Was the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima necessary to end World War 2?

Answer 1

Well, let's first think of Japan's demands for surrender right before the atomic bombings to get a look at Japan's view.

Imperial Japan demanded the following concessions for their surrender.

1. They wanted to keep their emperor, and they wanted to keep the home Islands (Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku)
2. They wanted the Imperial Headquarters to oversee the disarmament and demobilization of their military.
3. They wanted to have the Japanese government be responsible for punishing war criminals
4. They wanted no American occupation of Formosa (Taiwan) and Korea.

Contrary to what most people would think, in terms of standard morality and human decency, most of these demands were unreasonable. Keeping the emperor and the home islands were basic points that the American government had long since anticipated and privately accepted before the bombing, but the last 3 points were outright immoral. First off, Japan's high command was literally split between 2 factions: the Emperor and his pro-surrender faction versus the Imperial military (the no-surrender faction). Leaving the disarmament of the military in the hands of people who did NOT want to surrender even at the risk of death was obviously not something the Americans would have liked.

Furthermore, Imperial Japan had committed as many war crimes as the Nazis such as human massacres, human experimentation and torture under Unit 731, and forced conscription of people in their colonies as soldiers. The entire Imperial high command was aware of these atrocities (the emperor himself later acknowledged these), but did nothing to stop it until Japan surrendered. Thus, it can be assumed that allowing the Japanese government to try its own generals and officers for war crimes is in essence a ludicrous idea. It's like asking a unrepentant criminal to be in charge of punishing himself for his crimes: it's just not going to happen.

As for the last concession, allowing Japan to keep Formosa and Korea would not have been a good idea. Just a few months before the atomic bombings, the Imperial Military of Japan massacred over a 100,000 civilians in Manila as a last ditch payback for losing battles. Statistics vary, but given that Japan had killed several hundred thousand Koreans via forced labor during their occupation, allowing Japan to keep the two countries would not be conducive for the well being of human lives. Given the prevalent policies of forced labor, Japan wold have likely used the two colonies for forced labor to recover from its losses in the war, killing hundreds of thousands if not millions more.

Strictly speaking, if the question is to be read as "Would the Japanese have surrendered if the US did not use the Atomic Bomb?" the answer is that Japan would have surrendered, but at a cost of millions of lives all across the pacific, even when you exclude USA casualties. Given that war is inherently immoral, the only determining factor is whether the atomic bombing killed fewer people than the alternative. The atomic bombing worked in this logic: kill 200,000 people to save millions. It was cruel, but also the lesser of the two evils.

As a benchmark, we know the Japanese effectively stopped fighting by August 14th, after the use of the Atomic Bombs.

Note that the Japanese Imperial Council was currently split almost evenly into pro-surrender, and no-surrender-at-any-cost factions. However, the military was almost entirely on the no-surrender side, and it is highly unlikely that they would have obeyed the civilian faction to surrender, even if that faction was the majority. As such, the US faced a situation where the government of Japan would surrender, but the armed forces would continue to fight.

So, what forces the military faction into recognizing defeat? In real life, the use of the atomic bombs allow the Emperor to intervene in the Council, and use the "supernatural" nature of these weapons as a face-saving excuse to allow the military to surrender without suicidal effort. The problem of surrender was exacerbated by poor diplomatic communication between the US and Japan, over what conditions a surrender would be allowed.

The question would be then, what would change the military commander's minds, since the Emperor would need a significant event in order to intercede and break a decision deadlock.

Factually, August and September 1945 were to be rather sparse in terms of scheduled fighting - the IJN was dead, so the would be no naval combat. Japan was saving its forces to fight the expected invasion, scheduled for Oct 1945 by Allied planners. However, there was still plenty of combat in China and the Indochina theater (Burma, Thailand, etc.). Additionally, there are estimates that Allied POW and civilians in occupied areas were dying at a rate of 1,000 per day due to neglect and abuse by Japanese forces. So, each month causes about 30,000 additional deaths, merely by continuing the war, even with no additional combat.

As there is no reason to surrender beforehand, Operation Olympic starts (the invasion of southern Japan). Conservative estimates are for a 3-month campaign, costing 100-200,000 US dead, and 5 times that Japanese. This would be followed by Operation Coronet, the occupation of the rest of Japan, at about the same timeframe, and double the cost.

So, for every month of combat in the Japanese Home Islands, you cost 40,000+ US dead and 250,000+ Japanese dead. There are very likely probabilities that the use of chemical (i.e. poison gas) would have been authorized for use by US forces if the Japanese insisted on fighting as they had at Okinawa or Iwo Jima.

In addition to all this, the continued bombardment of Japanese cities by B-29s was systematically burning Japan to the ground. By Dec 1945, the estimate was that no city of more than 100,000 people would have been less than 50% totally destroyed. This puts over half the Japanese population homeless, and 5-10% of the whole civilian population killed by firebombing (or its aftereffects).

In a similar manner, the total destruction of the Japanese coastal marine and the Japanese railroads meant that food distribution was almost impossible. Widespread famine almost occurred in early 1946 even after the surrender and with the occupying Allied forces there to provide food distribution. With Japan continuing to fight past January 1946, the country would experience a massive famine. A good estimate is 2% of the total population dies EACH MONTH starting in Jan 1946 just from famine.

So, how likely was it that the Council would allow a surrender? It is one of the great imponderables. In my opinion, there is no possibility of a surrender before Olympic finishes. That means, in the best case, a Surrender around Jan 1946. Which means 50,000 KIA and 250,000 WIA on the Allied side, 1,000,000 KIA+WIA on the Japanese side, plus 100,000+ POWs and friendly civilians dead. I would hope that this slaughter would have been enough to stop the war. But, there is a distinct possibility that the Japanese would have effectively chosen ritual suicide for the entire nation. Which means, no surrender until Summer of 1946, at which time, the butchers' bill likely stands at 1,000,000+ Allied (including POWs and civilians in Japanese-occupied nations), and up to 20% of all Japanese dead (i.e. 10 million plus).

So, best case scenario is a balance between the 200,000 casualties of the atomic bomb (all of which are Japanese), vs 1.5 million casualties Operation Olympic would have caused (one-third Allied, two-thirds Japanese). Worst case is at least 15 million casualties after Operation Coronet (15% allied, 85% Japanese).

I would dismiss the notion that President Truman merely wanted to test the destructive power of the atomic bomb. The initial explosion tests on US soil confirmed the destructive force of the bomb. It wasn't a case of the USA having developed just one bomb that could not be wasted on a "test" in the desert. There were several bombs at the ready. The real reason for dropping the first bomb on Hiroshima was to expedite the end of the war with as few casualties as possible. If Truman truly wanted to "punish " the Japanese, he could have ordered the whole arsenal of A-bombs to be dropped on several Japanese cities. He didn't do that but allowed only one to be dropped; then since the Japanese didn't surrender, he ordered a 2nd to go down. Finally the Japanese realized there were possibly many more bombs with the same destructive power and so were brought to their knees.

This wise approach by the 33rd President achieved victory at a lower casualty cost than what might have been had conventional bombing raids/invasion landings taken place

Had the war not ended when it did, the US had production plans, the industrial infrastructure, and the bombers to make and deliver a total of 23 atomic bombs on Japan before the end of 1945. The primary thing limiting production was the Hanford plutonium production reactors, each of the 3 reactors could only produce enough plutonium in a month to make one fatman core.

1. august: 3 (only 2 were used, third had been built before the surrender and arrived in San Fransisco on august 18, it might have been dropped on Japan around august 25 had the surrender not happened)
2. september: 3
3. october: 3
4. november: 7 (increase in production due to a planned switch to composite plutonium/uranium cores)
5. december: 7

Note: Truman's actual order was to use the atomic bombs as they became available. This is exactly what was done, Truman did not individually decide whether to use each bomb or when! He let his military field commanders do that. Truman was not a combat action micro-manager like Johnson later was.

Note: Truman could not "have ordered the whole arsenal of A-bombs to be dropped" as no such arsenal existedat the time. The atomic bombs were being dropped on Japan exactly as fast as the factories could make the materials and Los Alamos could prepare the atomic bomb kits for shipment.

Answer 2

Answer 1As with any huge event such as that, the answer has to be 'yes and no'. By American calculations, it saved around 1 million American lives, on the basis that Japan would have carried on the conventional war 'to the last man' in defending the mainland of Japan. Some sources say that Japan was on its last legs militarily and would have caved in within weeks or months without the use of nuclear weapons.

Answer 2

That the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan saved a million American lives

seems a gross exaggeration. I don't think there were even a million American armed forces personnel in the entire Pacific Theatre in August 1945. In all probability the number of lives spared would be something less than 100,000.

Answer 3

It's probable that "1 million lives being saved" is an exaggeration, if it's "American lives" alone. There would have been other Allies involved (British and Australians for instance, the Americans always seem to forget they were fighting the Japanese, too). US combat casualties in the Pacific Campaign were slightly more than 100,000 killed and around 300,000 wounded. However, the one million casualty figure for the invasion of the Japanese home islands is believable if Japanese casualties, military and civilian, are factored in as well. The Japanese Army was still largely intact in 1945- it was their Navy and Air Force which had been shattered.

As for the morality of the use of the atomic bombs on Japan, it should be noted that these weapons were seen at the time as another effective tool in the arsenal, along with incendiaries and high explosive bombs, in the strategic bombing campaign over Germany and Japan. The fact that these campaigns as a whole became morally suspect after about mid-1944 is another question to ponder, and of course any consideration would be through the lens of time and wholly different attitudes. It was hoped that the atomic bombs would hasten the end of WWII, which they did. It is probable that the populaces of both Japan and Germany would have surrendered long before their die-hard, dictatorial governments finally caved in.

There were also geopolitical considerations in the use of the nuclear weapons on Japan: surprise and impress the Russians, although they were aware of the bombs' existence long before they were used. The Russians came into the Pacific Theatre very late in WWII and the quicker ending may have saved many Japanese from Soviet domination: they had an alarming habit of hanging on to "liberated" territory.

Answer 3

The biggest fear in answering this question is judging yesterday's actions by today's standards. The actual answer is far more complex than a simple yes or no as it has to be put into context of a world war and a tired nation(s).

Up to the point where the United States defeated the Japanese in the Philippines, a little less than 400,000 American lives had been lost due to combat related deaths. In addition, almost 55 million (yes, million) total lives had been lost between the years 1938-1945. America, in 1945, was a very strong nation but, under it all, it was also tired, punch drunk, and broke. Selling war bonds was a priority as America had precious little money to spend and the government was engaging in the VERY dangerous operation of just printing money to purchase war material` (similar to the Obama administration today).

Japan, up until Okinawa, refused to surrender. Troops would fight to the death rather than be defeated (Banzai charges, Kamikaze plane attacks, cherry blossom torpedo's and planes for example) and it was only at Okinawa late in the war that they began to surrender. (actually, it was the forced Korean laborers who surrendered; Japanese soldiers still preferred death over surrender).

In addition, realists in Japan knew that the war was lost but the extremists who had quasi control over the government refused to surrender or sue for peace. America knew that for WW II to truly end, Japan would have to capitulate which, more and more, looked as it it would require a true invasion of Japan. Japan was very fanatical and even had its children trained with spears to repel the invasion.

Conservative estimates at the time produced estimates of 200,000-250.000 American deaths would occur if the US invaded Japan. This was as unacceptable then as it is now. President Truman agreed that a much more advantageous (for America) means of ending a 4 year, very costly war was to use a weapon of mass destruction.

As history shows, one bomb on Hiroshima did not produce the desired results as the fanaticism in Japan refused to allow a defeat under any circumstances. Be this as it may, Hiroshima did cause a severe strain and cracks in the leadership and, it is now known, that over time Japan would have eventually surrendered. However, 55,000,000 lives had been lost up to this time and the war needed to end, immediately. Hence, the approval for a second bomb drop on Nagasaki (both cities were heavy industrial centers). Even with this second bomb, it was some days before Japan agreed to sue for peace.

With all of this being known, there are those who today believe that America was wrong for using such weapons and that we should have invaded or surrounded the island nation and strangled it. Experts do admit that had the United States invaded, in addition to the 200,000+ American lives lost, several more millions of civilian casualties would have been inflicted as well.

Atomic BombingsYes it was, because we would have had to invade Japan with at least 800,000 people dying without the bombings. We believe that the Japanese conducting the wrongdoing had to be stopped via atomic bomb, or so many lives in WW2 would have been lost.

Answer 4

As far as whether the war could have been won without the bomb, the answer is yes, it could have been. It would have cost many morre American and Japanese lives. Instead of trying to force the Japanese to surrender by invading the homeland, Truman chose to shock the Japanese into the same response with less loss of life.

Answer 5

It wasn't necessary. In 1945, Japan was loosing the war big time. Entering Japan's main land by troops would end the war. The thing is that it would not end on August 14, 1945, it could end months or maybe one or two years after. The rate of casualties would been even greatest.

Answer 6

Depends on your perspective. The Japanese would say no.

But, the Americans were facing an entrenched enemy that would have taken a long and heavy toll as they fought island to island, pillbox to pillbox with an enemy that had not lost its will to fight. In those two bombs the American war machine broke the will of the Japanese and saved countless Americans.

Also, there was a race going on with the Russians to develop this technology and by demonstrating they not only had it but would use it the Americans went into the post war negotiations with an upper hand.

So, from the American perspective, yes it was necessary: to save lives and strengthen the us position going into what it saw as the next possible war against the communists.

Why the second? Have to prove they had more than one and that the first one was not a fluke and they were willing to use them as needed.

The Japanese though would probably have said --- you could have bombed an uninhabited island and we would have gotten the point. ---

Answer 7

Yes. Land invasion would take MUCH more casualties from both sides and it was nessesary to show USSSR that they wont be able to continue their expansion.

Answer 8

I don't think it was necessary to drop the 2nd bomb. We should of waited and seen if they fought back.

Answer 9

Most people think so.