American opinion about the use of atomic weapons on Japan has changed since 1945. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana).
By: George Noga – August 6, 2016
Today marks the 71st anniversary of the US attack on Hiroshima. We reexamine the wisdom of using atomic weapons on Japan and include recently declassified top secret US war plans for the invasion of Japan. The next post on August 9th, the anniversary of the Nagasaki attack, is titled Without Remembrance There Can Be No Redemption; it catalogues Japanese WWII atrocities and the Japanese people’s ongoing refusal to face up to their past horrors like the Rape of Nanjing, slave labor and comfort women.
There were many casualties in Hiroshima (65,000) and Nagasaki (45,000); the exact number is disputed (some believe they were much higher) and may never be known. For perspective, the conventional US bombing of Tokyo killed 100,000; the allied bombing of Hamburg, Germany 50,000; and the battle of Stalingrad saw 1.5 million killed. In all of WWII, 80 million people perished. Finally, in Nanjing the Japanese Rape brutally slaughtered 300,000 civilians – nearly triple the atomic deaths in Japan.
Americans’ attitudes have changed. In a nationwide 1945 Roper poll, 53% agreed with the atomic bombings; 14% believed we should have dropped them on an unpopulated area; 4% believed they should not have been used; and 23% favored using even more atomic weapons. The Roper poll was replicated in 2016; this time 28% agreed with the bombings; 32% favored a demonstration; 15% would not have used the bombs at all; and only 3% would have used even more bombs.
Today, progressive revisionists claim the bombs were unnecessary because: (1) The Japanese already had decided to surrender and had so communicated that to the US via Sweden; (2) the bombs were dropped to intimidate the USSR; (3) it was a racist act and we would not have used such weapons against Germany; and (4) it was a genocidal war crime similar to what the US did in Vietnam. All of these assertions have been thoroughly disproved before; however, they are once again shredded by the recent release of top secret US war plans for the invasion of Japan.
Only recently have the war plans for Operation Downfall been declassified. They provide compelling evidence that without the atom bombs, Japan would not have surrendered and there would have been 3-4 million additional casualties – 2 million Japanese, 1 million American and up to 1 million Chinese as the war in China was still ongoing and the Japanese were continuing to slaughter Chinese at an alarming rate. Following are but a few snippets of data from the Operation Downfall war plans.
- General MacArthur estimated 1 million American casualties; his staff placed the number much higher. Initially 1,000 men would die per hour.
- Japanese forces would vastly outnumber Americans unlike in all prior battles; Japan had 28 million men remaining in its combat forces.
- It was expected to be the biggest blood-bath in modern warfare.
- Russia would have invaded northern Japan and partitioned it just like Korea.
- Japanese casualties were estimated (including by Japan) at over 2 million.
Use of atomic bombs saved at least 3 million lives – mostly Japanese. The casualties that resulted from these attacks represented .0014 of all WWII deaths and, to repeat, only about 37% of the Chinese civilians that were massacred by Japan in Nanjing – which really was pure racism. As shown by the 2016 Roper poll, many Americans cannot remember the past; let’s hope we are not condemned to repeat it.