Every August the Ghouls Come Out

From Sea to Shining Sea ^ | 8/08/05 | Purple Mountains

[PurpleMountains]

I have always despised authors who write books outing dead people who can’t defend themselves. I feel the same way about the books that come out every August castigating President Truman for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Once again, let’s review some facts. Truman was facing intelligence estimates that an invasion of Japan would cost a million American and many more than a million Japanese casualties. These estimates were based on known plans of Japanese defenders and the bloody results of the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Okinawa, a home island of Japan, resulted in more than 38,000 Americans wounded and 12,000 killed or missing, more than 107,000 Japanese and Okinawan soldiers killed, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians who perished in the battle. At Iwo Jima, just before Okinawa, 70,000 Americans went ashore and suffered 26,000 casualties and 6800 deaths. Virtually every one of the 22,000 Japanese defenders was killed. Far more casualties were recorded in these two battles than occurred at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Contrast these figures to what is going on in Iraq today.

[Fenris6]

The Lefties should be thankful it was Truman. Others wouldn't have offered terms of surrender.

[r9etb]

The real question, though is whether or not Japan would have surrendered without the bombings. It's actually not a clear-cut thing -- apparently the emperor was pushing for surrender by June of '45, but Hirohito and his pals wanted to hold out, and were planning to depose the emperor.

The bombs clearly did break that logjam, and very well may have ended up saving more lives than they took. The question is whether Hirohito's hold on things could have been broken without them before an invasion of Japan proper. It's hard to say, though I think they'd have tried to hold out for several more months.

IMO the bombs were horrible, but the likely alternative was far worse.