The Atomic Bomb: It Was Always Right

This week Major Theodore Van Kirk, the last surviving Veteran of the Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, joined the rest of his comrades. His passing is a reminder of why using the atomic bomb was the right thing.

In August 1945 the Allied Powers, led by the United States, were at war with Imperial Japan in the latter days of World War II. Japan would not give up. For every ten thousand Japanese soldiers that were killed by the Allies only a minuscule amount gave up; usually in the single digits.

We were at war because Japan launched war, first against China in 1931, then with another sneak attack against China in 1937, and finally in December 1941 with sneak Japanese attacks against the US at Pearl Harbor and sneak attacks against the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in other areas of the Pacific.

It was during the war that the United States began to develop an atomic bomb, largely in response to the urging of Albert Einstein who warned President Roosevelt, in 1939, about Germany’s attempts to make an atomic weapon.

Japan was a tough enemy. Surrender was seen as more than even disgrace; it was a dishonor to the Japanese Emperor, who was the Japanese God. The Japanese were allies of the Nazis. Comparing the two, the Nazis were evil but also methodical. The Nazis were fanatical about only one thing; the elimination of the Jews, a practice they kept up to the literal ending of the war in Europe in May of 1945. The Germans were a tough enemy but they were, by World War II standards, in their military operations, somewhat practical especially when Hitler was ignored. Germans did surrender by the hundreds of thousands years before the war ended. This was not the case of Imperial Japan and in fact Japanese non surrender got worse the closer we got to the shores of Japan. The Japanese soldier was fighting not just for their buddy, their family, or their homeland; they were fighting for their God.

The United States was inching closer to Japan in early and mid-1945. The island campaigns of Okinawa and Iwo Jima, the latter an island of mere miles, resulted in tens of thousands of casualties. The Japanese began going beyond even fanatical resistance to suicidal resistance by crashing their planes into American ships. Even then there was no hope for Japan. American submarines had nearly run out of targets, having surrounded Japan, and were reduced to shelling fishing boats and even targets on land. American planes were firebombing Japanese cities into oblivion. Japan was alone and starvation was a realistic possibility but they would not give up. Japan would have to be invaded.

Operation Downfall was the code name for the invasion of Japan. It was to be the largest and deadliest military operation of all time. If you saw Saving Private Ryan, the first stage of the invasion of Japan, Operation Olympic, was projected to be twice as large and twice as bloody as the invasion of Europe on D Day. The second stage of the invasion of Japan, Operation Coronet, was to be almost three times as large as D day and with even greater casualties than the first phase of the invasion of Japan.

Unlike D Day, the topographic composition of Japan made the landing locations obvious. Japan knew where we were going to land and they were ready for this last stand. Even children were taught in the ways of the sword and the spear so they could kill at least one American before they too would die for their Emperor. This happened with Japanese children in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and throughout Japan.

To save American and Japanese lives and end the war, President Truman ordered the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Tens of thousands were instantly killed by the bomb dropped from the Enola Gay, the plane navigated by Maj. Van Kirk. The Japanese still did not surrender. Their military council was divided on surrendering. Three days later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki also killing tens of thousands. More would die of radiation poisoning in years ahead.

The war council still was divided on surrendering but some Japanese officers looked to end the war and asked the Emperor to use his divine authority to stop the killing. The Soviet Union had entered the war against Japan, American planes were destroying what little was left of other Japanese cities, and an American POW told his captors that the next atomic bomb would be dropped on Tokyo.

It took the personal intervention of the Emperor to end the war. Even after their God had intervened and said to the Army that the war must end, some Japanese were not ready to give up. A group of Army officers launched a failed coup against the Emperor, ostensibly to save their God from shame. After the coup failed the Emperor spoke on radio to tell his people to surrender. It was the first time the Japanese people had ever heard his voice. Many of the Japanese soldiers who did not get the word from the Emperor continued to fight in isolated Pacific pockets until the mid-1970’s, almost 30 years after the end of the war.

Any argument from leftist leadership that we should not have used the bombs, against this fanatical an enemy, shows why leftist leadership is not fit to teach our students.

The leftists are fools when it comes to the atomic bomb debate. They argue that the bomb was dropped because of Soviet entry into the war on Japan on August 9, the day Nagasaki was bombed. What the leftists conveniently leave out is that the bomb was shipped to the Pacific before the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan and that the United States asked the Soviet Union to enter the war against Japan.

Another common leftist argument is the bombs were dropped in quick succession in order to stop the Soviet Union from invading Northern Japan. This argument is laughable because the bombs were dropped three days apart and then Truman put a halt on further usage after August 9, leaving five days between the dropping of the second bomb and the end of the war.

Finally, leftists say how could you kill so many people? This is a typical argument from those who have never had to make such a decision as Truman did or other decisions of life and death. Truman was faced with kill now and hopefully end the war or have even more killed on both sides by not using the bomb. (Leftists apparently forget that even their beloved Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. Soviet lives were saved too by Truman.)

This is what leftism does; it plants seeds in people leading them to believe that America is somehow responsible for all the evils in the world, even when America has achieved victory and done well. They will even do it even with World War II, which no sane person can argue with our participation in. They are shameful and are a disgrace to the generation that made it through the Depression and fought, and won, World War II.

Knowing leftist emotion, if the bomb had not been used on Japan, and millions of American casualties occurred, along with tens of millions of Japanese casualties, the leftists would say that we should have used the bomb to alleviate the suffering of the war. Such as the argument of those who were protected by the Enola Gay.

Ask any living soldier from the Pacific, and those were ready to be shipped there from Europe and the USA, who is still alive whether they were happy the bomb was dropped they will respond with “Thank God the bomb was dropped.”

President Truman was an independent thinker and not a man to be pushed around. His desegregation of the armed forces and recognition of the new State of Israel were evidence of that. He was also a combat veteran. He knew the carnage of war and understood that hard decisions need to be made in war.

It will be interesting to see where the history books, backed by their common core allies and government employee teachers, go with teaching the atomic bomb in years ahead. Before all the Veterans of World War II had even begun to die in large numbers, the leftist jargon against usage of the bomb began. They have spared not even Truman, though Truman was a democrat, for their blind rage knows no bounds. It will get worse once all of the generation that made it through the Depression, and won the war, have passed away.

This is why we should, loudly and boldly, teach that it was right to drop the bomb and why. This is why we should honor the military service of Theodore Van Kirk and those who dropped the atomic bombs. They saved the lives of many of our readers, in America, Japan, and elsewhere.

To Major Theodore Van Kirk we say thank you. It was a tough mission, but you can rest well. You saved countless lives. Welcome home from your final mission. Your comrades are waiting.

B-29s limited their losses over Japan by their use of tactics, high altitude and night bombing. At altitude few Jap fighters could reach it and catch it as it was faster than the bombers in use in Europe. The losses reflected a campaign that only lasted ten months.

We kept seeing resistance from their air force and AA because we did not destroy them FIRST.

We allowed them runways, hangars, aircraft maintenance and supply, aircraft fuel, munitions, command and control. And so their air forces continued to operate.

Meanwhile, we carpted bombed from above their reach.

We chose to fight civilians instead of fighting military targets that were actually the main threat faced by our air force.

The idiotic "bomb their cities into submission" idea kept being floated around. When in reality - duh - the military will keep fighting if you bomb civilian targets and leave the military alone to fight. This is how wars drag out and civilian casualties increase dramatically. You know, when you spend most of your military effort attacking civilians and not so much attacking military targets.

But, if Secretary Stimson just relays the commands of the Rockefeller regime, and that's the sick war that they want, then that's what we do, destroy as much of the population and buildings of the enemy as possible.

On another note, combat losses were dwarfed by training losses and non-combat losses overseas. So while the thought of 5000 dive bombers a day sounds good, it isn't remotely feasible given the resources available. With no intel, there wouldn't be any targets.

That makes no sense at all - we had to carpet bomb civilians because we would have had too many training losses if we tried to field a force that actually attacked military targets ?

It was invasion or the bomb, anything else is a pipe dream. Again, how many flyers or other military personnel would you sacrifice to avoid using the bomb?

No, it could be neither. I'm not willing to sacrifice any unnecessarily. Why would you conduct an invasion without first conducting an air war to gain air supremecy and then destroy as much of the opposing ground force as possible beforehand ?

If there was no atomic bomb available, how many would you be willing to slaughter by sending them charging into hardened positions with only token support and practially no body armor ? IMHO, frontal assault into overlapping fields of fire with practically no cover or armor is nuts, but it does make for a lot of propaganda movies about dead heroes.

Think of how many P-51’s and dive bombers could have been manufactured if we never built any B-17’s or B-29’s.

So you do wish we had lost the war. What a stupid concept, to think that we had the intel and targeting capability to attack successfully individual targets. But what of the indiscriminate fragmentation? That could kill 'innocents' as well.

Dude, you don't think there was aerial reconnaissance in WWII ? We had B-29s overflying doing recon from 30,000 feet. We had various aerial recon equipment from all altitudes. You know that. You continue to try to convince that our military was "helpless" to oppose Japanese air defenses, when, according to my earlier post quote, which I doubt would be denied by any serious military historian, by April 1945 Japanese air defenses were pretty much defunct. That was without concentrating 100% effort against them. AA guns can be photographed from 30,000 ft and targeted for desctruction.

With what in WWII? Our satellites? AA was and is mobile, no ongoing intel/comm pictures a few hours old are useless considering the CEP of the weapon systems of that era.

Dude ! There are after action reports. "golly, there was AA on the west side of town by X. Ok, tomorrow we'll be sure to drop them a visit".

You act as if it is nuclear bomb or NOTHING. If there WAS NO nuclear bomb available, it would have been an invasion. I know that it contradicts your heroic atomic bomb dogma, but how many would you be willing to slaughter by sending them into a ground war - and leaving the Japanese air force happily operating because they are "off limits" ?

What are you, ten? You have all this regard for the civilians of Japan, but obviously none for American airmen. No way to communicate those positions for the 'second' strike. You have no concept of what WWII was about tactically, you continue to embarrass yourself for the sake of your Just War theory. Just argue that, leave aviation, targeting, intel, communications, and any other defense related topic off the table.

LOL, that's funny, you're a funny guy. So because I'm opposed to dropping an atomic bomb on civilians, suddenly now I must also be oppposed to a handful of civilians being killed unintentionally by bombs targeted at military targets !

Once one buys into the "atomic bomb saved us all" myth, one must cling to the idea that any and all other options would have destroyed America and lost the war, and we'd all be speaking Japanese today.

We kept seeing resistance from their air force and AA because we did not destroy them FIRST. We allowed them runways, hangars, aircraft maintenance and supply, aircraft fuel, munitions, command and control. And so their air forces continued to operate. Meanwhile, we carpted bombed from above their reach. We chose to fight civilians instead of fighting military targets that were actually the main threat faced by our air force.

There is no 'payback' for destroying an AA gun. Nothing to put on the + side of the ledger. Destroying the factory that makes them OTOH is a +. As for 'fighting civilians', dispering manufacuring through out the populated areas, wasn't our idea, it was the Japanese.

The idiotic "bomb their cities into submission" idea kept being floated around. When in reality - duh - the military will keep fighting if you bomb civilian targets and leave the military alone to fight.

Yet you espouse the same tactic of Douhet and transfer it to the military. It doesn't work on either. But it does salve your conscience. Armies moves, factories and cities don't. Only one class of these targets lended itself to the technology of the day. Your supposed real time intelligence and communications network, didn't exist at the time, and wouldn't for at least 40+ years.

That makes no sense at all - we had to carpet bomb civilians because we would have had too many training losses if we tried to field a force that actually attacked military targets ?

Not what I said. You posited 5000 dive bomber sorties daily. An impossibility. You want to fight the end of WWII with today's weapons and systems, when you have to fight it in a different way with what they had at the time. You have failed to do so. Your pie in the sky tactics and battle plan are twaddle. Both unrealistic in execution and impossible even in theory considering the resources available. You try and have the world shaped by the end of the war, instead of realizing that the beginning/middle of the war shaped the endstate. You want to act like the endstate was the norm and so fight based on the enemy capabilities at that point in time.

Why would you conduct an invasion without first conducting an air war to gain air supremecy and then destroy as much of the opposing ground force as possible beforehand ?

That's just what the planners did, realizing that air power was NOT going to attrite the Japanese armed forces enough to validate the time and momentum lost by delaying the invasion. Might more Allied men die as a result of this decision in the short term, yeah, but less than would die in the long term. War is Politics, and politics and mercy demanded an end to the conflict. Prolonging it would sentence our POWs to death, cause more men to not come home, and continue the disruption of the world's economy.

how many would you be willing to slaughter by sending them charging into hardened positions with only token support and practially no body armor ? IMHO, frontal assault into overlapping fields of fire with practically no cover or armor is nuts, but it does make for a lot of propaganda movies about dead heroes.

There would be no 'token' support. The full effects of the available weapons would be brought to bear. AFA body armor, the whole war was fought without it, another tech that wasn't possible or practical then. The hardened positions would be taken like they always had been up to that point, by hard men and valor. AFA 'frontal assaults' even then the Army and the Corps were about maneuver, if there is no room to maneuver, it doesn't mean we go home.

but it does make for a lot of propaganda movies about dead heroes.

Nothing misleading or biased about men under extreme conditions and duress performing valorously in battle. Sacrifice for ones brothers-in-arms is honorable, it isn't some cheap stunt like those on the Left perceive. Your method dishonors that commitment by condemning a segment of the armed forces to an idiotic pollyannaish perpetual battle with no strategic objectives solely for the purposes of your own morality or sensibilities.

It’s generally accepted dude. By April of 45 their air defenses were about useless.

If they had such “huge” armies, and sent them at our positions, they would have to form up into large units to have any effect.

They would then have been destroyed from the air.

We saw the pattern on the other islands.

They dig out tunnels and deep fortifications. They take potshots at you until you destroy them with shelling and fire. They set up multiple defensive lines and successively retreat, you have to keep fighting them until they get to their final fortifications, then you burn/bomb them out. They have no way to get food into those final fortifications. They are military combatants, it matters not according to any sort of moral rules of war if you starve them out, as they can surrender any time they please.

Japan was withering into nothing by April of 45.

Anything that moved would have been blasted.

Could it have cost a lot of American lives ? It would depend entirely on how needlessly aggressive a manner the ground war was conducted. If you send thousands of men into overlapping fields of fire of well-trained and fortified gun positions with no body armor, it would be a slaughter. If you take your time, knowing that your enemy is trapped on their own island and they have no relief possibly on the way, you can mop up a lot more safely than if you push your men to run into their guns and take positions with bloody frontal assaults.

Of course wikipedia quotes other sources, which you can look up and debate whether you like those sources. It is generally accepted, of course, ss of April 1945, Japan was withering fast, and the buildup forces readying for an invasion were simply an act of desperation. IMHO, if an invasion was simply postponed until 1946, and Japan was thoroughly blockaded for the winter of ‘45-’46, it would have “softened naturally” to a significant degree. It’s not like they were going to “get away”. This would also have allowed for all those months of continued war production and preparation for the invasion, and putting into service even more naval and air forces. I doubt that surrender would have even taken that long. But the final scene in the heroic movies would have to be Japan simply surrending instead of a climatic battle, or in the actual case, the atomic bombs. The real goal of the elites all along was putting nuclear weapons into active military service.

Dude, you don't think there was aerial reconnaissance in WWII ? We had B-29s overflying doing recon from 30,000 feet.

Photos 36+ hours old on a mobile asset? Yeah, recipe for success. You realize that they had to have hard copy of the photo? Couldn't just zoom it over on the computer. Once the Japs figured out an idiot was in charge of targeting and cities and factories by cities were off the list, those guns would disappear. Then you could search Kyushu Shikoku and Honshu with aerial photography from the 40's. This is getting painful.

Dude ! There are after action reports. "golly, there was AA on the west side of town by X. Ok, tomorrow we'll be sure to drop them a visit".

You act as if it is nuclear bomb or NOTHING. If there WAS NO nuclear bomb available, it would have been an invasion.

Hey dumski, those were the two options, and it was an atomic weapon, not a nuke. The other COAs like blockade etc including I'm sure some versions of your idiotic plan were considered and rejected.

I know that it contradicts your heroic atomic bomb dogma, but how many would you be willing to slaughter by sending them into a ground war - and leaving the Japanese air force happily operating because they are "off limits" ?

Yeah, that's my plan, Jap forces off limits. Casualty estimates for invasion were around a million Allied men. No force of the Japs was untouchable before or after. The Japs shepherded their resources for the invasion, they were ready to sacrifice their children in this battle.

LOL, that's funny, you're a funny guy. So because I'm opposed to dropping an atomic bomb on civilians, suddenly now I must also be oppposed to a handful of civilians being killed unintentionally by bombs targeted at military targets ! LOL, that's funny, you're a funny guy. So because I'm opposed to dropping an atomic bomb on civilians, suddenly now I must also be oppposed to a handful of civilians being killed unintentionally by bombs targeted at military targets !

Hiroshima and Nagasaki both had military and industrial targets in them. You are opposed to the deaths of the civilians there, what the hell is the difference when you could have 5000 a DAY in your plan? One on every sortie, in 4 months we exceed the toll of the bombs. I guess you just hate the idea that we did it all at once.

Once one buys into the "atomic bomb saved us all" myth, one must cling to the idea that any and all other options would have destroyed America and lost the war, and we'd all be speaking Japanese today.

No, once one doesn't drop the bomb for their morality's sake one has to take the credit for the lost million and their progeny. All of our POWs. The utter devastation of the Jap home islands, millions of civilian casualties, and a hardening of sentiment where forgiveness and healing could occur.

Why would you conduct an invasion without first conducting an air war to gain air supremecy and then destroy as much of the opposing ground force as possible beforehand ?

That's just what the planners did, realizing that air power was NOT going to attrite the Japanese armed forces enough to validate the time and momentum lost by delaying the invasion. Might more Allied men die as a result of this decision in the short term, yeah, but less than would die in the long term. War is Politics, and politics and mercy demanded an end to the conflict. Prolonging it would sentence our POWs to death, cause more men to not come home, and continue the disruption of the world's economy.

The air war was waged against whole cities, civilian targets. That is NOT softening military targets. That is allowing military building to continue. It is not mercy. Mercy towards civilians is attacking military targets. Firebombing whole cities is not mercy.

As an aside, my conscience is not bothered in least by any of this since I was not born yet. And also, I don't consider American sheeple at fault at all for any of this, since not one of them has any power over their financial elites. The blame falls squarely on the financial elites who started and directed the war and its aftermath for their own political power and financial gains as a "bonus". The ink was not dry on the surrender and the elites' United Nations was was being set up in San Francisco so the "horror" would not "happen again", when it was all the elites' doing all along.

There would be no 'token' support. The full effects of the available weapons would be brought to bear. AFA body armor, the whole war was fought without it, another tech that wasn't possible or practical then. The hardened positions would be taken like they always had been up to that point, by hard men and valor. AFA 'frontal assaults' even then the Army and the Corps were about maneuver, if there is no room to maneuver, it doesn't mean we go home.

There's no reason not to carpet bomb the fortifications ahead of time if you can. If you have air supremecy, you can carpet bomb at will. It's just not so glamorous to just walk up and find everything obliterated, as opposed to charging up at firing guns and half the guys getting killed. Always bomb the crap out of it first. Then, if there's anything left, go mop up. Better to have boring movies.

"Golly Higher HQ, you really are stupid if you think these things will still be there now that there is no reason to protect a point target. The Japs will camouflage these things, and now that our dummy CiC has us flying at 1500 feet, we won't be able to find them if they move them 300 meters. Course we can try again tomorrow and search based on the wreckage from today's flight."

We were sending over 800 b-29s at a clip.

So if you send in 2,000 dive bombers and ground attack planes outfitted with ground attack rockets to concentrate on one area...

a) they have radios and can communicate (no need for tin cans and string

b) they attack in groups, one ofter the other, not all at once

c) the groups can be not far behind, only minutes and they can talk on those radio thingies

d) I'd hate to be opposing hundreds of ground attack planes roving around attacking military targets; the gun camera footage from that era is pretty nasty looking from the defender's perspective

e) Amerian war production could keep on building even more and more and more planes and traing pilots by the thousands cuz Kansas, etc., were not harmed at all by the Japanese

f) wait, we need b-29s ! we need to carpet bomb cities from 30,000 feet ! That's the only option ! Sorry, the plane factory must allocate resources for b-29 manufacture. How else will we introduce sheeple humanity to the idea of "total war" ?

Hey dumski, those were the two options, and it was an atomic weapon, not a nuke. The other COAs like blockade etc including I'm sure some versions of your idiotic plan were considered and rejected.

War had to be completed by August, right. Fall TV schedule was at risk.

You're right, it was an atomic weapon. It matters to those folks on the ground, I need to get that right.

That is NOT softening military targets. That is allowing military building to continue. It is not mercy. Mercy towards civilians is attacking military targets. Firebombing whole cities is not mercy.

Again, targeting military forces on land requires intel that is near real time. Even more so when the accuracy of the systems is considered. Sinking ships bombing a known fort, no problem. Finding the military in a sea of civilians an impossibility at that time, and very time consuming today.

Mercy is ending the unrelenting suffering of war even when the means themselves are not merciful.

As an aside, my conscience is not bothered in least by any of this since I was not born yet.

What a surprise! Yet your stance never fails to denigrate the efforts of those who handed you your present.

There's no reason not to carpet bomb the fortifications ahead of time if you can. If you have air supremecy, you can carpet bomb at will. It's just not so glamorous to just walk up and find everything obliterated, as opposed to charging up at firing guns and half the guys getting killed. Always bomb the crap out of it first. Then, if there's anything left, go mop up. Better to have boring movies.

Your tactical acumen is breath-taking, where would these fleets of aircraft come from? How long between strikes? This plan of yours might take longer than your other stupid idea. Here the Japs are motivated because they can see and affect the members of the invading force. With your ridiculous bombing offensive Operation Milk Run there would only be the local morale boost.

Neither of the plans is decisive. Putting a force shore within range of enemy artillery that is bombed at best once a day, or sacrificing airmen while you search an area 3/4 the size of California at 200kts. There is always going to be 'something left' Douhet. What part of impervious to bomb and shell did you miss? Always! Every one of those positions would have to be rooted out, thousands of them. Hardly a 'boring movie'.

The goal of the war is to end it as soon as you can so that the killing could stop. The atomic bombs accomplished that.

Your analysis is flawed because it includes a justification that can only be applied retroactively. By your own admission, 125,000+ people were killed in the firebombing of Tokyo and 135,000+ people were killed in the firebombing of Dresden ... and yet neither one of these attacks brought about the end of the war. With that in mind, what would be the basis of anyone's determination that dropping atomic bombs on two smaller targets would do anything to bring about the end of the war any faster?

The other flaw in your argument is that it is based on the premise that the end justifies the means. One of the problems there is that this same rationale can be used to justify anything, if the intended result is achieved. By those standards, both the Khobar Towers attack in 1998 and the 9/11 attacks in 2001 must have been justified because they achieved Osama bin Laden's objective of removing U.S. military forces from Saudi Arabia.

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