Harry S. Truman Quotes

Truman had been briefed on the number of Japanese who committed suicide rather than surrender—including civilians—in Saipan, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and other locations where United States troops had invaded. He and his experts agreed that the Japanese would not surrender unless there was a new dramatic factor that was outside the usual thinking—the atomic bomb. He was proved right about the warning. Not only did the Japanese ignore it, but they did not even surrender after the nuclear devastation at Hiroshima. It took a second bomb dropped on Nagasaki to motivate the surrender. So even a demonstration with all those Japanese casualties did not cause the surrender until it was repeated.

Bethe and other European refugees joined American and British scientists at Los Alamos, NM, for the development of the atomic bomb.

The bombing of Tokyo to which she referred, killed over 100,000 Japanese in a single raid, more than each of the two atomic bombs. However, those who, in hindsight, raise the issue of the morality of using the atomic bombs, say nothing about the firebombing. The graphic is of Dr. Libby when she was working with Enrico Fermi to create the first nuclear chain reaction to prove the feasibility of a nuclear bomb. She was the only female on the team.

Truman had just told Stalin about the new technology. Stalin had actually already known something about it as the result of Soviet espionage in the United States.

While this sounds like an idiotic statement, at the time very little was known by anyone about the effects of large doses of radiation. Groves had not then the benefit of the medical reports or interviews about the Japanese who had received high doses of radiation from the 2 atomic bomb attacks.

The second atomic bomb had just been dropped.

The Tribune was a left-wing newspaper which later became very critical of the use of the atomic bomb along with many other leftist organs.

After the Hiroshima bomb there was still no surrender by the Japanese. The decision was made to drop the second bomb on Nagasaki.

Ironically, the Japanese Government and military were so polarized that it took several days for the authorities to get together and agree on a course of surrender action. The second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki speeded things up.

It was this directive, together with the evidence of its acceptance by the Japanese soldier fighting to the death in Saipan and Okinawa, that lead President Truman and Chief of Staff Marshall to conclude that more lives would be saved by using the atomic bomb than invading the Japanese mainland. See {641063}

Although generally a right wing conservative, Clark today sounds like almost like an extreme leftist on the issue. At the time however, many thought that he had taken leave of his senses. He not only was completely contrary to bipartisan national policy but opposed by almost universal American public opinion. He is one of the very few significant American officials to oppose the war policies.

On March 9-10, 1945, over three hundred B-29 Superfortresses, loaded with 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs flew over Tokyo bombing the city in waves for 6 hours. Over 250,000 buildings were destroyed and more people killed than would be in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki which were destroyed by atomic bombs. The fact that the Japanese would not surrender even after such complete destruction of their capital and largest industrial city, was used by American leaders in assessing whether to use the atomic bomb afterwards. There were many who believed that the atomic bomb would not be enough for motivate a Japanese surrender as Japanese culture prohibited surrender. Indeed, even after the 1st atomoc bomb, the Japanese did not surrender, and after the 2nd, the war council was split 3-3 and the Emperor historically broke the tie. Even the atomic bomb might not have worked. Later generations found this resistance to surrender hard to understand but Japanese culture was amazingly strong then.

Bombing had reached the point where conventional bombing raids on industrial cities like Tokyo and Hamburg produced even more civilian casualties than did the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Tibbets’ view, through the lens of hindsight, was developed by many of the Allied servicemen who had been forced into war by expansionist and militaristic nations like Japan and Germany both of which placed much of their war material manufacturing capability in the midst of their otherwise civilian cities. Both brutally violated the laws of war and committed atrocities many times over before the allies began retaliating. There are still some who believe that it was wrong to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Some even feel that the mass bombing of Japanese and German cities in retaliation and in furtherance of the war effort was morally wrong. But at the time, the millions of casualties anticipated in the invasion of the Japanese mainland, persuaded virtually every American soldier and civilian that there was nothing wrong with use of the Atomic bomb, and many saw it as an absolute Godsend to prevent all the American and Japanese causalities that would have come otherwise. Many scholars remark on how it was virtually impossible to find any significant number of misgivings before or just after Hiroshima. Tibbet’s view was typical.

This was one of several petitions that were sent to the President by groups of scientists who were working on the development of the atomic bomb. The major objective of the scientists was to demonstrate the power of the bomb before it was used. The President did not select this policy of demonstration as the invasion of the Japanese mainland was imminent and America only had two bombs—one a uranium and the other, plutonium. If the demonstration would not produce the unconditional surrender, then there would only be one weapon left and it would take months to produce another. This was the strongest argument against using up a bomb. It was somewhat borne out when the Japanese did not surrender after the first bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. It took the second.

The note was found in an abandoned Japanese camp on Bataan. There are some who believe that this note was a forgery. However, most think it genuine as it reflected one of the Japanese
“aces in the hole” to defend against an allied invasion of the Japanese mainland. It was one of the reasons that some American planners advocated use of the Atomic Bomb. Of course that was a real risk of using the bomb. The Japanese might be so angry and feel morally abused and kill the many allied prisoners they had. Many thought it was a lesser risk because it did not have the symbolic animus that foreigners occupying the Japanese homeland had. The quotation illustrates the amazing complexity that the American and allied leadership faced trying to end WWII in the Pacific.

There were some doubts the scientists developed after Germany had surrendered as Hitler had been their greatest fear. So they were briefed on the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland and the military medical preparations for treating and caring for ½ million serious wounded casualties. In addition, given the state of war, there was expected about the same number of American Military deaths. On top of that, there would be many more Japanese military casualties plus even more Japanese civilian deaths and wounded. The use of the Atom Bomb would save all those lives but have casualties of its own, but far fewer. At the time, surprising to most people now, the use of the atomic bomb was not an issue of controversy at all. There were no Congressman who questioned it, no newspapers which editorialized against the use of the bomb. There were not even any other counties which protested its use.

The only soldier ever so honored

The only soldier ever so honored. See {604732} for Japanese attitude toward surrender.

The only soldier ever so honored