Posted on 08/02/2014 8:08:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
“Of course not. Japan wasn’t in a position to carry out any serious military threats against the U.S. by the time August of 1945 rolled around. “
Well let’s see- we had George Marshall, Chester Nimitz, Douglas MacArthur, Hap Arnold, Curtis LeMay, not to mention Harry Truman, all of whom had access to what was known about the threat posed by the Japanese military in 1945, versus the military expertise of Albert’s Child.
It’s a tough choice. How will I ever figure out who knows more about the situation in August 1945...
“In 1945 Japan was kaput, it was over. No navy = no support for ground troops. The whole “empire” was all separated by ocean. No navy = impotent.”
Really? And why exactly didn’t the American military understand this? Maybe they didn’t have your expertise?
Quoting from your own entry:
” [W]e can not hope to judge such matters unless we ourselves have been submitted to the same pressures, the same provocations, as these men, whose actions are on trial.”
It is obvious that you have never been in a position of making a decision anywhere near like those which had to be made in WWII.
“Take your time,”
We didn’t have ‘time’.
Japan was a net importer of food. Starve they would.
Different gear, different era.
Never had that supremacy over Japan. The enemy always gets a say in strategy. The ground forces would have been protected, the Japs would have went after the fleet, which we would have protected. Just like Okinawa, but now the Japs had a shorter distance to fly. How many Americans would you have sacrificed to not use the bomb?
Several years ago, I had the honor of meeting Brig Gen (ret) Paul Tibbets and got his book signed. I believe that some of the other members of his crew were there, too.
I was able to convey my “thanks” to General Tibbets, especially on behalf of my great uncle (now deceased) who was taken and held as a POW in Japan as a 19-year old Marine. Since then, I located post war testimony on the internet where he and others endured beatings lasting 8 hours or more with shovels and leather belts inflicted by their captors along with other maltreatment. Testimony was given by those who were marched off to work details in the morning and returned in the evening and witnessed and spoke of those that they saw this being done to.
It was the right decision then and the right decision now . . . rest in peace, Major Theodore Van Kirk. Your mission on Earth is completed.
“What do you think we did on the Continent?
There was AA all over and Luftwaffe all over.”
This would be news to my 94 yr old father. The anti-aircraft battalion he belonged to spent their time on the Continent firing at German infantry and armor because there wasn’t any Luftwaffe to keep them occupied. There had been some Luftwaffe raids when they were on Sicily and Corsica but not much on the Continent.
You don’t see film footage of Luftwaffe attacks on American military columns in France or Germany. You don’t see any portrayed in films like Private Ryan or Band of Brothers. The Luftwaffe spent its resources trying to keep our bombers out of Germany. They did very little in the way of ground support.
Oddly, I knew his daughter in college.
“???”
Russia ...
Just because they had no way to win doesn’t mean they were going to surrender. They made us basically commit genocide on Okinawa, and they were prepared to do the same for the homeland. Ready to fight with every single person, they put up posters teaching their people how to build small bombs, make them look like swaddled injured babies, then use them to blow up American GIs. They were then supposed to take the GI’s weapons. The nukes were to show them that if they were going to force us to kill them all we were going to do it from the air and not lose our own people.
Not so much.
I can't find direct numbers, but a little bit of math can still get us there...
In 1943, Japan proper had about 73 million citizens, and imported the equivalent of 2 million tons of rice.
That sounds like a lot, right?
But 73 million active people would eat the equivalent of nearly 50 million tons per year, meaning imports supplied only 4% of their needs.
The rest must come from Japan's home grown production.
The loss of two million tons of imported rice would equate to roughly 100 calories per person per day.
So the Japanese would not starve, period.
They had to be defeated, and the only choice other than A-bomb was invasion.
Given their fanatical resistance, invasion would cost hundreds of thousands of Americans plus millions of Japanese.
So our A-bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were simply the most merciful way possible to end the war, quickly.
Like you said, “...I have yet to see...” How nice for you, an aerie of smug discernment, written large- in the aftermath, of your unbounded freedom from inhuman ideologies. You gave nothing, and received the gift of Freedom. Someday, you will experience “basic” gratitude.
“No, they had orders from the top that were very much affected by top Presidential advisors.”
Feel free to name these advisors. And give us the evidence of these orders that were given to senior military officers. Otherwise you are just dealing in conspiracy nonsense that makes claims but never produces anything to back it up.
Anyone who believes that Douglas MacArthur quietly took orders knows little about that man’s life. He wouldn’t even take orders from Harry Truman which is why he was fired during the Korean War. And he wasn’t the slightest bit shy about saying exactly what he thought.
More evidence against your claim are the comments of Admiral William Leahy. Leahy was the most senior active American military officer in WWII, ahead of Marshall, MacArthur, King, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Halsey, the whole bunch. And he happened to think that using the atomic bomb on Japan was wrong, and said that the blockade and conventional bombing were enough to end the war. He makes no mention of others sharing his view, or of this view being suppressed by some unnamed advisors who you believe were in a position to overrule America’s senior military staff in the middle of a major war.
One of the things that, curiously I suppose, receives scant attention in discussions like this is what the Japanese Army on the continent was continuing to do to civilian populations; specifically the Chinese civilian population. The casualty numbers show that Chinese civilian casualties would have quickly exceeded, no, eclipsed those of the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had the war continued.
Of course it could be argued that the Chinese had the population to be able to absorb those kinds of losses ...
Also unmentioned is the loss of life, both military and civilian, once the Soviet Red Army tore through the Japanese army on the mainland. The longterm impact to the Japanese population from the loss of so many more young males (on to of those already lost) would be of significant magnitude and would stretch across generations.
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