Hey, im just wondering on your pplz opinions on this topic.

Personally i think we should have dropped the nukes over the two cities. I have a justifyable position on this as well. For example the Battle of Okanawa, many soldiers died. This is just one example of a major battle. If we had not have dropped the nukes, many millions of people would have further died than did if we dropped them. It had been proven that the Japs would fight to the end, so we simply brought the end faster.

Name_not_available, one of the major reasons behind the dropping of the nuclear bombs on the two Japanese cities was a political ploy by the United States of America to state its position. The bombs were a statement of its power. Not only this but they were designed to kill indiscriminately, which they did. America should have looked at all avenues available to it before sanctioning the mass murder of civilians.

Oh, and as for 'The Japs'. They are not considered to be our enemies anymore, so could you please take a slightly less racist tone, it'll help your comments be taken seriously.

Actually, they did look at other avenues before dropping the bombs. name_not_available is absolutely correct in that it would've cost both sides even more lives if it hadn't been done, no matter how atrocious of an act it may seem to you or anyone else.

The Japanese were losing and had every opportunity to surrender long, long before the bombs were even mentioned as a course of action. Furthermore, they were warned TWICE that it would happen beforehand. They chose to blatantly ignore it.

And as far as mass murder, don't give me that sh*t. Convenient how you left out the completely unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, which is an even worse example of mass murder, considering the two nations weren't even at war when it happened.

The truth is, there was no way the war was going to end without a substantial loss of life one way or the other.

And if you still feel bad for the Japanese, I ask you which is worse: the loss of 400,000 people killed by the A-bombs, or the loss of likely a million or more Japanese soldiers and civilians as a result of a full-scale American invasion of the main island? Not to mention the thousands and thousands of American soldiers who would've died along with them (which I realize full-well most Europeans and others could care less about).

Let me clear one thing up: I'm not Mr. Ra-Ra Patriotic; far from it. But it really irritates me when people act like that was such an easy decision to make. I'm sorry, but the Japanese weren't "victims." They attacked another nation without just cause or provocation, and had they not done that one thing, they wouldn't have faced such a fate in the first place. If you want to be mad at somebody for that happening, be mad at the Japanese government at the time for first starting the war, and then allowing their civilians to be lambasted after repeated warnings it would happen.

I agree with Crisb, they should not have used them. With the idea of "saving millions of soldiers' lifes", you get nowhere. Aren't soldiers the ones to save people from harm? It is their job to kill enemy soldiers, and they can die. That is a risk in a soldier's life.

Why did America use them? Well, as already said: to mark their power. They had the bomb, nobody else had. They didn't care less about the people in axis lands, as visible in the bombing of axis cities. It is untrue that Germany started bombing cities as most people think. It was Churchill who broke the agreement and on the 12th may 1940 ordered the first bombingraid over German cities. If you've seen movies like 'The Memphis Belle', you must know they are mostly fiction. Allied bombers didn't care if they hit a factory or a school. All Jerries.

Did the Japanese actually attack an American city? Did they Bomb San Fransisco? No. It might be that there where some victims during attacks on military targets, but I can't find any recoring of mass-murder due to Japanese attacks on cities.

You've warned the Japanese? Twice? Wow, I really would surrender my entire army if you would threaten me... Dude, the Japs where Pwning the Americans hard. Do you know how many POW's would be made from an Island with 3000 defenders? 5. The others would die defending. Have you ever seen an attack on a Japanese-held Island? Ships and Plains bombed the entire Island for half a day before the marines attacked. And still the remaining Japanese forces would defend the island (If you can even call it that after the american bombings) until their last breath. Do you really think any commander of such an army would even think of capitulation if you say: We are going to nuke your cities! It wasn't even clear if the Americans had Nukes, so it might have been an empty threat.

A little lesson about WW2

cya

Fritz

Agreed. In the sense of the lesser of two evils, going with the soldier route is far better than vaporising 400,000 innocents. I'm not saying soldiers are any less human than civilians, but they enter into battle knowing the risks. A million soldiers with some civilians mixed in is in my opinion better than vaporising innocent people as they go about their daily business in their homes, people who didn't start the war in the first place, aren't contributing to the war, and probably didn't even get to vote in whether it went forth or not. It's premeditated murder of men, women, and children, as opposed to attacking soldiers that are attacking you, and perhaps catching some civilians in the crossfire.

"A little lesson about WW2"

lol! Thanks for the lesson! I stand in awe at your divine wisdom of it all. Typical holier-than-thou synopsis of the matter.

The Japanese weren't "pwning" anything by the time the bombs were used. Allies didn't care about people in Axis lands? Really? That's utter bullsh*t, but even so, if they didn't, it's only because they were led by example. News flash: the governments of the Axis lands didn't care about their people either. Japan was prepared to sacrifice every single civilian in a hopeless conflict they had no chance of winning by the time it came down to the decision in question. And let's not act like they gave a rat's ass about people in Allied lands either.

And yes, they were warned before any bombs were dropped that they were facing catastrophe of a sort they'd not seen before if they continued the war, and they ignored it. Then the first bomb dropped, and they STILL continued. Looks to me like their military commanders had about the same level of regard for their citizens as their enemies did.

Here's a WW2 lesson for you: The Japanese were also committing some pretty serious atrocities towards the people of China and Indonesia at the time of the war (people who were going about their daily business in their homes, who didn't start the war in the first place, and probably didn't get to vote on whether it went forth or not), and you sit here glorifying them as war heroes. Save your condescending lessons for someone stupid enough to believe them, and by your rationale it's cool to just fly over to someone who has not initiated any sort of conflict with you and start bombing them with no warning or indication.

Every single country that was involved in WW2 suffered heavy losses. I might be more inclined to believe your crap if the Japanese weren't slaughtering Chinese innocents and others by the thousands, which is a nice little detail left out of your argument. I believe you were recently quoted as saying to a certain member that he "turns everything how it suits him best." Quite a hypocritical claim in light of your post on this matter.

The only reason the Japanese didn't attack an American city was the simple fact that they couldn't. They just didn't have anything with the range to get there even if they wanted to (which they did). So it wasn't some act of mercy involved.




Wrong again, Switch. Read your history before making statements like this. In the Japanese culture at the time, everyone was a soldier, and everyone fought to the death (sometimes in deliberate suicide attacks). In a traditional invasion, far more than 400,000 civilians would have died, fighting to the death with whatever hopeless weapons they could find.

The nuclear attacks were the only thing that could break this situation, by demonstrating that resistance was literally hopeless. Japan would die, without ever seeing an American soldier to kill. The rules of the game had to be changed, or countless lives on both sides would be lost.

I just want to remind everyone that it doesn't matter now. It's already happened. Sure, you can debate the policies and such involved with dropping the bombs, but that won't change anything.

But I actually agree with Peregrine on this one. (I guess the world as we know it is coming to an end)


Oh, and Fritz, "They didn't care less about the people in axis lands"

The USAAF had about 1,224,000 men overseas and the RAF had about 1,000,000. I know that not all of these men were on bomber crews, but the Allies had thousands of bombers. Each of these bombers had a bombadier who released the bombs over the target. Now, are you saying that out of all those thousands of men, none of them cared about innocent civilians? Also, these bomber missions into Germany (especially) would take VERY heavy losses. If the bombadiers were to release their bombs early over a civilian target on purpose, it would be like their buddies died in vain. Hitting civilians instead of a factory wasn't going to help the war effort.

WRONG. The Japs had a weapon wich could reach America, and even bomb its cities. What it was? Simple, it wasn't a rocket, or even a plain. It was the common balloon. You see, there is a favorable wind for Japan to use these weapons. It will take a balloon from Japan straight to the west coast of the US. However, Japan did not use these balloons to attack cities.


No, you are wrong again. Not everybody was a soldier. Did the civilians at the bombed cities have arms? Did they have a chance to defend themselves? And if they where soldiers, why didn't the Japs send them of to fight? It is true about the 'no surrender' part, but not everybody was as willingly to do that. You can say much, but if the Japanese army was crushed, no 400.000 would keep up the fight with 'whatever weapon they would get'. Japanese beliefs says a soldier never surrenders, not that civilians have to do idiotic things.

The nuclear attack wasn't the only thing that could break this situation. The rules of wartime always have been the same, no changes had to be made. The nuke could have been used on a Japanese held island, with only soldiers on them, but no, bombing civilians showed the US was capable of penetrating Japanese airial defences, only to show how 'powerfull' the US was.

And if the Allied command was so 'concerned' about their men, why would they use the Sherman throughout the war, though it had been proven it was no match for the best german armor. 10 shermans to take out one tiger was good use of materials. After all, the Shermans could be replaced... and the men too.

I´ve been studying the second world war for six years now. I know what I´m saying, since everything I´ve added in my post has two seperate sources. You can´t disprove it.

EDIT: @poopgoblin: of course they didn't care about civilians. They did there jobs and liked it. There might be a few bombers who would have a bad feeling after the first flights, but after those it became a routine. It was the plan of the high-command, but bomber-squads where all to eager to do their 'job'.

Bombing a city has no strategic value? Do you know anything about WW2? It happened all the time. The Brittish began with the bombing on 12th of may. Other well-known bombing-missions with civilian targets where: Germany bombs Rotterdam (1940), Germany bombs London (1940 with bombers, rest of the war with rockets), Germany bombs Stalingrad (1942), Allies bomb allmost every city in Germany(1943-1944-1945). The goal of these bombing-runs was to lower morale, but it just increased the hate and thus the morale of the targeted civilians.

And they wouldn't take heavy losses. The B-17 isn't called the flying fortress for nothing. Especially after the allies won the air-battle, since the only thing to stop them was FlaK, manned by children because all adult men where at the front. The American air forces lost 1.61% of all pilots or crews who entered service. The total amount of pilots and crew-members who entered service was 3 400 000. What about that, heavy losses, eh?

Do you know why the Allies where halted at the border of Germany before they could push trough half a year later? Do you know the reason why German civilians picked up arms to counter the Allies? Do you know why nazism survived? Because of Allied bombers bombing every German city to rubble. Before the Allied soldiers came, people where afraid of them. If the bombers already did so much damage, what would Allied soldiers do when they would arriver? After the war much hate remained and that's why nazism survived, even though the Allies did their best to disband it during the Nurnberg-trials.

cya

Fritz

Fortunately there is a simple explanation: bombing is HARD. Real war is not Starcraft, you don't just tell your bombers "hit this point" and 30 seconds later bombs rain down with pinpoint accuracy. If you disagree, I would suggest getting a good WWII flight sim and trying it yourself. Then come back and tell us about how easy it is to do collateral damage. Just to be clear, using the best WWII bombsight, you had to:

1) Set your ground speed and altitude exactly correct. The bombsight is only accurate if you give it the correct numbers. Note that your airspeed indicator does not give this, you have to hope the conversion charts are accurate for the exact atmospheric conditions.

2) Sight the target properly, from miles away, when it may be little more than a blob on the horizon. Your bombsight crosshairs will now track the target as you approach.

3) Fly perfectly straight and level at a constant speed, for the entire bomb run. If you move too sharply to track the target, or change speed/altitude, you have to start over from the beginning. Note that you are probably under attack at this point. Please calmly avoid taking evasive action, even if you can hear holes being shot in your plane.

4) Make very very slight corrections to your course as you approach. Note that you are not the pilot, you aren't doing this directly. If your aim is off by a fraction of a degree, you have to tell the pilot what to do and hope he doesn't over-correct. Fail to do this correctly, and you will miss the target.

5) Release the bombs at the exact right moment. Miss the drop point and they'll miss the target. You're flying over 300mph, remember.

6) Hope that there aren't any wind differences at different altitudes, or your bombs will be blown off course as they fall.

7) Hope that you are the lead bomber in the formation. If you aren't, not only will the simple fact of flying in formation mean that your bombs will be less accurate (since two planes can't occupy the same space at the same time), but you may not even have a bomb sight of your own. You will be following the leader's release point, and almost definitely miss the target. Or maybe not... maybe the leader's release was off, or there's more wind, or whatever, and it's your bombs that hit the target.


Congratulations. If you manage to do all of this successfully, instead of killing an innocent factory worker in his home, you have killed him in the factory. Now, presented with this lack of accuracy, and the simple fact that factories and other industrial targets tend to be located near innocent civilians, you have two choices:

1) Cancel all strategic bombing, and give up any chance of damaging the enemy's industrial support. The war will likely drag on longer and longer, and even more people will die. Note that by the time it's over, invading and taking a city from determined defenders will probably do just as much damage and kill just as many civilians.

2) Accept the damage, and order the attacks.

As said in my edit, Allied bombers didn't bomb cities because they wanted to destroy the production-chain of german ground units, but because they wanted to lower the German moral, in wich they failed miserably. They only managed to increase the faith of the people in the Führer.

cya

Fritz

Think. Would a balloon really be an effective weapons platform? True, there is a good wind, but how would you keep on course? There'd be little if any room for instruments on board, not to mention food and water for the trip over. Also, you seem to be heralding the Japanese as great humanitarians, saying that they chose not to attack cities. Did you forget about Bataan? How about Manila? Nanking? Or the brutal treatment of Allied POWs?



Soldiers in the sense that they were ready to fight if there was an invasion, not in the sense of get shipped off to some island.


Yes, but then how would the Japanese government know that we even had the weapons in the first place?


Do you realize how long it takes to design, test, and produce a new weapon? Even if the Allies were to introduce a new tank, it would have been to late to be able to make a difference. Also, the Sherman worked fine in North Africa, so, given that they needed to save all the funds and resources that they could, why would they replace a weapon that got the job done?


Kind of like, "I'm older than you, therefore I am right." Also, may I please see those sources?

===============================================================================

@Peregrine, I was saying that Allied crews weren't trying to hit civies on purpose, not that it was easy.

@Fritz's edit:
You are assuming that ALL Allied pilots didn't care about innocents or that bombing major cities was their choice. Okay, civies were hit on purpose to try and lower morale, I never said they weren't, I'm sorry if it came across as I did. I was saying that hitting the enemies factories would be more strategic than civies.

As for the not heavy losses, yeah right. The USAAF lost more men than any other branch of the Armed Forces.

And that hate you talked about was fostered by Hitler. the people were very patriotic on both sides. However, had the German people known what Hitler was doing with the death camps, they probably would've overthrown him.

Are you actually serious? Do you have any idea what the accuracy of a balloon weapon would be? You aren't attacking a target like a city or factory, you'd be lucky if you even hit the continent you're aiming for. Even if they managed to reach the west coast, they'd be just as likely to fall in the middle of a city as to hit a "legitimate military target"... or just fall in the wilderness somewhere. Of course anyone with even a basic knowledge of the physics involved would realize this and cancel the project before it could waste resources better spent on realistic weapons.



Clearly you don't understand your history. The culture at the time was you die for the emperor, period. You do not ever surrender. If you are a civilian and you only have a pointy stick, you attack with your pointy stick until you die. Every plan for a traditional invasion of Japan involved massive casualties on both sides.

While you might argue in hindsight all you want, at the time, as far as anyone involved in planning the invasion knew, an invasion of Japan would be a fight to the death for EVERYONE.



Bombing soldiers wouldn't have the required shock value. Japan had to know that to continue fighting would be the end of Japan, not just more dead soldiers.



A few reasons:

1) Tank vs. tank battles are not the only thing that matters. The Sherman was a good design for other purposes, and a good design as a whole.

2) Allied (US) production had to be shipped by sea. A heavier tank would have been easy to design, in fact they were, but shipping it and landing it on the beaches would've been far more difficult.

3) Eventually, the Sherman DID have 10v1 odds.




Note that this number does not refer to the B-17 missions only. It's an average of all pilots (maybe even including non-combat pilots), over all missions, for the entire war. Bomber losses, especially in some specific missions, were very heavy. Again, pick up a good WWII flight sim, and tell me how easy bombing is.

As for the "flak manned by children", that's just stupid. The allies didn't win the air war until late in the war. For most of the strategic bombing campaign, they were opposed by a very much intact German air force. The B-17 didn't carry all those guns just for decoration, you know.

"And if the Allied command was so 'concerned' about their men, why would they use the Sherman throughout the war, though it had been proven it was no match for the best german armor."

Possibly because it's all they had? You act as though the Allies sat around not attempting to develop better weapons. The British used around 20 different tank types during WW2. Problem was, many of these were even more ineffective than the Sherman. At least the Sherman was maneuverable. Other types developed were both un-maneuverable and had completely ineffective firepower against the Tigers. The Shermans were the best tanks available to the British on such short notice. Is it really that hard to grasp that in war, some nations will have better weapons in certain areas than others?

By your rationale, why did it take so long for the Germans to develop a plane that could out-maneuver the Spitfire in aerial combat? The war lasted 6 years. How easy do you think it is to just develop an effective tank in a short amount of time, especially considering how advanced the opposition was in that area? The Germans caught a lot of people by surprise with their level of weapons advancement when the war began. Much of the world was so far behind in certain areas that it took almost the whole 6 years just to catch up.

If you think it was such an easy proposition to develop a tank superior to the Tiger, you're wasting your time here. You ought to be in weapons engineering, what with all your genius about the subject.

It almost sounds like you would've preferred an Axis victory.


EDIT: Another reason for the lack of better tanks is that by 1944, when the Germans were on the retreat, it was far better strategy by that time to use aerial attacks against German tanks rather than wasting a bunch of money and time developing tanks which could combat the German Panzer units. All that would've done is draw out the war even longer, which nobody was really keen on doing. Aerial bombings could take out an entire field of Tigers with one attack.

Well I'm not going to quote you since my last post with quotes was a bit to long.

Balloons: Does accuracy matter if you bomb a city? If you bomb one building or another, it still gets the same. In fact, there have been several balloonraids on america. Just not on cities. As I said, I only use arguements here if I have two individual sources who can back eachother up. And those sources state I Japan made a mass-fleet of balloons, they would be able to bomb cities in America. Have you ever seen the Hindenburg? Then you'll know how powerfull balloons can be. Although the Hindenburg was a zeppelin, the concept remains the same.

Japan's culture: who's a Jap here? You don't really think civilians would attack fully equiped soldiers with a stick do you? As said: honorable death, not being an idiot. Women and children won't do such a thing. Even today in third world countries, child soldiers still get a gun to fight.

Tanks of WW2: Oh, but the Americans did have a better tank. the M26 pershing to be precise. It could handle the Pz. V Panther and the Pz. VI tiger. The only German tank that the M26 couldn't destroy was the Pz. VI ausf. B. Köningstiger. And do you know the nickname for the Sherman? Tommiecooker. I think that states enough. And even if the allies had air-superiority, not every tank could be destroyed by them. Think about it: how else could the Germans get entire panzerdivisions at the west front without the allies knowing this? Forest are great cover for tanks. In addition to that, every panzercorps had a FlaKPanzercorps in de neighborhood. 4x20mm Wirbelwinds or 37 mm Ostwinds could easily take out attacking fighterbombers.

And there is a big difference between develloping a tank and develloping a fighter. Tanks are constantly being captured. Fighters are most blown to bits either by aerial combat or the crash. How can you make something to counter someting you don't have an example of? The Allies had enough panzers to examine, and the Americans even enjoyed data about tank clashes of British forces.

And about landing heavy tanks at the beaches: of course that can't be done. Shermans would be fine to support landings at beaches, but not as main battle tank.

The thing the sherman was most effective in, was cooking it's crew as stated in the nickname above. Quote from a German: On the Eastern front, the T34 and JS tanks ripped through us. On the western front, we had nothing to be afraid about, our panzers could take attacking Shermans down easilly. Ask any WW2 tank crew, they would chose a german Panzer above a Sherman.

Nuclear bombing: That's a true American statement: Just destroy an enemy's country to destroy the enemy. Do you know Nazi's thought that as well?

How would Japan know of the bombing? Well, it's quite strange if an entire island suddenly doesn't respond to radiocontact anymore, no? Especially if there is no enemy fleet in the neighbourhood. That should be a good enough warning before bombing cities.

Normal Bombing: I've flown WWII flight sim IL2 Sturmovik, and I'll tell you: it is nothing near real-life bombing. It's a game. Bombers had acurate tools with them on their flights. They could easilly hit a target. I saw a program last week with a WW2 veteran-bombadeer. Even he could, while being 80 year old, hit a target nearly perfect. A factory would be easy to hit. Try looking for veteran-accounts in stead of games to state your arguements.

Luftwaffe & FlaKwaffe. Look up newsreels from 1944 and 1945: you'll see children manning the FlaK-guns. There are some simple reasons why the Luftwaffe couldn't defend the fahterland.
1 They had Jets. This might seem a good point, but they came to late. They only added new problems: +New runways had to be made out of concrete, since the old ones where to short and the asphalt would melt by the high temperature.
+Jets needed protection from other fighters during take offs and landings, since it took them much longer to do them as normal fighters. This decreased the amount of fighters even more
2 Lack of fuel. Germany's fuel depot was shrinking every day. More and more jets and fighters had to stay on the ground to save fuel. Hitler saw the tanks as his wonderweapon wich would change the war.
3 Lack of experience: the long fighting on the Eastern front killed many aces who had gained experience from 1936 until 1941.
4 amount of Allied fighters. The allies had much more fighters, because they had mass-production

As for FlaK: it did take down some bombers. And it is true some missions costed much. But the losses where replacable. And that was all that counted during WW2, since the axis couldn't do that, but the Allies could.

Should the Axis win the war? Germany - Hitler and Nazi's = Yes.

If Germany (not Nazi Germany) won the war, we would probably have a stable empire now, not with terrorists and wars, since the entire world would be one country. But the US won and since 1945 there has been nothing but war.

cya

Fritz

Read the damn post. You can't hit a city accurately with balloons. You'd be lucky to even get a majority of them to hit the right country. The simple fact is that un-guided balloons have such a massive inaccuracy over such a long distance that the vast majority of them will do absolutely nothing, landing in the ocean/wilderness/failing to detonate/etc. Of the few that do, they're just as likely to hit civillian targets as military ones.

And read your history. The Hindenburg was entirely different. The balloon-bomb proposals I've seen involved unguided balloons, just left to drift free in the general direction of the target. In other words, a complete wase of resources and time, and abandoned for good reason. Even if they were Hindenburg-style zeppelins, they would be a slow, massive target and pathetically easy to shoot down. There's a good reason that tactic wasn't tried either.



You don't understand the Japanese culture of the time. The emperor was their god. And plans had been made to do exactly that, to use every last person and every possible weapon (which is not much, seeing as Japanese industry was pretty much a pile of rubble at this point) in a fight to the death.





You're right. Developing a (good) fighter is massively harder. Speaking as a soon-to-be aerospace engineer, the design problem is MUCH harder for a flying vehicle than for one that sits safely on the ground. There's a very good reason we had land vehicles long before we mastered the art of flying.



Have you ever looked at a map of Europe? Compare the location of the factories to the location of the fighting. Compare the location of the German factories to the location of the fighting. Now note that having a tank that can't be carried on a beach landing forces you to capture a port intact before you can even think of bringing your tanks into the fight, a problem the Germans didn't have. The Pershing's lower weight made actually getting it to the fight much easier. And a mediocre tank that you actually have is much better than an excellent one that you don't.



The point was it had to be a morale blow. Killing soldiers wouldn't do anything, they were already prepared and eager to die for their country. The US had to demonstrate that their sacred homeland could, and would be destroyed without any chance of defense if they didn't surrender.


Are you flying with full realism? No real-time map, realistic physics, etc? Bombing from high altitude with full wind effects (if they're even in the game?)? With no digital display, only the various dials and gauges for your instruments (here's a hint: unless you cheat, in IL-2 you don't get the exact ground speed number you need for accurate bombing with a B-17). How about while under attack, without the knowledge that it's just a game and you are really going to die?

And I don't really need the game anyway, I just use it as an example that you can understand without needing to know all the physics behind it. The simple fact is that WWII technology was far from modern levels of accuracy. Destroying just a factory without any collateral damage would be literally impossible, civilians are going to die no matter what you do.

But don't trust me. Look at the actual damage reports from the real attacks. Note how even in large raids, misses were common, and many targets took several attacks to finally do the job.


Again, late-war. I'm talking about early war, where this whole bombing cities thing started.



Both true, but the big problem was the lack of high-quality alloys available to German industry by the end of the war. The engines suffered from short lifespans and high failure rate. In actual combat, they were essentially un-beatable. Deploying the jets was one of the few good decisions of the war, the only mistake was not focusing on them earlier.



So you agree that your quoted loss rates are completely misleading?



*laughs*

This is a joke, right? You're utterly delusional if you think a German victory, even without the nazis, would have turned the world into some glorious peaceful empire. These wars since 1945 have had nothing to do with the US, they all have their origins in local conflicts which would be there regardless of whether the US was involved or not. The only question is whether Germany would have followed a similar path in getting involved... and if you think a German empire that just conquered all of Europe would suddenly turn isolationist and stay out of it, you're even more delusional than I thought.


Of course it's an irrelevant point, since Germany had zero chance of actually winning the war. The only question up for debate is whether they could've made the war drag on long enough for Berlin to disappear under a mushroom cloud. The combination of dominating American industry backed by the near-invulnerability provided by two oceans and supported by massive natural resources is just too powerful for a German victory to be even remotely realistic. The absolute "best" case scenario would be an isolationist America and German control over most of western Europe.

There's also another very important reason it was good we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We needed the knowledge of how devastating it was. During the Cold War, the only reason USA ans USSR didn't launch all they had was because they remembered Hiroshima and Nagasaki; they remembered the devastation and didn't want that to happen again. If those bombings never happened, USA and USSR would have definitely gone all out and launch every nuke they had.
What's worse? 400,000 Japanese deaths or millions of American and Soviet deaths?

this will be only a short notice. Our PC is having huge errors. It can restart at any second, without there being a reson for it. Tomorrow we will take he PC to the store where we bought it, and as soon as it is repaired I'll reply again.

sorry for this inconvinience

cya (i hope)

Fritz

Karasuman's last two posts removed. Flaming/trolling. Please try and debate without resorting to being quite so hostile.

"Karasuman's last two posts removed. Flaming/trolling. Please try and debate without resorting to being quite so hostile."

That's fine, as I respect the moderators and don't wish to make their jobs harder, so I will apologize for my hostile stance. I'm also going to shed some light as to where it came from:

"They used Nanking civilians for bayonet practice, buried them alive (a method they used to bury people alive was to get the victims to each dig a hole, and the first one in line to jump into their hole and the next person fill in the dirt, and then he jumps in his hole so that the next person can fill in his dirt and the cycle continues), buried them to their neck, fed them to dogs, carved their organs. They held killing contests, hung men from the wrists or ankles until the joints snapped off. They used live men to conduct experiments, cut off men's penises...

They also raped women from ages 8-60... They forced sons to rape their mothers, sisters etc. They forced women to post pornographic actions. They stuck fire crackers into women's vaginas. They took out fetuses from pregnant women's wombs. They gang-raped women on streets and did not care who was there. They cut off women's breasts and pinned them on the wall...
They first tried to bury all the bodies, but soon found that to be ineffective. They then just threw bodies into the Yangtze River. Lakes and rivers were stained with blood and turned bright red. In 7 weeks they had killed more than 300,000 people.

After the war, they denied all that. Even today many people don't know about this forgotten holocaust."

"Of all the 1931 to 1945 Asian-Pacific War deaths, approximately 87 percent were Asian victims of Japanese aggression, one percent were Western Allies, and 12 percent were Japanese."


How many Chinese civilians were killed by the Japanese with such methods and others during WW2?

"Wikipedia says 3.9 million," with other sources claiming similar tolls. This includes those killed by massacre methods only. By war's end, 8 to 9 million Chinese civilians would ultimately die as a result of Japanese aggression.

I'd rather be nuked.



http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
http://www.japanww2.com/chapter1.htm

I just have something to say about the balloon bomb controversy going on in this thread.

Balloon Bombs

Now I realize Wikipedia isn't exactly 100% reliable, but we did discuss the Japanese Balloon bombs way back in high school. (My teacher was a retired Army Officer - we THOROUGHLY discussed WWII). Anyways, the Japanese did in fact deploy several hundreds of balloon bombs, in which in only one instance proved fatal. A balloon bomb was found by picnic-ers and exploded killing several civilians. I don't know if this was ever up for debate but I just wanted to clarify that the balloon bombs were real and were actually deployed by the Japanese with many balloons found along the West Coast during the war.

As for whether or not we should have dropped the bomb... lives are lives to me, whether they be civilian or military. In the end, millions more families (on both the Japanese and American sides) were saved from suffering loss, so in my opinion the bombing was a good idea.

one thing that has been overlooked in this thread so far if the fact that there were more Japanese casualties as a result of the firebombing or Tokyo than either atomic attacks

secondly, in reference to the tank debate, the design of the tank depends on the role of the tank,

the germans used tanks supported by infanty

the western allies used tanks in support of infanty

a highly mobile lightly armored tank is able to outmaneuver a slower less mobile but highly armored tank and hit it in its weakspots given the room, without said room of course the defensive designed tank would prevail

KAL

This is the subject that riles me up the MOST personnaly i think america should take there nukes and shove them up there ass. By the time the japanese had surrendered to the american f***ers there generals thought "hmmmm how can we screw the planet any more that we have now" and they came up with "i know how about we go and murder millions of innocent civillions"... you know what they say "history is written by the victor" so the yanks covered it up with tales of heroism and bravery... Bulls**t... the yanks are murdering F**ks who should all be shot for there crimes over the short time they have existed

Btw, sorry about the ripe language but anyone with any sense should agree that if anyone america were the "bad guys" during ww2 and many wars afterwards.

Bombs were used on both sides to kill inocent poeple, that doesn't make it a fair tactic in my mind. Kind of underhanded, but, if the Americans did invade Japan, yes, many more would have died. On the other hand, The fact that they were dropped was a sort of display of power and strenght like *we can murder many with a single bomb*. So, I have mixed feelings about the Nuclear bombs that were dropped.

Please explain why the Nazis were not the "bad guys" in World War II.

By all means im not saying Germany did'nt commit atrocities during ww2, all sides did, but all im saying is america (as usuall) went waaaayyy too far by dropping the nukes and not just killing millions of innocent japanese but damning many of them to have to suffer the nuclear fall-out. And if im not mistaken america were the only country to drop the nuke during the war.

Well, he seems to be a member of the Blame America First Brigade, so, I bet it'll still be America.

"And if im not mistaken america were the only country to drop the nuke during the war."

That's only because Germany and the rest of the Axis powers didn't have nuclear weapons. If they did, you can rest assured they would've used them. Since you're calling us yanks, I assume you to be British. For the life of me, I cannot understand the amount of dislike many of the British have for the US. You do realize that without the US, you'd be speaking German right now, don't you? That's if you were alive at all. The combined strength of Russian and British forces was (obviously) not enough to halt entirely the German advance throughout Europe.

Combined total of civilians massacred by the Axis during WW2 (that is, by deliberate intention): 20-30 million. Never in one's wildest arguments could they make a case the US has ever been responsible for that level of thoughtless bloodshed. It doesn't matter who hates the US or not. Hating someone does not magically change facts, no matter how badly one wishes it.

Or are you one of those delusional types that believes The Holocaust didn't happen?

Actually that doesn't follow at all. It presumes that the 'German Empire' was economically sustainable. It wasn't. It would have imploded almost immediately. However that is not relevant to the issue.

Whilst the US were certainly not the bad guys of WW2, they were not unqualified good guys either. They would initially have been perfectly happy to let Germany take over the whole of Europe. They only sent troops into the war after Pearl Harbour, despite repeated pleas for help from Europe. Whilst the arrival of the US certainly tipped the balance it must be remembered that the UK did have help from its Empire and WAS managing to stay afloat while fighting in Europe, Africa and the Far East for some time before the US came on the scene. So let's have less of the 'the US won the war' tub thumping from across the Atlantic. They played a part, that is all, and they did not do so until their own interests were directly threatened.

Can both sides of this debate keep their eyes on the facts, please.

The reason the US is disliked at the moment is almost certainly down to the widely held perception that the current President is an arrogant, war-mongering, bullying disaster. Whether or not that is a fair view, it is what many people outside the US believe. From my point of view I am saddened that the US believes it can flout international law with impunity - and certainly appears to be able to. It makes their suggested reasons for trying to change 'evil' regimes, hypocritical. It is one thing to claim the moral high ground when practise and preaching are the same. However, by saying one thing and doing another, the US becomes as bad as the regimes it attacks. Until the US can abide by the international laws it supposedly signs up to, that dislike will continue and escalate.

Nevertheless with a change of president that feeling could quickly evaporate. It wasn't there before he came to power.

"So let's have less of the 'the US won the war' tub thumping from across the Atlantic."

I never once said America won the war. I said that without American intervention, the British very likely could've been taken over by the Germans. That is an undeniable fact. Britain was one more major German attack away from defeat, and everyone in the British government and military knew it. It was a mixture of determination and sheer luck that prevented that from happening, as Germany decided to focus its efforts on Russia instead. Determination only carries one so far before insurmountable odds take their final toll. They very nearly did for Britain.

I'm also not touting the US as a saintly state. I'm defending it from certain blatantly untrue criticisms that have been going on here. You would do the same for your nation, yes?

Back on the topic, it is a fact that Japan was systematically slaughtering civilians of her Asian neighbors (most notably China) by the millions. The nuclear attacks killed at most 400,000 Japanese. An American invasion of Japan would've killed far more Japanese and Americans. It's that simple, and I haven't seen a counter-argument to that which is actually worth anything yet.

And Malchik, you're a moderator. How can you guys honestly reprimand or rebuke my posts with a straight face and let hate-laced, profanity-filled (and far worse) ones like Heretic's stand? One can only surmise it's because you agree.

If you read my post you will observe that I requested BOTH sides of the debate to stick to the facts. I am not sure how this can be seen as supporting anyone.

But please don't make surmises on the basis of the Bush catch phrase 'if you're not with us, you must be against us'. No debate or discussion of any kind is possible in those circumstances.

I'm able to make a fast reply, but I don't have much time. It's possible this will be my only reply for a long time, same reason as first.

1 Thanks to Kawirider, for the link to wikipedia!

2 The amount of casualties has been used as main argument, but we musn't forget that even today children are born blind, without arms or legs, etc because of the nukes. Are they responsible for the things Japan did in WW2? Can they be seen as soldiers who would die for their emperor? That's your counterargument, Karasuman.

3 I agree on the part that both Axis and Allies commited war crimes. The only difference is that the Allies can say it was for the sake of winning the war. An example took place on the 20th february 1944, when a ferry in Norway was blown up with some Norwegians on board. This was because the Allies thought Germany could use the heavy water, also on that ferry, to make a nuke. Later examination made clear germany could never have made a nuke, for two simple reasons:

A) Germany's high command thought a nuke would be a weapon to be used in a long war. Since Germany relied on the Blitzkrieg, they didn't need such a weapon. They cancelled the order in 1941-1942.

B) Even if the Germans did have a 'Secret Vergeltungs Nuke Program", the design of the german nuke had mistakes in it. It would need 1000 kg of uranium to actually make have the same effect as the US ones.

The heavy water was to be used in an expirimental nuclear powergenerator.

4 For those who still think bombers didn't bomb german cities, or only did it to 'safe the crew', here's some facts: A) 60% of Berlin was equalized by bombingraids. B) The entire city of Dresden was bombed to the ground. This is a story wich I still hear a lot these days, because my grandpa was in a workcamp in Dresden when it was bombed.

5 Actually, the UK could stand up agains Germany even if the US didn't enter the war. True, it would be mostly by the supplies bought in the US, but if you look a bit closer at the 'Battle for Britain' and the years after that, you can see Britain had a secure position after 1941. And that only because of the German high-command itself!

Actually, even before WW2 started a small fact changed the course of the war. Germany had an entirely new airforce, but it was concentrated to much on the Blitzkrieg. They didn't have heavy bombers, wich where needed to make a succes of the Battle for Brittain. So the Luftwaffe had to use medium bombers like the Heinkel He 111, wich where usefull in the blitzkrieg, but not for far bombing-runs. During the Battle for Brittain, German bombers had to concentrate on London, while they should have been used to bomb military targets. That is why Germany never won that battle, and operation sealion was cancelled.

In addition to that Operation Barbarossa drained Germany of its resources. A lot of fighteraces where shot down by the seemingly endless waves of new russian 'recruits'. The Eastren front also drained much resources that could be used in the African Campaign. By 1942, Rommel was out of supplies, so he had to stop near El Allamein. With the position secured, the British forces could counterattack with troops from the former East-African battlefield, where they won the battle from the Itallian troops, and new weapons bought from the US. After that they chased Rommel through North Africa, and even without operation Torch, they could have driven the Axis out of Africa.

Cya

Fritz

P.S. I noticed a post saying I hate all Americans was removed. There may be people thinking this, but I don't hate all Americans. True, I find the ways how the American Governement acts not as it should be, but I don't hate someone because he's an American.

"The amount of casualties has been used as main argument, but we musn't forget that even today children are born blind, without arms or legs, etc because of the nukes. Are they responsible for the things Japan did in WW2?"

And what of the millions upon millions of orphans that were created throughout Asia due to Japanese "foreign policy"? If we're talking about children, I can guarantee you unequivocally that many, many more of them starved and were used as (and killed by) slave labor than those that are born without arms and legs in Japan. There are still to this day just as many (way more actually) people in Asia missing relatives and friends as a direct result of Japanese brutality, so I'm sorry, but I can't buy your counter-argument.


"But please don't make surmises on the basis of the Bush catch phrase 'if you're not with us, you must be against us."

That's not what I meant by my statement and I think you know that. I was making a direct reference to the fact I had 2 posts removed, neither of which were anywhere in the same league of hateful as the one by Heretic which is still sitting there. It was an appeal to fairness. And you do realize I can formulate my own opinion without Bush's input, right? My feelings about the subject would be same if Bullwinkle were president, so quit with the Bush thing already.

I did not remove your posts and have no idea what they said.

And my reference to Bush is to quote one of his famous sayings. It has nothing to do with whether you support him, or listen to him or not.

For your information I have a couple of facts -

If Hitler had succeeded in taking the UK following the Battle of Britain in 1941 then it might have fallen. However he was advised that the conquering of the UK could wait. It was an island that would be 'starved' into submission in due course. Hitler turned his attention to Russia, an error (on his part) that had been made by Napoleon in the previous century.

By this time the German army was getting too thinly stretched. Areas nominally under German control were not properly consolidated, guerilla activity was increasing, and there was mounting discontent at home. It is true that even in these circumstances a full attack on the UK was possible but with defenders from Australia, NZ, Canada and India among others it was unlikely to succeed in the short term.

An attempted small scale invasion of the UK that took place in Norfolk was repelled (and hushed up).

What is more probable is that the UK might have signed a treaty with Germany allowing them to keep their gains in Europe in exchange for peace. However that is speculation not fact.

You make an implication in the post I originally replied to (since edited out) that the UK shouldn't dislike the US now because without the US help in WW2, they would have been conquered. That is not the case. But even had it been true I am not sure I see the relevance to today. It is a fact that without US intervention the war would probably have gone on a lot longer. This was recognised at the time and has been since. During the war and for many years afterwards the US was welcomed in the UK and Europe. There was also the Marshall Plan to do with the restructuring of battered economies for which Germany in particular, but much of Europe, had cause to thank the US. But that was 60 years ago. The people who remember the war years are now all retired. Many still do have a soft spot for the Americans but they are no longer the 'voice' of the UK. The 'hate' (which is too strong a word IMO) you refer to has been caused by recent events. You cannot suggest that because of acts of friendship or kindness in the past the recipient of the act has to excuse ANY kind of behaviour years later.

OMG!!! wtf r u lot thinking!!! im not just quoting the horrific atrocities they commited in the second world war but in conflicts from the big one all the way up 2 iraq today... in-fact they should issue official apologies to the japanese, german, vietnamese and now the iraqis for sticking there stupid f***ing faces in other peoples buisness, however im not saying all americans are like your steriotypical yankee, I know plenty of americans and they arent facist dogs, btw, i dont give a damn about the "facts" as numbers are meaningless when you look closely at the brutal, savage way the american "liberators" treated civilians in all wars then you can make up the "facts" for yourself...

Also I would much prefer to speak german than american slang, thank u very much

Its better to have a thousand fair deaths than to have one backstabbed death, ie using the nuke

and btw im not on the america hate train, im just pissed about what they done and are doing

That's all fine and good (not really), but you're getting off topic. This thread is clearly about "That We Should Have Dropped the Nukes" not about 'war crimes' of America up until the present.

And, no. No one is on your racist side except other racists. You're bad mouthing America just because you don't like us.

What is 'fair', exactly. The dictionary describes 'fair' as:
>legitimately sought, pursued, done, given, etc.; proper under the rules: a fair fight.
What are the 'rules' of war? Everyone is supposed to be given the chance to fight with a weapon in their hand? Wars have never been like that ever. Why start now? Even back when weapons were sticks and rocks people didn't have 'fair' fights. It's human nature to survive, and one can survive easier when one's opponent is disarmed than armed.

Also, you don't seem to know what backstabbing is. Here is the dictionary definition:
>To attack (someone) unfairly, especially in an underhand, deceitful manner.
We didn't backstab the Japanese; we gave full warning of the nuke. It's not our fault they chose to ignore it. Sure some might not consider it 'fair' that we dropped the nuke, but we did warn them. There's nothing else we could have done.


Oh, and btw, your argument isn't very persuasive when almost the entire thing is one, huge run-on sentence; it tends to cause people to question your intelligence.

Please, lets see some proof of this. Provide your proof that the US has had a higher rate of war crimes than the other nations involved. While there have been incidents, there have been far more (especially in WWII) by the other side.

Mentioning Iraq is just silly. How can you honestly compare the rare incidents (for which the guilty are punished) to an enemy that deliberately targets civilians as a standard tactic?



Sorry Germany, we apologize for getting in the way of your genocide and conquest. It was wrong of us to stop you from exterminating the jews and all those other undesireables. We apologize for failing to recognize your fundamental right to murder, it won't happen again.

Sorry Japan, we are very sorry for fighting back once you attacked us. We should have immediately surrendered and let you massacre all the civilians you wanted. Since we are evil Americans, we deserved Pearl Harbor, it was wrong of us to even think of building a navy in the first place. We should have thanked you for killing our soldiers and trying to end our imperialist ambitions.

Sorry Vietnam, we apologize for trying to save you from an ideology that has killed people by the millions and wrecked every country that has ever tried it.

I will, however, give a sincere apology for Iraq. The entire Middle East is a barbaric third-world hell that we have no business getting involved in. We should simply have taken the oil fields, built a wall, and left the rest of the fanatics to kill each other in peace.



I believe this says it all. Why bother with facts when you can just spam your anti-American ranting? I have to give you credit... you may be utterly delusional and completely lacking in moral judgement, but at least you admit you're ignoring the truth.


Do you really fail to understand the massive evil the nazis were guilty of? You wouldn't be speaking German, you'd be dead.



How the hell were the nuclear attacks "backstabbing"? Were you asleep in history class or something? Get a damn history book and read about the state of open war that had existed between the US and Japan for years before those attacks.

If you're looking for "backstabbing", go read the chapter on a little battle called "Pearl Harbor".

Interesting that you consider the US fascist, when the archetypal fascist states were Germany and Italy in WW2 which, by implication, you support. I presume you really mean that the US are Nationalist.

We are all to a greater or lesser degree Nationalist but the word covers a multitude of meanings. I gather that you are from the UK. This is a pity as I do not believe your views are representative of the educated and knowledgeable in this country.

In so far as I enjoy living in London I must perforce be 'nationalist' in a mild sense but the nation I recognise is not limited by gender, belief or colour as some 'Nationalists' define their crede.

Of course the BNP (British Nationalist Party to the uninitiated) is fascist and there are such organisations in the US too and other parts of Europe. At present, and hopefully for a long time to come, these organisations have small numbers of supporters. (Smaller than the noise they make, for sure.) The US may be more xenophobic but such a phobia is not really extended to disliking foreigners abroad. And none of this has anything to do with the behviour of their armies on active service in any case.

I also find it impossible to believe you can point to the US as being perpetrators of atrocities while conveniently forgetting that we British committed our fair share. You can't imagine we obtained and held an empire by being nice!

Of course most rational Europeans are against many aspects of the current US foreign policy. So are most rational Americans who are fully informed of it. But the reason has nothing to do with levels of atrocities. These are infinitesimal compared with those perpetrated by many other nations - Germany, Japan, Serbia, Rwanda, Sudan etc. etc to name but a few. This argument has no basis in reality and it does you no credit to repeat it.

I would however take issue with Peregrine's statement that the oil in Iraq belongs to the US. I hope it is tongue in cheek because it is precisely the kind of comment that alienates the rest of the world from the US. It's often followed up by 'we in the US don't care what the rest of the world thinks'. And this neatly answers the question Karasuman originally raised (but later edited out and which promped my first reply) as to why, on the whole, the rest of the world don't like US foreign policy.

"btw, i dont give a damn about the "facts" as numbers are meaningless when you look closely at the brutal, savage way the american "liberators" treated civilians in all wars"

lol Oh god.... Are you really this blind and stupid? Seriously? Are you? If we're dragging "all wars" into this, Malchik brings up a point which I was actually going to make mention of in my last post, though I had already strayed enough from the topic. I'm glad he brought it up though. How we "treat civilians in all wars" eh? You live in the most historically imperialistic nation on the face of the planet (save maybe for Rome). In fact, if memory serves me, the very nation you're sitting here ranting on about was pretty heavily oppressed by yours for years before gaining independence. Let's leave other wars out of this. Your statements about the US in "all wars" are made in complete hypocritical ignorance of the evils your own country has committed in its much longer history of wars.

Second, numbers are meaningless? What the hell are you talking about? So, those mass numbers of people murdered by Germany and Japan are just fine by you huh? I guess those are merely petty details as long as you get the opportunity to vilify the US a little, right? I imagine it takes one gigantic-ass rug to sweep 20 million dead civilians under it while making your brain-dead arguments.

What else, what else...Oh!

"Its better to have a thousand "fair" deaths than to have one backstabbed death, ie using the nuke"

i.e. gas chamber

i.e. ovens

i.e. firing squad

i.e. burying alive

i.e. starving

You forgot those. Spare everyone the lesson about fair deaths in WW2.

Must I forever be babysitting these threads? Heretic, please take your trolling/flamey extreme opinions elsewhere. I removed your latest post. And guys, just because someone's behaving kind of foolishly, doesn't mean you get to shoot them down in a bombardment of trolling/flaming. Please don't do that.

Let's get this back on-topic shall we?

Heretic, I suggest you stop posting in this thread; you're not contributing, you're just ranting and trolling. Learn to debate like a mature person or leave. I'll give you a strike if you keep this up after I've specifically asked you to stop. I've removed your and Peregrine's childish bickering. As usual Peregrine: quit it.