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One thing the anti-bomb people ignore is that Japan would have used the bomb if they'd had it. Their holier-than-thou attitude comes from the failure of their country to provide the means to nuke Pearl Harbor, not because they were above such things.
One thing the anti-bomb people ignore is that Japan would have used the bomb if they'd had it. Their holier-than-thou attitude comes from the failure of their country to provide the means to nuke Pearl Harbor, not because they were above such things.
Oh, if you passed out say a half-dozen A-Bombs (with say one B-29 and a couple of crews to deliver them) to each WWII participating country, no doubt in my mind EVERY ONE would have gleefully used them. Some might have hesitated trying to figure out how best to use them, but I can't imagine any combatant refusing to use them, refusing to use theirs first, or any such. A few might have wanted to hold on to the last one or two, if they thought it would be a long time till they could get more, but all would have been damn glad to get them and would have used them!
Which is why I say the Pacific USAA commanders were completely morally and strategically right, to accept the bombs and use them as effectively as they could, as soon as they could.
If you read Fussell, you have been reminded that Allied casualties were running about 7000 a week in August 1945.
I think the most anyone could have done, is after Hiroshima, to call on the IJ command to surrender "or there are more like it coming your way". One could make a (weak) argument that Nagasaki came rather quickly after Hiroshima. Yet it was only after that second bomb that any real movement towards ending the war happened.
No doubt in my mind he would have followed the same course. The world thought differently then. Civilian casualties were not as sacred as they are today.
At the time of the close of World war II, millions of Americans were serving in the armed forces, and many of them, including my father, were training in anticipation of a conventional attack on the Japanese home islands. With each advance in the island-hopping Pacific campaign, the fanaticism of Japanese resistance, and the casulaties it produced, increased.
Millions more spouses, parents and relatives of the GI's were affected, and unlike the Japanese, they were registered to vote. There is no doubt in my mind that Roosevelt would have followed the same course as Truman -- he simply wouldn't have taken Truman's no-nonsense, buck-stops-here approach.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 08-23-2016 at 07:36 PM..
The worst-case estimates for Operation Downfall were summed up nicely in one prediction: The invasion of Japan would be like a series of Okinawa-level battles from one end of the Home Islands to the other. In anticipation of this kind of fight one million Purple Hearts were ordered. I got one of them in 1970.
Japan was considering sweetening the pot on its surrender the very same month FDR died.
Everyone who said FDR would have done exactly what Truman did needs to read
this also: Was Hiroshima Necessary?
I really think FDR would have gotten terms of surrender acceptable to the American
people and our Soviet allies. Still, I did cage that expectation with the need for a possible
outward display of exactly what this new weapon does.
This is a major part of the problem.
The only surrender terms acceptable to the American people were unconditional surrender or something extremely close to it. If Japan had begun World War II in a different manner than an unprovoked sneak attack on the United States, perhaps a negotiated settlement could have been arrived at.
The level of fury toward Japan after Pearl Harbor is not understood. There is a reason that 100,000 Japanese Americans ended up in relocation camps. People didn't use the word "Japanese" when they talked about the enemy. They used three letter slang for them instead.
Any American President would have had to have dealt with political considerations. Americans were not in a mood for peace and reconciliation after Pearl Harbor. However, it got worse. By the end of the war, we knew about the Bataan Death March and had a pretty good idea that our POW's had been dreadfully abused by the IJA. We firebombed Japan for months and probably killed several million people in the process. You'll find virtually no historical references to any American group expressing sympathy for the Japanese civilians who were killed. Such was the mood of the times. I think what most Americans wanted was either unconditional surrender or a bunch of dead Japanese.
I know these things not only because I read them, but because I grew up in a family of veterans of both the Pacific and Atlantic Theater in World War II. I'm talking father, mother, uncles, and cousins. My mother is still alive at age 97 and proud as can be that she never ever bought a Japanese car. I'm dead serious.
One could make a (weak) argument that Nagasaki came rather quickly after Hiroshima.
Three days seems to me to be awfully short for Japan's government to process the meaning of Hiroshima, decide on a course of action, and notify the Allies of their intentions. Personally, I think we should have allowed a week to pass between Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though, if we had, maybe the weather over the primary target of Kokura would have been better, and we'd be forever pairing "Hiroshima and Kokura" instead of "Hiroshima and Nagasaki" in discussions of nuclear bombings.
All that said, I can't imagine that FDR would not have used the bombs, just as Truman did.
Truman had the same WAR Generals and intel as FDR did....why would FDR do anything different.
if FDR had the option to end the war with an unconditional surrender and save Americans lives and not get the Soviets involved in Japan, he would have done the same thing as Truman.
This Monday Quarterbacking with history to get their 15 minutes of fame and write a few articles that has to do about nothing.
I think FDR could have cut a deal.
Japan would have surrendered, virtually unconditionally, perhaps
with the Emperor's status being preserved.
This deal may or may not have required a display of A-Bomb effects.
Therefore, I will say he would put a display on.
FDR commanded a lot more respect than Truman.
I do agree that FDR commanded more respect but in Japan's case, I don't think it would've worked. Those guys were fight to the last man types. Honor and dying for the Emperor was the ultimate glory for them. And to think just how many American soldiers lost their lives taking a bunch of small islands - taking the fight to mainland Japan would've just been unimaginable. All in all, how it ended was very tragic and regrettable.
I do agree that FDR commanded more respect but in Japan's case, I don't think it would've worked. Those guys were fight to the last man types. Honor and dying for the Emperor was the ultimate glory for them. And to think just how many American soldiers lost their lives taking a bunch of small islands - taking the fight to mainland Japan would've just been unimaginable. All in all, how it ended was very tragic and regrettable.
Right up to the second bomb the Japanese were being taught how to sacrifice themselves to save the Empire. The "militia" troops, almost totally untrained were to be used as bullet sponges on the invasion beaches, mobile bomb transports ("You jump under a tank and pull this string."), and terror troops (school girls were given wooden awls and told to stab the tall Americans in the crotch, meaning that any girl coming near an Allied soldier after that word got around would have been shot out of hand, I suspect) and that their life would be spent in the honor of the Emperor. Many more Japanese would have died in the invasion than died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And neither of those cities can claim "most casualties", that went to a fire bombing raid on Tokyo in late winter, 1945, over 100,000 dead in just one raid.
Why would this question even be asked? FDR would have done the same as Truman. Any American president who doesn't value American lives over our enemies, shouldn't be our president.
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