I think what Ernie Pyle learned about death was Ie Shima.
Bombing cities bothered a number of people, but not the right ones to save the civilians. Pat Buchanan was a boy during WWII, and remembers that his father considered it an evil act at the time; attacking non-combatants violates Catholic "just war" doctrine. Of course, Dresden was payback and warning for the German destruction of Coventry, not that the people of Dresden could have done anything to stop it. And 'Bomber Harris', Britain's air marshall, wasn't much interested in Catholic just war doctrine. He wanted to blow up Germany.
There's an interesting essay by Paul Fussell in a back issue of The New Republic titled "Thank God for the Bomb". Fussell had been badly wounded as a Lieutenant in Germany, and having recuperated was sitting on the island of Tinian awaiting Operation Jupiter, the invasion of mainland Japan. On Tinian was the world's largest military hospital, awaiting the casualties Jupiter would create. Tinian also was home to the 452nd Composite Group, to which the Enola Gay belonged. Fussell has little use for critics who think the atomic bomb shouldn't have been used. Thousands of GIs were dying each week right up to the time of the bombing. As the fighting got closer to the home islands of Japan it got more intense, with civilians committing mass suicide in some instances. A conventional invasion of Japan could well have taken over a year, and casualty estimates for the US alone were around one million. Glad I just watched it all on Victory at Sea |
