Talk:Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Father George Benedict Zabelka renounce or denounce?

"The bombers' chaplain, Father George Benedict Zabelka, would later renounce the bombings after visiting Nagasaki with two fellow chaplains."

I think this is meant to say "denounce."

missing

What's missing from this article is discussion of the war crimes the Japanese were committing in all territories that they entered. Revisionist history would have us believe that the U.S. hit Japan w/ two A-bombs without provocation. Japan does not acknowledge its own role leading up to the use of atomic weapons. They do not acknowledge that the Japanese Imperial Army beheaded, raped and mass-murdered millions of people. So was the a-bomb justified? I think it depends on who you ask. If you ask someone who was brutalized by the Japanese during the war, the answer would be an unequivocal "yes." 47.138.93.44 (talk) 03:58, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

• Other countries public opinion on the bombings
• Influence for current international relations

Public opinion from countries other than the U.S. has been added to these two sections.240B:C010:4D6:CF2A:64A9:A1FF:FE79:39B8 (talk) 04:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Public opinion from countries other than the U.S. has been added to these two sections. This article has increasingly incorporated viewpoints from politicians and historians outside the United States. This should not be considered "revisionist," but rather reflective of a "multinational perspective."

Given that Wikipedia emphasizes a Neutral Point of View (NPOV), such balanced international representation is appropriate and encouraged. Additionally, reliable sources do not need to be in English, provided they are verifiable and properly cited. Agd2xd (talk) 03:24, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

• International law does not validate violations of such just because the victim of such act did much the same thing. An argument can be made that perpetrators of international law violations then lose the protections of international law, but that is not codified in such law. Jokem (talk) 02:39, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Liddle Hart

Sir B. H. Liddell Hart argued against it in his History of World War II..one of the greatest military historians of the 20th century..simply put the Japanese were ready to surrender...we believed the propaganda we were and are still being fed as the Japanese believed what they were being told..thats why civilians were committing suicide..they were told Americans were cannibals...war production had ceased..the urban population were running into the mountains to get away from conventual bombing..the extreme militaristic faction had been dismissed from the inner circles of government...that they were a week away from surrendering..the US dropped the bombs to justify the expense to congress and prove to the Russians we had it..the belief that the Japanese were going to fight to the last man on the beachs with broomsticks was pure fantasy Anonymous8206 (talk) 12:39, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Liddell Hart had little access to the Japanese records. War production, what was left of it, continued and the Japanese military certainly had made plans to arm civilians with bamboo spears, etc. Whether or not the civilians would have fought or not is an open question...--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:28, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Nevertherless it begs the question..virtually everyone in America at least when I was growing up..was told the Japanese were universally fanatically, that civilians would fight to the bitter end..in reality they were running away and committing suicide when cornered...if there is one thing I`ve learned in this life is that people are basically all the same..I personally believe most Americans at the time believed the propaganda they were being fed without question and those today who even think about it never think to question it...it would have been illogical for the Japanese to continue fighing..it was obvious they were losing and there had to have been people there who saw it..I`m guessing the average person there wanted no part of the war that by the end they were just trying to survive..it`s what I would have been worried about Anonymous8206 (talk) 17:36, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that culture plays more of a role in people's actions than you're willing to credit. And don't forget that the Imperial Japanese Army was supposed to enforce civilian attacks at the point of a gun. I'd suggest that you give D. M. Giangreco's Hell to Pay a try for a more modern take on the subject.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:01, 13 June 2024 (UTC)-

Which has nothing to do with the bomb..the only possible excuse would be to ask why the nazis held on to the end...I believe Hart..his analysis was objective not political..the war was over..the emperor was ready to give up and the people would have gone along with it as soon as he went public..it was politics nothing more Anonymous8206 (talk) 02:47, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that you would do well to read more deeply into the subject. Liddell Hart's book doesn't cover this topic well enough for you to form a quality judgement, IMO, not least because this isn't what the book is primarily about.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:00, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

That may be true..but it would have been illogical for Japan to continue the war..the belief that the Japanese people were universally fanatical was a racial stereotype perpetrated by propaganda to this day and will probably never change because history is written by the victors..I don`t know why I always questioned it anymore then I believed Squanto just happened to speak perfect English by chance when the pilgrims arrived in Plymouth..it just never made sense to me that there was any reason whatsoever that they would continue fighting when they were obviously beaten Anonymous8206 (talk) 20:37, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

It was illogical for Hitler to try to kill all the Jews.

It was illogical for the Japanese to commit the level of the atrocities they did.

History is written by the professors and news media, and your point of view is frequently broadcast by them. Ttulinsky (talk) 04:43, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Your experience is not a Reliable Source.

Your beliefs are not Reliable Sources. Ttulinsky (talk) 04:38, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Nelson Mandela is not an expert on US motivations for atomic bombing

The quote from Nelson Mandela in "Intimidate the Soviets" should be put in the section Public Opinion, or removed. He has no expertise in the decision to use the atomic bomb, World War II, or US-Soviet relations in WWII. He was just a regional political leader who was famous.

Ttulinsky (talk) 03:24, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

That bit was added 15 months ago by a Japanese IP editor.

I would argue for keeping it if Mandela's comments were widely reported. He was quoted on this topic by CNN, International Viewpoint, HuffPost, The New Zealand Herald and Democracy Now. That seems like enough coverage to include something about it.

But perhaps it can be trimmed. Binksternet (talk) 05:07, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the proposal is to remove Mandela's comments altogether, but to move it to the "Public Opinion" section, so that it is made clear that Mandela isn't speaking as a historian of the topic (which he wasn't) but as a member of the public. ~2026-14295-65 (talk) 14:17, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Paul Ham's *Hiroshima Nagasaki*

This isn't exactly a high-quality work, to put it nicely. Ham also makes numerous euros that undermine the accuracy and reliability of his work, such that it isn't something one might want to use to justify the position that the bombs were unnecessary. For starters, Ham uses Holocaust Denier and pseudo-historian David Irving's work to argue for a death toll for the Bombing of Dresden that is 4 times the currently accepted toll, presumably with the aim of making the Allied action look worse than it was (p. 55).

Ham similarly does not substantiate the claim that American leadership had made "the decision to set aside, if not yet completely cancel, Olympic - MacArthur’s cherished invasion plan — a week before the momentous developments in the New Mexican desert." (p. 201). The source that he cites for this passage, Max Hastings' Inferno (itself not exactly a scholarly study of U.S. invasion planning), makes no such claims.

Richard B. Frank, an actual historian of the topic, has described Ham's methodology as "a process more like alchemy than historical inquiry." (). Alex Wellerstein, a historian who studies American nuclear policy, has also criticized Ham's book for not really presenting a nuanced picture of the event and the debate around it, and for not distinguishing between credible and dubious claims ().

Given that Paul Ham's work is not taken seriously by historians, and that he does seem to either make stuff up (e.g. the notion that U.S. leadership had cancelled OLYMPIC) or use poor sources (e.g. using David Irving to argue for a high death toll for the Bombing of Dresden), I think we probably should either remove his work from the "Further Reading" section or at least mark it as a non-scholarly and mediocre-quality work. I am interested to hear what other editors might have to say about this. ~2026-14295-65 (talk) 14:16, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

> Ham also makes numerous euros

I meant to say "numerous errors." Probably made a typo and autocorrect changed it. ~2026-14295-65 (talk) 14:19, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

> Max Hastings' Inferno

I meant Hastings' Nemesis ~2026-14295-65 (talk) 03:02, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

I'd agree that this is a low quality source. Ham isn't a specialist on this issue and the book was poorly reviewed by other historians. Given the huge literature of high quality works on this topic, there's no reason to use it. Nick-D (talk) 03:18, 7 March 2026 (UTC)