Reading "Hell to Pay," re Operation DOWNFALL, the massive, more-than-massive planned two-stage invasion of Japan, that was scheduled for October 1945-March 1946. President Harry Truman with Herbert Hoover advising, Admirals King, Leahy and Hap Arnold advising, real tough guys. The Japanese warlords were ready for 20 million casualties. Japanese were well prepared. They knew where we were coming, at Kyushu starting November 1, 1945, and then right at Tokyo in the spring 1946. Stunning. The two atomic bombs were mercy in comparison to the projected casualties on both sides. Those were hard men and hard decisions. They were making swift decisions while post-VE Europe trembled with starvation, lawlessness, disgust, Soviet chicanery and cruelty. The choice for Truman and his advisers was either to murder 200 -- Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- or to take the risk to lose 500,000 American casualties and up to 8 million Japanese. Numbing. George Marshall, July 1945, "...the daily casualty lists are mine. They arrive in a constant stream, a swelling stream, and I can't get away from them." After Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, an the Japanese warlords still hesitated to surrender, Marshall wanted all eight of the next atomic weapons that would be ready for X Day, November 1, 1945, to be dropped on Kyushu, where 10 million people were trapped among 16 Japanese divisions dug in with orders to fight to the death like Okinawa. Marshall was clear. He had gone to New Mexico to see the effects of the first atomic bomb test. He knew. He wanted three bombs on each Corps landing zone. Push the US troops right through the radiation. Unbelievable. They were all going insane with the casualties. The Navy prepared half a million Purple Hearts. The US built hospitals to prepare to receive 700,000 wounded back in the States during the projected two-year campaign, '45-'47.
Herbert Hoover, working diligently with casualty figures projected provided by the DoD, based upon Iwo Jima and Okinawa casualties, communicated to Truman that half a million American casualties were a conservative minimum. The numbers scared and humbled Truman. Truman was a veteran of the battle of Meuse Argonne, 1918. Within three miles of his guns, half his 35th Division fell in four days. Truman moved through a "cemetery of unburied." Truman chose the atomic bombs to save American lives. In so doing, he also saved Japanese lives, up to 8 million. Also, the casualty rate in all Pacific Theater campaigns ongoing, wherein the Japanese refused to surrender, was 400,000 a month until the emperor surrendered on August 14, 1945. The surrender surprised Truman, Marshall, Leahy, Arnold, King, LeMay. The decision had already been sent along. X-Day was November 1, 1945, on Kyushu Island. The early American waves on the beaches would have sustained totally unprecedented losses. The Japanese warlords were waiting with murder holes and orders to fight to the death. I will never again be dubious about the decision to use the atomic bombs. In a world of ghastly choices, they chose the nightmare over the Apocalypse.
(1)
Leave a comment