First off, he gave no response really. Secondly, he should have answered the question with sympathy for the civilian victims as the link said.

 

While that answer would appease some segments of the US it wouldn't benefit the US in any way. It's not exactly a bright spot for one of our most powerful allies.

While that answer would appease some segments of the US it wouldn't benefit the US in any way. It's not exactly a bright spot for one of our most powerful allies.

Does it have to benefit anyone to tell the truth? It's a history, it happened and for a reason. They asked the question, obviously they wanted an answer.

How about all the American lives that were saved? Not to mention all the Japanese lives saved.

It was a horrible war that the Japanese were willing to fight to the death, as witnessed on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, plus the actions of the Kamikazes.

:thumb: You can add the Bataan Death March to that.

Do you honestly think that is why we dropped it?

 

Not the main reason, but certainly an ancillary one. Remember, the talk between FDR, Churchill and Stalin of how Europe was going to be divvied up after the war as far as spheres of influence had already begun well before the summer of '45. The Big Three knew all too well what was on the horizon in East-West relations and politics.

While this was a good read on whether or not Japan was about to surrender, it is certainly not an argument about the necessity of either bomb.

Put another way, General Marshall knew prior to the February 1945 Yalta Conference that Russia would break its nonaggression pact with Japan and attack Manchuria about 90 days after the surrender of Germany (VE Day) The Magic Summaries documented the shift of Soviet troops by rail from Europe to the Far East for this purpose. We also knew from the Magic decrypts that the Japanese home islands were to be defended from invasion and occupation by 2.3 million troops, another four million Army and Navy employees and a newly created armed militia numbering 25 million. These defenders were sworn to fight to the death, which so many Japanese troops had done in battles throughout the Pacific.

 

To effectively invade and occupy Japan, American strategists foresaw two invasions, scheduled for November 1945 and March 1946. The first invasion, on the island of Kyushu would employ some 770,000 American troops. The follow-up invasion on the plains of Tokyo, leading to the forced occupation of Japan, called for two million American troops.

 

But according to documents that have been uncovered, a conference to discuss pre-invasion casualties was held at the White House on June 18, 1945, between President Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From the Pacific, Gen. Douglas MacArthur submitted rather optimistic casualty estimates. This caused Adm. William D. Leahy, Truman's military advisor, to take charge of the session. Based on the experience at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Leahy predicted that in an invasion of Japan, 30% to 35% of US soldiers would be killed or wounded during the first 30 days. Truman obviously understood what Leahy said. The president remarked that the invasion would create another Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other. The Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed.

 

Suddenly, and only after being advised about the buildup of Japanese forces and fortifications by Magic intelligence, MacArthur's medical staff revised its pre-invasion needs for hospital beds upwards by 300%. MacArthur's chief surgeon, Brig. Gen. Guy Denit, estimated that a 120-day campaign to invade and occupy only the island of Kyushu would result in 395,000 casualties.

 

On July 4, 1945, the British agreed to the use of the atomic bomb against Japan. On July 16, during the Potsdam Conference, the first A-bomb was successfully tested. A way had been found to end the war quickly and decisively. This was the situation on July 26 when the US, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration to Japan to surrender unconditionally, "The alternative," said the declaration, "is complete and utter destruction."

 

This is what the Americans President Truman, Secretary of War Stimson and Gen. Marshall knew the day before the first atom bomb fell on Japan. Confronted by an enemy leadership that was self-deluded, neither prepared to surrender nor to negotiate seriously, the Americans decided that the only way to end the war quickly would be to use overwhelming force: nuclear weapons.

 

Two bombs were dropped. The Russians invaded Manchuria. On August 14, Emperor Hirohito overruled his militarist advisors and accepted the Potsdam declaration. Japan surrendered.

Does it have to benefit anyone to tell the truth? It's a history, it happened and for a reason. They asked the question, obviously they wanted an answer.

 

An objectively true, disinterested answer isn't possible on a subject as controversial and often debated as this. You're claiming there is and that isn't reasonable.

A few years ago I discussed the use of the bomb on Japan with my father-in-law. At the time the bomb was dropped he was working as part of a joint planning group for the invasion of Kyushu and the subsequent invasion of Tokyo. His division was slated to be in the second wave on Kyushu and the first wave for the second invasion. IF he was fortunate enough to survive the first invasion, he didn't think there was any way he would survive the second. Of course the use of the bomb was justified.

 

As far as answering the question, he was a guest. Ignoring the question was by far the best response. The question has no bearing on current policy and could only serve to embarass both Obama and his hosts.

I was really hoping to hear, "That was AWESOME! Sorry about your car, man."

Shouldn't we agree with the American generals about the use of the atomic bombs?

I was really hoping to hear, "That was AWESOME! Sorry about your car, man."

Thanks for the enlightening information...

Shouldn't we agree with the American generals about the use of the atomic bombs?

General Douglas MacArthur, one time commander of United Nations armed forces during the Korean War, in a 1954 interview stated that he had wanted to drop "between thirty and fifty atomic bombs" on enemy bases before laying radioactive waste material across the northern edge of North Korea during the war.

General Douglas MacArthur, one time commander of United Nations armed forces during the Korean War, in a 1954 interview stated that he had wanted to drop "between thirty and fifty atomic bombs" on enemy bases before laying radioactive waste material across the northern edge of North Korea during the war.

 

What about Japan in WWII, the war in question?

 

MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."

William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512.

Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

 

How about Eisenhower?

 

"...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

 

http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm has several more from other military leaders.

^ See post #20.

So, sometimes the president knows better than military leaders at war?

So, sometimes the president knows better than military leaders at war?

The Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed to drop the bomb, so.....no, that's not what's being said. It was all about saving lives, US military and civilian at that point. The numbers of casualties would have been staggering. It was too costly to allow the war to continue.

 

If MacArthur was so appalled with the decision in WWII, why would he want to drop between thirty and fifty atomic bombs during the Korean War? Makes no sense to me.