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Comment by chx | Hacker News Reader

> I don't doubt it saved more lives than it took

> I'm not sure there's a clear answer there.

You need to investigate your beliefs. I will not make a stand, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombing... a long going debate.

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I'm not sure what to think, but here's an interesting argument. What would the counterargument look like?

"When Okinawa was finally declared secure, the cost had been horrific. Some 150,000 Okinawans died, approximately one-third the island's population. An additional 10,000 Koreans, used by the Japanese military as slave labor, died as well. Of the 119,000 or so Japanese soldiers, as many as 112,000 were killed in the battle or forever sealed inside a collapsed cave or bunker. Aside from the human cost, most of the physical aspects of Okinawan culture were razed. Few buildings survived the 3 months fighting. Collectively, the defenders lost more dead than the Japanese suffered in the two atomic bombings combined. The United States lost 13,000 dead: almost 8,000 on the island and the remainder at sea; another 32,000 were wounded.

The loss of life on both sides, particularly among the Japanese civilians, caused immense worry in Washington. New President Harry Truman was looking at the plans for a proposed assault on the Japanese main islands, and the casualty projections were unacceptable. Projections numbered the potential casualties from 100,000 in the first 30 days to as many as 1 million attackers, and the death count for the Japanese civilians would be impossible to calculate. If they resisted as strongly as did the citizens of Okinawa -- and the inhabitants of the home islands would be even more dedicated to defending their homeland -- Japan would become a wasteland. It was already looking like one in many areas. The U.S. bombing campaign, in place since the previous September, was burning out huge areas of Japanese cities. How much longer the Japanese could have held out in the face of the fire bombing is a matter of much dispute; some project that, had the incendiary raids continued until November, the Japanese would have been thrown back to an almost Stone Age existence. The problem was this: no one in the west knew exactly what was happening in Japan. The devastation could be estimated, but the resistance could not.

Thus, with the casualties of the Okinawa battle fresh in his mind, when Truman learned of the successful testing of an atomic bomb, he ordered its use. This is a decision debated since 6 August 1945, the date of the bombing of Hiroshima, and even before. Just what was known of Japanese decision-making processes before that date is also argued to this day. Was the Japanese government in the process of formulating a peace offer, in spite of the demand for unconditional surrender the Allies had decided upon in February 1943? If they were doing so, did anyone in the west know about it? Who knew what, when they knew it, and what effect that knowledge had or may have had on Truman's decision making is a matter of much dispute. Whatever the political ramifications of the atomic bomb on the immediate and postwar world, Truman's decision was certainly based in no small part on the nature of the fighting on Okinawa. Truman wrote just after his decision, "We'll end the war sooner now. And think of the kids who wont be killed."

Horrible as the effects of the two atomic bombs were, the number of casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as compared with the potential number an invasion could have caused is small indeed."

I don't think many people doubt that a land invasion to the bitter end would kill more people than dropping the bombs, but the argument is was the bomb necessary? Some higher ups in the military at the time thought Japan was on the brink of total surrender.

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." - DWIGHT EISENHOWER (in 1963)

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons." - Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief military advisor

Remember, on an average week in WWII more civilians died than from either of the bomb blasts. Together they might have equaled an average week, but probably not. That's the scale we are talking about.

The month was likely below average for the war. So, it's not just a question of would we have invaded, but just how many days it shortens the war.

Further, it is likely more people died in Tokyo than either of those city's.

By the time the bombs were dropped, the ear in Europe was over. The weekly death toll was much lower than average by then .

If the Japanese were so willing to surrender, why did it take two atomics bombs before they finally did? And keep in mind they tooks days to surrender after the second one.

Japan surrendered because of the Soviet attack. Horrible devastation with larger number of casualties already happened due to firebombing and yet they held. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...

> Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, estimated that no more than one or two additional bombs could be readied, so they decided to endure the remaining attacks, acknowledging "there would be more destruction but the war would go on"

I know very little about this topic, but the last quote is interesting to me because I have heard that something like 1 million people died of starvation in Japan after the end of the war. The blockade was so successful and the Japanese infrastructure for delivering supplies was so disrupted that even when food became available, they couldn't get it to people. As an aside, for those who live in Japan, this is why the JA exists: it was set up by the Americans to ensure good food distribution in the years following the war. I constantly marvel at how good the JA is for ensuring the local produce makes it to a local market.

In any case, even now, virtually every person who was a child during WWII in Japan suffers from severe osteoporosis which is apparently a result of malnutrition as a child. For those who have never been here (especially in the countryside), a huge percentage of the population over the age of 70 is doubled over, unable to stand upright (they are still out in the fields working, though... which blows my mind on a daily basis). The difference between health issues for the elderly in Japan and my home country of Canada is really amazing.

Again, I have no idea about any of this stuff, but my experience here in Japan lends some credence to the idea that a land invasion of Japan would have been completely unnecessary. Just keep mining the seas and in a year the war would have been over, I think.

One of the most ironic things about thinking about this is that without the unconditional surrender of Japan, I think it is unlikely that MacArthur would have had as much success in rebuilding the country. I think I would get no argument from anybody here that some of the best things of modern Japanese culture arose from that period.

To be honest, when I see articles about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I wish people didn't dwell so much about the decisions made at the time. However you slice it, war produces incredible amounts of suffering. The idea that no matter how atrocious one side behaves, we can always pull out an atrocity that will shock them out of their behaviour is crazy. Possibly it is the only way we know how to operate, but I refuse to believe that it is the only way that can be effective.

They used to say that WWI was the war to end all wars because we would remember how awful it was. But it didn't take us long to realize that we didn't have the tools to stop another world war. We need to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only to avoid these disasters, but all of the disasters that come from the situations that led up to it. To think that we allowed the situation to get so bad that we can justify nuclear weapons -- that is what is scary. To think that we weighed the possible outcomes of hundreds of thousands dying in a land invasions, millions dying in a mass starvation, or tens or hundreds of thousands dying in a nuclear explosion. That's lunacy.

www.defence.gov tells me that the budget for the military is 585 billion this year. I assume that does not include the CIA. Where is the government "department for avoiding war"? I seem to see that the budget for the UN is $5.5 billion. 1% of the military budget. Will history repeat itself, or will we try to remember and learn from it?

That's a straw man. There were many alternatives apart from an invasion, such as a submarine blockade (as the navy was proposing), or simply accepting the conditional surrender which Japan had been offering through back-channels for weeks.

Even a blockade would have likely killed vastly more people unless it was really short term.

A blockade would have meant total famine for the Japanese people, probably killing many more than the bombs did. In fact, in the aftermath of the surrender, millions were close to starvation. And that was with tens of millions of dollars in food aid. It took years to end the threat of famine to Japan.

The invasion of Okinawa is not at all comparable to a potential invasion of Japan. I won't address your main point. I'm posting to correct a grave misunderstanding about the relationship between Okinawa and Japan during this period. Okinawa is a distinct cultural entity, and the island was viewed by Japan as occupied territory. Japanese forces slaughtered Okinawans, going so far as to use them as human shields. Some Okinawans were ordered to kill themselves and their families to avoid the horrific fate that the Japanese promised at the hands of American troops. Others, including schoolchildren, were pressed into front-line service or sent on suicide missions. Others were simply murdered, whether for their food or supplies, out of paranoia to root out "spies" (those who made the grave mistake of speaking in Okinawan within earshot), or for entertainment. I'm not saying Americans didn't kill Okinawans too. What I'm saying is that the Japanese could not have cared less about the survival of Okinawa: the land, culture, or people.

While the Japanese were certainly willing to use civilians for tactical or strategic gain, one cannot assume that their military forces would have raped and pillaged their own populace in the same manner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Civilian_los...

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