Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Legitimate disagreement about the wisdom of dropping two bombs on Japan to end World War II in 1945 persists even 80 years later, as reflected in discussions this past week.
But recently, there has often been no real effort even to present the facts, much less to consider the lose-lose choices involved in using such destructive weapons. In an age of revisionist history—when Churchill is deemed a “terrorist,” Germany did not really mean to starve millions of Jews and Ukrainians in summer and fall 1941, the British forced Hitler to continue the war, and World War II was not worth the cost—so too are Hiroshima and Nagasaki judged as either war crimes or colossal and unnecessary follies.
For today’s generation, it seems so easy to declare one’s 21st-century moral superiority over our ancestors. So we damn them as war criminals, given that they supposedly dropped the bombs without legitimate cause or reason.
What follows are some of the most common critiques of President Truman’s decision to use two nuclear weapons against wartime Japan, with an explanation of why his decision to use the bombs proved, at the time and in hindsight, the correct one.
1) Why did the Americans not drop a trial bomb in Tokyo Bay to warn the Japanese to surrender or face the real thing?
That choice was considered at length. The liberal-minded Robert Oppenheimer had headed a commission to determine the most effective way to use the two bombs to end the war as quickly as possible.
A third nuclear weapon may or may not have been available within a few weeks after the bombing, but there were no others beyond those three at hand for at least a few months. So in early August, only two bombs, the uranium-fission bomb “Little Boy” and its plutonium counterpart “Fat Man,” were deliverable. The limited number of bombs affected the decision to use two on real targets.
Note that a third atomic bomb would not be exploded (in a test) for about a year after the war. Moreover, the uranium bomb used on Hiroshima had never been tested; the plutonium one had, but in the New Mexico desert on a tower and not loaded on and dropped from a plane.
As a result, no one knew for certain whether an air-dropped bomb would even work, the optimal detonation height, or the extent of the destruction it would cause. On the eve of the first test of the plutonium bomb on July 16 in the New Mexico desert, even scientists could not agree whether the plutonium blast would set the sky afire or might be not much more powerful than a large conventional bomb.
So given that there was no sure supply of additional bombs and no real knowledge of the effects of the bombs when dropped from the sky, the advisory commission decided that if the bombers crashed or were shot down with the bombs, or if the bombs prematurely blew up, or if either one failed to explode, or if the test proved underwhelming and did not impress the Japanese military government, then a trial bomb could backfire and only reinforce the Tokyo government’s insistence on refusing to surrender.
Others had noted that despite the dropping of millions of leaflets over targeted Japanese cities to warn civilians to flee their cities, given additional scheduled B-29 fire raids, few had heeded the admonishments.
Either the Japanese people believed that their industries dispersed within civilian neighborhoods were so integral to the survival of Japan that they could not be abandoned, or they did not think the Americans would continue with the raids, or they assumed that their own government would use lethal force to prevent massive flights, or their sense of patriotism and confidence in ultimate victory prevented any mass withdrawals from soon-to-be-targeted cities.
As a result, the commission concluded that only a surprise attack without warning on a military/industrial/urban target would be the best way to maximize the bomb’s ability to shock the Japanese government into surrendering.
Note that even after the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki, there was an attempted coup by senior Japanese military officers aimed at preventing peace discussions. And there were many in the Japanese hierarchy, even after the second bomb, who believed the atomic bombs were too expensive, or too few, or too untested to be used in any further number. Instead, the dead-enders believed that an Okinawa-like resistance on a nationwide scale could still kill so many Allied soldiers that London and Washington would call off the effort to invade and occupy their nation.
2) But why did the Americans need to drop any bombs?
Since March 1945, the B-29s had destroyed somewhere over 75 percent of the industrial capacity and the urban cores of the majority of the Japanese cities. Yet the military government had shown no sign of surrendering. American submarines and B-29 mining of the harbors had already eliminated almost all maritime traffic in and out of Japanese ports. And still the Japanese resisted.
The months-long firebombing of Japan had cost well over 400 of the massive bombers (each plane with a crew of 11 and costing $1 million). The recent bloodbath at Okinawa was the deadliest American battle of the entire Pacific War. The fighting was not declared over until just seven weeks before Hiroshima, and even then, there still remained pockets of stiff Japanese resistance.
Okinawa had cost over 50,000 American casualties, including 12,000 dead. Over 750 planes were lost and some 380 ships damaged—mostly by attacks by 850 kamikazes. The last twelve months before Hiroshima had killed more Americans than during any other year of the war.
In hindsight, we may think the atomic bombs were superfluous or gratuitous. But the generation that fought the war was despairing that the fighting had become bloodier and more horrific the longer it went on, the closer the allies got to Japan, and the harder it became to impose an unconditional surrender. After Okinawa, they saw no end to the killing in sight, but only more, and far greater, Okinawas on the horizon.
By calculating the number of Japanese troops who fought at Okinawa and the resulting American losses (and also computing the earlier bloody conquest of the Philippines as well), the American military correctly judged that it likely would lose well over one million casualties in the two-pronged invasions of Japan planned for 1945–1946.
Japan could have fielded at least 3.5 million troops and between 5,000and 6,000 kamikazes—one-way fighter-bomber planes analogous to human-guided cruise missiles, far more accurate and deadly than German V-1 buzz bombs.
In sum, the Allies believed that neither the devastating firebombing nor the catastrophic Japanese defeats in the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa had broken the will of the Japanese military government. Thus, Truman was desperately seeking some new solution to avoid invasions that would have likely killed millions on both sides. By earlier agreements, the Americans first had to gain the permission of the British to use the atomic bomb, which was not hard, given the savagery that the British had also experienced from the Japanese at Singapore and in Malaysia and Burma.
In comparison to the ongoing killing zones of the Pacific War, two bombs killed roughly 100,000 to 150,000 people in the first few days after the blast, with thousands more dying later from the aftereffects.
There was never an American eagerness to use its exclusive control of bombs and heavy bombers.
For the next four years, the Americans enjoyed a complete monopoly on atomic bombs from August 1945 to August 1949, when the Russians, through espionage, were finally able to conduct a successful atomic bomb test. Yet, in the period of escalating Soviet-American tensions, which saw ongoing communist revolutions in China, Asia, and Africa, the U.S. did not use its one-sided advantage.
During the Korean War, the U.S. had an arsenal of over 300 atomic bombs with a huge bomber force, versus just a few newly acquired bombs on the Soviet side. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower stifled all talk of using such a nuclear advantage to pressure the Russians and Chinese to stop fueling North Korean aggression.
3) Weren’t the two bombing missions fairly easy?
Hardly.
The two bombs had to be transported 6,000 miles to Tinian by sea from the West Coast. The heavy cruiser Indianapolis sped from San Francisco and later Hawaii, unaccompanied through enemy waters, to deliver the components for Little Boy—only to be sunk along with the majority of its crew by a Japanese submarine, just two days after it departed the island.
There was real fear that air crashes might set off the bombs. Safety devices (especially on the more volatile uranium bomb) to keep the bombs inert until minutes before dropping were last-minute improvisations.
The bombing runs from the B-29 bases on the Marianas to Japan were some 3,200 miles round trip. Crashes, navigational errors, and losses to Japanese flak and fighters were common dangers.
The second atomic bombing mission to Nagasaki nearly ended in disaster. The B-29 (Bock’s Car) carrying the plutonium bomb took off despite a fuel tank blockage. On arrival, it could not see the aiming point over the primary target of the city of Kokura. The mission’s bombers consequently circled for too long over Kokura, and only belatedly were diverted to the secondary target at Nagasaki.
But it too was likewise obscured with clouds and smoke. Finally, Bock’s Car dropped the bomb 1.5 miles off target. As a result of the delays, mishaps, and mechanical trouble, it could not make it back to its Tinian base or even to the halfway emergency base on Iwo Jima. Instead, Bock’s Car diverted to the newly acquired Okinawa runways—only to run out of gas as it landed.
4) Why did we target the Japanese and not the Germans?
The atomic bomb was designed to be used against Germany, which the Allies initially feared might beat them to nuclear acquisition (although the Japanese were also racing to get a bomb).
The mostly experimental and costly B-29 heavy bomber (the only plane found to be capable of efficiently carrying a 10,000-pound atomic bomb) was likewise designed to be used against Germany. The two programs together cost well over $4 billion. But the accelerated pace of the European war in 1945 and the delays in the Manhattan Project resulted in the European war concluding before any bomb was ready.
5) Did the bombs just cause more wars and killing—or save lives?
The bombs, as horrible as they were, saved millions of lives in a variety of macabre but often underappreciated ways.
First, no major power in World War II killed more civilians and soldiers at less human cost to itself than the Japanese military.
For almost a decade, Japan had killed between 16–20 million Chinese, the vast majority of them civilians. It likely killed another 3–4 million British, Americans, British Commonwealth troops, Pacific Islanders, and non-Chinese Asians.
The Japanese military routinely executed prisoners, used captives for grotesque medical experiments, and starved and slaughtered enemy civilians. On average, Japan likely killed over 10,000 of its enemies each day of the war. Any means possible to stop that killing machine was seen as justified by late 1945.
Second, with the conquest of Okinawa (just 800 miles from Tokyo, rather than the 1,600-mile distance from the bases in the Marianas), General Curtis LeMay, in a few months, envisioned a huge second B-29 base. Okinawa would allow far easier and far more firebombing missions, especially given orders for an envisioned 3-4,000 more new B-29s.
More terrifying still, with the end of the European war on May 9, 1945, there were additional plans to transfer some of the 2,000 idle B-17s and B-24s to Okinawa from the European theater.
The British were also considering adding some of their now idle 400-500 heavy Lancaster bombers to the Pacific (“Operation Tiger Force”).
In theory, LeMay and his British counterparts eventually might have been able to unleash well over 6,000 four-engine bombers against Japan. They could have easily doubled or tripled the number of the 300,000 Japanese civilians and soldiers already killed by the fire raids.
As a result, after the war, General LeMay insisted that he could have inflicted such destruction on Japan as to have avoided both an invasion and the dropping of the two atomic bombs by either forcing a Japanese surrender or utterly destroying the Japanese ability to resist by burning the entire nation to the ground.
So the two bombs 1) stopped the massive daily Japanese killing of mostly civilians in the Pacific, Asian, and Chinese theaters; 2) ended the fire raids that had proven far more deadly than Hiroshima and Nagasaki; 3) prevented a nightmarish invasion of Japan; and 4) in terrible irony, prompted an emerging doctrine of nuclear deterrence, which, as a result, may help explain why the world has neither seen another global war nor another use of nuclear weapons since 1945
Dropping the atomic bombs may have been a terrible decision, but the alternatives were even worse.
Hey there, victorhanson.com is yours…
You only need be the son or a daughter of a war veteran who was scheduled to be in on the invasion of the Japanese homeland. That’s all.
Mine was.
My father was a combat glider pilot involved in behind-the-lines Airborne Troop Carrier operations in hours before the Marines hit the D-Day beaches (Mission Detroit), in the invasion of Southern France (Operation Dragoon), in the invasion of Holland (Operation Market of Market-Garden), and in the invasion of Germany (Operation Varsity). He somehow, miraculously, lived through all of that.
After Germany was defeated, he shipped back to the US, married his sweetheart the day the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and was shipped to Santa Monica ahead of being shipped out to the Philippines to train in CG-13 combat gliders for the invasion of the Kanto Plain outside of Tokyo in Operation Coronet, set for March or so in 1946.
Nuking the Japs ended all of that, and the FIFTH invasion he would have been in.
I need NO convincing that using those bombs was the right thing to do. Again, a fine article Professor Hanson.
I had an older cousin, who had joined the Navy late in the war, and he was a young LST driver, who had just been deployed to the Pacific, shortly after Okinawa. They were being prepped for the naval invasion of Japan., when the bombs were dropped. He always believed Harry Truman was the greatest president in history for making that decision.
Left out of all the numbers was the probable losses in Japanese civilians acting as shock troops against the invasion. They were trained in self-ignited fire bombs and long bamboo spears. Women and children were to advance against the Americans until shot or among the GIs. The first “army” of these poor people was a little over two million. Many more were to follow.
I suggest any doubters read the book “Rampage” about the liberation of Manila.
During war, with life and death situations, there is never a good answer, just the better of two evils. Thank you, Dr. Hanson, for your analysis and historical expertise.
My father was an officer in the US Army prior to Pearl Harbor. He was in the invasions of N. Africa, Sicily and D-Day. After VE day he was not released from service until Japan surrendered. He was prepared to go to the Japanese invasion. I would likely not be here if he had. Of course he was all in favor of dropping them.
I don’t think the Japanese have ever truly come to grips with the fact that they started the war and the atrocities and death they caused. And as the years have gone by, they have only cloaked themselves more skillfully in the mantle of victims.
There is much to be admired in Japanese culture, but their trait of avoiding responsibility for mistakes is not among those things.
The key to winning a war is overcoming an enemies will to fight.
There was an aura and mystery to the nuclear bomb. The Japanese knew something about it and as VDH points out wanted one badly. The immense destruction and the dropping of the second bomb left Japan’s leaders broken — though none would admit it.
Personally, they did not know when the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th were coming — and when Tokyo would be the target. They finally had skin in the game, their skin. The prospect of facing war crimes trials or losing the throne when balanced against incineration broke their will. This is the reason to drop the bombs — though Truman’s calculations were more basic, saving American boys.
One factor that goes unmentioned in the revisionism is the coming mass starvation in Japan due to it losing half its food supply from China and Korea. The embargo and decimation of Japanese shipping along with the constant mining of harbors insured 5-10 million Japanese would have died in the winter of 1945-46.
A final point, the intelligence about the invasion of Kyushu expected Allied forces would face around 350,000 home guard and Japanese troops with around 2-3 thousand planes. The reality was the Japanese had moved in 900,000 and had 6-7,000 planes of various sorts for Kamikaze attacks. The US plan was to invade with around 750,000 men. As anyone who knows anything about offense and defense, and amphibious landings knows, the odds were stacked against the Americans.
I interviewed Dr J Yamasaki, a Japanese American pediatrician, who was sent by Truman as the first man on the ground in Nagasaki to assess the damage. I have his photos and fascinating POW stories which are chronicled in his book, Children of the Atomic Bomb. He was familiar with this reasoning but still thought it shouldn’t have been utilized. His research showed, pregnant mothers at the flashpoint gave birth to babies with DNA defects that would ripple for 30 generations. Although publishers I shared his story with were fascinated, the business decision was their audience wouldn’t care. I was changed that afternoon. I thought I understood the devastation atomic weapons could inflict, I was shocked to find how much worse it was. That said, I don’t think Dr Jim fully considered the fact that, knowing the reported carnage and horror is the best deterrent to ever again cross that line.
My Dad was one of six boys who grew up in a farm in rural Nevada. They all, of course, enjoyed shooting and most had their own rifles by the time they were six or seven. Most were excellent shots. They would bring them to school every day on their horses, and stage shoot-offs during recess. All of them went to war, most into he army. One brother, I think about six or seven years older than Dad, went in early after the war started. He was instantly identified as a farm boy who could SHOOT!!, and well. He was tagged for sniper school. They were issued 1903 Springfield rifles with an early not very good scope, mounted low on the off side of the rifle next the chamber. His unit was sent to the Philippines as things there were winding down, their job being to clear out the embedded Japanese occupiers scattered all over the island chain. After that was done, there was the next and the next. His unit island hopped all he way up the Pacific finishing their work in Okinawa. Many of his mates were killed or seriously wounded and out of action. He was never hit, despite his havoing one of the largest kill records in his unit.
Had the bombs not been deployed, it is almost certain that Uncle would have been forwarded onto the Japanese mainland to “soften” it up prior to the planned invasion. Despite his never having been hit all the way up the island chain, that good record could have easily been shattered were a land invasion launched as was planned. So the bombs likely preserved him
Worthwhile reading all the personal historical accounts in this comment section. What a treasure.
If only revisionists and youth swiping through tiktok videos could really hear these testimonies.
I am the only son of a US Marine in the Pacific. In grade school, we would scoop up playground pea gravel and stretch our arms out and act like B-29s screaming, “BOMBS OVER TOKYO.” Our heroes were Paul Tibbets, Jimmy Doolittle, and Curtis Lemay. My father made four amphibious island assaults against Japan and was back in Saipan in August 1945, getting ready for the invasion of southern Japan. I don’t know if the two bombs saved his life, but it probably made my life possible in 1950, with two sons and three grandsons. In my 70s, I am very interested in the A bombs. I have traveled to ground zero in New Mexico, to Los Alamos, walked Able runway on Tinian, and stood at ground zero on Aug 6th and 9th in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I still don’t have an answer, but I am glad we did. My father returned to Casper, Wyoming, had a family, and lived well into his mid-80s. To the day he died, he hated the Japanese people, and I differ on that opinion, having spent much time in Japan.
They deserved every degree of Fahrenheit.
Prof H… what about the looming threat of Stalins troops plowing thru into Northern Japan… maybe even Tokyo… from their Manchurian bases, if US troops became bogged down for months coming up from Okinawa? The bombs, it seems to me, kept uncle Joe from creating a divided Japan, similar to what happened in Korea & Vietnam!! And remember, Japan had a strong popular support base for communism going back to the 20s- 30s. Thank God they got a big taste of free market western values, and stopped nursing their commie movement.
VDH,
When summing up “So the two bombs” 1) 2) and 3) were all considered at the time, but number 4) was not.
As you said, that’s eighty years the world has neither seen another global war nor any use of nuclear weapons.
I’d say that alone justifies dropping the two bombs.
Legally there is not an objective jury that would disagree.
My father was wounded on Iwo. It was a nasty fight he said. Given the barbarism of the Japanese, he had no problems with nuking them. “”Also, back then, there was no chance of nuclear retaliation, like there is now.
I’m with Prof. Hanson on all but the civilian bombing. Taking out a major naval base would have been on my list. Even so, at least some civvies would be affected, though.
My father was training tank crews in the States and about to be deployed to the Pacific when the bombs were dropped.
For the past couple of weeks, a local PBS station has been running old documentaries featuring interviews with Japanese civilians who survived the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One woman had been “just a little girl at school.” One elderly gentleman deplored “war.” I was yelling at the TV.
In his book The Storm of War, Andrew Roberts has written about how the Japanese treated their enemies. It’s just a couple of pages; reading them turns one’s stomach. As he leaves consideration of the topic, he notes that to the extended testimony of grotesque Japanese inhumanity was too horrible to repeat.
My father was a medic who became attached to the First Marines because so many corpsmen were killed or wounded in the Pacific. He was involved in the battle of Okinawa and was sent to Tinian to prepare for the land invasion of Japan. Since he was a medic, he was allowed to walk to the makeshift hospital. One evening, he saw on the airfield lights and MPs everywhere. They were guarding a B-29, the Enola Gay. He had a camera and took a picture of the Enola Gay. On the back of the picture he wrote Tinian, August 6, 1945. When my mother passed away, I was going through her memorabilia and found that picture. On August 7, 1945, his birthday, he learned of the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. He told me that it was the best birthday present he had ever received because he was sure he would have died in the invasion of Japan.
Apart from anything else, almost any prolongation of the war would have resulted in mass starvation of the Japanese population. That factor alone is more than enough to offset the A-bomb deaths.
I don’t doubt that there may have been “peace proposals” from some parts of the Japanese government in 1945. I also don’t doubt that the people in the Japanese government making those proposals were sincere.
But I absolutely doubt that any of those peace proposals included an offer of unconditional surrender. And after Pearl Harbor–and after all those deaths–unconditional surrender would have to be included in an offer. There were good chunks of the Japanese military–who also held significant political power–that were not ready to, indeed never would surrender.
The position of the Japanese Emperor (almost a God to a good portion of the Japanese populace) was another issue. Would those foreign barbarians depose the Emperor–or would they allow him to stay in at least a ceremonial position?
These were “special” B-29s, tighter tolerances, light-weight engines to carry the load the extra distance, but also dangerous to fly in. Pay-load & distance were problems throughout WW2, with much frustration & finger-pointing. (See Rhodes, then “Why do we need bases…?” arguments.) Low accuracy & precision. (British estimated bombers could hit within a 5 mile radius of intended/planned target.) We have much higher accuracy & precision expectations now.
The podcast, “The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War” has a 2 hour segment addressing this very issue, entitled “The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” #439.
The primary contributor is Jon Parshall, noted Pacific War historian and co-author of Shattered Sword one of the best histories of The Battle of Midway.
As an fyi, the podcast is in its 5th year and has covered all the salient aspects of the war.
WE ALL HAVE OUR STORIES.
MY DAD, THEN RESERVE CAPTAIN JOHN MASON SOWERS, WAS A COMBAT ENGINEER IN THE ALEUTION ISLANDS AND WOULD HAVE BEEN SENT TO JAPAN IF AN INVASION HAD BEEN NECESSARY. SO, IN MY THINKING, DROPPING THE TWO BOMBS WERE EXTREME POSITIVES AS HE GOT HOME AND LEFT THE ARMY AS A MAJOR IN 1946.
I HAVE ALSO READ THAT LEMAY HIMSELF REPORTEDLY BELIEVED THAT HE COULD DEFEAT THE JAPANESE BY USING FIRE BOMBS. MY UNCLE EDWARD SOWERS WAS A B-29 BOMBARDIRE NAVIGATOR DROPPING THOSE FIREBOMBS. HE DIDN’T LIKE LEMAY OR KILLING JAPANESE CIVILIANS, BUT WAR IS TRULY HELL.
I RETIRED FROM THE USAF IN 1990 AND VISITED NAGASAKI WHILE TDY TO JAPAN IN 1968, ATE IN A LOCAL RESTAURANT, WALKED PARTS OF THE CITY, AND NEVER FELT UNEASY OR ANY ANIMOSITY.
JOHN C. SOWERS SENDS
Working in NYC back in the 80’s, I met a Japanese man who had survived Hiroshima as a child. He still had visible scars and my colleagues expressed sadness that we had dropped those bombs. But my future father was a Marine on a ship off the coast of Japan waiting for the invasion that probably would have killed him. I was born in 1948 and if not for the bombs, I might never have been born. War is ugly.
In addition to Dr. Huessy’s comment I would also like your thoughts regarding Russia’s entry into the pacific theater. I have read a large force of Japanese had surrendered with the Russian entry, thus bringing more pressure on the military to surrender. I also recall you once said the Russians weren’t going any further. Let the US finish it because of Russian losses against Germany. I believe Truman made the right decision.
Thanks VDH
My Father-in-Law was a captain in the 82nd airborne after the war in Germany. He did all 4 combat jumps that the 82nd did. He told me a story about how he felt about the dropping of the atomic bombs. They were in Cherbourg France and loading a troop ship for redeployment to Okinawa and an eventual invasion of Japan. They were vastly relieved when the bombs stopped that. NO US troops had any remorse at all about the decision to use the bombs.
My Uncle was a Marine infantry sergeant in Okinawa in his third battle. He was with the tanks and had very heavy losses. He got a battlefield commission due to the loss of all officers. A Col came buy and asked who was the most senior. He was. He tossed him first LT bars and pressed on. He had the same opinion about the atomic bombing.
My Father was a B-17 pilot (Command) and just returned home from Italy at the end of the Europe war. He was a 21-year-old First Lieutenant with 23 missions out of Italy. He had just gotten back to the farm in Illinois and awaiting further orders when the Bombs were dropped. He was expecting to go to B-29 training and then off for the Pacific war. He was relieved to get a discharge via telegram a few days later. He always thought the use of the Bombs were the best option.
If we are to evaluate the morality of using the atomic bombs with 80 years of hindsight, perhaps we should defer to the opinions to the young soldiers and airmen who were going to be on the invasion of Japan.
This is a good lesson for today – some tyrants will stop at nothing to achieve their goals of domination and they need a major ‘persuader’ to bring things to an end. What it will take to dislodge Hamas from Gaza and Putin from Ukraine is yet to be seen.
Victor, my Dad, an army soldier, was stationed on Sakhalin Island north of Japan, preparing to be part of a land invasion before the bombs were dropped, As you know, the projections on American casualties should that have occurred were astronomical. I was born in part because those bombs dropped, helping my dad survive the war. War, as Sherman said, is hell. Another thing the revisionists don’t get, as you have often pointed out. Thanks for your cogent analysis!
Victor,
In all probability, there will always be disagreement regarding HST’s bombing decision. I for one, am intetested in your views regarding Smoot-Hawley and its potential role in Japan’s decision to align with the Axis powers.
Respectfully,
Sam Jordan
Dr. Hanson. Well written and logical document. My great Uncle was a ship that was enroute to Japan for a land invasion. On the date in question, the ship’s captain was told to “wait.” They waited. Everyone on board knew the odds of surviving a land invasion in Japan; the Japanese were prepared to fight to the last man, woman, and child. It would have been a horrific loss of life all around. Hard decisions had to be made and fortunately for my great Uncle, he was spared the invasion. It is appalling that everyone after my generation now views the war through rose colored glasses and what ifs; a huge detriment to this country. You never see the French apologizing for the Norman conquest.
Victor:
I spent two years studying in Korea and Japan in 1969-70; majored in international affairs and Far East studies for college and graduate school at Columbia University. Most of my Japanese and Korean professors agreed with your view of the use of nuclear weapons to end WWII. About half of my American professors did not. However, Diana West, whom I greatly admire, writes recently that there were genuine peace proposals from the Japanese which the US ignored. And that the US could have ended the war earlier by accepting the Japanese peace proposals and further prevented the USSR gains on the Asian mainland. If you have some views on this please would you address this issue. All the best, Peter Huessy, President, GeoStrategic Analysis, Potomac, Maryland
Victor: I watched your YouTube video with Sami on Saturday regarding Gaza and the WWII nuke bombings. I commented but left out that my uncle was a Marine mortarman on Okinawa. He wrote a draft of his experiences but it was never published. I read it and it did not take much to convince me that dropping these bombs was a ‘no brainer!” As always, your perspicuity shines through on many topics including WWII. I thank God in my daily prayers that my Dad, Step-Dad and two uncles survived the war.
Thank you, VDH, for such a comprehensive and persuasive answer to the revisionist, apologists’ stating it was genocide or a huge moral mistake. Pres Truman new the terrible score on both sides of his decision to go ahead w/ their use in early August 1945. He made his ‘best’ choice for the least suffering, for both sides.
My testament of a third party, indirect, subjective confirmation about the fear the atomic bomb would “set the sky afire”. In the early 90’s I had the privilege of having Dr. Richard Hamming for instruction in Computer Science, including the infamous “Hamming on Hamming” course. He told the story, several times, of being asked to “calculate the probability the test bomb would ignite the whole atmosphere”. The answer as I recall was something like “well…there was a slight chance”.
Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man (2018) is a fascinating read about the sinking, shark attacks, but finishes with the 50-year fight to clear the name of Capt Charles McVay III who had been wrongly court-martialed and later died by suicide. Mochitsura Hashimoto, the Japanese sub commander who sinks Indianapolis later joins the battle to exonerate McVay.
The bombs were most necessary to stop the horrible slaughter in the Pacific.
America, the only hegemonic power that did not aspire the role. How many lives, American and Japanese were saved by not needing an invasion? How much infrastructure was preserved? Would any of the critics rather have been “liberated” by the Red Army? Dropping the bombs was the most logical manifestation of the “American way” of making war. Use wealth and science and technology to minimize American human casualties. Reminder to the rest of the world: don’t start a fight you cannot finish.