I have to say this is an excellent question. I think we were probably just... but did we have to drop 2 bombs? That's the one problem I have... I think dropping just one could have been enough. But in the long run a lot of lives were saved.
And as mentioned, the bombing of Dresden was much much worse, and didn't even have any strategic value whatsoever.
You sir, are a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.
...
Unfortunately, there wasn't much choice in dropping those bombs. Things woulda gone to absolute hell otherwise...
But the genie's out of the bottle, as they say.
I've been to the museum in Hiroshima, and it was quite an interesting and frightening sight. Hopefully people will be smart enough to avoid any sort of situation in which that can happen again. (Of course, "smart" doesn't quite get along with "religion" that well...)
can't wake up
bbobb, well, considering Japan didnt budge after the first one, I would say that dropping 2 was probably necessary.
How much time was between the two? I'm fairly knowlegable in the European side of WWII, but I unfortunately don't know a lot about the Asian side of the war.Originally Posted by diffusionx
You sir, are a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.
Say Ahhh
August 6th and 9th, 1945.
About six days, and the reason we dropped two was the Japanese military's immediate reaction to the first one; "That's the only one they've got, there will be no surrender." So, to dispel any illusions we had to drop another.
Time for a change
Resurrect Pimp C
The first one should've hit some remote location in Japan, not a city. We didn't need to 'demonstrate' the weapon on a major metropolis, the first time out.
We drop the bomb somewhere in Okinawa, let them see what it would do, tell them we're dropping another one, and then wait longer than 3 days.
After that...I still don't know if we needed to nuke a metropolis. No one knows how large of a stock of nukes we had on hand at the time, right?
I wonder what would've happened if the sequence had been:
1.) Okinawa near a military base
2.) Suburbs near a military base
3.) Major Metropolis
4.) Major Metropolis
rather than
1.) Major Metropolis
2.) Major Metropolis
Could we have forced Japan to give up by showing off our power on Okinawa and some suburbs? Would we have had to destroy a couple of cities to get them to give up? Would have starting more slowly (hitting less inhabited targets first) only have increased their resolve, and probably have forced us to kill more in the end?
I don't know.
Spiritual Machine
Considerning the japs wanted to fill zeroes with bubonic plauge bombs and smash them into you guys' buildings, i think the bomb was a good idea... I think that was going to be called operation cherry blossom.
Resurrect Pimp C
Here's another question. Would Churchill have nuked Germany if he had the bomb in 1941, and if so, when?
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Regarding nuking major urban centres, MacArthur desperately wanted to nuke Kyoto, a major historic and cultural centre, but the president wouldn't let him.
Resurrect Pimp C
Kyoto's less densely populated than Hiroshima or Nagasaki, right? Anyone know whether we thought about trying to warn civilians (don't know if that would've done any good) before dropping the bomb?
I'm reading, and it looks like we could've dropped our third bomb 7 to 8 days after Nagasaki.
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