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The island hopping campaign through the central pacific. Even the name of the operation (Cartwheel) showed how it was planned. Likewise "Cartwheel's" concept was used along the "Turkey's Back" where Macarthur bypassed a lot of Japanese garrisons. He called the technique "hitting them where they are not".
If the bomb had been ready in March of 1945 you might have a chance of making a decent argument, unfortunately the bomb wasn't ready until August.
If an atomic bomb had been used on Iwo ,it would have had to be a ground pounder and the resulting radioactivity would have made the island useless for forward basing of fighter planes or as an emergency stop for B-29 bombers.
it wasn't used at Iwo Jima where it should have been
Using it against Iwo would have largely been a waste. The Japanese troops there had spent years digging in, and then digging in more. Sure, the bomb would have killed what- hundreds, maybe even 1,000 troops. The trouble was that there were 21,000 Japanese troops on the island.
For Iwo jima, I think it is important to realize that the planners assumed the Japanese would be:
A. Rear echelon troops who would quickly banzai charge
B. A moderate number of combat troops who would mount a better defense- then banzai charge.
What the planners did not count on was 21,000 Japanese combat troops all determined to fight bunker by bunker with out the s.o.p banzai charges. US casualties then mounted from there.
If an atomic bomb had been used on Iwo ,it would have had to be a ground pounder and the resulting radioactivity would have made the island useless for forward basing of fighter planes or as an emergency stop for B-29 bombers.
Good point except for the fact that both bombings were air burst and left very little residual radiation in fact you would have been good to go in just a few hours. Most if not all the radiation deaths were the visited upon those were poisoned at the time of the exploison. on the other hand an air burst would not have been very much help against the heavilly fortified underground defenders of the island. That the bombs would have need to have been dentonate either on the surface or after they had burried themselves below it in either case residual radiation would have render the island uninhabitable for many years. For example Bikini Island is still uninhabitbale 60 years after the fact.
If an atomic bomb had been used on Iwo ,it would have had to be a ground pounder and the resulting radioactivity would have made the island useless for forward basing of fighter planes or as an emergency stop for B-29 bombers.
Not actually a problem. The base would have been used as intended. Why? Because we didn't know any better. We had people into Hiroshima and Nagasaki very quickly after the bombings, to evaluate the damage. We also have pictures of Groves and Oppenheimer at ground zero of Trinity Site two days after the blast. We weren't aware of a residual radiation problem. This, of course, means that there would have been more people exposed to whatever radiation was residual.
Macarthur's military abilities seems to be a strange mix of genuine exceptional ability, egotistical self promotion and poor performance. Hmm... maybe Donald Trump is a civilian equivelant?
Macarthur's forces in the Phillipines were very poorly prepared, even by the confident standards of pre WWII for the Japanese invasion. Likewise, Macarthur kept himself on the island fortress of Corrigedor and rarely, if ever visited front line postiions (Dug out Dug).
He then launches a campaign of self promotion and initiates the very successful Island Hopping Strategy that emphasizes mobility and agility over needless assaults. As you mentioned, thousands of lives are saved. His administration of Japan was exceptional and benefitted not only the US, but the Japanese as well.
Five years later, and Macarthur's forces in Japan and Korea are again very poorly prepared to resist the surprisingly proficient North Koreans. Disaster nearly ensues until they are stopped at the Pusan Perimeter. Then... Macarthur pulls off the brilliant Inchon landing and stunning victory, only to ignore growing reports that hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops were filtering into North Korea.... .
MacArthur's record in the Philippines before the fall of Bataan and Corregidor to the Japanese is spotty. Many who observed him during the early days after Pearl Harbor said he seemed paralyzed. This paralysis was unfortunate. Army Air Force units at Clark Field were commanded at that time by General Lewis Brereton. Brereton contacted MacArthur immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred and strongly recommended that he be allowed to use his planes to bomb Japanese air bases on the island of Formosa (Taiwan). MacArthur hesitated to give him the order and this was a terrible misjudgment. Within hours, Japanese planes came roaring over Clark Field and proceeded to decimate the American force of fighter and bomber aircraft that had been there because of rumblings in the Far East. Once the American Air Force was decimated, defending the Philippines from the Japanese was probably a hopeless proposition. Had Brereton been given permission to bomb airfields on Formosa, the Japanese attack on the Philippines would have probably been a much slower and difficult proposition for the IJA. Perhaps, they ultimately would have won anyway, but destroying or damaging their air power would have certainly complicated their invasion plans.
However, after this misjudgment, MacArthur recovered and did a good job of evacuating his forces to the Bataan Peninsula and organizing a defense. American units on Corregidor held out against the Japanese for five months. Allied strongholds such as Singapore had fallen much more quickly.
Even the best of commanders make mistakes. The key is understanding which mistakes are acceptable and which ones demand replacement of that commander.
General MacArthur did have a point that to truly "win" the Korean War needed to be widened. He did not want to accept the political realities President Truman was dealing with that required restrictions.
He also had a huge ego, was used to civilian leadership deferring to his military "genius," and used to getting his way.
Truman had already tolerated from MacArthur more insubordination than any president would from a military commander. When MacArthur started trying to run his own east-Asian foriegn policy and publicly bad-mouthing the President to congressional leadership, Truman had no choice. The firing had to be done.
It would be as if the U.S. commander in Afghanistan started personally reaching out to leadership in India and Pakistan without authorization while at the same time sending open letters to Paul Ryan saying that President Obama was going to lose Afghanistan for us. No one would expect Obama to put up with that. It's a testament to Truman's patience he put up with it as long as he did.
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