Japan surrenders before the A-bomb can be used

Anyway, I disagree that the US only used the bomb because it wanted to- there was a very strong mindset (that persists today) that Japan would never surrender under any sort of conventional attack, and so an unconventional attack. Also, assuming Japan surrenders prior to Hiroshima, Germany has already surrendered as well, so if the US dropped the bomb there something would be off...

Of course you're right. For some reason I was suffering from a delusion that Japan surrendered first. I must be going senile.

I agree that wanting to see the effects was not the only reason America used the A-bomb against Japan, but I'm sure it was a part of the reason.
 
Of course you're right. For some reason I was suffering from a delusion that Japan surrendered first. I must be going senile.

I agree that wanting to see the effects was not the only reason America used the A-bomb against Japan, but I'm sure it was a part of the reason.

I'm pretty sure that the Trinity test gave the US a pretty good idea of the effects of the 'fat man ' design, which was the preferred design anyways.

I'm sure the deciding factors were:

1) Saving american casualties
2) Shortening the war before the Soviets got involved, to limit their postwar demands
3) [distant third] saving overall Japanese casualties. compared to those incurred during a conventional invasion

edit: for (3) above, I'm referring to their motivations at THAT time, not today!
 
I'm pretty sure that the Trinity test gave the US a pretty good idea of the effects of the 'fat man ' design, which was the preferred design anyways.

I'm sure the deciding factors were:

1) Saving american casualties
2) Shortening the war before the Soviets got involved, to limit their postwar demands
3) [distant third] saving overall Japanese casualties. compared to those incurred during a conventional invasion

edit: for (3) above, I'm referring to their motivations at THAT time, not today!


In addition there is 4) Civilians in Japanese occupied Asia were dieing at the rate of 50,000 - 200,000 a month under that occupation (most estimates make it 100,000 a month by that stage of the war), as with 3, this would have been a very distant motivation at the time but its something that gets forgotten by a lot of people in the debate on the bombs use, its almost as if they think the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were more important than those of Japanese occupied Asia when talking about innocent civilian casulties and were therefore more worthy of continued life.
 
Seems to me there's one extremely likely outcome that's being underestimated, because we know what the effect was: nuclear war. We know what the Bomb would do to a city, because it was used. TTL, they wouldn't. And TTL, even tho Stalin knows the power of the Trinity test, that's only a test, & really says nothing about effects on an actual city, which is why Hiroshima & Nagasaki were selected: they'd remained untouched so far (in part to serve as potential trial targets). Moreover, Stalin had doubts (FWI read, somewhere, once) the U.S. would actually use it on civilians (read: Soviet cities). I'm fairly sure, if he built the Bomb postwar, as OTL, he'd have no such scruples, & might find the U.S. didn't, either--the hard way. Can you say "Berlin Blockade"?

There's something else, too: the Bomb is damned expensive & technologically sophisticated; without demonstrable need, be it nuke-armed Nazis or Sovs, would anybody build more? Would Stalin even bother? Would Britain? Would there be an infernal rush postwar, or a more leisurely, "wait til it won't bankrupt us"?

And let me suggest one other possibility: without the "Hindenburg effect" of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, could nuclear power become more acceptible? USG-subsidized nuclear merchantmen, in the fashion of NS Savannah, say? Or NS United States? NS Queen Elizabeth 2?
 
The US forces Japan to demilitarize as thoroughly as in OTL but instead of bothering to create a liberal democracy they just declaw the nation and prop up the Emperor themselves (and inadvertantly promote decadence and corruption in the ruling nobles, and the widening of the gap between rich and poor) using Japan as a site of military bases for use against the Sino-Soviets.

Generations of hatred cause the Divine Wind movement of war veterans who hate the perceived betrayal of surrender to never die and instead pick up steam and finally boil over after the Cold War, culminating in a group of Japanese men disguised as other asians hijacking a plane and crashing it into the Pentagon...
 
The US forces Japan to demilitarize as thoroughly as in OTL but instead of bothering to create a liberal democracy they just declaw the nation and prop up the Emperor themselves (and inadvertantly promote decadence and corruption in the ruling nobles, and the widening of the gap between rich and poor) using Japan as a site of military bases for use against the Sino-Soviets.

Generations of hatred cause the Divine Wind movement of war veterans who hate the perceived betrayal of surrender to never die and instead pick up steam and finally boil over after the Cold War, culminating in a group of Japanese men disguised as other asians hijacking a plane and crashing it into the Pentagon...
Uh.........

Are you okay?
 

Baskilisk

Banned
The US military would not be able to resist using the A-bomb, so it would be used in Germany instead. It might have been used against some target other than a city, but I wouldn't rule that out entirely.

After all, if all the US had wanted to do was to destroy Hiroshima (a city of no military significance) and Nagasaki, they could have easily done so with conventional bombing, the way they destroyed so many other Japanese cities. Japanese cities were mainly built out of wood and their air force was not up to the task of defending them. The cities of Kyoto, Hiroshima and Niigata were deliberately NOT bombed because the Americans wanted some pristine cities on which to test the effects of the A-bomb, even if they'd already destroyed all militarily significant targets (Nagasaki was a city on their "to do" list that they hadn't got around to yet).

WI the US used the bomb on German forces? It might make the future use of A-bombs more likely, if they were seen as things to be used to destroy armies, not cities.
Mmm, no. Hiroshima was not high on the US's list of to-be-bombed cities, and because of that considerable Japanese troops had built up there. It was a military target. besides, the bomb was intended for Germany, they didn't hav the foresight to leave cities unbombed to test the big one.
 
You're quite right. This infamous pre-war ditty:

In Spike Milligan's memoirs, he heard about the bombing of Japan while he was recuperating in a military hospital, and he mused then about how to every future generation, all that 'Nagasaki' would mean was 'the place where the bomb fell' - it had effectively obliterated all the cultural identity that Nagasaki held within Western consciousness. :(

Yeah... Although not entirely true - my first thought is still Dejima Island and the Dutch. Hiroshima isn't a place anymore, it's an event, but Nagasaki has enough history behind it that (for me at least) it's not just a bomb-site.

No, the point wasn't to crpple North Korea, it was to scare away the Chinese. Probably Harbin, or Mukden, Seishin, Beijing, Kaifeng, or Nanjing gets it.

More likely d) all of the above. MacArthur was... a little nuts by 1951. :(
 
No, the point wasn't to crpple North Korea, it was to scare away the Chinese. Probably Harbin, or Mukden, Seishin, Beijing, Kaifeng, or Nanjing gets it.
The most seriously talked about target was the Chinese-Korean border itself, with the aim of wasting and poisoning the area to discourage Chinese troop movement over it. This was however predicated on knowledge of the effects of radiation and the like gleaned in large part from the aftermaths of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so if these two incidents do not occur it is less certain whether or not the same military reasoning would be present.
 
Nagasaki was not the main target the time the second nuke was dropped. The main target was the City of Kokura where a large arms factory was located. The US plane which was called Bocks Car flew three times over where the factory should be but the area was overcast with clouds. So with fuel low they headed to Nagasaki which was an alternative second target. Nagasaki was also overcast with clouds but there was a break in the clouds. They say the terrain around Nagasaki made it possible for the nuke to do less damage.

Read this: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_nagasaki.htm
 
Generations of hatred cause the Divine Wind movement of war veterans who hate the perceived betrayal of surrender to never die and instead pick up steam and finally boil over after the Cold War, culminating in a group of Japanese men disguised as other asians hijacking a plane and crashing it into the Pentagon...
Don't tell me, you're Tom Clancy's historical advisor.:D
 
If Japan surrenders without the bomb, the US would not be pressed into using it just to flex its fist, at least not yet. With both sides of the war over, the Bomb will remain classified from the public for as long as the Trinity test can remain secret; perhaps as long as a year.

Soon, though, the US would demonstrate this new technology, possibly for a construction project. After all, few environmentalists would be there to protest the blasting of a new mountain pass somewhere in the Rockies.

Alternately, the first public use of the Bomb might be to symbolically raze an objectionable site: an evacuated Auschwitz site, maybe.

Sure, the Korean War might bring the bomb into play. But the public's perception would be very different if its introduction was outside the sphere of war. And the number of people/animals exposed to radiation would be very small in comparison to OTL.
 
The possibility for a construction demonstration is conceivable; some plans included bombing a new Panama canal through the American desert. Of course, that was require a stockpile of nukes.

Much more likely, I think, would be a demonstration during the Korean War.
 
I think others have pointed this out already, but there wouldn't be a Korean War. An earlier Japanese surrender means there's no Soviet invasion of Manchuria, which means Chiang gets Manchuria and the Americans get all of Korea.

Would posession of Manchuria as a further base be enough to keep Chiang in power?
 
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