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On a purely pedantic note, the UK did not fight WWII, the British Commonwealth did. In fact, it's not unreasonable to state that the British bankrupted the largest empire in world history on a point of principle - the invasion of Poland. Up until quite late in the war, Hitler believed that the British Commonwealth would fight with them against the communists.

The Commonwealth was introduced formally with the Treaty of Westminister in 1931 (although the Aussies asked to be specifically excluded, and thus were technically a self-governing colony until 1973)

So when measuring casualties, it's British Commonwealth forces that should really be measured. Newfoundland, Burma and India were directly controlled by the British Empire, so were included in the declaration of war
UK : 326,000
Newfoundland: 1,000
India: 87,000
Burma: 22,000

Total 426,000

The Australia, Canada and New Zealand were part of the commonwealth andreiterated the declaration of war (as they had control over their own foreign policy)
Australia: 39,800
New Zealand : 11,900
Canada : 45,300

Total 96,400

South Africa was also part of the commonwealth, but their prime minister refused the declaration which led to the immediate collapse of his government.
South Africa: 11,900

Total: 11, 900

Which means that there were 534,300 military casualties to the British Commonwealth. Which, incidentally, was fighting on at least four fronts - SouthEast Asia (where they frankly got hammered by the japanese in Burma and at Singapore), Eritrea, North Africa and Europe (both the north coast and the mediterranian coast).

It's also easy to forget about China. Those poor feckers had WWII start earlier on them, with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and the 2nd Sino-Chinese war starting in 1937 and merging with WWII. Such charming incidents as the Rape of Nanking happened during these times. There were over 5 million chinese military deaths.

http://www.hannibal.net/twain/works/person_in_dark ness_1901/

http://www.hannibal.net/twain/works/missionary_cri tic_1901/appendixa.shtml

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html

http://www.hannibal.net/twain/works/disgraceful_pe rsectution_1807/disgraceperseofaboy.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/72-38/72-38.h tm

http://www.tribo.org/nanking/

KFG

Racist caricature? Tell that to Nanking. OH GOD, THE MILTARY PROPAGANDISTS MADE IT ALL UP!

How's this for a viewpoint: I don't care about the Japanese body count in WW2. Dropping a couple nukes saved a hell of a lot more American lives than storming the island, and that's the primary thing the US miltary should be concerned about. To criticise A war of that scope does not reward mercy.

You've obviously never reviewed the body counds from Japan's Rape of Nanking.

It's Nanking indeed, check this link.

And yes, the Japanese did some pretty awful shit during WWII. So did the Germans, the Russians, and yes, Americans. No one is denying the huge (positive) impact USA had in WWII, but the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, IMHO, uncalled for. It's matter for a l-o-n-g debate though, and completely offtopic here :)

"You're(SIC) country bombed two cities full of civilians!!!"

You seem to suffer from selective history disorder. You ignore that the firebombings of Japan's cities killed more people than the two nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Those firebombings would have continued in each and every city in Japan had the Japaneese not surrendered. For those who know what was happening in the war it is obvious that this end to the war with Japan, while dramatic, was humane by comparison to the continuance of the war. Many more people would have died (Japanese mostly) than were actually killed in those nuclear blasts.

You also ignore the fact that civilians were in harms way throughout history when it came to warfare. Even in WW2 cities across Europe were carpetbombed, firebombed, and shelled mercilessly on both sides of the fight. Do you think that they were populated with only military personell?

And Japan is far from lilly white pureness when it comes to attacking civilian populace. Look up the rape of Nanking. Looks like the Japaneese hadn't hear about your "first rule of war." If they did not abide by this so called rule of war, why should their opponents be held to a higher standard?

Oh, probably because it makes it really hard to have a foundationless hatred of the US...what was I thinking?

"Seriously i doubt the humanity of America again and again when i read shit like this

Here you express what I saw as obvious from your post. You lump all Americans together as inhuman and mentally condemn us. If America were all one color and geographic heritage you would be a racist, but I think the proper term for you is bigot.

Your jaundiced mindset prevents you from seeing what really happened, regardless of the blatant facts of the history books. Do you not realize that it was Japan's actions that brought the US into the war? Do you understand that it was not the deaths of the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima that brought Japan to surrender (because those people all would have died, and many more had conventional warfare continued) but the manner of their deaths? No, I guess you do not.

But, since you are not from the US I guess we can't expect that much from you. HAR HAR HAR!!!(I couldn't resist feeding you back some of your anti-american arrogance, have a nice day.)

All but one of the guys who dropped the nukes committed suicide.

And so did many victims of the Holocaust.

And yet, many of the Nazis who committed what were -- unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- unarguably war crimes, did not commit suicide, and some continue to collect pensions from the German government to this day.

I'm not trying to say that no American ever committed war crimes; My Lai was also unarguably a war crime (and may Calley burn in Hell!), and some of the U.S. military's actions in Iraq -- as in throwing prisoners in a river to drown -- surely are atrocities.

I'm just pointing out that suicide isn't necessarily what the guilty do. Indeed, I'd be inclined to suggest that the really guilty, people like Josef Mengele ("Angel of Death" responsible for human experimentation at Auschwitz, died vacationing at a Brazilian beach), Rudolf Höß (first commandant of Auschwitz, executed), and Erich_Priebke (perpetrator of the Ardeatine caves massacre, still alive), tend to be so -- for lack of a better word -- evil that they feel they're not guilty and therefore feel no need for suicide or other punishment. (Indeed, Priebke so strongly felt that the killing 350 Italian civilians was not his responsibility but the responsibility of those who ordered him to do it, that he openly admitted his actions from fifty years later to a television news crew's cameras -- and it was only this admission that led to his trial).

For the record, I believe that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were no more illegal than any bombing of cities in the war -- and all major combatants bombed cities in World War II. Dead by conventional bomb, dead by V1 rocket, dead by fire-bombing, dead by atomic bomb -- they're all dead. I'm unaware of any difference in ways of being dead, with the possible exception that atomic bombs mean a quicker death.

Also, for the record, I believe any crime involved in dropping the atomic bombs pales beside the atrocities committed by the Japanese in Korea, China (in "the Rape of Nanking" (warning: link includes a disturbing picture of mass decapitation) the word "rape" is used pretty literally -- but includes ripping babies from their mothers' arms and bashing the babies' heads against walls, prior to raping the mother), the Philippines, and the Bataan Death March, not to mention the Japanese forced labor camps in which tens of thousands died.

To those who contend that we "could have" beaten Japan without recourse to atomic bombs, I ask them how many more America boys would have had to have died to achieve an unconditional Japanese surrender using only conventional weapons -- and if those arguing against using atomic bombs had any of their family members on the line.

I wasn't in the Pacific fighting Japan, but Paul Fussell (later professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania) was -- after fighting Hitler's legions in Europe -- and I'll defer to his opinion and that of the other boots on the ground: "Thank God for the Atomic Bomb"

But let me ask you: how many American boys would you have sacrificed in further conventional war against Japan, so that you, safe at home, could claim the moral high ground of an atomic-bomb-free but protracted conventional war ?

That's a contradiction in terms. Decadent requires that the society be in a state of decay, of moral or cultural collapse with regard to a previous higher standard.

At the same time, you say the rest of the world had "at least half a millenium of modernity," implying that modernity is better than what the Japanese used to have.

So what would you say the Japanese have decayed from? I assume you would agree that they've improved their morals since the Rape of Nanking?

If the Japanese can hit a cultural high AND decay significantly enough to be reasonably called decadent in only the half century since WWII, then I would say that the Western nations have hardly avoided decadence over a half millenium, only to fall into it now. Ever read what conditions were like in France just before the French Revolution? The height of Russian decadence before THEIR revolution?

Three words people don't understand: Irony, cynicism, and decadence.

Exactly my point. They're not different "races," they're the same, just with a different culture. So saying Japanese look like Koreans (or vice versa) is absolutely true.

That their culture, but it certainly is not racism.

Calling something "culture" does not automatically make it okay. It used to be American "culture" that whites should not marry blacks. That was unbelievably racist. How is this different? In many ways, the Japanese still have an "ubermensch" mentality, because unlike the Nazis, they weren't made to feel ashamed for the atrocities they committed. Indeed, America takes more heat for having dropped the A-bombs than Japan takes for the rape and enslavement of large portions of Asia. Ever hear of the "Rape of Nanking?" A quote from that link:

Between December 1937 and March 1938 at least 369,366 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered by the invading troops. An estimated 80,000 women and girls were raped; many of them were then mutilated or murdered.

For comparison purposes, only 150,000 people were killed outright in the dropping of the two atomic weapons. Perhaps that many again had their lives substantially shortened by radiation, still fewer than the number of Chinese killed in early 1938, to say nothing of the subsequent years, and the other invaded nations. Even if you still think America was somehow at fault for the war, I've never heard an American say that we shouldn't marry German people, because of WWII. And the Japanese don't just say "don't marry Americans," they say "don't marry non-Japanese." Again, it's like the Nazis wanting to keep the purity of the Aryan race. Simply disgusting.

Oh, by the way, it's spelled "emperor." Just a tip.

Uh... where is the proof for these allegations? Sounds to me like another one of those "all-powerful-world-controlling-law-evading-whinin g-parasitic-Jews" theories.

To this day the Japanese government has refused to apologize for these and other World War II atrocities, and a significant sector of Japanese society denies that they took place at all.

make it sound like the Japanese made a preemptive strike on urban suburbia - not the defensive tactic they actual employ.

Whenever I hear this justification, of how the American troops were inocently sitting by when they were attacked, and how the nuke was the only justifiable counter attack.

Let's look at it from the Japanese perspective instead: The Americans, a nation whose culture and political status conflicts with your current one, has just moved most of, if not all of it's Pacific naval fleet within striking distance of your homeland. Now, you could sit by and wait for the attack, or strike early and strike hard. What would you do?

And you make it sound like Japan was simply a peace loving country that had no interest in doing anything other than defending itself. Pick up any decent history of WWII and actually read it and you'll discover how wrong you are. By 1941 the Japanese had occupied French Indochina, a good portion of China and in less than 4 months slaughtered nearly 400,000 civilians in Nanking.

Now, I can understand why the Americans dropped the nuke, their pacific forces had been landed a shattering blow by the attack, and the rest of their military was already stretched a little thin. So, in order to stop a possibly devistating blow against America itself, the nuke was dropped.

The level of ignorance displayed here is astounding. Yes the American military was badly hurt by the attack, but it was not a crippling blow. Not a single American aircraft carrier was in port at the time, and they were the primary target of the Japanese attack. In fact, of the 18 ships damaged or sunk during the attack 8 of them were back in functional condition by February of 1942, including the battleships Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee; cruisers Honolulu, Helena, and Raleigh and the destroyers Helm and Shaw.

You also imply that the bombs were dropped in order to prevent the defeat of the US in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Again, this is completely inaccurate. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed over three years later. By that time the US most definitely was not spread thin and was in no way in danger of losing the war. However, we were in danger of suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties in the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands. The loss of life inflicted upon the Japanese would have been even higher. Do a seach on Operation Olympic and Operation Ketsu-go for details on the plans of both sides.

The battles leading up to that point give a clear indication that the Japanese would not have given up willingly in the face of an invasion. The clearest indication of this comes from the battles on Iwo Jima and Okinawa as well as the mass suicides of Japanese civilians on Saipan.

The Americans, a nation whose culture and political status conflicts with your current one, has just moved most of, if not all of it's Pacific naval fleet within striking distance of your homeland

This is just laughable. It is 3,850 miles from Honolulu to Tokyo, and it is only 3,000 miles from New York to Hamburg, Germany. So did the Germans start WW II because they were threatened by the Atlantic fleet? After all, they were closer to American naval power than Japan was, by nearly a thousand miles.

The Rape of Nanking.