Going Through Hell
Aug 09, 2007
Controversy still rages over the morality of dropping the two atomic bombs that ended the war before the American invasions of Kyushu and Honshu. But we forget that President Truman’s decision was largely predicated on avoiding the nightmare that Marines like E. B. Sledge had just endured on Peleliu and Okinawa. If today Americans in the leisure of a long peace wonder whether our grandfathers were too hasty in their decision to resort to atomic weapons, they forget that many veterans of the Pacific wondered why they had to suffer through an Okinawa when the successful test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16 came just a few days after the island was declared secure. Surely the carnage on Okinawa could have been delayed till late summer to let such envisioned weapons convince the Japanese of the futility of prolonging the war.
While I prefer to be against using weapons that disproportionately affect civilians, the fact is that there is evidence that the Japanese were continuing to work on their own A-bomb and even if they were not the Americans could not be sure of that. Also, the Japanese were a proud Island nation with strong concepts of honour and were (especially the leadership) still in the mood to fight to the last man woman and child. An invasion of Japan under these conditions would have left far more civilians dead and injured.
Posted by: Saul Wall | Aug 09, 2007 at 05:47 PM