The decision to drop the bomb has been laundered through the American myth-making machine into everything from self-preservation by the Americans to concern for the Japanese themselves-as if incinerating two hundred thousand human beings in a second was somehow an act of moral largesse.*

Dropping nuclear bombs on high density civilian areas in order to save lives? Absolutely insane. Many ignorants around the world still believe in the myth of necessity propagandized by the murderous elite who decided to drop the bombs and kill thousands of innocent civilians in a matter of seconds and many thousands in the aftermath.

Virtually all the important high-level World War II military leaders who had access to the relevant top secret information are on record as stating that the use of the atomic bomb was not a matter of military necessity.*

The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisors knew it.

The most amazingly under-reported statement in this context is that of Truman’s Secretary of State James Byrnes, quoted on the front page of the Aug. 29, 1945 New York Times with the headline, “Japan Beaten Before Atom Bomb, Byrnes Says, Citing Peace Bids.” Byrnes cited what he called “proof that the Japanese knew that they were beaten before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.”*

According to the report The United States Strategic Bombing Survey which was issued in July 1946...

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.*

By mid-1945, it was clear the Soviet Union would enter into the war in the Pacific and thereby be in a position to influence the postwar balance of power in the region. U.S. officials recognized there was little chance of preventing this, although they preferred a U.S.-led occupation of Japan rather than a co-occupation as had been arranged for Germany. Some U.S. policymakers hoped that the U.S. monopoly on nuclear technology and the demonstration of its destructive power in Japan might influence the Soviets to make concessions, either in Asia or in Europe. Truman did not threaten Stalin with the bomb, recognizing instead that its existence alone would limit Soviet options and be considered a threat to Soviet security.*

The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War.*

The United States dropped the bombs on 6 and 9 August 1945. The Soviet Union officially declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945. The Soviet Union invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo on 9 August. The Soviet invasion made Emperor Hirohito plead with his War Council to reconsider surrender.* The expectation was that the Soviet army would run over Japan. The timing of the invasion had been planned well in advance and was determined by the timing of the agreements at Tehran in late 1943 and Yalta in February 1945.

The bombing of Tokyo on 10 March 1945, which killed more than 100,000 civilians, did not lead to the surrender of the Japanese elite eventhough it was labeled the most destructive single air attack in human history. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved largely inadequate because the Japanese army was already weakened severely. According to US General Henry H. Arnold...

The surrender of Japan was not entirely the result of the two atomic bombs. We had hit some 60 Japanese cities with our regular H.E. (High Explosive) and incendiary bombs and, as a result of our raids, about 241,000 people had been killed, 313,000 wounded, and about 2,333,000 homes destroyed. Our B-29's had destroyed most of the Japanese industries and, with the laying of mines, which prevented the arrival of incoming cargoes of critical items, had made it impossible for Japan to carry on a large-scale war. ... Accordingly, it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.

Before the Anglo-American elite dropped these weapons of mass destruction they already bombed many Japanese cities to oblivion with some of their cruel chemical bombs...

Napalm, incendiary gel that sticks to skin and burns to the bone, came into the world on Valentine's Day 1942 at a secret Harvard war research laboratory. On March 9, 1945, it created an inferno that killed over 87,500 people in Tokyo—more than died in the atomic explosions at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It went on to incinerate sixty-four of Japan's largest cities. The Bomb got the press, but napalm did the work.

Before the atomic bombing and the Soviet invasion there was already much strategic bombing of Japan...

In the summer of 1945, the U.S. Army Air Force carried out one of the most intense campaigns of city destruction in the history of the world. Sixty-eight cities in Japan were attacked and all of them were either partially or completely destroyed. An estimated 1.7 million people were made homeless, 300,000 were killed, and 750,000 were wounded.*

The strategic bombing campaign against Japan, directed by LeMay between March 1945 and the Japanese surrender in August 1945, may have killed more than 500,000 Japanese civilians and left five million homeless. Official estimates from the United States Strategic Bombing Survey put the figures at 220,000 people killed. Some 40% of the built-up areas of 66 cities were destroyed, including much of Japan's war industry.

According to US Air Force general Curtis LeMay...

I thought it was anticlimactic in that the verdict was already rendered.

His successor Nathan F. Twining said...

I am convinced that the surrender would have occurred within a short time period even if the atomic bomb had never been used.

Dwight D. Eisenhower said...

I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.

What caused Japan to surrender was the Soviet invasion combined with the strategic bombings that took place until that time. It makes much more sense to believe that the nuclear bombs were dropped to impress the Soviet Union and the rest of the world as part of the beginning of the Cold War. The United States could never have allowed the Soviets to defeat Japan as that would weaken its negotiating position. This is confirmed by Eisenhower in his words to Harry S. Truman...

I told him that since reports indicated the imminence of Japan's collapse, I deprecated the Red army's engaging in that war. I foresaw certain difficulties arising out of such participation and suggested that, at the very least, we ought not to put ourselves in the position of requesting or begging for Soviet aid. It was my personal opinion that no power on earth could keep the Red Army out of that war unless victory came before they could get in.*

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The atomic bombs killed several hundred thousand people, many instantly in the nuclear fire, many later with burns, injuries and radiation sickness, and still many others, over the years, with cancers and birth defects. These deaths continue to this day. Like most of the cities bombed in World War II, the majority of the inhabitants were women, children and the elderly.*

The US government had extensive foreknowledge about the devastating effects of nuclear bombs due to their tests during the Manhattan Project from 1942 to 1946 and for example the Trinity test on July 16, 1945. The responsible elite intentionally killed as many civilians as possible just as they did with the bombing of German cities during World War II. Dropping the bombs was an act of pure barbarism lacking any sense of morality. It is first-degree mass murder which easily makes the 9/11 attacks look like a firecracker.

The official order to drop the bombs states that Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready.* No mention is made to target military installations specifically. US General Carl Spaatz, to whom the order was directed, admitted that he had no difficulty ordering the dropping of the atomic bomb, killing as many civilians as possible.

Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery.

According to US commander of Strategic Air Forces Carl Spaatz...

That was purely a political decision, not a military decision. The military man carries out the orders of his political bosses. So that doesn’t bother me at all ... We didn’t hear any complaints from the American people about mass bombing of Japan; as a matter of fact, I think they felt the more we did the better. That was our feeling toward the Japanese at that time.

The purpose of anti-Japanese propaganda was to embody the entire Japanese nation as a ruthless and animalistic enemy that needed to be defeated.* Americans never really suffered aggressive wars on American soil like the ones they support abroad. Professor Michael John Yavenditti wrote that Americans reached near agreement on one point: they approved the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 2016 US president Barack Obama visited Hiroshima. After he refused to apologize he said...

It’s important to recognize that in the midst of war, leaders make all kinds of decisions, it’s a job of historians to ask questions and examine them.

Germans in the 1930s...

Americans in the 1940s...