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skinner June 30th, 2013 6:32pm

August 9, 1945, Nagasaki a city of 240,000 people in Kyushu was struck by the nuclear weapon Fat Man from a B-29 Bomber; resulting in 800,000 casualties, mostly civilians, half of which occurred immediately. Good decision?

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MrEdwin Mystery
06/30/13 6:26 pm

Predicted casualties if we had invaded Japan would have been in the millions, plus I don't think it was 800,000 people that were killed.

FLAmerican Pensacola
07/01/13 6:44 pm

Nagasaki only killed 80,000, and if we made peace Japan would have grown back like Germany did from World War II.

skinner Jersey City
07/02/13 1:13 pm

Was that a bad thing? West Germany bolstered Europe's economy in the post WWII era.

Jungle in the dog house
06/30/13 5:29 pm

No where near 800,000 were killed due the the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombings. About 80,000 were killed in Nagasaki. The fire bombing of Tokyo in March '45 killed many more people than either of the atomic bombs.

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Jungle in the dog house
06/30/13 5:32 pm

Also, I believe Truman made the correct decision. The bombings ultimately saved lives, both American and Japanese.

skinner Jersey City
07/01/13 6:22 am

I know I had a typo which I admitted a few comments down.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:41 pm

Look up the definition of terrorism

ishady 86451132020
06/30/13 2:39 pm

In all likelihood this may have saved my grandfathers life, so there's that.

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skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:40 pm

Or we could have made peace and not had any further bloodshed

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:46 pm

Hey shady, did you make a new profile or did you manage to rescue your current one? I was wondering about that because of the funny symbol you used before.

ishady 86451132020
06/30/13 2:59 pm

Tony said his database couldn't support symbols like the one I had. When I finally signed on it was gone.

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:25 pm

You should bear in mind that war was not like today. When commanders assessed damage in the bombing campaign over Europe, they found that only a very small percentage of planes managed to drop their bombs within THREE MILES of their target.

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:31 pm

Much of Japan's industrial resources were in and around cities. The most destructive single bombing of Japan was not by nuclear weapon, but by conventional means when 100k (very conservative estimate) died in the firebombing of Tokyo in one night.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:33 pm

That's not relevant to the conversation

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:34 pm

The real takeaway from the nuking of hiroshima and Nagasaki should be thank goodness it had enough impact to stop the war. If it hadn't many more, possibly millions, would have died.

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:38 pm

Skinner, the only reason that is not relevant to you is because, almost 70 years after the event, you have decided that YOU KNOW they were going to surrender anyway, something which is not close to being proved.

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:39 pm

To anyone else looking back, where the prospect of surrender is decidedly less definite, the cost of continuing the war by conventional means is very relevant indeed.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:40 pm

Yes it's proved, the US declassified it.

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:44 pm

That's a single piece of evidence. See my reply to your other comments below.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:54 pm

It's derived from other pieces of proof. And that one piece is a very reputable source, find a website that says it is false.

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 3:52 pm

Not disputing whether it's true or not. I'm disputing whether it mattered or not. I could give you deeds to disneyland, but they're not going to be worth the paper they're printed on. The military wasn't under suzuki's control.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:09 pm




GAFFE ALERT: *80,000 Casualties


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fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:08 pm

Your numbers look seriously wrong here. You're saying over triple the number of people died than actually lived in the city.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:10 pm

It's actually 80,000 sorry

bMyComrade Beantown
06/30/13 12:55 pm

That number is incredibly wrong. You are off by a power of ten. And yes I think it was the right decision. To call war decisions good is to impose false morality on the situation.

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skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:04 pm

Which number is wrong? Please cite.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:10 pm

Oh, yeah, my bad. It's actually 80,000

rory82 Virginia
06/30/13 12:28 pm

War is ugly and I would do anything without mass weapons to do the job. It what worked for that time.

EagleOK Oklahoma
06/30/13 11:59 am

It saved countless American lives that would have been lost in an invasion of Japan. War is disgusting, but you must do what you can to win. Good decision.

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skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 12:09 pm

It's actually a multiple choice question
A.) Kill hundreds of thousands of Japanese by nuclear reactions
B.) Kill hundreds of thousands of people by invasion
C.) Make peace and avoid bloodshed

Jack14 Massachusetts
06/30/13 12:47 pm

The USA was going to use those atom bombs like it or not. It was also a scare tactic to nations like the USSR.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:03 pm

They didn't necessarily have to use an atom bomb. The Soviet point is valid but it's not an excuse to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:04 pm

They didn't necessarily have to use an atom bomb. The Soviet point is valid but it's not an excuse to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents.

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:12 pm

I think the problem with your choices there is option C didn't really exist. Furthermore, on top of massive allied casualties, it's quite likely that far more Japanese would have died in continued conventional bombing alongside invasion casualties.

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:13 pm

It's quite possible that the nukes actually killed far less Japanese than continuing the war conventionally. Again, I don't think C was a real option at that point.

EagleOK Oklahoma
06/30/13 2:27 pm

Correct fredd. The Japanese had no intention of surrendering. We needed to force them to an unconditional surrender. If we agreed to peace, but let them keep their leadership and military, they might try to revive their empire later on down the road.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:32 pm

Fred: yes facts assert that option C did in fact exist. Why despite the facts I just provided do you deny the validity of option C.
Eagle: Um we let them keep their leadership in real life guess who kept being emperor until his death?

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:43 pm

I don't ignore it skinner, I view it in light of a wider viewpoint.

You have plucked a single thread of evidence from history and hung your whole argument from it.

fredd TrumpLand
06/30/13 2:44 pm

Instead, why are you ignoring the fact that the military tried to assassinate the Japanese leader who proposed this peace treaty? A leader who's true motivation seems insincere in the first place?

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:52 pm

I haven't seen a link confirming that. Assuming its true, what's the worst he could do, the treaty provided that Japan would be occupied by the Allies led by the US, that weapons production would be halted, and that the US could try any war criminals

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 2:53 pm

I don't see them pulling some kind of a surprise rebellion with those conditions

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 11:43 am

No Japan secretly offered Washington a peace treaty before Hiroshima that was nearly identical to the one that actually ended the war. It's provisions included:

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 11:44 am

1. Complete surrender of all Japanese forces and arms, at home, on island possessions, and in occupied countries.
2. Occupation of Japan and its possessions by Allied troops under American direction.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 11:44 am

3. Japanese relinquishment of all territory seized during the war, as well as Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan.

skinner Jersey City
06/30/13 11:45 am

4. Regulation of Japanese industry to halt production of any weapons and other tools of war.
5. Release of all prisoners of war and internees.
6. Surrender of designated war criminals.

thatguy81 here
06/30/13 11:51 am

Would love to see where you got this info

thatguy81 here
06/30/13 11:52 am

Not doubting it, just never seen it not can google pull up anything with my search criteria