The right decision
The bombing did not happen in a vacuum. In 1945 Japan had spent years waging a brutal war of aggression all over eastern Asia, and was still occupying parts of China and several other countries. During that war, the Japanese engaged in mass slaughter of helpless civilians on a vast scale, atrocities fully on par with the crimes of their Nazi allies in eastern Europe. The number of civilians they murdered in China alone was certainly in the millions and may have been something like twenty or thirty million. Compared with the Japanese crimes, the suffering caused by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was a trivial pinprick. If the US had used atomic bombs on twenty Japanese cities rather than just two, it would still have fallen short of what Japan deserved. (I've posted before about a Chinese perspective on this.)
There is also the fact that the only alternative would have been an invasion of Japan. We had already had years of experience with how fanatically Japanese soldiers almost always fought, even when defeat was certain -- especially on Okinawa, which was actually Japanese territory, resulting in one of the bloodiest battles in all of US military history. There was no reasonable doubt that an invasion of Japan would have been an absolute bloodbath, killing hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and millions of Japanese.
There have been claims that Japan was on the verge of surrendering anyway, but the historical evidence belies this. The regime's thinking was that dogged resistance to an invasion would cause more American casualties than the US could stomach, thus forcing the US to negotiate a peace that would leave them in power. Even after the atomic bombs, the cabinet remained divided about whether to surrender, so that the emperor had to intervene and force the decision -- and even then, some renegades tried to prevent the broadcast of his message to the Japanese people and stage a coup to continue the war. This was not a regime on the verge of giving up.
And even if the atomic bombs had shortened the war by only, say, one month, it would still have been worth it. How many more Chinese and other occupied civilians would they have killed in one more month?
Truman made the right decision. In this episode of history at least, the US has nothing to be ashamed of or regret.
posted by Infidel753 at 3:58 AM
17 Comments:
It was tragic, but the whole war was, as they all are. The Japanese seem so peaceful and life-affirming now, it’s hard to understand how they were so vicious and awful then.
Today almost all Japanese are non-religious. Back then they were a deeply religious people who really believed that shit about Hirohito being a god and all the rest of it. Religion makes a huge difference.
My late uncle was a B-29 Navigator with the 315th Bomb Gp on the island of Tinian. He told a story of several Brand new B-29's arriving and taxiing to the other side og the field and being surrounded by Barbed wire. The war was winding down, and they had
heard rumors of an "electric" bomb being developed. They flew a weather mission on the 5th of August over I believe Honshu. On the way back, they saw a single B-29 heading the other way. He believes it was the Enola Gay. Now the goosebump part. After the war his brothers and sisters received a christening gown made out a parachute. My brother and I were baptized in it, as were my kids and grandkids. It was the chute he took on that mission.
As always I appreciate your perspective. I'm not a student of history, partially due to the abysmally boring 'lessons' about history that were taught in the schools I attended. I've since learned a lot more about history than I ever knew before graduation. One of my good friends just retired after teaching history at Texas A&M and was gracious enough to share a bunch of her lessons with me.
I feel that we'd be better off if all of us knew a lot more about history and what led up to major and minor events and how we got here. I'm not sure we'd be where we are if we were better informed. Seems like maybe we'd do better if we all knew?
Like your connection to the religious aspect of Japan then. I never knew that. Until today.
Thank you for continuing to share your ideas and knowledge.
Several years ago, I read "Truman" by David McCullough. Truman did not come to the decision lightly; or cavalier, or pull the decision out of his ass and his modern contemporary seem Hell bent on doing. It weighed heavily on him to the point of making him physically sick. But he push on and made it happen. This was from back when being a Statesman meant something honorable...
Should folks be interested:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/truman-david-mccullough/1100301821?ean=9780671869205
The disparity between the Japanese culture pre-WWII as compared to today is vast. Your characterization of the Japanese and their atrocities is right on target. My uncle who was a lieutenant colonel during the end of WWII gave me a book written by his friend who was a doctor and soldier who was captured by the Japanese and forced on the Bataan death march. The story of the brutality is excruciating.
I was stationed in Okinawa back in the late 80's when Emperor Hirohito died. As Okinawa is a part of Japan "technically", the older generation of Okinawans remembered the atrocities inflicted on them by the Japanese army too. Needless to say the somber days of mourning that were mandated throughout Japan were somewhat less observed in Okinawa by many folks.
As for the dropping of the atomic bomb, I think in the end it saved countless lives on both sides of the war. I struggle with the morality of it and respect Truman for humanity in loathing to have to do it. In the end, it did end the war in the Pacific that would not have happened otherwise.
I think at the time it was the right decision.
Seafury: That would have been something, to actually see the Enola Gay en route to Hiroshima. I hope you still have that parachute gown. It's a solid piece of family history.
Ami: Thank you for the kind words -- I appreciate it. I agree that people would understand the world a lot better, and make better judgments, if they knew more history. There's a lot of it and nobody can know all of it, but today many people seem to know almost nothing. We have millions of people who barely know what the Holocaust was. Something like 20% of Americans can't name which country the US declared independence from in 1776. People were shocked at the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the eruption of hostility toward the US, because they had no clue about the overthrow of Mosaddegh in 1953.
I do post about history when it's an area where I know enough to do so. I always have a point of view, but at least I'm explicit about it.
Rade: I don't know a lot about Truman, but he seems to have been a rational person. I'm sure he thought long and hard about the decision. But it's hard to imagine him deciding otherwise than he did.
Darrell: You raise an important point I omitted -- the Japanese committed atrocities against Allied prisoners as well as against Asian civilians. That, too, must have weighed on Truman. Again, even if the bombs had ended the war only one month earlier than would otherwise have happened, it would mean some number of prisoners were freed and returned home who would otherwise have died. My mother's father spent most of the war as a prisoner in Japan and died just one month before the bombing of Hiroshima, under circumstances I'll never know the details of. She missed him all her life.
Mary: I'm glad you agree.
Afaik 3 planes went to Hiroshima
One to take measurements. One to take photos of the mushroom cloud , and one to drop the bomb.
I saw the Documentary "Atomic People" and the Hibakusha were finally in 2023 able to be allowed to tell their Survival Stories. All who are still Living were innocent Children and our Country was not entirely Honest about Post Nuclear Drop about how they studied the Survivors like Lab Rats and Guinea Pigs rather than Human Beings who'd endured an atrocity, most being Civilians, many being Women and Children too. One atrocity doesn't condone committing another, but that's my opinion. They didn't offer Treatment to these Victims or compassion... so in many ways were we even any better than the Nazis or the Japanese in how we dehumanized who was considered the Enemy? As a person of Native American Heritage my Dad always said America never taught of their Holocaust against his People, Canada did the same to the Indigenous, as did Australia. Any Crimes against Humanity I never see as "The Right Thing" to do, but I respectfully agree to just disagree in that matter. Unless someone has been the Target of Inhumanity or being dehumanized, I guess it's all subjective.
Phat: That sounds reasonable. I suppose they wouldn't want to rely on one plane to do everything.
Bohemian: If the Americans during and after the war had behaved anything like the Nazis and Japanese imperialists did, there would be no German or Japanese people left alive today. It's an absurd comparison.
Thank you. Yes we still have the gown. My daughter will become the steward for her grandchildren. My Uncle was quite the guy. He said " I didn't want to be at the pointy end of the stick, so I tried the Air Corps. they didn't need pilots at the time, so I became a Navigator. This was before we understood the jet stream and winds aloft, so I was busy from takeoff to landing. Missions were about 10 hours so it was long division, sun shot's, etc. Screw up and you could miss the target or worse the island on the way back. Fortunately, I was pretty good at figgerin' " Quite the guy indeed.
I agree with the decision. There were no other viable options left on the table. It is far too easy--especially with the passage of time--to claim that it was the wrong decision. But we were not around back then, and we were not in the position to see what Truman and others saw in regards to a possible invasion of Japan.
That Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain the only two cities destroyed by nuclear weapons and that 80 years later nuclear weapons have never been used in combat says a lot.
I've seen far too many online try to push the responsibility for the Pacific side of WWII on the US and not on Japan, which had already invaded and occupied parts of China and the Pacific and were committing atrocities on the level of the Nazis.
Just my 2-cents.
You're right that hindsight often is inferior to the understanding that people had at the time. After eighty years, the perception of history has become increasingly blinkered by ideology. The US is always wrong, the US is always at fault -- and the atrocities committed by the Japanese are ignored, and become an abstraction.
Give it another generation and the same people will be finding ways to blame the Jews for the Holocaust. They already blame them for almost everything else.
I had no idea the number of civilians murdered by China was so enormous. As you say, a trivial pintrick. Was it the right decision? I'm sure there are many opinions.
It was civilians murdered in China, but by the Japanese. And yes, the number was enormous. It was fully as bad as the Germans in the USSR.
Sorry, my mistake. I didn't re-read my comment carefully enough.....
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