bc,
I go on vacation for a week and I miss everything interesting.
[Bart writes] The reason we dropped that bomb, was to save lives because
going building-to-building in Japan would kill - I heard Randy Humphries
say
this today, "well in excess of 140,000 soldiers." He seems to be saying
that
when you invade another country, sometimes people have pride and they fight
for their land - they don't roll over like senate Democrats. We dropped
a
bomb to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese people. We did
that to avoid what we're facing today in Iraq, except Iraq didn't attack
us.
[Phil writes] The historical record is so
clear on this, that it pains me
when the old cover stories are told as if they were true. This is
completely false.
[DAF Comment] There is nothing in history
that is "so clear cut". THAT
is a lesson that needs to be learned by all, over and over.
[Phil writes] ... we had fire bombed nearly every city in Japan to the
ground.
That was why Gen. Curtis LeMay, directing the fire bombing, opposed
dropping the atomic bombs. Eisenhower wrote that he felt physically ill
when told we would use the bombs, for, he said, Japan was already defeated.
These men didn't want hundreds of thousands of US servicemen to die.
They knew better.
[DAF comments] This is not quite correct.
LeMay did not see the NEED to
drop the A-bomb. If he had seen a need, he would not have hesitated to
drop it.
I personally feel he wanted to save it for Moscow and Leningrad.
He was quite mad you know.
[Phil writes] There would be no house to house
fighting, with dug in
resistance from well armed fighters to the death like at Iwo Jima or
Corregidor. A starved population of no military age males (women, children,
and old men) with no houses or standing cities was out sharpening sticks
to
use as spears as their only weapons. We had them completely cut off from
any mainland resupply of necessities for several years, and of oil, from
before
the start of the war, over four years earlier.
[DAF comments] This
paragraph shows a clear misunderstanding of the
situation for the Japanese Army in late 1945. I just finished a study of
Operation Olympic which included an extensive interview with the local
Group Army commander. He provided details on the troops, supplies and
underground defensive works. The attack would have been very much like
Iwo.
[Phil writes] Truman started this ball rolling
by talking of first a half
million saved, and then a million lives saved. But the actual military
assessment of the taking of Honshu, the main island, was 65,000 total
US casualties, to include all those killed and wounded but not killed.
Assuming that would run 2-1, that might imply about 21,000 dead.
If 4-1, it would mean 13,000 or so dead.
[DAF comments] The casualty estimates for the attack
are all over the board and this
paragraph accurately reports on the very high and very low ball estimates.
Personally, I feel that the 50K KIA and 250K WIA numbers are pretty good
for the US
forces for both Olympic (Kyushu) and the follow-on Operation Coronet (Honshu).
These discussions however, say nothing of the 8-12 million casualties
the Japanese would have suffered.
[Phil writes] But the truth was, an invasion
was never necessary. They were that defeated,
so defeated, that they'd been asking for terms of surrender through third
party state's diplomats,
several of them, for over a year. Truman's diaries show him acknowledging
he knows the
'Jap Emperor' is looking for terms.
[DAF comments] This is NOT "the truth". It is quite
true that there were elements in the Japanese
government who wished for peace. There were far stronger elements in the
military who wanted war.
The "Emperor" had not made up his mind on which way to turn and defaulted
with the military.
Japan was defeated if your definition of defeat is "the ability to impose
your will on other nation states".
However, a people are defeated only when they admit that they are defeated.
This is a lesson I fear,
our nation is once again being forced to learn in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Saying you won does not
make it so.
[Phil writes] Everybody in our military and
civilian war team favored offering terms, and ending the war.
Adm. Halsey, Gen. Marshall, Sec. War Stimson, just retired Sec. State Cordell
Hull, Eisenhower.
All the British military and civilian leadership, Churchill, Montgomery,
favored offering terms, and
ending the war. No loss of life on any side, just a surrender agreement,
and then peace, with Japan
defeated and under our control.
[DAF comments] This is a gross overstatement. Of
course everyone on our side wanted to avoid invasion.
The real trick is getting the other side to come to the same conclusion.
This is something that is continually
lost in the argument regarding "the bomb". The argument has many levels
and most have no basis in
practical sense. The argument tends to be simplified into "If we
drop the bomb, there will be peace."
At the time that was not by any stretch of the imagination guaranteed.
The bomb was simply another tool.
If it brought the desired end, so Truman felt, all the better. Otherwise,
we go on. That was the reality of
the time. All of the other "issues" are simply faulty cause and effect
arguments.
[Phil writes] The Potsdam Summit Declaration
had its draft language including a clarification of surrender
terms. That had approval from all the Allies. Just before the summit, that
language was taken out by Truman,
under the advice of the new Sec. State, James Byrnes, the only man in the
leadership of Britain or the US
or our other allies who opposed offering terms of surrender.
Why? Because the bomb hadn't been tested yet at Almogodro, NM, and they
hadn't had a chance to use
them yet. So they prolonged the war, refusing to do what everybody else
agreed was the best way to end
the war immediately, so hey could test, use, and demonstrate those atomic
weapons.
[DAF comments] This supposition is bullshit.
Always get VERY suspicious when a
historian/pundit/journalist answers his own "Why?" someone else does something.
The main target was the Soviet Union, to cow them internationally, and
specifically, to stop them from
invading and dismembering Japan, since they'd joined the war on our side.
But again, the Soviets only
declared war in August, and that wouldn't have been an issue if the Potsdam
Declaration had clarified
terms months earlier.
[DAF comments]
As Phil accused Bart of "the cover story", this too is the cover story
of the "Don't drop
the bomb" crowd. And, like the other story, contains that grain of truth
which people tend to exaggerate.
[Phil writes (after snipping half truths) ]...
Head of the Navy Admiral Leahy flatly stated that the atomic
bombs in no way contributed to the defeat of Japan and were totally unnecessary.
The War Department
itself commissioned a Strategic Bombing Survey in 1945, and its conclusions
were that even had the Soviets
not entered the war, or the US dropped the atomic weapons, or invaded Japan,
'almost certainly' Japan
would have surrendered in August, as they did. Truman himself wrote in
his diary that if the Soviet Union
entered the war, 'finis' Japan.' They had JUST entered the war, and then
we HAD to use the bombs?
[DAF comments] Once again we have the faulty
cause and effect logic of hindsight. This is a really
important point and I'll restate it. THERE WAS NO GUARANTEE THAT JAPAN
WOULD
SURRENDER IF THE BOMB WERE DROPPED. THERE WAS NO GUARANTEE THAT
JAPAN WOULD SURRENDER IF THE SOVIETS ATTACKED.
Because it happened that Japan chose surrender after the bombs dropped
was simply good fortune
for those slated for the invasion and those in the path of those invasions.
[Phil writes] And those terms? Mainly, the Japanese
wanted assurances on the Emperor, that he wouldn't
be tried and executed for war crimes, as was already happening to the German
leadership. They wanted to
remain a nation, and not be broken into pieces controlled by foreign countries,
like the Soviet Union,
with longstanding claims on Japanese islands.
[DAF comments] The key word in this paragraph
is "Mainly". That covers a plethora of seemingly innocuous
other details that the author felt as trivial. It is said that God is in
the details and a few minor items such as
the IJA disarming themselves got in the way of this little bit of wishful
thinking.
[Phil writes] Not only could we live with those,
we wanted to keep the Emperor and use him, and wanted to
keep Japan intact. And as a bitter irony, when the Japanese surrendered,
they did so on those exact terms.
And we accepted them, the very terms we could have had a year before.
[DAF comments] This is simply false and Potsdam
shows it as such. If the above statement were true,
how does one explain our occupation of the country and the USSR territorial
expansions.
[Phil writes] As a fitting side note, the
actual plan was for the United States to continue to bomb Japan with
more atomic bombs as they became available. Truman noted for his conscience
(I believe) in his diaries that
he called that plan off after the second bombing at Nagasaki, to stop the
slaughter of innocent women and
children (his own words).
[DAF comments] Phil finally hits the right
argument but doesn't follow through. "The bomb" was simply
another tool for the "job" at hand. In one night over Tokyo, LeMay's B-29s
slaughtered 100,000 people
in a single firebombing raid. It involved a lot more planes, but the results
were as disastrous (more so) than
either of the A-bombs. The real crime is that of strategic bombing. The
A-bomb was simply one tool in this
most monstrous of all endeavors of modern military science. The real moral
question was whether strategic
indiscriminant terror bombing of the enemy cities was legitimate or a war
crime. That is the real question/controversy.
If one questions A-bombs, one must also question the RAF Bomber Command's
attacks against German cities,
and Germany's attacks on London and the dozen's of other targeted cities.
At least the American air force tried
to target industrial sites, but even this is suspect when looking at the
results.
[Phil concludes after a large snip of several unsupported proofs/proofs
and more of the "show the Soviets" crap]
So, it wasn't a trifecta, but it was a two-fer. Good geopolitical effect,
by showing the Soviets the hammer.
Good political effect, covering the impeachment angle. Byrnes was a consummate
old boy, senior southern
senator, chief justice of his state's Supreme Court, a fixer and an inveterate
poker player. He told Truman that
when you have the high cards, you bet them and bring the pain, you don't
fold them. The atomic bombs were
Byrne's idea of high cards, but only if he played them. That was Byrne's
exact argument that won Truman's
agreement.
[DAF comments] All of this is true, but it
is also a side issue. At the heart of the matter, you have a tool which
allows you to hit your enemy hard. You have established a strategy of terror
bombing your enemy's cities.
If that enemy decides that that weapon is their defeat, all the better.
If not, the troops go in and stand on their
neck until they admit their defeat. You will use that tool and not shed
a tear. That is the reality of war.
As a rebuttal to Phil, Ricky Zee wrote the following ...
[Ricky writes after snip of intro] ...we were
a nation--a world--exhausted by war and death and sacrifice.
The battle for Japan would have been horrendous. with little more
than small arms weapons, the Japanese
had made the battle for Iwa Jima and Okinawa hell on earth. at Iwa
Jima, the last three or four thousand
Japanese, having been deprived of food and water for days, staged a banzai
charge, led by their commanding
general and resulting in all their deaths.
[DAF comments] This is quite true and born out by post-war interrogations of Japanese field commanders.
[Ricky continues] the
most telling evidence of the rightness of dropping the bomb is perhaps
film footage of
the young marines at Okinawa. With Japan already cut off from all
of their empirial resources, Americans had to
fight for every square inch of the island, while the American fleet had
to withstand non-stop kamikaze attacks
from thousands of planes, human jets, and one suicidal run from a dreadnought
battleship.
at the conclusion of that battle, there is some wonderful footage of young
marines actually falling to their knees
and weeping at the news that Japan had surrendered. these were hardened
combat veterans--killers--and
they cried, almost fainting, to find out they would not have to fight the
battle of Japan.
[DAF comments] Once again, there is no particular
virtue in dropping the bomb. There was no guarantee that
dropping the bomb would end the war. It was a tool. A particularly efficient
and elegant tool, but the same
effect could be achieved by sending 500 B-29's with bellies stuffed with
100# incendiaries. The fact that we
targeted civilian populations IS the question/controversy/war crime - NOT
THE WEAPON.
[Ricky continues after snipping comments on
LeMay] look at LeMay's feelings about the
A bomb once it
became the sole province of the newly created Air Force--they swear by
it! they outfit F-16's, the nimblest,
fastest fighter in the world to carry nuclear weapons. in fact, the
Air Force doesn't want to do anything but
drop nuclear weapons. that's why they won't provide close air support
for the army, and the army needs to
build all those attack helicopters. that's why the Air Force hates
the A-10, one of the greatest close air support
planes ever built--it doesn't deliver nuclear weapons.
[DAF Comments]
Ricky gets a bit excited as LeMay had nothing to do with the development
of the B61 family
of Intermediate yield strategic and tactical thermonuclear bombs (aka "dial-a-yield"
bombs) or their deployment
on F-16s. However, behind the hyperbole, there is the nearly century
old argument of the use of air power.
The basic argument is between strategic bombing/defense and tactical/operational
support. In most cases,
strategic weapons and missions are easier to explain to polititicians (who
control the money) and appeal to the
good ole Military-Industrial-Complex (R&D mega-bucks contracts). Therefore,
strategic systems tend to win.
On the other hand, tactical/operation missions tend to be very combat effective,
cost effective and a real force
multiplier for the grunts on the ground, but it is hard to explain to politicians
and doesn't provide a lot of
overhead for the MIC - therefore the soldiers loose.
[The remainder of Ricky's stuff was snipped, and I continue with kuma's
comments - snip intro] We all assume
the immediate conclusons made in the wake of the victory were the accurate
ones and they have been taught as
such since. But the more you research, the more realize that a few are
inaccurate or just plain false. One of the
biggest is that the Emperor was an unwitting patsy of the militarists and
just limply went along with their warmongering.
[DAF comments] Quite right.
[Kuma continues] He
was very involved from the first military actions to the last and often
changed Cabinet
personnel when they disagreed with him vis a vis the conduct of the war
and the Imperial expansion. The US
had to absolve him of blame in order to maintain order and keep Japan
as a bulwark against communism in Asia.
There were war criminals in back in charge as quickly as possible because
the only legitimate oppostion left in
Japan was communist/socialist. No way the US could have that.
[DAF comments] Quite right again.
And just to not pile all the blame on the US, the Emperor himself increased
the likelihood of the A-bombs by
making numerous mistakes. One glaring one was maintaining that the Soviets
(!) be their intermediary with the US.
Only when the Soviets declared war after Hiroshima did he abandon that
dream. He also always insisted that
abdication NOT be a condition of surrender, come what may. There's more,
but you get the point.
[DAF comments] Kuma scores three good points in a row.
The bottom line is that the bomb was simply a tool. It was hideous and
horrendous and any other adjective
you want to call it. It did not guarantee victory. It simply killed people
far quicker than any other single tool.
If 100,000 people are shot through the head with a .30 cal bullet from
an M-1 rifle, or 100,000 are incinerated
in a nuclear detonation, they are just as dead. As far as I am concerned,
this is the biggest non-issue of the entire war.
Now if you want to discuss terror bombing ....
DAF
Note from Bart - if you guys want to carry this on, you'll
have to do it by e-mail.
It took almost an hour to format that, so answering each point
could take two hours.
Dave can be reached thru the Project
60 link.