Multi-Million/Billionaires Owning Farms
Society & Culture1 min ago
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.The Japanese were a beaten people, but were fighting to to death, their culture has to be taken int account, better to die than dishonourable surrender.
before an invasion of Japan could go ahead, two outposts had to be taken, Iowa Jima, and Okinawa, so that US plane had the range of the main Japanese islands.
Iowa Jima was defended by 20.000 fanatical Japanese, and without going into the whole story, the US invaded with 30.000 Marines, of which approximately 2.400 were killed.
Okinawa was garrisoned by approximately 100.000 men, the American used, 3000.000, it took them three months to taake the island, with the loss of 12.00 killed, and 36.000 wounded.
The Japanese still, at that time had their Empire virtually intact, and with no sign of Surrender, it was consdered that an actual seaborne invasion would be too costly in manpower, and I would think that this thinking would have been correct, when you consider that they only surrendered after the second Nuclear device had been exploded.
Lonnie is correct. To the Japanese death was preferable to surrender. They did not surrender after the first, the second was needed to convince them. The intonation was that Tokyo would be next, they didn't know how many bombs the US had.
I know a lot of people cannot do Paradoxical thinking but essentially many thousands of live where saved by forcing the surrender. The nation where at the time being told to fight with anything they can to defend the Emporer, even after the second bomb it was only the Emporer that ordered surrender not the military. Hundreds of Samurai Committed Hari Kari because of the dishonor of surrender.
There is no doubt that the Japanese would never have surrendered, they where fearless, fanatical Warriors, who considered death preferrable to surrender.
Without the Atom Bombs, the war would have gom=ne on for many months, and costing the lives of countless thousands, the Japanese were training their women and children at the time.
Also, Japan still had most of its Empire, Malaya, java, Sumatra, Thailand, Ido-China, Taiwan, and large parts of China, so they could call on all these troops defend their homeland, and after Pearl Harbour, the Americans, in my book rightly so, didn't trust the Japanese one bit.
The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, because it was a military target, it had a Garrison of 150.000 soldiers there, plus oil refineries and other aids for the war.
As johnmof says, the Emperor was only the nominal head of state, the real power was held by Tojo.
Russia's spoils for their two day war, was North Korea.
I think another important reason why the USA dropped the bombs was that Russia had declared war on Japan a few weeks earlier.
The USA were worried that Russia would sweep down into the south east to "help" the US, and would move into many countries like Korea and Vietnam, and we would never be able to get them out.
(Look what happened in Eastern Europe after the war, Russia never left much of it until recently).
The longer the war went on the more excuse Russia would have to move south east into other countries, and the US had to stop that.
It was the begining of the battle between the US and Russia and the cold war.
Also note that the two bombs dropped by the US were not the same technology.
I do not know the details, I think one was uraniam, the other plutonium, but both bombs were not the same, they had been designed by different teams using different methods.
The dropping of the first bomb did not prove the second was going to work.
This was an incentive for the US to drop the second bomb.
The Japanese got themselves into WWII by attacking Pearl Harbour, and started something they couldn't finish.
Does no-one remember how the Japs treated the Allied troops that surrendered to them... starved, crucified, beheaded !!
All IS fair in love and war. The Yanks would rather have seen every Jap killed than lose another American life so they dropped the bombs... and quite right too.