David Dinkins, on Truman and the Revisionists
An interesting perspective written by the former Mayor of New York City:
oror.essortment.com
Why did President Truman drop the atomic
bomb?
At the end of World War II, few questioned Truman’s decision to drop the atomic
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most Americans accepted the obvious
reasoning: the atomic bombings brought the war to a more timely end. They did
not have a problem with over one hundred thousand of the enemy being killed.
After all, the Japanese attacked America, and not the other way around. In later
years, however, many have begun to question the conventional wisdom of
“Truman was saving lives,” putting forth theories of their own. However, when one
examines the issue with great attention to the results of the atomic bombings and
compares these results with possible alternatives to using said bombs, the line
between truth and fiction begins to clear. Truman’s decision to use the atomic
bomb on Japan was for the purpose of saving lives and ending the war quickly in
order to prevent a disastrous land invasion.
The people who are now
questioning Truman’s motives
are often known as
Revisionists, because they
attempt to revise common
perceptions of history,
proposing alternate theories
and motives. As early as 1946
they begin to postulate new
ideas, but their words only
began to receive credence in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Revisionists contend
that Truman either had ulterior motives in the dropping of the atomic bombs or
that he used these bombs on Japan for an entirely different reason, one that had
nothing to do with saving lives.
Most people who were alive at the time of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings,
especially veterans, subscribe to the “traditional” belief that Truman decided to
drop the atomic bombs on Japan for solely military reasons. A timely end to the
war would mean that no land invasion of Japan is necessary. Such an invasion
would have been extraordinarily costly in terms of not only American lives, but
also in terms of Japanese dead. Ending the war quickly would return soldiers to
return to their homes and allow Americans to begin a life of normality again.
The Revisionists, however, believe that Truman had either partially or entirely
different reasons for bombing Japan. They believe that the destruction of two
Japanese cities would accomplish several things. Most obviously, it would punish
the Japanese for the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the atrocious treatment of
American prisoners of war. Also, an atomic bombing of Japan is also the only thing
that would justify the expense of the Manhattan Project. If this expense was not
justified, Truman would have faced a Congressional inquiry into the
misappropriation of $2 billion. Not only did he want to avoid Congressional
hearings, but he also wanted another term of office. His chances of reelection
would have been nil if it were learned by the general public that he wasted money
and American lives by shelving a weapon that could have ended the war more
quickly. The final Revisionist claim is that Truman wanted to give the U.S. and
edge in the coming Cold War by showing that he was not afraid to use these
weapons of mass destruction.
They also say that Truman should have chosen one of the several available ways
to compel a Japanese surrender without an atomic bombing of two cities. The
most obvious alternative is an American invasion of Japan. Olympic was the
code-name given to the planned American invasion of Kyushu, one of the four
Japanese home islands, if an atomic bomb were not available by late October. Two
separate estimates exist to rate the number of American casualties that would
result from such an invasion. A joint war plans committee comprised of the army
and navy came to the conclusion that 46,000 Americans would die in an invasion
of Kyushu and later Honshu. The number of American wounded averaged three to
one during the later years of the war, so according to this estimate, 175,000
American casualties were not out of the question. However, these figures were
based on such tentative intelligence that George Marshall, the army’s chief of
staff, bluntly rejected them.
A second estimate proposed by Admiral Leahy was much higher. The invasion of
Iwo Jima caused 6,200 American deaths, and the U. S. outnumbered the Japanese
by four to one. Okinawa cost 13,000 U. S. servicemen, and they outnumbered the
Japanese by two and one-half to one. These 13,000 men made up more than 35%
of the U. S. landing force. Consequently, Admiral Leahy came to the conclusion
that it was absurd to think that any less than 35% of the American force that
invaded Japan would be killed. Based on the estimate of 560,000 Japanese soldiers
on Kyushu as of early August, Leahy predicted that at very minimum over 250,000
American soldiers would lie dead as a result of an invasion of the Japanese islands.
It was later found that the troop strength on Kyushu
was greatly under-estimated, and that by August 6 the
Japanese had over 900,000 men stationed on Kyushu,
nearly twice as many as thought. Leahy’s estimates
that the Americans would have a preponderance, when
in fact the 767,000 American soldiers who would
comprise the landing force were already greatly
outnumbered three months before Operation Olympic
was actually to begin. By November, Japanese troop
strength could easily double or triple, making between
500,000 and 1,000,000 American deaths conceivable.
These numbers do not even begin to account for the Japanese dead. In Okinawa,
twice as many Japanese were killed as Americans. It is therefore plausible that
between 100,000 (according to the earliest estimate) and two million soldiers
would die in an invasion. This number does not include Japanese civilians dead,
which could conceivably have been even higher than the number of dead soldiers.
The Japanese army was already training its civilians to fight with sharpened
bamboo poles. According to samurai tradition, there was no more honorable way
to die than to do so for Japan and the emperor, and the civilians were quite
prepared to take this philosophy to heart. Using sharpened pikes the Japanese
could easily prevent a military government from being effective in those towns
which the U. S. captured. Futher, and even more brutal, was the training of young
children to be “Sherman carpets.” Japanese children were to be strapped with
TNT and throw themselves under American tanks, thereby dying in the most
honorable way possible--by killing the enemy. It can be assumed that at least as
many civilians would have died as soldiers, bringing the totals somewhere around
200,000 to four million Japanese dead, along with the 50,000 to one million
American dead, totaling 250,000 to five million total dead.
It was hoped that the Japanese military would capitulate once American forces
occupied the Tokyo Plain, but it is possible that they would fight to the last man.
On Saipan, nearly 900 Japanese killed themselves rather than be taken prisoner by
Americans. Such was the Japanese philosophy to fight to the last man. If an
entire nation was compelled to launch suicide attacks against the occupying army,
it is conceivable that many, many millions of Japanese civilians would die.
In order to make an accurate comparison
between the dropping of the atomic bombs
and Operation Olympic, one must be
adequately knowledgeable of the
destruction that took place in the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The
Hiroshima bombing killed about 66,000
people and devastated 4. 4 square miles,
over two-thirds of the city. The Nagasaki
bombing killed about 39,000 people, and
destroyed half the city, bringing the total to
105,000 Japanese dead.
Of the Revisionist theories, the most
common one is that Truman simply wanted
to impress Stalin by dropping the atomic
bomb. This is simply not the case. The most imperative thing on Truman’s mind as
he let the bombings go forward was that they would prevent a land invasion of
Kyushu and the massive loss of life, both American and Japanese, that would
accompany such an invasion. Ironically, atomic bombs were to be used to clear
the beach heads for Operation Olympic, if an invasion would have been necessary.
Scientists had assured Truman, erroneously, that sufficient radiation would have
cleared from the beaches to allow American soldiers to land in safety. Even if
Truman had chosen to invade instead of use the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, they would still have been used, just in a different capacity.
Furthermore, if Truman had wanted to impress Stalin, he would not have told
Stalin that the United States had “produced a bomb of extraordinary power.”
Instead, he would have let the shock have its effect on both the Soviet Union and
on Japan.
The only way anyone can judge Truman’s motives in dropping the atomic bomb is
by analyzing the result of his decision. No one can know, even by reading his
personal diary, the exact reasons he had for using the bomb. It was likely a
combination of many: punishment, justification of cost, saving lives, and ending
the war as quickly as possible. However, it is evident that in the “grand scheme of
things” the use of the atomic bomb saved lives. About 105,000 Japanese lost their
lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While this is a high number, the number who died
in the American bombing raids on the six largest Japanese cities is far greater,
about 250,000. Consequently, such a large number of deaths is by no means
unprecedented. An invasion of Japan would possibly have cost between 250,000
and three million Japanese and American lives and ended the war four months
later, at the very earliest. It may be concluded that no more people died in the
atomic bombings than would have in an invasion of Kyushu, and that said
bombings did have the effect of ending the war more quickly. Truman’s motives,
therefore, cannot be called into question in light of the results of his decision. At
least in this case, the end justifies the means.
Written by David Dinkins |
