He felt we should never have asked for unconditional surrender, and that we should have pursued a negotiated peace. If that option had not worked. he thought a blockade should have been used until the Japanese could have been brought to the negotiating table- again, without clubbing them over the head with unconditional surrender.
My father was at Guadalcanal and suffered terribly in that conflict, and he was later (after hospital in Australia) transferred to the Marine air corps (after training stateside)- at which point he said "I spent the war bombing Japanese gardens." He felt a great deal of guilt- both for surviving the war, when all his friends died- and for the bombings of Japan (and not just the atomic ones). My father was a staunch believer that you don't attack civilian populations- and just because the other guy does it, you don't do it too. He did not want humanity to be in race to the bottom. As a historian I think he knew how that one ends.
I know a lot of great men, but my father will always be my number one hero. He was amazingly educated, and kind, and curious about everything- had he not suffered from PTSD from the war, I think he probably would have had an amazing career- but his PTSD and alcoholism (started during the war)- crippled him. This is the kind of man he was- in his 50's, working as a librarian, my father attacked Edward Charles Allaway and knocked the firing pin out of his rifle as he was going on a shooting spree in my father's library. He received a commendation from the Cal legislature for his act of bravery. He was shot point black through his shoulder during the attempt- but he knocked the firing pin out, and Allaway could not shoot any more people.
en.wikipedia.org
My father was Donald Keran, and I miss him and think of him every day. |
