Was Dropping the Atomic Bomb Necessary for Ending the War with Japan?

[salinator]

Originally Posted by Kiwiguy

I also came across this quotation from a medical technician who had a chance discussion in Tokyo with an OSS officer about the Japanese A-bomb. Leon Thompson was a medical technician in Tokyo, Japan. He described a diagram of the Japanese atomic bomb and it was exactly like the U.S. bomb:

Really? Where is the diagram?

[DocCasualty]

Yes, dropping the atomic bomb was necessary for ending the war with Japan. As I read through this thread, I think most of the points that I could make have already been made. The one point I would emphasize is that history is made as time goes forward and is only told by looking back. Most of what I would consider revisionist history is based on the leisure of looking back, something US leaders did not have the luxury of at the time.

Would the blockade have unltimately choked them off? Probably, but that would have been a very lengthy process. One way or another our troops would have ended up on the ground and there's no doubt this was a people committed to total war, down to the last man, woman and child.

There was a debate earlier in the thread about whether or not Hirohito was viewed as a god. I think we're parsing words here. Wheither he was seen as a god, divinely inspired or anointed, the point is he was held in regard by the Japanese people as more than just another politician and one who's proclamation was the final word.

Although Hirohito cited the Soviet Declaration of War as the reason for surrender in his rescript to his armed forces, his radio address to the people clearly cited the bomb.

Was the bombing of Nagasake necessary? I say yes, but can't help but think if Japan was not already as disrupted as they were, it might have been avoided. However, they were given clear warnings of what was about to occur unless they accepted anything less than unconditional surrender, so the onus was on them.

Whether you agree or not, there's no denying that Truman made the decision he thought was correct and stood by it until the end. Here was a letter he wrote nearly 20 years after the fact.

Harry Truman on Dropping the Atomic Bomb
Finally, in August 1945, after more than six years of fighting and with tens of millions of people killed worldwide, World War II was over. Although the world celebrated the end of the war, there was also intense debate about the use of the atomic bomb to bring it to a conclusion. "I realize the tragic significance of the atom bomb," President Harry Truman said in a radio address before the Japanese government finally surrendered, "[but we] have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans." Eighteen years later Truman felt just as strongly. He was still being criticized for his judgement, and he was grateful to those who had supported him. In July of 1963, Irv Kupcinet of the Chicago Sun Times wrote a favorable column on Truman and his decision, and Truman wrote the following letter in response.


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August 5, 1963
Dear Kup:

I appreciated most highly your column of July 30th, a copy of which you sent me.

I have been rather careful not to comment on the articles that have been written on the dropping of the bomb for the simple reason that the dropping of the bomb was completely and thoroughly explained in my Memoirs, and it was done to save 125,000 youngsters on the American side and 125,000 on the Japanese side from getting killed and that is what it did. It probably also saved a half million youngsters on both sides from being maimed for life.

You must always remember that people forget, as you said in your column, that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was done while we were at peace with Japan and trying our best to negotiate a treaty with them.

All you have to do is to go out and stand on the keel of the Battleship in Pearl Harbor with the 3,000 youngsters underneath it who had no chance whatever of saving their lives. That is true of two or three other battleships that were sunk in Pearl Harbor. Altogether, there were between 3,000 and 6,000 youngsters killed at that time without any declaration of war. It was plain murder.

I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war that would have killed a half a million youngsters on both sides if those bombs had not been dropped. I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again -- and this letter is not confidential.

Sincerely yours,

Harry S. Truman

[Kurttis Thomas]

This may have already been said but I'm new to this one so I'll say it again.
Yes both were necessary It would have claimed thousands of American lives to Invade Japan and it would have taken years to make Japan surrender by air. So yes I think they both were.

[PanzerBob]

I always find it telling as well that Col Tibbets never lost any sleep over his role the atomic attacks either.

Bob out