I've just finished reading all four parts of this, and all I can say is I hope there is never another nuclear weapon used...
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/specials/0506/0617weller.html

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I would suggest not to start up conspiracy theories.  "Disease X" was radiation poisoning, not any sort of biological agent.

But at that time v.little was known about this, hence this Disease X stuff. It was definately radiation poisoning but in those days it could have been anything including ray guns sold to the US by little green men from Mars

Page 4 gives the vague hint that the japanese did know something about the physics involved... and probably tried it on prisoners

  Had Japan not surrendered and an invasion of the home island taken place the use of the A-bomb would have figured prominently in the invasion plans.  At the time the U.S. had enought fissionable material available for three more bombs.  One would have been used to clear the beach head for the invasion, the second would have been used to halt any Japanese counter attack on the invasion force and I can't remember how the third was to be used.  Either way their use would have ment that allied troops would have to march through "the bombs" fallout and exposed the troops to radiation poisoning.

The good thing about Japan surrendering so quickly after the second atomic bomb explosion is that more weren't used after the invasion of the home islands.
That said, I can understand but not condone the use of such weapons, after the atrocities that the Japanese had committed- dead Australians being eaten, Chinese prisoners used as bayonet practice, Chinese prisoners being used as practice jobs for field surgeons, all of this could lead someone to say "now we're 'even steven'". Its a messy thing, and it would be shallow to say that one could forgive and forget without a hint of retribution when one says it.
Its a bizarre kind of moralistic violence.

A.

Thats pretty slack, considering that wars occur all the time and that there are people/were people conscientious enough to take on the 'oppresors' and actually risk their own lives for a very real set of pains and emotions that our own highyl conservative, yet liberalistic hypocritcal society shields us from.

A.

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I wouldn't  expect that 'President Wilson' would have leapt for joy, either -- considering that Japan wasn't one of the Central Powers during his WW1 presidency; neither did Truman (FDR's WW2 successor) do so and, in fact, we may have dropped them sooner had he thought it such a thrill.
As to 'vengeance' -- that was my point; I've had others call it that (and war in general, for that matter). One has been able to join the U.S. military as a 'conscientious objector' and, thereby, utilized in a 'non-combat' role. I could not "conscientiously" do so because, although I may refuse to go off on a killing spree just because someone like Himmler orders it (howbeit, that is much, much easier said than applied; almost as bad -- he had my 2 initials... UUUUGGHHHH!), I can counterattack, even for someone else's cause.
Not every German was a Nazi nor every Nazi a murderer or rapist; these things happened to the German citizenry when finally invaded. The major excuse was that "they did it to us" but the ones who became the victims were most often not the perpetrators.

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There seems to be some confusion on dates & presidents in this thread. Einstein's letter was written on August 2nd, 1939 to Franklin D Roosevelt who was US President at the time. http://www.dannen.com/ae-fdr.html This was two years before the USA was at war with Japan (December 7th, 1941) or Germany (December 11th, 1941). It was dated 1 month before Germany invaded Poland & the start of WWII in Europe. (3rd September, 1939).



On his death in April 1945 FDR was succeeded by his vice-President Harry S Truman who was in office at the time of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki A-bombs. General Dwight D Eisenhower did not become US President until 1952.

According to this, in his short time as Vice-President Harry S Truman had no briefing on the development of the atomic bomb. What must have been an extremely difficult decision was taken after consultation with his advisers.
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html

I think it's almost certain there would have been protests from neighbouring countries in Europe if it had ever been proposed to drop an A-bomb on Germany without Germany using it first.

I'm with those who feel that a conventional invasion of Japan would have been worse for all concerned, and that Japan's military junta was not prepared to surrender, even after Hiroshima. And while many suffered horribly in the cities struck with A-bombs, the majority, I think, never knew what hit them. The Allies had been fire-bombing Japanese cities for some time... their suffering was tremendous, and yet their government remained stubborn. After Nagasaki, they changed their tune. 'Nuff said. And it was done with no US casualties, (unless you count the crew of the USS Indianapolis and possibly others who were involved in support activities). Destroying an entire city with one aircraft is the stuff of dreams for strategic air commanders; as awful as it is, it beats repeated raids on civilian centers combined with a massive ground invasion, and all the horror that goes with those activities.
However, what still bothers me is that these weapons, although neat and tidy in one sense, are incredibly irresponsible. With the warheads available today, the risk of poisoning friend and foe alike is enormous.
  It was a lucky break that Japan was relatively isolated... imagine the consequences of fallout from even such a relatively small bomb if one had been dropped in Europe!

BTW- fascinating article; thanks for posting that link.

Part two:

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It would not have shortened the war much more. Why didn't they just bomb Tokyo till it's 100% flat area scenery (scenery developer joke, ha ha) and send in some paratroopers when the bombers had completed the job. Or send in the landing craft (quit the running through the water, though, and they could spare a few lives). But maybe if they let that time go on the Japs could've developed some of their real deadly stuff... hmmmmm...

Well, dropping on one Berlin for one would have again killed many innocent people ('cept for Hitler, but would the nuke penetrate his bunker? He was bent on suicide anywhy, so why bother? If he didn't consider suicide, then he'd end up like Goering at Nuremburg anyway). So that idea is not great either. The way the British bombed German cities wasn't pretty either. I had a relative who had a bomb fall on her house in Hamburg  She lived (just) (although that realy was an accident seeing as the brits could've continued over their target at same heading and they'de be over her house, but they hit the target and they dropped over 10, so they bombing line went over the target and kept on going to her house. Pure accident, but most of Hamburg's civilian bombing wasn't accidental... ). Terrible

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Yeah, horrible, but he shouldn't have ordered it to be dropped (let alone made!) if he could've thought of the holocaust that it would cause. I wonder what he'd be thinking after the big incident. We'll probably never know now, isn't he dead? ???

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Can't say that ain't true, geeeeeeshhh! ???

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Hmmmmmm, very dangerous....

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1) Why didn't they just borrow big-@$$ 22,000 Ib Grand Slams of the Brits. That would teach many lessons, heh heh heh... They could've done other things. Bring in the carriers! (and BBs)

2)Mt. Fuji or Tokyo bay, not great... and I can't think of many places that wouldn't damage the enviroment. That's why they shouldn't have dropped it. Starting the nuke game and putting nations in danger instead of paying a few lives to take care of our enviroment and stop a big nuclear age where you're constantly under threat if a neigbour with nukes isn't allied with you. Why the hell did they think of nukes anyway? How horrible!.

3)Don't do it in the first place, might not lose so much dough. Jeeezz...

4)Doesn't give the US the right to bomb the guts out of people who never did anything bad to them!!!!! (except for possibly some Jap soldiers, they can rot in marmelade for the soldier standards they represent! Ha ha! )

Nukes are one of the most dangerous things on the Earth. They are great fun on the computer when playing Rise of Nations and seeing virtual people suffering in marmelade, but it's not even near nice to have it happen in real life.

Nuclear bombs and missiles especially have changed the world forever, in a very bad way.

I really hope that one day all nukes will be discarded (another problem it's caused, nuclear waste!!???!!! ) and every nation will never make a single nuke again, and use better forms of power such as wind turbine power and enviromental things like that.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima were of course horrible.


Happy simming, (nukes on cfs2 only thanks! )


Bombardier

The relationship of the original, major Axis powers -- Germany, Soviet Union and Japan -- wasn't made for lasting stability. Nuclear applications were almost inevitable; if things had gone as Hitler intended, he knew he would have to deal with Stalin, anyway (Stalin, too, was an opportunist), giving him more reason to befriend Japan, Russia's historical enemy. If things had gone any differently, any one of them would have employed against the other(s). Japan had every intention of baptizing the U.S. with "dirty bombs" as it was. If the war were extended long enough, they, too, would have had, and used, the bomb.

The fact is that once something has been invented it's not possible to uninvent it. "Pandora's Box". Many scientists are pacifists like Einstein & their research is intended for peaceful purposes but the military is always looking for bigger & better weapons. Almost every new invention you can think of has been assessed for military applications. (The aeroplane was at first dismissed as of little practical use in war.  WWI proved that wrong.)

Nuclear energy is being promoted by many governments & scientists as the only practical solution to the dwindling fossil fuel resources. Unfortunately, peaceful use of nuclear power also creates the essential weapons grade plutonium necessary for a nuclear bomb as a by-product. This is the conundrum. How can the nations already having this technology morally deny it to anyone else?

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Ever heard of Group Captain Leonard Cheshire?
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http://www.dambusters.org.uk/cheshire.htm

Yes I have heard of Leonard Cheshire...he was way cool.

A.