https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945
Over 100,00 Japanese Civilians Killed, many more wounded and utter destruction. To paraphrase General Curtis La May…We burned,boiled and scorched the Japs.
I am sympathetic, but I always say to myself…The Japs started the war, not the USA!
Japan kept peace for nearly 300 years, ruled by a warrior clan (ironically), but there was a regime change in 1868 where a new western style government was installed.
In 50 short years afterwards, Japan started wars with China (1894) and with Russia (1904), annexed Korea by force (1910), joined the fray of WWI and warred with Germany (1914), and dispatched troops to Siberia (ostensibly to prevent the Bolshevik takeover of Russia) in 1918.
Japan’s aggression war in China didn’t stop throughout the 1930s, culminating in Pearl Harbor.
So we need to ask, who were these people who installed the new, western style government in 1868 to promote heavy industries and military buildup?
Interestingly, it’s the same people who have ruled Japan since 1945 and continue the subservient politics to the US to this day.
These people are now permitting the heavy chemtrails over the skies of Japan and the 5G rollout next month, and will welcome the New World Order with open arms.
One of the issues they faced at the time is how to end the war as the Japanese refused to surrender.
The fire bombing and atomic bombs were a way to get to the surrender. Imagine invading Japan, millions would have been killed.
LaMay’s were certainly tasteless at best and certainly reflected the times.
LeMay responded to a Japanese newspaper reporter in an interview late 1960s that he was simply following orders.
That’s what all military men do, don’t they?
I can’t have any sympathy for them. They supported the Emperor and the war with a religious fervor and the entire population was dedicated to the war effort.
The first night of the Tokyo raid killed more Japanese civilians than either Nuclear Strike and left about 90% of the populace homeless as a result.
Even when faced with that kind of wholesale destruction the refused to capitulate until after the 2nd Atomic Bomb was dropped.
With the wonder weapons Japan was building at the time if we’d gone the route of invasion we’d have had to wait probably another year which would have given them such an edge they would have decimated our invasion fleet.
The calculations made in 44-45 estimating 1-2 million allied casualties didn’t account for those weapons because we didn’t know they existed at the time.
Rocket and jet powered flying bombs would have wreaked pure hell on the fleet and post war Japan would have been split between Russia and The US which would have subjected the Japanese in the Russian occupied areas to the same kinds of conditions the North Koreans have suffered under.
What wouldn’t have changed much was the prediction that 10 million or more Japanese would have died if we chose to invade rather than going with strategic bombing to quickly bring about their surrender.
There was no “western style gov’t”. The Emperor ruled and was worshiped as a god.
Correct! Thousands of Americans would have been killed. Also think of the logistics of resupplying thousands of tons per day of munitions, medical supplies and food. It would have been a nightmare!
Actually even without giving them six months to a year to train, fortify the home Islands and to poour out thousands of their wonder weapons, we were already looking at losing at least 1.5-2 milion American lives in a ground campaign.
As for the logistics it would have required an initial invasion force of at least 10x that which was required for D-Day.
Logistially it was orders of magnitude more difficult too because we didn’t have a huge Island 25 miles off of Japanese shores to use as a staging base like we had with England.
An invasion of Japan would have been several orders of magnitude more difficult and costly than D-Day.
A single one of their jet or rocket powered flying bombs is all that would be necessary to destroy even our biggest ships and we had absolutely no effective means of defending against them because of their amazing speed.
In terms of both dollars and lives it would have more that doubled the cost of the entire war in Europe.
Somewhere I heard, we actually had 7 bombs. It would not surprise me.
Thousands?
Probably hundreds of thousands.
My dad fought in Europe in WWII and his unit (30th Infantry) was on orders to the Pacific when Japan surrendered. I can tell you what, he sure was happy we went this route.
Nope, only three. We had the test bomb which was the first at White Sands plus the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
It took the total output of our first 3 reactors to produce enough enriched Uranium and Plutonium for those three bombs.
We forced the Japanese to surrender essentially by running the biggest bluff in history.
My dad was on a battleship in the Pacific and never taked about the war except being scared of the Kamikazes near the end.
Truman’s decision saved millions.
LONDON — American military archives reveal that if the Japanese had not surrendered on August 15, 1945, they would have been hit by a third and potentially more powerful atomic bomb just a few days later and then, eventually, an additional barrage of up to 12 further nuclear attacks.
Documents highlighted during commemorationsto mark the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9, which forced the end of World War II, show the determination of the United States to make Japan surrender unconditionally.
In the spring of 1945, the U.S. Army set up a special target committee to debate key Japanese cities to attack as officials believed their regime had already made it perfectly clear they were not willing to surrender at any price.
Confidential reports added that “even after two atom bombs, they preferred to fight on till they are all dead. Death or glory.”
There were only 2 on Tinian however a 3rd was being made ready with some material on Tinian and the rest at the Manhattan project being readied for shipment.
Japan offered surrender via Sweden earlier in 1945.
It was the Wall Street cabal who wanted to test the atomic bomb on a live city and didn’t let Japan surrender.
(That’s why Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not been bombed). Manhattan Project indeed.
For this test, countless US servicemen had to die on Iwo Jima, Okinawa and many other exotic places.
Japan never offered a complete unconditional surrender and the dismantling of their armed forces until after the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
There was no set of circumstances under which the allies would accept a surrender that left their military and empire in tact because they all knew it would simply be a matter of time before they rebuilt, rearmed, and resumed their conquest.
Give me another example where “a complete unconditional surrender and the dismantling of their armed forces” was offered in human history.
That’s one hell of a strawman argument since we’ve only had two world wars.
