If Germany and Japan won WWII

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: Spudd

Originally posted by: etech

Originally posted by: Spudd
Northrop researched Horton's design back in the 80s, that's a fact. Do a little more research beyond a quick google search for God's sake man before you just say "nope." I never said it was the one vision of the B2 spirit, but it was a part of the whole process (and it was a fact that Germany had some of the most brilliant aero-engies ever. If you want to watch a video, look at the History Channel's series on Luftwaffe's Secret Planes of World War 2, look at what we have today, and then let your jaw drop. I'm damn glad that the Axis bastards didn't have time to complete their projects, I'll tell you that much.)

And as far as Japan being able to surrender after the first bomb, they were given 3 days! God damn you people are cold hearted if you can't see the inhumanity in that. Hell, the Russians had just invaded Manchuria and the Japanese were just realizing that they couldn't get anything better than unconditional surrender (again, they wanted to maintain an Emperor).

Again, if you've got 2 bombs drop it on A MILITARY target, any civilians killed would unfortunately be casualties of war. But to blatantly pick civilian targets...that's what I've got a problem with. Obviously, some of you don't. And that's your perogative. Neither of us is going to convince the other to change their view of the use of the A-bomb on civilians. I've got to go to work tomorrow...good night. :beer:

From Closing the Circle Edwin P. Hoyt

?Hiroshima was a name unknown to most Americans, but was an important Japanese city, and particularly important to the army and the navy. The Second Area Army headquarters was located here, and it was slot the site of several important naval training schools. The Mitsubishi aircraft company had a factory here. Toyo Industries built naval guns. Equally important , Hiroshima was the communication center for the defense of Kyushu, and the Japanese bby this time expected that the first American landings would be aimed (as was the fact) at Kyushu.


Northrop Corporation - Flying Wing Aircraft

The point I was trying to make was that Northop was also researching flying wing aircraft at the same time as the Horten brothers.
That is all.

But it was not a purely military base though. Truman referred to it as one in his speech. Even given the fact that Hiroshima was bombed, I don't think it was necessary or humane to drop a second even more destructive abomb on Nagasaki just 3 days later.

And if you wanted to talk about tactics, if you've only got 2 abombs available, it's not terribly smart to waste both just 3 days apart. You'd think you'd want to hold onto one just in case....

Hold on there Spud.....you said a few posts back that those cities were picked as CIVILIAN targets......specifically you said " My point is this: I firmly believe that the INTENTIONAL targeting of civilians is unacceptable when other alternatives are available. "
So are you now admitting that the cities were targeted because of MILITARY reasons? If so, then you need to rethink your whole line of thought, because NO CIVILIANS WERE INTENTIONALLY TARGETED.
And where, pray tell, would you have had us drop the bomb on a more strictly "military" target that very few civilians would have been killed? I don't know of a place, and if there was one, it wouldn't have driven the Japanese to unconditional surrender like hitting a city did.

 

[etech]

Spudd

But it was not a purely military base though. Truman referred to it as one in his speech. Even given the fact that Hiroshima was bombed, I don't think it was necessary or humane to drop a second even more destructive abomb on Nagasaki just 3 days later.

And if you wanted to talk about tactics, if you've only got 2 abombs available, it's not terribly smart to waste both just 3 days apart. You'd think you'd want to hold onto one just in case....

Your logic makes no sense to me.
The fact is that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Japanese did not surrender. Three days later a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered.

It's hard to argue with results, you can play what if or maybe all night. It took two bombs to convince the Japanese military to surrender. The fact that they were dropped so close together implies to the Japanese that we had more and were willing to use them. The end result, they surrendered without the US having to invade.

I'd also like to know what purely military target you would have chosen.

 

[Speedy3D!]

Well there is no way they could have successfully invaded and held the US so with that said:

There would be a cold war between the US (and whoever else was left, maybe britian/canada/mexico/whatever) and Fascist nations.

The fascist nations would collapse eventually, just like the soviet union did.

Effectively, whenever we have used the word communist or Russia during the cold war, simply replace it with fascist.

Example: McCarthy and his fascist witch hunt

That's my best guess

 

[silverpig]

There were many reasons for dropping the bombs... One that hasn't been put forth in this thread so far (that I've skimmed over) has been to get to Japan before the Soviets did. The US did NOT want Japan to turn into another Germany, being divided into communist/soviet friendly and capitalist/western friendly zones. The cold war began before WWII was even over. Germany was the first battlefield, Japan the second.

 

[0roo0roo]

heil pika chu?

 

[Spudd]

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: etech
Spudd

But it was not a purely military base though. Truman referred to it as one in his speech. Even given the fact that Hiroshima was bombed, I don't think it was necessary or humane to drop a second even more destructive abomb on Nagasaki just 3 days later.

And if you wanted to talk about tactics, if you've only got 2 abombs available, it's not terribly smart to waste both just 3 days apart. You'd think you'd want to hold onto one just in case....

Your logic makes no sense to me.
The fact is that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Japanese did not surrender. Three days later a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered.

It's hard to argue with results, you can play what if or maybe all night. It took two bombs to convince the Japanese military to surrender. The fact that they were dropped so close together implies to the Japanese that we had more and were willing to use them. The end result, they surrendered without the US having to invade.

I'd also like to know what purely military target you would have chosen.

Red herring argument on your part...

Enola Gay

That said, why on earth can't the Smithsonian present an exhibit which admits that there are two sides to the story? Though I believe Truman made the best decision he could, it is the job of historians continuously to re-evaluate the decisions of the past and to present new information as it comes to light. All my life, to cite just one example, I have believed, as you probably also have, that the atomic bombing of Japan avoided the necessity of an invasion that would have resulted in one million American deaths. It appears that this number, so frequently quoted, is not based on the military analyses done at the time:


...military staff studies in the spring of 1945 estimated 30,000 to 50,000 casualties--dead and wounded--in "Olympic", the invasion of Kyushu. Based on the Okinawa campaign, that would have meant perhaps 10,000 American dead. Military planners made no firm estimates for...the second invasion, but losses clearly would have been higher.
(That was another quote from the proposed Smithsonian exhibit.) But if the losses for the second invasion were five times higher, that still totals 60,000 dead, not one million. Doesn't a Smithsonian curator have a right to put this information before the public?



Long's Article on the use of the Abomb


Historian and former Naval officer Martin Sherwin has summarized the situation, stating, "The choice in the summer of 1945 was not between a conventional invasion or a nuclear war. It was a choice between various forms of diplomacy and warfare." (Sherwin, pg. xxiv).

Long-time historian of the atomic bombings Barton Bernstein has taken a cautious view of what might have been: "Taken together, some of these alternatives [to dropping atomic bombs on Japan] - promising to retain the Japanese monarchy, awaiting the Soviets' entry, and even more conventional bombing - very probably could have ended the war before the dreaded invasion [of the Japanese mainland by the Allies]. Still, the evidence - to borrow a phrase from F.D.R. - is somewhat 'iffy', and no one who looks at the intransigence of the Japanese militarists should have full confidence in those other strategies. But we may well regret that these alternatives were not pursued and that there was not an effort to avoid the use of the first A-bomb - and certainly the second." (Barton Bernstein, The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered, Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 1995, pg. 150).

Echoing the concern of Assistant Sec. of War John McCloy and Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence Captain Ellis Zacharias that the Allies became overly dependent on military means, Leon Sigal writes, "At worst, withholding force might have prolonged the war for a while at a time when little combat was taking place; it would not have altered the final result. Yet restraint could have significantly reduced the gratuitous suffering on both sides, especially for noncombatants." Sigal concludes, "it could be argued that the United States behaved as if the objective of inducing Japan to surrender was subordinated to another objective - in Stimson's words, that of exerting 'maximum force with maximum speed.' American policy was guided by an implicit assumption that only the escalation of military pressure could bring the war to a rapid conclusion." (Sigal, pg. 219).

Regarding claims that the atomic bombings saved lives, Gar Alperovitz has noted, "It has been argued in this connection that using the atomic bomb was less costly in human life than the continuation of conventional bombing would have been. Apart from the fact that accounts which urge such a view commonly leave aside questions concerning [modifying the unconditional] surrender formula and the impact of the Russian attack, by early August 1945 very few significant Japanese civilian targets remained to be bombed. Moreover, on July 25 a new targeting directive had been issued which altered bombing priorities." "Attacks on urban centers became only the fourth priority, after railway targets, aircraft production, and ammunition depots." "...the new directive (as the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey noted) 'was about to be implemented when the war ended.'". (Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 342).

It didn't take long after the atomic bombings for questions to arise as to their necessity for ending the war and Japan's threat to peace. One of the earliest dissents came from a panel that had been requested by President Truman to study the Pacific war. Their report, The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, was issued in July 1946. It declared, "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." (Bernstein, ed., The Atomic Bomb, pg. 52-56).

In 1948 Sec. of War Henry Stimson published his memoirs, ghost-written by McGeorge Bundy. In them Stimson revealed, "It is possible, in the light of the final surrender, that a clearer and earlier exposition of American willingness to retain the Emperor would have produced an earlier ending to the war". Stimson and Bundy continued, "Only on the question of the Emperor did Stimson take, in 1945, a conciliatory view; only on this question did he later believe that history might find that the United States, by its delay in stating its position, had prolonged the war." (Stimson & Bundy, pg. 628-629).


One of the victims of the abomb -- Graphic

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: yellowperil
I wonder if it could be possible for either country to occupy the U.S., given the disparity in land size/population and of course the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean separating us from them.

?

Sure it's possible... you don't think they would directly attack the US as the first step in invasion? They would have gone through either Alaska, then into Canada, then the US... or South America, then up into the US. It would certainly have taken years, but certainly a possibility.

 

[Stealth1024]

I would like to point out that in war civilians are targets and nothing can stop a war faster than killing mass numbers of them..

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Rudee
It would be Beer, Bratwurst and Strudel. And lot's of Goose-steeping!

:Q


<--------

 

[kami333]

Originally posted by: Spudd

Originally posted by: Tdawg951

Originally posted by: Spudd

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
See, that's where you A-bomb opponents get it wrong: The United States gave Japan an ultimatum: Surrender unconditionally. They refused.

That crap about negotiating through the Russians is just that: Crap. There was nothing to negotiate, and they knew it. All they had to to was surrender.

And I guess the fact that they were arming women and children with bamboo spears and training them how to fight was part of their surrender plan?

Now there were some of the diplomats that wanted to negotiate a surrender, no doubt, but to say that Japan as a whole was trying to surrender is pure BS. The majority of the military wanted no such thing, and they were, for the most part, the ones in power.

Settle down their guy. lol. You're entitled to your opinion, as am I. What the Japanese wanted was to retain an Emperor--to them, he was like a God on earth. That's a major reason for their shunning unconditional surrender. It's intriguing how you just bypassed the whole idea of bombing 200,000+ civilians as nothing. Are they sub-human to you? Do they not count because they're not American? Truman wrote in his diary that he wanted the targets to be military, yet the order to strike said no such thing, and Truman himself called Hiroshima a military target. At the start of WW2, it was considered barbaric by all sides to bomb civilians...the Germans and Allies abandoned that as the war progressed. My point is this: I firmly believe that the INTENTIONAL targeting of civilians is unacceptable when other alternatives are available. And "to say Japan as a whole was trying to surrender is pure BS"... the majority of the government was trying to find a way to save face and surrender, but they weren't going to be unprepared for an invasion. Use your common sense. Lack of compassion and rhetoric does not make your argument any stronger. I would have been perfectly fine with them dropping the A-bomb on a military target. It's the civilian targeting that's attrocious. No doubt it was due to racism--the kind of propaganda coming out of America during WW2 against Japan was horrendous--they were considered sub-human.

I agree that there was a lot of racism towards the japanese, but i dont think it was just that. There was also the possibility of revenge, and more importantly, the US wanted to end the war soon so that Russia would not invade Japan. Japan was taking its time, i think they probably would have surrendered eventually, but it would have probably taken longer than the US wanted. In addition, the US really wanted to impress the RUssians by exploding the A-bomb. I dont think that using the A-bomb was completely nessesary, but looking at the situation, i dont know of a better idea. It certainly is very sad that so many people died, but we also need to consider what woudl have happened had the russians taken over japan...

BUT there was NO need to drop it on CIVILIAN targets. There were a plethora of military targets available. Hell, they could have even dropped it just off the coast of Japan to amaze and shock them into realizing the awesome power that America then wielded. Barring that, then as I've said, drop the damn thing on a military target. The whole of WW2 was an abomination-- but then again, war always is.

That being said, I'm in agreeance that the bomb saved countless lives from an invasion, but I, and others in the Truman administration for that matter, believed it was not necessary (and I believe it was barbaric) to drop it on civilians. Plain and simple as that.

BTW, I agree with you that to say that racism was the only reason is fallacious, but you agree it played a major role though right? The more you dehumanize your opponent, the easier it is to kill them and kill their women and children without a second thought and a clean conscience.

Thanks you 2 for summing up 3months of research and 60pages of writing into a few paragraphs. That was my term paper for one of my classes, lol It got me an A+++ though.

 

[kami333]

Originally posted by: Stealth1024
I would like to point out that in war civilians are targets and nothing can stop a war faster than killing mass numbers of them..

Then why don't we do it more often, like in Iraq? Oh, that's right, we need to keep the moral high ground.

 

[Entity]

Originally posted by: PatboyX
didnt philip k. dick write a book about that?
i think it was the man in the high castle...but i tend to get all his books (and other, similiar writers) confused.
on a slightly similiar topic, i just finished reading The Boys From Brazil...did that concept really cause as much suspense as the blurbs claim it should?

Yes, it was the Man in the High Castle. Great book.

Rob

 

[Doggiedog]

We would be complaining on ATOT about how Japanese cars suck and the Japanese car fans would be calling American "imports" cornmobiles.

 

[LongCoolMother]

Originally posted by: Underground727
What would be so bad about Europe being one large Germany?

I mean, killing the Jews was f*cked up, don't get me wrong, but he told them to leave and they should have left.

I don't think Hitler was as evil as all this propaganda makes him out to be. Power hungry, yes, but supremely evil? No.

The world would probably be very much the same as it is now, just different group of people ruling over us. Everyone would probably be socialist instead of capitalist.

And on the whole freedom of speech issue, as much as you like to think you have freedom of speech, you don't.

not supremely evil? you obviously dont know wtf you're thinking. if hitler isn't supremely evil, who is?