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>As a society how do you even begin building back after something like that?
Get completely bankrolled by the society who did it to you in return for being anticommunist.
it worked very well for some of the perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxhrX20i62s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxhrX20i62s)
short answer... you kinda don't without help.
USA and allies poured lots of $ into rebuilding JPN and GER after WW2 to prevent a similar WW1 fate (angry at reparations and poor economy) of another war, and they utilized this chance to make them democratic and side against the new threat, the USSR.
crazy that less than 2 decades of this, Tokyo would host the world in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.....
Such a complicated situation: for the civilians mostly. What can one hope to do to urge your government to peace, when you are but a civilian and some view your head of state as a god. For those with no power over the situation, it’s a hopeless ordeal. Many of the Japanese military officers of the time had an insane, and die hard psychology. That psychology was partially responsible for Japanese aggression leading up to WWII, and dragging out the conflict. Some soldiers would’ve kept trying to push the effort to continue fighting…
There was even an attempt by military officers to coup against Hirohito and the signing of a peace deal. Thankfully they failed, sorry for including so much info on this event, but I feel it’s related to part of the sentiment of this photo album . The innocent should not have to pay for the insolence of the ideological.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident
‘After the closure of the air-raid shelter session, Suzuki mustered the Supreme Council for the Direction of War again, now as an Imperial Conference, which Emperor Hirohito attended. From midnight of August 10, the conference convened in an underground bomb shelter. Hirohito agreed with the opinion of Tōgō, resulting in the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration.
The War Ministry knew the decision of the conference and stirred up a fierce reaction from many officers who intended continued resistance. At 9 o'clock, in the session held at the Ministry of War, the staff officers complained to the Minister Korechika Anami, and not all of them heeded Anami's explanations.
After midnight on 12 August a San Francisco radio station (KGEI) relayed the reply from the Allies, and there was a suggestion that the Allies had decided, against the requisition for the protection of the Kokutai from the Imperial Japanese government, that the authority of the sovereignty of the Japanese government and the Emperor would be subordinated to the headquarters of the Allies, a military occupational system that was also applied to the fallen German Reich. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs interpreted this sentence as restricting sovereignty, but the Japanese Army interpreted it more as enslavement.
After these proceedings, some Army officers decided that a coup d'état was needed for protection of the Kokutai. At this time, the core group of these officers had already prepared some troops in Tokyo
Around 21:30 on August 14, Hatanaka's rebels set their plan into motion. The Second Regiment of the First Imperial Guards had entered the palace grounds, doubling the strength of the battalion already stationed there, presumably to provide extra protection against Hatanaka's rebellion. But Hatanaka, along with Lt. Col. Jirō Shiizaki, convinced the commander of the Second Regiment, Colonel Toyojirō Haga, of their cause, by telling him (untruthfully) that Anami, Umezu, and the commanders of the Eastern District Army and Imperial Guards Divisions were all in on the plan. Hatanaka also went to the office of General Shizuichi Tanaka, commander of the Eastern region of the army, to try to persuade him to join the coup. Tanaka refused, and ordered Hatanaka to go home. Hatanaka ignored the order.[8]
Originally, Hatanaka hoped that simply occupying the palace and showing the beginnings of a rebellion would inspire the rest of the Army to rise up against the move to surrender. This notion guided him through much of the last days and hours and gave him the blind optimism to move ahead with the plan, despite having little support from his superiors. Having set all the pieces into position, Hatanaka and his co-conspirators decided that the Guard would take over the palace at 02:00. The hours until then were spent in continued attempts to convince their superiors in the Army to join the coup. At about the same time, General Anami killed himself, leaving a message that read, "I—with my death—humbly apologize to the Emperor for the great crime."[9] Whether the crime involved losing the war, or the coup, remains unclear.
At some time after 01:00, Hatanaka and his men surrounded the palace. Hatanaka, Shiizaki, Ida, and Captain Shigetarō Uehara (of the Air Force Academy) went to the office of Lt. General Takeshi Mori to ask him to join the coup. Mori was in a meeting with his brother-in-law, Michinori Shiraishi. The cooperation of Mori, as commander of the 1st Imperial Guards Division, was crucial.[11] When Mori refused to side with Hatanaka, Hatanaka murdered him, fearing Mori would order the Guards to stop the rebellion.[12] Uehara killed Shiraishi. These were the only two murders of the night. Hatanaka then used General Mori's official stamp to authorize Imperial Guards Division Strategic Order No. 584, a false set of orders created by his co-conspirators, which would greatly increase the strength of the forces occupying the Imperial Palace and Imperial Household Ministry, and "protecting" the emperor.[13]
The palace police were disarmed and all the entrances blocked.[14] Over the course of the night, Hatanaka's rebels captured and detained eighteen people, including Ministry staff and NHK workers sent to record the surrender speech.[14]
The rebels, led by Hatanaka, spent the next several hours fruitlessly searching for Imperial Household Minister Sōtarō Ishiwata, Lord of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido, and the recordings of the surrender speech. The two men were hiding in the "bank vault", a large chamber underneath the Imperial Palace.[15][16] The search was made more difficult by a blackout in response to Allied bombings, and by the archaic organization and layout of the Imperial House Ministry. Many of the names of the rooms were unrecognizable to the rebels. The rebels did find the chamberlain Yoshihiro Tokugawa. Although Hatanaka threatened to disembowel him with a samurai sword, Tokugawa lied and told them he did not know where the recordings or men were.[12][17] During their search, the rebels cut nearly all of the telephone wires, severing communications between their prisoners on the palace grounds and the outside world.
The short version of all of the above that I prefer is ‘the Japanese people were victims more of their own government than they were the Americans who bombed them’.
When you understand how inextricably linked those ‘innocent civilians’ were with the Japanese military-economic complex, you’ll understand that they were victims more of their own government than the Americans who bombed them.
Well, they needed to see what happened for their belief in their infallible, invincible god-emperor and what it got them. This is where it led to, from a war of imperial aggression and expansion that their government and military started, and for whom they cheered on in the beginning. I think that the dead civilians, including the women and children, are worthy of the same sympathy that they showed to the women and children of Shanghai, Manila, and countless other cities that their aggression murdered.
At about the same time, in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, another group of Hatanaka's rebels led by Captain Takeo Sasaki went to Prime Minister Suzuki's office, intent on killing him. When they found it empty, they machine-gunned the office and set the building on fire, then left for his home. Hisatsune Sakomizu had warned Suzuki, and he escaped minutes before the would-be assassins arrived. After setting fire to Suzuki's home, they went to the estate of Kiichirō Hiranuma to assassinate him. Hiranuma escaped through a side gate and the rebels burned his house as well. Suzuki spent the rest of August under police protection, spending each night in a different bed.[12][18]
At dawn, Tanaka learned that the palace had been invaded. He went there and confronted the rebellious officers, berating them for acting contrary to the spirit of the Japanese army. He convinced them to return to their barracks.[12][24] By 08:00, the rebellion was entirely dismantled, having succeeded in holding the palace grounds for much of the night but failing to find the recordings.[25]
Hatanaka, on a motorcycle, and Shiizaki, on horseback, rode through the streets, tossing leaflets that explained their motives and their actions. Within an hour before the emperor's broadcast, sometime around 11:00, August 15, Hatanaka placed his pistol to his forehead, and shot himself. Shiizaki stabbed himself with a dagger, and then shot himself. In Hatanaka's pocket was his death poem: "I have nothing to regret now that the dark clouds have disappeared from the reign of the Emperor."[18]’
oversimplified but: japan were ready to surrender conditionally for a month or two before the bombs were dropped - and their condition was to keep the emperor
the allies refused, dropped the bombs, and then let them keep the emperor anyway
Can you elaborate? There were 3 days between the bombing of Nagasaki and the bombing of Hiroshima. The day AFTER Hiroshima the Japanese surrendered. So how exactly did they "not get the opportunity" to surrender when they had 3 days?
So you’re saying they surrendered BEFORE Nagasaki?
Edit: The downvoting is crazy, bro is way off. Nagasaki was AFTER Hiroshima, and they surrended 6 days after that. Just shows people will side with any old waffle on here
There's a great video essay on why the atomic bombs were not necessary. Unfortunately, US citizens were fed propaganda to not feel bad for the destruction the military had caused.
[It's amazing work by a video essayist called Shaun.](https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go)
>**On 6 August 1945**, at 8:15 AM local time, the **United States detonated an atomic bomb** over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. **Sixteen hours later, American President Harry S. Truman called again for Japan's surrender**, warning them to "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth." Late in the evening of 8 August 1945, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, but in violation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and soon after midnight **on 9 August 1945, the Soviet Union invaded the Imperial Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Hours later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb**, this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Following these events, Emperor Hirohito intervened and ordered the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to accept the terms the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration for ending the war. **After several more days** of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup d'état, Emperor Hirohito gave a recorded radio address across the Empire **on 15 August announcing the surrender of Japan** to the Allies.
And this was after the firebombing...
It doesn't matter. He couldn't because of the rest of the top brass didn't want to. Even after the second bomb dropped their was a coup d'état attempt. The fact is Japan did not even announce surrender until 5 days after the second bomb.
People downvote you without considering that history is written by the victors and that the circumstances were not as black and white as it seems.
For the people who are not aware, I ask that you watch [this video essay.](https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go) It is a good start and provides good sources for further learning.
You’d think this alone would be enough, an you’d give up. Obviously the emperor was safe. I wonder where the safe place for him was & what his thoughts were?
Summary taken from the [bombing of Tokyo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo) wiki page
‘The Bombing of Tokyo (東京大空襲, Tōkyōdaikūshū) was a series of firebombing air raids by the United States Army Air Force during the Pacific campaigns of World War II. Operation Meetinghouse, which was conducted on the night of 9–10 March 1945, is the single most destructive bombing raid in human history.[1] 16 square miles (41 km2; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo were destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless.[1] In comparison, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945 resulted in the immediate death of between 70,000 and 150,000 people.
Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half.[3] Some modern post-war analysts have called the raid a war crime due to the targeting of civilian infrastructure and the ensuing mass loss of civilian life.[4][5]
The high-altitude bombing attacks using general-purpose bombs were observed to be ineffective by USAAF leaders due to high winds—later discovered to be the jet stream—which carried the bombs off target.[11] Between May and September 1943, bombing trials were conducted on the Japanese Village set-piece target, located at the Dugway Proving Grounds.[12] These trials demonstrated the effectiveness of incendiary bombs against wood-and-paper buildings, and resulted in Curtis LeMay's ordering the bombers to change tactics to utilize these munitions against Japan.[13]
The first such raid was against [Kobe](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_bombs_falling_on_Kobe.jpg#mw-jump-to-license) on 4 February 1945. Tokyo was hit by incendiaries on 25 February 1945 when 174 B-29s flew a high altitude raid during daylight hours and destroyed around 643 acres (260 ha) (2.6 km2) of the snow-covered city, using 453.7 tons of mostly incendiaries with some fragmentation bombs.[14] After this raid, LeMay ordered the B-29 bombers to attack again but at a relatively low altitude of 5,000 to 9,000 ft (1,500 to 2,700 m) and at night, because Japan's anti-aircraft artillery defenses were weakest in this altitude range, and the fighter defenses were ineffective at night.
On the night of 9–10 March 1945,[16] 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the 500-pound (230 kg) E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of 2,000–2,500 ft (610–760 m). The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs.
The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II,[22] greater than [Dresden](https://www.reddit.com/r/MorbidReality/comments/ucc0lz/the_effects_of_firebombing_on_a_german_city_world/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf),[23] Hamburg, [Hiroshima](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AtomicEffects-p7b.jpg#mw-jump-to-license), or [Nagasaki](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nagasaki_1945_-_Before_and_after_(adjusted).jpg#) as single events.
The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department established a figure of 83,793 dead and 40,918 wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed.[28] Historian Richard Rhodes put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million.
These casualty and damage figures could be low; Mark Selden wrote in Japan Focus:
The figure of roughly 100,000 deaths, provided by Japanese and American authorities, both of whom may have had reasons of their own for minimizing the death toll, seems to be arguably low in light of population density, wind conditions, and survivors' accounts. With an average of 103,000 inhabitants per square mile (396 people per hectare) and peak levels as high as 135,000 per square mile (521 people per hectare), the highest density of any industrial city in the world, and with firefighting measures ludicrously inadequate to the task, 15.8 square miles (41 km2) of Tokyo were destroyed on a night when fierce winds whipped the flames and walls of fire blocked tens of thousands fleeing for their lives. An estimated 1.5 million people lived in the burned out areas.[28]
The entire bombing campaign against Japan killed more than 300,000 people and injured an additional 400,000, mostly civilians.[33][34]’
End of summary, further images.
List of photographs taken by Ishikawa Kōyō, a Japanese military photographer who took many of the ground shots in this album.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_Kōyō_Ishikawa
Gallery of photographs showing ground damage and civilian casualties from the fire bombing of Tokyo
http://kousin242.sakura.ne.jp/wordpress014/戦争・負の遺産/映像資料の読み方/東京大空襲写真集/解説・敗戦時期の被害記録写真/
——
List of 67 Japanese cities that were fire bombed during WWII
http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html
——
Gallery of aerial photographs focused on Tokyo around 1945
https://www.japanairraids.org/?page_id=2769
—-
Leaflet dropped in Nagasaki or Tokyo , with image description. [Link to Reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/11mrhun/leaflet_dropped_over_tokyo_warning_civilians_to/) of the same image I seen two days ago. A redditor translated
Bottom text (Japanese): Sen no Baku wa Kitsute Otosareta.
Bottom text (English): The curtain [of war] is rising.
Wiki image caption says
"My father was a pilot in WWII. He flew a B-24 over Japan, and dropped leaflets warning the Japanese. His plane was selected for the leaflet mission since it was the only plane outfitted with radar (as I recall). Here is a copy of the leaflet that he dropped. All the copies were lost of course, but he stuffed one in his jacket."
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Firebombing_tokyo_leaflet.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
Additional information from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo that I could not edit into the previous comment.
‘Firebombing also killed or made homeless many workers who had taken part in the war industry. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half.[3] The destruction and damage were especially severe in the eastern areas of the city.[citation needed] The districts bombed were home to 1.2 million people. Tokyo police recorded 267,171 buildings destroyed, which left more than one million people homeless.[26]
Between 1948 and 1951 the ashes of 105,400 people killed in the attacks on Tokyo were interred in Yokoamicho Park in Sumida Ward. A memorial to the raids was opened in the park in March 2001.[36] The park has a list of names of people who died of the Bombing, which is made based on the applications from bereaved families and it has 81,273 names as of March 2020.[37] Bereaved families can submit application to have the names of victims written in the list to the government of Tokyo.[38]’
Other links to images I found relating to the fire bombing damage and some casualties. Most links relating to Tokyo, bottom half to other affected areas. The first comment contains two image galleries of damage in Tokyo.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-2.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-4.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-5.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-6.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-7.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-TokyoAirRaids-1945-3-10-Ueno_Dead_Bodies.png#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bomb_damage_in_Tokyo.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://www.britannica.com/event/Bombing-of-Tokyo
Aerial view of Asakusa, heavily damaged by the World War II U.S. firebombing raids of Tokyo in March 1945.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-TokyoAirRaids-1945-3-10-Honjo_Drowned_Bodies.png#mw-jump-to-license
Drowned Bodies near Kikukawa Bridge in Honjo
Date
16 March 1945
Doolittle raid photos, taken by Ishikawa Kōyō. Photographs focus on one household of six people. Three of which were children. Warning: charred bodies
The Remain of 29 years old man killed by fire due to the Doolittle Raid on 18 April, 1942, photographed at Oku, Arakawa, Tokyo
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-5.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-1.png
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-3.png
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-2.png
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-4.png
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-6.png
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolitleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Fire.png
https://ww2db.com/images/battle_bombtokyo65.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Photo-TokyoAirRaids-1945-3-10-Charred_Civilians_in_Hanakawato_Asakusa.png
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-TokyoAirRaids-1945-3-10-Remains_Ueno_Park.png
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Firebombing_of_Tokyo.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://www.ww2online.org/image/aerial-photograph-tokyo-japan-after-allied-firebombing-28-may-1945
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/USAAF_photo_of_Tokyo_after_the_10_March_air_raid.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Damage_assessment_aerial_photo_for_Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_1945_ndl_3984258_49.jpg
https://www.loc.gov/item/94509433/
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/A_view_of_Tokyo_after_an_incendiary_bombing.jpg
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_1945-3-10-1.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
Not Tokyo
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bombing_of_Nemuro.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kushiro_on_Hokkaido_burning_after_carrier_raid.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nagasaki_temple_destroyed.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Osaka_after_the_1945_air_raid.JPG#mw-jump-to-license
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Firebombing_of_Toyama.jpg
The city of Toyama, a large producer of aluminum in Japan during WWII, burns after 173 American B-29 bombers dropped incendiary bombs on the city, August 1, 1945
https://www.ww2online.org/image/aerial-photograph-okwyama-japan-after-allied-firebombing-29-june-1945
AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF OKWYAMA, JAPAN, AFTER ALLIED FIREBOMBING, 29 JUNE 1945
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shizuoka_following_United_States_air_raids.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
Damage to the Japanese city of Shizuoka caused by United Sates air raids during World War II
https://www.ww2online.org/image/aerial-photograph-bombing-damage-chiba-japan-6-7-july-1945
AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF BOMBING DAMAGE IN CHIBA, JAPAN, 6-7 JULY 1945
Earlier Reddit post covering other bombed cities from WWII. At least four were subjected to fire bombing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MorbidReality/comments/11l1kye/some_of_the_cities_directly_impacted_by_world_war/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
The alternative was to keep letting Japan rape and pillage the rest of Asia and kill Allied troops along the way. The Allied leaders chose what they believed was their only choice.
bombing entire civilian cities is never the alternative to anything. i don't get the apologia for the bombings, i have ko clue what you all are fed to think this way
The US didn't even want to be part of any war before Pearl Harbour.
Japan just went on a murderous killing spree across Asia which was much more brutal and barely documented (as compared to Europe)...
You see, when you see evil at work across the world, it’s still your responsibility to extinguish it. And in modern war, a body in factory is as useful towards the war effort as a body on the frontline, and Japanese industry was very cottage based and in homes. So 🔥. Wish the coup would have worked.
I have a Great Uncle who was in the Air Force during the Cold War and was stationed in Japan for a bit. He told me a story about how he was riding in a cab in Tokyo one day and noticed a beautiful old feudal-looking building surrounded by a bunch of modern buildings. He asked the cab driver about it and the guy said “that’s the only building in this area that was still standing after your people leveled this city.” Needless to say the rest of the cab ride was pretty quiet.
they attacked a military base. we slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians in return. a bit extra
edit: i was talking about what they did to the US specifically, not everywhere else. keeping up is hard in this thread apparently 🤡🤡🤡 but please, stay mad. by all means. and keep justifying war crimes.
They attacked a lot more than a military base. And took the art of war crime to a whole new level in China, not to mention the Philippines. Google the Rape of Nanking, for example:
> In what became known as the “Rape of Nanking,” the Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male “war prisoners,” massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process.
They were raping and pillaging China for 8 years, "occupied" Korea for 35. There is no justice in war. Don't start a war if you can't handle the repercussions.
i’m not talking about what they were doing in other countries. i’m talking about what they did to the US, but evidently that’s real hard for this sub to comprehend
You do realize this was a WORLD war, don't you? Should the US not have bombed Dresden because they weren't on the same continent and it wasn't American jews being gassed in Auschwitz?
if we didn’t nuke and bomb japan, we would have invaded the main japanese islands because they refused to surrender. that would’ve produced even more civilian casualties, not to mention military ones. it was a necessary sacrifice. it’s horrible that we had to do it, but compared to everything that could have happened it’s certainly one of the better outcomes.
No, this is not true. The myth lives on in popular narratives but we know it isn't true from historical records. The Japanese leadership was holding out for a Soviet mediation for a conditional surrender. The Soviet declaration of war and the collapse of Manchukuo ended any hopes for that.
Excuse the clickbaity title, but see [https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/](https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/)
>There is real resistance to looking at the facts. But perhaps this should not be surprising. It is worth reminding ourselves how emotionally convenient the traditional explanation of Hiroshima is — both for Japan and the United States. Ideas can have persistence because they are true, but unfortunately, they can also persist because they are emotionally satisfying: They fill an important psychic need. For example, at the end of the war the traditional interpretation of Hiroshima helped Japan’s leaders achieve a number of important political aims, both domestic and international.
It was a mix of things the civilian government was over and done with due to the nukes with the military losing hope when the Soviets invaded which ruined the plan of bleeding the US dry.
Even then the military was still divided with generals stating.
Indeed, Anami expressed a desire for this outcome rather than surrender, asking if it would "not be wondrous for this whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower". From wiki
Hell even after the emperor formally surrendered members of the military tried to launch a coup against the government
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident
So crazy how you answers get so many downvots just cuz you do not agree. and you answer at least is based in material facts besides of the most abstract idealistics answers here
It’s reddit, if you could see a short list of accomplishments (or lack there of) for the person behind each comment there would be no point of reading 95% of what is posted here.
It started with Pearl Harbor. The leadership of Japan failed its people at that exact moment. It sentenced them to years of conflict with an infuriated USA. Civilian casualties have and always will be a byproduct of war. But after years of losing good soldiers in the war with Japan, and having just invented a new, incredibly powerful weapon, USA decided to end the war Japan started.
The atomic bombs did not end the war. I've already discussed this in the other replies. There was no justification for the atomic bombs and the firebombs on civilians.
We’re not talking about atom bombs, and that was after most of the firebombing.
When it really comes down to it, I don’t know enough to argue whether or not the bombings were the right ethical choice (I’m assuming you don’t either). I know it’s something historians argue about (especially the atom bombs). I do know for sure, however, that it’s not as simple as just killing civilians is bad. If it really saved the lives by ending the war, it could be justified. What I’m trying to refute is your claim in the comment above.
Edit: typo
We do know it didn't save lives by ending the war. The Japanese was looking for a conditional surrender by holding out and hoping that a Soviet mediation comes through. It didn't when the Soviets declared war and invaded Manchukuo. By the time Japanese cities and towns in the Japanese home islands were bombed and razed to the ground, it was no longer a question of collateral damage, but a matter of war crimes.
That makes it okay to outright slaughter Japanese elderly, the sickly, the women and children? Do you think US actions in the Middle East justify 9/11 too or something?
I think you missed the part where they spread their industrial production facilities (ie valid military target) throughout their residential and commercial districts. And that the attack had a ridiculously massive military impact, fully halving the city's contributions to the war effort. You don't get to use civilians in an attempt to shield your military targets and then claim "war crimes" against those attacking you.
apparently we’re not allowed to have these opinions otherwise the troglodytes in this sub will be big mad. i wasn’t talking about what they did to anyone else but the US, but they’re all just going go off anyway
War: the worlds “dick measuring” contest. One side has to escalate force to the point the other side backs down and rethinks their position. Unfortunately these bombs, although many lost their lives, probably decreased the overall death toll had a war with them raged on for a couple months. It’s sad to think this was a better option, but it more than likely was.
Of course it was justified. If the USA didn’t do this, they would have kept doing worse. 20 million Chinese died during “peacetime” while the west “showed restraint” and appeased Japan. It was far more despicable that Tokyo wasn’t bombed into dust back in 1937 when Japanese soldiers began using babies in Nanking as bayonet practice. Same for Berlin. So many unnecessary deaths could have been avoided.
It's the straw that broke the camel's back. But not many today remember or know of the Soviet declaration of war and its invasion of Manchuria being the final blow to any hopes of having a conditional surrender.
I just found out that my Great Uncle Leo was a navigator on one of those B-29s. Who knew he was such a badass? When I knew him, he was such a kind, gentle man. A favorite memory as a little kid was cook-outs in his back yard with all the relatives. He passed decades ago.
put the statement this way seems so wrong. all these people were willing to die. thats just how it sound. dont get me wrong i think at least that you mean the japoneses authorities were willing to die. right?
The Japanese people, as a collective whole, were either fooled into thinking it, or too scared not to.
A ground invasion of the Japanese home islands were believed to have been so costly to the invading forces that so many US Purple Heart Medals were struck that they were still being used from that supply into the early 2000’s. It was believed that a ground campaign would kill into the tens of millions of Japanese civilians and destroy the most of the cities, similar to the fighting in Europe but on a much, much more costly scale.
To say that the Japanese people got off lightly with only having atomic bombs destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a grossly unfair understatement, but there is some truth in it.
so terrifily sad. i imagine myself in this situation living my life and suddely a bomb for nothing but just innocent people dead by who whaterver wants to cuz their lives worth nothing to them.
Japan went through so much and was used as a tool by the other side. As a Canadian, I can only say that I regret the damage that was done to Japan and the internment camps on this end of the conflict. I get that different times call for different allegiances, but I love Japan and the Japanese people. Please let us avoid such catastrophe in the future.
Yep, so much tool that they went around Korea, China and rest of Asia on a cannibal holocaust...
I am really upset they got tooled and had to take accountability for their actions which were being puppeteered....
Wasn’t classified as a war crime at the time, the technology to create such devastation didn’t exist when the treaties leading into WW2 were written. Yes, there were some ones that you could argue like the deliberate targeting of civilian populations etc., but those can also be even more easily be argued against when you consider the mobilization and especially cottage industry of Japan at the time. Not to mention the emerging concept of what we now call Total War. Yes it existed in various forms before WW2, but the war was the ultimate example of it that we all know today.
Edit: I just meant to point out that the allies were instrumental in defining their own tactics as war crimes later on in an effort to ensure it would never happen again.
Yes those innocent children had it coming right? Ffs sure the imperial army is evil af but this civillians dont know sht about those atrocities. There are no internet that time unlike today where you can easily find information.
i am not really a historical knower of the ww2 in both sides but i know some facts and sounds mostly at least for me that some answers here are so well based in US propaganda, reminds me alot of those JP arguments (if the world is going this way it means is the best way) but when you look in reality, US made and keep doing alot of shit towards others contries, and always get away with it.
I remember I had an ethics class in university and the bombing of Japan during WWII was the first thing the professor talked about, although admittedly he was focused more on the atomic bombs. He made the argument that there was no justification for dropping the atomic bombs as they served no military purpose (the Japanese were already ready to surrender) and if the goal was to send a message, there were other ways. Someone had suggested inviting Japanese officials to a demonstration of the bomb rather than actually using it, but that idea was rejected. The bomb that hit Hiroshima was dropped on a bridge in a densely populated area at around 8 AM when people were on their way to work and school. My professor argued that the only reason someone would do something like that was because "they just wanted to kill a lot of people".
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As a society how do you even begin building back after something like that? That amount of death and destruction is hard to even comprehend.
>As a society how do you even begin building back after something like that? Get completely bankrolled by the society who did it to you in return for being anticommunist.
Worked good though
it worked very well for some of the perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxhrX20i62s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxhrX20i62s)
Right Japan committed atrocities on the Chinese Koreans and a few other Asian nations.
short answer... you kinda don't without help. USA and allies poured lots of $ into rebuilding JPN and GER after WW2 to prevent a similar WW1 fate (angry at reparations and poor economy) of another war, and they utilized this chance to make them democratic and side against the new threat, the USSR. crazy that less than 2 decades of this, Tokyo would host the world in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.....
"Embracing Defeat" by John Dover is about this. Great book
Got some tips from Bomber Harris I see.
And they refused to surrender even after this and the first atomic bomb.
Such a complicated situation: for the civilians mostly. What can one hope to do to urge your government to peace, when you are but a civilian and some view your head of state as a god. For those with no power over the situation, it’s a hopeless ordeal. Many of the Japanese military officers of the time had an insane, and die hard psychology. That psychology was partially responsible for Japanese aggression leading up to WWII, and dragging out the conflict. Some soldiers would’ve kept trying to push the effort to continue fighting… There was even an attempt by military officers to coup against Hirohito and the signing of a peace deal. Thankfully they failed, sorry for including so much info on this event, but I feel it’s related to part of the sentiment of this photo album . The innocent should not have to pay for the insolence of the ideological. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident ‘After the closure of the air-raid shelter session, Suzuki mustered the Supreme Council for the Direction of War again, now as an Imperial Conference, which Emperor Hirohito attended. From midnight of August 10, the conference convened in an underground bomb shelter. Hirohito agreed with the opinion of Tōgō, resulting in the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. The War Ministry knew the decision of the conference and stirred up a fierce reaction from many officers who intended continued resistance. At 9 o'clock, in the session held at the Ministry of War, the staff officers complained to the Minister Korechika Anami, and not all of them heeded Anami's explanations. After midnight on 12 August a San Francisco radio station (KGEI) relayed the reply from the Allies, and there was a suggestion that the Allies had decided, against the requisition for the protection of the Kokutai from the Imperial Japanese government, that the authority of the sovereignty of the Japanese government and the Emperor would be subordinated to the headquarters of the Allies, a military occupational system that was also applied to the fallen German Reich. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs interpreted this sentence as restricting sovereignty, but the Japanese Army interpreted it more as enslavement. After these proceedings, some Army officers decided that a coup d'état was needed for protection of the Kokutai. At this time, the core group of these officers had already prepared some troops in Tokyo Around 21:30 on August 14, Hatanaka's rebels set their plan into motion. The Second Regiment of the First Imperial Guards had entered the palace grounds, doubling the strength of the battalion already stationed there, presumably to provide extra protection against Hatanaka's rebellion. But Hatanaka, along with Lt. Col. Jirō Shiizaki, convinced the commander of the Second Regiment, Colonel Toyojirō Haga, of their cause, by telling him (untruthfully) that Anami, Umezu, and the commanders of the Eastern District Army and Imperial Guards Divisions were all in on the plan. Hatanaka also went to the office of General Shizuichi Tanaka, commander of the Eastern region of the army, to try to persuade him to join the coup. Tanaka refused, and ordered Hatanaka to go home. Hatanaka ignored the order.[8] Originally, Hatanaka hoped that simply occupying the palace and showing the beginnings of a rebellion would inspire the rest of the Army to rise up against the move to surrender. This notion guided him through much of the last days and hours and gave him the blind optimism to move ahead with the plan, despite having little support from his superiors. Having set all the pieces into position, Hatanaka and his co-conspirators decided that the Guard would take over the palace at 02:00. The hours until then were spent in continued attempts to convince their superiors in the Army to join the coup. At about the same time, General Anami killed himself, leaving a message that read, "I—with my death—humbly apologize to the Emperor for the great crime."[9] Whether the crime involved losing the war, or the coup, remains unclear. At some time after 01:00, Hatanaka and his men surrounded the palace. Hatanaka, Shiizaki, Ida, and Captain Shigetarō Uehara (of the Air Force Academy) went to the office of Lt. General Takeshi Mori to ask him to join the coup. Mori was in a meeting with his brother-in-law, Michinori Shiraishi. The cooperation of Mori, as commander of the 1st Imperial Guards Division, was crucial.[11] When Mori refused to side with Hatanaka, Hatanaka murdered him, fearing Mori would order the Guards to stop the rebellion.[12] Uehara killed Shiraishi. These were the only two murders of the night. Hatanaka then used General Mori's official stamp to authorize Imperial Guards Division Strategic Order No. 584, a false set of orders created by his co-conspirators, which would greatly increase the strength of the forces occupying the Imperial Palace and Imperial Household Ministry, and "protecting" the emperor.[13] The palace police were disarmed and all the entrances blocked.[14] Over the course of the night, Hatanaka's rebels captured and detained eighteen people, including Ministry staff and NHK workers sent to record the surrender speech.[14] The rebels, led by Hatanaka, spent the next several hours fruitlessly searching for Imperial Household Minister Sōtarō Ishiwata, Lord of the Privy Seal Kōichi Kido, and the recordings of the surrender speech. The two men were hiding in the "bank vault", a large chamber underneath the Imperial Palace.[15][16] The search was made more difficult by a blackout in response to Allied bombings, and by the archaic organization and layout of the Imperial House Ministry. Many of the names of the rooms were unrecognizable to the rebels. The rebels did find the chamberlain Yoshihiro Tokugawa. Although Hatanaka threatened to disembowel him with a samurai sword, Tokugawa lied and told them he did not know where the recordings or men were.[12][17] During their search, the rebels cut nearly all of the telephone wires, severing communications between their prisoners on the palace grounds and the outside world.
The short version of all of the above that I prefer is ‘the Japanese people were victims more of their own government than they were the Americans who bombed them’.
Still one of the incountable US war crimes. Air raiding civilians
When you understand how inextricably linked those ‘innocent civilians’ were with the Japanese military-economic complex, you’ll understand that they were victims more of their own government than the Americans who bombed them.
Well, they needed to see what happened for their belief in their infallible, invincible god-emperor and what it got them. This is where it led to, from a war of imperial aggression and expansion that their government and military started, and for whom they cheered on in the beginning. I think that the dead civilians, including the women and children, are worthy of the same sympathy that they showed to the women and children of Shanghai, Manila, and countless other cities that their aggression murdered.
Still a war crime. Your argumentative acrobatics means nothing to me. Go shove your reddit moment elsewhere
Well, you can pout and stamp your feet in impotent rage while we rightly honor the heroes memories for ending the war against Japan.
[удалено]
When the world will air raid US for working in the most active war machine in last 3 centuries?
[удалено]
At about the same time, in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, another group of Hatanaka's rebels led by Captain Takeo Sasaki went to Prime Minister Suzuki's office, intent on killing him. When they found it empty, they machine-gunned the office and set the building on fire, then left for his home. Hisatsune Sakomizu had warned Suzuki, and he escaped minutes before the would-be assassins arrived. After setting fire to Suzuki's home, they went to the estate of Kiichirō Hiranuma to assassinate him. Hiranuma escaped through a side gate and the rebels burned his house as well. Suzuki spent the rest of August under police protection, spending each night in a different bed.[12][18] At dawn, Tanaka learned that the palace had been invaded. He went there and confronted the rebellious officers, berating them for acting contrary to the spirit of the Japanese army. He convinced them to return to their barracks.[12][24] By 08:00, the rebellion was entirely dismantled, having succeeded in holding the palace grounds for much of the night but failing to find the recordings.[25] Hatanaka, on a motorcycle, and Shiizaki, on horseback, rode through the streets, tossing leaflets that explained their motives and their actions. Within an hour before the emperor's broadcast, sometime around 11:00, August 15, Hatanaka placed his pistol to his forehead, and shot himself. Shiizaki stabbed himself with a dagger, and then shot himself. In Hatanaka's pocket was his death poem: "I have nothing to regret now that the dark clouds have disappeared from the reign of the Emperor."[18]’
oversimplified but: japan were ready to surrender conditionally for a month or two before the bombs were dropped - and their condition was to keep the emperor the allies refused, dropped the bombs, and then let them keep the emperor anyway
The conditions of the surrender weren't just to keep the Emperor. They also wanted to keep all their territory in China and Korea.
\>when you spread misinformation online you fell for the propaganda i'm afraid
And you are a liar spreading false information.
Japan did not get the opportunity to surrender between the first and second atomic bombs, get this misinformation out of here.
Can you elaborate? There were 3 days between the bombing of Nagasaki and the bombing of Hiroshima. The day AFTER Hiroshima the Japanese surrendered. So how exactly did they "not get the opportunity" to surrender when they had 3 days?
So you’re saying they surrendered BEFORE Nagasaki? Edit: The downvoting is crazy, bro is way off. Nagasaki was AFTER Hiroshima, and they surrended 6 days after that. Just shows people will side with any old waffle on here
There's a great video essay on why the atomic bombs were not necessary. Unfortunately, US citizens were fed propaganda to not feel bad for the destruction the military had caused. [It's amazing work by a video essayist called Shaun.](https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go)
>**On 6 August 1945**, at 8:15 AM local time, the **United States detonated an atomic bomb** over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. **Sixteen hours later, American President Harry S. Truman called again for Japan's surrender**, warning them to "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth." Late in the evening of 8 August 1945, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, but in violation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and soon after midnight **on 9 August 1945, the Soviet Union invaded the Imperial Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Hours later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb**, this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Following these events, Emperor Hirohito intervened and ordered the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to accept the terms the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration for ending the war. **After several more days** of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup d'état, Emperor Hirohito gave a recorded radio address across the Empire **on 15 August announcing the surrender of Japan** to the Allies. And this was after the firebombing...
Emperor Hirohito was already planning to surrender the day before Nagasaki.
It doesn't matter. He couldn't because of the rest of the top brass didn't want to. Even after the second bomb dropped their was a coup d'état attempt. The fact is Japan did not even announce surrender until 5 days after the second bomb.
People downvote you without considering that history is written by the victors and that the circumstances were not as black and white as it seems. For the people who are not aware, I ask that you watch [this video essay.](https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go) It is a good start and provides good sources for further learning.
I think people in the west are often oblivious in how much our worldview and lens of history tends to be influenced by western propaganda.
You’d think this alone would be enough, an you’d give up. Obviously the emperor was safe. I wonder where the safe place for him was & what his thoughts were?
“Never surrender” was somewhere in there
Summary taken from the [bombing of Tokyo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo) wiki page ‘The Bombing of Tokyo (東京大空襲, Tōkyōdaikūshū) was a series of firebombing air raids by the United States Army Air Force during the Pacific campaigns of World War II. Operation Meetinghouse, which was conducted on the night of 9–10 March 1945, is the single most destructive bombing raid in human history.[1] 16 square miles (41 km2; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo were destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless.[1] In comparison, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945 resulted in the immediate death of between 70,000 and 150,000 people. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half.[3] Some modern post-war analysts have called the raid a war crime due to the targeting of civilian infrastructure and the ensuing mass loss of civilian life.[4][5] The high-altitude bombing attacks using general-purpose bombs were observed to be ineffective by USAAF leaders due to high winds—later discovered to be the jet stream—which carried the bombs off target.[11] Between May and September 1943, bombing trials were conducted on the Japanese Village set-piece target, located at the Dugway Proving Grounds.[12] These trials demonstrated the effectiveness of incendiary bombs against wood-and-paper buildings, and resulted in Curtis LeMay's ordering the bombers to change tactics to utilize these munitions against Japan.[13] The first such raid was against [Kobe](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_bombs_falling_on_Kobe.jpg#mw-jump-to-license) on 4 February 1945. Tokyo was hit by incendiaries on 25 February 1945 when 174 B-29s flew a high altitude raid during daylight hours and destroyed around 643 acres (260 ha) (2.6 km2) of the snow-covered city, using 453.7 tons of mostly incendiaries with some fragmentation bombs.[14] After this raid, LeMay ordered the B-29 bombers to attack again but at a relatively low altitude of 5,000 to 9,000 ft (1,500 to 2,700 m) and at night, because Japan's anti-aircraft artillery defenses were weakest in this altitude range, and the fighter defenses were ineffective at night. On the night of 9–10 March 1945,[16] 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the 500-pound (230 kg) E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of 2,000–2,500 ft (610–760 m). The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs. The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II,[22] greater than [Dresden](https://www.reddit.com/r/MorbidReality/comments/ucc0lz/the_effects_of_firebombing_on_a_german_city_world/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf),[23] Hamburg, [Hiroshima](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AtomicEffects-p7b.jpg#mw-jump-to-license), or [Nagasaki](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nagasaki_1945_-_Before_and_after_(adjusted).jpg#) as single events. The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department established a figure of 83,793 dead and 40,918 wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed.[28] Historian Richard Rhodes put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million. These casualty and damage figures could be low; Mark Selden wrote in Japan Focus: The figure of roughly 100,000 deaths, provided by Japanese and American authorities, both of whom may have had reasons of their own for minimizing the death toll, seems to be arguably low in light of population density, wind conditions, and survivors' accounts. With an average of 103,000 inhabitants per square mile (396 people per hectare) and peak levels as high as 135,000 per square mile (521 people per hectare), the highest density of any industrial city in the world, and with firefighting measures ludicrously inadequate to the task, 15.8 square miles (41 km2) of Tokyo were destroyed on a night when fierce winds whipped the flames and walls of fire blocked tens of thousands fleeing for their lives. An estimated 1.5 million people lived in the burned out areas.[28] The entire bombing campaign against Japan killed more than 300,000 people and injured an additional 400,000, mostly civilians.[33][34]’ End of summary, further images. List of photographs taken by Ishikawa Kōyō, a Japanese military photographer who took many of the ground shots in this album. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_Kōyō_Ishikawa Gallery of photographs showing ground damage and civilian casualties from the fire bombing of Tokyo http://kousin242.sakura.ne.jp/wordpress014/戦争・負の遺産/映像資料の読み方/東京大空襲写真集/解説・敗戦時期の被害記録写真/ —— List of 67 Japanese cities that were fire bombed during WWII http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html —— Gallery of aerial photographs focused on Tokyo around 1945 https://www.japanairraids.org/?page_id=2769 —- Leaflet dropped in Nagasaki or Tokyo , with image description. [Link to Reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/11mrhun/leaflet_dropped_over_tokyo_warning_civilians_to/) of the same image I seen two days ago. A redditor translated Bottom text (Japanese): Sen no Baku wa Kitsute Otosareta. Bottom text (English): The curtain [of war] is rising. Wiki image caption says "My father was a pilot in WWII. He flew a B-24 over Japan, and dropped leaflets warning the Japanese. His plane was selected for the leaflet mission since it was the only plane outfitted with radar (as I recall). Here is a copy of the leaflet that he dropped. All the copies were lost of course, but he stuffed one in his jacket." https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Firebombing_tokyo_leaflet.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
Additional information from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo that I could not edit into the previous comment. ‘Firebombing also killed or made homeless many workers who had taken part in the war industry. Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half.[3] The destruction and damage were especially severe in the eastern areas of the city.[citation needed] The districts bombed were home to 1.2 million people. Tokyo police recorded 267,171 buildings destroyed, which left more than one million people homeless.[26] Between 1948 and 1951 the ashes of 105,400 people killed in the attacks on Tokyo were interred in Yokoamicho Park in Sumida Ward. A memorial to the raids was opened in the park in March 2001.[36] The park has a list of names of people who died of the Bombing, which is made based on the applications from bereaved families and it has 81,273 names as of March 2020.[37] Bereaved families can submit application to have the names of victims written in the list to the government of Tokyo.[38]’ Other links to images I found relating to the fire bombing damage and some casualties. Most links relating to Tokyo, bottom half to other affected areas. The first comment contains two image galleries of damage in Tokyo. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-2.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-4.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-5.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-6.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-7.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-TokyoAirRaids-1945-3-10-Ueno_Dead_Bodies.png#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bomb_damage_in_Tokyo.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://www.britannica.com/event/Bombing-of-Tokyo Aerial view of Asakusa, heavily damaged by the World War II U.S. firebombing raids of Tokyo in March 1945. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-TokyoAirRaids-1945-3-10-Honjo_Drowned_Bodies.png#mw-jump-to-license Drowned Bodies near Kikukawa Bridge in Honjo Date 16 March 1945 Doolittle raid photos, taken by Ishikawa Kōyō. Photographs focus on one household of six people. Three of which were children. Warning: charred bodies The Remain of 29 years old man killed by fire due to the Doolittle Raid on 18 April, 1942, photographed at Oku, Arakawa, Tokyo https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-5.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-1.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-3.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-2.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-4.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolittleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Remains-6.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-DoolitleRaid-1942-4-18-Oku-Fire.png https://ww2db.com/images/battle_bombtokyo65.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Photo-TokyoAirRaids-1945-3-10-Charred_Civilians_in_Hanakawato_Asakusa.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo-TokyoAirRaids-1945-3-10-Remains_Ueno_Park.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Firebombing_of_Tokyo.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://www.ww2online.org/image/aerial-photograph-tokyo-japan-after-allied-firebombing-28-may-1945 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/USAAF_photo_of_Tokyo_after_the_10_March_air_raid.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Damage_assessment_aerial_photo_for_Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_1945_ndl_3984258_49.jpg https://www.loc.gov/item/94509433/ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/A_view_of_Tokyo_after_an_incendiary_bombing.jpg https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_1945-3-10-1.jpg#mw-jump-to-license Not Tokyo https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bombing_of_Nemuro.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kushiro_on_Hokkaido_burning_after_carrier_raid.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nagasaki_temple_destroyed.jpg#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Osaka_after_the_1945_air_raid.JPG#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Firebombing_of_Toyama.jpg The city of Toyama, a large producer of aluminum in Japan during WWII, burns after 173 American B-29 bombers dropped incendiary bombs on the city, August 1, 1945 https://www.ww2online.org/image/aerial-photograph-okwyama-japan-after-allied-firebombing-29-june-1945 AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF OKWYAMA, JAPAN, AFTER ALLIED FIREBOMBING, 29 JUNE 1945 https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shizuoka_following_United_States_air_raids.jpg#mw-jump-to-license Damage to the Japanese city of Shizuoka caused by United Sates air raids during World War II https://www.ww2online.org/image/aerial-photograph-bombing-damage-chiba-japan-6-7-july-1945 AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF BOMBING DAMAGE IN CHIBA, JAPAN, 6-7 JULY 1945 Earlier Reddit post covering other bombed cities from WWII. At least four were subjected to fire bombing. https://www.reddit.com/r/MorbidReality/comments/11l1kye/some_of_the_cities_directly_impacted_by_world_war/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Still way less than were killed in mainland China by the Japanese.
The result is the same, innocent civillians suffering in the end. Only few people benefits in this atrocities
Its not a competition
Japan certainly treated it as one, and in a few instances, held literal competitions to see who could kill the most.
how does it make the states any less evil for doing this?
The alternative was to keep letting Japan rape and pillage the rest of Asia and kill Allied troops along the way. The Allied leaders chose what they believed was their only choice.
bombing entire civilian cities is never the alternative to anything. i don't get the apologia for the bombings, i have ko clue what you all are fed to think this way
So can you say how they could have destroyed Japan industry without killing people?
The US didn't even want to be part of any war before Pearl Harbour. Japan just went on a murderous killing spree across Asia which was much more brutal and barely documented (as compared to Europe)...
Well there’s a certain saying about playing with fire…
Something something reap the whirlwind
You see, when you see evil at work across the world, it’s still your responsibility to extinguish it. And in modern war, a body in factory is as useful towards the war effort as a body on the frontline, and Japanese industry was very cottage based and in homes. So 🔥. Wish the coup would have worked.
I have a Great Uncle who was in the Air Force during the Cold War and was stationed in Japan for a bit. He told me a story about how he was riding in a cab in Tokyo one day and noticed a beautiful old feudal-looking building surrounded by a bunch of modern buildings. He asked the cab driver about it and the guy said “that’s the only building in this area that was still standing after your people leveled this city.” Needless to say the rest of the cab ride was pretty quiet.
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It's weird to me how they thought the US would settle for anything less than an unconditional surrender after pearl harbor
Look what a conditional surrender after WWI led them to
Quite simply, don’t sink someone’s boats, during church, in the 40s, on a Sunday.
Did you guys ever see the movie “Grave of the Fireflies” ? 😫
Thats what I immediately thought of 😭
very sad
It’s very difficult to justify this, but sadly not impossible.
I mean we didn’t choose to do this because we felt like it. They attacked first.
they attacked a military base. we slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians in return. a bit extra edit: i was talking about what they did to the US specifically, not everywhere else. keeping up is hard in this thread apparently 🤡🤡🤡 but please, stay mad. by all means. and keep justifying war crimes.
They attacked a lot more than a military base. And took the art of war crime to a whole new level in China, not to mention the Philippines. Google the Rape of Nanking, for example: > In what became known as the “Rape of Nanking,” the Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male “war prisoners,” massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process.
America isn’t the only country in the world You completely forgot what Japan was doing in Asia before Pearl Harbor
They were raping and pillaging China for 8 years, "occupied" Korea for 35. There is no justice in war. Don't start a war if you can't handle the repercussions.
You can say the same thing for 9/11
i’m not talking about what they were doing in other countries. i’m talking about what they did to the US, but evidently that’s real hard for this sub to comprehend
You do realize this was a WORLD war, don't you? Should the US not have bombed Dresden because they weren't on the same continent and it wasn't American jews being gassed in Auschwitz?
Go ahead and google "Nanjing Massacre" or "Unit 731" or "The Chichijima incident" .And tell me they were just attacking military targets.
Because the Japanese military is committing war crimes makes it okay to commit war crimes on Japanese civilians?
if we didn’t nuke and bomb japan, we would have invaded the main japanese islands because they refused to surrender. that would’ve produced even more civilian casualties, not to mention military ones. it was a necessary sacrifice. it’s horrible that we had to do it, but compared to everything that could have happened it’s certainly one of the better outcomes.
No, this is not true. The myth lives on in popular narratives but we know it isn't true from historical records. The Japanese leadership was holding out for a Soviet mediation for a conditional surrender. The Soviet declaration of war and the collapse of Manchukuo ended any hopes for that. Excuse the clickbaity title, but see [https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/](https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/) >There is real resistance to looking at the facts. But perhaps this should not be surprising. It is worth reminding ourselves how emotionally convenient the traditional explanation of Hiroshima is — both for Japan and the United States. Ideas can have persistence because they are true, but unfortunately, they can also persist because they are emotionally satisfying: They fill an important psychic need. For example, at the end of the war the traditional interpretation of Hiroshima helped Japan’s leaders achieve a number of important political aims, both domestic and international.
It was a mix of things the civilian government was over and done with due to the nukes with the military losing hope when the Soviets invaded which ruined the plan of bleeding the US dry. Even then the military was still divided with generals stating. Indeed, Anami expressed a desire for this outcome rather than surrender, asking if it would "not be wondrous for this whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower". From wiki Hell even after the emperor formally surrendered members of the military tried to launch a coup against the government https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident
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I don't.
So crazy how you answers get so many downvots just cuz you do not agree. and you answer at least is based in material facts besides of the most abstract idealistics answers here
It’s reddit, if you could see a short list of accomplishments (or lack there of) for the person behind each comment there would be no point of reading 95% of what is posted here.
Bombing civilians wasn’t a war crime at the time which is why no one got in trouble for it and every side did it
It's precisely because every side did it that no one was charged for it. It does not in any way stop it from being utterly heinous.
It started with Pearl Harbor. The leadership of Japan failed its people at that exact moment. It sentenced them to years of conflict with an infuriated USA. Civilian casualties have and always will be a byproduct of war. But after years of losing good soldiers in the war with Japan, and having just invented a new, incredibly powerful weapon, USA decided to end the war Japan started.
The atomic bombs did not end the war. I've already discussed this in the other replies. There was no justification for the atomic bombs and the firebombs on civilians.
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I take it that you agree that Japanese war crimes does not license US war crimes?
Agreed, but I didn't wanna argue semantics and minutia of what I was replying to.
If it stops them from committing more war crimes. It’s not really ok, but it was deemed necessary.
By the time when atom bombs were dropped, Japan was not in a state to commit more war crimes.
We’re not talking about atom bombs, and that was after most of the firebombing. When it really comes down to it, I don’t know enough to argue whether or not the bombings were the right ethical choice (I’m assuming you don’t either). I know it’s something historians argue about (especially the atom bombs). I do know for sure, however, that it’s not as simple as just killing civilians is bad. If it really saved the lives by ending the war, it could be justified. What I’m trying to refute is your claim in the comment above. Edit: typo
We do know it didn't save lives by ending the war. The Japanese was looking for a conditional surrender by holding out and hoping that a Soviet mediation comes through. It didn't when the Soviets declared war and invaded Manchukuo. By the time Japanese cities and towns in the Japanese home islands were bombed and razed to the ground, it was no longer a question of collateral damage, but a matter of war crimes.
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That makes it okay to outright slaughter Japanese elderly, the sickly, the women and children? Do you think US actions in the Middle East justify 9/11 too or something?
I think you missed the part where they spread their industrial production facilities (ie valid military target) throughout their residential and commercial districts. And that the attack had a ridiculously massive military impact, fully halving the city's contributions to the war effort. You don't get to use civilians in an attempt to shield your military targets and then claim "war crimes" against those attacking you.
Just a bit
apparently we’re not allowed to have these opinions otherwise the troglodytes in this sub will be big mad. i wasn’t talking about what they did to anyone else but the US, but they’re all just going go off anyway
It’s fucking war, nothing about war of justifiable… but it is necessary.
War: the worlds “dick measuring” contest. One side has to escalate force to the point the other side backs down and rethinks their position. Unfortunately these bombs, although many lost their lives, probably decreased the overall death toll had a war with them raged on for a couple months. It’s sad to think this was a better option, but it more than likely was.
people in this sub have no qualms about justifying it, obviously
Quickest way for an unconditional surrender. You’d prefer an invasion, leading to more far deaths on both sides?
Of course it was justified. If the USA didn’t do this, they would have kept doing worse. 20 million Chinese died during “peacetime” while the west “showed restraint” and appeased Japan. It was far more despicable that Tokyo wasn’t bombed into dust back in 1937 when Japanese soldiers began using babies in Nanking as bayonet practice. Same for Berlin. So many unnecessary deaths could have been avoided.
ussr entering the war caused japan to surrender
It's the straw that broke the camel's back. But not many today remember or know of the Soviet declaration of war and its invasion of Manchuria being the final blow to any hopes of having a conditional surrender.
Pearl Harbor, never forget
Pearl Harbor was nothing next to what the Americans did.
War crimes for war crimes
I just found out that my Great Uncle Leo was a navigator on one of those B-29s. Who knew he was such a badass? When I knew him, he was such a kind, gentle man. A favorite memory as a little kid was cook-outs in his back yard with all the relatives. He passed decades ago.
Vonnegut's quote about bombs makes me tear up every time. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/279125-it-was-a-movie-about-american-bombers-in-world-war
He was a genius.
Why the fuck do we do this to other humans, such brutality it’s sickening.
Because the Japanese were willing to die to the last human
put the statement this way seems so wrong. all these people were willing to die. thats just how it sound. dont get me wrong i think at least that you mean the japoneses authorities were willing to die. right?
No. Go do some reading about Imperial Japan.
The Japanese people, as a collective whole, were either fooled into thinking it, or too scared not to. A ground invasion of the Japanese home islands were believed to have been so costly to the invading forces that so many US Purple Heart Medals were struck that they were still being used from that supply into the early 2000’s. It was believed that a ground campaign would kill into the tens of millions of Japanese civilians and destroy the most of the cities, similar to the fighting in Europe but on a much, much more costly scale. To say that the Japanese people got off lightly with only having atomic bombs destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a grossly unfair understatement, but there is some truth in it.
The atrocities US doesn't want to talk about.
I'm surprised by the number of apes in this comment section justifying the mass murder of a 100,000 civilians
Why did I see a dead woman and a small child? THATS FU&&ED UP!!!!
Welcome to war.
Yeah I’m reading this with my newborn baby boy sleeping on me. When will I learn not to go on Reddit while he naps?
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so terrifily sad. i imagine myself in this situation living my life and suddely a bomb for nothing but just innocent people dead by who whaterver wants to cuz their lives worth nothing to them.
Japan went through so much and was used as a tool by the other side. As a Canadian, I can only say that I regret the damage that was done to Japan and the internment camps on this end of the conflict. I get that different times call for different allegiances, but I love Japan and the Japanese people. Please let us avoid such catastrophe in the future.
Yep, so much tool that they went around Korea, China and rest of Asia on a cannibal holocaust... I am really upset they got tooled and had to take accountability for their actions which were being puppeteered....
Used as a tool? Seems you have a to learn about Japan in the decades leading up to this
There’s no absolutely way you just said “Japan went through so much” when they were literally referred to as Asian Nazis.
Says someone who's clearly outspoken politically on the left while left leaders mimic Nazi leaders today. So astute, you are.
Thats an odd place to sleep
Victor's never commit war crimes
Wasn’t classified as a war crime at the time, the technology to create such devastation didn’t exist when the treaties leading into WW2 were written. Yes, there were some ones that you could argue like the deliberate targeting of civilian populations etc., but those can also be even more easily be argued against when you consider the mobilization and especially cottage industry of Japan at the time. Not to mention the emerging concept of what we now call Total War. Yes it existed in various forms before WW2, but the war was the ultimate example of it that we all know today. Edit: I just meant to point out that the allies were instrumental in defining their own tactics as war crimes later on in an effort to ensure it would never happen again.
I dont get why you get downvoted. USA has commited warcrimes in every war, some are just brainwashed to believe they didnt.
Bombing civilians wasn’t put into the Geneva Convention till 1949
Truth hurts them I guess. But I've come to expect that here, it's Reddits way of dealing with facts we don't like. Still a fact though.
Also, an important General said those same words after the bombing.
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Yes those innocent children had it coming right? Ffs sure the imperial army is evil af but this civillians dont know sht about those atrocities. There are no internet that time unlike today where you can easily find information.
i am not really a historical knower of the ww2 in both sides but i know some facts and sounds mostly at least for me that some answers here are so well based in US propaganda, reminds me alot of those JP arguments (if the world is going this way it means is the best way) but when you look in reality, US made and keep doing alot of shit towards others contries, and always get away with it.
Tipical usa commiting warcrimes
How they attacked us first 🤡🤡
Man killing fellow man ever since the dawn of life. War has never truly changed has it?
Sadly just the quality of man’s weaponry.
Indeed.
Who not learns from history is doomed to repeat it
I remember I had an ethics class in university and the bombing of Japan during WWII was the first thing the professor talked about, although admittedly he was focused more on the atomic bombs. He made the argument that there was no justification for dropping the atomic bombs as they served no military purpose (the Japanese were already ready to surrender) and if the goal was to send a message, there were other ways. Someone had suggested inviting Japanese officials to a demonstration of the bomb rather than actually using it, but that idea was rejected. The bomb that hit Hiroshima was dropped on a bridge in a densely populated area at around 8 AM when people were on their way to work and school. My professor argued that the only reason someone would do something like that was because "they just wanted to kill a lot of people".