Warbird Information Exchange

Chance!!

What if it were your butt on the other side of the ocean?? You've already lost good friends and buddies at Iwo, Tarawa... possibly Pearl (just to mention a few). It's you and them locked in the brutality of War.
You're going to say.."Awww come on guy's, let's give them a chance"..Yeah Right!! War is never good because the loss of life, civilian or military! But you do what it takes.

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Trae

Taylor, you may be mostly right. The Germans and Italians maay be different than the Japanese. Don't be certain, though since the Japanese were rahter docile after the surrender. However, I never called it a Normandy style invasion. What I tried to say in the earlier posts was that there is a huge range in the projected casualty figures. The actual losses at Normandy and Sicily were much lower than forecast. You are right that Truman is a US pres and C in C, so his main responsibility is domestic, and the longer the war goes on, soldiers die even if not in combat. But, if I was in his shoes and I could end a war without having to kill thousands of women and children, I'd make a try to do it. Did you read K5083 evidence, that Truman did not want the Japanese to surrender? If not why not? I don't know, that evidence is new to me today. I think the part about the Russians is the most plausible answer, and may have given Truman the main reason to use the Bomb.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I think Truman may not have had a choice. I was talking to a friend last week that is designing a display for a new museum near K-25,(most of K-25 is being demolished) the building at Oak Ridge, Tn. where the Manhattan Project was going on. He said they had 75,000 employees working on the Bomb in WWII. He said only two people knew exactly how many people were working on the project.
Employees were not allowed to drive into Knoxville or describe anything whatsoever about their job. THey didn't even know what it was, just that they were refining some very high metal of some sort.
My point is that supposedly Truman, wasn't briefed on the Manhattan Project until after Roosevelt died. So there was a huge force in motion, to develop and presumably use this technology as fast as available.
Up until the end of WWII, in the U.S., the military ran wars, and politicians ran the country. So did the military make the decision for him?
Another thought; you all have probably seen the color wartime footage of the Okinawa campaign, where a woman wearing white throws her baby off a cliff and then jumps to her death? Well, the Japanese were telling their people that the Americans would murder, rape, mutilate, or even eat them if captured. SO I think there would have been some unbelievable horrors committed by the Japanese (en masse suicides etc.) rather than be captured.
If the bomb had been ready a couple of years earlier it might have been used on the island campaigns? If the Germans had gotten it is say 1943, they might have won the war. CHilling thought.

My grandfather was a Purple Heart ETO infantry vet. One of my great uncles was at Pearl Harbor, USAAC. Both thought the atomic bomb was more than justified to help end the war.

All I can say is if the atomic bomb had not been used by us in combat back then, somebody else may very well have used it on us at some point during the Cold War.

...As a professor once responded to a grad student way full of himself, "If if's and but's were candy and nuts, it would be christmas every day!"

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Yesterday is experience, tomorrow is hope, today is getting from one to the other.

Marine air, interesting on K-25. But if, if I read you right, you are still going on the party line that the only choices are the Bomb, or to invade with large casualties. As others have written, Truman knew from intel intercepts and otherwise that the Japanese were close to asking for Peace terms. So he had more than the 2 choices the Pro side claims. I suspect the Russian factor may have turned the decision. KRM, like many other you have given opinions of soldiers which may be correct, but it is not in the frame of the question I was asking. They didn't know about the bomb in July 45, or about the peace chances, this came later.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Drop them. Think WWJD-- What Would Japanese DO. If they had it they would have done it to us. Allied WWII vets saved the world.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

If I were Truman, I would annex the Sudatenland. Oh wait, that's what I would do if I were Hitler. Must have responded to the wrong post.

Made in America tested in Japan!!

It was the only choice he had, millions of U.S. dollars had been poured in to the manhattan project it was originally slated for Hitlers behalf. Many of the people invoved in the development of the bomb were of Jewish background. They put all of their efforts to destroy the monster that was destroying Europe . The bomb wasn't ready before Germany fell but the war in Japan was about to go to the next highest level.

In war time the side with the most advance technology that is not afraid to use it wins the war. If you can bring your enemy to their knees and impress the fact that future fighting is futile the war is over.Todays leaders could take a lesson from the past, strike first ,strike hard, and use what ever is needed to bring it to a fast end.

We tend to forget about the determination that Japan displayed through out the war. Much like todays fanatics with out a total and complete phsycological conquest with out total submission you end up with a Vietnam or better yet war in Iraq. Diplomatic policys work great for diplomats but the man in the trench or the man in the streets words on paper mean nothing when your homeland is invaded by the enemy. To them its kill or be killed.

Truman did what he had to do and that was to end the war asap, The thought of a homeland invasion of Japan was at best a massive slaughter of mankind on both sides. The Russian factor was some what of an unknown as far as atomic weapons development at that time and in retrospect I think he totally did the right thing.

In todays politically correct society the do gooders and utopian day dreamers have almost made it impossible to win any kind of conflict. Has it caused Cuba to fall to its knees and beg for U.S.help?What about North Korea? Right or wrong his decision has in its own way prevented another world war of global proportions. If I were in his shoes with the info he had I would have done the same thing .

Thanks Mike

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Surrender is NOT something the Code of Bushido (sp) understands, keeping the Emporer made the Japanese happy and kept them from doing nasty things after the war.

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Here is a question for everyones thoughts. How do you suppose WW2 would have been fought and handled if it were in todays world of instant communications and media bias'?

Sparrow

A few observations on the responses so far.

Most, obviously, favor dropping the bomb. Their reasons all strike me as either factually dubious ("it saved lives"; "it saved the need to invade"); irrelevant ("they committed atrocities too"; "my grandpa the vet says it was the right decision") both factually dubious AND irrelevant ("they would have done it to us") or just vacuous ("in war anything goes").

But what impresses me the most about the answers is not their invalidity but the glibness, force, and certainty with which they are expressed, amounting at times even to contempt that anyone could hold the opposing view. For one of the most momentous and complex decisions in history, such knee-jerk responses appear to me to be not so much reasoned answers as psychological defense mechanisms.

Specifically, I see: Excuses. Denial. Evasion. Changing the subject. Shifting of blame.

Defenses against: Guilt. Doubt. Fear. Remorse.

You'll all say I'm wrong about this. But I am paying you a compliment here. Truman, and most of those who built the bomb, were haunted by this decision for the rest of their lives. They were responsible, thinking men who did not rely on easy solutions. They would not be proud, I think, of anyone who 60 years later would toss off Truman's decision as a no-brainer. It is a bit of an insult to the agony they went through.

August

Bias?? Dude, you have got to be kidding. In WW2 the media were the most biased they could possibly be. They were 100% captive propaganda arms of the military and the government. Freedom of speech was severely compromised. Today, the media still dispense plenty of government propaganda, but they also fulfill much more of the responsible, critical function that make them essential to modern democracy. The media deserve to be very proud of their role in Vietnam and later wars.

To answer your question: Would it have made a difference in how WW2 was conducted? I think not. The media and the American people know (or, at least, eventually figure out) when a war must be fought and when they have simply been given a snow job by their government.

August

August I will agree with you on one point. They were biased, as they are now. Back then they were pro allies winning the war. Now the are pro allies loosing the war.

Back then the media had the guts to report the good news and ignore the bad news (example terrible planning and execution of D-Day, the botched D-Day training that resulted in hundreds dead, the fairly disastrous results of some of the Japanese island invasions.)

Everyone knows war is hell, that isn't news. Reporting things in a way that gives people hope was a big part of winning WWII and probably the reason that we will never win another war unless the American people get so fired up that they won't except loss as a possibility. Leftists have basically done a pretty good job at turning this country into a bunch of sissies.

Leftists sit on their high horse thinking that they are the smartest most cultured people in the world but frankly they are just a bunch of people like to agree to disagree. They don't like labels like "right or wrong" and the "moral high-ground" means acceptance of anything but morality.
that is why the news just can't pick a side. They look at people who want to cut off peoples head with a hacksaw and find out what we did to hurt their feelings as opposed to just make a moral judgment and say :"You know what that is wrong and someone should stop it."

Mike, you may well be correct that in Truman's place, with his knowledge, we would have done the same. That is why I specified on my original post to look at it in 1945 terms.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I couldn't agree with you more about the media fresno.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager