All critiques of the use of atomic weapons to subdue Japan in World War II commit the sin of presentism. Nobody can recreate the anger we had toward Japan, the way Japanese forces fought, and the way they treated prisoners.
It began with the Panay Incident in December, 1937. The US river gunboat Panay was sunk by Japanese aircraft while evacuating American citizens trapped by Japan’s invasion of Nanjing. Two U.S. sailors were killed; more than 40 servicemen and civilians were injured. The attack like Pearl Harbor, stood out both for its mercilessness and the fact that the US and Japan were not at that time at war. (The Nanjing Massacre saw Japanese troops kill more than 200,000 unarmed men and civilians and rape and torture tens of thousands of women and girls, according to the post-war Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.) China estimated the number of dead at more than 300,000.
Then there was Pearl Harbor, and the bloody battles at sea and in the island-hopping campaign that led eventually to the carnage at Okinawa. Japanese forces strafed sailors in the water from sunken ships and treated prisoners inhumanely (Bataan death-march).
The battle for Okinawa, the last in the island chain, resulted in more than 12,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines killed during the fighting.
In the waters around Okinawa, the Japanese launched the largest kamikaze attack of the war. Japanese planes sank 26 allied ships and severely damaged 168 others.
So, we were really angry with the Japanese, who held over 200,000 prisoners of war (mostly Chinese) and said they would kill them all if we invaded the home islands.
The atomic bombs were dropped after Japan continued to resist despite the USAF fire-bombing Tokyo and many other Japanese cities. We were incendiary in our anger.
The bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed fewer Japanese than Japanese troops killed in the "Massacre of Nanjing," where our anger had been kindled.
All the cost benefit analysis and retro-reflectoscopic reflections have no way to understand, or measure, how angry we were at the Japanese.
All critiques of the use of atomic weapons to subdue Japan in World War II commit the sin of presentism. Nobody can recreate the anger we had toward Japan, the way Japanese forces fought, and the way they treated prisoners.
It began with the Panay Incident in December, 1937. The US river gunboat Panay was sunk by Japanese aircraft while evacuating American citizens trapped by Japan’s invasion of Nanjing. Two U.S. sailors were killed; more than 40 servicemen and civilians were injured. The attack like Pearl Harbor, stood out both for its mercilessness and the fact that the US and Japan were not at that time at war. (The Nanjing Massacre saw Japanese troops kill more than 200,000 unarmed men and civilians and rape and torture tens of thousands of women and girls, according to the post-war Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.) China estimated the number of dead at more than 300,000.
Then there was Pearl Harbor, and the bloody battles at sea and in the island-hopping campaign that led eventually to the carnage at Okinawa. Japanese forces strafed sailors in the water from sunken ships and treated prisoners inhumanely (Bataan death-march).
The battle for Okinawa, the last in the island chain, resulted in more than 12,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines killed during the fighting.
In the waters around Okinawa, the Japanese launched the largest kamikaze attack of the war. Japanese planes sank 26 allied ships and severely damaged 168 others.
So, we were really angry with the Japanese, who held over 200,000 prisoners of war (mostly Chinese) and said they would kill them all if we invaded the home islands.
The atomic bombs were dropped after Japan continued to resist despite the USAF fire-bombing Tokyo and many other Japanese cities. We were incendiary in our anger.
The bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed fewer Japanese than Japanese troops killed in the "Massacre of Nanjing," where our anger had been kindled.
All the cost benefit analysis and retro-reflectoscopic reflections have no way to understand, or measure, how angry we were at the Japanese.