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asgrrr -> (2/16/2002 8:13:00 AM)
quote: Originally posted by Tomanbeg: This idiot who thinks the Japs were going to give up without the bomb sounds like one of those who think the holocaust was made up for propaganda reasons. T. This is were I stopped reading your post. The high command of the US armed forces in 1945 were idiots, were they?

Charles2222 -> (2/16/2002 9:11:00 AM)
In order to press my little theory and adapt it to what has been said following it, this theory would seemingly conclude that the Japanese wouldn't have surrendered without the bomb (although I would debate whether the more destructive general air raids would qualify in a sense as A-bomb attacks, since the damage would be damaging material-wise, but less psychological), because any land invasion, a thing perhaps hoped for in comparison to the bombs, may had been the very thing that gave them any chance, given the idea of her opponents growing weary of losses. When talking about the bombs, I think it's important not to isolate the nation that had those bombs from the other Allies. It wasn't just the bombs that Japan would realistically have to fight should she not surrender. OTOH, as the situation wasn't just a debate of whether the US would invade or continue to bomb, by whatever means, from afar, it was also a situation where the USSR would not bend to their strategy of inflicting losses. As I view it, when examining a "cause losses" strategy, even if you disagree that such was their main strategy, late, you cannot exclude the USSR from the quotient and just say whether or not the bomb made a difference in and of itself. Though the bomb was terrible, I conclude that such a rapid acceleration in giving the US the ability to carry on a war with few losses spelt a death knell to the only way Japan could stalemate, should they conclude that such a trend would indicate the US wouldn't be interested in substaining the losses they so badly wanted to inflict. As far as I see it, the USSR was every bit the blow that the bomb was, for both things spelt the practical end of "cause losses", and both factors occuring at one time was devastasting to the only strategy open to them anymore. The US might still attempt an invasion despite the bomb, but nothing was going to stop the USSR. If the bomb didn't convince them that "cause losses" wouldn't work (even though in the US sense it was still strictly a matter of invasion or not), the USSR entry sealed the fact that it wouldn't. On a sidenote. I believe most consider the Cold War really started with the Poltava Incident. I've read a book on it, and up until that time I'd never heard about it ever being discussed in the US. For those interested in the Poltava Incident here's a link. Go to the Operation Frantic portion for a brief description of what happened: http://members.aol.com/unclevanja/July.html#HIST [ February 15, 2002: Message edited by: Charles_22 ]

Mojo -> (2/16/2002 11:27:00 AM)
This is an interesting thread and the question is a difficult one to formulate a satisfactory answer for. Adm. Leahy may have stated that he believed that Japan was ready to surrender but under what terms and conditions? I sincerely doubt the Japanese were ready to agree to unconditional surrender. They had proven resistant to the entire idea of surrender. Somebody already mentioned US experiences on Okinawa. The footage of the Japanese woman leaping to her death from the cliff while holding a child in her arms while American GIs watched is still etched in my memory. “Hap” Arnold may really have believed that air power alone could force Japanese capitulation. Remember that this is early in the history of air power. The Germans thought the "horror" of the Zeppelin raids would bring England to it’s knees. They were wrong. Goering thought that the Luftwaffe could destroy England. He was wrong. We still have people who believe that air power alone can replace a man on the ground with a rifle. They are still wrong. Could we have starved them into submission through continued use of conventional bombing and naval blockade? Maybe but their military wasn’t too concerned about the plight of the common citizen so the last people who would have starved would have been the military and they would have still gone to any extreme to continue to inflict additional casualties on our soldiers, sailors and airmen. Churchill has been quoted as saying that he never doubted the bomb would be used and never questioned that it had been the correct decision. Let’s remember that unlike most of the recent US Presidents, Truman had actually served, with some distinction, as an artillery officer in WW I. He knew what combat was. I’m going to have to take issue with something Penetrator stated earlier where he contends that the dropping of the second bomb was a political decision, out of the hands of the military commanders. The text of the order from the July 25, 1945 order from Gen Handy to Gen Spaatz head of the Strategic Air Forces authorizing the bombing is available on the web but it states in part that “…Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets (Hiroshima, Niigata, Nagasaki and Kokura) as soon as made ready by staff.” That answers in part why there was so little time between bombs. BTW Gen. Marshall and Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan project, drafted the orders. Truman did make reference to the fact that dropping the bombs would “shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans” in a public address August 9, 1945. You should read his diary and see what his reaction was to the devastation the bomb caused. Sorry to ramble. Been a long week. Mojo, out

Dan Keleher -> (2/16/2002 1:38:00 PM)
quote: This is a dubious claim. In the case of blockade it depends entirely on duration. Those top military leaders that Alperowitz details, generally believed the surrender to happen around november, without invasion or A-bombing. Gibberish. You do your best to avoid any arguments that contradict your views. I have yet to see you take the time to refute in a clear manner any of Ed's, Blackhorse's arguments or anyone else's. As for your reliance on the opinions of top American military figures, here's a quote from someone who was in a better position than Leahy or any other person to determine when/if the Japanese would surrender. "The Supreme War Council... was making every possible preperation to meet a landing. They proceeded with that plan until the Atomic Bomb was dropped, after which they believed the United States would no longer attempt to land when it had such a superior weapon - that the United States need not land when it had such a weapon; so at that point they decided that it would be best to sue for peace." -Kantaro Suzuki, Prime Minister of Japan, 4/45 -8/45.

Supervisor -> (2/16/2002 3:11:00 PM)
Having read the last few posts, I think I see where this is going. In the end, this is a much larger debate than about the facts directly surrounding one particular military political decision in 1945. Penetrator is, I believe from other posts, a trained physicist and he lives in his field where memories remain fresh of some of the more perceptive observations of the men with blood on their hands: "Now we're all sons of bitches." "I have become death destroyer of worlds." "If I had known what would become of my theories, I would have become a watchmaker." I apologize if I've misplaced any of the words above since I went from memory rather than looking them up again. It was one of the rare moments in history when men realized what they had actually done. Penetrator wishes that nuclear fission and its rather uglier stepchild nuclear fusion had never been put to such practical use. If they must already exist then he wishes we could uninvent them. We can't. England, the United States, the Soviet Union and later others perused nuclear weapons because after the Special Theory and the practical experiments with uranium fission in the 1930s it was clearly possible to build the "gadget." Now, China, India, Pakistan, France and Israel are all members of the nuclear "club." Other nations are as well or soon will be. The same globalized economy and technological innovation that brings electricity, chemical processing and CNN to the remotest village in the world also brings the ability to assemble the ultimate arbitrator of grievance. Penetrator is afraid. We all should be. To quote Tom Leher in the late sixties: I'll try to remain serene and calm, When Alabama gets the bomb. One of my beliefs is that the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki induced some reason into all of us. But having read and heard some really silly Panglosian statements by military, political and scientific leaders about nuclear war "fighting" over the years, I wonder. You would have thought from reading Herman Kahn and others that a nuclear exchange would be no more serious than having your wisdom teeth pulled. Both of which would be performed by qualified professionals. We know that Curtis LeMay not only pursued a pre-emptive war strategy throughout the 1950s and through the Cuban Missile Crisis as a deterrent posture to scare the hell out of the Soviets, he believed in it. As one student of the Cuban Missile Crisis has noted, after all the experts on both sides congratulated themselves on their wisdom, tough mindedness and skill, they and we forgot that primarily we were just lucky. By we, I mean everyone: Americans, Europeans, Russians, Chinese, Cuban ... Inuits. Several other close calls have taken place. One wonders how many more times we will be lucky. And so hold onto your butts, nanotechnology, biotech and new break thorough in physics will provide new weapons of mass destruction tomorrow we cannot do more than imagine today. The talking chimpanzees have come a long way indeed from their first stick grasped tightly with an opposable thumb. So welcome to the brave new world with such wondrous people in it my friends. Rest assured that if not tomorrow then the day after the bin Ladens, Timothy McVeighs and Pol Pots of the world will have toys far more potent than airliner's fuel loads, fertilizer truck loads and brainwashed children with which to play. Kiss you children goodnight, call your mother and fasten your seat belts; it's going to be a bumpy century. [ February 16, 2002: Message edited by: Ed Jenkins ] [ February 16, 2002: Message edited by: Ed Jenkins ]

Tomanbeg -> (2/16/2002 3:16:00 PM)
quote: Originally posted by Penetrator: This is were I stopped reading your post. The high command of the US armed forces in 1945 were idiots, were they? Yes several of them were. The important ones weren't. The bad thing is that in Ameriac once an officer gets his stars and turns out to be incompetent, they are not gotten rid of, which would be an indictment of the system, but they are promoted upstairs. In WWII Clark, Fletcher, Lehey, Ghormely, are just a few of the examples. In Germany these guys would have been put out to pasture, in Russia they would have been put against a wall. In America they retire and write books to prove they are not idiots. Those books should be read with a joint and a beer available. For a modern example, lets look at the gone but not lamented wesley Clark. That Idiot ordered the Brits to attack and kill the Russian Soliders that snatched the Kosovo Airport. The British commander told him to bugger off, which was the right thing. I don't know if it would have started WWIII, but It could have. It certainly would have led to the russians arming and proping up the Serbs in a big way. Say half a million 'volunteers'. Clinton would have whinned, but It would have taken attention away from the blue dress. By Now Kosovo would have expanded to all the little countries around there. And some not so little. All over a few acres of concrete that needed several million dollars and months of work to become an operatonal cicilian airport. Now that is what I would call an idiot. T.

Tomanbeg -> (2/16/2002 3:22:00 PM)
quote: Originally posted by Penetrator: This is were I stopped reading your post. The high command of the US armed forces in 1945 were idiots, were they? I forgot to add that Idiotwitz was writng to prove a biased viewpoint. He would not included any opinion that did not agree with his. Sort of like a rabid enviro faced with the oddites of the global warming theory he holds. T.

nyarlathotep -> (2/16/2002 4:57:00 PM)
BOOYA! Revised sig T. {WHOOSH}<----The sound made by a revisionist as he runs face first into a wall he believes is there.

Vincent Prochelo -> (2/17/2002 2:56:00 AM)
quote: Originally posted by Mogami: Hi, my sources (well at least my recollection) have 100k killed on landing 1 million casulties total. The 2nd Marine Division was to make the first landing (Operation Olympic) and was written out of planning on D-Day+5 (it was presumed to have been wiped out by then) Personally I do not think the bombs by themselves are what made Japan surrender. (they had sent feelers out in 43 and 44 but did so through the Soviets who just sat on the requests) On Aug 8th 1945 the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and began overrunning Manchuria, they caused over a million Japanese casulties. This is what I believe actually caused Japan to surrender (the fear of Soviet occupation) Oh come on. You can't be serious. I mean about the Soviet part. The Japanese surrendered because of the A-bomb. No doubt about it. They had sent out feelers when they realized that they would lose, but they would never accept the term of unconditional surrender which is what we wanted. -V

Vincent Prochelo -> (2/17/2002 3:01:00 AM)
quote: Originally posted by ratster: The second bomb was more punitive than "neccessary". Why did they firebomb Dresden for that matter, because there were a lot of pissed off people back then, who wanted payback. Dresden was not about anger. Dresden was a major rail hub for the Germans to shift forces between the Western and eastern fronts. The problem was, their just happened to thousands upon thousands of German refugees fleeing the Soviets there at the time. quote: The Japanese high command was at that point(up too and including Hiroshima) more concerned with the firebombings then the A-bomb(of which they were not aware of its full efects yet). There's a good argument that the second bomb "convinced" them of the "error" of their ways. I agree. quote: As others have stated, there is no way to be sure what the casualties would have been in an invasion of Japan. However, at that point, 1 would have been unacceptable. Remember, the Japanese attacked the US first. Its easy to come up with alternatives in the 20/20 hindsight of the historical record. One could also argue that one of the chief reasons nukes have not been used since that time is because of the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Agree again. -V [ February 16, 2002: Message edited by: Vincent Prochelo ]

Randy -> (2/17/2002 3:05:00 AM)
Getting back to the original topic, this will be quick and simple. But considering the resistance put up by Japanese troops fighting in Okinawa, their resolve would have been much stiffer fighting for the Home Islands. They would be fighting on their own soil that they knew and loved. Besides the military there were also home defense forces being trained for guerrilla warfare. This would have been a tough nut to crack. Also considering the propaganda put out by IJHQ about what American troops would do to prisoners, you know they would fight to the death. All you have to see are the pictures of women throwing their babies off of cliffs for fear of being captured. The bombs save many lives on both sides.

Vincent Prochelo -> (2/17/2002 3:07:00 AM)
quote: Originally posted by Penetrator: One can speculate back and forth on the casualties in the case of invasion, but all that is irrelevant. No such invasion would ever have taken place. There was no option left to the japanese but surrender. The japanese leadership knew this. The US leadership knew this. And the US leadership knew the japanese leadership knew this. They only had to come to terms with this (to them) monstrous fact, which they would have in due course. But the same could have been said for Germany. Asking the United States to sit back and let Japan lick its wounds while we waited for them to realize what they had to do would be just like expecting the Soviets to sit 50 miles outside of Berlin and wait for Hitler to figure out he was done. Think about, could have saved the many Soviet and German casualties which resulted from the battle of Berlin. But you can't expect the Allies, especially the angered Russians, to wait it out. The same can be said for the Americans. We had developed a weapon, which we were not 100% positive would even work, which could allow us to instantly liquidate a city, with very minimal human risk on our side. The question should be, if you are the United States, how can you NOT use it? quote: Anyway, since they were willing to surrender when faced with atomic destruction, why would they not have surrendered when faced with certain destruction by other means? Surrender is not an easy thing for the Japanese. It took 2 a-bombs to do it. nothing else. But I agree that some of the other reasons to drop the bomb (show the Soviets, get as much land in Asia as possible from the Soviets0 was a factor, but the only one which we need to be concerned with is the status of Japan. Since they had not surrendered, the US had every right to use whatever means neccessary to force that surrender. -V [ February 16, 2002: Message edited by: Vincent Prochelo ]

Gump -> (2/18/2002 9:55:00 AM)
When you are fully engaged in the business of killing people.... whether by nuclear bomb or starvation by blockade, I find nothing unusual or improper about the decision to use it. Indeed it would have been unusual to not use it. How many people did we kill by starvation ??? Is that any more moral than dropping the bomb ? Listening to the opinions here regarding the decision to use it or not really makes me wonder if anyone can really imagine what went into that decision..... I bet Truman thought about for about 2 minutes... hmmmmm... a new bomb that will really scare em... and kill a big ol bunch of em..... lets do it... and when can I get more ?

rickh -> (2/18/2002 12:33:00 PM)
quote: Originally posted by Raverdave: I think that this is the true reason for the A-bombs being used....more so as a signal to the soviets than to further pressure the Japanese. The US had seen the half of Europe swallowed up by the Soviets who were busy installing pupet governments and now with the USSR declaring war on Japan, they had the nightmare of the soviets gaining control of large areas of Asia. I just don't see how the A-bombs alone could have convinced the Japanese....lets face it....by mid June most of Japan's industry and cities were a fire-bombed wasteland....Kobe, Kawasaki,Yokohama,Osaka,Nagoya and of course Tokyo. There was no military need to drop the bombs. In fact "Hap" Arnold was so convinced that the USAAF could wipe out the rest of Japan that he sent LeMay to Washington to try to convince the JCS that there would be no need for an invasion of the home land. And as for the timing? Well the first bomb was droped on the 6th of August....the same day that the Soviets declared war.

Supervisor -> (2/18/2002 12:35:00 PM)
Actually, to his credit, he thought about it a lot more than that. That's the problem with us liberals, we like to think before we kill a hundred thousand people.

rickh -> (2/18/2002 12:38:00 PM)
quote: Originally posted by Raverdave: I think that this is the true reason for the A-bombs being used....more so as a signal to the soviets than to further pressure the Japanese. The US had seen the half of Europe swallowed up by the Soviets who were busy installing pupet governments and now with the USSR declaring war on Japan, they had the nightmare of the soviets gaining control of large areas of Asia. I just don't see how the A-bombs alone could have convinced the Japanese....lets face it....by mid June most of Japan's industry and cities were a fire-bombed wasteland....Kobe, Kawasaki,Yokohama,Osaka,Nagoya and of course Tokyo. There was no military need to drop the bombs. In fact "Hap" Arnold was so convinced that the USAAF could wipe out the rest of Japan that he sent LeMay to Washington to try to convince the JCS that there would be no need for an invasion of the home land. And as for the timing? Well the first bomb was droped on the 6th of August....the same day that the Soviets declared war. Just my newbie 2cents worth, but IIRC the Soviets had an agreement with the States whereby they would declare war on Japan 3 months after the defeat of Germany. This seems reasonable logistically and accounts for the timing of the soviet attack.

asgrrr -> (2/18/2002 7:40:00 PM)
There have been a few slices coming my way across this table. I will perhaps respond in more detail later, but I do have a semblance of a life in the real world too. To sidetrack slightly, what is really the question? a) Was this decision based on the desire to save human life, or some other (perhaps sinister) consideration? Or more generally, did whoever made the decision (Truman) expect that this decision would cost fewer human lives than the alternative, whether or not that was a primary consideration? b) With the benefit of hindsight, did the use of the bomb indeed result in the "net" saving of human life compared to what would most probably have happened otherwise? To me, a) is the much more relevant question. Being "right for the wrong reason" (not implying anything about any actual righteousness) is in my view not a credit to anyone. The winner of the lottery is not the smartest ticket holder.

Gump -> (2/18/2002 10:01:00 PM)
Is anyone here familiar with the recently released details of how the US had stockpiled thousands of tons of chemical agents around Japan for the obvious purpose of exterminating everything on the islands in lieu of an invasion ?? Is this true ??? ( Saw it on the history channel ) If so how does this figure in the equation ?

pauk -> (2/19/2002 3:13:00 AM)
uh, im not sure that i'm gonna this way... was nuke nessesary? on civilian target?? im afraid that for such altrocity there is no excuse... just imagine, what would be that germany nuked, for example, london... well i sure that in Nurenberg, allys charged nazis for this... but, history belongs to winners...

Randy -> (2/19/2002 7:23:00 AM)
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both chosen because they were the only major cities that had not yet been bombed (you can't show the effects of the bomb on a city that was already destroyed). Kyoto was taken off the target list due to its religious significance to the nation. The city of Kokura was chosen for the second bomb, but weather canceled that out so the aircraft were sent to Nagasaki. The city of Hiroshima was not a total civilian city. Hiroshima was the HQ's for the Second General Army (eqivalent to an American army group) which had control of western Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Info from Downfall, and the Oxford Companion to WWII. Hope this helps.

Culiacan Mexico -> (2/19/2002 12:23:00 PM)
quote: Originally posted by Penetrator: If you believe that the bombings were necessary and/or justified, the contemporary US military leaders seem to have disagreed with you, then and later. It seems at least clear that there was no conscious decision on behalf of militarily informed persons, that the use of the bomb would save lives. I disagree. There is always dissenting opinions within the military, some agreed and some disagreed. President Truman believed it could save lives. Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945 We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark... This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children... He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance... GENERAL GEORGE C. MARSHALL and the ATOMIC BOMBING OF JAPAN "There is one point that was missed...That was the effect the bomb would have in so shocking the Japanese that they could surrender without losing face...we didn't realize its value to give the Japanese such a shock that they could surrender without complete loss of face."

Culiacan Mexico -> (2/19/2002 12:33:00 PM)
quote: Originally posted by Blackhorse: Was it necessary to drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima in order to win the war? No. There were four other ways that the war could have been won. 1. Continued conventional bombing and blockade: This was the approach favored by the Sky Kings (Air Force Generals). According to the Strategic Bombing Survey, from April through August conventional bombing had destroyed 40% of 16 cities in Japan. Beginning in September, the USBS estimated that strategic bombers could deliver a daily payload ten-times greater than the April-September daily average. What does that mean? By the end of 1945 over 100 Japanese cities would have been burnt-out shells, and the death toll from air raids and starvation would have topped 1,000,000 lives. 2. Blockade only: (With continued bombing of transportation facilities). I don't know that anyone "in the loop" advocated this during the war. Afterwards, this became the favorite option of those who felt we shouldn't have dropped the bomb. I suppose it has the moral advantage of shifting the burden of deciding how many people have to die before the war ends from the U.S. to Japan. However, the Allied leaders had every reason to believe that Japan would hold out for months, or years, based on the willingness of Japan's leaders to sacrifice soldiers and civilians (on Okinawa, only 7,000 out of 115,000 soldiers survived, and between one-quarter and one-half of the civilian population perished as well). Herbert Bix' Pulitizer Prize winning biography Hirohito concludes that the Japanese ruling clique would have accepted months of mass starvation in the civilian population while hoping to lure the U.S. into a "decisive battle" on the Japanese mainland. 3. Invasion: Obviously, the least attractive alternative for American political leaders. Japanese casualties would be measured in the millions. Most importantly for American leaders, American casualties, even in the best case scenarios, would be counted in the hundreds of thousands. 4. A Negotiated Peace: The policy of the Allies was "unconditional surrender." This made sense for two reasons: 1. It reassured an awkward coalition of suspicious partners that no country would 'bail out' and sign a separate peace with Germany or Japan. 2. It erased the fear that WWII could end the way WWI did -- with a negotiated armistice, and with the defeated country's military cliques and infrastructure still in place so they could plot a war of revenge. If the U.S. was willing to abandon those two principles, we probably could have negotiated a peace with Japan. On the other hand, we would have pissed off our allies, absolutely infuriated the Russians, and left a dangerous militarist regime in charge of Japan. As WWI and the Gulf War demonstrated, if you have to go to war with another country, its best to finish the job. What I find interesting is that each of the three "military" alternatives to dropping the Atomic Bomb would have almost certainly resulted in far more Japanese deaths. I disagree with arguments advanced that the A-bomb was dropped "for revenge" or to keep the Russians out of the war. The American approach to WWII was fairly straightforward -- we wanted to win the war as quickly as we could. In Truman's words, "we found [the bomb] so we used it." As for the Russians -- the Americans had been pressing the Russians to declare war against Japan. We wanted to bring as much power to bear against Japan as fast as possible. Many American leaders were suspicious of the Russians, but our national policy was still to cooperate with them -- the mutual hostility of the Cold War would not form until several years later. One factual correction of a previous post: The United States did not drop the Atomic Bomb in response to Russia's Declaration of War against Japan. Quite the reverse. The Hiroshima bomb was dropped on August 6th. The Russians declared war on August 8th -- and by many accounts, the Russians hastily declared war after the bomb was dropped in order to get into the war before Japan surrendered. Good post.

Randy -> (2/19/2002 1:23:00 PM)
Something else that many have forgotten is that Americans were weary of fighting and wanted a quick end to the war. There were plans in motion that if there was to be an invasion of Japan some units from Germany would be sent to the States, retrained in jungle warfare and sent to the Pacific. There was also a point system for the troops to determine who would be released from active duty, and who would go on to Japan. I think this only applied to the those from Europe.

asgrrr -> (2/20/2002 3:42:00 AM)
quote: Originally posted by Culiacan Mexico: Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945 This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children... He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance... A most interesting passage. I may have overstepped myself in making the declaration in question, but if I remember correctly (it was a few days ago) I was primarily referring to members of the military when I said "militarily informed persons". Anyway, does Truman's diary explain this discrepancy: He refers to "military objectives" both here and in public broadcasts after the event, when in fact the targets were of almost no military value?

Gump -> (2/20/2002 5:02:00 AM)
The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold." ("Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S Truman, 1945", pg. 197). On Aug. 9, after Nagasaki was a-bombed, Truman made another public statement on why the atomic bombs were used: "Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. 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." ("Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S Truman, 1945", pg. 212). We found it ... we used it ..... Sounds like it was a pretty "normal" thing to do. Only in the calm of peace 50 years later does it seem like something somebody should have agonized over. You need to remember that the potential horror of global nuclear war was not even dreamed of at that time..... The US was the only one that had it, we only had 2..... It just cannot be judged by people now that have so much more knowledge and experience with the subject. For us to say that it was a callous act, or a crime is just plain wrong..... Was it a callous act to insist the Soviets start killing them also ? [ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: Gump ]

Randy -> (2/20/2002 8:35:00 AM)
Gump, good post. As is often the case it is easy to "monday morning quarterback." It is easy to judge an event with the knowledge known after 50 years, instead of making the descision with the lives of your troops pressing on your mind!

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