Every year on August 6 the world gathers in Hiroshima, Japan for the anti-American orgy to end all anti-American orgies. While ordinary people and most Japanese politicians respectfully remember the death and destruction caused by the the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the city in 1945, the peace nuts, Euro-leftists, historical revisionists, and assorted twerps of the anti-globalist, anti-capitalist left rail against this “unnecessary” decision that was “genocidal” and “unjustifiable.”
It is a perfect opportunity to really get the anti-American juices flowing because a legitimate argument can be made that the decision to bomb Hiroshima using an atomic device in retrospect, may have been unnecessary. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I think the decision was sound myself and probably saved both American and Japanese lives in the end.
Of course, Harry Truman and the committee of wise men that helped make the decision about bombing Hiroshima did not have all the information we have today. The argument that they should have known or should have figured out how best to end the war given the thinking of the Japanese cabinet is a strawman argument, easily dismissed. Gleaning Japanese intentions was an exercise in pure guesswork given the secrecy of their deliberations. What did come out publicly from the Japanese government seemed defiant and unyielding; no unconditional surrender, no occupation, and no dismantling of the Japanese military.
What couldn’t have been known at the time is that the peace faction in the cabinet, fearing for their lives from the militarists, needed to be extra cautious in how they negotiated the surrender. Their overtures through a Swiss intermediary was considered “unofficial” by Washington and hence, not credible. This attempt to use the Swiss as a back channel to get around the military was extremely important in retrospect. But even these proposals from the Japanese representative would have been unacceptable at the time given that the government wished to retain the rank and position of the Emperor. Since there were many in the American government who wanted to try Hirohito for war crimes, that proposal fell by the wayside until being revived after the bombing of Nagasaki.
The official attempt by the Japanese government to use the Russians as intermediaries turned into a farce as Stalin, seeing that the Americans were probably going to win and win quickly, prepared his army to jump into the war in Asia all the while putting off talking to the Japanese high level representatives. In the end, Stalin miscalculated, not declaring war until August 8, 1945. By then, the Japanese representatives had given up hope on getting Russia to mediate between Japan and the United States. And since they were under strict orders from the militarists in the cabinet anyway, it is doubtful anything would have come from Soviet mediation anyway.
These two diplomatic overtures, made during the spring and summer of 1945, are pointed to by revisionists as proof that Hiroshima was not necessary, that the real reason we dropped the bomb was to scare Russia, or to save Harry Truman the embarrassment of having built the bomb at enormous cost and then never using it, or sheer bloodlust. But from all we know about Harry Truman, his decision was based almost solely on his firm belief that dropping the atomic bomb had the best chance of ending the war immediately. And given the number of people dying all over Asia every single day – American soldiers, civilians in a dozen countries, and Japanese citizens in bombing raids by the US Army Air Corps – it could be argued that Truman’s choice was based on solid moral grounds as well as military ones.
For the military options open to Truman were bleak indeed. He could order the continued bombing of Japanese cities, something his Air Force commander Curtis LeMay was telling him would soon become useless given that most of Japan’s population centers were already in smoking ruins. He could consider a blockade against the Islands, something that would take months to initiate and would have an uncertain effect on the fanatics in Tokyo, despite the fact that millions of ordinary Japanese citizens would be at risk of starving to death.
The most controversial military option (and the most argued about in historical circles) was the idea of an invasion of Japan’s home islands. Neither the army nor the Navy were keen for the idea, the Navy believing that putting the fleet within range of the thousands of kamikazes (not only planes but mini-subs and small boats) could result in massive damage to their ships. And it was believed Japan’s civilian casualties would top one million on Kyushu (the island targeted for the initial landings) alone.
American casualties in an invasion could have been anywhere from 250,000 to a million. Hence, the Army’s reluctance. There was also the matter of whether the landings should be across a broad front or a narrow one. This put the two services at odds with each other as the Army believed a broader front would mean less casualties while the Navy thought the narrower front would allow them to protect the fleet better.
The disputes were never resolved and we’ll never know who may have been right or whether an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have been successful. What we do know is that the United States dropped two atomic devices on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing approximately 150,000 Japanese immediately and at least that many in the intervening years as a result of radiation sickness and cancers.
But these arguments mostly fall on deaf ears where the anti-American left is concerned. To them, it is just more proof that America is evil and that the atomic blasts were indicative of our racism and lust for power.
One interesting note to the remembrances this year; there’s hardly a peep about it from the media. If I find any links later today, I’ll post them as an update. And there are no viewings on television of any of the several excellent movies and mini-series on Hiroshima nor does the History Channel have any programming (although this was on their “This Day in History” page). It’s almost as if everything that can be said about Hiroshima, has been said.
The debate will continue in the dusty halls of academia about Truman’s momentous decision to use this horrible weapon. But as far as I’m concerned, I will always take my father’s gratitude to Truman as a sign that it was the right decision. For he and millions of young men – many who had already survived the war in Europe – that dropping of the Atomic bomb meant that they were going to live through the war, that they had a chance to grow old. And for most of them, that notion justified Truman’s choice beyond anything any of the naysayers and carpers can come up with.
Will that deter the lefties from continuing their anti-American diatribes next year? Not a chance. So be sure to check this site same time next August for another rebuttal of their arguments.
9:34 am
As far as the historical revisionist/anti-American/anti-capitalist/Euro-leftist argument goes, I think it was Orwell who said something like, “That is so stupid only an intellectual could believe it.”
Harry S. Truman will go down in history as the last great Democrat. A true patriot, a man of strength and of moral and intellectual clarity. I’d vote for him in a heartbeat over any of the spineless excuses for men that pass for Republicans, even more so for Democrats, today.
The Japanese were fanatical warriors, suicidal to the extreme, as the kamikazes showed. This prefer-death attitude derived from the samurai mindset that defined Japanese culture until the end of the war. Perhaps the best book on this subject is Miyamoto Mushashi’s A Book of Five Rings, which clearly elucidates bushido or the warrior’s code.
Given this mindset, the alternative to dropping the bomb was to take Japan island by island, town by town, house by house, man by man. The casualities would have been in the millions, if not tens of millions, in a long protracted invasion that would have lasted years. Therefore, the killing of 150,000 with two bombs and ending the war immediately was the only acceptable course of action.
It is the complete failure or abject refusal of the intellectuals to understand or accept this simple fact that more than anything else demonstrates their feeble mindedness.
10:26 am
Good post Ghost, really liked it and it made sense.
Kinda reminds me of what we may have to do the islamic facists, may be the only thing we can do as they do are set on suicide.
11:51 am
Timely reminder, Rick, thanks.
Two points:
First, my father was a sergeant in the Army, already fighting in the Pacific. He almost certainly would have been part of any landing on the Japanese homeland. There are good odds that without the bombs, he’d have been a casualty and I’d never exist.
Second, here’s something I never see addressed: The actual bombings showed the horrendous results of atomic weapons. Would the Cold War have stayed cold if people didn’t have the evidence of the horrors of such weapons?
12:01 pm
Excerpt from my review of the book Flyboys, the true story of the nine airmen shot down over Chichi Jima:
The result was a perceived need on the part of American military planners to devastate the Japanese homeland, knowing that surrender was untenable. To put this in perspective, D-Day required 175,000 invading troops. 7,000,000 American troops were in the Pacific by 1945 preparing for Operation Olympic, the first phase of the invasion.
A War Department report concluded that, “defeating Japan would cost [them] five to ten million deaths and the United States between 1.7 and 4 million casualties, including 400,000 to 600,000 fatalities.” Postwar analysis of Japanese homeland defenses indicate that Allied planners actually underestimated these casualty rates. Put in these terms, the fire-bombings and atomic attacks seem almost humane in that the corrupt Japanse military government was forced to succumb before millions of more lives were snuffed out.
12:16 pm
The horrible nature of nuclear weapons should emphasize how important is to keep fanatics and terrorists from obtaining them.
But that obvious conclusion is too difficult for convoluted thinking of liberals to make.
10:25 pm
Being in Tokyo, it is obviously always well covered year-to-year here on TV. However, I didn’t see any video of extreme protestors. Mostly, they showed Japanese lighting peace candles to pass down the river at the Hiroshima Peace Park, with each paper covering of the candles having a personal message to commemorate the event.
I have been to the park twice, and it is definitely a place Americans should visit in Japan if they have a chance, regardless of your feelings on whether dropping the bomb is right or not—just like the Japanese should visit the Pearl Harbor memorial when they have a chance.
The only problem I have with the memorial is that it seems to pit the event in almost isolation, without the context of the brutal Japanese war campaign across East Asia. But at the same, I can understand the localized perspective of the memorial and as one commenter mentioned above, a reminder of the destruction of atomic weapons and the vigilence we need to have in making sure we never have to use or experience such destructive tactics again.
3:21 am
> In the end, Stalin miscalculated, not declaring war until August 8, 1945.
I don’t have the energy to look up my sources* for this right now so you can this with as many grains of salt as you wish.
But I read that at Yalta conference Stalin agreed to fight Japan 90 days after the defeat of Germany. VE day was May 8th. So Stalin did what he agreed to do.
*Wikipedia agrees but I don’t trust wiki.
10:01 pm
The fact that we had to use a second bomb before the Japanese would surrender (and even then, they were still very reluctant) pretty much says it all.
1:07 am
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