Would you use the Atomic Bomb in WWII

This poll is to determine if and how you would use the atomic bomb knowing what we know today if you were in power during the period of time in WWII.

Remember that we had choices available. Those are in the poll.

 

Assume that you are the decision maker in World War II. Knowing history today, what would you do to end the war with the Japanese?

If you would, I would appreciate posting your reasoning behind your decision. These reasons may be debated on this thread.

Phillip

 

I agree. The actual idea that won the war was making the Japanese think that we could continue to drop a bomb on them each week until they gave up. It was partially bluff, based on real destruction.

It is also said that in order to get civilians to turn against their government in a war you MUST take the war to the civilians. I know this goes against all of the grain of dropping precision weapons on military targets only; but that is the theory of historical wars. Take out civilians towns and the civilians start complaining to their government "What did you get us into?" (Essentially this only works for aggressor countries like Japan who started the war by attacking Pearl Harbor.)

 

KenH you are right. Plus, there was another slight problem that wasn't discussed much, but it was a REAL fear.

We set off the first bomb in New Mexico and it worked fine. Since our fissionable material was limited, we did not have enough to test bombs dropped from airplanes. Nor, were we even sure that the second bomb would go off. Essentially, the Little Boy (Uranium bomb used on Hiroshima) had never even been tested at all.

The scientists were concerned (as were the generals) that a demonstration that didn't work would do more damage and make the enemy laugh in our face.

It was FAR easier to drop the weapon without telling anybody. If it didn't work, it would have been destroyed in both the fall and the internal high-explosives used to make the core critical. (or 'target' when referring to the Little boy)

If it did work (which it did), then everything kept going as planned.

I honestly think the demonstration was far too risky since too many things could go wrong with the crude hand-made original nukes. If just one wire didn't make contact in the Fat Man (Nagasaki bomb), the core would probably not reach criticality. Too many things could go wrong.

 

North Carolina Tentmaker, I believe you are right. I believe that we only had two in the arsenal and remember the Little Boy had only about a 50/50 chance of working anyway (according to engineers at the time). So, in their eyes, they only had one GOOD bomb. This is the reason they dropped it first and saved the tested on for last.

I believe they were thirty to sixty days out from enough fissionable material for a third tactical bomb. It was even considered to use the ground test bomb as a tactical bomb, but the scientists won out and got a chance to test it and measure the damage. Remember, some didn't think it would work at all and some still thought it might burn up all of the earth's oxygen. It was a BIG unknown.

It turns out the scientists were very close to their predictions of the destructive force, which was about 30% more than they expected.

My numbers may be off some because I am quoting this from memory. I used to be fascinated with the A-bombs when I was in high-school and read everything there was about them, and back then, surprisingly there was a LOT of material that is no longer in the libraries today. The same thing with building rockets made of metal piping and other little things terrorists would just love to have today. Back then it was all info for hobbiests.

I actually think the Japanese were told we would just keep dropping until they surrendered and two weapons made this bluff seem to work well. You are probably right, an invasion would have probably occurred anyway.

My father was in the Phillipeans and He occupied Japan for a year at the end of the war. His story is interesting because when they hit the shores, they assumed they were going to have to fight, but all of the Japanese had left the sick and elderly in town and run for the hills.

Funny how we always here about them taking care of their ancestors, but when they went into town, they would hear the elderly hollering from houses.

So, they went from house to house gathering up the elderly and sick so they could feed them.

 

Sure, Oppenheimer realized they opened a new can of worms with the development of nuclear explosive power.

I'm certain others questioned it. It DID kill many people and maim many more for life. It is something that would make any decision maker cringe.

But, the decision saved the lives of many Japanese and Americans. It was the lesser of two evils. We had NO CHOICE, but to end the war with Japan. They started it, we didn't.

I also agree with if we had not used it, it would have been used by someone else in the future---possibly Russia or even Israel. This would have been a disaster.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, we have to control it and prevent it from becoming a terrorist weapon. (I don't believe a terrorist can build one, but there certainly were a lot of tactical nukes the Russians had and they would sell anything for the right amount.)

I believe the pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provide us with a standard to go by: "This should never happen again."

A policeman certainly does not want to draw his pistol--nothing good EVER comes from doing it. But, without the gun, the policeman is much more likely to be killed or injured. Just the fact that he/she has the weapon to use, stops a lot of action. The same with the bomb. If it had not been used at least once, then people would not understand its real potential for killing.