Best thing we could have done to end things quickly with least lives lost on both sides.
There were also plans already underway to move something like 12,000 B-17s and B-24s of the 8th air force to Okinawa to conduct a bombing campaign of every inch of Japan.
It’s childish not to see that it shortened the war. Also the USSR got into the war in a big way in Manchuria. Had it dragged on 6 more months, they would have been in on a settlement and today we would probably have a North and South Japan.
But most of all Truman said he would not like to explain to the families of any US Soldier who died in the invasion why he had a devastating weapon and refused to use it.
Besides, the brutal Japanese became the nicest people on earth after that.
If anything Hiroshima and Nagasaki are fine arguments for dropping the bomb on Mecca, Medina some Monday. If the Iranians and Pakistanis say a single word about it, Islamabad and Tehran can be Tuesday.
Islam has been a pain in the western ass for 1000 years. They are asking for it bad.
Excellent!
Thank you!
What were the alternatives? A negotiated settlement with Japan? I guess a few (one?) of the more naive Japanese strategists entertained that fantasy, but that was never considered by the American side for a nanosecond. An invasion on the Japanese mainland would have killed hundreds of thousands of American military and, almost certainly, many more Japanese than were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman was right.
Great article. Thank you. Wish there was more on a Japanese atom bomb. It’s the first I heard of it.
Excellent!
This topic is of personal interest to me as my dad worked on the Manhattan Project.
Thank you for posting.
While stationed on Okinawa in the 1970’s, I visited a local shop and there purchased a most interesting relic of the war.
In the waning days of the war, steel was in short supply. The ever inventive Japanese turned to an ancient technology and began making hand grenade bodies from a very, very hard porcelain. These would be filled with explosive and a detonator and primer/fuse inserted. My grenade was, of course, empty.
Any invasion of the Home Islands would have been a long, protracted blood-bath. All the worst elements of WWI trench warfare and the caves of Mount Suribachi combined..., but fought by not only Japanese soldiers but also against women, children and old men. Nightmares for all concerned for a lifetime.
Let all the peace-niks go and lay commemorative wreaths at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Dropping the Bombs was the compassionate thing to do.
I just learned a couple years ago, that my uncle was a medic with the first wave of SeaBees to go into Hiroshima
After that he spent his life doing x-rays, owning his own lab
He lived well into his 70’s, but had 5 different cancers going when he died, but none of them likely came from his military service
To the left everyday is May Day a time for riots and violence.
Again? What’d they do this time?
If we hadn’t dropped the nukes I probably wouldn’t be sitting here because my father would likely have been killed during the invasion of Japan.
Like they have been doing for the past 20 years I have been on FR?
And all the years I lived before.
I had a french communist uncle and he told me, “it is not two, but TWO DOZEN BOMBS the Americans should have dropped on Japan! These evil worker exploiting monsters!”
THat was communists back then, on the right of some right wingers nowadays, not so much anymore.
No less an authority than Jon Stewart says we should have dropped them in the ocean and they’d have gotten the message. My takeaway: he’s an ecoterrorist who hates ocean life.
Can’t argue with success.
Years ago, probably during a radio interview or discussion, I heard the claim that there had been a translation error. I’ve now googled this and immediately found confirmation: “the Japanese responded [to the Potsdam Declaration] with the word ‘’mokusatsu,’’ which was intended to mean in context that they were reserving comment. The Allied Powers were mistakenly informed by inaccurate translators that ‘’mokusatsu’’ meant that the Japanese were ignoring it”. The result was the two atomic bombs. It has been described as “The worst translation mistake in history”. But I also found a claim that this mistranslation claim has been disputed.