Did Japan deserve the H-bomb?

[Butchers Blind]

Half the world's zips are made in Japan. Think on that.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

it's like when you invent a machine that shags you, the fuse is already lit

wile e coyote looks at the camera five seconds into his first ACME robo-shag and holds up a sign reading "why does this have a fuse"

[madhair60]

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Mate did you see the size of that explosion? Mate that was fucking sick!"

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I think the argument I heard about in a documentary was that the Japanese government were prepping the populace for a ground assault, and because of the nationalist agenda at the time people were well up for it, and would have been fighting the allied invading forces with pickaxes and the contents of the kitchen drawer, which would ultimately have led to millions of casualties on both sides, so it was the lesser of two evils type of thing.

I'm still not sure if the Japanese people would have done that though, they very well could have keeled over once they realised the situation was hopeless, but I suppose it's one of those "what if" moments in history, like "what if" the Nazis won.

They've done alright for themselves though haven't they, the Japanese lads, apart from getting bombed to fuck? Kind of a "can't beat them, let's join them" approach to capitalism. They've certainly outpaced us, the Brits. We languish in 4th place, perpetually.

I still don't like their porn though. Stop the wailing please, and smile a bit more. Cheers.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

"I have become epic, epic for the win"

[Thursday]

Maybe if they'd been H-Bombed a little harder they wouldn't have gone on to create so much terrible anime.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Half the world's zips are made in Japan. Think on that.

Someone at school told me once that YKK meant KKK, but they'd changed the first letter so nobody knew it was them. Mind you, he was also convinced that Batman was real and lived in a real place called Gotham City in America, so fuck that idiot.

[bgmnts]

I think the argument I heard about in a documentary was that the Japanese government were prepping the populace for a ground assault, and because of the nationalist agenda at the time people were well up for it, and would have been fighting the allied invading forces with pickaxes and the contents of the kitchen drawer, which would ultimately have led to millions of casualties on both sides, so it was the lesser of two evils type of thing.

I'm still not sure if the Japanese people would have done that though, they very well could have keeled over once they realised the situation was hopeless, but I suppose it's one of those "what if" moments in history, like "what if" the Nazis won.

They've done alright for themselves though haven't they, the Japanese lads, apart from getting bombed to fuck? Kind of a "can't beat them, let's join them" approach to capitalism. They've certainly outpaced us, the Brits. We languish in 4th place, perpetually.

I still don't like their porn though. Stop the wailing please, and smile a bit more. Cheers.

The Japanese of that period were pretty serious by comparison to any other participant.They had lads willing to kill themselves by flying a plane directly into a ship, or set off a grenade to take out as many yanks as they could instead of being taken prisoner. Hiroo Onoda continued waging a guerilla war in the Philippines on his lonesome thirty years after the war ended out of a sense of duty. You'd assume someone from Bristol probably would have packed it in after six months.

You'd have to imagine an all out total war by Japan, if it ever came to that, would have been very horrible.

[idunnosomename]

Maybe if they'd been H-Bombed a little harder they wouldn't have gone on to create so much terrible anime.

anime arguably wouldnt have happened without the american occupation

[Thursday]

Well exactly. Should have just H-bombed them some more instead of occupying.

[Captain Z]

Half the world's zips are made in Japan. Think on that.

The other half is made in the USA, and then they are fastened together in Europe.

[Lord Mandrake]

I read the Japanese did experiments on pregnant women and driv over the babbys' heeds. If anyone deserved the H-bomb which was allegedly drop on them, it is probably them.

Unit 731 were responsible for the most hideous acts mankind has ever known. Shit beyond comprehension.

[Buelligan]

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Mate did you see the size of that explosion? Mate that was fucking sick!"

You made me fucking laugh, you cunt.  In a thread like this?  What are you like?

[idunnosomename]

The other half is made in the USA, and then they are fastened together in Europe.

be careful of Africa's foreskin!!!

[bgmnts]

Unit 731 were responsible for the most hideous acts mankind has ever known. Shit beyond comprehension.

Yeah but more than made up for that by blessing us with Godzilla.

[Jittlebags]

Half the world's zips are made in Japan. Think on that.

As well of 80% of it's bukakke. Even if the cocks are pixellated.

[Cuellar]

Yes.

Actually, no.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Well exactly. Should have just H-bombed them some more instead of occupying.

We might not have the video recorder if that happened.

[ProvanFan]

How many of you lot pronounce it haitch bomb? If Japan had won you'd never get away with that.

[mothman]

How many of you lot pronounce it haitch bomb? If Japan had won you'd never get away with that.

Vote we all start calling it the hubomb.

You'd assume someone from Bristol probably would have packed it in after six months.

I feel seen.

Spoiler alert

More like three weeks, too.

[close]

[Cold Meat Platter]

They would have had to wait about 6 years for it even if they had. Uranium and Plutonium seemed to work ok.

[Zetetic]

You'd have to imagine an all out total war by Japan, if it ever came to that, would have been very horrible.

because of the nationalist agenda at the time people were well up for it,

US did a lot surveying and interviewing after the occupation, and the Kempeitai and their ilk did a fair amount of public opinion gathering from the late '30s onward which the US then got to dig through after the fact, which means we have things like The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale (1947).

Hard to unpick all the biases and motivations in engaging with, collecting and reporting this stuff, but the general tone is the first six months of 1945 had rapidly disenchanted huge swathes of the Japanese population about the war and the wankers running it.

[Zetetic]

It also includes bizarre tidbits, like a Hiroshima resident recounting that they reckoned that the US would never bomb their city because they'd heard Truman's mother lived there or something.

[imitationleather]

#mymate said he went to Japan and they have vending machines with dirty bombs in them.

[Goldentony]

the h is for hows it going lads just off the shop anyone want anything

[mothman]

biases and motivations

That's what I always think about when these sorts of questions come up. You'd have to know who made the decision to use the hubombs - sorry, ahbombs - and why: what information they had that they used to make the decision. And - crucially - who had the say on what information they saw. And that's before you even start on the motivations of those asking the question. If you believe the US Government to be intrinsically evil (a viewpoint not without its merits) then chances are you'll be prone to decide the bombing wasn't justified. It doesn't matter what the Japanese thought, or were going to do; it's what the Americans thought the Japanese thought, or were going to do.

[Zetetic]

It doesn't matter what the Japanese thought, or were going to do; it's what the Americans thought the Japanese thought, or were going to do.

Sure, for the narrow question asked as a wind-up by TBC.

I do think the question of whether the Japanese of the '30s and '40s really were all the rabidly dedicated self-sacrificing hive creatures of myth is interesting now in its own right (given that the story persists).

[JesusAndYourBush]

They didn't have to use a nuke, they could have done as much damage with a fuckload of conventional weapons..

[Mr Farenheit]

Gary Linekar and Willie Thorne touch on this in their straight-to-video feature 'Best of Friends'. Its the only point where the two best of friends disagree.

You can guess which side Thorne is going to be on when you see that he has framed photographs of the blasts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in his snooker room at home (its also revealed that he wanted his snooker nickname to be 'The T-Bomb' instead of 'Mr Maximum' but Barry Hearn nixed it).

Oddly, there are two parallel horizontal lines to the left of the images. The camera then zooms out revealing more framed posters and symbols and we realise that we are looking at a pictorial equation: 'Map of Japanese advances as of 1942' + 'shot of Alec Guiness being beaten from Bridge on The River Kwai' + 'photo of Pearl Harbour bombing' = Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thorne describes the montage as 'twelve foot of crime and fair punishment'.

Linekar is not a fan and puts the case that "two wrongs don't make a right". Thorne then argues that "its not two wrongs, Gary. It was more like 20 million from the Japs side." He goes on to describe how a land invasion of Japan would have seen British forces "butchered" and "taken prisoner and forced to build first rate infrastructure projects for the Japs war effort". Linekar is diplomatic but sceptical and puts the case of the human cost of the bombings with often graphic descriptions while Thorne racks up a half century break, scoffing and rolling his eyes at Linekar's argument.

It's clear Linekar is not breaking through until he stops the break stone dead with words which are now quoted at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. "Willie, what if it had happened in Leicester?"

Thorne stops and the camera zooms into his face, he doesn't say a word for the next 83 seconds before we cut to a scene of Linekar and Thorne at a barbeque with their families.

[imitationleather]

IIRC that episode is what led to Lineker's disastrous spell at Grampus 8 in the J1 League.