The A-bomb attacks on Japan: There was no choice!

There are still people who maintain that the American A-bomb attacks on Japan were a war crime.  I suspect that this book, if any of the dimwits ever read it, will change what passes for their minds!  The book is "Crucible of Hell: Okinawa, the Last Great Battle of the Second World War" written by Saul David which is reviewed in this week's 'Speccie'.  Apparently, Mr. David spells out in excruciating detail the sheer horror of the fight for control of Okinawa which the Japanese, soldiers and civilians, defended with implacable ferocity and fanaticism.  To be honest, I doubt I have the guts to read it:

The loss of life was horrendous. One US commander calculated that, once replacements had been taken into account, the casualty rate in his unit had been 185 per cent. [My emphasis]  A near unreadable passage describes an effort to recover the corpses of US Marines killed in the assault of Sugar Loaf Hill. One soldier recalls finding ‘bodies so decomposed they had started to turn green and were falling apart’. Another man ‘threw up after he tried to pull the body of a Marine and its arm came off at the shoulder. Eventually they put a head, torso, two arms, two legs in each poncho and left it to the Graves Registration to sort out the pieces later.’

At the same time, the US fleet around Okinawa was under constant and deadly attack by kamikaze pilots.  In one day they sank or badly damaged 26 US Navy ships.

President Roosevelt died before the battle was over but it is no wonder that his successor, President Truman, baulked at the idea of a land invasion of Japan.  Instead, he chose the 'nuclear option' - and quite right, too!

 

 

 

Comments

[Timbo]

Saved a lot of Japanese lives as well as Allied.

[Hank]

David

President Truman served in the Muse Argonne is WWI. The division he was assigned to was effectively destroyed in four days. I think he also had very first hand knowledge of what would happen in an envasi0on.

[David Duff]

Good point, Timbo!

Hank, thanks for that, I never knew it.

[Glesga]

There is no such a thing as war crime between the protagonists. It was made up by lawyers. However killing civilians and prisoners is a crime. I heard personal testimony from an old Black Watch bloke who said his unit bayoneted the Germans when they overrun the German positions. The Watch knew they would be mortared within minutes of taking the position. It is called survival. No prisoners.

[JK]

(Bob, just simply ignore this query won't you?)

David,

I noted three days ago Number 10 extended a "Thanks much" [for whatever] after Boris got hisself into a (your country's equivalent of) ICU and was just wondering ...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8196643/Number-10-thanks-Trump-offer-experimental-coronavirus-treatment-Boris-Johnson.html

Fully cognizant D&N's resident expert engineer and modeller - who shall remain unnamed - SCOFFS absolutely - I was just wondering if this news report could possibly be true

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/boris-johnson-moved-out-of-intensive-care-as-condition-improves/ar-BB12r4hy

My God something our resident 'Scofflaw Authority' scoffs authoritatively so frequently on the subject of could, possibly, be so full of shit about might already have bought out of his own pocket flowers for Boris' recumbent trip down Westminster Lane to Winchester Cathedral's (okay so I'm an American)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT0Jh9lUhrc

Anyway I was just wondering if there was anything to Boris' "unusual" recovery?

[Bob]

JK,

Ignored.

[Beans]

Yet these yahoos insist it was Stalin and the USSR who wrested victory from the Imperial Japanese.

http://warincontext.org/2013/05/31/stalin-not-the-bomb-made-japan-surrender-ending-ww2/

What next, Italy actually defeated Irwin Rommel in WWI?

Napoleon secretly conquered the Russian Empire?

Spain defeated Britain with their armada?

WTF???

Scary thing is... they are serious about Uncle Joe being the sole cause of victory. Not us starving the island nation. Not us bombing their cities, destroying their industry, sinking their navy (and a train, musn't forget about the submarine attack against a train (no, really!),) and taking every one of their territorial possessions short of the home islands, minus Okinawa, away from them.

Yeah. Socialism is what won WWII in the Pacific. Right.

[Whitewall]

My Dad was very glad the bomb was dropped as he had been in the Pacific since June of '42. Not that he or any of his company knew quite what "it" was. He did enter Japan but mercifully not under fire and then home by New Year.

[Whitewall]

Different war present day:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-big-kowtow-nature-china/

Step n Fetch lackeys. PC kills

[[email protected]]

William Manchester's "Goodbye Darkness," personal memoir of Pacific fighting.

[Michael]

Predicted casualties for Operations Olympic and Coronet were well in excess of 5 million. The Atomic Bombs provided a degree of "Face Saving" for the Japanese, which combined with a lenient treatment of the vast majority of the population (Not all, several very deserving candidates were executed after trial) which ultimately saved many lives. there are those who accept that Stalin brought about the Japanese surrender, certainly something of a land grab but the approved post war Soviet Histories have more in common with the works of Harry Turtledove than Keegan or Ericson. The semi-official history "Along the Paths of Valour and Glory" claim in the few days Russia was at war, they succeeded in sinking a number of Battleships, Aircraft Carriers and Cruisers whilst omitting to mention how long they were at war for and somehow neglecting to mention the Allies at all!