Posted on 08/02/2014 8:08:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
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.
Enemy civilian deaths not directly resulting from our military attacks are not our fault, in any sense of the word
But by co-locating civilians with legitimate targets we are responsible. I repeat myself, but you are an idiot.
“And Curtis Lemay isn’t even appropriate to include in a list like that”
Of course he belongs. Curtis LeMay was the USAAF four star who designed and implemented the strategic bombing campaign for the Pacific war. His goal was to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible, a goal shared with and approved by the rest of America’s WWII leadership. So if you intend to cast LeMay as a war criminal you’ll have to include every senior military officer and political leader of that era. Maybe that’s your intention, I just don’t know.
Japan had intentionally decentralized their war production into small shops spread out in urban areas to make them immune to precision bombing. American war planners had the choice of leaving Japanese war production untouched because it was intermixed with civilians, or bombing the cities in which they were hiding their production shops. It’s basically the same choice Israel is confronted with when Hamas hides weapons among civilians.
“Your faith in government is pretty remarkable, to begin with.”
Oh really? You read minds do you?
Of course what you really mean is that you don’t like it when your morally smug posturing gets taken to task and your weak knowledge of WWII history gets exposed for what it is.
This is quite correct. The Japanese were a proud and hard enemy for whom surrender was unthinkable. They even encouraged a mass suicide among the people of Okinawa, so the idea that large scale civilian deaths would move them to give up is something from fantasyland.
A former Imperial Japanese officer was a member of my dad’s class at the U.S. Army Staff and Commmand College in the mid 1950’s. This officer gave a presentation where he told the class that America’s strategy for winning the war had been correct.
He showed the class maps of the region where the American invasion force had been scheduled to land. As soon as you left the beaches it was all up and down, very mountainous and riddled with caves and tunnels. A dream for the defenders.
Japan had no intention of giving up. The culture was heavily influenced by Boshido where war is purifying and death a duty. It took something almost otherworldly to break their will to fight. And since Godzilla wasn’t around to help us the atomic bombs would have to do.
Well said. The best these guys can do is akin to past-posting at the track, you won, but you cheated, were immoral, unethical, etc. Thank God they weren't in charge. I've had enough pussies the last 6+ years.
” The President is CIC and directs the overall war strategy at the highest level. Generals follow orders.”
Know a lot of general officers do you?
The “Generals follow orders” part makes me think that you are a bit unfamiliar with the breed. Hollywood may like to portray American generals as men who obediently follow orders, but then Hollywood is largely populated by fools and leftists. You shouldn’t follow their example.
To be accurate you should have said something along the lines of “Generals are obliged to follow lawful orders and have a duty to disobey unlawful ones”, but even that doesn’t capture the world as it is.
One of the generals involved in this discussion is MacArthur. And MacArthur openly defied President Truman during Korea. If we are to believe your version of history MacArthur was too shy in 1945 to speak up when this same Truman and a bunch of Harvard eggheads were ordering him around. This is amusing in its naivete. MacArthur wasn’t convinced that God outranked him.
Another officer, this one senior even to MacArthur, was William Leahy. Leahy opposed dropping the atomic bombs, he thought it was immoral. If we are to believe you he was willing to openly condemn American strategy, but somehow neglected to mention the cabal of Ivy Leaguers responsible for ordering it.
There have been other senior military officers who have openly defied and openly criticized the Presidents they worked for. General Singlaub said that Carter’s Korea policy was going to lead to war. Admiral US Grant Sharp bashed Lyndon Johnson and his advisors during Vietnam. Admiral La Rocque spent the 1980s attacking Reagan.
You expect us to believe that the senior Generals and Admirals who dropped the bomb didn’t think it was necessary, but did it anyway because they were ordered to by an Ivy League cabal. And yet none of them ever bothered to mention it, except somehow you know about it.
Well I don’t have much use for Ivy Leaguers but I still say ‘prove it’. I don’t believe you have psychic powers so you are going to have to provide evidence. Show us the orders. Show us who gave them. Show us where these senior generals and admirals say that they were ordered by Truman and his advisors to drop the bombs against their better judgment. The closest you will ever come is Admiral Leahy’s objection to the bombs but he never claimed anyone forced the decision on his fellow officers. The story you are expecting us to accept is just conspiracy nonsense if you can’t cough up some evidence.
In full context, the quote from Lemay, "There are no innocent civilians," refers to officially declared "total war" -- WWII being the last example we've seen.
So remember first: nearly all those countries, including Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, had formally elected governments -- their citizens voted, at least in theory, for the leaders whose policies took them to war.
Voters were ultimately responsible.
Further, and more important, "total war" means exactly that -- the entire population was conscripted, or otherwise organized, for the war effort -- so there were no non-war related civilian activities, especially in population centers.
Therefore, it was literally impossible to bomb a city without hitting some military related targets.
That is why, when President Truman announced the A-bombing of Hiroshima, he called it "a military target".
In "total war", it certainly was, indeed was impossible not to be.
Today there is no "total war" anywhere on Earth -- indeed there are not even formally declared wars, that I can think of.
So today, all civilians are truly innocent, but that status changes if war is formally declared, perhaps explaining why countries are so reluctant to do it, these days.
PieterCasparzen: "When one says “there are no innocent civilians”, that rationalizes just going up and killing non-combatants en masse."
Indeed, that is precisely what the Axis powers did, from the war's beginning.
Remember, overall, the ratio was 16 Allied civilians killed for every one Axis civilian.
The Axis clearly understood that "total war" meant total participation by civilians, and so their destruction was considered necessary to victory.
By contrast, the Allies made some efforts -- within the limits of available technology -- to limit destruction to "military targets".
PieterCasparzen: "Aren’t we Americans against our innocent American civilians getting killed by our enemies during wartime ?"
Of course -- what a silly assertion.
But some American civilians were killed -- at Pearl Harbor, on the high seas and elsewhere -- along with many thousands of British, French, Dutch and millions of our allied Poles, Russians & Chinese.
In no case did we try Axis leaders after the war for "bombing civilians".
Necessities of "total war" were recognized by all.
PieterCasparzen: "Ok, now you cite chart of deaths, and America shows up as having zero civilian casualties."
That chart is incomplete. This charts shows about 12,000 US civilians died from war related causes.
Yes, a drop in the blood-bucket compared to other countries (i.e., millions of Russians & Chinese), but equivalent in today's population to nearly 30,000 or ten times the number of civilians killed on September 11, 2001.
PieterCasparzen: "And you cite that as justification for American planes firebombing civilians, I guess to make up for the “other Allies” civilian deaths.
I’m not a citizen of “Allied” or “the world”, I’m a citizen of the United States."
In both World Wars, the US did not fight anybody alone.
We were always a member of an allied coalition, with at least something in the way of joint command.
US forces always fought in coordinated partnership with our allies and sometimes even under allied commanders.
So you simply cannot speak as if there were separate, unconnected wars going on, between, for examples, the US versus Germany, or Britain vs. Italy.
None of that nonsense.
It was one war, with one set of allies -- the US, Britain, Soviets, Free French & Dutch, etc. -- against the Axis coalition of Germany, Italy, Japan, etc.
To think of it otherwise is to grossly misunderstand history.
PieterCasparzen: "17.5 million Allied deaths were in Communist China and the Communist USSR.
Slightly over 7 million were in Poland and Yugoslavia, two countries that for decades after the war were not American “allies”.
Technically during the war they were all 'allies'."
You said it, however reluctantly: they were absolutely our allies, and without them, especially Russia, the war could not have been won, period.
Now, I'm starting to think, that's just what you wish happened, and so are hoping to re-write history, to make it look different.
But facts, even historical facts, are stubborn things.
PieterCasparzen: "As far as which specific countries did the killing, I’m sure you’ll agree that the US and UK took the lead on those numbers, as aerial mass bombing and aerial firebombing leaders."
No, you misunderstand.
The leadership in mass firebombing of enemy civilians came from Axis powers Germany & Japan, early in the war.
In total, German bombing killed roughly as many Allied civilians (most in the East) as Allied bombing later killed of German civilians -- about half a million each.
In short, there was nothing Allies did to German civilians which Germans had not first done to Allied civilians.
And we should note a simple fact of history: while each side was engaged in maximum bombing of enemy cities, they were also winning the war.
As Germany began to lose, so did its bombing slack off, just as the winning Allies increased theirs.
My point is: WWII victory and bombing were inextricably linked, so if you deny one, you deny the other.
PieterCasparzen: "But let’s say that we have this disparity, the other side killed several times more civilians than “the Allies” did.
Aren’t we taught at a young age that just because the other person commits a crime, that does not justify our committing the same crime ?"
First of all, in that "total war" bombing cities was not considered a "war crime", there was no "international law" against it, and no leaders were tried for it afterwards.
Instead it was considered then necessary for victory.
Second, as General MacArthur said, in a different context, but certainly reflecting WWII attitudes, "there is no substitute for victory."
You may remember that President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill in 1943 set their terms for peace as, "Unconditional Surrender".
For men like Adolf Hitler, it was victory or death.
PieterCasparzen: "...why would they not prosecute the enemy leadership for their war crimes of ordering civilian killings ?
I mean, we could have prosecuted them and not our leadership, and said our killings were of “military necessity”, so they would not be prosecuted."
Obviously, you are confused & disoriented.
Throughout mankind's history, war itself has been considered not only necessary, on occasion, but noble & even glorious.
Humans have always treated our war-heroes with the greatest of respect & admiration, even in, or especially in the United States.
And war's "dark side" has not always been even acknowledged, but sometimes glorified.
On thinks of the total destruction of Jericho, or Romans said to "make a wasteland and call it peace".
So mass destruction is not a modern invention.
But it is often frowned upon, and in recent centuries rules made against it -- Marquess of Queensberry Rules of "good sportsmanship", so to speak.
Such rules, often ignored during a war, were sometimes remembered by the victors after it -- "victors' justice", it's been called.
My point here again, as I've said now several times: neither side in WWII considered "bombing cities" a "war crime", all sides did it, all thought it necessary for victory, and nobody was punished afterwards for it.
Which part of that do you not yet "get"?
PieterCasparzen: "The elites who make these decisions don’t seem too eager ever to actually do right by "the masses", even though that is whose interests they profess to have at heart.
"The masses" were the ones on the receiving end of the mass killings; no one much calls them heroes.
They’re just part of the 20th century mechanized warfare nameless faceless masses who fell as intentional targets based on their residence."
All your faux tears for "the masses" tells me that either America's public education has sunk to new lows even I never imagined, or you were educated in some Bolshevik dominated institution.
Americans don't think or talk that way, FRiend, especially not conservatives.
Why do you?
In America, we didn't have faceless "masses" or "classes", we had citizens, individuals, voters, responsible for selecting their leaders, and holding them to account on good behavior.
Duties of citizenship included jury duty and military service, as required.
Citizens are responsible for their government, and it is accountable to them -- that's the way our Founders intended it, and it's how most Americans have tried to live.
To Americans, all this Bolshevik-Communist talk about "masses" and "classes" is corrupt and corrupting to the core, and we don't like it, even a little bit.
So why do you?
Public opinion polls before & during WWII showed that Americans overwhelmingly hated Europe's wars and didn't want to get dragged in, but once attacked just as overwhelmingly supported the President's call for Declarations of War and Unconditional Surrender of the Axis powers.
What you call faceless "masses", I call responsible citizens who elect leaders to do the right thing, and trust (or at least hope) that our Constitutional system will keep things right.
Americans have many doubts about our leaders, both before and after WWII, but nearly all still agree that we were not mislead into the war, and that our "Greatest Generation" gave us the best results we could expect from it.
Unlike many wars, there is very little ambiguity in the minds of Americans about WWII.
It was "the good war".
PieterCasparzen: "Would George Washington condone the firebombing of a city ?"
Certainly not American cities.
The US declaration of independence accuses the King of England of:
Of course there's no way Washington would commit such acts on his fellow Americans.
Our Founders did, however, drive tens of thousands of loyalists out of their homes, forcing them to emigrate, most to Canada, at no doubt, considerable financial loss.
So our Founders were as hard-nosed as they needed to be.
PieterCasparzen: "Killing more Axis civilians does nothing to right the wrong of killing so many Allied civilians.
Neither sides’ civilian dead are really paid any honor.
Everyone from the leftist history professor to Hitler himself seems to say “they got what they deserved”.
Thanks, new world order !"
You don't seem to "get" that the highest order objectives of people like President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill were to not only 1) "win the war" but to 2) defeat Germany so thoroughly, so completely, that they would never, ever, think of starting another one.
That was the legacy of the First World War -- Wilson's 14 Points, "peace without victory", left Germany feeling undefeated and cheated of victory which was almost, almost theirs.
Allied leaders in the Second World War intended to make certain that could not happen again.
In their minds, bombing enemy civilians was necessary not only to win the present war, but also to prevent future wars.
PieterCasparzen: "After we “think” about this for a while (and no one has to respond), which way are we going to make our moral stand on this issue ?
Is it morality that depends upon the situation and we’ll decide situation as it arises ?"
My opinion is that you are confused, disoriented and unable to think clearly about a subject which is difficult at best, but not impossible, if you know the real history.
Fortunately for you, Free Republic provides many, many history related threads, all at a very reasonable cost in your voluntary donations...
;-)
Thanks so much for sharing your & your Dad's experience.
My Dad was part of the invasion force which did land on those Japanese beaches, in September 1945.
On coming ashore they were met, not by suicidal fanatics determined to kill as many Americans as possible, but rather by Japanese children, holding flowers.
Our guys were treated with respect by the Japanese, and returned the same.
We tried to do right by them, and I don't we did so badly.
Japanese were courageous beyond all measure in war, honorable to a fault in peace, we could not have better allies today.
Nothing you responded with refutes anything I wrote.
Everything you wrote is nonsense, so I provided you with reason & facts to improve you understandings.
Sorry if it all flew over your head.
I "get" that your education was deeply flawed.
Really, stick with Free Republic.
We'll straighten you out... eventually. ;-)
But when it comes to the enemy and their people, in order to win you have to kill them. The equation is that killing more of them means you have fewer of your own killed. So that is what you do. Moral positions take a back seat. Period.
War is a nasty, ugly and brutal business. It always has been and will always be so. The idea that we can control, contain or manage the violence is a modern fallacy, and is simply unrealistic.”
As Dutch Van Kirk, the last surviving member of the Enola Gay who died this week, said, “It's really hard to talk about morality and war in the same sentence.”
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