Posted on 03/12/2015 7:17:13 PM PDT by daniel1212
Allied casualties were running 7,000 per week.
10 more weeks of fighting would have generated Allied casualties equal to those killed in the Hiroshima bomb. 20 weeks would have equaled the total of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And an invasion of Japan would have been the hardest fighting of the entire war. Casualty estimates were predicted st from 2-4 million Allied troops and 5-10 million Japanese.
Yes and then add all of the POWs and conquered peoples that were dying at the hands of the Japanese.
But with a country that has increasingly spurned God, and aborting 1 out of 3 infants, and is marrying men with men, and requiring promoting such for promotion in the Air Force, etc., then should this country not expect judgment in relation to the grace given it? Yet as always, "judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?" (1 Peter 4:17)
A surprise that should not have been.
My mother in law and her mother would have been killed for sure. She loves the US Marines for coming to their camp in Indonesia and liberating them. She is Indonesian/Dutch. They moved to Holland after the war and her father was one of the officers who help met out the punishment for the Japanese war criminals.
Interesting article. My late father also served as a staff sergeant in the South Pacific and was stationed on Tinian at the time the bombs were brought there before their final delivery to Hirohito. He said the bombs were under constant guard and it was clear they were possible game changers. He also said he likely would not have made it home had we not used them.
John Wheeler’s lament that the bombs weren’t developed and used sooner is right on the money and similar tactics would have saved many lives in the wars since WWII...and those yet to come.
FDR promoted several American military officers to the rank of 5 Star General and the equivalent Fleet Admiral rank with the order of their promotion determining who ranked highest. Some you will recognize but Leahy and King won’t be among them.
Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy 15 December 1944
General of the Army George Marshall 16 December 1944
Fleet Admiral Ernest King 17 December 1944
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur 18 December 1944
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz 19 December 1944
General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower 20 December 1944
General of the Army Henry H. Arnold 21 December 1944
Fleet Admiral William Halsey, Jr. 11 December 1945
Japan and Germany lost any and all claims to the right to be free from force the minute they initiated force against other nations outside of rational self-defense. And by doing so, they put their own civilian populations in danger and are thus responsible for everything that happened to them.
It’s as simple as that.
Yet the Soviet Union and the resultant proxy battles are a reminder of the consequences of strengthening evil (leaders) to fight evil, and not dealing with the consequences when you could have. Patton wanted to arm the Germans to fight Russia, foreseeing the evil Not sure if that was feasible, but my unlearned though is that the US should have indeed seen humanitarian and some military help to Russia (which they seemed for forget), but not to the extent that they became an advancing army who even got to Berlin first. And obtained resources that became a problem for the US and the world.
“Interesting article. My late father also served as a staff sergeant in the South Pacific and was stationed on Tinian at the time the bombs were brought there”
Tinian was also the site of the world’s largest military hospital, being built in preparation for the invasion of the Japanese home islands.
Before we dropped the bomb we had total mastery of the sea around Japan, and the air above Japan. Before we invaded we would have bombed each and every city, industrial complexes, electrical grid, and everything it takes to be a functioning society. Millions would die from our bombing, even more millions would have died of disease and starvation.
We would have lost many good men in an invasion. Their brothers in arms would have done the same thing they did when they captured Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa etc. The bomb saved several hundred thousand American lives. The bomb saved millions of Japanese lives.
The part of revisionist history that really pisses me off is the mime where they say, “We should have demonstrated to the Japanese what the bomb would do before we dropped it on them.” We did demonstrate it a Hiroshima and they did not surrender. We demonstrated it again at Nagasaki and they did surrender. They realized that we had the means and will to erase the Japanese nation, culture and people from the face of the earth. We only had two bombs that were ready and we used them. There were many other bombs in the making. We would have been able to drop a new one every few weeks after a hiatus of a few months. We had the means to destroy them completely
Oddly enough the Emperor demanded of the Japanese War Lords, Tojo etc. that they surrender. He was nothing but a figure head with no power but the respect of the people. Prior to the dropping of the bomb, the war lords would have ignored him or worse. After the dropping of the bomb, it gave the a “face saving exit” to stop the war and they did.
My dad was in the Pacific in WWII. If it were not for the bomb, I might not even be here typing these words.
There’s some political intrigue not widely known which happened after Tojo resigned along with his cabinet. Tojo was out in the summer of 1944 (July) and after there was not a strong central figure (other than the emperor as a figure head).
This may have been a factor of many contributing to the delay of Japanese surrender.
True, and I believe God also allows atrocities partly in order to produce future abhorrence and avoidance of such. Few people want to be called a Hitler (though Stalin was worse in the long run).
” Patton wanted to arm the Germans to fight Russia, foreseeing the evil Not sure if that was feasible,”
I believe you’re thinking of Patton saying that he could have defeated Stalin with his own troops. And that was hyperbole of the highest order. Patton knew something about logistics and supply lines and just from that perspective there wasn’t the slightest chance that this would work. Not to mention that American soldiers were extremely eager to get home ASAP. They had no illusions about the romance of war by that point, they were just glad to be alive.
Illuminating. But in the liberal Howard Zinn world the Japanese were peace loving pacifists who were finally provoked into attacking the big bully America because it selfishly would not share the world with such peace loving pacifists. Things like the rape of Nanking are just some much misunderstanding of culture, or excusable. Blame equivalent of George Bush.
Note however that i must respect the Japanese as industrious, etc. .
A good point.
US five-star admirals:
Not that i glory in bloodshed, as i do not, but what if Patton had his way against Russia?
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