Atomic Bombs from WWII

[edyzmedieval]

Do you think an atomic bomb was really necessary to stop the war? Discuss please.

And one more thing, are there any rumours about a 3rd atomic bomb to be dropped?

[lars573]

I don't know if there was enough Plutonium for a thrid bomb. From what I've understood they US only had enough for 3 bombs and it took them nearly a year to make more.

Now as too the bombs use. Well the US governemnt was pridicting 1 million US casualties to invade the home islands of Japan. They were convinced it would be Okinawa on larger scale. They wanted to shock and awe the Japanese into swallowing there pride and surrendering.

[Watchman]

Oh, Japan was quite thoroughly enough in the ropes already and by that point the war in Europe was already over. It was just a question of how the heck you could convince the buggers to admit they lost already.

As a funny side note, I once read somewhere the pre-nuke plans the US had for invading the Home Islands also toyed with the idea of massive chemical-warfare saturation of at least the landing areas to clear the way... I'm not sure how true that is, but in any case the sheer potential for mayhem and massive collateral civilian casualties involved would probably make even nuking two cities seem fairly tame in comparision...

I'm under the impression Fat Man and Little Boy had been a bit of a stretch for US resources of the time, though, so if they were to drop a third one it'd probably have taken a while to get the damn thing built in the first place.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I haven't done enough research, but I have heard that the cost of life, both allied and axis, would be tremendous if the allied powers were to invade mainland Japan. I do however think we should have done a lot better job informing the civilians to leave the city. We did no where near enough.

[lars573]

I haven't done enough research, but I have heard that the cost of life, both allied and axis, would be tremendous if the allied powers were to invade mainland Japan. I do however think we should have done a lot better job informing the civilians to leave the city. We did no where near enough.

By better do you mean at all? They just flew in and nuked the cities. No more warning than any bombing raid gave.

I can see it now. "Dear Hiroshima, the US army air crops would like to infrom you that we will be dropping a new fangled bomb that will vaporize 10 square KM of your downtown and several thousand people and give lethal doses of radiation to tens of thousands more. And leave dangerous contamination in the soil for decades to come. So if you get all the civilians out as soon as possible so our consience will be clear that would be great. Yours truly the hated gigen."

[Monarch]

I haven't done enough research, but I have heard that the cost of life, both allied and axis, would be tremendous if the allied powers were to invade mainland Japan. I do however think we should have done a lot better job informing the civilians to leave the city. We did no where near enough.

I agree, in theory. However isn't that basically just handing over your plans to the enemy? It'd have been like telling the Germans when and where we where landing on D-day.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I agree, in theory. However isn't that basically just handing over your plans to the enemy? It'd have been like telling the Germans when and where we where landing on D-day.

Not really. The point of the atomic bomb was to hit major areas of high industrial activity, like tank factories or gun factories. If they told the civilians they were bombing, then I'm sure the army would get wind of it, but they could not pick up and move these vital factories.

Lars:

You may be right. I think we did in fact fly overhead and give pieces of paper stating what was happening. We did do something, but it was no where near what needed to happen. I may be wrong though, but I did say I needed to do some research.

[Strike For The South]

The bombs were nessacary. The Japnesse were going to fight to the death like they had done time and time before. They were not on the ropes. The USA was just upping the ante with a more powerful weapon it happend throughout history and will continue to happen. The bomb saved many more lives than it cut short.

[lars573]

Lars:

You may be right. I think we did in fact fly overhead and give pieces of paper stating what was happening. We did do something, but it was no where near what needed to happen. I may be wrong though, but I did say I needed to do some research.

Didn't happen. The US might threatened massive retaliation if they didn't capitulate soon. And propaganda leaflets were dropped all the time.

But a clear warning that said "We bes nuking Hiroshima soon, if you want to live flee!" never happened.

[Grey_Fox]

A conventional bombing raid would have killed just as many if not even more people, so I don't see why you're complaining.

The only difference is that many more of the casualties were caused by radiation, but that was relatively short lived. People live right on top of where both nuclear bombs were dropped, and there is a negligible difference in cancer rates.

[BigTex]

Do you think an atomic bomb was really necessary to stop the war? Discuss please.

And one more thing, are there any rumours about a 3rd atomic bomb to be dropped?

Completely necessary. The firebombing of massive cities didn't convince them to surender. Invasion would have meant millions of Allied deaths, tens of millions of japense deaths. It would have meant urban warfare the likes we have never seen, hopefully never will see. More then likely an invasion would have boulstered the Japanese army with new fanatacial youth recruits. The USA had drawn up plans to build more bombs prior to the invasion and use them to destroy troops in the open. The amount of death involved would have been incredible. The bombs made then shiver though, with just one plane and one bomb there goes one city. It was a neccesary evil. Warning the citizenry would have destroyed the impact it had. The japanese air defenses would have been ready and the impact of just a couple planes decimating a city would be lost.

War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Re the fore-warning or not discussion: The allies did indeed drop warnings about most of (or all of) the regular bombing raids of cities, however they did not warn before the nuke raids.

As for whether the nukes were needed or not, it's clear that the Japanese were in serious problems already before the first nuke. They were facing massive starvation, all their ports were mined, pretty much all of the Imperial Navy destroyed, the Soviets had launched their massive offensive into the only territory the Japanese still had any considerable strength, and they had lost a majority of their planes and AA - they had so little left that during several of the months before, fighter escorts were considered unneeded. Whether the first nuke had any effect at all is difficult to say, but in any case it clearly gave the Japanese an excuse to not die in "an honorable defeat", as many Japanese commanders expressed the refusal to surrender, because the nuke was something that they couldn't in any way fight, it was, in comparison to regular weapons, superhuman, unreal. So the first nuke might indeed have been useful, but not in the way most people seem to be claiming. Not for scaring and setting examples, but for giving the commanders an excuse for breaking the honor traditions.

However it's strange that there was no regular flyer drop of warnings prior to the nuke bombing raid, unlike what was the doctrine for the regular bombing raids that happened at the same time. What's also a bit scary is the reasoning behind the second nuke drop. The Japanese had already offered their surrender when the second nuke was dropped. In official statements it was clear that there were scientists insisting on dropping the second nuke, which was of another type than the first nuke, to "get a chance to test it in practise". What is positive is that they chose to drop the second nuke over a smaller city, Nagasaki, instead of another large city. However I tend to agree that they should have used the normal doctrine of dropping flyers over Hiroshima before bombing, and that they would have skipped the dropping of the second nuke, which was clearly dropped only for research purposes. Some would also claim that the lack of flyers warnings over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were due to a desire to get research material on the effects of the bombs, but that's not totally clear. In defense of this, it's understandable that a war-tired nation after a war that it didn't choose to fight (USA was attacked by a regular declaration of war by the official representatives of the Japanese nation and by the army and navy of the country) chooses a slightly immoral approach to end the war when they finally turn the tide. Compared to the extensive city carpet bombing raids carried out by RAF over Europe, and the city carpet bombing raids carried out by USAAF over Japanese cities with regular bombs, the nukes actually only constitue a fraction of the civilian massacres.

As for effects on the world caused by radiation etc., I have to disagree with the people who claim it is as if it never happened today. For example all metals in the entire world today are still affected by the radiation from the nukes of 1945, and this has forced people to take metal from - guess what - the scuttled Hochseeflotte at Scapa Flow, which hasn't been affected by the radiation because the metal was below water at the time. There were also noticeable weather effects for the decade following upon the nukings. Furthermore, the death caused by nuke was more horrible than any death that could be caused by regular bombs, with the skin being peeled off the victims and falling off. The nukes of such detonation power are also horrible weapons due to the fact that their only possible use is to cause mass murder of civilian targets, not elimination of military targets. So while the first nuke over Hiroshima might have been understandable, we should at the same time, when the subject is up for discussion, remember that any usage of nukes in our modern world, would result in a disaster. Modern nukes are several hundred times more powerful than those used back in ww2, and once one country starts using nukes all countries will soon use them, with the result being a nuclear winter, probably death to all of mankind. It's probable that even a single one of, or only a dozen, of the heaviest of the modern nukes, would cause so severe environmental destruction that it'll be impossible to live on earth afterwards.

[Watchman]

The bombs were nessacary. The Japnesse were going to fight to the death like they had done time and time before. They were not on the ropes. The USA was just upping the ante with a more powerful weapon it happend throughout history and will continue to happen. The bomb saved many more lives than it cut short.

"Not on the ropes" ? By what token ? They'd damn near already lost for good the second Pearl Harbor didn't yield the results they were looking for and the European Axis started getting the stuffing kicked out of them. By -45 they in practice had nothing else left than their home isles, and no meaningful offensive military capacity to speak of.

They'd already lost but good. They just weren't willing to admit it and fold.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.

Too true. I agree.

[Aenlic]

Not going to get involved in an emotional discussion about whether or not it should have been done. People on both sides ignore what really happened to focus on what they want to be true. The truth is somewhere in between.

As for the ability to build a third bomb, we simply didn't have it. Hansford was barely able to produce enough enriched material for 2 bombs in the time they were needed. The enrichment plant was no where near able to make enough for three at the time. The enrichment takes a lot of uranium. People got rich prospecting for uranium in the late 1940's and early 1950's. My father, a geophysicist, did some uranium prospecting on the side while working on his thesis in Colorado in the mid-1950's. I grew up in the 1960's playing with one of his Geiger counters. But in 1945, we didn't have enough enriched uranium available to make more than the two we did make.

[Atilius]

Had nuclear weapons not been used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is little doubt that a costly invasion of the Japanese islands would have been necessary.

I'm largely summarizing here from Code-Word Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan - and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb, by Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar. Another excellent book, Downfall, by Richard B. Frank tells a similar story.

The Potsdam Declaration, requiring "unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces" and spelling out allied intentions for a conquered Japan, had reached the Japanese government on July 27. The war cabinet, consisting of Prime Minister Suzuki, Foreign Minister Togo, War Minister Gen. Anami, Navy Minister Adm. Yonai, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Umezu, and Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Toyoda, was unwilling to accept it. It is true that the Japanese were trying to get the Russians to mediate negotiations over terms of a surrender. However, they were pursuing terms which would have allowed Japanese officers to supervise the disarmament of their own men, allowed Japanese officers to be tried for war crimes only in Japanese courts, and mandated a short, token occupation of Japan. As the Potsdam Declaration spells out, these terms were unacceptable to the Allies.

At a war cabinet meeting on August 9, three days after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and the day that news of the Soviet declaration of war reached Tokyo, only Prime Minister Suzuki was clearly in favor of accepting the Potsdam Declaration. Anami, Toyoda, and Umezu definitely favored waiting for an invasion, hoping to inflict a bloody defeat on the US which might allow Japan to win concessions on surrender terms from the Allies. This hope was not unreasonable. As the war ended, Adm. Nimitz was preparing to withdraw US Navy support for Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, on the grounds that rising Japanese troop strength had seriously jeopardized the success of the landing.

Opinions were apparently unaffected by the news later that day that Nagasaki too had suffered nuclear annihilation. The Home Minister, Abe, said he could not guarantee civil obedience if Japan surrendered and called for continued fighting. The war cabinet was deadlocked. Prime Minister Suzuki then sought a meeting of the war cabinet in his imperial majesty's presence for the (unprecedented) purpose of requesting a decision from the emperor. The audience was granted and each of the members of the war cabinet made his arguments in front of the sovereign. Hirohito opted for surrender, and the government was bound to accept it. The Japanese transmitted acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration to the Allied governments on August 10, but did not inform the Japanese public of the decision.

The people of Japan only began to learn that the government had decided to surrender on August 14 when B-29s began dropping leaflets reproducing the full text of the Japanese surrender message and the American acceptance. Fearing this might provoke a military coup against the government by die-hard officers, imperial chamberlain Kido requested that Hirohito make his intentions clear by means of an imperial rescript announcing the surrender.

A coup attempt was actually under way and Gen. Anami knew of it. Had he not also known of the emperor's decision, he would have supported it. As it was, he didn't betray the officers who launched it and later committed seppuku. On the night of the 14th, conspirators entered the War Ministry, killed the commander of the 1st Imperial Guards Division, and used his seal to issue orders for the Guards to occupy the imperial palace and grounds, and to cut off palace communications except through Guards HQ. Coup supporters took control of the NHK building in Tokyo to prevent broadcast of the emperor's surrender message. Several largely unsuccessful assassination attempts were also made.

The coup had unraveled by the next morning and the surrender broadcast was made early on the 15th.

I think this makes clear that even after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was still no desire on the part of the Japanese military to surrender unconditionally. Only the stated intention of the Emperor brought (most of) them to heel. Had the bombings not taken place, Hirohito would not have been asked to make the decision for surrender.

[Papewaio]

As for effects on the world caused by radiation etc., I have to disagree with the people who claim it is as if it never happened today. For example all metals in the entire world today are still affected by the radiation from the nukes of 1945, and this has forced people to take metal from - guess what - the scuttled Hochseeflotte at Scapa Flow, which hasn't been affected by the radiation because the metal was below water at the time.

Do you have any links for this? It doesn't look at all accurate. I'm pretty sure that outside the immediate vicinity of the bombs that the world's supply of metals were uneffected. Alpha radiation cannot even penerate the skin, Beta radiation is just electrons or positrons so they can only penetrate so far, while Gamma rays just overpenetrate everything and won't cause that much damage even if they can peneratre the entire earth, they have a definite drop in intensity just like ordinary . And that the natural background radiation in many parts of the world are higher then Nagasaki or Hiroshima.

So I find it highly doubtfull that 'all metals in the entire world today are still affected by the radiation from the nukes of 1945'.

There were also noticeable weather effects for the decade following upon the nukings.

Likewise, I find a paucity of information to back up this assertion.

Furthermore, the death caused by nuke was more horrible than any death that could be caused by regular bombs, with the skin being peeled off the victims and falling off. The nukes of such detonation power are also horrible weapons due to the fact that their only possible use is to cause mass murder of civilian targets, not elimination of military targets. So while the first nuke over Hiroshima might have been understandable, we should at the same time, when the subject is up for discussion, remember that any usage of nukes in our modern world, would result in a disaster. Modern nukes are several hundred times more powerful than those used back in ww2, and once one country starts using nukes all countries will soon use them, with the result being a nuclear winter, probably death to all of mankind. It's probable that even a single one of, or only a dozen, of the heaviest of the modern nukes, would cause so severe environmental destruction that it'll be impossible to live on earth afterwards.

I disagree with the idea that dieing from a nuke is any worse then dieing from an incendiary or shrapnel bomb, in fact being turned to ions instantly versus being naplamed I would chose the prior. The primary difference is long term damage and the amount killed per bomb.

Considering the amount of atmospheric H-bombs detonated, I find it hard to believe that they did not cause more enviromental destruction then the ones dropped on Japan. Yet there isn't much data saying the bombs have had that much effect.

As for the power of nukes it is in their radioactive residue that there is something to fear. There collective power after all is less then that of a decent earthquake.

[Franconicus]

Do you think an atomic bomb was really necessary to stop the war?

Obviously not necessary to end war. The allied had already defeated Germany and the Japanese navy and air force were defeated as well. The Japanese troops on the continent were isolated and the allied controlled all the supply routes to and from the motherland. The Japanese industry was not able to produce any more. Hadn't the Japanese government offered ceasefire anyway?

There had been several options for the allies. An invasion was one of them. The bomb was another. However, the allies could have easily, at least in my opinion, cut off Japan completly and defeat the troops outside the islands. Japan had to capitulate anyway.

Did you know that the Americans had problems to find targets even for the two bombs. All the other towns were so badly damaged that they were just no worth to drop a bomb on them. I wonder what the US would have done if Japan would not have surrendered. There was nothing to destroy left.

By the way, if memory serves the US used Pultonium as well as Uranium bombs. They would have been able to produce more than just the two.

I think there are some other aspects of the nuclear attacks:

1) The Americans did not know exactly what the effect of a nuclear explosion in a town would be. They had run tests in a dessert, but a dessert is not like a town. I red that they even discussed the option to bomb a channel throught the southern territory of the US to have an alternative to the Panama.

2) They were shocked and tired of the resistance of the Japanese. That made their attidute more brutal.

3) They invested a lot of money in the bomb. In fact the resources were so huge that Germany and Japan stopped their nuclear programs, not because it was not feasible from a technology point of view, but because they did not have the industril resources. Both countries were major industrial nations. The US could spend this resources without loosing the war. Now they had to prove that the money was well spent.

4) The military doctrine of the US during WW2 was the strategic bombing. It remained the focus during the cold war. The bomb fit perfectly to that and gave the US the superority for decades (at least that was what they thought!). However, they had to show the world what they had.

5) Of course there is also an ethical aspect. Compared to the axis the allied where the good ones. However, the massive bombing of civilians made their moral position shady. The nuclear bombing was just another step forward.
Some once wrote that WW2 showed that menkind was able to destroy our planet from a technical point of view (Hiroshima) and from a ethical point of view (Ausschwitz).

[English assassin]

There's no need to speculate on this. In view of the casualties taken and inflicted fighting Germany to unconditional surrender through conventional means, even if you assume the casualties caused by invading Japan would have been no greater (not a likely assumption) any measure that avoided an invasion of Japan unquestionably saved both Allied and Japanese lives.

they would have skipped the dropping of the second nuke, which was clearly dropped only for research purposes

That would make the decision to drop the second weapon one of the wosrt war crimes of WWII. Is there any evidence for this?

[Rodion Romanovich]

Do you have any links for this?

It was in a scientific magazine one to three years ago, I remembered it because of the pretty interesting but useless fact that among other things the moonlanding Apollo project had to use metal from the scuttled Hochseeflotte to be able to carry out their sensitive tasks, as no other metal worked. You should probably be able to find information about this if you spend a few hours of googling the different keywords mentioned here such as Apollo, Hochseeflotte, Scapa Flow etc. Good luck, if you find something I wouldn't mind getting the link either!

I disagree with the idea that dieing from a nuke is any worse then dieing from an incendiary or shrapnel bomb, in fact being turned to ions instantly versus being naplamed I would chose the prior

I agree, but I was talking about the long border zone, where your skin is peeled off and you die a slow, painful death which takes between 1 hour and 5 years.

[Rodion Romanovich]

That would make the decision to drop the second weapon one of the wosrt war crimes of WWII. Is there any evidence for this?

Afaik there were scientists' statements implying this, and there have been various books and documentaries on the subject as well. Truly a war crime, but the nation was tired of the war. And there's always some fire after the peace negotiation ends, for example there were even conventional bombing raids over cities after the peace negotiations had ended, as well as some Japanese in Burma or Thailand who kept fighting after the official surrender. Besides the Russians, at least initially, held a similar view on their nukes, but luckily enough weren't at war with anyone powerful enough to justify nuking, so they didn't end up committing that same crime, but it's very likely they would have, if they had been in the same situation. The Russian "peaceful coexistence" policy for nukes was probably not until after 1990 what it sounded like, but more like the American "massive retalliation" policy, which I'm unfortunately seeing developed even further in very recent times.

[Avicenna]

The second bomb was a Plutonium bomb. This doesn't mean they could make a third in short time, as plutonium used is taken from uranium. Uraniums getting refined in the reactor produce plutonium, which is then used for the bombs. So, you could say that the supply of plutonium depends on uranium.

EDIT: legio, the USSR couldn't have nuked anyone, seeing how their first test of a nuke was only in late 1949.

[Rodion Romanovich]

EDIT: legio, the USSR couldn't have nuked anyone, seeing how their first test of a nuke was only in late 1949.

that's what I mean. But if they had had a chance sometime between 1949 and 1990, they could very well have taken it. Actually it's claimed that some people (not many, but still) were living in the areas they carried out some of their earliest nuke tests... Luckily the current Russian regime, although hardly an example for others, are very moderate in their nuclear policy, and are actually living up to the motto of "peaceful coexistence".

[Avicenna]

You mean unlike the French in Micronesia?

[Rodion Romanovich]

like France, not unlike France...

[Avicenna]

The French did testing of nuclear there and lots of people are complaining about the effects of radiation and demanding.. compensation I think, not sure.

[BigTex]

Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

As for effects on the world caused by radiation etc., I have to disagree with the people who claim it is as if it never happened today. For example all metals in the entire world today are still affected by the radiation from the nukes of 1945, and this has forced people to take metal from - guess what - the scuttled Hochseeflotte at Scapa Flow, which hasn't been affected by the radiation because the metal was below water at the time.

This is a major major exageration, with an obvious bias. There were only 2 bombs used, both were quite small. Since then there have been many many more powerful bombs tested above ground. In fact when did France stop atmospheric testing? To say 2 small bombs did more damage then the dozens that followed is a falsy, wherever you got that information from they need a good history book on the cold war.

[Rodion Romanovich]

This is a major major exageration, with an obvious bias. There were only 2 bombs used, both were quite small. Since then there have been many many more powerful bombs tested above ground. In fact when did France stop atmospheric testing? To say 2 small bombs did more damage then the dozens that followed is a falsy, wherever you got that information from they need a good history book on the cold war.

The data then probably includes the other bombs as well. In any case we can probably agree that it's a fairly safe figure to say that over 30 nukes launched in the same year would for sure be a total disaster in terms of radiation.

[Franconicus]

Maybe we are a bit off topic, but here some remarks.

Radiactive Isotopes from nukes can be found everywhere on earth. That is true. However, this 'fallout' integrates all nukes ever exploded. The ones used in WW2 were rather small. Additionally you have to see where the bomb explodes, on earth, below or in the atmosphere. The inpact on the radioactive material is very different.

The worst thing of nukes (at least on a global scale) is not the radioactivity, it is the dust in the atmosphere that darkens the sky. If memory serves it takes some hundred years until it falls out again (experience comes mainly from volcanos).

[Redleg]

Do you think an atomic bomb was really necessary to stop the war? Discuss please.

And one more thing, are there any rumours about a 3rd atomic bomb to be dropped?

If one reviews the history available concerning WW2 and the use of atomic weapons against Japan, one will discover that the President Truman honestly believed that the use of the bombs was necessary to end the war.

As for a third bomb - all my research into WW2 and the bombs indicates that only two bombs were built.