Dear WABbits...
My 17 year old daughter has a history paper to be written on the "whys" of the nuclear attacks in 1945. Rather than take a position (pro or con) on the bombings themselves, she must explore both sides.
This is a topic (were the bombs needed?) that has been infinitely flogged over the years. Her grandfather, my dad, was a young recruit on his way to Okinawa to participate in what would have probably been Operation Olympic. I explained to her that there is a distinct possibility that she would not be walking this earth if the bombs had not been used.
We know the drill -
Pro-nuke: Japanese were ready to fight to the death. Bamboo spears. Women and children. A numerically significant army was still quite intact. Casualties on both sides would have been horrendous, and Japan physically shattered far beyond her state after the bombings.
Okinawa was an example of what would be expected.
There is the speculation that the bombs were also dropped to jazz the Soviets a bit, but it appeared that Stalin knew about them well before their use.
Anti-nuke: "The Japanese were finished." A blockade might have done the job, but starvation and disease would have taken a terrible toll. It might take years, and the US was not politically/mentally prepared for this.
Continue LeMay's firebombing; fighter-bombers harass everyone/everything to make life miserable for the Japanese.
A negotiated peace was possible - drop the unconditional surrender demand.
Those of course are the basics. I am interested in what WAB members think about this topic. I understand it is a tired one, but I'm counting on the insights of some very smart people to perhaps pump up the quality of her paper, and also hopefully tweak some liberal sensibilities in academia. Thanks.
My 17 year old daughter has a history paper to be written on the "whys" of the nuclear attacks in 1945. Rather than take a position (pro or con) on the bombings themselves, she must explore both sides.
This is a topic (were the bombs needed?) that has been infinitely flogged over the years. Her grandfather, my dad, was a young recruit on his way to Okinawa to participate in what would have probably been Operation Olympic. I explained to her that there is a distinct possibility that she would not be walking this earth if the bombs had not been used.
We know the drill -
Pro-nuke: Japanese were ready to fight to the death. Bamboo spears. Women and children. A numerically significant army was still quite intact. Casualties on both sides would have been horrendous, and Japan physically shattered far beyond her state after the bombings.
Okinawa was an example of what would be expected.
There is the speculation that the bombs were also dropped to jazz the Soviets a bit, but it appeared that Stalin knew about them well before their use.
Anti-nuke: "The Japanese were finished." A blockade might have done the job, but starvation and disease would have taken a terrible toll. It might take years, and the US was not politically/mentally prepared for this.
Continue LeMay's firebombing; fighter-bombers harass everyone/everything to make life miserable for the Japanese.
A negotiated peace was possible - drop the unconditional surrender demand.
Those of course are the basics. I am interested in what WAB members think about this topic. I understand it is a tired one, but I'm counting on the insights of some very smart people to perhaps pump up the quality of her paper, and also hopefully tweak some liberal sensibilities in academia. Thanks.
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