|
|
|
|
On 8 Sep 2004 09:18:21 -0700,
wrote:
Like we did in Hiroshima? Tell me there was a reason, other than
vindictive, hateful, annihilation.
Had annilation been the objective, conventional weapons would have
sufficed--cf Dresden and Tokyo. We also probably wouldn't have spared
Kyoto, which was on the "short list" of targets.
The "policy goal" was to convince the opposition that we didn't NEED to
invade them to defeat them. Their battle plan up to then was that we
would invade and suffer horrible losses for which they expected we'd
have no stomach.
It was, in fact, a ruse on our part. Had they decided to continue the
war after Nagasaki, we had no other A-bombs to drop and probably
wouldn't for six months or more. Before VJ day, we were preparing for a
land invasion, and expected Normandy-scale losses for an extended
period.
It was believed that dropping "The Bomb" would end the war more quickly
with fewer losses--but it relied on Japan believing we had enough of
them to do the job, which we didn't.
|