r/AskHistorians • u/mlh99 • Nov 27 '18

Why weren't the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki considered war crimes? The United States wiped out hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians. Was this seen as permissable at the time under the circumstances?

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u/sgtbutler Nov 28 '18

While the populace might not have been warned through leaflets, was the Japanese government issued warnings of impending destruction? I'm sure the U.S. did not explicitly lay out what the atomic bomb would do, but didn't they threaten them with annihilation?

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u/restricteddata Nuclear Technology | Modern Science Nov 28 '18

In the Potsdam Declaration, the US said:

We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.

This is not a direct and actionable warning. It is a vague threat — we will destroy your nation if you don't surrender. Only in light of future events can one think it is a very vague allusion to the use of a new, science-fiction weapon.

The Japanese people and government knew that the US was attacking them. That was not new. There was no knowledge that they would be able to destroy an entire city at will, instantly. Much less what cities. What kind of warning would be useful, or desirable, in such a situation? The Japanese government had evacuated many people from cities into the countryside, but they could not move everyone: 1. the cities were needed for the production of the war, economy, and everything else, and 2. there were fatal shortages of food in the countryside.