Possibly the greatest humanitarian act is history. Saved over a million lives. Mostly Japanese.
Also saved Japan from a civil war, as the Soviets would have occupied their share, as was the case in Korea.
Precisely. My Dad was a Chief on the carrier Ticonderoga steaming for the Japanese islands when the bomb was dropped. Navy personnel were being converted to infantry. Being a big stout guy, he had already been told he would be carrying a BAR. That decision is probably why I am alive today.
Anyone who says they were unjustified should put themselves in the boots of the soldiers who would have had to storm the beaches of Japan. We already saw how the Japanese would fight to the last man during our island hopping campaign. There would have been millions of Japanese civilians killed since Japan made civilians part of their defense force. I would guess we saved 500,000 American lives and at least 5 million Japanese lives by dropping the two bombs. The American lives alone made it worthwhile.
Indeed.
My Grandfather, at 36, was told to leave the jungle in the Phillipines and report with his platoon to Manilla harbor. There, all of their existing uniforms and tents were burned, and they were issued new materials. Then, he loaded a transport for the invasion of Japan. They were aboard ship, ready to go, when he was informed that he would be in the first wave. He wrote a goodbye note to his wife and children. They dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, and they stayed on ship until the second bomb. The Japanese surrendered, and they disembarked from the harbor. He was sent back into the interior of Luzon.
He told me that the Atomic bomb saved likely 500,000 American lives, and probably the Japanese completely. He had no doubt that it would have been like Phillipines or Okinawa.
At the time the invasion of Japan was estimated to cause between 400÷800k American deaths with somewhere between 1.7m and 4m casualties. The Japanese were expected to have 10mor so deaths since surrender wasn’t an acceptable decision for the Japanese since it would have been dishonorable. My dad was scheduled for the 8nvasion of the Japanese homeland with the SeaBees and he told me that he hadn’t expected to survive. Result would be that neither my brother or I would have been born
The Japanese were not getting ready to surrender. It did save millions of lives both the American and Japanese.