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‘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

Posted on 08/10/2013 6:09:00 AM PDT by 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.


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: atomicbomb; hiroshima; japan; nagasaki; timothycarney; washingtonexaminer; worldwareleven; worldwartwo; wwii
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To: SeekAndFind

This is what I know.

My father was 22 years old in 1945, and a veteran of the then-very recent Battle of the Bulge. If not for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he would have ended up in the invasion of Japan, and would have likely been killed.

The Japanese were the aggressors and must shoulder the blame for the deaths of all those women and children; they truly reaped what they sowed.


101 posted on 08/10/2013 8:23:44 AM PDT by CatherineofAragon ((Support Christian white males----the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization).)
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To: blueunicorn6

Nanking, the Bataan death march, the Japanese torture of, and experimenting, on American POWs and others. I wish there were no collateral damages at anytime, but......I spent 18 months on Okinawa and did much site seeing. WOW I thank each and every military person involved with that battle. I say this with a clear conscience.


102 posted on 08/10/2013 8:24:19 AM PDT by Rannug ("God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware.")
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To: SkyDancer

No, they were never intended for use in Germany. Germany’s surrender was already inevitable by April 1st and the successful crossing of the Rhine. They completely collapsed just two weeks later. Hiroshima was 5+ months later.

Trinity wasn’t conducted until July, 4 months after the crossing of the Rhine.


103 posted on 08/10/2013 8:24:30 AM PDT by JCBreckenridge
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To: JoeProBono

My wife is from the Philippines...Her mother and father had many stories of the cruelty by the average Japanese soldier...Her father hid in the mountains and sometimes had to boil grass for food....He made a batch of it when she was a little girl and she said it was horrible...Her mother told him that the war is over and quit scaring the kids...kinda funny. ;)


104 posted on 08/10/2013 8:26:13 AM PDT by chasio649
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To: Wurlitzer

“As there will always be the blame America first crowd, aka the enemy within, this vomit is guaranteed to be regurgitated up every year.”

Again, I’m not quite sure what ‘blame America’ first has to do with it?

The question as to whether the Atomic bomb was necessary is not the same as whether the Atomic bomb was morally right or wrong.

I also don’t see how Eisenhower is less of an authority on the state of the war in August in 1945 than Truman. Eisenhower says that the war could have been won without it, then I side with Eisenhower.

I also don’t think that the US was morally wrong to drop the bomb - Japan declared war on the US, not the other way around. The US is entitled to use whatever means they see fit to win the war when it was American citizens who were attacked unprovoked at Pearl Harbour.


105 posted on 08/10/2013 8:28:14 AM PDT by JCBreckenridge
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To: Popman
It took a second bomb dropped on Nagasaki to get them to capitulate...

It took even more than that, the day Nagasaki was bombed, the Third Fleet was bombarding targets on Honshu, 5 days later 800 B-29s raided Japan, the Japs surrendered the next day.

106 posted on 08/10/2013 8:31:29 AM PDT by xone
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To: SeekAndFind
I’m no historian, and if anyone can refute the facts in this piece, please do — because the article seems to make the clear argument that the atomic bomb was inexcusable.

The 'clear argument' is no such thing. Japan did not accept the Potsdam Declaration until August 10, after both the atomic bombings. Even then, the Japanese could not bring themselves to negotiate directly with the United States, attempting to mediate through the Soviets until their invasion of Manchukuo on August 9.

While it is quite true to state that Truman's decision to drop the bomb was influenced in part to avoid the Soviet Union's entry into the Pacific War 90 days after the defeat of Germany as promised by Stalin, to avoid a potential change to the political landscape of East Asia. it also true that the Japanese War Cabinet did not accept the Potsdam Declaration until expressly ordered to do so by Hirohito. Even then, the Kyūjō Incident, an attempted coup, reflected the willingness of certain radicals to continue fighting even after the atomic bombings of two cities and the Soviet invasion of Japanese-controlled territory.

That said, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targets of military significance even in the destruction of 1945 Japan, and Hirohito himself noted the power of atomic weaponry in his 'endure the unendurable' surrender message. Clearly the American nuclear decision played a significant role in Hirohito's decision.

To other facts: Operation Downfall, which consisted of the planned invasion first of southern Japan (Operation Olympic, 1945) and the invasion of the Kantō plain near Tokyo (Operation Coronet, 1946) had a casualty estimate of at least one million, with the numbers rising depending on the extent to which Japanese civilians resisted the invasion. It is also important to note that the Japanese Army was still quite formidable even as late as the summer of 1945, holding huge swaths of occupied China and Manchuria.

The idea that somehow the Japanese would have simply stopped fighting despite increasingly fanatical resistance to Allied power projected across the Pacific is not borne out by any serious scholarly work of which I'm aware.

It is more than defensible to hold the position that without Hirohito's order to accept the Potsdam Declaration, the Japanese would have continued to fight.

The best work on video that I've seen about this issue is Part 25 of "The World at War", entitled simply "The Bomb". Excellent documentary television which features interviews with some of the key contemporaries of the day.

107 posted on 08/10/2013 8:34:08 AM PDT by Colonel_Flagg (Army dad. And damned proud.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Total Bullsh$t article!!!


108 posted on 08/10/2013 8:35:00 AM PDT by ontap (***)
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To: JCBreckenridge

It’s all in the book I mentioned. It was intended for Germany because the US thought the Germans had an active nuclear program. Even Japan had one as well. It’s not that the US had an active A-bomb at the time but the development was aimed at Germany first.


109 posted on 08/10/2013 8:35:50 AM PDT by SkyDancer (Live your life in such a way that the Westboro church will want to picket your funeral.)
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To: SeekAndFind

nothing like Monday night quarterbacking!


110 posted on 08/10/2013 8:35:50 AM PDT by Mr. K (Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics, and then Democrat Talking Points.)
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To: ConservativeMind
"We didn't target Tokyo, due to the desire to have Japan's leaders announce to the whole country that the war was over."

We didn't target Tokyo because 16 square miles of the heart of the city had already been incinerated by the most destructive bombing raid in history at that time.


Tokyo before and after firebombing raids

Hiroshima, Nagasaki and other cities had been spared bombing for the specific purpose of illustrating the before and after affect of the A-bomb.

111 posted on 08/10/2013 8:37:50 AM PDT by Rebelbase (Tagline: (optional, printed after your name on post))
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To: SeekAndFind
It wasn't the bomb, per se

Hiroshima was no worse than Dresden, or Hamburg.

The deliberate incineration of hundreds of thousands of women and children, whether in Germany OR Japan, has caused us to hesitate, when bold action is required, for the last 65 years, and THAT'S a problem.

112 posted on 08/10/2013 8:40:23 AM PDT by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Being “ready” to surrender and actually doing it are two different things. They were given an ultimatum and they chose not to surrender. They bet on the US to back down from the ultimatum, and they lost.


113 posted on 08/10/2013 8:42:31 AM PDT by JoeRed
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To: SeekAndFind

I disagree completely. The theory that the Japanese might have surrendered becomes meaningless in the face of what would have happened if they *hadn’t* surrendered.

An invasion force of 2,000,000 was needed to capture Japan, with insane loss of life of Americans and Japanese far in excess of the two bombs.

150,000–246,000+ were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

125,000 was the (low-balled) estimate of the dead in the firebombing of Tokyo “Operation Meetinghouse”, far more with the other bombing campaigns against the city. Unlikely with an estimated 1,000,000 wounded.

The Soviet Union also had the intent to demand half of Japan as it had part of Germany, Korea, and Vietnam. But the atomic bombs convinced them to back off.


114 posted on 08/10/2013 8:47:40 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Be Brave! Fear is just the opposite of Nar!)
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To: SkyDancer

“It was intended for Germany”

It was never intended at Germany. Trinity wasn’t until July of that year. Until Trinity they had no clue that the bomb would actually work - they had tested and failed.


115 posted on 08/10/2013 8:52:56 AM PDT by JCBreckenridge
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To: SeekAndFind

When one is attacked and being beaten to death then one has every right to use what ever means are at hand to end the conflict!
As the jury a few weeks ago said “Not Guilty!”.


116 posted on 08/10/2013 8:53:07 AM PDT by GOYAKLA (Waiting for the Golden Screw to be removed from Obama's navel and his a$$ falls off!)
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To: Colonel_Flagg

It’s also defensible to say, as Eisenhower did, that their defeat was inevitable. the blockade of Japan was already having a mammoth toll.


117 posted on 08/10/2013 8:56:19 AM PDT by JCBreckenridge
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To: SeekAndFind
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.

The worst kind of Monday Morning quarterbacking.

118 posted on 08/10/2013 8:58:00 AM PDT by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: JCBreckenridge

Indeed. Allied victory was actually inevitable from December 8, 1941.

However, Japanese civilians of the day were also being trained to defend their homes with bamboo spears. Defeat may have been inevitable but the means for achieving that defeat had yet to be found.

So how would it have happened? A blockade of Japan, with ensuing mass starvation? Invasion, to end the war and return America’s citizen soldiers to their regular lives at huge human cost? Or a way to end the war, however cruel it appeared, through projection of irrefutably awesome power?

That was Truman’s choice.


119 posted on 08/10/2013 9:00:12 AM PDT by Colonel_Flagg (Army dad. And damned proud.)
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To: JCBreckenridge
Trinity, Little Boy and Fat Man were not intended for Germany, but the R&D that went into their creation was....as well as for Japan. Had our progress in attaining a working weapon been quicker, Germany might even have been first to receive one.
120 posted on 08/10/2013 9:00:46 AM PDT by Roccus ("That day, Harry became my HERO!" [the late R. Smith -USMC WWII combat vet and my friend])
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