and here is something for the antiwar people.
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Another August passes, marked by the ever-fading observance of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
A society largely loathe to question the continued embargo of Iraq or the conduct of NATO's bombing campaign over Yugoslavia is generally content to live with comforting myths masking the events that unfolded 54 years ago this month.
Most citizens of countries which pride themselves as defenders of democracy and liberty are naturally reluctant to believe the nuclear incineration of two cities would have been conducted for anything but the noblest of reasons.
The myth Fatman and Littleboy were dropped to save the lives of a half-million Allied soldiers -- a number that's been routinely inflated to one and two million -- dies hard.
In fact, U.S. President Harry Truman was assured by his joint chiefs of staff that an invasion of Japan would entail casualties of less than 40,000 killed, wounded and missing.
By landing on the Japanese Island of Kyushu, the Allies would be able to avoid the costly frontal attacks so bloodily necessary on Okinawa, Truman was told.
Certainly 40,000 killed and injured would still be a dear price to pay, but many top U.S. military leaders at the time even doubted the need for invading Japan.
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey reported a battered Japan would have surrendered by the end of 1945 without the use of atomic bombs or even the threat or contemplation of an invasion.
So overwhelming was the superiority of the Allied conventional strategic bombing forces and so devastating their results that Japan -- then stripped of its naval and air capabilities -- was already firmly on its knees.
In his highly illuminating book Hiroshima, University of California historian Dr. Ronald Takaki reveals Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's opposition to nuking Japanese cities.
Japan was "already defeated," Eisenhower wrote U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, adding the bombing "was no longer mandatory in the saving of American lives."
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who symbolized more than any other leader the crushing of Japanese military might, was horrified at news of the Hiroshima bombing.
Upon hearing of the city's fiery end, MacArthur was reported by his personal pilot to have plunged into a mood of deep depression, then livid anger.
Japan was "already beaten" MacArthur insisted, as did U.S. Chief of Staff Adm. William D. Leahy.
Even an invasion of the home islands, concluded Leahy, was unnecessary in concluding the war against a Japan that had already sustained more than 300,000 civilian deaths from conventional bombing.
The atomic bombings ultimately added about the same number of civilian fatalities to the casualty lists.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated to test, in realistic conditions -- the effects of nuclear weapons.
With such a monumental expense incurred by the Manhattan Project, the rush was on to deploy the weapons before war's end.
Their use was also designed to prove to an increasingly bellicose Soviet Union the power at Washington's disposal.
A project that had begun with the valid intention of deterrence in the face of Nazi Germany's nuclear weapons program ended in the dubious military incineration of thousands.
In a world still fraught with the use of military muscle in our name, August 1945 should serve as a reminder those powers can be hideously abused -- even by "righteous" nations.
Certainly 40,000 killed and injured would still be a dear price to pay, but many top U.S. military leaders at the time even doubted the need for invading Japan.
Yes, lets not finish any war at all. Lets, rush in and kill as much as we can and stop short. Lets, let the real problem come around in history again. Then the interantional money funds and the Swiss can make the big bucks on funding both sides. Have you lost you mind?
the droping of the bomb on two cities, brought home two uncles and my father from certain death as the japs were fighting to the death in a loseing battle. it stoped a evil government in its tracks. they surrendered, and saved thousands of american lives.
so tell bill kauffman to take his sorry liberal ass and go to russia if he hates this country so much. I feel sorry for the civilians involved. but tough shit better them than us. and it has made the worlds maniacs safer to deal with, the fear of certain death does that. it deters insanity.
This fellow needs to talk to some of the guys that were on Okinawa and were in the process of getting ready for the invasion of the home islands to find out just what the prospect of 40,000 dead G.I.s meant to them.
I also doubt that Eisenhower was ever consulted or even aware of the Manhatten project. MacArthur was in the Pacific, and he never knew about it till after the fact.
A few other points to consider.
1. The Japanese made it known that approx. 100,000 allied POWs would be killed when the home islands were invaded.
2. Conventional fire bombings of Tokyo (not to mention Dresden) killed more civilians than either Nuke did. Another 6 months would have killed many more civilians.
3. Given another 6 months, Stalin would have been fully involved in Asia, and post war Japan would have ended up particianed just like post-War Germany.
4. If it became known that Truman could have saved 40,000 American lives and ended the war sooner, but chose not to, he would have been impeached, and likely hung from the nearest lamp post by mothers who lost their sons in an unnecessary invasion.
I am sick of all the post modern moralizing on this question. Truman made the only choice he had. It was an ugly one, but so was the entire war. And as I recall, the Japanese started it.
Assuming that Mr. Kaufman's numbers are corect, ('cause he ain't provided one source for either the numbers or the quotes that can be checked) I am left with the opinion that 40,000 American lives don't mean doodly squat to a Canadian.
Well, Mr Kaufman, they mean a hell of a lot to me!!!! Stop playing armchair statesman you pompus son of a bitch!
Clive....You're a big fat idiot.
I'll bet this commie Canadian jerk wasn't even born when we dropped those two bombs.
If China attacks Taiwan We should unleash our necular arsenal on China immediatly and do what Mac Arthur wanted to do origionally that he was fired for by Truman.
And so was Germany already defeated. Yet they fought to the bitter end in the streets of Berlin. The Japaneese fought to the bitter end in the various pacific islands groups, some not giving up until 30 years after the war was over. There is no evidence whatever that a Japaneese surrender was imminent, or even likely. In fact, Japaneese civilians were armed with spears to attack the American invaders on the Kendo plain. Lets lookat history the way it happened, not the way you wished it had happened.
BULL-- As a person on a ship loaded wit troops and supplies headed to Okinawa for the upcoming invasion of Japan, This is some of the biggest piece of historical revisionist propaganda since WW2.
Those Japs weren't going to quit without a fight. Period.
Stick it. Better them than me!
Japan was "already defeated," Eisenhower wrote U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson...
Yes, and (paraphrasing Shakespeare) I can call on spirits from the vasty deep ... but will they come when I call? So what if the Japanese were defeated, the question is whether they would surrender. Remember that up to August 1945, there had not been one Japanese officer who surrendered his troops. Not one. Zero. (Some officers were captured, when they ran out of ammo, but NONE surrendered troops in his command.) These people intended to fight to the death ... theirs, and a lot of ours.
This is the part that the ignoramus who wrote this piece will never be able to understand.
I am sick of all the post modern moralizing on this question. Truman made the only choice he had. It was an ugly one, but so was the entire war. And as I recall, the Japanese started it.
You're behind the times my friend. Don't you know the US started the war in the Pacific by interfering with Japan's legitimate designs for hegemony, and then leaving Pearl Harbor practically defenseless? We practically invited them to bomb us.
You got to keep up better with your post-modern moralizing. Don't want to appear ill-informed at that next campus coctail party.
bold off...
The Japanese "abuse of military power" was quite nicely put an end to with the help of those two bombs, thank you very much.
To add to your list of reasons Kaufman's a fool:
The US sustained 77,000 casualties (about 19,000 fatal) in fighting on and around the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in April-June 1945. The Japanese lost 130,000 military dead, and at least 70,000 civilians died on Okinawa. Given those figures, the "40,000" figure Kaufman hypothesizes is bogus. (John Keegan, in his The Second World War, states, "Admiral William Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out to President Truman at a meeting on 18 June that the army and Marine divisions had suffered 35 percent casualties on Okinawa, that a similar percentage could be expected in an attack on Kyushu, and that, with 767,000 men ccommitted to the operation, the toll of dead and wounded would hterfore amount to 268,000, or about as many battle deaths as the United States had suffered throughout the world on all fronts so far." {Note that this figure does NOT contain an estimate of casualties from invading Honshu.}
Also, the Soviets were already engaged- they launched an attack into Japanese-held Manchuria on August 8 (two days after Hiroshima), and ended up stripping Manchuria of its industrial plant as the spoils of victory. This was a major reason Korea was partitioned- had we held off even a little longer, Korea would have been all-Communist and a partition of Japan would have been likely.
I totally agree.
In addition, the context should not be ignored.
That context includes Bataan and Corregedor and the torture and mistreatment of civilians and prisoners of war from Hong Kong to Manila.
I have a friend, now in her 80's whose husband was killed by beheading simply because he was an elected politician in the Phillipines. She is deathly afraid of dogs because of a nice Japanese trick of starving dogs then turning them loose on civilians.
Many Canadians were starved and tortured after their units surrendered at Hong Kong. More Canadians, many just returned from Europe, had embarkation orders for the Asian theatre and no doubt would have been part of that so-called 40,000 casualty figure.
As to the estimate, as a Canadian, familiar with its combat history from Vimy Ridge to Dieppe, Arnheim and the Falais Gap, I have learned well that the butcher's bill always exceeds the estimates.
In any event, when involved in a total war, I want leaders who will bring it to a decisive end and who will minimize our own butcher's bill without regard to the enemy's.
Oh, BOY.
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey reported a battered Japan would have surrendered by the end of 1945 without the use of atomic bombs or even the threat or contemplation of an invasion.
So overwhelming was the superiority of the Allied conventional strategic bombing forces and so devastating their results that Japan -- then stripped of its naval and air capabilities -- was already firmly on its knees.
Tell that to the kamikaze pilots, then.
Japan was "already defeated," Eisenhower wrote U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, adding the bombing "was no longer mandatory in the saving of American lives."
This quote is highly suspect. Tell that to the kamikaze pilots, then.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who symbolized more than any other leader the crushing of Japanese military might, was horrified at news of the Hiroshima bombing.Upon hearing of the city's fiery end, MacArthur was reported by his personal pilot to have plunged into a mood of deep depression, then livid anger.
Probably because then he wouldn't get the chance to redeem himself by invading Japan.
Their use was also designed to prove to an increasingly bellicose Soviet Union the power at Washington's disposal.
I've got NO problem with that.
A project that had begun with the valid intention of deterrence in the face of Nazi Germany's nuclear weapons program ended in the dubious military incineration of thousands.
An aggressive war begun by militarists hell-bent on world domination and eradication of races they felt inferior to their own was brought to a swift conclusion by the practical application of theoretical science.
In a world still fraught with the use of military muscle in our name, August 1945 should serve as a reminder those powers can be hideously abused -- even by "righteous" nations.
Here are some more reminders: Nanking. Pearl Harbor. Bataan.Get this revisionist crap masquerading as history OUT of here.
Kaufman is clearly right on the mark about the Japanese being ready to surrender and that, even IF an invasion was needed, it would not have met nearly as much resistance as expected.
As primary evidence of this, consider: the US drops THE BOMB on Hiroshima. After this display of the most awesome weapon ever seen in the history of the world, with a whole city devasted and much of its population killed or injured by just one bomb, the Japanese immediately and unconditionally surrendered, as they clearly realized they could not possibly expect to hold on any longer against......
Oops...uhh, never mind.
Maybe, Mr. Kaufmann, a young man who would someday become your father could have been killed during that invasion. Then we wouldn't have to read this crap. The Imperial Empire of Japan attacked our nation. We ended the war and saved American lives. Stuff it.
Tell that to the kamikaze pilots, then.
Like the one who hit my grandfather's carrier during Okinawa, killing hundreds of men. This article spits on the memories of their bravery...
The best man I have ever known (my Grandfather) came home alive because Japan was bombed, instead of being invaded.
I don't know what this means to the author.
More importantly, I don't care.
This article is another example of anti-americanism that is so prevalent in Canada. Here are some facts that debunk the entire basis of the article.
Prelude to the Invasion of Japan
Okinawa
More people died during the Battle of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Casualties totaled more than 38,000 Americans wounded and 12,000 killed or missing, more than 107,000 Japanese and Okinawan conscripts killed, and approximately 150,000 Okinawan civilians who perished in the battle.
Iwo Jima
The battle for Iwo Jima resulted in 25,851 casualties, including almost 7,000 dead Marines. The Japanese suffered more losses, with almost 21,000 dead and 1,000 captives.
Saipan
American casualties in the first two weeks were reported as 1,474 killed, 7,400 wounded and 878 missing. Nearly 2,000 more Americans died before the island siege ended, and another 6,000 were wounded. Many perished during a last, suicidal Japanese counterattack on July 7.
Invasion Plans and Casualty Estimates
US military opinion was divided on what it would require to induce Japan's surrender and finally bring the war to an end. Gen. George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commanding US forces in the western Pacific, believed an invasion of the Japanese home islands would be necessary.
Gen. H. H. Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, and Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay (whose XXI Bomber Command in the Marianas was pounding Japan relentlessly) believed that B-29 conventional bombing could do the job. The AAF position in June and July, however, was to support Marshall's advocacy of invasion on the basis that a blockade of Honshu required air bases on Kyushu.
Adm. William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff, and Adm. Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, thought Japan could be defeated without an invasion. When Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commanding US forces in the central Pacific, joined MacArthur in recommending invasion of Kyushu, however, King agreed.
Truman was aware of the differences among the military leaders but was satisfied that they had been reconciled for consensus with Marshall. Furthermore, Truman respected Marshall deeply and regarded him as the nation's chief strategist, so Marshall's opinion carried particular weight.
The official plan called for an invasion in two stages:
Operation Olympic, to begin Nov. 1, 1945, would be a land invasion of Kyushu, southernmost of the Japanese main islands.
Operation Coronet, planned for March 1, 1946, was an invasion of Honshu, the largest island. The Joint Chiefs envisioned that the two-stage invasion would involve some five million troops, most of them American. The invasion was to be preceded by a massive aerial bombardment, reaching maximum intensity before troops went ashore on Honshu. One memorandum said that "more bombs will be dropped on Japan than were delivered against Germany during the entire European war."
A June 18 estimate from the military chiefs said that casualties in the first thirty days of the Kyushu invasion could be 31,000. Adm. King estimated 41,000. Adm. Nimitz said 49,000. MacArthur's staff said 50,000. Casualty estimates for Olympic and Coronet combined ranged from 220,000 to 500,000+.
"I asked General Marshall what it would cost in lives to land on the Tokio plain and other places in Japan," Truman said later. "It was his opinion that such an invasion would cost at minimum one quarter of a million casualties, and might cost as much as a million, on the American side alone, with an equal number of the enemy. The other military and naval men present agreed."
The relevant fact here is that Truman believed that unless he used the atomic bomb, an invasion of Japan would be necessary and that the casualties would be enormous.
Advice About the Bomb
As discussions about use of the bomb continued, US authorities made preparations for the decision that seemed most likely. On May 28, a special committee in Washington nominated four urban industrial centers -- Kokura, Hiroshima, Niigata, and Kyoto -- as targets. On May 29, however, Secretary of War Stimson struck Kyoto (Japan's capital for more than 1,000 years) from the list. Nagasaki was eventually picked as the fourth potential target.
The Interim Committee on S-1 (a code term for the Manhattan Project) advised the President on May 31 that the bomb should be used against Japan and that a demonstration explosion would not be sufficient. Reasons included the possibility that the bomb would not work, that the Japanese might think the demonstration was faked, and that there was no way to make the demonstration convincing enough to end the war.
In his memoirs, Truman said a consensus had been reached in July, during the Big Three meeting at Potsdam, by Secretary of State James Byrnes, Stimson, Leahy, Marshall, and Arnold that the bomb should be used. In fact, the advice was not as clear-cut as Truman depicted it in his memoirs. Although Arnold supported the decision, he declared his view at Potsdam that use of the bomb was not a military necessity. Leahy had reservations about the decision also. And at a meeting with Truman July 20 during the Potsdam conference, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, commander of allied forces in Europe, advised against using the atomic bomb (although he said later his reaction was personal and not based on any analysis of the circumstances).
Casualties were increasing with every day that Japan refused to surrender. Truman's biographer, David McCullough, sets the perspective trenchantly with a consideration that applied as the President was taking the final counsel of his advisors and allies at Potsdam: "Had the bomb been ready in March and deployed by Roosevelt, had it shocked Japan into surrender then, it would have already saved nearly fifty thousand American lives lost in the Pacific in the time since, not to say a vastly larger number of Japanese lives."
During the Potsdam conference, Truman received word that the "Fat Man" bomb test at Alamogordo (5:30 a.m., July 16, Alamagordo time) had been successful. On July 25, the War Department relayed Truman's order that the 509th Composite Group should deliver the first "special bomb" as soon after August 3 as weather permitted on one of the four target cities.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed with Truman. At Potsdam, he said, "the decision whether or not to use the atomic bomb to compel the surrender of Japan was never even an issue. There was unanimous, automatic, unquestioned agreement around our table." Years later, Churchill still thought that using the bomb had been the right decision.
The Potsdam Proclamation, issued July 26 by the heads of government of the US, UK, and China,(46) warned of "utter devastation of Japanese homeland" unless Japan surrendered unconditionally. "We shall brook no delay," it said. The same day, the cruiser Indianapolis delivered the U-235 core of the "Little Boy" bomb to Tinian.
On July 28, Prime Minister Suzuki declared the Potsdam Proclamation a "thing of no great value" and said, "We will simply mokusatsu it." Literally, mokusatsu means "kill with silence." Meanings include "to ignore" and "to remain in a wise and masterly inactivity." Suzuki said later the meaning he intended was "no comment." The Allies took the statement as rejection of the Potsdam Proclamation.
One more thing, In 1945, the doubts and disagreements about use of the atomic bomb were mostly of a strategic nature, reflecting the belief that an invasion might not be necessary or that bombing and blockade would be sufficient. (Use of the bomb to end the war eventually saved Japanese casualties, too. The incendiary bombs from B-29s were taking a terrible toll. The attack on Tokyo March 9-10 killed more people than either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs.)
This article spits on the memories of their bravery...
I wholeheartily agree.The article also suggests that somehow the Japanese didn't deserve this karma, as if we Americans get our rocks off by being malicious and barbaric. That's what pisses me off the most about it.
It's as if the author chose to ignore completely 1935 through 1945.
Revisionist history at its absolute worst.
After reading the rape of Nanking........ just two nukes was a show of restraint by the Americans. Japanese citizens kept baseball style card's with sword swinging soldiers photo's and tally's on them of the killing competitions in China.
Add to this the treatment of American and allied POW's and I'll say again that Japan got off real easy.....
The author is a fool , clear and simple.......why did ya post such crap clive ?
My Dad helped kick their squinty little as_es! Then CRISPY CRITTER time!! Yep, we fried em good.
The Canadian press is run by mother England.
"Don't want to appear ill-informed at that next campus coctail party."
LOL. They quit inviting me years ago.
Whoever wrote this mess is flat-earth crazy.
The atomic decision may also have been prompted by strong evidence that Japan may very likely have constructed a workable atomic device and actually tested it at their nuclear research facility in Hungnam, Korea (now a part of North Korea) a few weeks before the Hiroshima bombing.
Dr. Yoshio Nishina was Japan's chief nuclear physicist, head of Japan's nuclear program and a top student of the famed Danish physicist Niels Bohr. He and his University of Tokyo team constructed Japan's first of several particle accelerators in 1937. He died of leukemia in 1951.
In a related matter, the German supply submarine U-234 pulled into Portsmouth, NH on May 16, 1945 and surrendered. Aboard was discovered 560 kg of processed uranium, drums of mercury, examples of a drawings for proximity fuzes, and a completely disassembled Me-262 jet fighter.
The U-234 had left Kiel, Germany on March 25, 1945, via Kristianstad, Norway, final destination Hiroshima. The two Japanese naval officers aboard had comittted suicide shortly before the sub's surrender. The US Army transcripts of the interrogation of the U-234 crew remain classified, but there are also rumors that some of the captured uranium was used in the Hiroshima "Little Boy" bomb.
The Atlanta Constitution published a story about a possible Japanese bomb in 1946, regarding the OSS capture of Japanese bomb design drawings, and I think the San Diego Union-Tribune did a brief story on it also two years ago.
If any of the above is true, then the decision to drop both bombs makes perfect military sense.(If the U-234 was headed for Hiroshima, was this the first or one of many shipments of nuclear material? Based upon what was found aboard the U-234, Truman may have reasonably believed that Japan had a few nuclear devices already and the bombings, in this case, were justifiable "pre-emptive strikes.") The presence of a Japanese bomb would also explain the Soviets' quick sweep into and securing of northern Korea right at the end of the war.
There is an excellent German U-Boat site: uboat.net which details the operational histories of all German U-boats, including that of the controversial U-234.
One of the U-234's crew, a radioman named Wolfgang Hirschfeld, published a book about his naval career in collaboration with Britsh writer Geoffrey Brooks, entitled Hirschfeld: The Story Of A U-Boat NCO, 1940-1946. Another good source to start with is Japan's Secret War: Japan's Race Against Time to Build Its Own Atomic Bomb by Robert K. Wilcox.
Well stated. Also missing in revisionist accounts of Hirosima and Nagasaki is the number of civilian lives saved by the attacks. While that may appear to be an oxymoron, consider this: as the Allies advanced toward the Japanese home islands, the civilian population was organized into territorial defense units which would resist the expected invasion. Stiff resistance by civilian and military units would have produced staggering casualties on both sides. President Truman made the correct call when he elected to use the atomic bomb. While the death toll at Hiroshmia and Nagasaki was appalling, the cost of a amphibious invasion would have been far higher, and prolonged the war by another two years.
Each year Barry Farber on 6 Aug reminds of a book written by a POW in a Japanese camp. The key premise of the book is that a large portion of all POWs were six weeks away from starvation at the time of surrender. Provisions to prisoners were always meger, and became less than subsistance rations as the war progressed. Most of the POWs would have died of starvation by the 1 Nov. I believe the book name was "A Soldier and the Bomb".
Methinks Mr. Kaufman has been spending far too much time at the Smithsonian.
While the death toll at Hiroshmia and Nagasaki was appalling, the cost of a amphibious invasion would have been far higher, and prolonged the war by another two years.
Dittos. While Truman is not on my top 10 list, he made the right decision.
The above article is typical revisionist history. Even though it is a Canadian journalist spouting it this time, it is the same crap that some of our very own leftist pin-heads originated. (Remember the exhibit at the Smithsonian on the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima?)
To all who want to consider how history could have been different, consider this.
From the early days of the 20 century with Einstein’s relativity theory, physicists knew that an atomic weapon was a possibility. Consider what would have happened had any other nation, especially Germany, Japan or the USSR, all of whom were working to one degree or another on it, had been the first to develop an atomic bomb.
Thank God it was the US who was first. No other nation would have been as restrained in its use. No other, and I include our allies in that statement.
As primary evidence of this, consider: the US drops THE BOMB on Hiroshima. After this display of the most awesome weapon ever seen in the history of the world, with a whole city devasted and much of its population killed or injured by just one bomb, the Japanese immediately and unconditionally surrendered, as they clearly realized they could not possibly expect to hold on any longer against......
Hmmm, they didn't surrender until a week after Nagasaki, which was dropped 2 days after Hiroshima. And if the Japanese had found out that our nuclear arsenal was depleted after Nagasaki, I wonder if they would they have been so quick to surrender?
As to your other point, B-29s killed more civilians in Tokyo with fire bombs than either Atomic bomb did in Hiroshima/Nagasaki. They could have surrendered before "the bomb", but they didn't.
Clive - Old Bean, Old Top, Old Sport....Two Questions.
1. Why did so MANY Japanese civilians commit suicide on Saipan rather than be imprisoned by American GI's?
2. If the dropping of the bombs was so GAWDAWFUL! Why did we have to drop TWO, 2, II, Dos, Deux, Zwei, bombs on the Japanese mainland before they considered surrender?
As to your other point, B-29s killed more civilians in Tokyo with fire bombs than either Atomic bomb did in Hiroshima/Nagasaki. They could have surrendered before "the bomb", but they didn't."
I actually only had one point. I was sarcastically trying to show that, if it took TWO A-bombs to make them surrender, those who say (like Kaufman) that the US could have ended the war any other way WITHOUT an extraordinarily high number of casualties is mis-informed, stupid or (like Kaufman) has an anti-US agenda.
I think I need to improve my sarcasm writing skills!
In fact, U.S. President Harry Truman was assured by his joint chiefs of staff that an invasion of Japan would entail casualties of lessthan 40,000 killed, wounded and missing.
More than 40k Americans were killed or wounded during the Okinawa campaign. This guy would have us believe we would suffer no worse if we invaded Japan proper? What crap.
A BUMP BTTT for my uncle who barely survived Battan...His words "2 bombs weren't nearly enough"...
Amen.
You either need to improve your sarcastic writing skills or I need to be able to recognize sarcasm when I see it. I am a prisoner of emoticons. ;^)
It's well-known that a radical faction of the Imperial Army advocated continuing the war at any cost.
Less well-known is that when they heard rumors that news the Emperor was beginner to considering issuing the order to surrender, they took action.
They claimed the Emperor had been abducted by traitorous retainers who were brain-washing him. They mounted an effort to "re-capture" him and head-off any attempt to end the war.
At this time, the Emperor was beginning a series of steps that led to the now-famous recording of "a turn of events has come about that has led to circumstances not necessarily favorable to Japan".
The radicals broke onto the palace grounds, killing those that tried to stop them. They engaged in a brief, full-fleged firefight at the Emperor's actual residence.
By that time, the Emperor had been spirited off the palace grounds, and was later taken by limousine to an underground studio, where the the surrender recording had been made (a very large insurance building now stands atop the site with a small plaque tucked into a corner nearby).
A tape WAS, in fact, intercepted and destroyed.
Alas, the war came to an end, nonetheless.
--the one played-- that they'd kept seperately for just such an eventuality.
(Source: Japan's Longest Day)
Canadians are dumb assholes. We should've seized that backwater 200 years ago -- and may yet do it.
the Japanese immediately and unconditionally surrendered, as they clearly realized they could not possibly expect to hold on any longer against......
No they didn't. Your implication is that they surrendered immediately after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It wasn't until Nagasaki was bombed that the Japanese government finally came to its senses and surrendered. There's no way they would have immediately given up at the first hint of an American invasion in the absence of a face saving reason for doing so.
Filth spewed by a scumbag marxist!
safe, I didn't recognize your post as sarcasm. You're going to have to be a lot more clear than you were to avoid some hot replies from old timers.
Add to this the treatment of American and allied POW's and I'll say again that Japan got off real easy.....
Not to mention the 15,000,000 Chinese that were killed by the Japanese during the latter's invasion of the former.
"
A BUMP BTTT for my uncle who barely survived Battan...His words "2 bombs weren't nearly enough"..."
As a former 12 year old who had to go back and forth to the Chelsea Naval Hospital to visit my Pop for almost 5 months after the war ended, I thought then, and think now, that we should have carpet bombed the entire Jap island chain with a-bombs.
The Japanese government was not ready to surrender after both bombs were dropped, it was the Japanese Emperor who stepped in and stopped the war. The government would have continued to fight.
************"Canadians are dumb assholes. We should've seized that backwater 200 years ago -- and may yet do it. "******************************************
Who is Jane Fonda? If she is an American, what does that make us?
Is clinton an American?
Not to mention the fact that the Japanese economy was in ruins, the transportation network devestated, their merchant marine at the bottom of the ocean and proably 75% of the 10 largest cities burnt to a crisp. The civilian population was on starvation rations with little or no shelter to be found in a country that would be facing an unusually cold winter. I recall seeing some estimates of over 1 million deaths from disease and starvation if the Japanese had not been induced to surrender.
I do not recall the name of the book I read within the last year, but the book was written in large part from Magic intercepts na dshowed that the Japanese military was convinced that they could still win the war. At the time of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the cabinet was evenly split on the matter of japanese surrender with the militarist holding the upper hand. It was only after the droppinf of the bombs that Hirohito stepped in and ordered and end to the war. Even after this there was a small group of mostly colonels in the Imperial army that attempted to launch a coup to overturn the Imperial Rescript anouncing the surrender. This attempt just barely failed.
"Who is Jane Fonda? If she is an American, what does that make us?"
You mean what would it make us if 95% of us agreed with her? Why, it'd make us almost as dumb as those assholes to the North.
"so tell bill kauffman to take his sorry liberal ass and go to russia if he hates this country so much."
Calgary Sun....Canada
"Methinks Mr. Kaufman has been spending far too much time at the Smithsonian."
Took my thoughts right off the keyboard.
Wonder if he works there.
The Japanese government was not ready to surrender after both bombs were dropped, it was the Japanese Emperor who stepped in and stopped the war. The government would have continued to fight.
To the extent that I understood it at the time, I mostly agree with you. General Hideki Tojo served as prime minister and headed the military. Tojo was in no mood to surrender, but it seemed to me that the Nagasaki bomb may have finally gotten both the military and the Mikado's attention. Evidently the emperor was instrumental in persuading the military and the government to negotiate the "unconditional surrender". Tojo was tried and executed after the war.
The real sticking point in the "unconditional surrender" negotiations at the last was whether the Emperor would be allowed to continue in his post. He was considered to be a god by the Japanese, and the Americans didn't want him in a position to cause any more mischief. In negotiations between the Japanese government and the United States (principally MacArthur), it was agreed to let the Mikado continue in his position strictly as a figurehead, but it was specifically spelled out that he could no longer be touted as divine.
Surely Mr. Kaufman (the author of this tripe) is a former US Citizen.
Please tell me he isn't a REAL Canadian.
Maybe if you took your heads out of your a--es, you might inhale some reality rather than your own shite. The suggestion in this article is simply that the bombing may not have been done for the most heroic reasons. Is that so inappropriate?? Or do we beleive everything Mr. Government tells us... Hmm...that sounds suspisiously like communism. For shame!
It may be by doing it first we've averted a major war for the next fifty-five years – that and holding. War is truly hell. We all are sad at the loses of life and suffering and wish man's inhumanity to man would cease -- but it will not.
Keep your powder dry.
Huh? You realize, of course, that this thread is nearly a year old, don't you? You're a little slow on the uptake, there, fella.
Yes!
Ditto. I was born in 1937 and remember my grandmother crying 'cause her son was coming home.
God bless you and thanks!
Your post no. 5, well stated, nothing else need be said.
Thanks!
If it saved One G I's life it was worth it.
I do not recall the name of the book I read within the last year, but the book was written in large part from Magic intercepts na dshowed that the Japanese military was convinced that they could still win the war.
I recall reading somewhere that at the time of the surrender the Japanese military still had the bulk of their army and air forces intact. Sure, their civilian infrastructure and merchant marine were pretty badly hit, but I think they still could have brought some formidible resistance into the field against an invading force, probably enough to cause significantly more than 40K casualties.
Truman, being a Democrat, is also not among my favorite presidents, but I will give him credit for making the tough decisions and sticking by them. He didn't palm it off on anyone else, or try to hide behind the skirts of women. He took responsibility for the decisions he made, and, in this case, I think he made the right one. Remember the one HBO movie about Truman, the one with Gary Sinese playing the lead role? I still recall the one scene where he was debating this very issue with one of the advisors who counseled against dropping the bombs. Truman's response was something like, how could he face and answer the anguish of American families who would lose loved ones in an invasion of Japan, when he knew he had the means to end the war quickly at his disposal and didn't do so? From what I know of war and combat, that's the number one rule: you look out for your own first, take care of them and fight to bring them and yourself back in one piece, and everything and anyone else be d*mned.
Huge Vet bump! My dad (USMC) was on the island of Okinawa waiting for orders to board a troop ship to be shipped to mainland Japan. He said they were all ready to board when they were told to form up. A Navy Captain told them the war was over because of a new weapon that was used on Japan.
Basically, the sorry Nip bastards got what was coming to them for all of the atrocities they committed.
The day we dropped the bomb should be a national day of celebration. Calgary Sun, please.
and here is something for the antiwar people.
Japans Quest for the Atomic Bomb, Hidden History January 3, 2000 Reviewer: Jeffry P. King from Richland Washington Bob Wilcox has done an excellent job of telling the story of Japan's quest for the atomic bomb and has provided credible background and references to substantiate it. His account of Japan's progress towards atomic weapon development is consistent with processes that would be logical and recognizable by anyone familiar with the principles of modern day atomic weapons. I have also discussed the contents of Bob's book with my father, who served as an officer in Korea in the early 50's. He remembers Hangnam, which is cited in Bob's book as one of Japans most important atomic bomb development point and having been captured by Russia, as a secret North Korean missile complex. This is consistent with the book's content. A must read book by those who seek the truth and wish to dispell the guilt complex that the anti-nuclear crowd wishes to impose upon America for bombing Hiroshmia and Nagasaki. (a review of a book,for information,discusion only,not for profit)
I'll take it that I'm among the "etc.s in you reply.
Please see my No. 4 post above.
Truman had no choice for a host of reasons including "non-military” and non-"heroic" reasons which are valid none the less.
All the revisionist bull crap including this article is nothing but Monday morning armchair quarter backing that is meaningless. It is simply a follow-on to the ever popular far left propaganda that it was the US, and not Stalin, who started the cold war.
Without using the bomb the facts are that 1 million more Japanese would have likely died from combat, conventional bombing or starvation and illness. Probably 20-40 thousand more Americans would have died, 100,000 allied POWs would surely have died, Joseph Stalin would have likely partitioned Japan killing probably a million more civilians, and Harry Truman would have been impeached for dereliction of duty, and rightly so.
And consider this. Without the use of these very small bombs on Japan, and the understanding the world gained on how horrible these weapons are, the likelihood of their being used a few years later when they were a hundred to a thousand times more powerful, would have been significantly greater. Not using them on Japan would not make them go away. Without the horror of August 1945, there would not have been the reluctance to use them that has kept the beast chained for the last 55 years.
I feel for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just as I feel for the people of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Nanking, Shanghai, London, Amsterdam, Moscow and Warsaw. When people are killed by the thousands, it matters little if the energy source that caused is chemical or nuclear.
Hear, hear!
I've nothing to add to your excellent post.
Arguing this subject with the revisionists gets more tedious each year, as they become more and more removed from the facts, as they were known, and the context of the era.
Citing selected intelligence sources in disputing a historical decision completely overlooks the fact that the particular intelligence was, at the time, merely one piece in a welter of often conflicting intelligence -- all of uncertain accuracy.
Monday morning quarterbacking is a rather precise way of putting it.
Gee, the liberal clap-trap on the "horror" of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is starting a bit early this year, isn't it? Normally, we don't get these stories until July or August.
A couple of points demand immediate rebuttal. First, regarding the casualty estimates for the initial landing, I'm not sure where that came from. Remember, the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn't exist in those days; Leahy (the Chief of Staff) was little more than a figurehead, appointed at the insistance of General George C. Marshall. To my knowledge, General Marshall (the closest thing we had to a JCS Chairman in those days) never voiced opposition to the bombing; neither did Admiral Ernest King (Chief of Naval Operations), nor did Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Commander of U.S. Forces in the Central Pacific. All of these officers--to my knowledge--supported use of the bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Secondly, no one who has read accounts of the U.S. campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa can say the Japanese were defeated in the summer of 1945. As I recall, U.S. casualties for the Okinawa invasion totaled more than 40,000--killed and wounded. The estimate cited in Takaki's book is absurdly low. He also ignores other casualty estimates offered in other books on the subject. According to another projection, U.S. casualties in an invasion of Japan would have totaled between 400-800,000--possibly higher. Japanese casualties--including civilians--would have been even higher, by a factor of 2 or 3. Additionally, the war would have dragged into 1946 or 1947, giving Joe Stalin plenty of time to mobilize his forces, and grab more territory in the Far East. Too many "scholars" forget the other positive outcome of the bombing--it slowed Soviet plans for expansion in the Far East. Don't forget, Stalin declared war on Japan just days before the bombing, and his forces were advancing into Japanese-held China. Can you imagine how much additional land Uncle Joe might have grabbed if the war had last another year or 18 months? And how it might have permanently altered the power structure in the Pacific Region?
While the civilian casualties at Hiroshima and Nagaski were horrific, they were no less terrible that those at Coventry, London, Rotterdam, Hamburg, or Dresden. The seeds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were sown on a Sunday morning in December, 1941. The United States used overwhelming force to end a war began by others, and saved millions of lives in the process. It's as simple as that, and no revisionist historian can successfully make the case otherwise......
I am glad there are still those who are not shy about putting America first. Maybe after Clinton, that will all change.
This fellow needs to talk to some of the guys that were on Okinawa and were in the process of getting ready for the invasion of the home islands to find out just what the prospect of 40,000 dead G.I.s meant to them.
These jerk-offs come out of the woodwork every August, trying to say how noble the Japanese were and how the nukes weren't necessary. Remember the Enola Gay exibit?
This reporter will never talk to a US WW2 vet. He will be back every August trying to convince more and more people to his viewpoint.
The sad thing is...WW2 vets are becoming scarcer every year. It will be up to people like you and me to maintain vigilance.
Whoever wrote this piece of trash needs a good horse whipping.
"WW2 vets are becoming scarcer every year. It will be up to people like you and me to maintain vigilance."
Ditto.
Maybe if you took your heads out of your a--es, you might inhale some reality rather than your own shite. The suggestion in this article is simply that the bombing may not have been done for the most heroic reasons.
I can assure you sir or madam, as the case may be, that my head is most definetly not inserted in my posterior.
I would recomend that you read up on the social structure and resulting mindset of feudal Japan. It has great revelance to this argument. There was only one man in that now defunct Japanese culture that could entertain the thought of surrender. That one man being Hirohito. Fot the rank and file of Japanese society as well as the military surrender was not an option. To surrender was to loose face and bring shame upon your family and your ancestors. The Japanese only surrendered because the Hirohito did, and even then it did not happen right away.
In short, blow it out your bung-hole.
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