Posted on 05/04/2024 7:00:50 PM PDT by DoodleBob
During a recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Tucker Carlson made a bold claim about the August 1945 decision by the United States to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—a move that effectively put an end World War II. He said:
My ‘side’ has spent the last 80 years defending the dropping of nuclear bombs on civilians… like, are you joking? If you find yourself arguing that it’s a good thing to drop nuclear weapons on people, then you are evil.
I like Tucker Carlson and find myself in agreement with him on many topics. I am especially heartened by his recent rediscovery of faith and a robustly Christian worldview. But on the nuclear bombing of Japan, I believe he vastly overstates his case.
It’s not surprising that Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson spoke on this issue. Atomic warfare has recently been a subject of burgeoning cultural interest, first with last year’s award-winning biopic Oppenheimer and more recently with the release of Amazon Prime’s TV series adaptation of the post-apocalyptic video game Fallout.
In fact, Westerners have been bombarded with apocalyptic messaging more generally for years—whether on COVID-19, or the so-called “race reckoning,” or climate alarmism.
It would not be surprising if our existential fears for the future are blurring our vision of the past.
With that said, is it true—not only that America was evil to bomb Japan in 1945—but that those who defend that decision are evil themselves?
Reaching this conclusion requires a rewrite of the historical context surrounding World War II: a wishful-thinking reprise of events that assumes diplomacy with Japan was a viable path to end the war. It was not.
In the months leading up to Enola Gay’s fateful flight over Hiroshima, Japan was in retreat all across the Pacific and still had no appetite for surrender. The capital, Tokyo, was already in ruins thanks to a U.S. firebombing raid. Okinawa had been overrun by American troops, and a mainland invasion was now within reach. Astoundingly, even after Little Boy fell on Hiroshima on August 6th and flattened the city, the Japanese leadership refused to countenance surrender.
It was only after Fat Boy annihilated Nagasaki three days later that, resisting a palace coup by hardliners still hoping to fight on, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers.
It was Japan’s deeply embedded cultural ideology—its honor culture–that necessitated such dire action by the U.S. As Mike Coté has explained at Rational Policy:
This intense honor culture was a part of Japanese society going back centuries. It was prominently represented in the samurai way of the warrior—bushido—and was a key aspect of the Japanese desire to fight to the death. Capture was seen as a moral stain on the honor not only of the individual who was captured, but to his entire family tree: past, present, and future. Combine this with the insidious propaganda of the Imperial Japanese government—claims that American troops would massacre and defile civilians, celebrations of kamikaze pilots as heroic sacrifices, and exhortations of suicidal mass resistance to any invading force—and you had a potent brew militating against surrender.
The United States had other options, of course, but they would have been far deadlier. Yielding the entire Pacific region to a bloodthirsty and cruel Japanese regime could hardly pass as compassionate.
Likewise, Operation Downfall, a proposed mainland invasion of Japan, would have required 1.7 million American servicemen fighting up to 2.3 million Japanese troops—and possibly to the death, if Japanese resistance elsewhere was anything to go on.
As President Truman and his war cabinet weighed the decision of atomic warfare, also hanging in the balance were 100,000 prisoners of war whom the Japanese planned to execute the moment a ground invasion began. And with warfare continuing on multiple battlefronts across the Pacific theater, daily deaths on each side of the conflict were reaching into the tens of thousands.
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused well over 200,000 casualties with over 100,000 more injured.
The U.S. bombing of Japan was horrific. I have visited ground zero at Hiroshima and pondered long on the horror of that day.
It is true that American imperialism has a mixed legacy. And as the United States slides into spreading moral chaos at home, the nation’s involvement in conflicts abroad appears increasingly dubious. No doubt this consideration was central in Tucker’s rigid remarks.
Still, it is wrong to read today’s headlines into last century’s dilemmas. The decision of the United States to drop atomic bombs on Japan was eminently defensible, and we would be foolish to forget this.
No
5.56mm
Certainly he did, because the truth is often awful. No doubt about it.
Still, an extremely brave man that Gen. Patton was, he did not mince words in this regard.
He loved talking straight, he was not a politician nor a fussy booksmart “intellectual” who pussyfooted around issues.
He was a military man from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.
And he really had “balls of steel”. He took “feces” from no-one, not from his enemies, and not from his colleagues.
I admire him, and I doff my hat before his memory.
From Mission With LeMay, page 369:
Suppose that you are interviewing me now. Suppose that you ask, “If you had had the incendiary bombs in your stockpile, the ones you asked for and didn’t get, would you have flown more incendiary missions against Japanese targets, just as fast as you could mount them?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think those attacks would have been as effective as the first series which occurred in March?”
“Yes. Probably even more so. The destruction and demoralization in Japan was being rapidly accelerated. Had increased like cube root.”
“Do you think that by relying solely on incendiary attack, you could have knocked Japan out of the war, thus precluding any invasion of the Japanese homeland until after the collapse came?”
“Yes. I think it could have happened.”
“Then it would have been possible to force Japan out of the war, and thus end the conflict, without actually employing atomic weapons?”
“It might have been possible.”
I don’t want to be a Monday morning quarterback. Never did. I’ll say again: I think it might have been possible.
It depends what the goal of defeating Japan was. If it was the reason the US and British gave for cutting off their oil supplies before Pearl Harbor, i.e. end Japanese imperialism in Asia, that was already accomplished by forcing them back to their own island. If the goal was (for the first time in American history) unconditional surrender of an enemy, well unprecedented demands cause unprecedented resistance which could only be overcome with an unprecedented response.
An excellent examination of this topic (available from JSTOR):
Hiroshima and the Historians: History as Relative Truth, KENNETH B. PYLE, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly , Summer 2013, Vol. 104, No. 3 (Summer 2013), pp. 123-132
In hindsight, the fight between Japan and China was over who would control Asia.
Knowing what we know now, I would have much rather had the Japanese in charge than Communist China. China is doing their own version of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.
General LeMay sought to pursue the enemy and prosecute the war as best he could. LeMay was very much aware of the sacrifices made for all missions, and he would not make the atomic bomb missions to be more than an efficient use of available weapons.
Many of the commanders of Allied Forces had their own, individual opinions about, the willingness of Japan to surrender, plus the ability of Japan to surrender, the value of entreaties, the reliability of a variety of representatives, the reliability of communications channels, and their own impressions of the accumulated information available to the President.
Again, the order to use the atomic bombs, eventually resulted from the concern about limiting casualties.
That took priority over various commanders and other officials guestimates about, when the Japanese would surrender - something that nobody knew.
We are all fortunate that the atomic bombs were used at the end . . . instead of a beginning.
It’s a good example of the pitfalls of consequentialism. Nations (and people) think they need to choose between morality and consequences. But if they choose the latter they usually end up with neither.
Too bad that the Hamas leadership hasn’t realized that last quote yet...
As was EVERY advancement in weaponry power in the long (and endless) history of warfare.
Ok, but how DO you want to die in warfare?
...or at least WINNING.
Absolutely not. Saved at least a million lives.
2 Peter 3:9
Before we begin, Gentlemen, please arrange your armchairs in a circle...
And here we are today, with all 57 states agreeing that
there are more than 2 genders,
men can give birth,
Gazans just want to breathe free, from the ____ to the ___
...
I am right now in the first few pages of “Killing Patton”.
Good point about surrender. Since the United States in its entire history had never demanded that any enemy (not even King George III) “surrender unconditionally” they could not know what an enemy would do when backed into such a corner. But then maybe making that demand created the situation that (in your opinion) could only be resolved by the incineration of hundreds of thousands of non-combatant women and children (along with wiping out the center of Christianity in Japan)? I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
https://www.catholicarena.com/latest/2021/8/8/lubyxf9jdoqr8ms29oo755ia1wu2mw
Damage assessment was at its infancy during World War II. Before the Normandy invasion in June 1944, detailed and reliable ground information describing the extent of damage done to Germany’s industrial base by the combined allied bomber offensive was not generally available.
Strategic operations, such as the Schweinfurt raid of 1943, used aerial photographs to determine the effectiveness of its various bombing campaigns. "Bomb" damage was assessed in two distinct phases: preattack and postattack analysis. In preattack analysis, the function of an industrial system was established.
This analysis featured collaboration between photo-interpreters and industrial engineers, allowing for an appraisal of both the area and locations of the industrial system and the functional components of the system. This process was a precursor for any subsequent damage assessed against a particular target. The postattack analysis summarized the damage from the bombing strikes in a damage interpretation report.
From this report, options to reattack, feasibility of reattack, and the degree of production loss were assessed. The meager beginnings of a damage assessment cell called the Allied Central Interpretation Unit created the art and science of battle damage assessment.
The information available to the allies on the effect of bombing German industrial systems was derived primarily from aerial photography and supplemented with interrogations of prisoners of war (POWs), and friendly agents working behind enemy lines.
To justify the tremendous effort spent by the allies in both blood and treasure, and to validate the US Army Air Forces strategic bombing doctrine, on-the-spot investigation of the targets was required to assess the final results. The strategic bombing missions, by their very nature, were flown great distances behind enemy lines.
As a result, actual damage could not be verified by allied ground forces until after the territory had been captured, delaying the ground truth verification of the bombing by weeks, months, or even years.
Following Robert McNamara's 1940 - 1942 involvement at Harvard Business School - in a program to teach analytical approaches used in business to officers of the United States Army Air Forces - he entered the USAAF as a captain in early 1943, serving most of World War II with its Office of Statistical Control.
One of his major responsibilities was the analysis of U.S. bombers' efficiency and effectiveness, especially the B-29 forces commanded by Major General Curtis LeMay in India, China, and the Mariana Islands. McNamara established a statistical control unit for the XX Bomber Command.
The Unknown World War II in the Northern Pacific
Only vessels under Soviet flag, manned by Soviet crews, carried out the entire USSR-bound Pacific shipping. Just as it was stated in the Report of the People’s Commissariat of External Trade: “Soviet steamers, exclusively”.
There were no convoys. The vessels sailed across the ocean one by one without any escort, although many historians and officials still write about “Pacific convoys” in their publications.
In accordance with the Lend-Lease Agreement, American and Canadian shipyards performed repair work on the Soviet vessels. Some 30 Soviet fishing and factory ships of People’s Commissariat of Fishing Industry were repaired under this program, and always returned home with Lend-Lease cargo aboard.
During 1941–44, the Japanese Navy and Coast Guard stopped and detained Soviet transport ships 178 times for periods from several hours to several months. Submarines of the combatant states patrolled the area. The great sea battle of Komandorsky Islands took place near the routes of Soviet vessels.
A total of 23 Soviet ships were lost in the Pacific Ocean. Of those, nine were stranded on the rocks by storms, crushed by ice floes or blown in Soviet minefields. The remaining 14 were destroyed either by enemy action or friendly fire.
Heavy B-29 “Superfortress” bombers operated from the airfields of western China against military and industrial facilities in Manchuria and Japan. On July 29, 1944, one of them landed at the Soviet air base near Vozdvizhenka village in Primorye region.
Colonel (then-Major) Solomon Reidel of VVS, ferried the interned B-29 to Moscow. Under the personal order of Josef Stalin, the aircraft was fully disassembled and reverse-engineered into the Tu-4, the first Soviet long-range bomber with nuclear-carrying capacities. The work was performed under supervision of famous plane designer Andrey Tupolev.
Two other “Superfortresses” followed suit in November. Another battle-damaged B-29 crashed on the slopes of Sikhote-Alin mountain ridge. The crew bailed out over taiga, and wandered in the woods in separate groups for nearly a month. Eventually everyone was rescued by the combined efforts of crewmembers, local indigenous people and the VVS (Soviet Air Force).
All interned Americans were sent across Siberia to Uzbekistan, to a remote camp near Tashkent, which was established specifically for them. From there the NKVD staged four “escapes” of the internees across the border to Iran, then to the British occupation zone south of Tehran, and eventually to the USA. 291 American airmen returned home this way.
Vladivostok was Off Limits to all western allies during World War II. U.S. Naval Intelligence officers attempted to get to, and explore around, Vladivostok, but all failed at gathering (1 succeeded in getting to Vladivostok).
IMHO: Japanese transportation of raw materials from Korea to Japan, was effectively sheltered by Russian "neutrality" throughout all of World War II, until August 1945 - despite some successful U.S. Navy submarine operations in the Sea of Japan.
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Is there a part of the text you pasted in that’s relevant to something that someone said here on FR?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki both look far better then Detroit.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLs8yxTVAAAjgyP?format=jpg&name=small
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