I tend to be of the Attila the Hun school of warfare when it comes to going against opponents like Hitler or Imperial Japan. You do whatever it takes if you’re going to have a war; otherwise, don’t bother with the war.
This is not the first thread on this topic. In the last one, I’d mentioned that one of my philosophy profs, a retired military man, had told us that the US had a plan to pull a Dresden on 50 Japanese cities at the time and so the A-bombings actually saved Japanese lives. I am not mistaken, that was his assertion. But I’ve never seen this written anywhere, and last time I mentioned it, no one here had heard of it either. I’m still curious about it, and so I bring it up again in case someone else reading this has heard of it. He was holding a formal debate with another prof on the topic of the A-bombings; both said they could debate either way, and a coin toss decided the pro and con sides.
I’ve never heard it before, but it’s possible. You have to understand that at the time, ordinary Japanese were digging bunkers in their yards and arming themselves with spears and grenades - whatever they could get. They pretty much had been told they were going to die and they were supposed to fight to the death to save the leadership as long as possible - and given their behavior in the past, with mass suicides, they just might have done so. I’m sure the U.S. would have happily blown up as many as possible from the air.
What makes it stick in my mind is he was not a fanatic about it. It was not the case of some guy preaching fire and brimstone in favor of the A-bombings because it was “good for them” after all. On the contrary, none of us ever did learn either prof’s true feelings about the bombings. As I reported, they both said they could debate either way and so a coin toss decided the sides. He was a great guy and seemingly normal, so I’ve always wondered about this assertion. I don’t know what he did in the military, but I think he served post-WWII, so it’s not like he was part of that.
The prof’s assertion cannot have been true, as conveyed here. Not because we weren’t prepared to do it, or were incapable of it, or felt moral qualms…but because we’d already done it:
That’s significant (40%) damage to sixty-six cities. Most of it by firebombing…just like Dresden. Going from my own memory, John Keegan wrote that Japan’s 60 largest cities had been destroyed (except for a few intentionally spared to serve as atomic targets if the A-bombs were ready in time), so it’s not like we’re talking about small towns. Each of those cities suffered damage an order of magnitude worse than New York did on 9/11. Many other cities must have been damaged less than 40% and thus not “made the cut” for that list of 66.
American strategic bombing planners were essentially running out of high-value targets by August 1945.
There are logically and emotionally valid arguments to be made for and against use of the atomic weapons, but the notion that their use spared Japanese cities from a conventional fiery holocaust is either a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation. We’d already done worse, and the damage of future raids was starting to be reduced not by our compassion nor by the efforts of Japanese resistance, but, chillingly, by the laws of diminshing returns.