Posted on 08/06/2020 1:52:10 PM PDT by Pelham
Arthur T. Hadley said recently that those for whom the use of the A-bomb was “wrong” seem to be implying “that it would have been better to allow thousands on thousands of American and Japanese infantrymen to die in honest hand-to-hand combat on the beaches than to drop those two bombs.” People holding such views, he notes, “do not come from the ranks of society that produce infantrymen or pilots.”
And there’s an eloquence problem: most of those with firsthand experience of the war at its worst were not elaborately educated people. Relatively inarticulate, most have remained silent about what they know. That is, few of those destined to be blown to pieces if the main Japanese islands had been invaded went on to become our most effective men of letters or impressive ethical theorists or professors of contemporary history or of international law. The testimony of experience has tended to come from rough diamonds--James Jones’ is an example--who went through the war as enlisted men in the infantry or the Marine Corps.
Anticipating objections from those without such experience, in his book "WWII" Jones carefully prepares for his chapter on the A-bombs by detailing the plans already in motion for the infantry assaults on the home islands of Kyushu (thirteen divisions scheduled to land in November 1945) and ultimately Honshu (sixteen divisions scheduled for March 1946). Planners of the invasion assumed that it would require a full year, to November 1946, for the Japanese to be sufficiently worn down by land-combat attrition to surrender. By that time, one million American casualties was the expected price. Jones observes that the forthcoming invasion of Kyushu “was well into its collecting and stockpiling stages before the war ended.”
The timeline tells a different story.
Japan's Supreme Council certainly met to discuss surrender for the first time on August 9th, the date of the Nagasaki bombing, but deliberations were well underway that day by the time Nagasaki was bombed.
What DID happen that would compel the Supreme Council to meet? The Soviets declared war to the Japanese ambassador at about 1 AM local time that day and within an hour, Soviet forces moved on Manchuria.
My Dad was on an escort vehicle for amphibious attacks.
Without the Abomb this Freeper likely wouldn’t be here.
They were going through the Panama Canal, headed to the Pacific, when the war ended.
Your father may have been the one to give a ride to my grandfather. He was a 1st lieutenant in the 8th infantry regiment 2nd wave at Utah beach.
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