Posted on 08/10/2013 6:09:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
That was a conclusion of the 1946 U.S. Bombing Survey ordered by President Harry Truman in the wake of World War II.
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said in 1963, “the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
That wasn’t merely hindsight. Eisenhower made the same argument in 1945. In his memoirs, Ike recalled a visit from War Secretary Henry Stimson:
I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”
Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief military advisor, wrote:
It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
I put a lot of weight on the assessments of the military leaders at the time and the contemporaneous commission that studied it. My colleague Michael Barone, who defends the bombing, has other sources — a historian and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan — that lead him to conclude Japan would not have surrendered.
This confusion is not surprising. For one thing, there’s what we call the “fog of war” — it’s really hard to know what’s happening currently in war, and it’s even harder to predict which way the war will break.
Second, more generally, there’s the imperfection of human knowledge. Humans are very limited in their ability to predict the future and to determine the consequences of their actions in complex situations like war.
So, if Barone wants to stick with Moynihan’s and the New Republic’s assessments of the war while I stick with the assessments of Gen. Eisenhower, Adm. Leahy, and Truman’s own commission, that’s fine. The question — would Japan have surrendered without our bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki? — can’t be answered with certainty today, nor could it have been answered in August 1945.
But this fog, this imperfect knowledge, ought to diminish the weight given to the consequentialist type of reasoning Barone employs — “Many, many more deaths, of Japanese as well as Americans, would have occurred if the atomic bombs had not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
We don’t know that. That’s a guess. We didn’t know that at the time. If Pres. Truman believed that, it was a prediction of the future — and a prediction that clashed with the predictions of the military leaders.
Given all this uncertainty, I would lend more weight to principle. One principle nearly everyone shares is this: it’s wrong to deliberately kill babies and innocent children. The same goes for Japanese women, elderly, disabled, and any other non-combatants. Even if you don’t hold this as an absolute principle, most people hold it as a pretty firm rule.
To justify the bombing, you need to scuttle this principle in exchange for consequentialist thinking. With a principle as strong as “don’t murder kids” I think you’d need a lot more certainty than Truman could have had.
I don’t think Truman’s decision was motivated by evil. I’ll even add that it was an understandable decision. But I think it was the wrong one.
Germans tried that at Leningrad, ultimately didn't work out for them, even though over a million Russians starved to death.
That’s fine! Rarely do folks see eye to eye with me. :) Have a nice day.
How can you say that “...the development was originally intended to be a deterrent for the Nazis” and at the same time say “No, they were never intended for use in Germany. “ (#105 in this thread)?
I cannot decide who’s sillier:
- Whimpers festooned with stale certitudes from the likes of Timothy Carney
- Ex-post-facto moralizing from the likes of SeekAndFind
- Cutesy pseudo-analysis, sly redefinitions, unjustifiable modernisms, and casual disregard of annoying details, courtesy of JCBreckenridge.
It’s always fascinating to hear from people who condemn decisions and actions that transpired three generations ago, in dire circumstances. I’m sure you feel very moral in so doing; to no one’s surprise, you believe doing so grants you special privilege to dictate to us lesser mortals. Perhaps you are not aware that it brands you as moral midgets; all the moreso, since you do it at a safe remove, in comfort and security. Which was won for you by the sacrifices and privations of others.
But all that is as nothing, compared to one single point you have gotten wrong: your perceptions are backwards. First, win the war. Then, worry about morality. Trying to reverse the order (which you plainly ache to do) runs the risk of losing the war. After that, all talk of morality stops.
Deterrent!= dropping the bomb on Germany. As a deterrent the bombs stay in America to prevent Germany from dropping their bombs on the US.
“condemn decisions”
Where exactly did I argue that dropping the atomic bomb was wrong? I simply stated that if the cause was to win the war, than dropping the atomic bombs were unnecessary. The war with Japan was already won before Trinity. The war with Japan was already won after the Battle of the Phillippine Sea. Japan knew it, and the US knew it. Japan no longer had a carrier force after the Battle of the Philippine sea, and were unable to conduct any offensive actions anywhere.
They also didn’t actually succeed in encircling Leningrad. They came very close to it (and cut the Moscow railroad, which was the source for most of the city’s supplies), but they did not encircle the city.
The US had encircled Japan by 1945. They already had an effective blockade up.
Perhaps we’re making too much of the moral magnitude of the use of the two atomic bombs.
The second thoughts of GEN Eisenhower and ADM Leahy can be attributed to nothing more consequential than interservice rivalry. As old-school Army and Navy officers, it irked them mightily that the irreverent upstarts in USAAF came out of nowhere and won WWII in all theaters. If any of you think that in WWII such sordid bureaucratic rivalries were set aside, I am pretty confident that you have a great deal yet to learn.
And their irking was as nothing compared to what descended on them two years later, when USAAF became a separate armed service.
USN officers grew so upset at that postwar outrage, that they spent the last few years of the 1940s skirting treason, divulging national security information to the idiot media. If any are curious, go look up “The Revolt of the Admirals”.
As for what Curtis LeMay said or didn’t say, I’m not impressed with quotes from the likes of SeekAndFind, or JCBreckenridge. They’ve proven too cavalier in their treatment of the situation, to deserve trust.
A number of senior USAAF officers voiced misgivings after Japan surrendered (Gen H.H. Arnold said similar things). And while I met Gen LeMay only once (and thus do not presume to speculate on what he did nor did not say or write), I have known dozens upon dozens of bomber crewmembers, from before WWII to the present day. I worked with a very large number of senior leaders. Quite a few of all ranks have confessed to a touch of moral disquietude, over what they did (or were under orders to do) - to the enemy.
Whatever their personal moral conclusions might have been, none can shed light on the strategic advisability of this or that course of action, that might or might not have been taken in 1945 (or at any other juncture).
If you are pleased to condemn the use of the atomic bombs, you are in effect saying that you prefer the deaths of American (and Allied) troops to the deaths of enemy troops. And civilians.
Is that what you want to say?
Why do you believe that saying so makes you a better person?
And, finally, can you provide any believable reasons as to why the rest of us ought thus to take you seriously?
How exactly would that have worked?
Would we have touched one off from a barge out in the North Sea just to prove we could, and then continue the grind through the Hurtgen Forest?
The Russians had General Winter on their side.
It’s hard to maintain an effective blockade/siege when the besieging force is being destroyed by starvation, disease, and freezing to death.
As has been amply demonstrated from Korea on.
What, as a deterrent?
Germany develops the bomb. They either keep it secret or announce it to the world.
The US would do as they did - publish shots at trinity demonstrating the yield and the capabilities.
Or they announce it to the world by using it.
How are they going to hit the US with an atomic weapon? They don’t have air supremacy anymore. They don’t have SLBMs, which are 15 years away from development.
They were working on a transatlantic bomber and escort fighter.
ME-354 and -355, if I recall correctly.
Their version of the B-36.
Don’t forget the Germans historically have been fairly inventive and good at building armaments.
By the Summer of 1944 (after Overlord), Germany had already rescinded flying their Heinkel HE 177 strategic bomber. The best bomber they had could fly 2k miles on a suicide mission with ordinance.
Ferry range is 3,480 miles. Brest to Boston is 3160 miles.
Little boy was 9700 pounds. Germany’s best bomber could carry 30k pounds fully loaded.
Combat radius was 957 miles. For a suicide one way mission, it would be 1914 miles. That would only get them 2/3rds of the way.
Just not possible for a German nuclear weapon strike on the United States with a strategic bomber in 1944.
If they had managed to invade and capture England, to say it would have dramatically changed the course of the war would be an understatement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_Bomber
They were, but again - they were far from developing it when the war ended. Not only would the Germans had to have developed an atomic bomb, they would have also had to develop a strategic bomber to carry it.
And that’s assuming a dolittle like raid.
If that’s what’s required then I think we’re well outside the realm of possibility.
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