Originally posted by FrodeMk3
Origanally posted by Gh0stFT
This is why the casualty estimates for Operations Olympic and Coronet (the projected invasion of Japan) were in the 1 million+ range.
Myth #2.
You forgot to add the words "a few," or "some," or "reached as high as."
Projections and conjecture that usually had a range of numbers, depending on the methodology. Most estimates were substantially less. Obviously, the "million+" numbers weren't used or people would had to have been casualties twice, since the total force was less than such a casualty estimate. Either way, it didn't happen because of Myth #1 - see above. The casualty "estimates" did grow after the war to quell the domestic debate over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Truman ordered the use of the atomic bomb stopped after getting the detailed reports of Hiroshima just after the Nagasaki strike. He had his own "crazies" in the government he was trying to calm down. He had senators demanding no surrender be accepted and every atomic bomb coming off the assembly line be used to kill every Japanese man, woman and child in an American version of a "final solution." He had General LeMay already advocating and planning for the next 50 atomic weapons off the assembly line to be stockpiled and dropped on 50 Soviet cities in a simultaneous sneak attack as a "final solution" to the Soviet problem. Perhaps LeMay wanted to break his own record of "...killing the most people in the least time in the history of mankind."
The reason the Japanese Defense Minister resigned (the original topic...) was because the use of WMD on civilians is not considered an option in Japan today, and it is not considered something that was "inevitable" at the time.
The Japanese Emperor sued for peace in July, but it was rejected because Stalin wanted to enter the war in August. Truman ordered the first atomic bomb not be dropped before August 3rd, the date he and Stalin agreed on, but Stalin missed the date.
The terms of the surrender offered in July were the exact terms of the surrender that were accepted a month later. That is the reasoning for the Japanese view that it was not "inevitable."
Do I disagree with Truman's decision? I can understand his mindset. I don't believe the decision was simple. I think the Soviet Union played a hand in it, his history as a tough taskmaster on using the resources spent on the war had a hand in it and his advisors, both civilian and military, had a hand in it.
Truman said the Japanese were being "pigheaded" in their earlier surrender language. They said "we give," but he wanted them to say "uncle." I suppose he was pigheaded, too, but had the good sense to just ignore it and say that they said "uncle" in August.
You could say that Hitler took the easy way out, but the emperor didn't. He could have not made any announcement and done himself in deep in a bunker. Instead, with every reason to believe he would be killed, took control from the politicians and military to try to save the lives of Japanese, as Truman did for Americans.
I don't recall the American's, British, or German's performing vivisections Rolex.
A terrible thing. I think the perpetrators should have been brought to trial after the war and made to pay for their crimes.
I don't envy you having to support them being protected, instead of hung. Morally wrong for them to do, morally right to protect and pay them. Will that be your position?
