The strategic bombing report is not an infallible document. With what ifs there is almost always ifs, ands and buts
You are misunderstanding. Try reading it this way" "in the OPINION of the Report..."
Please don't bog things down with a bunch of nonsense, Tim.
"Also that report assumed continued heavy bombing and blockade until the wars end. It did not assume any such thing that I can recall. Perhaps it is YOUR assumption. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that they would have continued the blockade. Since Okinawa, Japan had no more gas and oil coming in; her navy was shut down.
"...For the future it is important fully to grasp the fact that enemy planes enjoying control of the sky over one's head can be as disastrous to one's country as its occupation by physical invasion."
"By July 1945, the weight of our air attack had as yet reached only a fraction of its planned proportion, Japan's industrial potential had been fatally reduced, her civilian population had lost its confidence in victory and was approaching the limit of its endurance, and her leaders, convinced of the inevitability of defeat, were preparing to accept surrender. The only remaining problem was the timing and terms of that surrender."
I wil repeat: "The only remaining problem was the timing and terms of that surrender."
I wish you guys would READ the REPORT, instead of playing this game of, "yes...but, yes...but". I have posted this official Report innumerable times, and I have answered all these things before. My opinion is that some people are getting far too confused, far too easily; and I suppose there is an explanation for that...
Let me REPEAT that: "The only remaining problem was the timing and terms of that surrender."
I don't think the incendiary bombings or the slow starvation of Japan by a US blockade was any less horrible then the A-bombs.
You have not grasped the difference in impact; and you have not grasped the difference in ethics. "The only remaining problem was the timing and terms of that surrender." If Truman takes the political flak and negotiates a conditional surrender, we have no starvation; if not, then we have some; but in all probability, none past October. Very few people would starve during that short time provided they had water and perhaps one meal a week to put a worse case scenario on it. Trying to equate even the worse case scenario with atomic bombing is just too desperate a prejudice.
"So under the circumstances that I laid out which approach would you choose?"
I would have negotiated a conditional surrender on humanitarian grounds and immediately sent medical suplies to ease the suffering of all the children who had not yet succumbed to burns, loss of body parts, etc. This would seem to me to promise the least possibility for "estimated collateral deaths." What I would not have done is say that I wished to negotiate a surrender, but that Congress had to initiate it and take responsibility for it. |
