On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
While Fr. Miscamble's superb five-minute history lesson at Prager University is still on our minds, I've always thought that Paul Fussell, the late literary critic--and veteran of the Second World War--said more or less everything about the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan that needed to be said. From Fussell's 1988 book, Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays:
...John Kenneth Galbraith is persuaded that the Japanese would have surrendered surely by November without an invasion. He thinks the A-bombs were unnecessary and unjustified because the war was ending any way. The A-bombs meant, he says, "a difference, at most, of two or three weeks." But at the time, with no indication that surrender was on the way, the kamikazes were sinking American vessels, the Indianapolis was sunk (880 men killed), and Allied casualties were running to over 7,000 per week. "Two or three weeks," says Galbraith. Two weeks more means 14,000 more killed and wounded, three weeks more, 21,000. Those weeks mean the world if you're one of those thousands or related to one of them. During the time between the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb on August 9 and the actual surrender on the fifteenth, the war pursued its accustomed course: on the twelfth of August eight captured American fliers were executed (heads chopped off); the fifty-first United States submarine, Bonefish, was sunk (all aboard drowned); the destroyer Callaghan went down, the seventieth to be sunk, and the Destroyer Escort Underhill was lost.
That's a bit 'of what happened in six days of the two or three weeks posited by Galbraith. What did he do in the war? He worked in the Office of Price Administration in Washington. I don't demand that he experience having his ass shot off. I merely note that he didn't.
- Comment (71)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (10)
Comments:
Apr '12
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
Bill, I agree with your concluding sentiments, but I disagree with the notion that it is not appropriate to consider the morality of actions taken. After all, similar actions may be taken in the near future.
How should we think about what is appropriate in, say, a conflict with Iran, if not by considering now similar issues that have arisen in past wars? If we end up at war with Iran, should we use chemical or biological weapons against civilian populations?
When wars end survivors remember their treatment during the war. It helps if both sides were treated with some degree of humanity. I'd guess many allied prisoners could not forgive the Japanese for their mistreatment, and many Japanese had difficulty forgiving the A-bombs. This should be one factor when deciding how to conduct the war. Still, I would have dropped the bombs.
May '10
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
Blake Neff
You do not know this... · 9 hours ago
You offer an endless series of speculations as justification for your absolute condemnation of those who decided to drop the bomb, while rejecting as insufficient--because they are not absolute--the various facts and probabilities that went into that decision.
You say "we can never be sure" but it is unreasonable in the extreme to demand absolute certainty. And to demand this in a war against the mass-murdering regimes we fought in WWII is passing strange.
Edited on July 29, 2012 at 6:24pmNov '11
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
In Freedom Betrayed, Herbert Hoover claimed that the Japanese were suing for peace before the bomb was dropped. He believed that the only concession we would have had to make was to leave the emperor on the throne - a concession we made after the surrender anyway. Was this true? If so, what are the counter arguments? In an earlier post, Paul Rahe stated "Give[n] Pearl Harbor and the Bataan Death March, we were not about to settle for a negotiated peace." Is that a sufficient response to Hoover and, if so, why?
Edited on July 29, 2012 at 11:37pmJul '10
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
If they were suing for peace (and maybe individuals were in the government), why did it take two Bombs and result in an attempted coup against the Emperor for doing just that?
Nov '11
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
Byron,
Edited on July 29, 2012 at 11:45pmGood point. It's easy to sit here and second guess Truman's decision almost 70 years later. But the militarists' coup attempt against the emperor in hopes of keeping the war going even after the bombs were dropped is the closest thing to proof that we're ever likely to have that Truman made the right choice.
Dec '11
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
Because they were unwilling to surrender unconditionally (the loss of the emporer was really the only animating force by that point), and we would not humor anything otherwise. They were willing to lose the war, just not their emporer. To them that was a fight to the existential bitter end.
There were problems with russia who was supposed to act as teh go between. They wanted to divide up japan like they did germany. We werent having that either. Maybe russia wasnt keeping us informed (moot because we had cracked the japanese codes, but could we let russia know we knew?).
Its also possible that the translations werent making it to truman, and got metaphorically round filed..... I can see that happening too.
Edited on July 30, 2012 at 3:44amJul '10
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
Let's assume that Japan would have surrendered sometime in late 1945. What would have conceivably occurred between August and say November of the same year?
The Imperial Army occupied vast swaths of Asian mainland. The genocide that occurred there was on a scale comparable or greater to the Nazi carnage in Europe, with the Imperial Army slaughtering upwards of 200-250,000 civilians a month on average throughout the war.
Let's say the bombs are never dropped and the Empire surrenders without an American invasion. It is a near statistical certainty that upwards of a million innocent Asian civilians would have been slaughtered, to say nothing of the Allied American, European, and Asian soldiers and POWs that would have been killed in combat.
Those who claim the moral high ground about the use of the atomic bomb have to be willing to accept these almost guaranteed holocaust that would resulted in so many forms with the continuation of the war in Asia.
Jun '12
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
Fussell is one of the most underappreciated commentators on war. His opus on WWI, "The Great War and Modern Memory" should be required reading in every college's freshman curriculum.
Edited on July 31, 2012 at 1:56pmMay '10
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
Byron Horatio:
Those who claim the moral high ground about the use of the atomic bomb have to be willing to accept these almost guaranteed holocaust that would resulted in so many forms with the continuation of the war in Asia. · 23 hours ago
This is my major point as well. It is fatuous to narrow the argument to just two large air raids against industrial cities of the aggressor nation. There's no reason to give the atomic bombings special moral gravity.
Jun '12
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
Blake Neff: This essay relies on deeply flawed moral reasoning....
Now, I know that you are Catholic, Mr. Robinson.... I would point out that Consequentialism, the notion that the ends justify the means, is a wholly anti-Christian principle, one which mixes moral arrogance (for only God can truly see the full consequences of an action) and a rejection of the worth of the individual person. Even if it might save lives in the wrong one, we simply cannot use such reasons to justify the deliberate targeting of civilians....
Your just war reasoning is wrong, Mr. Neff. Weighing the totality of death to be suffered in either course of action is entirely consonant with just war theory. Moreover, both targets had military and war industry assets making their destruction desirable. They did however also have high levels of civilians. Civilians were not purposely targeted. I would accept your argument if the calculus only weighed the value of the military targets versus the civilian casualties. But the bombs were dropped in no such vaccum. If your position is the morally superior one, the burden is on you to explain how vastly greater aggregate casualties is morally preferable.
Mar '11
Re: On Not Having One's A** Shot Off
Sherman was dealing with an opponent who, however valiant, was schooled in the 'Western way of war': to carry on the fight until the cost is too high to bear. After the capital Tokyo was fire-bombed and flattened, few Allied commanders could have imagined that the Japanese would not surrender. I can only imagine that it would be like pounding mercilessly an opponent in the ring, who yet would bring his family, his culture, his emperor, his gods, into the fight rather than yield.