This is a bit off-topic
even for me. But I have come
across an excellent compilation of refutations of those who say dropping The
Bomb on Japan was wrong.
I welcome the explanations
of anyone who thinks a ground invasion of Japan would have been better. Go ahead, have at it in the
comments. But it would not have
been better. It would have been
worse, much worse, for both sides with perhaps a million Americans dead and God
knows how many Japanese. And those
who would have done the invading were far, far more aware of that than scholars
since pontificating from academia.
And as for the puerile
thinking that Japan was the victim here, how can one dare say that in light of
widespread and systematic Japanese war crimes? Some Japanese politicians like to sweep those under the rug. We should not help them do so with
vomitous moral equivalence idiocy.
In any case, before I get
a really good rant going, go read for yourself. I will be charitable and just say if you think dropping The
Bomb was wrong, then you are wrong.
Thank you, Mark. I am the son of a Marine of the 2nd Division. He drove a landing craft onto Saipan, and was incredibly blessed to have survived physically unwounded. So many of his friends did not fare so well, and all returned spiritually scarred, my father included. Several of his company ended up settling down to post-war life with him in the same neighborhood, them and their ghosts. One amongst them had been wounded multiple times, patched up, and sent to the front again and again. His suffering never ceased. It wasn't until 1995 that the film footage about Saipan was released, and the full horror revealed.
ReplyDeleteBy divine intervention, my father was pulled out of the line boarding the ship for the Okinawa invasion, which is why I sit here and write you. Undoubtedly, he would not have been spared the Japan invasion.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were horrific, tragic. But they spared the lives of so many innocents, beginning with those boys from small towns in America, many teenagers, who bore zero responsibility for the Japanese Empire's decision to start a Pacific war.
I do note that Japan, although capable, has declined to engage in a similar adventure since.
I downloaded the essay--thank you for sharing it.
OS
In full agreement that an outright invasion of the Home Islands would have resulted in far greater # of casualties than what resulted from the bombs. D-Day would have downright simple in comparison.
ReplyDeleteMy only quibble with Truman's decision is that he might have waited another day or two in order to get a better sense of what Japan's reaction to the first one was going to be. They were very close to surrender; Initial reactions were contradictory/inconclusive. But all-in-all... dropping the bombs was a necessary evil, IMHO