History thread [split] from "New Rule - Promoting Terrorism"

[Anomalocaris]

FDR was dead by then.... and the Russians would have been on the French Riviera.

Yeah, my bad. I mean July 1, 1942.

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Hey people are flawed, petty, unjust, violent but God is supposed to be supreme and perfect, yet all he can do is resort to genocide. If he was so supreme he could have just said something smart or resort to some superior way to spread his message instead of infanticide, bloodthirst, cannibalism, ethnic cleansing, animal sacrifice and other genocides he is described of doing.

Now, using the atom bomb was a horrible thing but was it right or wrong? There were some that said Japan was on the brink of surrender and that bomb was unnecessary like Admiral William Daniel Leahy and apparently General MacArthur. If you ask me I think they should have gone with the idea that scientists from Los Alamos had and that was to demonstrate the bomb in front of Japanese officials. But like the saying goes "It's easy being a general after the battle."
Also, other Japanese cities were bombed much heaver (if you discount radiation) in tons of TNT, like Tokyo.

Gen. Anami didn't think the first bomb was as bad as reports said. His second in command had to visit both cities and report back before he understood what a "rain of ruin" really meant. One plane, one bomb, one city. 

Until Nagasaki the Japanese were not going to surrender. 

As for a demonstration, setting a bomb off on a desert island could have impressed the actual observers, but it's doubtful that reports of a big bang and a bunch of flattened palm trees would have any impact with the war faction back home. 

And you're right, the March 16th(?) fire bombing of Tokyo killed more people than either bomb.

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I've searched the archives, others have looked as well, and there's little talk of using radiation (direct or as fall-out) as a force multiplier for the bombs. They considered them very powerful incidenaries and blast weapons. I may have mentioned that we had ten reserved for the invasions, tactical use weapons, and our guys would have gone through, or close to, Ground Zero after every bomb.

The Japanese had no way of knowing how many bombs the US was capable of producing, but they did have their own bomb program and did have an idea of what it might take to build a bomb.  throughout the war they underestimated American industrial resources and effecicency with which it can be focused on war effort.  I recall Japanese analysis after Hiroshima dismissing the possibility that such a weapon can be produced en mass.

It should be kept in mind that for the Japanese, the ultimate bottomline is the preservation of the imperial system and sovereignty of the 4 home islands.  Just before the bomb the Soviets declared war and the prospect of a postwar allied division of japan similar to the joint occupation and division of Germany might seem like an increasingly inevitable outcome if the Soviets became further involved.   Also, the more involved the Soviets become, the more power they will have to veto any peace terms that might otherwise to agreeable to the Americans.   Division of japan or joint occupation involving the Soviets almost certainly mean the end of the imperial system.