6/8/2025

The 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and the eventual end of the Pacific War and therefore WW2 will be commemorated on 6 August 2025.

No one quite knows how many lives were saved by the decision to use the bomb but a rough estimate of well over 2 million is certainly reasonable. While around 150,000 people perished from the blast or the following radiation, the lives saved were at least an order of magnitude greater. These lives included allied POWs who were, by this time dying in droves from disease and malnutrition; natives of the lands still under Japanese control who likewise were dying in their thousands per day due to the Japanese diverting food to their homeland and overseas troops; American servicemen who were not needed to invade the Japanese homeland - the US estimates were that such an invasion would cost up to 1 million US lives; the lives of Japanese civilians who would have died during the invasion since the Japanese Imperial Command planned to fight to the last man and woman.

Although the war officially ended almost a month after the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan's unconditional surrender came just nine days after the first and six days after the second bombs were dropped

It got my father home. I was two years old before he met me, and I told Mum, "I don't like that man".

He was so close to what he referred to as the 'Nips' that some of them were caught sneaking through the jungle to watch films in the Australians' camp.

I've been to Hiroshima. It was a very eerie experience. I still feel that it's amazing that we are now allies with Japan, and that my wife had lunch yesterday with our 50 year old Japanese 'daughter' who flew in from Tokyo for 4 days to see her and another friend in Adelaide.

mhaze,

That “2 million lives saved” figure didn’t exist in 1945. It emerged decades later when officials were defending the bombings against critics. At the time, US estimates for invading Japan were far lower (some as low as 30-50,000 and Truman himself spoke of approximately 500,000).

Japan was already collapsing under blockade and relentless bombing, and Soviet entry into the war on August 8th - rather than the bombs alone - was likely decisive in forcing surrender.

Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Admiral Leahy all questioned whether dropping the bomb was necessary. Those doubts existed then - long before later political narratives turned it into a neat story that “nukes saved millions and ended the war.”

Trumpster,

A very neat story, but the only true fact is the US atomic bomb killed something like 150,000 innocent people, the rest of your post is conjecture. Even if all you say was to be true, there is the moral question of what right is there to murder innocent people. I know, you're very big on "collective guilt", no doubt in your eyes the Japanese people were just as guilty as the Palestinian people of today, including the babies. ALL WAR IS WRONG! There is no right side.

The two million lives were the total American lives saved, Japanese lives saved, POW lives saved and lives saved in the Japanese occupied S-E Asian nations. The 500,000 American lives saved was just a portion of that.

"ALL WAR IS WRONG! There is no right side."

During the Japanese occupation of China, somewhere between 20 million 40 million Chinese were killed in fighting, wanton massacres, and deliberate starvation. It took a war to stop that.

No right side?

I realise that, mhaze.

That’s exactly how the number got inflated - by retroactively combining every imaginable category of hypothetical death into one tidy, moral-sounding total.

But there’s no contemporaneous source from 1945 - or even shortly after - that credibly adds up to “2 million lives saved.” The 500,000 American figure (already generous) was popularised by Truman after the fact. The rest - POWs, Japanese civilians, Southeast Asians - were gradually folded in as public discomfort with the bombings grew.

This wasn’t new evidence. It was post-war mythmaking - one “well, what about...” at a time.

That’s not historical accuracy. It’s retroactive moral maths.

Has anyone thought of the children?

It's interesting that apparently it was "A Democrat" Harry S Truman that gave the order to drop the bomb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman

Obviously it seems that the Democratic Party has moved far to the left since WWII at this point the US is seemingly incapable to rise to defending itself. But perhaps putting Marxist/ Woke/ Democratic university professors in the first wave will change their opinion. Taking a lesson ironically from Marxist military tactics.

http://fcpp.org/2020/11/27/how-marxists-take-over-and-what-to-do-about-it/

"Yuri Bezmenov, an ex-KGB agent who defected from Russia to Canada in 1970, told us so more than 35 years ago. Even while the USSR was a strong empire, Bezmenov said it was “the world Communist system,” and not the USSR leader “Comrade Andropov” that waged an “undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of American ideals”. He knew first-hand how operatives trained and educated abroad could be brought to power in other lands. He also believed that leftist education and the advancement of the welfare state softened the West for overthrow."

http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1943-2/the-nazi-tide-stops/no-one-steps-back/

From Uncle Joseph Stalin...

"From now on the iron law of discipline for every officer, soldier, political officer should be – not a single step back without order from higher command. Company, battalion, regiment and division commanders, as well as the commissars and political officers of corresponding ranks who retreat without order from above, are traitors of the Motherland. They should be treated as traitors of the Motherland. This is the call of our Motherland.

To fulfill this order means to defend our country, to save our Motherland, to destroy and overcome the hated enemy."

'a bomb that killed people saved lives' is backwards logic.
It can't be both at the same time.

It's like a terrorist saying his suicide vest will save lives.

The bomb killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
The war ending saved further loss of life but was close to ending anyway, they could've simply blockaded the country at that point, taken out critical infrastructure or demonstrated the bomb without using it on cities.
They could've just detonated one in Tokyo Bay, and it would've had the same effect.
'We have more of these, this is the small one'.

Looking at the huge masses of idiots & other useless the West has produced in these past eighty years makes that bombing an incredibly sad waste of Japanese lives.
Just like the other wars the West has been involved in for the wrong reasons & even more wrong outcomes.
Australians have allowed the a proliferation of disproportionate number of mindless & useless ever since the Goat sold National Service for votes from them.
What the incumbent PM will end up doing does not have a light at the end of that tunnel either.
If people of all denominations & ethnicity don't wake up before the next election, England today will look like a picnic in comparison to what can very easily become an Australia not worth defending.

Indy,

So you were happy to see young Australian men at the age of 20 conscripted, and then shipped off to Vietnam to be cannon fodder for American Imperialism, WHERE WERE YOU!. Its a Pity you didn't volunteer to be a bit of that cannon fodder yourself, when you had the chance. Don't go Whitlam for putting an end to Australia's involvement in that disgusting war!

Canem Malum,

Marxism isn’t a thing anymore. Using it as a catch-all insult for progressives is as lazy as calling every conservative a Nazi.

Paul1405,
Gee, you do come up with some idiotic quips. If it were up to me the likes of you should have to go to Gaza instead of walking across the Harbour Bridge.
Or, you should have to work in remote Australia staying in shacks without windows with only a mozzie net to sleep under & a 20 litre fuel drum as a stove & no fridge for months on end & only get into the nearest town every six or so months.
Of course you wouldn't last a week but at least you wouldn't be the burden to society that you are in your bureaudroid job.
You et al are a sad legacy of being of parents the Goat sold out to.

JD writes: "That “2 million lives saved” figure didn’t exist in 1945. It emerged decades later when officials were defending the bombings against critics."

That just not true. As in, you've completely made it up.

1. The US, in preparing for the invasion, had manufactured 1.5 million Purple Heart, being medals given to those injured in battle. That is they expected 1.5 million casualties of which one-third would be deaths. They were aware that the primary Japanese strategy in the event of an invasion was to kill as many US soldiers as possible, irrespective of their own losses, in the belief that this would force the US to the negotiating table.

2. The Japanese High Command had prepared all sorts of reports about how they would defend the homeland. For example there is their Kyushu Defence Plan Document which talks of millions of civilian and military deaths just in Kyushu. And there were the Japanese General Staff Estimates in early 1945 which expected millions of deaths in Kyushu alone.

3. Remember that the US had broken the Japanese codes, so they, the US, were well aware of these Japanese estimates and war plans.

4. They were also well aware of the dire position of the POWs in lands still held by Japan and the urgency of getting to those groups as early as possible.

Its just fabrication that these factors didn't form part of the US planning although the level of Japanese deaths was the lowest priority. While Truman, when talking to the American people about his reasons for the bomb, naturally emphasised the saving of US lives, in private discussions and letters in August 45, he also talked of the save lives in Japan and China.

The Japanese Mogami class frigate deal knocks in the head the fantasy that we can or should build our own warships. The first three of the vessels will definitely be built in Japan, and hopefully so will the rest. Australia is beyond making anything these days - well, apart from mistakes.

Given Albanese's dislike of English speaking, much-like-us America, we should be forming a stronger bond with Japan.

Communist China wants to keep Japan and Australia apart just as they do with Australia and America. That means that their enabler, Albanese, will have to go before Australians can be safer than they are now. Hopefully, that will occur sometime in the next three years, as his hubris and stupidity can no longer be tolerated by the ALP itself. The Treasurer is already showing signs of wanting to replace him.

mhaze,

Nobody’s arguing an invasion wouldn’t have been horrifically costly. The issue is your claim that there was a single, contemporaneous “2 million lives saved” figure in 1945.

There wasn’t - and none of your points change that.

1. About 1.5 million Purple Hearts were made, but that’s not a precise casualty forecast. They were for both wounded and killed, produced in bulk for the Pacific and post-war years. That stockpile lasted into Iraq and Afghanistan. It was logistics, not a neat projection for Olympic/Coronet, and certainly not proof of a “2 million saved” total.

2. “Ketsu-Go” mobilised hundreds of thousands for Kyushu, and US intelligence tracked it. That showed ferocious resistance was likely, but your “millions in Kyushu alone” isn’t in any 1945 planning document I’ve seen. US invasion estimates varied widely - from MacArthur’s 50,800 US losses in the first month to higher joint-staff projections - but none combined into your 2 million figure.

3. ULTRA and MAGIC intercepts revealed Japanese deployments and strategy. That informed risk, but knowing the enemy’s plan isn’t the same as having a tidy casualty ledger that includes everyone from POWs to Japanese civilians.

4. POW conditions were appalling and urgent, no question. But again - where’s the 1945 document that adds US troops, Japanese civilians, POWs, and occupied populations into one round “2 million” total?

Truman wrote in July 1945 that the bomb should be used on military targets and “not women and children.” After the war, the “half-million Americans saved” claim appears in speeches, and decades later the wider “2 million saved” story emerges - by retroactively bundling multiple categories of hypothetical deaths into one morality-friendly total.

Basically, you’re combining separate facts from 1945 into a single number that didn’t exist at the time. That’s not how planners framed it then, it’s a later political narrative designed to make the decision sound self-evidently virtuous.

You seem to like your history, but only ever when it's revisionist.

"but knowing the enemy’s plan isn’t the same as having a tidy casualty ledger "

This isn't am accounting exercise. No one claims to have precise numbers. All of these were estimates with wildly differing ranges. But it is possible, if you want to look at all the facts, to see that the numbers who would likely die in an invasion of the Japanese homeland would be in the millions. The US thought it. the Japanese thought and planned for it.

In my first post I wrote "No one quite knows how many lives were saved by the decision to use the bomb." Now silly old JD tells me I'm wrong because no one knows how many lives would have been lost in an invasion. Struth!.

He also tries to hang his hat on some unresearched claim that no one concatenated the various estimates into a single neat number. Whether that's true or not is beside the point. That millions would have died in an invasion is really beyond dispute. That further millions would have died in S-E Asia awaiting the end of the war is also beyond dispute.

But somehow JD thinks that because no one, to his memory, said 2 million in 1945, all of this becomes fiction. Struth!

I never said that people in 1945 were saying that 2 million lives were saved. As usual, JD simply asserts that that's my claim and then tells me I'm wrong to think something I never thought. Struth!

You’re shifting the goalposts, mhaze.

In your OP you said:

“...a rough estimate of well over 2 million is certainly reasonable.”
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10642#371375

That’s what I addressed - whether a single “2 million saved” figure existed in 1945. You now say you “never claimed” that, yet your own wording presented it as a reasonable, unified estimate. If that number was only ever a later amalgamation, then my point stands.

I never claimed “no one would have died” or that an invasion wouldn’t have been catastrophic. Of course it would have. The question is whether in 1945 anyone - US or Japanese - had a credible, contemporaneous calculation that added together US troops, Japanese civilians, POWs, and occupied populations into a single “well over 2 million” tally.

If you agree no such unified figure existed at the time, then we’re just talking about how later decades merged multiple separate estimates into one morality-friendly number. That’s not quibbling over an “accounting exercise,” it’s about recognising how history is retold.

Which, if we’re being honest, sounds a lot like you now agreeing with the very point you called “silly” a post ago.

It's interesting that those protesting most against racism by white people named "Antifa" have a red and black flag that symbolizes Marxism (red) and Anarchism (black) they have been around in various forms since the 1930's.

It seems that the core of the so called Antifascist movement (anti-racist movement) are Marxist's. You couldn't get more extremist than the Marxist's.

It seems that the whole modern concept of Anti-racism is corrupt. Presumably those that go along with anti-racism are similarly corrupt.

The Marxist's are known for their sophisticated propaganda tactics and "agiprop".

It seems anti-racist's are the bigots.

Kudos to the American's that stopped WWII by dropping the bomb. By having the courage to make hard decisions. And Kudos to the Japanese that have become our friends and pulled themselves up from their bootstraps.

No JD. Nowhere did I say they specifically talked about people using the 2 million in 1945. You've just decided that's the issue. But you're in a minority of one.

Dropping Little Boy and Fat Man stopped the war and saved millions of lives. That remains the truth irrespective of whether they saw it that way at the time. And it remains the truth even if you want to deny it.

Are you truly saying these lives weren't saved because people didn't talk about it in 1945!! That's some misunderstanding of history.

As to people at the time, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson said at the time that an invasion would cost "1 million U.S. casualties and several million Japanese deaths". A June 1945 study by the Joint War Plans Committee 40,000 U.S. deaths and 150,000–200,000 total U.S. casualties just to take Kyushu. Japanese casualties weren't precisely estimated but assumed to be potentially 1–2 million military and civilian deaths, given Japan’s mobilization of civilians and kamikaze tactics.

But if you don't want it to be true, it isn't, heh JD?

mhaze,

You keep circling back to the same move: present separate, wide-ranging estimates from 1945, add them together decades later, and then talk as if the people making the decision were working from that unified picture. That’s the only way your “well over 2 million” line works.

The Purple Hearts?

Around 1.5 million were made for all anticipated Pacific casualties - wounded and killed - and for post-war years. That stockpile lasted into Iraq and Afghanistan. Logistics, not a neat projection for Olympic/Coronet, and certainly not a “here’s the 2 million” number.

The Stimson comment?

He spoke of US casualties plus “several million Japanese deaths” - a ballpark warning, not a formal calculation that included POWs and occupied populations.

The Joint War Plans Committee Kyushu study?

Around 40,000 US deaths and 150-200k total US casualties just for Kyushu, with no precise Japanese civilian estimate.

All real. All important. All separate.

Nobody in 1945 - not Stimson, not the JWPC, not Truman - produced a single figure that bundled them into a “millions saved” tally. That came later, when critics pressed the moral question and defenders began retroactively aggregating estimates to make the decision sound self-evidently virtuous.

Pointing out that distinction isn’t “denying lives were saved.” It’s about being clear on what was actually known and weighed at the time, versus what was assembled decades later to bolster the case.

If your only claim is “millions may have died in a full-scale invasion,” you could have said that without dressing it up as a 1945-style “rough estimate of well over 2 million.” But you didn’t, and that’s why the distinction matters.

Whether 2 million is right or wrong isn’t the issue here. You know that. Eh, mhaze?

"hen talk as if the people making the decision were working from that unified picture."

Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, did I say that the people at the time were working off a 2 million figure. You're just making it up.

We're now up to the part where JD knows he's been shown up AGAIN and just tries to bluff his way out of admitting it.

Not playing.

mhaze,

Then your “rough estimate of well over 2 million” wasn’t from 1945, wasn’t in any contemporaneous plan, and wasn’t what the decision-makers were actually working from.

Glad we’ve clarified that.

That means my original point stands: the 2-million figure is a modern amalgamation, not a product of 1945 planning.

You can call that “making it up” if it makes you feel better, but it’s the plain reading of your own walk-back here.

No matter how much you pout.

Trumpster,

Harry Truman was a hick from Missouri, Roosevelt thought that much of him, that he didn't bother to have a meeting with the mug for the first 6 months Truman was Vice-President. Roosevelt didn't bother to tell Truman about the 'Manhattan Project' or the atomic bomb. When told after Roosevelts death that there was an A-bomb, Truman asked; "If the A-bomb don't work, is there a B-bomb?" AS for what consultation Truman engaged in before gaiving the go ahead, he most likely asked a few hogs from Missouri, their opinion!

Now you admit, no 2 million, no number at all for Truman to base his decision on as John has clearly pointed out. So what was the decision to murder 150,000 innocent people based on? Besides the opinion of some hogs from Missouri!

Trumpster,

The second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki 80 years ago today, August 9th, murdering another 80,000 innocent people. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not bombed prior, as the Americans want to know how much death and destruction their terrible bombs would cause. The Nagasaki bomb was simply used to determine if it was a more effective type than the one dropped on Hiroshima. "Little Boy", dropped on Hiroshima, used uranium-235 and a gun-type assembly mechanism. "Fat Man", dropped on Nagasaki, used plutonium-239 and an implosion-type mechanism.

I was just thinking, mhaze…

If your “well over 2 million” was always meant as a modern amalgamation, you could have said so in one sentence and this whole tangent would be over.

Instead, you’ve spent multiple posts leaning on 1945 casualty estimates - Purple Hearts, Kyushu losses, Stimson’s remarks - as if they support that specific number. That only makes sense if you originally wanted readers to believe the 2 million was grounded in contemporaneous planning.

If that’s not what you meant, the simplest line would’ve been:
“Yeah, I didn’t mean to suggest the 2 million was part of what they calculated in 1945.”

Done. No fuss.

The fact that you won’t do that - and keep tying it back to 1945 data - makes it look like you’re protecting the implication because it gave your argument more moral weight. If the figure is a modern amalgamation, then my point about it not being part of the decision-making at the time stands.

You can acknowledge this, or you can keep pretending this is about me “making it up.”

Your call…

If people are shocked about the losses during WW2 they'd better prepare themselves for the next round ! The figures will reach billions and, that's only assuming that only the stupid are targeted !

People today think/know that the Black Death Plague that afflicted Europe in the 14th century was spread by infected fleas.

But nobody mentioned the fleas at the time, therefore they weren't the cause. Well that's what you'd think if you fell for JD's idiocy.

As usually happens when these types of anniversaries come around, some new interesting perspectives and information is bought forth.

This article about what we know about the Dresden bombing is a good summary of what was revealed after the Berlin Wall was indeed torn down as per Reagan's hopes, and the old East German archives were opened.
http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2023/11/28/revisiting-dresden-frederick-taylors-eye-opening-account-and-its-contemporary-implications/

Your plague analogy falls apart the moment it’s touched, mhaze.

We know fleas spread the Black Death because there’s hard evidence they were doing it - not because someone in the 14th century said, “Trust me, you’ll see in 500 years.”

That’s the difference you keep dodging:

Evidence now = history.
Predictions without proof = propaganda.

You’ve already admitted no one in 1945 had a unified “2 million saved” figure. That means it wasn’t part of the decision-making then, no matter how neatly you bundle separate numbers decades later.

The article you linked to was an interesting read, mhaze. Although, I can’t help but wonder if you’ve noticed the irony in posting it.