Lest we forget:
An opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal this morning. The author discusses some issues and details that are not usually included in the justification to use the nuclear weapons against Japan to end the war.

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By John C. Hopkins

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 75 years ago Thursday and Sunday, respectively, are regarded with horror and regret. But not using the atomic bomb would have been far worse. The overall Japanese deaths attributed to the two bombs are estimated at between 129,000 and 226,000. A July 1945 U.S. government report estimated that invading the Japanese Home Islands would cost five million to 10 million Japanese lives.

The U.S. landing, planned for Nov. 1, 1945, was to be substantially larger than the 1944 Normandy landing in Europe. More than 156,000 Allied troops landed on D-Day. They suffered more than 10,000 casualties, including 4,400 killed in action. They faced 50,000 German troops. The invasion of Japan would have involved some 766,000 Allied personnel.

And it would have been harder than D-Day, which took the Germans by surprise. The Japanese had deduced both the approximate landing date (late October) and the landing beaches on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s main islands.

Only after the war did the U.S. discover the magnitude of Japan’s preparation to defend against the invasion. In June 1945, U.S. intelligence estimated 350,000 Japanese troops would defend Kyushu. After the Japanese surrendered, the U.S. military demobilized some 784,000 men on Kyushu. In addition, there were some 575,000 Kyushu home-defense forces. Unlike the 3 to 1 ratio of Allies to adversaries at Normandy, the Japanese defenders would have outnumbered Allied troops in the initial assault landing.

The Japanese also were preparing more than 10,000 planes to make kamikaze attacks on the U.S. landing ships before they could discharge their troops. And Japan had almost five million soldiers and sailors still fighting across Taiwan, Korea, China, Manchuria and various Pacific islands.

Civilians would be mobilized, too. On April 20, 1945, the Japanese Imperial Army issued “The Decree of the Homeland Decisive Battle,” which proclaimed: “Every soldier should fight to the last . . . and our people should fight to the last person.” Every Japanese soldier and civilian—even women and children—was expected to die fighting.

The U.S. government estimated, based on the fierce Japanese resistance encountered on outlying islands, that the war would last another year and a half—through the spring of 1947. It expected between 1.7 million and four million Allied casualties, including 400,000 to 800,000 fatalities. (Between December 1941 and August 1945, the war in Europe and the Pacific had resulted in 407,000 U.S. deaths.) Weather would have made matters still worse for the Allies. On Oct. 9, 1945, a typhoon packing 140-mile-an-hour winds struck what was to have been the U.S. invasion staging area on Okinawa. The damage to the invasion fleet and forces would have delayed the invasion by perhaps six months. On April 4, 1946, another major typhoon hit. It would have caused another delay. The Japanese would have many months to strengthen their defenses.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union (which declared war on Japan on Aug. 8, 1945) was prepared to invade the Japanese northern islands from Manchuria. That would almost certainly have led to a Japan divided between a free South and a communist North. The Berlin Wall might have had a twin in Tokyo. The people of North Japan would have suffered for decades, like the people of East Germany and North Korea.

All this was averted. On Aug. 15, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender. Japan faced a major famine during the winter of 1945-46, which the U.S. ameliorated by providing humanitarian shipments of more than 800,000 tons of food.

The Japanese losses from the atomic strikes were tragic. But their use prevented far more pain, suffering and death than it caused. The U.S. chose the lesser of evils.

Mr. Hopkins, a nuclear physicist, was an executive at Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1974-89.

LINK

Stop making sense! The media will be full of the predictable articles criticizing the two bombs THAT ENDED THE WAR. Period.

From 1989-93 I worked as an Army civilian at an ammo depot in Kure, about 20 miles south of ground zero. I had my wife and toddler daughter with me, we lived off base in a Japanese neighborhood, and the people treated us extremely well. We visited the Hiroshima Peace Park often; It was an easy train ride, our daughter loved feeding the pigeons, and we all enjoyed Big Macs at the nearby McDonalds. We never encountered any hostility anywhere, just the opposite.

One of the clerks at depot hqs was about ten in 1945, she described a huge sound when the Hiroshima bomb went off. She also told of everyone training to repel US troops using a sharp stick.

Two good books, there are dozens more:

"Countdown 1945" details the four month period before Hiroshima, focusing heavily on Truman:

https://www.amazon.com/Countdo...982143347/ref=sr_1_1


This Leslie Groves bio is all about the Manhattan Project and building the bomb:

https://www.amazon.com/Racing-...00NS42DBY/ref=sr_1_1

It happened and it ended the war. We aren't going to unbomb them, no matter how loudly the revisionist handwringers second guess and whine about it. Not to mention that the Japanese people deserved all the destruction that was wrought upon them as payback for the devastation they wreaked across Asia for more than a decade prior.

The Japanese should thank God that we dropped the bombs on them.

At the end of 1945, during the US occupation, there was concern over the coming winter (the first winter after the US fire bombing campaign really took effect). There were concerns that up to a MILLION Japanese would freeze to death due to the lack of workers to mine coal. So, the US expedited the return of Japanese troops from the various islands they invaded, and returned them to Japan. The crisis was averted.

Now, suppose the war had continued. Those million+ would have died; far less than all killed in both atomic raids.

Also, there were 7.2 million Japanese in uniform in late 1945. Even if the US killed a 10/th of them, that would still be 720,000 (again, MUCH more than the atomic bombs killed).

Also, there were about 150,000 allied POWs in Japanese control by late 1945. ALL OF THEM would have been murdered (the Japanese did this in the Philippines, and there were preparations underway in Japan to kill all the POWs in the event of invasion). To me, it was worth it to bomb Japan to save even a single POW and/or save a single US servicemember's life. If the US had invaded, or taken Plan B to blockade the Japanese islands by air and sea, all those POWs still would have died, along with MILLIONS of Japanese. The Brits were planning to join the US bombing campaign, and even medium bombers were being based in the islands close to Japan. The bombing would have continued (since, seriously, the US Army Air Force had nothing else to do), and even without an invasion, the Japanese would have suffered millions of deaths.

The modern liberals came up with the concept 'equivalence,' stating that the US valued US lives more than Japanese lives, ignoring the fact that this is standard in war. Or, saying that the 200,000 Japanese dead were less valuable than the lowball estimates of US casualties in the event of an invasion. OF COURSE, one values its own lives more than those of the enemy. It's not 'racist,' it's 'war.' However much they ignore facts, those facts conclusively indicate far more people would have died without the atomic bombs than died because of them.

Heck, James Bradley pointed out in his book Flyboys that more people died by Samurai swords in WWII than BOTH atomic bombs combined. To give just one example, after the Doolittle Raid, the Japanese went through China and MURDERED about 250,000 Chinese civilians out of rage, since Chinese in these regions helped most of the US crews escape. Of course, the crying liberals will ignore these facts, pretend instead that Japan was the victim of WWII. Many in Japan and the US pretend that WWII began with Hiroshima and ended with Nagasaki. Without understanding the context of the war, they cannot understand the role the atomic bombs played in saving MILLIONS of lives.

Yes, Truman undoubtedly made the correct call in dropping the bombs.

Yet the Howard Zinns of the word want to keep teaching our kids that America was evil and wrong to nuke Imperial Japan; that Japan was close to surrendering anyway. Complete bull. Shame on anyone perpetuating that garbage.

Brings up three quick matters in my mind.

My father passed away a few months ago. I am holding a pic of my dad, US Navy in WWII, then Occupational Forces in Japan. Dad is standing on a hillside in his Navy dungarees, the background is the remains of Hiroshima.

I have a copy of "The Rape of Nanking", autographed by the author, Iris Chang, re the horrors and atrocities the Japanese committed in China.

A few years ago, my then third grade grandson called me one day, "grandpa, could you explain the connection between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima?".

"Made in America, tested in Japan".

I say it was successful.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Yes, Truman undoubtedly made the correct call in dropping the bombs.

Yet the Howard Zinns of the word want to keep teaching our kids that America was evil and wrong to nuke Imperial Japan; that Japan was close to surrendering anyway. Complete bull. Shame on anyone perpetuating that garbage.

Yeah, the "Japan was ready to surrender" argument is pure BS. I could argue that Germany was 'ready to surrender,' that 'they lost the war and couldn't win,' and that 'the German people didn't want to fight anymore.' Still, it took the occupation of the entire country and the capture of the enemy capital to finally end that war. And, Germans were not NEARLY as fanatical as the Japanese were. . .

The US was reading Japanese codes, and one such message indicated that Japan intended to fight on even IF the US allowed the Emperor to remain in his position in the event of a Japanese surrender. So, Truman knew that Japan was not 'ready to quit' as many modern-day hand-wringers seem to believe.

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Yes, Truman undoubtedly made the correct call in dropping the bombs.

Yet the Howard Zinns of the word want to keep teaching our kids that America was evil and wrong to nuke Imperial Japan; that Japan was close to surrendering anyway. Complete bull. Shame on anyone perpetuating that garbage.

Yeah, the "Japan was ready to surrender" argument is pure BS. I could argue that Germany was 'ready to surrender,' that 'they lost the war and couldn't win,' and that 'the German people didn't want to fight anymore.' Still, it took the occupation of the entire country and the capture of the enemy capital to finally end that war. And, Germans were not NEARLY as fanatical as the Japanese were. . .

The US was reading Japanese codes, and one such message indicated that Japan intended to fight on even IF the US allowed the Emperor to remain in his position in the event of a Japanese surrender. So, Truman knew that Japan was not 'ready to quit' as many modern-day hand-wringers seem to believe.

Seems the firebombing of Tokyo was more devastating to life and property in Japan than was the atomic bomb. Had Japan surrendered after the firebombing, Hiroshima wouldn't have happened.

After my undergrad degree in History I was on the fence. My professor was pro Japan and anti American and could not be convinced the above argument. In an attempt to avoid the subject I did my essay on the bombing of Tokyo.
Damn, it was worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
But I did not make up my mind until I read "With the Old Breed" by EB Sledge in grad school. Reading of the horror of the island warfare changed my understanding of war and battle.

quote:

Originally posted by redstone:
After my undergrad degree in History I was on the fence. My professor was pro Japan and anti American and could not be convinced the above argument. In an attempt to avoid the subject I did my essay on the bombing of Tokyo.
Damn, it was worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
But I did not make up my mind until I read "With the Old Breed" by EB Sledge in grad school. Reading of the horror of the island warfare changed my understanding of war and battle.

Our family went to Hawaii shortly after the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, toured the site, very memorable. Before we left there was a documentary on public TV re the matter, an Ivy League History Prof from Japan was interviewed. I still remember one of his comments from the documentary, "In Japan, they never talk about Pearl Harbor or the connection to WWII, only the American devastation of Japan. It wasn't until preparing for this interview that I made the connection myself".

Good article.

The fact is that Japan refused to surrender despite XX Bomber Command’s destruction of 67 large and medium size cities.

These raids killed about one million Japanese and displaced about 8.5 million Japanese because between March 1, 1945 and April 30, 1945, almost 45% of the bombed cities were destroyed, with one, Toyama being 100% destroyed. Tokyo, another city of note saw 16 square miles burned in a raid on March 6. A subsequent raid destroyed another 17 square miles. Think about that for a minute. 43 square miles of ONE city utterly destroyed in less than two months.

And still the Japanese wouldn’t surrender.

The use of atomic weapons is what finally forced the Japanese Emperor to overrule the military dictatorship. Even the night before the Emperor’s broadcast, which occurred AFTER the two atomic bombings, there were fanatical military officers who tried to depose the Emperor so they could continue fighting to the last Japanese.

And for a moment, ignore the projections of casualties from the planned invasion of Kyūshū and Honshū. Japan had over a million soldiers in China and Manchuria, and the infamous Unit 731 which successfully weaponized a host of biological vectors including plague and typhus. A comparatively small force of 17,000 Japanese Navy personnel killed, pillaged, and raped thousands of Filipino citizens in Manila, forcing American units to level building after building using large artillery (155mm and 8”) as direct fire weapons. The million Japanese in China would have inflicted a far worse horror on the Chinese and Manchurians.

President Truman made the correct call when it comes to striking two Japanese cities with atomic bombs.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

Seems the firebombing of Tokyo was more devastating to life and property in Japan than was the atomic bomb. Had Japan surrendered after the firebombing, Hiroshima wouldn't have happened.

That's a great point.

I just finished a Master's in History course on WWII. The Tokyo firebombings killed about 80-100,000 people. And that was just one city. The 2016 movie Shin Godzilla (the first Japanese Godzilla movie since 2004) actually evokes imagery of the Fukushima tsunami and the Tokyo firebombing (whereas the original Godzilla evoked imagery of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). It was downright horrifying.


The Emperor could have ended the war at any time. He refused. He even toured Tokyo after the firebombing. He was shocked that people did not stop and bow at the approach of his motorcade, as was the custom. I read a book that indicated the atomic bomb raids were successful, in that they convinced that one man to end the war. Post-war, the visuals of the atomic raids fostered sympathy and compassion for Japan, which has allowed Japan today to pretend that the atomic bombs were somehow evil or war crimes. Japan has played the victim ever since, refusing to acknowledge the countless atrocities she committed in practically every area they occupied.

People try to interpret the bombs without placing them in context of the entire Pacific War. This is ignorant at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.



Also, people pretend that everybody in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have survived the war were it not for the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs. Truth is, these cities were put on 'no-strike' lists so that other firebombing raids would leave them intact to demonstrate the atomic bombs. So, many who died in those cities would have died anyway had the atomic bombs not been used.

The first atomic mission went off like clockwork. The second was a huge cluster and almost failed. First of all, the plane carrying the plutonium device (BocksCar; named after its normal pilot) had a malfunctioning fuel transfer pump, rendering useless 640 gallons of fuel. Then, the crew wasted more gas waiting on another B-29 (the photography plane) that never showed. Finally, her and an instrument plane headed for Kokura. She made 3 passes over Kokura, but smoke from another nearby fire raid obscured the target. This wasted ever more gas. Finally, she diverted to the secondary, Nagasaki. Even then, there were too many clouds (orders were for visual bombing only). At the very last minute, the clouds opened up enabling a semi-successful drop (it was 1.5 miles off-target). Bocks Car landed on Okinawa after almost running out of gas (one engine died on approach and another on the landing role, and the plane almost crashed upon landing).

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

Our family went to Hawaii shortly after the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, toured the site, very memorable. Before we left there was a documentary on public TV re the matter, an Ivy League History Prof from Japan was interviewed. I still remember one of his comments from the documentary, "In Japan, they never talk about Pearl Harbor or the connection to WWII, only the American devastation of Japan. It wasn't until preparing for this interview that I made the connection myself".

It's called "historical amnesia." I recall reading the Ministry of Education controlled the content of history books. If something is shameful or embarrassing they pretend it didn't happen.

The Hiroshima Peace Park Museum was similar, like Aug 6 was an isolated event. We lasted visited in 1993, it may have been revised to better reflect the complete history.

Enola Gay is on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space Annex next to Dulles Airport. The photo is inaccurate, it's raised above the floor to prevent vandalism:

https://airandspace.si.edu/col...ay/nasm_A19500100000

BocksCar is on the floor at the USAF Museum in Dayton:

https://www.nationalmuseum.af....-b-29-superfortress/

Both (and thousands of other B-29s) took off from North Field on Tinian:

http://www.airfields-freeman.c...cific.htm#northfield

We shouldn't have stopped at two.

An American friend who spent time in Japan told me about seeing a movie about Hiroshima with a room of classmates. After it was over several of the others gave her the stink eye. Although she is a self-described far leftist even she admitted that there is no recognition among younger Japanese of their country’s terrible past.

quote:

Originally posted by MRMATT:
We shouldn't have stopped at two.

Two had the desired effect, anything more would have been wrong.

Fact is we killed more of them with our firebombing campaign than with the two nukes.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:

quote:

Originally posted by MRMATT:
We shouldn't have stopped at two.

Two had the desired effect, anything more would have been wrong.

Fact is we killed more of them with our firebombing campaign than with the two nukes.

And this is the point of the argument - that Truman used these weapons to end the war and save countless lives, not as an act of spite, malice, or revenge.

We had two bombs. We dropped one. Nothing happened. We dropped the second. The Japanese surrendered. Game over.

Had we dropped a third (which did not exist at the time, anyway) after Japan surrendered, THEN and ONLY then could people reasonably claim we nuked Japan out of racism or some other stupid concocted PC reason. . .

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
An American friend who spent time in Japan told me about seeing a movie about Hiroshima with a room of classmates. After it was over several of the others gave her the stink eye. Although she is a self-described far leftist even she admitted that there is no recognition among younger Japanese of their country’s terrible past.

TV Japan is talking about the bombing, practically nonstop, today. There is no mention whatsoever about what brought it about or why. There is only how they are the victim. Of course, the news is always at least half about our terrible president, too.

It was a written fact, according to the history books I read, that the leaders of Japan knew well before they started WWII with America that the majority of their citizens were extremely vulnerable to air bombardment/fires.

Most of the dwellings were made of light wood and in the cities were built very close together.

Much as current history liberal culture wants to lay the whole firebombing scandal at the feet of Curtis Lemay or the American Government, the government of Japan did nothing for their citizens to keep them from being burnt to death.