the usual "We didn't need to drop the bomb!" cries and condemnations are going 'round again. The people yelling this either don't know or don't care just what would've happened had we not.
Lance or spear practice was a regular women's exercise to practice for the anticipated U.S. landing. My uncle, who was disabled, had been sent to a mandatory training camp to practice with wooden bullets and makeshift weapons to do his civilian share in greeting American forces. Then the bomb was dropped and it was over. Those who recently protested the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings don't have a grip on the grim reality of invasion that both Americans AND Japanese were facing. When I first visited the Hiroshima museum, I, too, had been overwhelmed with pity, sorrow, and anger. This was before my family explained to me what the consequences would have been if those bombs had not been dropped.
I recommend this (pdf), Thank Gods for the Atom Bomb.
2 comments:
My brother and I celebrate Aug 6th by going out for stir fry. Just a subtle remembrance that our father had orders to go overseas after Hiroshima, but the war ended and he got to come home. He and Mom had us....
If the nukes had not been dropped, the plan was to invade overpopulated islands that were barely feeding themselves at harvest time, while the B29's continued to torch entire cities. The civilians who were able to pick up a spear, knife, or club and be shot down by our troops would have been the lucky ones - most would have died of incineration or of starvation and exposure that winter. We would not have quite exterminated the Japanese race, but less than half could have survived.
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