My dad wasn't a cruel or heartless man. But he understood that war is war. And if you started it, you better be prepared to defend yourself.
Posted on 04/04/2024 9:25:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The discussion about the acceptability of using nuclear weapons usually occurs around August 6 of every year, the date that Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima; world events have rekindled this discussion outside of its usual season.
Absent from the discussion is how the Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and other Asian peoples felt about being colonially occupied by Japan. Often, Japanese “revisionist” historians will try to whitewash Japanese history, in alliance with U.S. far leftists, to portray the U.S. involvement in WWII as “imperialistic against a non-white people.”
First, let us address what Japan was doing in Asia in the early 20th century. Quite literally, Japan wanted to build a European-style empire and become equal partners in colonialism with Europe. In a span of less than 40 years, from 1868 to 1905, Emperor Meiji radically transformed his nation. He turned Japan from a people of medieval rice farmers in 1868 to a “Great Power”, the equal of any European power, by defeating Imperial Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.
The significance of Admiral Togo’s victory over what effectively amounted to the entire Russian navy is hard to overstate and is not well-known today. In 1905, the idea that a non-white power could win a naval victory over a European power was practically unheard of. A European army might lose to a “primitive” army at Isandlwana where the British were outnumbered ten-to-one. But the idea that a nation who, 40 years prior, did not even possess the technical knowledge of how to operate a steam warship could defeat a mighty empire like Imperial Russia shook Asia and the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Not to mention Nanking.
I’ve seen political issues play out here in the U.S. between Japanese and Korean business interests over the Korean comfort women issue. U.S. politicians getting involved in that mess may have been a factor in Toyota locating a huge plant in N. Alabama near Huntsville instead of in N. Georgia, as weird as that sounds.
I remember an interview with Victor Davis Hanson from years ago. His father was on a B-29 crew in the Pacific
VDH says when he was a young hippie, he questioned his father about dropping A-bombs on Japan, exactly as people do now
His father told him - “the Japanese were killing 15,000 people EVERY DAY in China, Korea and the Philippines. Tell me, exactly, how we were supposed to get them to stop doing that?”
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Excellent article. (Nanking was mentioned extensively in the article)
Back in 1995, my dad, giving a Memorial Day speech in his hometown during the A-Bomb “anniversary year” said “We should have used it, and if we had them, should have used more of them, and sooner.” (Not his exact words, but much along those lines)
He was pilloried in the local press the next day for saying it. But it didn’t make him lose a moment’s sleep.
He knew right from wrong.
My dad wasn't a cruel or heartless man. But he understood that war is war. And if you started it, you better be prepared to defend yourself.
Indeed.
My Dad was in WW2 in the Navy. He was at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. After the surrender, his ship was instructed to liberate a Japanese POW Camp on some forsaken island. They assumed that the Americans would need immediate medical attention and prepared the ship for 250. When they got there, they found that the Japanese had fled, after beheading nearly 250 American Marines.
The crew of Dad’s ship, originally jubilant about the War’s end, had to match the heads to the bodies and identify them.
Dad shared a LOT of stories about those years, but never that one, until he was in his late 70’s, and only to my brother.
Oh...Dad was 17 at the time.
I met Gen Paul Tibbets in 2000, and told him the story. We both agreed that the Nuke was the right thing to do. He signed a book for my Dad whichI promptly mailed to him from Florida.
Considering that the Japs did the same to Americans and other foreigners in Japan with the exception that many were never heard from again.
And, as this article points out, the Japanese would enslave and imprison civilians in the countries they controlled. We did not do that.
I have heard very few veterans of the Pacific war who opposed the use of nuclear weapons.
In one of my favorite books, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”, Richard Feynman talked about the supposed hand-wringing in the scientific community about the bomb, and said there was very little of it. Everyone thought it should be used, and was of the opinion that all the hand-wringing and soiled consciences came after the fact...
I have always found that amazing. The people outraged that 150,000 Japanese died in the two bombings couldn’t be more flippant about the 150,000 Chinese civilians dying every month. No, no, don’t use the atom bombs! Don’t invade! Sit back and let “Operation Starvation” do its job. It is estimated that 6 million Japanese would have starved to death from August ‘45 till the end of the year, even after hostilities ceased, if we hadn’t been there to feed Japan.
The bombs prevented another Holocaust.
Indeed.
I believe Truman’s analysis was right, that taking the ground war from Okinawa to the main Japanese islands would have seen more unacceptable levels of military deaths on both sides as well as more civilian deaths as well. Ending the war sooner was better than ending it later.
Full disclosure: I am not saying the next thing to support what the militaristic Japanese leaders did; not at all.
However, in the context of the times, turn of the century, it is not hard to understand, looking around Asia then, that many Asiana saw that “empires” ruled the world, even in Asia, but none were Asian, until Japan.
Howver again. modern, post WWII Japan, has learned now that an empire was not needed to be prosperous and successful. It could have had a peaceful “Asian commenwealth” instead of an empire, if it had had different leaders.
And then they need to look up how they died.
After a bit your brain goes numb.
We had one more (sort of ... a little bit of assembly required); Pres. Truman decided against using it. I'm disinclined to second guess him.
When I was stationed in Guam in the 1980’s, every Chamorro over 45 had survived the Japanese occupation, and witnessed the atrocities. I spoke with people whose brothers, fathers and grandfathers were murdered, whose Grandmothers, mothers, and sisters were raped by Japanese soldiers. I had read of the horrific starvation, torture and murder of American POWs, and Japan’s war crimes in China, Korea and the Pacific, but hearing first hand stories was sobering.
Unlike Germany, Japan has never really accepted their evil deeds. Go to the Yūshūkan War Museum in Tokyo and you will see a completely whitewashed story of victim Japan being forced into war, including China and Korea, with not even a hint of wrong doing, misconduct or imperialism. Just poor, heroic, righteous Japan, the victim.
Look up Paul Fussell’s piece “Thank God for the Atomic Bomb.” Amen.
The Japanese had 1000`s of comfort women on all of their occupied Pacific islands. Koreans etc all were left to starve to death when the Japanese retreated. It was a horrible awful barabaric country. They were the Monsters of Asia.
Hyundai is in L.A., Lower Alabama. Outside Montgomery. The I-85 corridor between the big Kia plant in Lagrange, GA, and the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, is filled with feeder plants. They’re sister companies, in case you didn’t realize. Like say Chevy and Buick.
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