RE: The Hiroshima shadows.
June 3, 2017 at 12:38 pm
(This post was last modified: June 3, 2017 at 12:43 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(June 3, 2017 at 12:14 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:(June 3, 2017 at 2:17 am)Tizheruk Wrote: accept Japan didn't start the war they were pressured into it
Actually those statistics have been seriously challenged. And it's been argued that statistically German would take more men . And thou nuking Berlin had been considered it was considered to awful to do . So I don't buy number of men argument . The real reason was to intimidate Russia and a general feeling that "Japan Deserved it". And even then they could have gone with one of the earlier suggestions proposed and launched it on an inhabited Island off the coast .
Berlin wasn't nuked because the Germans surrendered 2 months before the Bomb was ready.
Even if the US had the bomb in time. Berlin was allocated to the Soviet Union. It was evident Stalin would pay any price to take the city. It was clear the soviets were going to take most of the remaining allied casualties needed to subdue Germany. In the end the soviets suffered half million casualties in taking Berlin. The US was not about to nuke the city and risk weakening German defenses and allowing the soviets to take the city more cheaply.
In any case, Berlin was still one of the world's Great metropolis, on par with London, Paris or Tokyo and much more important than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was clear German ability to resist was coming to an end. Nuking Berlin could have very damaging effects on European public opinion, and hand the soviets a great post war propaganda gift.
There was no analogous condition with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was widely believed the Japanese still had plenty of capacity to resist, the two cities are relatively minor urban locations. If the war were to continue the US would absorb the bulk of remaining casualties required to subdue Japan.
