I had a fascinating chat last week with an old sailor. He entered the Navy in ‘43 and served abord a landing ship that participated in the last of the Pacific island-hopping.
When they dropped the bomb, he was engaged in training exercises for the invasion of Japan.
The crew of the Enola Gay very well might have saved his life — and countless hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of other lives — Japanese as well as Americans.
God bless Mr. Van Kirk. And thanks for the post.
Yep. After Normandy, my dad and his boat were on the way to the Pacific to prepare for the invasion of Japan, when the war ended.
“Pacific island-hopping.”
My Uncle was there, and feels the same way.
The bombs possibly saved all the POWs in the Far East. It is said that Japan knew that it was losing the war and that they planned to make their last stand in Japan. They were willing to pull their troops back from the countries they occupied, but before doing so they were planning to execute all their POWs first.
My father was part of the US forces staging to invade Japan. Might be no him — might be no me — if Truman hadn’t used the bomb to end the war.
My father was on Luzon retraining and refitting for the next invasion when the bombs dropped. The estimate of US casualties for the invasion of Hokkaido alone was one million. The Japanese people were being trained to attack troops with bamboo pikes and satchel charges. The Japanese government wes prepared to deploy war gases. There was a plan to release plague in southern California. The number of lives saved by dropping the atom bombs was IMHO well in excess of 10,000,000.
God bless Mr. Van Kirk. And thanks for the post.
Roger that!
My dad was...
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Well, my dad (RIP) was turned down for military service
due to his bad eyesight, but he did what he could.
He served in the merchant marines for 3 years (1943 - 1945)
in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.
They mostly ferried supplies but also occasionally troops
to the staging areas for upcoming battles.
The biggest fear on the Liberty Ships were submarines
for which they were sitting ducks.
It was just the luck of the draw as to whether you met up with one or not.
He never felt worthy of any honor for what he did.
Any war is a terrible thing, and WWII had many horrid chapters.
To end the war, the bombs were used,
and I believe it was the right thing to do.
The alternatives were even more horrid.
“The crew of the Enola Gay very well might have saved his life — and countless hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of other lives — Japanese as well as Americans.”
I was teaching my students about this today. The battle of Okinawa indicated that the Japanese would have to be completely destroyed, and the War Department estimated at the time that an invasion of Honshu (where Tokyo was located) would result in a million dead US soldiers. The decision to drop the bomb was a humane one.