Fat Man & Little Boy: Question for history buffs

[riff]

I just got finished watching Fat Man & Little Boy, the movie about the Manhattan Project.

In 1945 (I think), the USA and Britain fire-bombed the German city of Dresden killing around 100,000 people.

Later, after Germany was defeated, the USA focused on Japan and we exploded 2 nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about 150,000 people.

So I am wondering- do you think that the US would have dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin or Munich?

Many people argue that because the Japanese were Asiatic, that the racial differences made them more "inhuman" in the eyes of the USA and GB (which like Germany) are essentially European. Do you think racism played a role in the decision to drop the bombs. Was it easier because the Japanese were racially different?

Keep in mind, the USA and GB bombed the shit out of Dreseden and killed the civilians living there just as dead.

 

[Azwed]

Duhh first post.

 

[Bob Peale]

Japan's location played a factor. The islands were more self contained than a western European target, and our ally, the Soviets, had a desire to occupy areas that may have been rendered uninhabitable.

 

[StondTmplPilot]

I just got finished watching Fat Man & Little Boy, the movie about the Manhattan Project.

In 1945 (I think), the USA and Britain fire-bombed the German city of Dresden killing around 100,000 people.

Later, after Germany was defeated, the USA focused on Japan and we exploded 2 nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about 150,000 people.

So I am wondering- do you think that the US would have dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin or Munich?

Many people argue that because the Japanese were Asiatic, that the racial differences made them more "inhuman" in the eyes of the USA and GB (which like Germany) are essentially European. Do you think racism played a role in the decision to drop the bombs. Was it easier because the Japanese were racially different?

Keep in mind, the USA and GB bombed the shit out of Dreseden and killed the civilians living there just as dead.

Ya know that is an interesting theory that I had never even considered. Not personally knowing the historical figures that made the decisions, I can't say how accurate it is or not. But, I would sure hope it was NOT a factor.

 

[Azwed]

Thats a tough question to answer since you need to get inside the heads of the decsion makers of the time. I mean try and figure out what kinds of various predjudices they had.

Maybe the asian factor was a slight infulence but I don't think it would have been much of one if any. Conquering japan with a traditional invasion would have been horrific. More horrific then anything yet seen on the earth and much worse then both A-bomb attacks.


Conquering Germany was just not as hard as conquering japan and the a-boms were not needed.

 

[Eagle70]

I consider myself somewhat well versed in history...so lemme add my two cents

Personally, i think it was the right desion to drop the two nukes on Japan. Why Japan and not Germany? Its been documented that the Japanese were willing to die, every last man, woman, and child, for the war. Even after the first Bomb, and the devistation it unleased, the Japanese (or their leaders) were still relsiliant, opposing the US. It was only after the detenation of the second bomb that i believe it clicked that these bombs COULD and WOULD kill every man, woman, and child. Thankfully, someone in Japan made the right call to tap out. Something else just popped into my mind. Japan is a series of Islands...isolated islands...

In Germany, i "now" believe it was different due to the fact of the surrounding countries, which the US and the Allies had liberated. You drop a bomb on Germany, everyone in Europe is gonna feel the consequences. Just my opinion on this one, but that just popped into my mind, and it makes sense.

 

[riff]

Thats a tough question to answer since you need to get inside the heads of the decsion makers of the time. I mean try and figure out what kinds of various predjudices they had.

Maybe the asian factor was a slight infulence but I don't think it would have been much of one if any. Conquering japan with a traditional invasion would have been horrific. More horrific then anything yet seen on the earth and much worse then both A-bomb attacks.


Conquering Germany was just not as hard as conquering japan and the a-boms were not needed.

You are probably right. The Germans didn't have the same warrior ethos as the Japanese.

I just freak out when I think of things like a 100,000 people... 50,000.... 75000 dying in a day from any kind of bombs.

Shit!

 

[Azwed]

You are probably right. The Germans didn't have the same warrior ethos as the Japanese.

I just freak out when I think of things like a 100,000 people... 50,000.... 75000 dying in a day from any kind of bombs.

Shit!

More people died when Tokyo was fire bombed then in both A-bomb attacks. The winds that night turned the fire into a fire storm there were tornados of fire and the flames went several hunderd feet into the air.

 

[riff]

More people died when Tokyo was fire bombed then in both A-bomb attacks. The winds that night turned the fire into a fire storm there were tornados of fire and the flames went several hunderd feet into the air.

Have you read Hiroshima by John Hersey?

What a nightmare.

 

[scrymettet]

japan

The main reason for the bombing of Japan was US casualties. Check the records for Okinawa,Tarawa etc. Any square foot of those islands cost a live or more. The bombs made the reconquest of the Pacific useless.

In 1945, Gernany was already beaten.

 

[Azwed]

Have you read Hiroshima by John Hersey?

What a nightmare.

Nope I have not. I did read a medium length story back when i was in middle school about the Tokyo zoo during the war. It was strange how the people there tried to go on with normal lives when the whole world was falling apart around them.


Almost all of the animals were eventually put to sleep because they could not be cared for anymore. A few escaped out into the city.

 

[riff]

Read Hiroshima. It's short, and I think Hersey won a Pulitzer Prize for it.

It's amazing. When you imagine the bomb exploding, the typical reaction is to think that everything was obliterated.

But no! People actually lived beneath that storm and tried to survive.

What's freaky too is that since it was the first such bomb- no one could figure out what had actually happened.

It's an extremely interesting book.

 

[RhumbRunner13]

More people died when Tokyo was fire bombed then in both A-bomb attacks. The winds that night turned the fire into a fire storm there were tornados of fire and the flames went several hunderd feet into the air.

The incidiary bombing of Tokyo, among other cities, was so effective because most building in Japan at the time was so closely packed and nearly all of wood. The fires burned so intensly that they consumed all of the oxygen and farmers miles from the city were asphyxiated in their fields. The US used the strategy because much of the war industry in Japan by then was "cottage industry". The large factories had been bombed, the only way to get the "little" ones was to burn everything down.

Rhumb

 

[miles]

Conquering japan with a traditional invasion would have been horrific. More horrific then anything yet seen on the earth and much worse then both A-bomb attacks.


Conquering Germany was just not as hard as conquering japan and the a-boms were not needed.

Ditto.

They expected a million American casualties if Japan had to be invaded. I'm sure Japanese casualties would have been higher.

I'm already anticipating what kind of brain rot redwave will post here, if he hasn't already.

 

[Azwed]

The incidiary bombing of Tokyo, among other cities, was so effective because most building in Japan at the time was so closely packed and nearly all of wood. The fires burned so intensly that they consumed all of the oxygen and farmers miles from the city were asphyxiated in their fields. The US used the strategy because much of the war industry in Japan by then was "cottage industry". The large factories had been bombed, the only way to get the "little" ones was to burn everything down.

Rhumb

Oh I know why they did it. I have done several research papers on the topic. The traditional steel tipped armor piercing bombs would drop hit a little wooden house and bury themselves 15 or 20 feet underground. The bombs did not meet enough resistance to explode sometimes or when they did would do very little damage because they were so deep underground.

A very effective strategy but a horrible one.

 

[MotorCitySam]

If the USA had completed the Manhatten Project before Germany surrendered they would not have dropped it on Berlin because the Yalta Agreement had already conceded to the USSR the right to take Berlin. I believe they may have used it on another German target if they thought it would hasten the end of the war, but, of course, who is to say.
I agree that Truman's main consideration in using the atom bomb was to end the war with a minimum of casualties, but the fact that using them would intimidate the Soviets was a factor in his decision as well.

 

[RhumbRunner13]

Thinking about your original question and the argument that it was used on Japan because of "racism" and wouldn't have been used on Germany, I'm not so sure! Let's remember that the development was started because we were convinced that Germany was well into developing the bomb. We knew that from the Jewish physicists who had been eliminated from the program and fled Germany. Had we developed the bomb 9 months earlier and not known then that Hitler had given up on it, I'm pretty sure we would have used it, probably for shock value on Berlin!

Hitler never hesitated to use one of his "Modern Marvels". I think we would have had no choice but first strike.

Rhumb

 

[fgarvb1]

Shit, if we had had the bomb we would have used t.

The goverment and almost everyone else had no ideal how bad or even understood the effects of fallout until after the bombs were used.

just MHO

 

[patient1]

Most of the important points have been brought up. I might add-

There was a lot of paper in Japanese home construction, so they not only burned, but kindled readily.

Hamburg was also Fire-bombed, I believe the casualties were greater than in Dresden. Some of our Hydrogen bomb assumptions are based on what we know from the heat damage there.

I won't deny race as a factor. I think there were two overriding considerations.

They weren't going to to use Europe as a guinea pig for an unknown weapon of mass destruction.


Deterrence worked- World War II wasn't the chemical war that World War I was. Why would you use such a weapon on an enemy that could , in theory, return fire with an atomic missle against London or Paris?

 

[Spinaroonie]

FAST FACT!!!!11111111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Manhattan Project had little or nothing to do with the famous Woody Allen film, "Manhattan".

Now you know.

 

[teddybear4play]

Race certainly was a factor, considering we never incarcerated German-Americans during the war. But I think had we had the bomb and the question of winning in Europe wasn't yet settled, we certainly would have used it against Germany, considering they were working on one themselves.

TB4p