- Locke357
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- Fabled Mythic Member
“If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.” - John Locke
"How can anyone be enlightened? Truth after all is so poorly lit." - Rush
Evidence suggests that the soviet entry into the war against Japan, not the atomic bombings, caused to Japanese to surrender in the end.
People act like Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first time the US bombed Japanese civilians, and fail to realize that they were practically the only cities that hadn't been burned to a crisp by the fire-bombing campaign, of which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. The Americans were incredibly ruthless in their campaign to destroy Japanese civilians, and while the atomic might of the weapons seemed to hasten the Japanese surrender, they surely didn't need to be dropped on primarily civilian targets.
look here for example "Estimates for Japanese civilian losses range from 500,000,[259] to 1,000,000 dead.[260] The lower figure of 500,000 includes those deaths during the war caused by allied bombing and the fighting on Okinawa. The higher estimate of 1,000,000 includes additional post war deaths of persons injured in the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and excess deaths due to adverse post war conditions."
For anyone interested, some further reading on the the Japanese decision to surrender: here
Or check out these texts:
Asada, Sadao. "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration," in Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism, edited by Robert James Maddox, 24-58. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007.
Bix, Herbert P. "Japan's Delayed Surrender: A Reinterpretation," in Hiroshima in History and Memory, ed. Michael J. Hogan, 80-115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Frank, Richard B. Downfall: the End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.
[Edited on 01.03.2013 12:39 PM PST]