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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Two or three people have said this so far, and I have a question: is there no hierarchy of casualties in a war?
Leaving aside the question of whether the numbers are right, the "millions of people" killed in an invasion would have been, overwhelmingly, soldiers; the hundreds of thousands killed by the bombs were civilians. In wartime, are these really equivalent lives?
(BTW, I'm of the strong belief, based on entries in truman's diaries, that the bombing was more about scaring the bejesus out of the USSR than subduing the Japanese.) |
Your premise about invasion casualties being primarily military is faulty. Taking Okinawa as an example, civilian casualties were higher than military casualties, and this on an island with very little in the way of a major city. Combat casualties aside, had the war continued the real killers would have been starvation and disease, which would have disproportionately effected civilians. As it was there was plenty of starvation over the winter of 1945-46 even with the U.S. shipping in food.
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shawnmmcc
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Not only is Sikander correct, one of the "hidden facts" of WW2 is the fact the US submarine campaign against Japan, coupled with the ineffectually opposed bombing, had already pretty much shut down the movement of food (and almost everything else) in the Japanese islands. What's terrible is that it wasn't until after the war that the US actually realized how brutally effective the submarine warfare had become. Submarines were surfacing to shell junks because there weren't any other targets. The deaths due to starvation, and its compatriot disease, would have been horrendous. That's why I called Truman's decision BAD - Best Available Data. Nobody knew how effectively the Japanese infrastructure had been destroyed, and I suspect, though I don't have a timeline handy (I'm on break at work) that if they were already involved in the post-European bombing analysis, they may have just been discovering how ineffective the bombing had been against Germany with the exception of fuel/oil related targets. With even the beginning of that analysis, it would only have strengthened the decision to drop the bomb as a necessity.
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shawnmmcc
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Sikander, I'm aware of MacArthur's arguments. His credibility in strategic circles was a bit strained at this point. People forget that we took losses of approximately 40,000 in the Phillipines, the second bloodiest campaign for the USA in that theatre. I have from a single source (I cannot remember where) that MacArthur badly underestimated the casualties for that campaign, and that his credibility, in strategic circles, was strained because of this. I wasn't aware of LeMay, but he was known to be a very biased in favor of the power of aviation. Since I am fairly sure that the USA was just getting back some of the post-analysis in Europe, and finding out just how ineffective most of our strategic bombing had been on a direct basis (except for fuel supplies as stated before), again, the credibility of this spokesman is going to be limited in the context of 1945.
Just about everybody knew that Japan no longer had the ability to mount any kind of offensive operation, and in fact their ability to mount a defensive operation was limited at best. However, what was scaring many in the military was the ability of Japan to still mount a defense.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Battle-of-Okinawa
quote:
At some battles such as Iwo Jima, there had been no civilians, but Okinawa had a large indigenous civilian population, and the civilian loss in the Typhoon of Steel was at least 130,000. American losses were were over 72,000 casualties, of whom 12,000 were killed or missing, over twice Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. About a quarter of the civilian, and Japanese and American populations about the island in spring 1945 were killed. There were about 100,000 Japanese killed |
http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/frame1.htm
quote:
The battle for Peleliu was largely unnoticed by the American public, even though it was one of the deadliest battles. The landing in the Philippines and events in Europe eclipsed it. The 1st Marines suffered so many casualties, the Army 81st Division was added to the forces on Peleliu. Both units would suffer over 50% casualties, totaling over 6800 deaths. The Japanese lost over 12,000 men...
Yamashita was hanged in Manila for war crimes in 1946. He had ordered a withdrawal on Manila without unnecessary violence, but 19,000 soldiers under Vice Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi were encircled. They turned on the civilian population of Manila, killing 100,000. Almost all the Japanese were killed, including Iwabuchi. The war crimes trials hastily blamed Yamashita, and he was convicted. |
Look at both those quotes. I have read extensively on the Okinawa campaign, including the brilliant defense mounted by the general there. He knew he was going to lose, he knew the allies were going to have total air superiority and massive naval gunfire resources, and he still managed to outdo the Waffen SS, Germany's elite, in casualties inflicted. That was what we were scared of.
Even if you minimize the civilian casualities in Manila, after all no dictator will perpetrate war crimes against his own people  , look at the casualties for Okinawa. They were horrendous. So when people sarcastically refer to killing civilians to save them, they don't understand the intelligence and numbers facing American decision makers. From their vantage point, an invasion meant massive casaulties for the US military, Japanese military, and unbelievable civilian casualties. It is already well documented they were using Okinawa as their primary example. It was recent and included total US air and naval superiority. They found it frightening.
Now many people state we didn't need to invade. They're correct, but the statement is meaningless. The US army had a problem. Doctrine. Look at Okinawa. With modern doctrine all we would have done was seize the necessary airfields, cordon off the island so those airfields were out of light artillery range, and let the Japanese commit suicide on minefields and prepared defenses. So why didn't we?
A doctrine had been taught in the US military espousing Grant's policy of destroying enemy forces . Please, I know about Sherman. The US military does not necessarily always learn the right lesson (look at our occupation policies in Iraq, except if we do, let's do it with it's own thread, PLEASE). That policy more or less had dominated US military doctrine thru WW2, though a few generals realized the world had changed. The US Army could not conceive leaving Japan alone to starve through 1946. A few far-sighted generals might have, for example as you state MacArthur and LeMay, but not the US Army as an entitiy. They were actively preparing for the invasion. Would an invasion of Japan have been an act of monumental stupidity? Yes. How often has that stopped the military before? Not just the US military, either.
In the context of the choices available to Truman, there were the invasion or the bomb. If you sent either you or me back in time, could we have presented additional alternatives? Of course. That's why I said before, and I will say it again, Truman made a BAD - best available data - decision.
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Elden
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Are you equating that a terrorist attack with a war against an inhuman aggressor? |
No, read more carefully you were saying the nuclear bombings were "ok" because "every" Japanese citizen there supported Japan's war effort.
I merely pointed out an obvious flaw in your logic but you seem to have misinterpreted my intent.
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Dr Strangelove
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IIRC almost every member of Japanese society able to stand and walk, including women, school children and the elderly, was being trained to use bamboo spears against Allied soldiers. I wonder, if the bomb had not been used and the US had been forced to invade, how many civilians would have died in futile attacks on armed soldiers? In the end, when the war had been lost anyway, how would the Japanese people have felt about having been asked to make such insane sacrifices? How long would it have taken for Japanese society to have healed?
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shawnmmcc
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Sikander, I went to your first site. Years ago I used sites like this, until I got burned too many times with interpretation masquerading as fact. Or even worse, interpretation that had many of the facts but not some critical ones.
First, that site is biased, as is evidenced by some of it's contradictions within it's statments.
quote:
-----In the first half of 1945, US military planners, unquestionably aware of and assuming that Japan was desperate, began planning for an invasion of Japan. They assumed that the earliest date for a limited invasion, of the Ryuku Islands, was 1 November 1945, while the earliest date for an invasion of the Japanese mainland was 1 January 1946–both dates are significantly later than the 8 August Soviet promise of intervention, which planners maintained would force a Japanese surrender by itself. Planners, led by General George Marshall, also assumed that the US could expect about 25,000 casualties as the result of a land invasion. |
Where to begin? First, please note the support of my statement on the strategy of destroying enemy forces. Second, note that it states that the army was planning for an unnecessary invasion (November 1st) after Japan would surrender when the Soviets would invade (August 8th).
Well, which is it? Actually, like most history that contradictory statement is true in each isolated statement, while producing a totally deceitful neat, pretty picture. You had people like MacArthur and Eisenhower (another general who was not seen as a strategist but an individual who held a coaltion together, brillliantly, a political general, and that's from a bunch of sources!) proposing simply waiting for the collapse of Japan, while maintaining current strategic warfare initiative, i.e. bombing and submarine warfare.
So why waste all the time planning? Because the overall command structure of the US miliary could not conceive of anything except that (reference my previous post, the policy of destroying enemy forces). Please note General Marshall is giving out these estimates (the size of which is also silly, but more on that next), and helping doing the planning, so obviously he is involved with a group who doesn't necessarily buy into the collapse scenario.
Plus there is a set of numbers that have been circulating among revisionist historians in recent years. "25,000 casualties." A single source estimate people have latched on to, so they can say that "see, we really didn't need to drop the bomb, only 25,000 Americans would have died."
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Battle-of-Okinawa
quote:
At some battles such as Iwo Jima, there had been no civilians, but Okinawa had a large indigenous civilian population, and the civilian loss in the Typhoon of Steel was at least 130,000. American losses were were over 72,000 casualties, of whom 12,000 were killed or missing, over twice Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. About a quarter of the civilian, and Japanese and American populations about the island in spring 1945 were killed. There were about 100,000 Japanese killed |
Sikander, this second fact shows the danger of isolated sources in historical interpretation. The facts of Okinawa show that the supposed figure of 25,000 is ridiculous. The vast majority of military planners involved in planning the invasion of Japan wered scared &^$*less of the possible casualties. Here's another spin (please note that I kept cutting and pasting as I went back and forth to the site - some of it maybe out of order, PLEASE read the entire lecture. There is some bias there. At least General Giangreco tries to back up his research with multiple sources, and it's evident, at least to me in the context of what I already know, that he knows where to look).
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/giangrec.htm quote:
General D. M. Giangreco, lecture: MacArthur's staff had twice come up with figures exceeding 100,000 casualties for the opening months of combat on the southern island of Kyushu, a figure which some historians largely succeeded in contrasting favorably- and quite mistakenly- with President Harry Truman's much-derided post-war statement that Marshall had advised him at Potsdam that casualties from both the Kyushu and Honshu invasion operations could range from 250,000 to one million men...
...It is also important to note that when they went to Potsdam, Truman and Marshall knew that total US casualties had recently exceeded the one and a quarter million mark- a number these historians find unfathomable- what's more the bulk of the losses occurred in just the previous year of fighting against Germany.
There were plenty of estimates which confidently asserted that strategic bombing, blockade, or both- even the invasion of Kyushu alone- would bring Japan to its senses, but no one was able to provide General Marshall with a convincing explanation of just how long that would take. The millions of Americans poised to take part in the largest invasion in history, as well as those supporting them, could only stay poised for so long. Leaders in both Washington and Tokyo knew this just as well as their theater commanders in the Pacific. After learning of the bomb, MacArthur ignored it save for considering how to integrate the new weapon into plans for tactical operations at Kyushu and Honshu if Tokyo was not forced to the surrender table. Nimitz was of a similar mind. On being told that the bomb would become available in August, he reputedly remarked, "In the meantime I have a war to fight."...
Some today assert, in effect, that it would have been more humane to have just continued the conventional B-29 bombing of Japan, which in six months had killed nearly 300,000 people and displaced or rendered homeless over 8 million more. They also assert that the growing US blockade would have soon forced a surrender because the Japanese faced, quote: "imminent starvation." US Planners at the time, however, weren't nearly so bold, and the whole reason why advocates of tightening the noose around the Home Islands came up with so many different estimates of when blockade and bombardment might force Japan to surrender was because the situation wasn't nearly as cut and dried as it appears today, even when that nation's supply lines were severed. Japan would indeed have become, quote: "a nation without cities," as urban populations suffered grievously under the weight of Allied bombing; but over half the population during the war lived and worked on farms. Back then the system of price supports that has encouraged Japanese farmers today to convert practically every square foot of their land to rice cultivation did not exist. Large vegetable gardens were a standard feature of a family's land and wheat was also widely grown.
The idea that the Japanese were about to run out of food any time soon was largely derived from repeated misreadings of the Summary Report of the 104-volume US Strategic Bombing Survey of Japan. Using Survey findings, Craven and Cate, in the multi-volume US Army Air Force history of WWII detailed the successful US mine-laying efforts against Japanese shipping which essentially cut Japanese oil and food imports, and state only that by mid-August, quote: "the calorie count of the average man's fare had shrunk dangerously." Obviously, some historians enthusiasm for the point they are trying to make has gotten the better of them since the reduced nutritional value of meals is somewhat different than "imminent starvation."...
Now, this is particularly interesting because, in recent years, some historians have promoted the idea that Marshall's staff believed an invasion of Japan would have been essentially a walk-over. To bolster their argument, they point to highly qualified- and limited- casualty projections in a variety of documents produced in May and June 1945, roughly half a year before the first invasion operation, Olympic, was to commence. Unfortunately, the numbers in these documents- usually 30-day estimates- have been grossly misrepresented by individuals with little understanding of how the estimates were made, exactly what they represent, and how the various documents are connected. In effect, it is as if someone during World War II came across casualty estimates for the invasion of Sicily, and then declared that the numbers would represent casualties from the entire Italian campaign. Then, having gone this far, announced with complete confidence that the numbers actually represented likely casualties for the balance of the war with Germany. Of course, back then, such a notion would be dismissed as being laughably absurd, and the flow of battle would speedily move beyond the single event the original estimates- be they good or bad- were for. That, however, was fifty-plus years ago. Today, historians doing much the same thing, win the plaudits of their peers, receive copious grants, and affect the decisions of major institutions...
Unfortunately these best-laid plans would not have unfolded as expected even if the atom bombs had not been dropped and the Soviet entry into the Pacific War had not frustrated Tokyo's last hope of reaching a settlement short of unconditional surrender- a Versailles-like outcome unacceptable to Truman and many of his contemporaries because it was seen as an incomplete victory that could well require the next generation to refight the war. An infinitely bigger war than the late unpleasantness in Vietnam, which would have seen us sending troops overseas in 1965 to fight Japan instead of to Southeast Asia. No deferments for that one. [Laughter.] The end result of this delay would have been an even more costly campaign on Honshu than was predicted. A blood bath in which pre-invasion casualty estimates rapidly became meaningless because of something that the defenders could not achieve on their own, but a low pressure trough sitting along the Asian littoral would: knock the delicate US timetable off balance.
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See my point? Please note that I am using this site for ease of use. The vast majority of the points made in it are ones that I have read in multiple volumes. And remember from my first post:
quote:
1) (missing fact - from Grolier.com) At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill--most probably to allay Joseph STALIN's suspicions of the loyalty of his allies--proclaimed a policy of unconditional surrender for Germany, Italy, and Japan as the only means of maintaining the peace. |
There were already major problems developing in post-war Germany, which many people don't realize were in part because of French and British intransigence in working with the Soviets. I have read some first hand accounts of those first several months, from the American vantage point, and they state the Soviets more or less tried to cooperate, and that the French and British occupying authorities would not. We had made an agreement with Stalin concerning accepting only unconditional surrender. With hindsight, would things have turned out any worse with the Soviet Union had we accepted the conditional surrender? Probably not. But they didn't know it at the time. So we couldn't accept a conditional surrender from Japan, that and keep our commitments to the Soviet Union.
The generals you mention were correct, from a military standpoint. It would have been a much better idea to accept the conditional surrender rather than invade. Diplomatically that was not an option. Then our scientists gave Truman a third option, which given the historical context, he wisely used. Again, Best Available Data. Aavailable not only did it exist, but in a format and a location that it was usable.
quote:
Sikander wrote:Here is another account of the decision to use a bomb that references in general terms the concerns of the Army. However the article does demonstrate that the Japanese government did not decide to surrender until the second bomb fell. In fact, it appears that the Japanese government surrendered only on the personal orders of Emperor. |
Exactly. Japan did not surrender, and evidently at least some of the reasons for dropping the bomb were valid! They hadn't surrendered. Period. Given the context of the casualty assessments the US government was working under, what else could Truman do? Guess the lowball estimate was right, after Okinawa? What happens if it's not? Or bet tens of thousands of American lives on a guess they will surrender, or try an option that you hope makes it more likely? Truman was president of the United States, not the League of Nations. He did what he thought was best of the Unitied States of America.
People are constrainted by their historical context. (personal opinion) It is only great individuals, like Gandhi, who can step outside of it. Please note, Gandhi's historical and cultural context conspired to kill him. Being a great man is not only rare, it's dangerous. By the way, I'm enjoying this exchange. Sikander, you at least try to quote facts, so it becomes a polite disagreement, not an argument. Thanks!!
As a personal plug (related to but not relevant to the thread  ) , the best anti-war movie I have seen is Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies) (1988) directed by Isao Takahata, centered around the firebombing of Kobe (he understood the horrors of the strategic campaign were not limited to Nagasaki and Hiroshima), based on a work by someone who lived through the strategic bombing campaign. If anybody here hasn't seen it, please rent it. Only watch it on a sunny day, when you can take a walk with someone you are close to afterwards. Oddly enough when I introduced it to my wife we also had watched "Patton", and the juxtaposition was odd, because it dovetailed nicely with one of the Patton's last statements, a little before his death. He just might have agreed with the sentiment of Hotaru no haka.
edited 5 minutes after posting, forgot to reinsert part of a sentence at the end of the fifth paragraph when editing initially.
Last edited by shawnmmcc on 03-11-2003 at 15:21
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shawnmmcc
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You know something, I am going to start a new thread on "Grave of the Fireflies". It deserves it's own thread, so any commentary on that portion of my last post can go there  .
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=100659
Edited to add link.
Last edited by shawnmmcc on 03-11-2003 at 15:38
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Capt Dizle
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Blood on their hands? One cannot describe or judge the conduct of nation states in the way that one judges individuals. The moral and ethical standards applied to individuals in a society cannot be applied to nation states nor to those leaders of states, such as Truman, that were in effect acting as the state at the time. Insofar as law, what law applies to sovereign states? None except that the state chooses to acknowledge.
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My Wife Hates CIV
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Michigan
Jan 1970
time: 05:31
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perhaps someone already posted this...
but the way i see it is, they started the whole thing. so at the time they still got off easy with only two cities nuked. but that's because there is no other country like the US. Always understanding and ready to help.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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Shawn, you have been responding to me, Ned, not to Sikander.
I will give you exact quotes if you need it, but here is another summary of the opinions of MacArthur, Eisenhower and other prominent military leaders:
"After World War II, some of America's most respected military leaders, including Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Adm. William Leahy, and Adm. Ernest King, questioned whether use of the A-bomb had been necessary. In their view, Japan was near collapse and surrender. Some-like Eisenhower and Leahy-went further, asking also whether the bombings had been moral.
For example, Leahy, the war-time chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in 1950: "In being the first to use it [the bomb], we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion . . . by destroying women and children."
In seeking to bar the words of Leahy, Eisenhower, King, MacArthur, and others, the Legion and the Air Force Association "patriotically" sought to rewrite history, besmirching the ideals for which so many Americans fought and died for in World War II."
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1...mj95.guest.html
Now, in April, when the invasion decision was made, most of the military were not aware of Japan's decision to surrender conditioned on retention of the emperor. That came later with the intercepts of Japanese communiques to the USSR. When those became available , there was a growing view in the top military circles that we should end the conflict NOW by offering to accept their surrender with the condition that the Emperor remain and with further assurances that any occupation would end in about five years time. The reason for this was to forestall, not the use of the bomb, but the entry of the USSR into the war and the necessity of an invasion.
We had NO agreement with Stalin at any time to not accept a conditional surrender of JAPAN as the USSR was not at war with Japan. We did have such an agreement with England and an agreement with the USSR not to accept such a surrender from Germany.
If you still insist that the top military leadership was 100% behind using the bomb to force an unconditional surrender, I will still look for direct quotes.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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Here is a piece with direct quotes:
http://www.doug-long.com/thad103.htm
Re: Bonnett on Alperovitz
Date: 3 Oct. 1996
From: Thad Williamson
As a contributing researcher to Gar Alperovitz's The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, I am compelled to draw attention to the thorough inadequacy of John Bonnett's review as a fair representation of the evidence and argumentation presented in that book. While critical engagement with the text by informed scholars is heartily welcomed, the book deserves the respect of having the evidence it presents taken seriously by reviewers.
Unfortunately, Bonnett's review simply does not engage the evidence forwarded in The Decision, and in fact stands as simply another addition to a long line of ad hominem attacks on revisionist scholars which has marred rational historical debate of the Hiroshima question over the past 30 years.
For purposes of illustration, I will flesh out in detail one important source of evidence--fleshed out in some 50 pages of text in The Decision--which essentially refutes Bonnett's suggestion that Alperovitz has simply read back into Truman's decision his own mindset and prejudices, or "drawn a face in the mirror that bears a striking resemblance to [his] own." The source of evidence I refer to consists of the views of a wide variety of top-level military leaders who, both in 1945 and afterwards, stated explicitly and repeatedly that using atomic bombs against Japan was not a military necessity in 1945. Strangely, Bonnett neither discusses nor acknowledges any of this evidence (some of which is well-known, other parts brought to historical attention for the first time in The Decision)
I quote at length here:
*Admiral William Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1945 and a close personal friend of Truman, wrote in his 1950 memoir "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." (p.3, The Decision) Leahy had urged Truman on June 18 to clarify the terms of unconditional surrender so as to provide an Emperor guarantee, and on July 16 had urged the British Chiefs of Staff to get the prime minister to push the issue with Truman.
*Writing in the third person, U.S. Fleet commander in chief Ernest J. King stated in his 1952 memoir the belief that regarding the choice of the bomb or invasion, "the dilemma was an unnecessary one, for had we been willing to wait, the effective naval blockade would, in the course of time, have starved the Japanese into submission through lack of oil, rice, medicines, and other essential materials." (p.327)
*Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz in September 1945, according to The New York Times, "took the opportunity of adding his voice to those insisting that Japan had been defeated before the atomic bombings and Russia's entry into the war." In October, Nimitz stated, "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into war." Nimitz's widow later recalled that he "always felt badly over the dropping of that bomb because he said we had Japan beaten already." She recalled direct statement by Nimitz that "I felt that that was an unnecessary loss of civilian life...We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything." (pp.329-330)
*In 1946, Third Fleet commander Admiral William Halsey also came forward, stating "The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment...It was a mistake to ever drop it. Why reveal a weapon like that to the world when it wasn't necessary?...It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before." (p.331)
*The commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Hap Arnold, stated in his 1949 memoir that "it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." Arnold's deputy, Lt. General Ira Eaker, later stated that "Arnold's view was that it was unnecessary. He said that he knew the Japanese wanted peace. There were political implications in the decision and Arnold did not feel it was the military's job to question it." Eaker added that Arnold had told him that while the Air Force under his command would not oppose the bomb's use, "it is not necessary to use it in order to conquer the Japanese without the necessity of a land invasion." (p.335)
*General Carl Spaatz also recalled in interviews given in the 1960s his unease with the use of the bomb in 1945, stating "That was purely a political decision, wasn't a military decision. The military man carries out the orders of his political bosses." Spaatz recalled his view that a demonstration of the bomb over Tokyo Bay would have been appropriate as opposed to dropping the bombs directly on a city (as well as the view that even the continued threat of conventional bombing might well have been enough to induce surrender). Spaatz's 1945 recommendation of a demonstration drop is corroborated by an interview with associate Glen Martin. (pp.343-345)
*Brigadier General Carter W. Clarke, the army officer in charge of preparing the MAGIC summaries in 1945, stated in a 1959 interview, that "we brought [the Japanese] down to an abject surrender through the accelerated sinking of their merchant marine and hunger alone, and then when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs." (p.359)
*Although Air Force General Curtis LeMay later bobbed and weaved quite a bit on his stated opinion of Hiroshima in subsequent years, in September 1945 LeMay publicly declared that the bomb "had nothing to do with the end of the war" and that "The war would have been over without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb." In November 1945, LeMay added that it was "obvious that the atomic bomb did not end the war against Japan. Japan was finished long before either one of the two atomic bombs were dropped..." (p.336)
*On August 15, 1945, Major General Claire Chennault, founder of the Flying Tigers and former Army Air Forces commander in China, told The New York Times "Russia's entry into the Japanese war was the decisive factor in speeding its end and would have been so even if no atomic bombs had been dropped..." (pp.335-336)
These judgements also were shared by the two supreme military heroes of World War Two-- Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur. While there is continued debate as to whether Eisenhower, as he claimed, actually advised Truman and Stimson in July 1945 not to use the bomb, it is nonetheless notable that greatest American military leader of the twentieth century and a two-term President of the United States consistently condemned the Hiroshima decision, from 1963 until his death, stating that "[T]he Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." Even if the meetings with Truman and Stimson of 1945 remain historically uncertain, there is little doubt that Eisenhower's doubts about the bomb dated back to that period. Eisenhower's son John on two occasions has corroborated Eisenhower's "depression" upon learning of the bomb and its impending use. According to the younger Eisenhower, the General stated "Well, again, it's none of my business, but I'd sure hate to see it used, because Japan's licked anyway, and they know it." (pp.352-358)
While Eisenhower's outspoken displeasure with the Hiroshima decision is well-known among historians, perhaps more surprising is that Douglas MacArthur too refused to endorse the atomic bombings as militarily necessary. While MacArthur is another figure who changed his public statements over time regarding wartime issues, he remained relatively consistent regarding the bomb. The diary of MacArthur's pilot, Weldon Rhoades, from August 7, 1945 states that "General MacArthur definitely is appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster [the bomb]." Herbert Hoover's diary regarding a May 1946 meeting with MacArthur states "I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished.
MacArthur said that was correct and that we have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria." In a postwar interview with journalist Norman Cousins, MacArthur expressed the view that there was "no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier...if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor." (pp.350-352)
These quotations (including the views of additional leaders not noted here), their subtleties, and the variation and shifts which take place over time with different leaders (with particular attention to the view of George Marshall) occupy four chapters at the very heart of the book, yet Bonnett's review does not even acknowledge them. Surely the idea that the military leaders of 1945 did not see the bomb as necessary--and what this might say about the on-the-ground reality of 1945--is worthy of some consideration, some analysis. Surely this is data that historians cannot responsibly ignore--and it might be added here that the material becomes even more striking when one notes that most of these military figures did not take into account the potential effects of a guarantee for the Emperor in making their judgements as to whether Japan could be brought to surrender without the bomb or an invasion.
Indeed, the cumulative impact of this evidence is to illustrate that, within the mindset of people actually on the scene in 1945, there was felt no military urgency to use the bomb to accomplish the end of the war. It is not revisionist historians who read back into the evidence notions of morality alien to 1945 or assumptions that the atomic bomb decision was contestable. On the contrary, it is the traditional view which has forgotten that voices of doubt and unease regarding the use of atomic bombs on Japan without warning and without exploring other options were prevalent in 1945, even (and especially) in the military.
There are many other critical points which might be made regarding Bonnett's review and his refusal to engage many of the key evidentiary points concerning the decision forwarded by Alperovitz (such as the Zacharias radio broadcast of July 21 and Walter Brown's diary entry of August 3 regarding Truman and Byrnes' assessment of the Japanese position.) I will here simply make the observation that Bonnett's review, while critical, still does not deny the book's fundamental point: There were credible alternatives to the bomb and Truman knew it.
At most, Bonnett has tried to show that Truman could have been less certain about the likely success of these alternatives than Alperovitz suggests. Yet Bonnett comes nowhere near (even in intent) of upholding the traditional view that the bomb or the November invasion were the only choices in bringing about a satisfactory end to the war. Again, from an ethical standpoint, even if one believes the combination of a guarantee to the Emperor and Russian entry would have been less certain to induce surrender than in Alperovitz's account, the fact remains that credible alternatives with a reasonable likelihood of ending the war quickly without use of the bomb or an invasion were available to Truman; and they were not tried. From a moral standpoint, this is the fundamental factually relevant point regarding the Hiroshima decision.
In a similar vein, while I find Bonnett's thoughts on trying to understand how experience and prior history helped shape the perceptions of decisionmakers in the second part of his review interesting, I think there is a danger of eliding ethical judgements--which we all must make--with historical reconstruction. While moral judgements are informed by historical understanding, it is a mistake to think that moral judgements can be evaded by better understanding of an actor's perceptions--or to put it another way, that sin can be explained away by showing how the presumptions, culture, or personal history of the sinner may have inclined him to the action in question. Thus, while we may strive to understand Hitler, Stalin or nineteenth century slave owners and their mindset and cultural norms as accurately as possible for historical reasons, this does not mean we let them off the hook morally. This also applies to Truman, Byrnes, and the Hiroshima decision.
Finally, the charge of "demonstrable selectivity" in the use of evidence in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb made by Bonnett should not go unremarked. All historians use evidence selectively, of necessity. The question is not whether one selects and weighs evidence, but whether one is honest in doing so. I can personally attest that The Decision went to great lengths to engage every objection to the book's thesis that had appeared in public discussion as of spring 1995 and to take account of facts and arguments regarded by other writers as tantamount to a different view.
While one may disagree with the weight given various pieces of evidence, to simply tar Alperovitz with the brush of "selectivity" is to blame for Alperovitz for having any view at all. Indeed, the charge seems particularly curious in light of the "demonstrable selectivity" of Bonnett's own review, and his unwillingness to engage much of the most important evidence forwarded in The Decision -- including, as I have emphasized here, the remarkable degree to which the key American military leaders of 1945 refused to ratify the notion that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military necessities.
Thad Williamson
National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives (Washington)/ Union Theological Seminary (New York)
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shawnmmcc
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Sorry, Ned, I was juggling three threads at the time and scrambled names. Very nice reply, now I'm going to have to get back to you with some other source info. I've been sick with a bad case of bronchitis, and so has my little girl, and I'm hideously behind on upkeep on my 4 acres (one word - LEAVES). It will probably be a couple of weeks before I get back on this one as a proper reply will require some genuine research, but don't worry, I will
I think, and this is impression rather than research, that one of the things that have damaged the immorality argument is the "25,000 casualties". I suspect I understand what motivates it, but I don't agree.
Anybody who studies military history, versus history with awareness of the military, finds that number ludicrous, i.e look at the figures for Okinawa. I suspect that they bring that up to diminish the 250,000 to 1 million casualites figures, and they do so because so many individuals look at these large numbers and use the latter for shock value to support Truman's decision. Especially as that upper number is so shocking, and is probably as inaccurate as 25,000. But 250,000 is a reasonable figure, in fact very reasonable. Roughly three time Okinawa.
Neither of which necessarily has anything to do with the morality or immorality of the decision. Even preventing 25,000 USA casualties (with the much higher number of Japanese civilian and military casualties, plus non-stop losses to kamikazes that are not in those estimates), would have justified dropping the bomb. One could argue that the Oath of Office would almost require it. However, that presupposes that invasion vs. the bomb were Truman's only realistic decisions.
Your quotes definitely imply there were more voices claiming this then is popularly perceived. The thing to discover is what was filtering in to Truman. I'll have to see exactly what is out there, and how available (I'm not going to the Truman library, but I may write them). I will try to find material written around the time of the decision, not afterwards. Please note that many of your quotes come after the fact. People are notorious about, shall we say, writing for posterity. Typically politicians are worse than generals, to say the least. At least though you are quoting those individuals, which is a much higher degree of reliability, and sometimes those after-action biographies are all we have to go on.
One of the best indicators will be was the invasion of Japan dead serious planning with logistics already moving into place, i.e. were they actively preparing? If they were (with shipping distances accross the Pacific shipping and armaments production will show strong indications) then somewhere in the army heirarchy the message of alternatives was getting lost. This doesn't prove the "bomb or invasion" hypothesis, but it definitely shows somebody was backing the invasion idea heavily.
If it was more akin to Operation Sea Lion, the Nazi non-invasion of Britian, which was more of a paper exercies (not completely for any of you who want to argue, it's just the resources were not committed, and that's another thread), than your point about alternatives (as perceived at the time) sticks very well. People were already minimizing the invasion of Japan, if they weren't keeping the logistics pipeline in high gear. Two good examples of how people started thinking the end of the war in Europe was not going to be as tough as it include the scaling back on munitions production I believe it was in 1944, and the scaling back on the creation of new divisions. Both are documented facts, and both bit the US Army hard in late 1944, early 1945. The facts support the biographies  Some people tried to warn those in authority that these were very premature decisions, but they got made anyway.
Not to say there were not alternatives to the bomb, but I'm talking about the actions of the key players at the time, reflecting what they were planning for. That is one of the best ways to sort out the writing for posterity vs. writing on how it was. As I said, I'll see what I can find.
edited next to last paragraph, confusing phrasing and added Europe, first paragraph for spelling/grammar.
Last edited by shawnmmcc on 04-11-2003 at 13:03
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29-10-2003 10:18
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