Did the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shorten the war, and were they necessary to force the Japanese surrender? Many people believe the answer to both questions is yes: In dropping the Bomb, America chose the lesser of two evils.
Although historians have long challenged this narrative as wrong or misleading, a significant number of Europeans still believe it. That is the primary result of a recent survey of European views on nuclear affairs generally and the atomic bombings of Japan specifically. The survey, carried out in October 2019, involved approximately 7,000 respondents aged 18 and upward, carefully selected to ensure representative samples from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
The survey also shows that those who believe the bombings were necessary and effective at significantly shortening the war are more likely to harbor skepticism toward nuclear disarmament than those who do not. That being said, European publics remain on the whole staunch in their support for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Even in nuclear-armed France and the United Kingdom, large majorities reject the idea that nuclear weapons could ever be used morally. Although others across the world may hold similar views, to date there has been no broad survey posing these questions in the United States or elsewhere. Future surveys could investigate whether the same pattern exists beyond Europe.
Interrogating the “Stimson narrative.” The debate about the moral acceptability and military necessity of the atomic bombings of Japan began almost immediately after the end of the war. While the American public was broadly accepting of the government’s decision to use the atomic bomb, several commentators criticized it. As the historian Barton Bernstein has documented, this criticism irked many of those responsible for the bomb’s development and use. The result was a coordinated campaign by a handful of wartime atomic policy makers, aimed at demolishing “the wrong kind of thinking.” Among the most influential contributions to this campaign was former US Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s February 1947 article in Harper’s Magazine, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.” Stimson’s article, as well as his memoir, published with McGeorge Bundy in 1948 (Bundy was also the uncredited co-author of the Harper’s piece), provided a starting point for historians seeking to make sense of the decision-making process that led to the atomic bombings in August 1945.
Read the rest here: https://thebulletin.org/2020/08/what-europeans-believe-about-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-and-why-it-matters
retweets blocked must be important
Many will always support the bombing of Hiroshima “because Japan attacked Pearl Harbor” first or whatever. But the thing is the bombing of Nagasaki never should have happened as Emperor Hirohito has already told Truman Japan was surrendering….just not under Truman’s terms, right? So, screw Nagasaki….which, BTW, is on one of the most volcanic islands on Earth, Kyushu. (Heck, the whole Japanese island groups are volcanic! But Kyushu is the most.)