Shinichi’s Trike & The Lessons of War
Shinichi Tetsutani loved to ride his beloved tricycle outside his house in Higashi-Hakushima-Cho, a neighborhood in the Japanese port city of Hiroshima.
Shin-chan, as his family called the three-year-old, was doing just that on the morning of August 6, 1945, when there was a brilliant flash in the sky.
Shin was about a quarter mile from the hypocenter of the detonation of the first nuclear weapon to be used in anger, the consequence of a frightening new technology that its creators were all too aware would change warfare — and civilization — forever by wreaking unimaginable death and destruction.
Shin died that night, one of about 140,000 people to perish in the atomic bomb explosion and from associated effects, principally radiation poisoning. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, taking about 74,000 lives. Kyoto, the original target of the first bomb, was spared because the government officials and generals who were desperate to end the war were sensitive of its cultural significance.
A third atomic bomb was being readied, but by August 15 the conciliators in the Japanese government had won out over hard-line militarists who had had the tacit backing of Emperor Hirohito, who was not the pitifully manipulated figurehead the Japanese claim, and was the villain of this story. In any event, Japan capitulated and World War II finally was over after some 234,874 Americans had lost their lives in the Pacific theater alone.
* * * * *
There is no military-political action in modern history laden with as much baggage as President Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb.
Those who have argued in favor of his decision offer these arguments:
* The bombs ended the war months sooner and saved an estimated half million American lives that could have been lost in an invasion of the Japanese mainland
* Millions of people under Japanese occupation in The Philippines, New Guinea, Borneo and elsewhere who faced starvation, including hundreds of thousands of POWs from the U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, were freed.
* The hard-line militarists had adamantly refused to surrender although it was obvious that the war was lost.
Those who have argued against his decision offer these arguments:
* The bombings were immoral, a crime against humanity and constituted genocide.
* In a contemporary context, they were an act of terrorism.
* They were militarily unnecessary because Japan was essentially defeated and ready to surrender.
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62 Responses to “Shinichi’s Trike & The Lessons of War”
Mr. Buggeigh:
Good points all, and more examples of the peril of judging a 62-year-old decision through a contemporary lens.
“we veterinarians generally keep a professional distance and refrain from dating our patients”
LOL!
++ C
It was WWII, how many tens of millions died? The gloves came off early in that war and so did the restraint of force used. I fail to see how the nukes are any worse morally than the other millions of tons of ordanance used in the course of that 6 year global bloodbath. The world was sick to death of the war and those that started it now wanted to continue well past any rationale point of even limited surrender. Those cities would have perished just as surely under incendiaries as they did under uranium. The distinction is ludicrous to me as well as the concept that somehow we “Hit them too hard”.
Imho the death toll of WWII could have been much lower but for sociopaths on all sides who didn’t care about human lifes at all…
“judging a 62-year-old decision through a contemporary lens”
Difficult, sure, even though we have lots of details like these:
“I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. ”
“The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. ”
http://www.dannen.com/decision/hst-jl25.html
“The 509 Composite Group, 20th Air Force will
deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will
permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki.”
http://www.dannen.com/decision/handy.html
Well, somehow these two different details don’t compute, right? Who lied here, the president (in his diary!), or the General who wrote the order? Hell, we can’t even be sure what happened in the Plame case, or even more recently, what led to the death of Pat Tilman, so, no chance finding the truth in this negligible episode. Anyhow, hey, who cares?
My two cents and some observations
Civilian casualties
Curtis Lemay made two discoveries, most Japanese homes were made of wood and Japanese air defenses were inadequate. This allowed him to change tactics and order devastating low level incendiary attacks that wiped out huge sections of Japanese cities and inflict tremendous losses of Japanese civilians. As one commenter has already pointed out after the “rape of Nanking” and Battan we were not too caring about Japanese deaths. The number of casualties in the two attacks were in line with other air attacks done with conventional weapons.
The decision to drop the bombs in quick succession was to bluff the Japanese [and very probably the Russians] into thinking we had a large stockpile of the weapons, that a city every few days would be leveled.
The Russians
The USSR did more than just declare war, they launched a major offensive that quickly overran or bypassed Japanese defensive positions. The only hope remaining to the Japanese was to withdraw its forces in China to the home islands and give the US the prospect of horrific casualties if we invaded. The Soviet offensive by powerful mechanized units was so rapid that it was very evident that hopelessly outclassed Japanese forces, most still using horse drawn vehicles, would be overrun before they could make it back to the home islands.
There is a lot of debate on the effect of the bombs, my feeling it was the Russians entering the war that had more of an effect than anything else. The Japanese had started to build a series of large underground bunkers to make weapons and shelter military assets, one of which survived the Hiroshima blast. They has already written off the cities as being indefensible so the bombs would only show that the US had the power to knock out cities faster than expected. The Russians were a different story, the Imperial Army would not get back to the home islands and that was the last straw.
Gray,
In one of your posts you say that you understand the context that Truman’s decisions were made in. Sorry, but every single post you made in this thread shows that you understand absolutely nothing about the period. You write of using a blockade and bombing campaign. Do you really understand what the war was like on the home front? It wasn’t like now, where there are “only” 120,000+ troops in Iraq. There were 16,112,566 men at war, 291,557 deaths and 670,846 wounded just in the United States. Resources were being rationed and it was truly a national effort. The nation wanted the war to end and Truman wanted it no less than any other citizen.
And then you posted this little gem.
I’m sorry, but you show how incapable you are of actually attempting to understand anything about the people of that time with that one.
Thanks, Mr. Mullen re: No. 51. The term historians have for using the lens of the present to judge the past is “presentism.” I think it is a valid concept, and Mr. Satterfield’s response to Gray (No. 57) encapsulates some of what I was preparing to say, so I won’t repeat myself on that score.
I think it is very hard for those of us talking about this in the abstract to understand what the total mobilization for war meant. Not only rationing of gasoline, food, and virtually all construction supplies, but a great shortage of personnel – which led women back into the work force in large numbers. Much of what we accept as the normal world we inhabit was shaped by World War II. The virtually unanimous will of the entire nation was behind winning this war, and winning it as fast as possible, with the loss of the fewest American lives. Contemplating the possible collateral damage to German and Japanese civilians was not likely to get much, if any thought.
Complicating matters for the military were the fact that most manufacturing plants, railroad yards, ports, and the like – all legitimate military targets – were surrounded by tenements and apartment blocks where many of the people who worked in these facilities lived. Taking out a factory might well include the incidental deaths of many of the civilians working there. In spite of all the ballyhoo about precision bombing, there were a lot of misses. For one thing, the Germans and Japanese shot back, air crews dodged flak and all kinds of AA fire, and frequently bombs were landing near, but not on the target. Precision laser guided weapons were NOT available. Deaths of bomber crews, like deaths of civilians hit by stray bombs were simply part of the calculus of war then. You may not like it, but very few US citizens in 1945 blamed President Truman for using the atomic bombs. However, you may be sure that had he followed the advice to wait and encourage Japanese surrender, and Drew Pearson (the Rush Limbaugh of the 1940′s) had found out about it, the public would have been outraged to know that the President was sacrificing American lives to save Japanese or Germans of ANY sort, be they civilian or armed forces.
It is easy to look at this with hindsight, and deplore the carnage. At the time, it was just another bombing. A little note – forgive the cynicism, but why is being burnt to a crisp with an atomic bomb any different from being incinerated by a raid using conventional ordnance? For whatever it’s worth, more civilians were killed in the the conventional bombing of Dresden and the Ruhr than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Horrific as it sounds, it appears that Truman’s decision to use the atomic bombs brought a speedy end to the war, and saved lives as compared to estimated deaths due to starvation if a blockade were imposed, or conventional bombing, had that continued. Truman, unlike the armchair politicians on this forum, had real life experience with war, and he was doing what, in his judgment, would end it fastest, with the fewest allied casualties. No other president, be it FDR or anyone else, would have been likely to avoid use of the atomic bomb in the summer of 1945.
History through the ages just seems like an orgy of people killing people. It’s war after war after war after war. Wars are either glorified or exposed as beling the hell they are, but you can bet your last dollar on the fact that wars are always followed by more wars. .
It seems incredible, that with all the advances man has made in science and knowledge of all kinds, including self-knowledge, no one is able to propose a plan for making war avoidable. From armament as a deterrant to passive resistance, all attempts seem to fail. What does that say about us as human beings?
If I were an ET observing this planet, I would steer my ship away as soon as I possibly could.
Why do we have children, then? To furnish the manpower for future wars? Is it in our genes to survive by killing until we, ourselves are killed?
This thread gives me nightmares of revulsion.
Here we are cooly arguing whether or not the massive fatalities we caused during WWII were justified. Not being a Polyanna, I fervently agree that they were, but I feel as if blood were dripping from my fangs when I do.
“Sorry, but every single post you made in this thread shows that you understand absolutely nothing about the period.”
Your opinion, Jim. But pls note that at least I was digging in old documents to bolster my knowledge about this important periods. Others just restated their prejudices and offered questionable ethical stances, like all rules were abandoned in WWII and so no ethical decison can be sencond guessed. Sry, but I’m neither impressed nor convinced.
“The term historians have for using the lens of the present to judge the past is “presentism.†I think it is a valid concept, and Mr. Satterfield’s response to Gray (No. 57) encapsulates some of what I was preparing to say”
By digging into docs that show what the deciders knew and how they reacted on the information, at least I tried to get the circumstances of this historic episode. I don’t see that others tried to do this, instead they seem to express the opinion that everything should be excused and we won’t be able to analyse the chain of events and the motivation in hindsight. That’s what you want to say, too? Needless to say, every historian would be flaggergasted by such sloppy thinking.
All you offer are general points, without referencing to the examples I posted at all. For instance, here: “Contemplating the possible collateral damage to German and Japanese civilians was not likely to get much, if any thought.”
Well, the diary of Pres. Truman that I cited and linked states otherwise. He did think about the collateral damage, and was eager to minimize it, even though he saw the responsibility of the enemy citizen for their nation’s actions. A very honorable stance, and much more rational and humane than what many offered here.
Or here: “However, you may be sure that had he followed the advice to wait and encourage Japanese surrender, and Drew Pearson (the Rush Limbaugh of the 1940’s) had found out about it, the public would have been outraged to know that the President was sacrificing American lives to save Japanese or Germans of ANY sort, be they civilian or armed forces.”
Well, despite your grandstanding, we’re talking here about a waiting period for just a few days that would have been needed to correctly evaluate the japanese response. As I have shown above, the order to drop the second bomb was made without any sufficient time to check the intelligence from top secret source ‘magic’, that had just come in. And this information was still dealing with japanese investigation of the nuked site on the 7th. Nothing about diplomatic efforts to keep the russians out of the war, which would have been fruitless at this point, because the russians declared war on the 8th (Shaun, btw, I would really like to see you showing evidence for your view that this played any role). I also provided evidence on Truman’s intentions and his actions, that imply that he was (deliberately?) misled by his secretary of state and/or General Grove and make it at least questionable that he really authorized the use of the second bomb at the 9th.
Of course, what to make of these facts, how to weigh them is open to discussion. But pls do discuss them, instead of just offering broad general points that add nothing towards a real understanding of the issue. And don’t try to divert from this well defined issue to the broad question of collateral damage in WWII. We could talk for weeks about this without getting anywhere, and I guess you know that perfectly well, too.
Well, all in all, I see that the patriotic desire to simply dismiss all objections against the US decision surrounding the use of the nukes is strong here. This has been famously framed into words by a patriotic officer as ‘Right or wrong, my country’.
This stance is understandable, sure, but perfectly righteous and honest, it ain’t.
“It seems incredible, that with all the advances man has made in science and knowledge of all kinds, including self-knowledge, no one is able to propose a plan for making war avoidable. From armament as a deterrant to passive resistance, all attempts seem to fail. What does that say about us as human beings?”
It says nothing about us. We are just products of the world we live in, a world with a finite amount of resources populated by trillions of organisms trained by evolution to fight whenever there is a dispute. Even plants kill eachother in the struggle for resources. As long as there is any group out there without the education to see alternatives AND access to more than they can possibly need there will be war. Its nature’s way and it runs deep in all living things.