Hiroshima and Nagasaki

HIROSHIMA, WHY THE US DID IT…….


Yesterday was the 65 anniversary of the bombing of Hirsoshima Japan during WWII, when the Enola Gay entered Japanese air space to let loose her devastating payload upon that military industrial city. It was done only after dropping millions of leaflets over Japan warning of the impending destruction, but of course it went unheeded, the Japanese were planning for an all out, total war, with the civilians helping to lead the charge, that included old men and women and young children, being in the military’s ranks to fend off the Yankee invader.

The bombing of both cities was more than justified, and in the end, saved far more lives than were lost on those two days and in subsequent illnesses that developed from radiation poisoning and from burn wounds. Was it mass destruction? Yes. Was it warranted? Yes, and the fault for that destruction lies with (at the time) the Japanese gov’t itself. KGS

Today is the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. That bomb, and a second dropped on Nagasaki three days later, ended World War II. Inevitably, liberals will use the occasion to reflect on how cruel, unjust and unneeded the two bombings were and thus the US was and is all those bad things. I haven’t been to formal school in decades but knowing what I do of how The Left has skewed history to reflect its views, I can hear leftist teachers exclaiming, “How could any country be so cruel!”

America had been fighting since 1941; Europe and Asia since the late 1930s. America knew the Japanese attitude toward surrender. They were preparing for a bloody invasion. My father, who had spent three years fighting in Europe, was on his way to the Pacific. No respite. This was all or nothing. America had been trying to make an atomic bomb since the war started – as had the Nazis and Japan. Both had atomic bomb programs. It’s still not publicly known exactly how far each got. New revelations about Germany’s atomic program are still occurring. Japan, moving its program to relatively safe Korea, was rushing to make one. There are reports they fashioned a crude device as the war ended but their plant was overrun by the Russians who were the next to get the bomb.

Japan’s efforts to make an atomic bomb are not well known. They are always the victim in this Hiroshima argument. But you can read my book, Japan’s Secret War, and see that they tried very hard and would have used whatever atomic bombs they could in a second, and were, by war’s end, aiming to use it on the US fleet that was readying the invasion. Even without figuring an enemy atomic attack, US planners were estimating hundreds of thousands of American casualties if the invasion proceeded. Some estimates are as high as 1 million. This was what President Harry Truman and US military leaders were faced with when they learned in July 1945 that an atomic bomb had been made and tested at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and was available for use.

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