What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?

[sightless]

sorry ):

[henrikrh]

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Japan: Failing to surrender early and causing the needless death of millions


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Japan tried to surrender both before the first bomb and before the second, America ignored them because they needed to test their new weaponery.

My choices:

Axis: Involving America
Allies: Not using the united spirit of the world to form a powerful UN to keep world affairs solidly in check.

[miajag]

[ QUOTE ]

Japan tried to surrender both before the first bomb and before the second, America ignored them because they needed to test their new weaponery.


[/ QUOTE ]

Do you have a source for this ridiculous statement? I'm pretty sure the US made it clear from the getgo that only unconditional surrender would be accepted and the feelers the Japanese sent out prior to/after Hiroshima had conditions that were unacceptable.

[sightless]

I think the only condtion which US and Japan had the big dissagreement on was whether or not emperor would remain, In the end he still remained.

[henrikrh]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Japan tried to surrender both before the first bomb and before the second, America ignored them because they needed to test their new weaponery.


[/ QUOTE ]

Do you have a source for this ridiculous statement? I'm pretty sure the US made it clear from the getgo that only unconditional surrender would be accepted and the feelers the Japanese sent out prior to/after Hiroshima had conditions that were unacceptable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just what I recall from taking high school history, I think the first surrender didn't meet America's demands but the one after Hiroshima was unconditional and American still dropped the second bomb. I'll check wikipedia.

[henrikrh]

On August 6, 1945, the B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay", piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, dropped a nuclear weapon named "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, destroying the city. After the destruction of Hiroshima, the United States again called upon Japan to surrender. No response was made, and accordingly on August 9, the B-29 "BOCKS CAR", piloted by Major Charles Sweeney, dropped a second atomic bomb named "Fat Man" on Nagasaki.


Wikipedia says I'm wrong, I give in despite wiki being occasionally unreliable. Still it's a disguisting thing that they would kill millions and then only give Japan 3 days to surrender, within 3 days Japan probably didn't know what had hit them yet.

[miajag]

Japan, and plenty of other countries in WWII, did lots of things that were far more "disgusting" than not giving someone enough time to surrender. Also the death toll from Hiroshima was like 140,000, not "millions."

[OrigamiSensei]

As I understand the history that I have read Japan did put out feelers for some time before the actual surrender but it was only after the second bomb was dropped that the Japanese dropped their attempts for a negotiated conditional surrender rather than the unconditional surrender the Allies were demanding.

For those who would like to read more about the subject there are two that I would recommend that seem to have opposite views on the necessity of using the A-bomb. "Downfall: The End of the Impreial Japanese Empire" by Richard B. Frank takes the position that the Japanese were obstinate to the very end and that use of the atomic bomb was warranted under the circumstances. I thought it was very well written and had a lot of compelling evidence for his opinion. There is another book that takes the opposite position, that it was not necessary. The book is titled "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb" by Gar Alperovitz. Unfortunately I only made it about a quarter of the way through the book but what I saw was well written and seemed to be fair and even-handed in its treatment, even asking sone of the same tough questions found in the Franks book. I'll admit my tendency is to hew more to the Franks opinion but I think it would be valuable to go back and complete reading the Alperovitz book to get another educated viewpoint.

[CharlieDontSurf]

Question for all...your the pilot of the plane that is going to drop an Abomb on a civilian city during WW2...do you do it?

When I think about it I honestly don't know if I would follow orders and get on the plane or refuse and be court martialed.
Of course did the pilots even know the sheer power of what they were dropping?

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Andrew:

I slightly disagree. My candidate would be Germany declaring war on the United States the day after Pearl Harbor. This meant that the US would immediately start supplying Russia which would give it a chance to survive. If that didn't happen, Germany might have won on both fronts.

best wishes,
Mason