Presentation given at the Hiroshima Commemoration in Ottawa on August 6, 2001
ploughshares.ca
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were low priorities as military targets and (unlike Tokyo) were not bombed until August 1945, at war's end. Hiroshima's targeting was based largely on the city's size and the decision that the first atomic bombing be convincing internationally for all sorts of reasons, and that it cause the greatest possible psychological effect on Japan. While the city's military industrial plants were on the periphery of the city, it was the centre of the city that was targeted. This was not accidental.
"The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb" - Gar Alperovitz
nuvo.net
Truman also stated that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their military value. That's another lie. They were chosen because they had been relatively undamaged during the war and American scientists wanted to be able to study the effects of the bomb on "virgin territory." In fact, a prominent military center had been eliminated as a target by American planners.
THE DECISION TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB
doug-long.com
(Many quotes from military, navy, air force leaders etc)
In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words:
[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . .
[I]n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. (See p. 3, Introduction)
Privately, on June 18, 1945--almost a month before the Emperor's July intervention to seek an end to the war and seven weeks before the atomic bomb was used--Leahy recorded in his diary:
It is my opinion at the present time that a surrender of Japan can be arranged with terms that can be accepted by Japan and that will make fully satisfactory provisions for America's defense against future trans-Pacific aggression. (See p. 324, Chapter 26)
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet stated in a public address given at the Washington Monument on October 5, 1945:
The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war. (See p. 329, Chapter 26) . . . [Nimitz also stated: "The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan. . . ."]
In a private 1946 letter to Walter Michels of the Association of Philadelphia Scientists, Nimitz observed that "the decision to employ the atomic bomb on Japanese cities was made on a level higher than that of the Joint Chiefs of Staff." (See pp. 330-331, Chapter 26)
Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander U.S. Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946:
The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it. . . . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before. (See p. 331, Chapter 26)
.... and many many quotes more...
WAS HIROSHIMA NECESSARY TO END THE WAR?
chnm.gmu.edu
There is a widespread belief among Americans, particularly soldiers who were serving in the Pacific Theatre in the summer of 1945, that an invasion of Japan would cost as many as a million American lives, and the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the war to an end, with enormous saving of lives, both Japanese and American.
The reality is that in the months just prior to the August bombings, most of Japanese shipping, rail transport, and industrial production had been wiped out by an extraordinary series of air attacks. (More people died in one night in the fire bombing of Tokyo than died in the bombing of Hiroshima.) Millions were homeless. By July of 1945 both the Japanese and American military knew the war was lost.
What was the real situation regarding Japan? The Japanese were concerned about whether the Emperor would be able to remain on his throne if they surrendered. As a result of the air attacks, and their steady isolation by U.S. sea power, the Japanese military were aware the war could not be won. In 1946 the official U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey concluded:
Certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
Not known to the general public until after the war, Japan had begun to put out feelers about surrender by May of 1945. On May 12, 1945, William Donovan, Director of the Office of Strategic Services (which later became the CIA) reported to President Truman that Shinichi Kase, Japan’s minister to Switzerland, wished "to help arrange for a cessation of hostilities." He believed one of the few provisions the Japanese would "insist upon would be the retention of the Emperor." A similar report reached Truman from Masutaro Inoue, a Japanese official in Portugal. In mid-June Admiral William D. Leahy concluded that "a surrender of Japan can be arranged with terms that can be accepted by Japan and that will make fully satisfactory provision for America’s defense against future trans-Pacific aggression."
You say: nowhere were the civilians deliberately targeted
I beg to differ. When two heavily populated cities are nuked, it is impossible to argue that there was not deliberate targeting of civilians - to end the war, to make a point, to save American lives (and, perhaps incidentally, even Japanese lives), etc... For whatever purpose, there is deliberate targeting of civilians here.
It is true that I was not there to take the decisions faced by the leaders of that day and I am sure these were difficult decisions. However the fact of the matter remains that the Japanese were ready to surrender according to many sources, and the nukes were sent nonetheless, not to lesser populated areas as advised by some scientists quoted, or to the peripheral military/industrial centers, but to the to the center of the cities.
I did not live through WWII. I am sure it was a very difficult and horrible period, where bloodbaths occured at such frequency as to perhaps cloud the judgement of the people who decided to drop nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Still, I cannot find a way to excuse them. |
