[Locked] Why did we bitchslap japan?

Why did we bitchslap Japan? When I say this I am of course refering to WWII when we droped two nukes on Japan. They bombed one of our harbors and we glassed two of their cities. Thats like if someone slaped you in the face and you wents nuts and riped off their arm. It got our point across but I think it was serious overkill. Opinions?

well, an ultimatum was given to Japan prior to the bombing.

then again, my country was also invaded by Japan and slaughtered our people

its not like they bombed Hawaii and then America straight away nuked Japan.
I would say it was because America didn't want to commence an all-out invasion of Japan and rather just bomb them to submission. Japan was being pretty stubborn (to be honest) so America had to make bigger damage to make them surrender. and thats when they used the "Little Boy and Fat Man" it was probably one the most ugliest moments of human history.

Side note: post 300!

I would nuke the fuck out their military but not 2 cities filled with civilians that was just brutality but at least it stopped the war and made the japs realize that their emperor aint a powerful god..

1 the emperor of Japan told his people to commit suicide
2. the bombing of pearl harbor started the war not the nukes
3. they determined that if they invaded Japan there will be more US casualties
4.Japan was stubborn and would not back down

If I'm recalling my WWII history correctly the US had Japan blockaded and without imported food the Japanese military would have been unable to maintain the force necessary to keep the US out. Even though there were some list of reasons why nuking Japan was a better course of action, somewhere on that list is someone wanted to see how effective nukes were on real operations. As for why two bombings keep in mind that the bombs used different designs. One exploded and the other imploded.

Because japan was being a dick trying to conquer asia for themselves with an excuse of uniting all the countries of asia together, conspiracy is a fact here. They made lots of excuses just to exploit asia. If you studied history more, than with the knowledge you have now. you wouldnt be saying that.

The Fat Man and the Little Boy right? Fat Man being the one that exploded and the Little Boy imploded yes?

Other way around.
Little Boy was a 'Gun' type device while Fat Man uses the familiar implosion method.

Apparently Truman was planning to nuke Japan as many times as it took to get them to surrender, fortunately the emperor's advisors saw the light and convinced him to end the war after the first two nukes.

I see, the name Fat Man made me think it would be the one with an explosion

"Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal." - Curtis LeMay, the man who ordered the incendiary bombing of Japanese cities, knowing full well the effect it'd have on the civilians.

“Stacked up corpses were being hauled away on lorries. Everywhere there was the stench of the dead and of smoke. I saw the places on the pavement where people had been roasted to death. At last I comprehended first-hand what an air-raid meant. I turned back, sick and scared. Later I learned that 40% of Tokyo was burned that night, that there had been 100,000 casualties and 375,000 left homeless.”

Say what you want about Japan's imperialistic actions and atrocities (...which actually put the nazis to shame, especially their bioweapon program) it doesn't change the fact that the US military also had its far share of bastards who were perfectly aware of the cruelty and evil of what they were doing.

Actually thanks to these raids and the general collapse of Japan's empire they were already contemplating surrender long before the drop of the atomic bombs. What's also false is that it was *not* the Emperor who insisted on the hard core samurai mentality, but the radical right in power at the time.

An intriguing question indeed, though posed in a profoundly imbecilic manner


There were several factors that led to use of the atomic weapons.

Japan had almost no centralized industry to target. most munitions and smaller equipment were made by the general populace in their homes, making it near impossible to destroy with out civilian casualties.

their tactics and fighting style was very different than the western. eastern ground warfare tactics are far superior to western. example: Iwo Jima, Korean war, Viet Nam war.

a sense of Japanese superiority and pride plus propaganda dehumanizing American forces, gave the people the will to fight to the last in defence of their homeland. which would have led a long costly war with huge casualty rates on our side.

and they were a shiny and new, and it's hard not to play with a new toy.
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i have never heard that before.

It was also the Cold War at the time. Japan was right off the coast of Russia. President Truman wanted to send a message to the communists that he had the atomic bomb and was willing to use it.

1. America flexing its muscle in an act of intimidation against the Axis. Basically-
"Oy, Hitler! Check out my FUCKING NUKES, bitch".

2. Bombed Japan instead of the European front because:

-The Americans could. They were pretty much the only Allied force in the Pacific Theatre.

-Too many of our boys and allies in Europe. Japan is isolated, and we didn't really have any foot soldiers running around the target areas.

What? First of all, the Cold War started after the WWII ended (which effectively is when Japan surrendered) so that doesn't make sense. The Cold War is also a period during which both the US and Russia were flexing their muscles and showing of their nukes; both had them, but they could not use them, because an all out war between them using nukes would pretty much have destroyed the world.

Anyway, personally, I dun really like the US and I think they bombed Japan for the same reason that they commit mass murder against civilians in any armed conflict they are in; they just don't care. As long as they win, no matter of many innocent women and children they have to kill they can just write it off later in history. I mean, has it happened even ONCE that they haven't used unnecessary much violence in a war? If it cause extra unnecessary suffering, that is just better, I mean, who cares about those apes anyway, they dun even have cable TV?

no the cold war started a few years after this, at this point they were still ally's with the Soviets and they even joined in with the invasion of Korea

Hitler was dead by this point btw, Germany had surrendered a few months before Japan did

Ah right, my bad. FDR and Stalin got along, but when Truman came in, disagreements between the two rose. Truman had a bigger problem with communism, and the schism between communism and capitalism could already be seen. In short, all I'm saying is that Truman used the nukes to also send a message to Soviet Russia. You could say that was the beginning of the Cold War.

The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to neutralize the largest plants (one of the two being a Mitsubishi aircraft production factory). The contingency was determined upon projections of a mainland landing based on what we encountered at Okinawa: high school students putting bombs in backpacks and throwing themselves under our tanks, for instance. If we had assaulted Honshu in a standard military landing procedure we would've had to purge to populace on our way to Tokyo. Fucked up as it may be (and irradiation aside), the nukes were more bloodless.

Not nuking would've also lead to more events like the aforementioned firebombings of Tokyo.

To answer the question directly: we bitch slapped Japan because both their government and our own were so good at propaganda. They revived the spirit of Bushido and extremist nationalism, turning most of their country into militia-like fighters. When that is combined with ruthless Americans determined to defeat the "Japs" responsible for Pearl Harbor and a couple working WMDs...honestly I can't see it ending any other way.

To prevent a costly land war invasion.