Using the atomic bomb on Japan at the end of World War II shortened the war and saved thousands of American lives. Or, so the argument goes.But were the bombings and the destruction and mutilation of hundreds and thousands of men, women and children even necessary?
· According to J. Samuel Walker, chief historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
“It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it.”
· According to Curtis E. Lemay, the U.S. Air Force general who led the B-29 bombings of Japanese cities
“The war would have been over without the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”
· For Harry Truman’s good friend, Fleet Admiral Leahy
“In being the first to use the atomic bomb, we adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”
· And for Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander –in- chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
“There was no military justification for the dropping of the bomb.”
· Dwight Eisenhower clearly voiced his grave misgivings and twice recommended to Truman against the use of the bomb. According to Eisenhower
“It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing… to use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians… was a double crime.”
· Other U.S. military leaders including General Douglas MacArthur, said that it would be unnecessary and immoral.
· Albert Einstein attacked the use of the bomb, as did Norman Cousins and many other prominent Americans. But, most Americans were strongly in support.
· For Admiral Leahy, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were “barbarous weapons” “I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
· For the Chief of the U.S. Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, the use of the atomic bomb was both “unnecessary and immoral.”
20 comments:
The Japanese wanted to surrender several times during the year before Hiroshima. The Japanese asked for only one condition — that the Emperor be allowed to remain in place.
The U.S. refused because FDR had coined the ridiculous phrase "unconditional surrender" and was determined to stick to it. When the Japanese eventually surrendered without condition, the U.S. allowed the Emperor to remain in place anyway.
Almost every leading U.S. general and admiral was appalled by Truman's dropping of the atomic bomb — especially on two cities with no military significance whatsoever.
If terrorism is the act of killing innocent people to pressure a government to change its policies, what was the killing of over 100,000 innocent people — supposedly to end a war, but a war that could have been ended months before?
There was no military reason to drop atomic bombs on Japan. They were used as terrorist weapons – killing innocent people to influence other people (USSR). (Japan was already offering to surrender, their homeland was blockaded, and the Japanese couldn't have survived six months even without an invasion.)
12 American Navy pilots, their existence well known to the US command, were incinerated in the Hiroshima jail on Aug. 6 (by the bomb)
The 75,000 Nagasaki victims were virtually all innocent civilians, except for the inhabitants of an allied POW camp near Nagasaki's ground zero. They were incinerated by the bomb. The War Dept. knew of the existence of the POWs but, when informed, simply replied: "Targets previously assigned for Centerboard (atomic bomb mission code name) remain unchanged."
But somehow we still hang on to our shaky "my country right or wrong" patriotism, desperately wanting to believe that our nation only works for peace, justice and democracy. August 6 and 9, 1945 are just two more examples of the brutalization of innocent civilians in "total war," whether it is called "regretful collateral damage" or "friendly fire."
I was in Tokyo on the anniversary of the bombings. It was a big ceremony very mournful. I was sincerely touched and weighed the affect on this generation. They'll never forget that. Never.
This was the original act of "shock and awe" before the term was coined. Here are a few supporting points to mull over:
Japanese military officials were unanimously opposed to any negotiations before the use of the atomic bomb.
While some members of the civilian leadership did use covert diplomatic channels to attempt peace negotiation, they could not negotiate surrender or even cease-fire. Japan, as a Constitutional Monarchy, could only enter into a peace agreement with the unanimous support of the Japanese cabinet, a cabinet dominated by militarists of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy, all of whom were staunchly opposed to surrender. A political stalemate developed between the military and civilian leaders of Japan, the military increasingly determined to fight despite all costs and odds. Many continued to believe that Japan could negotiate more favorable terms of surrender by continuing to inflict high levels of casualties on opposing forces, to end the war without an occupation of Japan or change of government.
According to some Japanese historians, after realizing that the destruction of Hiroshima was from a nuclear weapon, civilian leadership gained more traction in its argument that Japan had to concede defeat and accept the Potsdam Declaration. Even after the destruction of Nagasaki, the emperor himself needed to intervene to end a deadlock in the cabinet.
The atomic bomb hastened the end of the Second World War in Asia liberating millions in occupied areas, including thousands of Western citizens; about 200,000 Dutch and 400,000 Indonesians ("Romushas") from Japanese concentration camps. Moreover, Japanese troops had committed atrocities against millions of civilians (such as the infamous Nanking Massacre), and the early end to the war prevented further bloodshed.
The Japanese War Ministry on August 1, 1944, ordering the disposal and execution of all Allied POWs, numbering over 100,000, if an invasion of the Japanese mainland took place.
Some supporters of the bombings have emphasized the strategic significance of Hiroshima, as the Japanese 2nd army's headquarters, and of Nagasaki, as a major munitions manufacturing center.
In his speech to the Japanese people presenting his reasons for surrender, Emperor Hirohito refers specifically to the atomic bombs, stating that if they continued to fight it would result in "...an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation.
Shock and Awe as a means to an end.
My Uncle was in the Army and involved in the initial testing of the first atomic bombs from Los Alamos.
They drove his platoon a few miles from Ground Zero, had them dig trenches and told them not to look at the blast. They dropped a platoon off every five miles or so, his was assigned pretty close, I don’t remember exactly how far. Then they detonated an atomic bomb to measure the effects on humans. He was tested through the rest of his duty saw action in WWII and later acquired several debilitating health problems; that the VA never acknowledged. It was never brought up that his health problems were due to him being placed within 20 miles of an atomic bomb detonation.
He was never bitter about it, even as was eaten up by cancer.
My earlier response has been lost. Mrs. Burke (my mother) lost No. 1 son Pvt. Louis J. Burke in the Invasion, and was so worried what might happen to Rene, Henry, Emile, George, Paul (Violet's grandfather) and Lawrence had World War II gone on without the Bomb. After all it was Japan who attacked Pearl Harbor. Nobody seems to be bitching about that, but too many idiots like to pick on our country for politcal purposes. My sister lost tweo boyfriends in that War and Mrs. Held and Mrs. Coburn both lost two sons. The Emperor of Japan deserved what he got. President Truman kept me out of the military. Thank you Harry.
Rene turned 80 on Dec. 24, so we celebrated both Jesus' birthday and Rene's with a cafe full of relatives, including Leo, Alyssa and lovely Violet. Everyone came to Uncle Henry's home after dinner to be entertained by blind nephew Patrick Burke's blind girlfriend Yuki Nagasawa whose parents reside in Japan. She would be a marvelous addition to our family, not only as a concert pianist and disabilities expert, but as a woman who loves America so very much.
Uncle Henry
The NAAV Story
Atomic Veterans include members of the United States Armed Forces who were exposed to ionizing radiation from atomic and nuclear weapons testing during the period beginning with the Trinity Blast of July 16, 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico; continuing through the U.S. clean-up of Nagasaki / Hiroshima; during the 235 atmospheric atomic and nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific and Nevada test sites; until the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
The mission of the National Association of Atomic Veterans is to assist these veterans in obtaining government recognition and Department of Veteran Affairs health care and financial assistance.
Over a million U.S. Servicemen as well as civilian personnel took part in a variety of tests during the "Cold War" period when the Atomic Energy Commission working in conjunction with the Department of Defense had troops participate in and witness the detonations at the various Pacific and Nevada Test areas. Most detonations were larger than and emitted considerably more deadly radiation than the two weapons which were employed against Japan at the end of WWII. During the tests various government agencies and departments were interested in learning about the various effects of atomic and nuclear weapons, as well as how these weapons affected the immediate performance of military personnel and equipment. Troops, ships, and various types of equipment were placed from several hundred yards to several miles from the center of each detonation. On many occasions military personnel performed maneuvers in and around ground zeros without protective clothing or respiratory devices.
Since the end of these tests in 1963, there has been no government sponsored medical surveillance of test participants, nor any effort to locate these individuals to warn them of potential health risks. Those few individuals which have been located through NAAV's efforts have been found with unusually high incidents of various types of cancer and other associated diseases and health problems with their children.
The Hiroshima Myth
It is a myth that the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan caused them to surrender, thereby saving hundreds of thousands of American lives who did not have to invade. The vast majority of American citizens believe this false history which, of course, makes them feel better about killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians (mostly women and children).
The essential problem starts with the policy of unconditional surrender.
The stark fact is that the Japanese leaders, both military and civilian, including the Emperor, were willing to surrender in May of 1945 if the Emperor could remain in place and not be subjected to a war crimes trial after the war. This fact became known to President Truman as early as May of 1945.
Allen Dulles, chief of OSS operations in Switzerland (and subsequently Director of the CIA). In his 1966 book The Secret Surrender, Dulles recalled that ‘On July 20, 1945, under instructions from Washington, I went to the Potsdam Conference and reported there to Secretary [of War] Stimson on what I had learned from Tokyo – they desired to surrender if they could retain the Emperor and their constitution as a basis for maintaining discipline and order in Japan after the devastating news of surrender became known to the Japanese people.’" Stimson reported this directly to Truman. There is documentary proof that every top presidential civilian and military advisor, with the exception of James Byrnes, along with Prime Minister Churchill and his top British military leadership, urged Truman to revise the unconditional surrender policy so as to allow the Japanese to surrender and keep their Emperor. All this advice was given to Truman prior to the Potsdam Proclamation which occurred on July 26, 1945. This proclamation made a final demand upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or suffer drastic consequences.
The story of the myth begins with James B. Conant, President of Harvard University, prominent scientist. During World War II, he was chairman of the National Defense Research Committee from the summer of 1941 until the end of the war and he was one of the central figures overseeing the Manhattan Project. Conant became concerned about his future academic career, as well as his positions in private industry, because various people began to speak out concerning why the bombs were dropped. On September 9, 1945, Admiral William F. Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet, was publically quoted extensively as stating that the atomic bomb was used because the scientists had a "toy and they wanted to try it out . . . ." He further stated, "The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment . . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it." commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, stated that the naval blockade and prior bombing of Japan in March of 1945, had rendered the Japanese helpless and that the use of the atomic bomb was both unnecessary and immoral. Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz said in a speech on October 5, 1945, "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war."
James Conant came to the conclusion that some important person in the administration must go public to show that the dropping of the bombs was a military necessity, thereby saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, so he approached Harvey Bundy and his son, McGeorge Bundy. It was agreed by them that the most important person to create this myth was Secretary of War, Henry Stimson. It was decided that Stimson would write a long article to be widely circulated in a prominent national magazine. This article was revised repeatedly by McGeorge Bundy and Conant before it was published in Harper’s magazine in February of 1947. The long article became the subject of a front-page article and editorial in The New York Times and in the editorial it was stated "There can be no doubt that the president and Mr. Stimson are right when they mention that the bomb caused the Japanese to surrender." Later, in 1959, President Truman specifically endorsed this conclusion, including the idea that it saved the lives of a million American soldiers. This myth has been renewed annually by the news media and various political leaders ever since.
It is very pertinent that, in the memoirs of Henry Stimson entitled On Active Service in Peace and War, he states, "Unfortunately, I have lived long enough to know that history is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such."
Now that we live in the nuclear age and there are enough nuclear weapons spread around the world to destroy civilization, we need to face the fact that America is the only country to have used this awful weapon and that it was unnecessary to have done so.
Probably around two hundred thousand persons were killed in the attacks and through radiation poisoning; the vast majority were civilians, including several thousand Korean workers.
Great controversy has always surrounded the bombings. Hiroshima was a city, inhabited by some three hundred thousand people, which contained military elements. In any case, since the harbor was mined and the U.S. Navy and Air Force were in control of the waters around Japan, whatever troops were stationed in Hiroshima had been effectively neutralized.
Truman claimed that Hiroshima was bombed because it was an industrial center. But, as noted in the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, "all major factories in Hiroshima were on the periphery of the city – and escaped serious damage." The target was the center of the city. That Truman realized the kind of victims the bombs consumed is evident from his comment to his cabinet on August 10, explaining his reluctance to drop a third bomb: "The thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible," he said; he didn’t like the idea of killing "all those kids."
Moreover, the notion that Hiroshima was a major military or industrial center is implausible on the face of it. The city had remained untouched through years of devastating air attacks on the Japanese home islands, and never figured in Bomber Command’s list of the 33 primary targets.
Thus, the rationale for the atomic bombings has come to rest on a single colossal fabrication, which has gained surprising currency: that they were necessary in order to save a half-million or more American lives. These, supposedly, are the lives that would have been lost in the planned invasion of Kyushu in December, then in the all-out invasion of Honshu the next year, if that was needed. But the worst-case scenario for a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands was forty-six thousand American lives lost. The ridiculously inflated figure of a half-million for the potential death toll – nearly twice the total of U.S. dead in all theaters in the Second World War – is now routinely repeated in high-school and college textbooks and bandied about by ignorant commentators.
The U.S. occupation authorities censored reports from the shattered cities and did not permit films and photographs of the thousands of corpses and the frightfully mutilated survivors to reach the public. Otherwise, Americans – and the rest of the world – might have drawn disturbing comparisons to scenes then coming to light from the Nazi concentration camps.
Those who may still be troubled by such a grisly exercise in cost-benefit analysis – innocent Japanese lives balanced against the lives of Allied servicemen – What is the difference between the U.S. government massacring civilians from the air, as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Nazis wiping out the inhabitants of some Czech or Polish village?
Suppose that, when we invaded Germany in early 1945, our leaders had believed that executing all the inhabitants of Aachen, or Trier, or some other Rhineland city would finally break the will of the Germans and lead them to surrender. In this way, the war might have ended quickly, saving the lives of many Allied soldiers. Would that then have justified shooting tens of thousands of German civilians, including women and children? Yet how is that different from the atomic bombings?
By early summer 1945, the Japanese fully realized that they were beaten. Why did they nonetheless fight on? "It was the insistence on unconditional surrender."
At the Potsdam conference, in July 1945, Truman issued a proclamation to the Japanese, threatening them with the "utter devastation" of their homeland unless they surrendered unconditionally. Among the Allied terms, to which "there are no alternatives," was that there be "eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest [sic]." "Stern justice," the proclamation warned, "would be meted out to all war criminals."
To the Japanese, this meant that the emperor – regarded by them to be divine, the direct descendent of the goddess of the sun – would certainly be dethroned and probably put on trial as a war criminal and hanged, perhaps in front of his palace. It was not, in fact, the U.S. intention to dethrone or punish the emperor. But this implicit modification of unconditional surrender was never communicated to the Japanese. In the end, after Nagasaki, Washington acceded to the Japanese desire to keep the dynasty and even to retain Hirohito as emperor.
For months before, Truman had been pressed to clarify the U.S. position by many high officials within the administration, and outside of it, as well. In May 1945, at the president’s request, Herbert Hoover prepared a memorandum stressing the urgent need to end the war as soon as possible. The Japanese should be informed that we would in no way interfere with the emperor or their chosen form of government. He even raised the possibility that, as part of the terms, Japan might be allowed to hold on to Formosa (Taiwan) and Korea. After meeting with Truman, Hoover dined with Taft and other Republican leaders, and outlined his proposals.104
Establishment writers on World War II often like to deal in lurid speculations. For instance: if the United States had not entered the war, then Hitler would have "conquered the world" (a sad undervaluation of the Red Army, it would appear; moreover, wasn’t it Japan that was trying to "conquer the world"?) and killed untold millions. Now, applying conjectural history in this case: assume that the Pacific war had ended in the way wars customarily do – through negotiation of the terms of surrender. And assume the worst – that the Japanese had adamantly insisted on preserving part of their empire, say, Korea and Formosa, even Manchuria. In that event, it is quite possible that Japan would have been in a position to prevent the Communists from coming to power in China. And that could have meant that the thirty or forty million deaths now attributed to the Maoist regime would not have occurred.
But even remaining within the limits of feasible diplomacy in 1945, it is clear that Truman in no way exhausted the possibilities of ending the war without recourse to the atomic bomb. The Japanese were not informed that they would be the victims of by far the most lethal weapon ever invented (one with "more than two thousand times the blast power of the British ‘Grand Slam,’ which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare," as Truman boasted in his announcement of the Hiroshima attack). Nor were they told that the Soviet Union was set to declare war on Japan, an event that shocked some in Tokyo more than the bombings. Pleas by some of the scientists involved in the project to demonstrate the power of the bomb in some uninhabited or evacuated area were rebuffed. All that mattered was to formally preserve the unconditional surrender formula.
Here are a couple questions:
President George H.W. Bush, who claimed in 1991 that dropping the bomb "spared millions of American lives." How does anyone know that dropping the bombs saved 'millions' of lives? Why not, say, merely thousands of lives? (By way of comparison, during the entire WW2 there were around 400,000 American deaths.)
Could the war have been ended in some other, less ghastly, way?
And, why do some of you think it is okay to kill innocent civilians? If Hirohito "got what he deserved," is that what the innocent civilians deserved, too? What about the suffering of those little Japanese children? We denounce the attacks on the World Trade Center as terrorism, the taking of innocent lives. Can anyone tell me how what we did to Japan is any different than the attacks on the World Trade Center? Think of the children in the family that we all love so very, very, very, very, very much. Think of little, innocent, happy Violet, who enjoys her life so much. Sometimes when she hears a loud noise outside, she quickly comes over and sits right next to me. Now, think about an atomic bomb dropping near the city in which she lives. Think of the terror in her eyes at the deafening explosion. If she is still alive, think of the panic, the tears, the confusion, the fright, as she looks around for her mommy and daddy. Think of the horrible burns the bombs may have inflicted. Think of the flying debris cutting her and think of her darling, innocent face and body with blood on it. That is too painful to imagine. And, I only use these details to make us realize that that is exactly what happened to the innocent Japanese children (and the Iraqi children, Palestinian children, Israeli children, Afghan children, Vietnamese children, German children) during times of war. Does that not matter just because they were Japanese? The U.S. government would not let its citizens see any pictures of the suffering and death of innocent people due to the dropping of the bombs. It must have been horrible beyond belief. And, it didn't have to happen!
If Hiroshima was such a military threat, why had it remained untouched during the years of air attacks? Why was it not listed in Bomber Command's list of the 33 primary targets?
And, all the major factories were located on the periphery of the city and they were not seriously damaged from the bomb. This is according to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey.
They dropped the bomb right in the CENTER of the city where all the civilians lived.
The 75,000 Nagasaki victims were virtually all innocent civilians
This conference back east could have been full of phony politician types who are still trying to dish out the BS. Hence the 140/145 votes.
Luckily for us, we have the internet now and our government won’t be able to get away with AS MUCH lying and manipulation as it has in the past.
Can you imagine if our world wasn’t as interconnected as it is today? Say today each American household had the same exact sources for news and information as it did during WWII. Can you imagine the lies they would be telling us about what is going on in Iraq? We’d probably all still be in favor of the war and Bush.
Ralph Raico sounds like a propagandist
Anonymous:
Everyone knows the phoniest politicians are west of the Mississippi.
Actually I think we get more elaborate and in depth lies now than in WWII. Nixon was the biggest post war liar. And he got caught. Clinton also, but his was just a BJ. It only counts to Hillary.
As far as what is going on in Iraq, I don’t really know what the hell is going on there. Is there anyone on this blog that can detail specifically what forces are doing in Iraq? All I see are death reports. All we get is fear mongering from the media now. Probably the same as in the 1940’s only back then everything happened in black and white.
I think we should bomb North Korea and Iran. Oh, and what the hell, pull out of Iraq and bomb them too. Hit them directly in the heart of their most populated civilian sectors. Flatten them. Then declare Bush the World’s ultimate terrorist contest is over, we can all go home.
Problem solved.
Bush can send a memo to China after the nukings and ask "if they want a piece of this"?
Pat asked if I know what happened at Nanking? There were atrocities on both side because that is what war is! My point is that war should be a last resort. And, over and over and over and over again, it is not a last resort. Politicians love war. Was it the little Japanese children who killed those babies in Nanking? Because of what happened in Nanking, is that okay to kill innocent civilians? If that is the case, then Osama bin Laden was justified in attacking the World Trade Center. Because he says that the U.S. is guilty of the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilans (including children) in the Middle East. See what I mean? It goes both ways.
I agree: "The trouble with people lies not in their ignorance, but in what they think they know that isn't so."
People still uphold the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on matter-of-fact grounds. They say that the bombings saved more lives than were killed. They acknowledge that mostly innocent civilians were targeted, but say that it was for the lofty goal of bringing the war to a close.
Let's look at this. In effect, to justify the targeting of innocent civilians as the best way of bringing about a greater good is to condone terrorism. Terrorism, is when civilians are targets of violence for the purpose of achieving political goals. Whether it was a worthy goal or not, having Japan surrender, was a politcal goal, so the targeting of civilians to accomplish that goal, was an act of terrorism, on a very large scale. So, now the question is: Was this terrorism justified?
In the case of Hiroshima, no substantive evidence exists that the bombing was “necessary” to make Japan surrender. In fact, the Japanese had already attempted to sue for peace in July and were only hesitant because they distrusted the terms of unconditional surrender that the Allies demanded. They specifically wanted to keep their emperor, which, after the atomic bombings, they were allowed to, anyway. Even without invasion, Japan was utterly defeated by the war and U.S. blockades prevented the island nation from getting the necessary food to survive, much less maintain any type of threat against America. The Japanese Navy had been destroyed. So, an invasion was not even necessary, let alone the bombs. Japan was entirely surrounded by Allied warships, cut off from the rest of the world. Its ships and industry had been destroyed. So, there was no need to invade. With no natural resources except fish, timber and water, and cut off from the rest of the world, Japan could be kept in this near Stone Age condition forever, or until they surrendered. Let me emphasize: By August 1945, there was no longer any need for an invasion or bombings. The Japanese threat had been entirely erased. As an example, on July 24, 1945, Allied aircraft carriers launched an attack on the Kure naval area in Japan. The attacking planes numbered about 500. Against them the Japanese could send up only 21 planes, none of which were a match for the highly advanced American F4U Corsairs. The Japanese battleship Yamato--at 73,000 tons, the largest battleship ever built and the pride of the Japanese Navy -- had been sunk on April 7, 1945. It had been sent into the Battle of Okinawa with only enough fuel for a one-way trip. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey after the war examined the question and concluded that: "Certainly prior to December 31, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped." You might be interested to know that five days after the Nagasaki bomb, even though U.S. leaders knew the Japanese were in the process of surrendering, the US Government hit Japan again with a thousand bombers dropping incendiary bombs. As the war dragged on, it became less about military strategy, and more about killing out of habit. Americans had become the thing they were fighting. So, the question is: Was it necessary to use the atomic bomb? My answer: NO!
John, the other day when you sent long and multiple quotes from somebody else, you said: "I quote her because she makes perfect sense and says such terrific things."
And, you say, "I want to know what LINNETTE thinks!"
Well, I would not post a comment, if that is not what I think.
Although I don't believe you can find most of my last post anywhere on the Internet, when I do copy and paste information, it is for the same reason you do: Because it "makes perfect sense."
I'll have the last word. Was it necessary to use the atomic bomb? NO
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