This is incorrect, this happened mainly because the Soviet army was an undisciplined mess and what do you think happen when officers of an army do not try to stop undisciplined men from reprehensible actions? Exactly.
It wasn't just a "revenge pillage and rape" it was just soldiers doing what they wanted because they knew they can.
I view the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as horrible acts that were necessary to instruct the world on the absolute devastation ans horrors inflicted by nuclear weapons.
If not for the bombings, things may have gone down much differently during the cold war.
The bombings taught us that we should never, ever resort to nuclear weapons in the future.
The reasons for the start of the war is different from when the war was going on. This is why Canada's view differs from the US. When Britain asked for troops, Canada was there. Canadians signed up from across the country and we provided troops and resources as best we could. We were using fishing boats and everything that floated to start the supply lines and send people.
While Canada got fully involved, Americans did nothing. When the call for help came, one showed up, the other didn't.
In general, it was the Soviet offensives that were fueled by American war materiel. Most of the desperate defense happened in 1941 and 1942 before any quantity of American supplies reached the Soviet frontlines.Nor the Eastern front. The Soviet defense in the face of Germany's invading forces were kept alive on the backs of American war materiel.
The German Army still had to be destroyed, and that happened on the battlefields in the East.As far as the belief the war was won on Eastern front vs Hitler it is far more nuanced than that. Western allies crippled the industry and supply of the Nazi war machine. They struck oil reserves, factories and pushed Italy out of the fight and stopped the oil flow to Hitler. The Soviets paid the human cost for sure but each side needed the other to achieve victory.
WWII was actually the first time that Canada had declared war on a county due to the Statute of Westminster being passed in 1931. So technically we had a choice, but the politicians would never consider turning their back on England. Just a fun fact.Isn't that expected when Canada is essentially part of the crown and the us revolted against the crown only 150 years earlier?
US getting involved at all honesty was somewhat unexpected, WWI and WWII.
As a German I feel incredibly grateful for the US involvement during and especially after the war. I guess the US contribution post war has been tremendously more meaningful than their war efforts which is not saying the latter haven't been significant or less significant than others.
The Federal Republic surely wouldn't be what it is today without the US.
This seems about right to me. I can't see an argument that starving the Japanese or invading them to a much, much greater loss of life for both sides is somehow a less reprehensible option than the bombs.There were alternatives to the nuclear bombs. These are as follows:
1. Starve out Japan and wait for them to surrender. It probably would have worked, but starvation would have lead to millions of deaths by 1946.
2. Enact Operation Downfall. The US was planning to do that anyways and their plan was to drop nuclear bombs alongside the invasion. It would have probably lead to millions of Japanese and hundreds of thousands of American casualties though.
3. Wait until the Soviet Union invades Japanese territories. The problem with this is twofold. The first is that there's no way for the Allies to know what kind of effect this would have in bringing in the Japanese to accepting surrender. The second is that the Western Allies didn't think that the Soviet Union would be able to invade until 1946, and that would be after Operation Downfall anyways.
So yes, I think that Truman did have alternatives to dropping the nuclear bombs, but these alternatives aren't particularly palatable, and the one that was, was only viable through hindsight. Sure, Stalin had promised to enter the war against Japan within 3 months of the surrender of Germany, but nobody expected that he would follow through with such sincerity.
And that undiscipline was probably caused by officers that didn't care what happened to german civilians because they fricking hated germans for what they had done. At least partially. I mean pretty much every soviet soldier probably knew someone that was killed/raped by germans considering the insane soviet death toll. .
The German Army still had to be destroyed, and that happened on the battlefields in the East.
Wondering what would have happened if the US had gone to war with USSR like some of the generals wanted. Question is if the US would be able to take them on. How was the US going to get into the heart of Russia? They'd die in the cold like the germans.
Is it possible that you'd have saved more lives, than who would die later under Stalin + all the millions who died in the crossfire of the cold war destabilization between communism vs democracies?
German here, and I feel the same.
I am convinced though that the atomic bombs on Japan were absolutely not justified.
Nazy Germany could have saved itself if it didn't invade USSR and use the time to develop the nuclear bomb.
European countries sitting around and doing nothing is exactly how Hitler annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia.
This is ignorant. Every single first-world country sat on their asses until Hitler barged in. The war escalated primarily because every nation tried to appease the Axis Powers.
American
- The allies won, no singular country won. Trying to make it about that seems really weird unless you just have resentment for a particular country.
-The Russians survived thanks to the US
-Japan should never have bombed pearl harbor. I really don't understand why Japan refused to surrender after the first bombing. (Or didn't surrrender before the first bomb!) Shame a second one had to be dropped.
Shame a second one had to be dropped.
The German Army wasn't in such dire straits until 1945 - the peak of German production was in 1944. I'd say that the Western Allies did a lot of the work in taking Germany down, but it's still pretty clear that the Red Army did most of the heavy lifting.Large part of that was they became ill-equipped and couldn't innovate to match Russian equipment because of a lack of industry. Not downplaying the Soviet sacrifice, but both sides needed each other to defeat the Nazis.
The name of the operation is a hint as to how bad the idea seemed even at the time. In hindsight, matters were even worse than the planners thought because the Red Army was much stronger than they expected, and because Soviet doctrine was miles ahead of the Allies (and the Germans) by that point.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable
Just for your interest. Churchill thought about rearming captured German soldiers and continue a war against the Soviet Union.
The plan was to proceed with Downfall.This poses the interesting question of what the long term contingency was. What would have happened if Japan hadn't surrendered after the second bomb?
Would they just have kept coming? I'm guessing a third dropped on Tokyo would have been it.
World War 2 is endlessley fascinating even in terms of what didn't happen as much as what did.
Because they sat it out while war broke out on 3 continents. The Brits and French could and should have done more in the 30s, but it was still neighbouring skirmishes at that time. Who could predict where things would turn? But sitting back at watching the world chew itself up? No excuses.
The reasons for the start of the war is different from when the war was going on. This is why Canada's view differs from the US. When Britain asked for troops, Canada was there. Canadians signed up from across the country and we provided troops and resources as best we could. We were using fishing boats and everything that floated to start the supply lines and send people.
While Canadians got fully involved, Americans did nothing. When the call for help came, one showed up, the other didn't.
American
- The allies won, no singular country won. Trying to make it about that seems really weird unless you just have resentment for a particular country.
-The Russians survived thanks to the US
-Japan should never have bombed pearl harbor. I really don't understand why Japan refused to surrender after the first bombing. (Or didn't surrrender before the first bomb!) Shame a second one had to be dropped.
Everybody knows about the American financial support and eventual troop involvement, but early on when the request for boots on the ground came from Europe, Canadians went, Americans didn't. Canadians didn't have a fully trained army either, but they went anyway. A lot of training happened on British soil to get involved asap.This is pretty ignorant. The US was involved far before Pearl Harbor. We started Lend-Lease and were essentially the engine of the Western Allies. From 1941 about 50 billion (then) on, food, oil, warplanes, ships, munitions equipment etc etc for essentially free.
The British sent the Canadians to die in Hong Kong. Seriously, fuck the Brits for that.
That's only partially true. Yamamoto didn't want to fight against the US because he didn't think that he could win in the long run. However, when the plan for Strike South was accepted, there were two proposals: the first was to attack Pearl Harbor and the Philippines before striking at targets in the West Pacific, and the second was to bypass the American possessions and hope that they would stay neutral. Yamamoto forced the High Command's hand by threatening to resign unless the first option was agreed upon.Pearly Harbor is a facinating topic. Yamamoto didn't want to attack because he didn't want to wake the dragon in the US but he went along with it because he had to.
And that undiscipline was probably caused by officers that didn't care what happened to german civilians because they fricking hated germans for what they had done. At least partially. I mean pretty much every soviet soldier probably knew someone that was killed/raped by germans considering the insane soviet death toll. .
Everybody knows about the American financial support and eventual troop involvement, but early on when the request for boots on the ground came from Europe, Canadians went, Americans didn't. Canadians didn't have a fully trained army either, but they went anyway. A lot of training happened on British soil to get involved asap.
At the time, when Canada was sending men and the United States didn't, this was a significant difference to Canadians.
I can see why the Soviet Union might want all of Germany, but why would they go any farther? There's nothing in Stalin's history to indicate that he's interested in things like that. Look at Manchuria and North Korea - he could have swallowed both of those up had he really wanted to, but he was ever a pragmatist who didn't want to overreach.
Pearly Harbor is a facinating topic. Yamamoto didn't want to attack because he didn't want to wake the dragon in the US but he went along with it because he had to. Japan was stuck in the Mahanian view on sea warfare where big ships battled it out for supremacy in the seas rather than carriers which is why they focused on battleship row. Japan had the most advanced carrier attack force on earth but that wasn't what the navy wanted. They loved their big ships and thought that taking out the us battleships would give them the pacific. If carriers were at Pearl, they would be collateral damage not the target.
Luckily in December 7th, the us carriers in the pacifIc were either training or moving aircraft thus none were there during the attack. In addition, the fuel systems in pearl were completely ignored. Thus, besides the loss of life all Pearl did was sink a bunch of ships that could be raised in time as the harbor was shallow. I believe only the Arizona wasn't raised. The fuel systems were a much more attractive target and would have had a muc more lasting impact.
In addition, the loss of its entire battleship fleet showed the US that the day of the big ship was over and they switched entirely to air power to control the sea. It was more by necessity than anything. It took Japan years to realize that and by the time they did they didn't have the resources to utilize it.
Pearl got the entire US on board with WW2 and switched US naval doctrine from big ships to air power overnight.
Sure he would have if there was literally no opposition. But Stalin was a pragmatist and he would have worked with non-Communist powers as well. Again, look to Finland - Stalin was satisfied with the gains from the Winter War and pushed no farther.Okay, let's grant the fact that Stalin doesn't continue and conquer Europe (although I'm still not convinced. Assuming no British or American armies, the Red Army would have been the only fighting force on the entire continent after the defeat of the Wehrmacht). At the very least he sets up either direct puppet states or uses influence to have Soviet sympathetic communist parties put into power throughout Europe.
In Manchuria, the precondition for the Red Army's invasion was to be permanent rights to the railway leading to the the port of Dalian, and to Dalian itself. Stalin ended up giving them up to Mao effectively for free. However much he may have been ruthless and paranoid, Stalin had a specific idea on how far he should push internationally and he stuck to them - the deal over Greece being a good case in point.I mean, when your examples of what could have happened in Europe are China and North Korea doesn't that tell you all you need to know?
Everybody knows about the American financial support and eventual troop involvement, but early on when the request for boots on the ground came from Europe, Canadians went, Americans didn't. Canadians didn't have a fully trained army either, but they went anyway. A lot of training happened on British soil to get involved asap.
At the time, when Canada was sending men and the United States didn't, this was a significant difference to Canadians.
The allies likely would not have won the war without the US providing resources and support.
The use of the bomb was contentious and Richard Rhodes' book on the subject should be mandatory reading for any student of history.
Once weapons of this magnitude had been constructed they would be used. As has been the case in all of human history. Some scientists who had conceived it (Szilard) wanted a demonstration somewhere in the desert for the Japanese, they did not want to follow through. Some like Nils Bohr tried to explain to the politicians that science was about to hand over to them a weapon that was capable of destroying their entire political system. Churchill and Roosevelt and Truman found Bohr naive.
In reality the politicians who still largely failed to grasp the power and devastation the bomb could unleash were adamant they get their money's worth (Secy State Byrnes). Others like Stimson who was fully aware of the devastation made a calculation in human lives. The US also could not afford Stalin invading northern Japan. There was no grand conspiracy and it was not a war crime. The decision involved many complicated factors. One fact that renders the fascination over the bomb moot is the fact that many more died in the fire bombing of Japanese cities than those that died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nevertheless what the bomb did show the Japanese was that total destruction was inevitable and crucially this was at low cost to the Allies in lives lost. This accelerated their total surrender. This is not arguable, rationally. All other timelines are predicated on a longer more drawn out surrender whose terms and timing and certainty were questionable at best.
That's only partially true. Yamamoto didn't want to fight against the US because he didn't think that he could win in the long run. However, when the plan for Strike South was accepted, there were two proposals: the first was to attack Pearl Harbor and the Philippines before striking at targets in the West Pacific, and the second was to bypass the American possessions and hope that they would stay neutral. Yamamoto forced the High Command's hand by threatening to resign unless the first option was agreed upon.
Ultimately it wouldn't have mattered to the ultimate outcome of the war if the entire US Navy was destroyed at Pearl, they had no chance of competing with the shipbuilding capacity of the US over the long term. At the peak, the US was producing 2 aircraft carriers per MONTH, not even counting the escort carriers. The US built more large ships that the entire rest of the world combined, and then some.
The fact that the carrier fleet was spared just meant the whole thing was even more pointless.
As a non-US citizen, since you asked specifically about the bomb, I consider it one of histories atrocities and something your country will carry the shame for well beyond my lifespan, and that's not even taking into account your country retaliated against citizens after a military base was attacked. Tbh it's something I tend to not discuss because people get very heated about it.
As a non-US citizen, since you asked specifically about the bomb, I consider it one of histories atrocities and something your country will carry the shame for well beyond my lifespan, and that's not even taking into account your country retaliated against citizens after a military base was attacked. Tbh it's something I tend to not discuss because people get very heated about it.
Dropping the atomic bombs wasn't retaliation for Pearl Harbour. Like there were four years of other things that happened between those two events.
The allies likely would not have won the war without the US providing resources and support.
The use of the bomb was contentious and Richard Rhodes' book on the subject should be mandatory reading for any student of history.
Once weapons of this magnitude had been constructed they would be used. As has been the case in all of human history. Some scientists who had conceived it (Szilard) wanted a demonstration somewhere in the desert for the Japanese, they did not want to follow through. Some like Nils Bohr tried to explain to the politicians that science was about to hand over to them a weapon that was capable of destroying their entire political system. Churchill and Roosevelt and Truman found Bohr naive.
In reality the politicians who still largely failed to grasp the power and devastation the bomb could unleash were adamant they get their money's worth (Secy State Byrnes). Others like Stimson who was fully aware of the devastation made a calculation in human lives. The US also could not afford Stalin invading northern Japan. There was no grand conspiracy and it was not a war crime. The decision involved many complicated factors. One fact that renders the fascination over the bomb moot is the fact that many more died in the fire bombing of Japanese cities than those that died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nevertheless what the bomb did show the Japanese was that total destruction was inevitable and crucially this was at low cost to the Allies in lives lost. This accelerated their total surrender. This is not arguable, rationally. All other timelines are predicated on a longer more drawn out surrender whose terms and timing and certainty were questionable at best.
The outcome? Sadly, Japan didn't want to surrender so the US had to find a way for force the Japanese Government to give up.
Panama played an important role in WW2 for the Allied Forces. Thanks to the Panama Canal, the Allies managed to transport ships between the two oceans. I know that the Axis wanted to destroy it, so the US had to keep tight defences around here.
The person is probably refering to the Doolittle Raid
Lol if true. It was aimed at industrial targets and was quite small scale. Even Pearl Harbor had civilians stationed there, and by all accounts more civilians died in PH than did in the Doolittle raid. For scale, by 1941/42 the Japanese had killed tens of thousands in terror bombing raids in China, to say nothing of millions of civilians killed the regular way.
Why make that assumption? The door was open in other places and Stalin didn't take advantage there, so why would he want overreach all the beyond Germany?
Stalin was fighting an ideological war, first against the fascists and then against the capitalists. He was not acting rationally, and had the means to take what he wanted.
You are assured about Stalin. But, no offense, you are decades removed from the situation.
The English, the French, the Germans, and the Americans were very much not sure about Stalin. The American presence assured at least a partially free (rebuilt) Germany and that Western Europe was off limits to the Soviets.
The door was not open for Stalin elsewhere. You repeating it over and over does not make it true.
The Chinese love that the US used the a bomb on Japan. Museums in shanghai have photos of mushroom clouds with captions of "the glorious bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Japanese were awful to the Chinese in WWII so it makes some sense.