'My God What Have We Done'

Reuters ^ | Mar 28 2002

[2Trievers]

The Enola Gay co-pilot's log book recording the horror of having just dropped the first atomic bomb in war was the most chilling item on auction in a sale of U.S. historical documents.

The winning bid for Capt. Robert Lewis's log chronicling the "Little Boy" mission that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was $350,000.

"It is a uniquely important document," dealer Seth Kaller said about the Enola Gay log. "It's one of the greatest moments, but one of the most terrible, of the century. It's a terribly sad record. I think that affects the desire to own it."

[BluesDuke]

Believe me, I was engaging in no revisionism. If anything, my point kind of knits with yours. The casualties which you describe are precisely what might well have occurred and in far thicker volume had the land war on the main Japanese islands gone to such depth as I described was possible above (remember: this was - and probably remains - a people which counts its wars in decades, not years), prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Jeff Chandler]

Before you condemn our use of atomic weapons, study the history the Japanese defense of Okinowa. If you know anything about Japanese culture, you know what the losses incurred in an invasion of the mainland would have been. And don't start in with the nonsense about how they kinda, sorta surrendered, but we were too stupid to understand them. The Japanese are smart people and they know how to dick people around (I wonder if the Palestinians learned from them). Of course they were willing to surrender, just like Saddam in the Gulf War, only we weren't in the mood to be suckered back then. We wern't afraid to negotiate from a position of strength. As for the "experimenting" argument, we knew what the bombs would do.

[BluesDuke]

You wrote, "Not a one of us here would ever favour the loss of non-combatant life," but that's exactly what SentryoverAmerica advocates in #60.

I was writing and posting my words before SOA's appeared. One of the occasional hazards of FREEPing: you take some time to enunciate a thought, and while you do so someone else is putting up something which you are unaware might contradict a point you are working on making.

[Jeff Chandler]

You beat me to it..

[Lancey Howard]

Thank you for the correction on that. For some reason I thought Nagasaki was the 3rd target.

Semper fidelis,
LH

[TPartyType]

I reject your false dilemma. We should've given them a demonstration and an ultimatum. That would've been the humane thing to do, IMO.

Snuffing out so many lives in a flash is nothing to brag about. It may have been a necessary evil, but I doubt it. I think it was the climax of our worship of technology. Thereafter we started to ask ourselves, we CAN, but SHOULD we? That's a healthy question, IMO.

Just because something works doesn't make it right. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.

[Prodigal Daughter]

Of course they were willing to surrender, just like Saddam in the Gulf War, only we weren't in the mood to be suckered back then. We wern't afraid to negotiate from a position of strength.

[TPartyType]

Excellent page! I hope everyone here reads it. Might open an eye or two. General Douglas MacArthur? Say it ain't so! How could such an icon of Yankee might have reservations about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Hmmmm . . .

[okie01]

"...we wanted unconditional surrender. That concept was foreign to them, so they surrendered in a fashion consistent with saving face, but we rejected the overture and nuked them again. At least that's how I understand it."

Your understanding is faulty. According to John Toland's Rising Sun, an extensively researched history of WW II from the Japanese viewpoint, after Hiroshima, the Imperial Council could not agree on the advice to give the Emperor. It would have been necessary for somebody to admit they had failed in order for them to recommend surrender.

After Nagasaki, the Emperor took matters into his own hands and made an unprompted unilateral decision -- which was unprecedented.

Rising Sun is a fascinating book -- one that introduced me to the cultural divide that lay between Japan and the USA at the time. For example, the Japanese concept of war was somewhat akin to the American Indians' "counting coup". Many Japanese authorities actually believed that, after the brilliantly conceived and masterfully executed attack at Pearl Harbor, the US would immediately sue for peace. Et cetera

Point being: after Hiroshima, perhaps the Imperial Council would have eventually gotten around to accepting surrender...maybe. But it took Nagasaki to move them to action.

Your concern for non-combatants is laudable. But when confronted by a decision between the lives of enemy non-combatants and the lives of American troops, the President's first concern should be for the lives of Americans.

Hard choices require men of character. Truman had it.

[null and void]

As for the "experimenting" argument, we knew what the bombs would do.

I disagree, we thought it was just a bigger, better bomb.

Without the examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki we would have continued to think that. The psychological threshold for using them would be much lower. The US and Soviet union would have built inventories, and ultimately, used them on each other.

Thank God we knew better...

[Jeff Chandler]

O-kay...

[Jeff Chandler]

we thought it was just a bigger, better bomb

You're probably right. Maybe if we had actually tested one...

[TPartyType]

Re: your #83. Don't I know it, brother. This ain't the best medium for conducting civil arguments. I much prefer discussing these things at the local pub over a fine cigar and a glass of white zin!

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

War was prettier when the combatants operated under a strict code of war.

Do you understand what the Japanese were like in WWII?

[Prodigal Daughter]

He has a good summary page of what looks to be a well researched (note bibliography) website article: Was Hiroshima necessary?

[okie01]

"We should've given them a demonstration and an ultimatum."

You don't think the responsible parties didn't go through this at the time?

We had three bombs, two plutonium and one uranium. Any additional models were months away. The Trinity test confirmed that the plutonium variety actually worked. Now, we have two -- one of each.

You would waste one on a demonstration? What if the Japanese observers were, for some reason, unimpressed? Or thought it a hoax? Some people don't believe we actually landed on the moon, remember.

What if, by some happenstance, it didn't work?

Then what?

And why do you say I posed a false dilemma? Those were, in essence, the choices before the President. Recall he did not have the benefit of our hindsight.

[TPartyType]

Yes, and if we operate as you suggest we'll be almost indistinguishable from them.

Do you think we'd have been better off to nuke Kabul and Kandahar while the Taliban were still in power? Should we have engaged them in the field of battle and in caves, or taken them out, along with their supporters and civilians?

[2sheep]

from #66 above:

BRIGADIER GENERAL CARTER CLARKE
(The military intelligence officer in charge of preparing intercepted Japanese cables - the MAGIC summaries - for Truman and his advisors)

"...when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs."

Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 359

 66  posted on 3/28/02 9:10 PM Pacific by Prodigal Daughter

Ga 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

An army of a nation under the judgment of God doesn't win.  Consider Ai.