Hiroshima: necessary?

*i know of wherefore i speak

-- Millar (tmilla...), August 11th, 2003. (Millar)

maybe my favorite ILE post ever.

Your use of "you people" shows that you see this issue in black and white, and that it is you that have come to the table with predetermined ideas.

Did you read any of the quotes from any of the high ranking US military leaders who were opposed to the use of the bombs? They appear to fall under your description of "you people".

Similarly, 20 years on, when some of Lyndon Johnson's advisers objected that bombing North Vietnam's factories and rail lines would not do much harm to an agrarian country in which industry accounted for only 12% of its minuscule GNP, America's air-force chiefs argued that since its industrial sector was so small, the country was that much more dependent on it, and would suffer all the more if it were destroyed. In fact, the North Vietnamese responded to the bombing of their oil tanks and railways by dispersing fuel across the country in small drums and hauling supplies around on bicycles. But zapping railways, factories and oil tanks was something the air force knew how to do.

By that time bombing, whether effective or not, seemed much more attractive than sending in more troops. As America's ground forces in Vietnam found themselves increasingly impotent against an elusive and resourceful foe, the military commanders proposed endless variations on the same bombing strategy that had so far failed. Johnson one day dressed down the army chief of staff in front of his underlings: 'Bomb, bomb, bomb, that's all you know. Well, I want to know why there's nothing else. You're not giving me any ideas for this damn little pissant country. Now, I don't need ten generals to come in here ten times and tell me to bomb.' "

The following is a list of historians who signed a letter which challenges (to say the least) the "facts" displayed at the Smithsonian's original Enola Gay exhibit. The letter can be read at http://www.doug-long.com/letter.htm

List of signatories:

Kai Bird, co-chair of the Historians' Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima

Martin Sherwin, co-chair of the Historians' Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima

Walter LaFeber, Professor of History, Cornell University

Stanley Hoffman, Dillon Professor, Harvard University

Mark Selden, Chair, Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Binghamton

Jon Wiener, Professor of History, University of California, Irvine

William O. Walker III, Ohio Wesleyan University

Dr. E.B. Halpern, Lecturer in American History, University College London

John Morris, Professor, Miyagi Gakuin Women's Junior College, Sendai, Japan

Gar Alperovitz, historian and author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb

Stanley Goldberg, historian of science and biographer of Gen. Leslie Groves

James Hershberg, historian and author of James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age

Greg Mitchell, author of Hiroshima in America

Gaddis Smith, Professor of History, Yale University

Barton J. Bernstein, Professor of History, Stanford University

Michael J. Hogan, Professor of History, Ohio State University

Melvyn P. Leffler, Professor of History, University of Virginia

John W. Dower, Professor of History, MIT

Priscilla Johnson McMillan, Author and Fellow of the Russian Research Center, Harvard University

Bob Carter, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Worcester College of Higher Education, England.

Douglas Haynes, Associate Professor of History, Dartmouth College

Bruce Nelson, Department of History, Dartmouth College

Walter J. Kendall, III, The John Marshall School of Law, Chicago

Patricia Morton, Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside

Michael Kazin, Professor of History, American University

Gerald Figal, Asst. Professor of History, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon

R. David Arkush, Professor of History, University of Iowa, Iowa City

Barbara Brooks, Professor of Japanese and Chinese History, City College of New York

Dell Upton, Professor, University of California, Berkeley

Eric Schneider, Assistant Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania

Janet Golden, Assistant Professor of History, Rutgers, Camden

Bob Buzzanco, Assistant Professor of History, University of Houston

Lawrence Badash, Professor of History of Science, University of California, Santa Barbara

Kanno Humio, Asociate Professor of Iwate University, Japan

Robert Entenmann, Associate Professor of History, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN

Mark Lincicome, Assistant Professor, Department of History, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA

Kristina Kade Troost, Duke University, Durham NC

Peter Zarrow, Assistant Professor of History, Vanderbilt University

Michael Kucher, University of Delaware

Lawrence Rogers, University of Hawaii at Hilo

Alan Baumler, Piedmont College

Timothy S. George, Harvard University

Ronald Dale Karr, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Kikuchi Isao, Professor of Japanese History, Miyagi Gakuin Women's College, Sendai, Japan

Ohira Satoshi, Associate Professor of Japanese History, Miyagi Gakuin Women's College, Sendai, Japan

Inoue Ken'Ichiro Associate Professor of Japanese Art History, Miyagi Gakuin Women's College, Sendai, Japan

Yanagiya Keiko, Associate Professor of Japanese Literature, Siewa Women's College, Sendai, Japan

Sanho Tree, Research Director, Historians' Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima

Eric Alterman, Stanford University

Jeff R. Schutts, Georgetown University

Gary Michael Tartakov, Iowa State University

W. Donald Smith, University of Washington, currently at Hitotsubashi University in Toky

"However," claims the Smithsonian, "the use of the bombs led to the immediate surrender of Japan and made unnecessary the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands." Presented as fact, this sentence is actually a highly contentious interpretation. For example, an April 30, 1946 study by the War Department's Military Intelligence Division concluded, "The war would almost certainly have terminated when Russia entered the war against Japan."[3] (The Soviet entry into the war on August 8th is not even mentioned in the exhibit as a major factor in the Japanese surrender.)

if they *had* mentioned the entry of the USSR, then they'd have to get into why the US government wasn't oh so keen on the USSR extending its sphere of influence over the pacific rim -- quite justifiably within the purview of washing dc circa 1945, however you feel about US puppet regimes there during the cold war.

Um... Huh??

Good one.

Decisions are black and white when you make them. It's everything that happens afterward that fucks it all up.

Exactly. That's why they sent it to the Smithsonian which was presenting its own interpretation as fact. These historians were arguing that a subject that is so controversial should not be exhibited as fact at a respected institute like the Smithsonian.

Talking about projected casualties from invasion vs. casualties from the bombs is not an argument for or against the decision that was made. That discussion is called "lessons learned;" and it would seem we've all learned a lot since not a single one has been dropped on any other people since.

tom i was under the impression that a- and h-bombs aren't being dropped/fired because of strategic wargame type issues, rather than a firm moral resolve that melting the flesh off children is not "the done thing" any more.

Plus it's bluff anyway since the abundant natural resources in the Middle East in general make nuking an economic no-no.

The reason why this debate occurs is that the answer to what Truman believed to be true is inaccessible. The fact that he said he believed it is not enough, since we all know that in such matters any leader would willingly lie about his motives. In light of this, there is no answer to this debate and can't be. Even hindsight is not always 20/20.

xpost

and as stated various times, "more died in tokyo" -- but anyway what's *your* estimate of US fatalities in an invasion of japan? if not half-a-million, perhaps a quarter-of-a-million. would a US president destroy a japanese city to prevent this? in mid-1945 yes he certainly would. innocent japanese and germans died in greater numbers for less direct purposes.

Talking about projected casualties from invasion vs. casualties from the bombs is not an argument for or against the decision that was made. That discussion is called "lessons learned;" and it would seem we've all learned a lot since not a single one has been dropped on any other people since.

How fortunate for you that your parents/grandparents were not Japanese civilians. How unfortunate for the Japanese civilians that "we" learned a lesson at their expense.

To paraphrase the character of William Parcher in "A Beautiful Mind" (one of the characters imagined by John Forbes Nash), your conviction, it turns out, is a luxury that can only be enjoyed by those on the sidelines.

I still feel that the link Tom posted is completely relevant to the thread, it's just that I see it as one that undermines the entire premise that the bombs were necessary to end the war.

Of course no one has an answer to this, nor do I need one. Since Truman is the one for whom "the buck stops here", and it was his decision that caused this debate, I believe the heavier burdon of proof to fall on the "yes" decision. Albert Einstein "said that he was sure that President Roosevelt would have forbidden the atomic bombing of Hiroshima had he been alive". So why is it that everyone wants to believe Truman's motives but not those of others like Eisenhower, Leahy, MacArthur, Zsilard and Einstein?

Exactly! MacArthur was anything but peace loving, and even he was opposed to the use of the bombs. Since he was in charge of the Pacific war, and subsequently Japan's occupation, I find his opinion on the matter to be highly relevant.

you really need to read Rise of the Vulcans! Armitage is a piece of work all right, but he comes of positively rosy compared to the rest of that generation. thousands of Vietnamese owe him their lives, personally, post-Saigon

Why FDR made unconditional surrender his policy and why, apparently, Truman followed it, is something I never can quite fathom.

I agree with your statement M. Ironic that "we" allowed them to retain the Emperor after dropping the bombs anyhow.

Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on August 1, 1944. The order dealt with the disposal and execution of all Allied POWs, numbering over 100,000, if an invasion of the Japanese mainland took place.[36] It is also likely that, considering Japan's previous treatment of POWs, were the Allies to wait out Japan and starve it, the Japanese would have killed all Allied POWs and Chinese prisoners.

Father John A. Siemes, professor of modern philosophy at Tokyo's Catholic University, and an eyewitness to the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima wrote:

"We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb. Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians."[37]

Japanese government did not decide what terms, beyond preservation of an imperial system, they would have accepted to end the war; as late as August 9, the Supreme War Council was still split, with the hard-liners insisting Japan should demobilize its own forces, no war crimes trials would be conducted, and no occupation of Japan would be allowed. Only the direct intervention of the emperor ended the dispute, and even then a military coup was attempted to prevent the surrender.

One of the most notable individuals with this opinion was then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower. He wrote in his memoir The White House Years:

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."[47][48]
Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General Douglas MacArthur (the highest-ranking officer in the Pacific Theater), Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific), and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials),[48] Major General Curtis LeMay,[49] and Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard,[50] and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.[51]

Curtis Le May??!!

Others have argued that the U.S. should have waited a short time to gauge the effect of the Soviet Union's entry into the war. The U.S. knew, as Japan did not, that the Soviet Union had agreed to declare war on Japan three months after V-E Day, and the Soviets did indeed attack Japanese forces in Manchuria, Sakhalin Island, and the Kuril Islands on August 8, 1945. This represented the loss of any possibility that the Soviet Union would serve as a neutral mediator for a negotiated peace, as well as the entry into combat of the Red Army, the largest active army in the world. Because no U.S. invasion was immediately imminent, it is argued that the U.S. had nothing to lose by waiting several days to see whether these events would convince Japan to surrender without use of the atom bomb. Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings themselves were not even the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories in Manchuria that forced the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945.[54]

Your intelligence is staggering Timbit. So I disagree with you, with research and citations, and that makes me "a goddamed fucking idiot (that) aught to learn to read".

I would say that your childishness simply proves my points, but that would not be fair to those that disagree with me but use rational discourse and research to do so.

Sherman justified his brutalizing of the South by implying that it would shorten the war and thus actually minimize the final Southern tally of suffering and a man like Le May did very much the same with regard to his approach in Asia, though he did admit that, had the U.S. lost, he fully expected to be tried as a war criminal. Without 20/20 hindsight, it's vey hard to gauge how one's decisions will affect the future, and strangely, whether a leader depends on popularity, aquiescence or elections, he or she must sometimes pay attention to popular grievances in formulating the policies of war and peace - see Koizumi and the shrine (I have seen the ugly side of Japanese nationalism with their strident flags and bullhorns in the streets of Tokyo) or Truman's echo of the angry and often racist sentiment of 40's American men on the street to beat the hell out of 'the Japs', and to merely say that they should hold themselves to higher standards is, though sometimes commendable, sometimes terribly easy when the actual responsibility doesn't actually weigh upon one's shoulders.

You're an absolute fool and I'll not repeat myself any further on this thread. You infuriate me with your pompously worded and completely, COMPLETELY redundant additions to this thread. You are in no way genuinely interested in discussing the topic or perusing what's already been said long ago because you came here to make incredibly dull observations about the sanctity of human life and fell self-righteous. You're actually a pretty terrible excuse for a sentient being and I am sick of reading posts by people like you. Fuck off and die.

M. White: OTM.

M, once again I can agree with your statement. As one who has also studied 'clio's craft', I know that it is unfair for me to use Western 21st century values to judge a person who was in control of one of the most powerful nations 60 years ago. However, what I can do is read the opinions of his contemporaries and do my best to objectively (not possible, I know) use that information as if they were a jury of his peers, so to speak.

-- TOMBOT (tombo...), September 27th, 2006.

It really shouldn't be this way, but you can't begin to imagine how much it pleases me that I have infuriated such an apparently belligerent person as you Tom.

I also simply can't resist pointing out the humour in the following statement: completely, COMPLETELY redundant additions to this thread That's hilarious man! Well said.

It's also funny that you claim that I have brought nothing to the conversation, yet it is you that is ranting and swearing.

So Tom, admit it. You're also one of those who still thinks the weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq aren't ya.

I completely agree gear.