THATS the fact....and REJECTED it.....after the first bomb the US offered another term of surrender and THEY REJECTED that.....

I'm sorry...I have no idea where you get your history that they were planning on surrendering...but the historical facts do not support what you say.

In fact there are many many statements by the Japanese government of their lack of belief of the US having a nuclear weapon BEFORE the two bombs were dropped and therefore didnt accept the terms of surrender...After the first one was dropped they still rejected the terms of surrender and made statements of themnot believing the US had multiple nuclear bombs. The second nuclear bomb was dropped and they accepted cause 1) they now changed their belief and believed that the US had multiple nuclear bombs and 2) the intelligence of the amassed military arsenal around them was overwhelming....Much of the intelligence Japan had was limited and they didnt see what the US actually had....US conterintelligence operation was amazing at this time.

Swop, the history I'm using to support my argument against the use of nuclear weapons against Japan comes from 25 years of researching and studying ww2 from every angle i could dig up information on. Most of what is taught about it in public schools is the stripped down version of what really happened, and to get the whole story from both sides one must dig much much deeper. Even with japan's lack of intelligence on the numbers of men and equipment being amassed against them, hirohito didn't have to be a genius to know that he was gonna lose. After he lost okinawa, hirohito began looking for support for surrender, even going so far as attempting to negotiate better surrender terms with the allies in an attempt to prevent Japan from being split up and ruled by the allies the way Germany was. Hirohito's primary concern at the end of war was more focused on the fair treatment of the Japanese people as a whole as opposed to trying to prolong the war. Whether or not he believed that the us had nukes and were willing to use them was a secondary concern. some of the official documents passed between the various powers at the time would appear on the surface to debunk my argument, however if you again dig deeper, you find its actually the opposite. While he was the emperor, hirohito needed the support of the majority of the cabinet in order to surrender. At first he was met with stiff opposition from both the military and some political personnel in his cabinet. Even after being nuked he again tried to negotiate better terms of surrender with the allies which were dismissed by Truman, and led to the second bomb being dropped. Because of the need to keep their fighting spirit and morale intact for a potential last stand, the propaganda of the time tells a different story. In the end, hirohito sent a surrender proposal to the allies, again attempting to get better surrender terms from the allies. Some of the terms of this proposal included surrendering to the us, allowing hirohito to remain the emperor, and the promise that his people would be treated fairly. This was accepted by Truman, the rest of the details were quickly hammered out and the war ended. The folly of the end of ww2 is that japan was ready to surrender not long after v-e day, but bc of the allied insistence that the surrender be unconditional, the war dragged on. It could have ended months earlier than it did had the allies simply agreed to a ceasefire while the final terms of the surrender were negotiated.

Couple of points; No infantryman worth his salt ever surrendered to an airplane. No amount of bombing or shelling will ever defeat determined infantry. The British fired 1,000 rounds an acre during the Somme offensive, and when the barrage lifted, the German crawled out of their holes and cut down nearly 60,000 of the British soldiers advancing against them. We have tried to bomb many countries into submission; it has rarely worked as planned. German factories in WWII went underground and production was halted only by lack of raw material, not by Allied bombing. The point, ground troops take ground. An invasion would have been necessary without atomic weapons.

But at what cost? Casualty estimates aren't worth the paper they're printed on, unless your unit is short of TP, then they have some value. I laughed in both gulf wars, from the turret, at the ridiculous casualty estimates. Look at D-Day casualty expectations and realities. Antietam remains the "bloodiest day" and only because both sides were American. The style of fighting would have been vastly different than the rest of the Pacific Theater, given the room for maneuver. The Army would have been able to employ heavy armor and coordinated air and artillery assets. As a German Colonel observed, "I never fought the Americans. I saw enough of their artillery and aircraft, but never their infantry". Given room and ammo, US doctrine is to avoid casualties through firepower (and still is). Now compare casualties on Okinawa at 50,000 (12,000 killed) for 82 days, or 600 a day killed and wounded. I would drop that substantially as the battle environment was much different. The Pacific Island battles gave the defender advantages, limited landing sites presited by Japanese artillery and machine guns, interior lines, good communication, sitting on their supplies. In a campaign for the Japanese homeland the attacker can pick the landing site and ground, bypass resistance, and employ the heavy armor over a wide network of roads and flatlands around Tokyo. Rather than a costly extermination mission like Iwo Jima or Tarawa or Okinawa, the goal of maneuver warfare then becomes destroy the seat of the enemy's government, his production, his supply. Nothing turns determined infantry into disorganized rabble faster than armor moving inexorably over their positions, and no civilian militia in the world will stand that advance, rather they melt away like butter in a hot pan, with the few die-hards becoming fodder for the coax.

There are a couple good "what-if?" books on the subject, using revisionist history.

Unconditional Surrender WAS the only way to surrender...

the US takes NO blame for what the Japanese "lack of interest in surrendering"....The fact remains....they did NOT believe BEFORE the bomb was dropped that the US HAD a bomb....then AFTER the first one was dropped they didnt believe the Us had multiples....This lack of belief in the truth by the Japanese was their downfall...If they had known that the US had multiple nuclear bombs and multiple in number and that the US would even use it ...they would have surrendered...but they continued to believe the falsehoods.

HD....the fact remains...the Japanese had NO interest in surrendering....

"The folly of the end of ww2 is that japan was ready to surrender not long after v-e day, but bc of the allied insistence that the surrender be unconditional, the war dragged on.: THIS TOTALLY NOT TRUE!!!!

"The point, ground troops take ground. An invasion would have been necessary without atomic weapons."
awesome comment Longrifle.....this fact supports the fact that the US made the correct decision in WWII

HD....I have studied and studied and studied....and you dont have facts....Japan was a nation who could not be trusted...They went to the US the very week of Pearl Harbor for a peace treaty to distract the fact of actually attacking Pearl Harbor...Thats a fact....So one can look at history from the "Japanese side"...and get MANY MANY FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTS....like the ones you are stating here on the subject.

Longrifle wrote: Couple of points; No infantryman worth his salt ever surrendered to an airplane. No amount of bombing or shelling will ever defeat determined infantry. The British fired 1,000 rounds an acre during the Somme offensive, and when the barrage lifted, the German crawled out of their holes and cut down nearly 60,000 of the British soldiers advancing against them. We have tried to bomb many countries into submission; it has rarely worked as planned. German factories in WWII went underground and production was halted only by lack of raw material, not by Allied bombing. The point, ground troops take ground. An invasion would have been necessary without atomic weapons.

But at what cost? Casualty estimates aren't worth the paper they're printed on, unless your unit is short of TP, then they have some value. I laughed in both gulf wars, from the turret, at the ridiculous casualty estimates. Look at D-Day casualty expectations and realities. Antietam remains the "bloodiest day" and only because both sides were American. The style of fighting would have been vastly different than the rest of the Pacific Theater, given the room for maneuver. The Army would have been able to employ heavy armor and coordinated air and artillery assets. As a German Colonel observed, "I never fought the Americans. I saw enough of their artillery and aircraft, but never their infantry". Given room and ammo, US doctrine is to avoid casualties through firepower (and still is). Now compare casualties on Okinawa at 50,000 (12,000 killed) for 82 days, or 600 a day killed and wounded. I would drop that substantially as the battle environment was much different. The Pacific Island battles gave the defender advantages, limited landing sites presited by Japanese artillery and machine guns, interior lines, good communication, sitting on their supplies. In a campaign for the Japanese homeland the attacker can pick the landing site and ground, bypass resistance, and employ the heavy armor over a wide network of roads and flatlands around Tokyo. Rather than a costly extermination mission like Iwo Jima or Tarawa or Okinawa, the goal of maneuver warfare then becomes destroy the seat of the enemy's government, his production, his supply. Nothing turns determined infantry into disorganized rabble faster than armor moving inexorably over their positions, and no civilian militia in the world will stand that advance, rather they melt away like butter in a hot pan, with the few die-hards becoming fodder for the coax.

There are a couple good "what-if?" books on the subject, using revisionist history.

Rifle, i'd like to point out that what you say doesn't always hold true. Granted, its the exception, but still worthy of mention. Im referring to a battle fought in the pacific in ww2. I dont recall exactly which battle it was, however, the marines were ordered to take a mountain. So the marines called in air support to soften up the target. Waves of hellcats and corsairs made repeated bombing and strafing runs and the ground troops took the mountain without firing a single shot. With regards to the use of air power at the end of the war, while i do highlight that as a major factor of what could have happened, i don't dismiss that a ground invasion would have been necessary, nor do i dismiss how violently bloody it would have been. That being said i still don't think it would have come to that even if we hadn't nuked them. In the course of my research, I've come to believe that hirohito would have surrendered to spare his people and their culture, rather than make a futile and bloody last stand given the odds that were stacked against him. Unlike hitler, hirohito wasn't crazy. Power hungry perhaps, but not crazy. Unlike hitler, hirohito didnt order things like the bataan death march, that behavior was decided by the soldiers and generals in the field, and were never official policy. Im getting slightly off topic here, but my point is that a better way was available at the end and truman could've taken that way but chose not to bc allowing the war to continue offered him the time to produce nukes and see what their damage really was. Thats just my opinion, and we may never really know, but everything I've studied about it seems to support my theory.

HD...it sure sounds like your "covering up" Hirohito......Do you remember that he was Emperor and that in those cultures....they change the facts to "protect and cover up" the truth?....It was under Hirohito's watch (for the sake of argument) and therefore it WAS his responsibility Baatan AND the lack of surrender.

Truman's response was in direct reaction to Hirohito's having no desire to accept unconditional surrender and the lack of belief that the US had any nuclear weapons as well...

|111th| tSwopCaml wrote: HD....I have studied and studied and studied....and you dont have facts....Japan was a nation who could not be trusted...They went to the US the very week of Pearl Harbor for a peace treaty to distract the fact of actually attacking Pearl Harbor...Thats a fact....So one can look at history from the "Japanese side"...and get MANY MANY FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTS....like the ones you are stating here on the subject.

"japan could not be trusted". That just proves my point, because in any armed conflict at some point you have to trust that if your enemy desires peace, then they will lay down their arms. Just because you are wary of a plot to catch you off gaurd doesn't mean you have the right to keep shooting them while you negotiate for peace. A ceasefire could have been used to end the bloodshed while surrender terms were hashed out but it wasn't. And to say that unconditional surrender was necessary bc of pearl harbor is also a misguided view. I'll illustrate this further by jumping ahead to the end if the cold war. Many people on both sides believed that if either side began to back down, the other would use the opportunity to attack. History shows us that first one side, then the other very slowly took their fingers off the button that would have started ww3. My point is that sooner or later you have to show your enemy a bit of faith that they've learned their lesson, and allow peaceful means to take over. And i stand by my argument that that means was available and ignored by the us.

Unconditional Surrender was the only way for Japan to avoid all of this... and I believe the USA acted correctly to pursue that and only that.....period.....it was something that needed to have been and was and correctly so "non-negotiable"....it was the same thing requested of Germany and therefore was requested by Japan....

With regard to Pearl Harbor...I never presented it as the only reason to not ask for anything less...

NO MEANS WERE NECESSARY OTHER THAN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER BY THE JAPANESE....

Japan in WWII is WAY WAY different than the situations regarding the cold war....there is no comparison and so to attempt to compare the two....just doesnt work within the facts and proper understanding of the history of WWII..

The fact remains....the Japanese were offered ceasefires....and they rejected them....

I never proved your point......

|111th| tSwopCaml wrote: HD...it sure sounds like your "covering up" Hirohito......Do you remember that he was Emperor and that in those cultures....they change the facts to "protect and cover up" the truth?....It was under Hirohito's watch (for the sake of argument) and therefore it WAS his responsibility Baatan AND the lack of surrender.

Truman's response was in direct reaction to Hirohito's having no desire to accept unconditional surrender and the lack of belief that the US had any nuclear weapons as well...

I'm not covering up Hirohito. It's no secret than many axis documents were destroyed at the end of the war. So if hirohito did indeed order the bataan death march, and i don't think he did, then i haven't found the documents that would prove me wrong. I'm not saying he wasn't responsible for what happened. But i am saying that i don't think he ever said "force march the Americans to the prison camp". This doesn't release him from liability, since as the emperor he would've been responsible for the behavior of his troops. That being said, there is plenty of evidence to support my argument that nuking them was unnecessary and done solely as a final show of force to deter anyone else from restarting a global war twenty years down the road. And it still shows that all sides in that war violated the Geneva convention rules of war in equally brutal and massive ways which in the end led to massive loss of life on all sides, both military and civilian.

Wow, great thread. I agree with you all, but it's in my nature to disagree so here goes.
Whatever the Japanese were thinking the decision to go nuclear was, in my opinion, driven by broader global influences.
Roosevelt was visionary and independent minded. Truman was not. He was heavily influenced by Churchill who was paranoid about communism and determined to maintain the British empire. The western allies had lost the race for Berlin and were about to lose the race for Tokyo. The soviet offensive into Manchuria and Korea, if allowed to continue, would have annihilated all Japanese resistance, forcing them to surrender to Stalin. The Atom bombs were not necessary to force Japanese surrender and save American lives - I agree with HD on that front. They were deployed to halt the war quickly and impede soviet expansionism, also to send a strategic message to Stalin. I think Churchill was the only one who celebrated the atom bombs. Roosevelt's 'end of ALL empires' vision was lost in Truman's anti soviet ideology and subsequent arms race. It's ironic that Truman didn't even want the job!

Oh, and by the way, Adolph should just be ignored. He will get bored and find another name soon enough.

.

.

|111th| tSwopCaml wrote: Unconditional Surrender was the only way for Japan to avoid all of this... and I believe the USA acted correctly to pursue that and only that.....period.....it was something that needed to have been and was and correctly so "non-negotiable"....it was the same thing requested of Germany and therefore was requested by Japan....

With regard to Pearl Harbor...I never presented it as the only reason to not ask for anything less...

NO MEANS WERE NECESSARY OTHER THAN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER BY THE JAPANESE....

Japan in WWII is WAY WAY different than the situations regarding the cold war....there is no comparison and so to attempt to compare the two....just doesnt work within the facts and proper understanding of the history of WWII..

The fact remains....the Japanese were offered ceasefires....and they rejected them....

I never proved your point......

So you don't think there's an analogous relationship between the end of the cold war and the end of ww2? Because i do and it's right in plain sight. The end of ww2 showed the world just how nasty war can get when one or both sides refuse to back down because they don't want to appear weak. By the end of the cold war, i think many people were calling bs on both sides until cooler heads prevailed and the faith that both could back down without losing face was shown. While the geo political structure of the world was different in 1946, the principle still holds true. Therefore, had Hirohito had the support, or had acted sooner, and had truman been more willing to end the bloodshed the end of ww2 could have come months earlier than it did.

I dont believe the US violated the Geneva convention because the US offered many times terms of surrender and every one was rejected outright without the Japanese even interested in negotiation....

Truman was willing to end the bloodshed....he offered in agnosium terms of surrender and was rejected everytime...Truman had no other choice but to do what he did.....the facts support how many lives that would have been lost otherwise as well....

end of WWII and Cold War has no similarities...the Cold War lasted decades and WWII lasted 6 years.....Hitler and Japan were WAY worse in there inability to desire a negotiated settlement let alone the violation of "peace in our time"......than the Soviets during the Cold War....

Live were saved period compared to the alternative of a ground invasion of Japan......Unconditional Surrender was the only choice and Japan rejected it to its own detriment

Swop. Demonisation of your enemy is all part of national strategy. Information operations run internally as well as externally. Atrocity justification is necessary in total war, and the popular justification for Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a very powerful one. Indeed, it endures today. But it is wrong to say that the Japanese were irrational. Pearl Harbor was a legitimate military target in their eyes and a no brainier if they were to achieve success in the Pacific. After Okinawa they were desperate for peace, but not unconditionally. They did not want regime change as the Germans and Italians did. The atom bombs were deployed to save time, not lives. Overwhelming conventional air power would have achieved the same effect, but over months rather than days. The issue was who would control Japan subsequently, USA or USSR. Soviet army groups were rampaging through Manchuria and would have gladly stolen a foothold in the Pacific if they could. The Cold War had begun before WW2 was over.

Ronnie. Sorry. My reference was to the japanese leadership not the japanese themselves. My views are based on the facts. The independent studies upon study show it saved lives. You mentioned germans desired regime change at end of wwii. That is not true. It took hitler dying and Mussolini to die and for allied ground forces to take over the axis in Europe for the Surrender to even begin. If germany and Italy accepted unconditional surrender it could have ended earlier as well but hitler desired to fight till the last man until he physically died. This is what would have had to take place in japan if otherwise.