Rewriting History

I just read this article where the writer proposes that bombing Nagasaki was a war crime.  As we get further from World War II, this revision of history is going to take hold, particularly among the historically illiterate.  Sadly, that cohort is growing by leaps and bounds.

 

When I was in college, I took a semester of Chinese History.  When we reached World War II, the professor expressed his disapproval of the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Though he clearly didn't agree, he allowed that one could argue for the dropping of the first bomb.  However, the second was unseemly.  Really, Truman only gave them three days before dropping another bomb.  What was not discussed was the other possibility: amphibious landing like in Normandy followed by a steady advance through Japan.  How many thousands of US soldiers would have died in that effort?  How many Japanese would have died resisting it?  As it happens, we had a good idea.

 

Iwo Jima is a volcanic island about 8 square miles in size.  It took a little over a month for the US Marines to secure the island in February and March of 1945.  The Japanese had 21,000 troops on the island.  Against this, the US threw 500 ships and over 100,000 Marines and sailors.  In the fierce fighting, nearly 7,000 Americans were killed, more than 19,000 were wounded.  The Japanese forces had 18,000 dead and only 216 taken prisoner.  Japanese forces suffered 85% killed and only 1% captured.  Wow, those are some dedicated troops.

 

The United States had made plans to invade Japan.  It was Operation Downfall.  The expectation was that the invasion would begin in November 1945 and the war would conclude by 1947.  Japan has an area of 145,935 square miles, equivalent to 18,241 Iwo Jimas.  The estimated military of Japan was 4,335,500 men in arms and 31 million conscripted civilians.  Let's just ignore the civilians for the sake of this example.  That means that Japan had 206 times as many troops as had been on Iwo Jima.  Let us suppose that Japanese soldiers on Japan were only half as determined as those on the outlying island of Iwo Jima, willing to suffer only 40% dead before surrendering.  How many Japanese soldiers will die in that scenario?  1.7 million.  For every 2.6 Japanese soldier killed on Iwo Jima, an American was killed.  Let's do the math: 1.7 million Japanese soldier killed during Operation Downfall divided by 2.6 equals 654,000 Americans killed.  Seeing as the Russians were going to invade from the north, the US could expect to take only half of those casualties.  Of course, if they proved as determined as those on Iwo Jima, double everything.

 

Clearly, the projections are horrendous and the death toll is astronomical.  With this in mind, how does 130,000 to 246,000 killed in atomic bombs sound?  Not so bad.  Actually, a really good trade-off.  In fact, one could say that Operation Downfall would have been the war crime.  It is easy to say what was done was wrong or immoral when the alternative is not mentioned.

 

What of the idea that Truman should have paused the bombing.  What part of unconditional surrender did the Japanese not understand.  Here is a thumbnail sketch of the last days of the Pacific War:

 

USA: Surrender Unconditionally

Japan: No

Hiroshima: BOOM!

USA: Surrender Unconditionally

Japan: Your weapon is impressive but you cannot have very many of them.  We will endure

Nagasaki: BOOM!

USA: Surrender Unconditionally

Japan: We have several conditions

Emperor Hirohito: ARE YOU MAD?  WE MUST SURRENDER!

Japan: We will surrender with 1 condition

USA: Sigh.  What is your condition?

 

The condition was that Emperor Hirohito would remain the sovereign ruler of Japan.  This allowed the Japanese Monarchy to escape the war crimes trials that followed and remain intact to this very day.  Of course, the Japanese Imperial House is very similar to the British Monarchy, almost exclusively ceremonial.

 

Nagasaki tipped Hirohito.  Without Nagasaki, the Japanese would have continued to fight and thousands of American Marines, sailors, and soldiers would have died.  Yes, many of the military commanders opposed the bomb.  Recall that the US staged daylight bombing runs of Germany to increase bomb accuracy to reduce civilian German casualties at the cost of American airmen.  There is no precision bombing with an atom bomb.  Truman was right and untold thousands of Americans and Japanese survived the war thanks to his decision.