Submitted by Carol A. Clark on October 27, - pm. Courtesy photo. Los Alamos. This successful operation hastened the collapse of Nazi Germany, and we rightly commemorate this day and celebrate the enormous contribution of our armed forces.
But another date, November 1, , should also be remembered for what did not take place as originally planned and for the lives that were not lost. Both the Japanese Emperor and the Prime Minister attributed their decision to surrender to the consequences of the nuclear strikes.
Until that time, they were determined to continue the hostilities. The continuation of the war would have resulted in a devastating loss of life not only for the Allies and Japanese troops, but also for Japanese civilians. I can therefore speak without doing so defensively. While my role in the atomic bomb development was a very minor one, I was a member of the group called together by Secretary of War Stimson to assist him in plans for its test, use, and subsequent handling.
Then, shortly before Hiroshima, I became attached to General MacArthur in Manila, and lived for two months with his staff. In this way I learned something of the invasion plans and of the sincere conviction of these best-informed officers that a desperate and costly struggle was still ahead.
Finally, I spent the first month after V-J Day in Japan, where I could ascertain at first hand both the physical and the psychological state of that country. Some of the Japanese whom I consulted were my scientific and personal friends of long standing. From this background I believe, with complete conviction, that the use of the atomic bomb saved hundreds of thousands—perhaps several millions—of lives, both American and Japanese; that without its use the war would have continued for many months; that no one of good conscience knowing, as Secretary Stimson and the Chiefs of Staff did, what was probably ahead and what the atomic bomb might accomplish could have made any different decision.
Let some of the facts speak for themselves. W as the use of the atomic bomb inhuman? All war is inhuman. Here are some comparisons of the atomic bombing with conventional bombing. At Hiroshima the atomic bomb killed about 80, people, pulverized about five square miles, and wrecked an additional ten square miles of the city, with decreasing damage out to seven or eight miles from the center.
At Nagasaki the fatal casualties were 45, and the area wrecked was considerably smaller than at Hiroshima because of the configuration of the city. Compare this with the results of two B incendiary raids over Tokyo. One of these raids killed about , people, the other nearly , Of the square miles of greater Tokyo, 85 square miles of the densest part was destroyed as completely, for all practical purposes, as were the centers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; about half the buildings were destroyed in the remaining square miles; the number of people driven homeless out of Tokyo was considerably larger than the population of greater Chicago.
These figures are based on information given us in Tokyo and on a detailed study of the air reconnaissance maps. They may be somewhat in error but are certainly of the right order of magnitude. W as Japan already beaten before the atomic bomb?
Before noon on August 10, , a mother and her son have received a boiled rice ball from an emergency relief party.
One mile southeast of Ground Zero, Nagasaki. Image courtesy of the US National Archives. Finally, there remained the option of Soviet participation in a final campaign in the Japanese Home Islands. This would inevitably result in a divided Japan, like Germany and Korea. Given the example of the , to , Japanese who died in Soviet hands on the Asian continent after the end of formal hostilities , it also would produce massive additional deaths in a Soviet occupation zone.
Richard B. Frank is an internationally renowned expert on the Pacific war. After graduating from the University of Missouri, he was commissioned in the US Army, in which he served for nearly four years, including a tour of duty in the Republic of Vietnam as an aero rifle platoon leader with the st Airborne Division. Greene Award. Invasion or Blockade? This article is part of an ongoing series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible by Bank of America.
Moreover, the radiation casualties sustained on Kyushu would have forced a halt to plans for the use of tactical nuclear strikes—one bomb for each American corps sector—directly on the Coronet invasion beaches to eliminate the defenders.
Operation Coronet, therefore, becomes impracticable. Giangreco bases his account on the historical fact that the Japanese had managed to pack Kyushu with 12, kamikaze air craft: more than twice the number American intelligence had anticipated.
He also points out that amphibious invasions were complex, carefully choreographed affairs in which the substantial loss of transport and support ships would have created massive disruptions ashore. For example, the supply of whole blood and blood plasma for the Kyushu invasion was to have been concentrated on just five LST H vessels, one for each of the invasion beaches. And as for the use of atomic bombs, Gen. George C. Marshall had advocated their use in support of the Kyushu invasion and the invasion of the Kanto Plain.
Since American physicists badly underestimated the extent of radiation sickness caused by atomic explosions, it is likely that as many as 40, American troops might have fallen ill from bombs intended to destroy Japanese reinforcements.
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