Quote:
Joseph E Glackin says:
August 7, 2015 at 1:19 am
My father was a Major in the Signal Corps HQ planning the Nov/Dec 1945 invasion of the mainland. After the suicides in Saipan, it was expected there would be total resistance. The US has already firebombed every major Japanese city. Gen LeMay was said to say, If we don't win this war, we will all be tried as war criminals."
At the time, 100K dead American troops and 1M wounded made the bomb look good. When the Hiroshima drop did not get an immediate surrender, the second strike was used.
Japan killed 300K Chinese in Nanking in six weeks in 1937 AFTER the city had surrendered. Britain and the US killed 130K in Dresden in firestorms, when the end of the war was inevitable.
The A-bombs killed fewer people than either of these. The US thought, with reason, that Japan would fight to the death. I remember soldiers surrendering in the 1970's who refused to believe their Emperor would surrender.
Hindsight is 20/20. At the scene, the idea of a million Allied casualties made a difference.
And, in the aftermath, no one wanted to claim the decision except Truman. But every one of them knew it saved American lives. That was what mattered.
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The quote comes from the comments section of the article Emitt linked to. I don't agree with the very last sentence. I think any and all innocent human lives matter.
That being said, I AM NOT the POTUS, as Truman was, then. He was consigned, at that extremely difficult time, with the protection and security of the country of which he was President. My 20/20-hindsight morality, and me being born two decades after the horrific event in question, withers away to irrelevance.