‘It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing’ --- Why dropping the A-Bombs was wrong

Washington Examiner ^ | 08/10/2013 | Timothy Carney

[SeekAndFind]

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

That was a conclusion of the 1946 U.S. Bombing Survey ordered by President Harry Truman in the wake of World War II.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said in 1963, “the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”

That wasn’t merely hindsight. Eisenhower made the same argument in 1945. In his memoirs, Ike recalled a visit from War Secretary Henry Stimson:

I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”

Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief military advisor, wrote:

It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

I put a lot of weight on the assessments of the military leaders at the time and the contemporaneous commission that studied it. My colleague Michael Barone, who defends the bombing, has other sources — a historian and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan — that lead him to conclude Japan would not have surrendered.

This confusion is not surprising. For one thing, there’s what we call the “fog of war” — it’s really hard to know what’s happening currently in war, and it’s even harder to predict which way the war will break.

Second, more generally, there’s the imperfection of human knowledge. Humans are very limited in their ability to predict the future and to determine the consequences of their actions in complex situations like war.

So, if Barone wants to stick with Moynihan’s and the New Republic’s assessments of the war while I stick with the assessments of Gen. Eisenhower, Adm. Leahy, and Truman’s own commission, that’s fine. The question — would Japan have surrendered without our bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki? — can’t be answered with certainty today, nor could it have been answered in August 1945.

But this fog, this imperfect knowledge, ought to diminish the weight given to the consequentialist type of reasoning Barone employs — “Many, many more deaths, of Japanese as well as Americans, would have occurred if the atomic bombs had not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

We don’t know that. That’s a guess. We didn’t know that at the time. If Pres. Truman believed that, it was a prediction of the future — and a prediction that clashed with the predictions of the military leaders.

Given all this uncertainty, I would lend more weight to principle. One principle nearly everyone shares is this: it’s wrong to deliberately kill babies and innocent children. The same goes for Japanese women, elderly, disabled, and any other non-combatants. Even if you don’t hold this as an absolute principle, most people hold it as a pretty firm rule.

To justify the bombing, you need to scuttle this principle in exchange for consequentialist thinking. With a principle as strong as “don’t murder kids” I think you’d need a lot more certainty than Truman could have had.

I don’t think Truman’s decision was motivated by evil. I’ll even add that it was an understandable decision. But I think it was the wrong one.

[Nip]

Why did General Lemay abandon a war winning strategy that worked so well in Europe?

If you go back and read the detailed histories of who was on Lemay’s staff at the time you will discover that an operational analyst recommended the changing of the bombing campaign. A non-warrior in a backwater staff slot with relatively little rank actually changed the course of the war.

That was Robert Strange McNamara’s first venture into making war fighting policies. Don’t get me started on his second.

[piroque]

It was wrong to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were manufacturing centers feed the military machine of Japan so how is that wrong that we put them out of business.

[RouxStir]

Let’s have the House of Representatives conduct a full investigation...that’ll take several years...at the end of which they will probably conclude that the US really lost the war and begin negotiating an immediate retroactive surrender.

[Flag_This]

"It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”"

Well, two atomic strikes illustrated emphatically, to all of Japan, that they had absolutely no alternative but surrender.

You're welcome.

[Twinkie]

You’re on a troop ship during WWII, headed for Japan. You are lined up with your fellow soldiers. Your commanding officer tells you, “Look to your right, look to your left; the man to your right and the one to your left is going to be killed in this pending invasion of Japan to which we’re headed. Every Jap, man, woman and child, is armed with whatever tool is at hand; and ordered by the Emperor to kill you when you land.” - Then they got the news the bomb had been dropped. - My dad was a combat veteran from battles in N. Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Germany; a hardened veteran who would have had to go and fight the Japs if it hadn’t ended. - He had already charged hell with a bucket of water; by that time, a bucket of fire was what was required.

[Trentamj]

Every August 9, for the last umpteen years, we have been treated to the impossible to prove and libelous charge that "Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary because the Japanese were 'ready' to surrender" trope. During August of 1945, Japan was governed by a military dictatorship, and even after two nuke hits, many military leaders were not deterred from fighting on, rightly-sensing that the US did not have very many of these weapons to whip-out right away; rather, they argued that the Americans were engaging in high-tech psy-ops on both the Emperor and the Japanese Cabinet. The Japanese military was not happy that the Emperor appeared to buckle in the face of (not so) cheap pyrotechnics, and at least one of the older officers committed seppuku out of both frustration and anger, while the younger officers staged an almost-successful coup to stop the Emperor's "It's time to bear the unbearable (and surrender)" first-time broadcast to the nation. If an NHK Radio producer had not well-hidden the recording of Hirohito's surrender broadcast, at least another half-million American and Japanese would all-too-likely have faced death and dismemberment during both Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet, especially since their plans included nuclear carpet-bombing of the invasion beaches.

[Oztrich Boy]

What if the Japanese had ignored the Aleutians and assigned those carriers for the second strike against Midway while their Fleet Carriers concentrated on screening against the US carriers?

What If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox?/a>

[Trentamj]

That's nuclear not "nuclear," so sorry!

[ThunderSleeps]

Hindsight is 20-20 as they say. The problem with this theory is that in 1945 our military intel people couldn’t sit down and interview Japanese leaders. There was a war on, remember? So what these Japanese leaders believed is completely irrelevant. Completely. The only thing that mattered was the intel we had, the beliefs we had based on years of hard fighting in the island hopping campaign to get there. That showed us the Japanese were incredibly hard fighters who did not give up. Admirable, and a bit daunting as an enemy. We had seen far too many kamikaze attacks, far too many garrisons fight literally to the last man. There was no reason to believe the Japanese would surrender, particularly when you realize they would be defending their home soil. If anything, there was good reason to expect them to fight harder, if that were possible. So yes, we hit them with weapons to demonstrate the utter futility of continuing, that we would be able to destroy them without incurring unacceptable losses ourselves.

[CodeToad]

Truman, a DEMOCRAT, ordered the bomb. FDR, a DEMOCRAT, started the war and made the bomb. Seems Democrats love war and killing people.

[Fightin Whitey]

Thank you for the Sherman post.

Good lord the idea of behaving more nicely in the time of all-out war in order to bring about a more gentle and considerate conclusion...what a bloody fff’ing crock.

Just this morning I was reading a review about a bio of the physicist Robert Oppenheimer, a major figure in the development of the A-bomb, a one-time Communist (as if you can ever leave the Party) and perpetual darling of the left.

The review recounted how the peerless “Oppy,” prior to his security clearances being aptly yanked, visited President Truman at the White House and pulled his usual whining, self-glorifying, oh-for-the-love-of-creation humanitarian act, straining mightily to impress upon Truman his deep misgivings about the Bomb.

Truman had him shown out and reportedly said, “I don’t ever want to see that son-of-a-bitch in this office again.”

From the present vantage Truman has much more in common with the Tea Party than with anything whatsoever about the Democrat Party.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Many American troops survived WWII because of “that awful thing!”

How many Americans would the author of this piece of drek love to see killed in an invasion just to ease HIS personal conscience.

More people were killed by the firebombing of Tokyo than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Also we’ve already seen how the Japs loved to kill civilians at places like Nanking.

As for IKE and GEN LeMay saying such bombing was not necessary, their butts were not in the landing boats that would be in the first wave going in for the invasion of the mainland.

[Flag_This]

"... that we would be able to destroy them without incurring unacceptable losses ourselves."

You know, that is a very good and often overlooked point: the only hope the Japanese had of "saving face" was through some sort of negotiated settlement and the ONLY way they could get there was by dramatically increasing American deaths, so we would seek an end to the fighting.

[rlmorel]

Bataan, Saipan, Peleliu, Okinawa and Iwo Jima were all good justification for dropping nuclear weapons.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

After years I think I have figured out the leftist angst over this.

100 bombers dropping 20 bombs each killing 100000 is ok.

1 bomber dropping 1 bomb and killing 100000is not ok.

It still ended the war and lots of GIs got to come home alive. THAT IS WHAT COUNTS, especially when you find your own father would have been in the front wave of such an invasion.

[stylin19a]

being ready to surrender and surrendering are 2 different things. We made them willing to surrender at any cost right now. There was no “we'll surrender if...” as was planned.
They surrendered under our terms, not theirs.

P.S. The US estimates that 142k civilians died in the battle for Okinawa -mostly targeted by the Japanese.

The crux of you question belabors “innocent” civilians targeted. Wearing a uniform makes things different ? Ask Joe Alexander

Next story will be, Grant shouldn't have unleashed William Tecumseh Sherman in the Savannah Campaign...A “total war” campaign being an atrocity.

[Moonman62]

So, if Barone wants to stick with Moynihan’s and the New Republic’s assessments of the war while I stick with the assessments of Gen. Eisenhower, Adm. Leahy, and Truman’s own commission, that’s fine. The question — would Japan have surrendered without our bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki? — can’t be answered with certainty today, nor could it have been answered in August 1945.

[righttackle44]

So, you wanted the war to continue for another year, six months. Children were starving--six more months of those conditions, and they would likely have been dead. All across the Japanese nation. Medicines were being manufactured and used primarily by the Japanese military at the expense of the civilian population.

Women and children were being trained and whipped up to a suicidal frenzy in hopes and belief that the Yamato spirit would prevail and these ersatz defenders of the nation would attack and kill white American soldiers. So how do you stop an attack of half-starved women or children charging Americans with sharpened sticks and family-owned katana after Americans have set foot on the mainland?

The fact is, Eisenhower, did not have command experience relative to the Japanese Empire, nor did he have any combat experience. He served for about two years in the Philippines under General MacArthur and was later given responsibility for drawing up war plans for defeating Japan in the event of war. As much experience that he had directing the war again the German armies, he himself never faced the likes of a Japanese suicidal charge--often called a banzai charge. That all seems to say that General Eisenhower was not qualified to judge the warfare of the United States of America on the Empire of Japan. We can all thank God and thank General Eisenhower for the warfare he conducted in Europe. But he never had to face the prospect of defending against fanatical military officers, and women and children.


Furthermore, the statements "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" is a complete fabrication, if not pure baloney. As late as the Japanese Imperial conferences in late July and August 1945, most of the general staff wanted to go on fighting. John Toland the historian tells of an incident in August (I believe) of two officers who went into use the lavatory facilities of Imperial Navy headquarters after they had come from the conference in which the Emperor had directly voiced his wishes that the war be concluded. (Rumors abounded in the Japanese military and among civilians, that a huge American Marine-naval-army force lay just over the horizon.) One of the two officers said that they should go after the force afloat and do whatever it would take the defeat the Americans. The other officer had to remind him of the Emperor's wishes. Further, after the Imperial conference, a squadron of suicide bombers left to attack American warships. So to conclude that there was a general consensus that a monolith of opinion that supported surrender, is a complete distortion and twisting of facts.

So, now. What was America supposed to do? Continue the blockade and force Japanese mothers to cook grass and weeds so their families could eat? Force Japanese civilians to give up medicines to the Japanese military? Or make the difficult decision that would be second-guessed by gutless critics decades later who likely were not even alive at the time of World War II, to drop the bomb and end the stranglehold of the Japanese military machine on the nation before the Japanese nation died under that stranglehold? To allow the war to continue at the expense of the American youth of that day?

The fact is, the Japanese military was not a very professional military. Toland and other continually tell stories of how individual Japanese military leaders, from Naval captains on up and down the chain of command, continually violated orders. Most or all of them saw the War as a way they could achieve immortality. Most or all of them wanted them to provoke that "one single, decisive battle" that Japanese military doctrine and thinking believed wins wars. They, generally, wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, so standing and direct orders were often ignored as the officers and leaders sought to glorify themselves--oh, for the honor and glory of the Emperor and the Empire, of course--in hopes of becoming a Japanese legend. In that milieu, many, most, or all of the Japanese officers were hoping to keep the War going for their own hopes and benefits. It would be a fine thing, after all, if a statue were cast to honor YOUR final battle--the one that won the war.

It would be horrible decision to have to make, to drop an atomic bomb. But America has, until now, risen to the difficult decisions and has not given into the brainless fabrications of facts and opinion of those who have tried, and are trying, to dishonor those whose responsibility it was to protect America.

I'm not an historian, either. But I think Carney's and SEEKANDFIND's opinions in this matter are simply nonsense.

[SkyDancer]

One reason was the amount of money spent on developing it. It was first planned to be used on Germany but they surrendered unexpectedly. Japan was still fighting even after the second bomb was dropped.

Two things: Dresden - what difference did it make wiping out a city with a few hundred bombers or one city with one plane. Secondly: Karma. Nagasaki was where the torpedoes used at Pearl Harbor were manufactured.

If Liberal's say that the response 9/11 was overkill, you could make the same argument for Pearl Harbor where fewer than 2,000 were killed.

Lastly - it was a different generation, different mores.

A good book to read on the subject is: The Making Of The Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes ISBN 0684813785

[VeniVidiVici]

Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief military advisor, wrote:

It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

Some advisor if the shoe salesman didn't listen to him.

Since 2001 we've been very careful not to target civilians in the ME. And we're still screwing around there and the tactic hasn't earned us one iota of goodwill from the rest of the world.

We fought WWII in four years. We are still in Afghanistan.

I rest my case.