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Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Victims of War Strategy or Recipients of Excessive Cruelty?
This week Japan’s Defense Minister issued a statement that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inevitable events that were part of the U.S. strategy to cause Japan to surrender.
The statement has infuriated many Japanese people, including survivors of the blast who’ve made great efforts to spread the word about the horrors resulting from the use of nuclear weapons.
Personally, I can see very few reasons for feeling justified in using nuclear weapons. I certainly don’t think their use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified. Japan was already crippled from years of bombings by U.S. planes and by major defeats in Pacific battles. It’s been said that, even before the two big bombs were dropped, a surrender was either being negotiated or was imminent. Either way, with a little more time and patience, the war likely would have ended around the time when the U.S. had planned to drop the bombs, without the need to drop them.
I’m no political expert, but I’m confident in holding the belief that the use of atomic force on Japan by the U.S. was a cruel display of power, probably meant to show the world what the U.S. was capable of doing if provoked. Certainly, the U.S. did not want to divide up Japan with Russia the way it had done with Germany. MacArthur threatened action against the Russians if they landed even a single soldier on Honshu. The inevitability of the ‘cold war’ and the future of communist Asia were likely deciding factors in the decision to use the bomb.
Either way, this week’s statements made by the Defense Minister are a blow to those who have made great efforts to help spread the word about the horrors of nuclear attacks.
Japan Minister in Atom Bomb Row (BBC World News)
The nuclear bombs dropped by the United States on Japan in 1945 were the inevitable way to end World War II, Japan’s defence minister has said.
“I think it was something that couldn’t be helped,” said Fumio Kyuma in a speech at a university east of Tokyo.
His comments sparked outrage from survivors of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The minister, who represents Nagasaki in parliament, said later that he was expressing the US view of events.
In his speech, he said the US must have thought the bombs “could prompt Japan’s surrender, thus preventing the Soviet Union from declaring war against Japan”.
Japanese leaders rarely comment on the use of the atom bomb against Japan for fear of damaging ties with the US.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe played down Mr Kyuma’s speech, saying it bore no effect on “Japan’s important role of seeking abolition of nuclear weapons”.
See a graphic showing how the Hiroshima attack took place
But Nagasaki survivor Terumi Tanaka, 75, said Mr Kyuma’s comments were “outrageous”.
“He must know hundreds of thousands of people died, and died in terrible agony,” she was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
“He is from Nagasaki, and I’m ashamed of him as a person from the same prefecture.”
The row comes ahead of upper house elections on 29 July in which Mr Abe’s party is facing dwindling public support.
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THE ATTACK ON HIROSHIMA
0812 local time, 6 August 1945: |
Update: Defense Minister apologizes for A-bomb remarks (BBC World News)
Japan’s defence minister has apologised for saying the US atom bomb attacks in World War II were inevitable.
Fumio Kyuma’s comments had outraged bomb survivors and sparked calls from opposition parties for his dismissal.
The minister said he was sorry if he had given the impression he lacked respect for the victims of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Speaking in Nagasaki, where he is from, Mr Kyuma promised not to make such remarks in the future.
He had said in a speech at a university that the bombing appeared to be “something that couldn’t be helped”.
Filed under: News-International, News-Japan
You say “Either way, with a little more time and patience, the war likely would have ended around the time when the U.S. had planned to drop the bombs, without the need to drop them” but i ask, with a loss of how many more lives? We had people dropping like flies in POW camps, and australian civilians with no training were sent of to fight Japanese crack troops in New Guinea with no chance of winning. It’s like sending off cows to slaughter.
I’m not saying that bombing was the right option, i’ve seen the videos of people with their skin hanging off after the explosion which brought tears to my eyes, but, *something* had to be done. It felt like we were clodding along with no end in sight up until that moment.
Also, i don’t think the minister should apologise. That is his opinion, so he should be free to think it. Afterall, who apologised to the rape victims of Nanking? Nobody. Of course, the Japanese government still doesn’t acknowledge that. And how many more countries would have been raped if the bomb had not been dropped? They were on Darwin’s doorstep and in Sydney’s waters…i’d hate to think that i would not have been born, or i might be half Japanese.
At the time the bombs were dropped, Japan was no longer on the offensive. They were all set to defend the mainland. Sure, there were still battles being fought in the Pacific, but there’s enough historical evidence out there to show the war in the South Pacific was pretty much done. All that was left was to protect the homeland. The US could’ve easily surrounded the main islands and continued the standard bombing campaign until the inevitable surrender. I can’t think that those bombs were dropped for any other reason than to send a message.
And, the civilians who paid the horrible price of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not only attacked by the US, but had been completely at the mercy of their own government for years. They were a long-suffering people who suffered one final act of unimaginable cruelty.
Thanks for offering your point of view, Azumarisan. Sorry, though; I just can’t accept that those bombings were necessary.
Plus, Russia had, at that time, just declared war on Japan. The last thing the US and its allies wanted was for Russian troops to occupy Japanese territory.
I understand your point of view and i accept it.
Good post.
My opinion is that “you reap what you sew”.
Karma has got to come around in a circle at some point and although it wasn’t the Japanese civilians that did most of the sewing, the Japanese troops did that for them.
I think, in the end it all worked out fair. The way some of my grandfather’s friends were treated on the Burma railway by the Japanese and the many horrors my grandfather saw with his own eyes, he was shot by a Japanese soldier and survived too.
The people who were bombed have suffered at US hands but POW’s and ally forces who fought against the Japanese also suffered greatly. There is an argument for both sides, in my mind, and both sides made mistakes.
Right. Both sides made mistakes. There’s no such thing as a perfectly fought war. Japan’s biggest mistake was to think it could take whatever it wanted by force, with impunity; America’s big mistake was thinking it was OK to start playing ‘King of the mountain’ with the world as its playground.
I’ll sit on the fence and say the Hiroshima bomb was unfortunate but necessary to end World War 2, but the Nagasaki bomb was unnecessary.
I have to say, I love the song “Enola Gay” by OMD, inspired by the Hiroshima plane.
I think all the armchair quarterbacking with 20/20 hindsight by people who did not live in the world at that time serves no purpose other than to allow people to exercise their prejudices and trot out their judgments of actions and people they can’t really understand. The zeitgeist during WW II is something people who have grown up in relatively comfortable and safe conditions can’t begin to fathom. In terms of the U.S., people saw their relatives come back without limbs. They had to alter their lifestyles significantly to cope with the material demands of the war and the changes in labor. They were also exposed to news that made them fearful that what was happening in Europe could happen to them.
The decisions that were made by all sides were not made from the mindset that you and I have. They were made by people who lived in a small world with a lot more tribal thinking (which was not “wrong” in that time). They were also making decisions based on less scientific and medical knowledge than we currently have. People in that era were incredibly naive by our standards and the decisions made (again, on all sides) are going to look far worse in our world view because we have global information access and a mentality which is far more encompassing of cultural diversity.
Rather than play the blame game (which has been played ad nauseum on the bombings), it’d be far more useful to adopt a thoughtful perspective that promotes understanding of the psychology that allowed terrible things to happen rather than indulges in finger-pointing and conclusions about what was “right”, “wrong”, or “justified.”
Thanks for the comment, Shari.
However, I do think we are well justified in analyzing such events and criticizing the actions of those who we believe actually made mistakes. We certainly haven’t evolved so much as humans to think that people were a lot more ‘tribal’ in their way of thinking back then compared to now. Maybe in parts of North America and parts of Europe as well as some other places in the world, there’s a bit more diversity but, globally speaking, that ‘tribal’ mentality still exists.
Spend some time in Asia, South America, or Africa, and you’ll see this to be true.
In the future, the world may be at war again. Who knows for sure? To sit around and say that our horizons are much broader than those of people who lived in our grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ time and to think that we will not make the same mistakes made during WWII because our horizons have been broadened, without actually being firm about what was right and what was wrong as well as who made which mistakes, is dangerous. People who do as such are doomed to make the same mistakes, IMHO.
I think that to talk about this issue is a good thing. Rather than cover it up, stuff it in the closet and edit it out of the textbooks like Japan has done, i would rather analyse it.
We may not have been there when these things happened but we have relatives or people we know that were in the war, or suffered as a direct result of the war. In my case, my grandfather talked openly to me about his time in the jungles fighting the Japanese, what it was like, how scared they were, etc. I got to understand from his point of view, how people thought about the war, his feelings and so on.
I believe it’s all relevant to today. If you don’t investigate and analyse past mistakes, it’s correct to assume that the same thing will happen again.
Hideki Tojo’s grand daughter Yuko is trying to be elected i see, and i’m scared that if she gets in things will change for the worse in Japan. This generation doesn’t know anything about our grandparent’s war but it looks like the education is being taught to prepare them for the same war, don’t you think? If they have not learnt anything about the past, the same mistakes will be made by them in the future, and that scares me greatly.
Ah, I never said we shouldn’t analyze what happened. In fact, I believe we should but I think almost all “analysis” is geared toward one end - determining what actions were “justified”. In fact, this type of analysis is the most useless as it isn’t looking at the societal and international conditions under which events occur. Generally speaking, analysis always focuses on whether or not Japan would have surrendered regardless and whether or not a bomb was justified to end the war. That’s not the sort of consideration that will prevent history from repeating itself.
If you want to see what is coming down the road, you have to know what path led up to it, not sit around pontificating on whether or not that road or another should have been taken. I encourage everyone to forget about justification or blame and study the path. If you do that, you can recognize whether or not we’re traveling along it again.
Certainly there is merit in looking at the past and engaging in some introspection. However I have to agree that it is challenging to place ourselves in the same mindset as those who lived during a particular event.
oh……so sorry
we dropped the bomb on hiroshima and nagasaki to end the cruel war in the far east that japan had waged since 1937
they got what they deserved they should be greatful that the us didnt just nuke the whole of japan after the wya us pows and alled pows wee treated by them,and the civilian deaths that the jap army and naval land forces had killed,tortured ,starved and beaten
what about the japanese boilogical experiments in china ,in the manchurian part of the country under the puppetemperor pu yi
the west should celebrate both bombs being dropped !!!!!!!!!
long live the usa and the uk !!!!!!!!!
Wow, Emperor! That certainly is a point of view I didn’t think you held. Well, I guess everyone can change.
lmao the rape of nanking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RAPE OF NANKING
Hi My Name Is , Hannah Bushman Im in the 6th grade and im wondering where i can find a map containing where the bombs hit and how many people it killed.
” What Bombs?” the little boy and fat man that hit both hiroshimma and nagasaki…
Thanks- Hannah Bushman
Whenever I hear or read about the nuclear bombings of Japan, the first thing that comes to my mind is the rape and masscre at Nanjing. It’s payback time.