"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Nov 3, 8:05?pm, JR North wrote:
?
Remember Pearl Harbor. And Nanking. And Battan.
JR
So, yes, RIP Paul Tibbets. He was a brave and
Chuck Gould wrote:


Of course.

There was no excuse for many of the Japanese actions during WWII.

Once hostilities end, each side has to deal with the aftermath of its
own decisions.

It's not my place to judge whether the atomic bombs dropped on Japan
were "right" or "wrong". I'm simply pointing out that my research into
the subject indicates we had more options than some revisionist
militarists would prefer to have us believe. Whether any of the other
options would have been "better" or "worse" is useless conjecture.

About a year after the war ended, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey
report concluded that "certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all
probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered
even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not
entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or
contemplated." Yes, the conclusion in that report could have been
wrong, but I would have to give the Strategic Bombing Survey report at
least equal credibility with the opinions of talk show hosts and
historians 60 years after the fact.

I can't think of any major national issue or decision in which there
hasn't been a difference of opinion. In the interest of establishing
the best possible insight into the past, it is useful to know that
many people
at that time- including some very responsible, patriotic, loyal
Americans in positions of military authority, disagreed with Truman's
decision to nuke the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Once it's done,
it's done- so questions about good, bad, better, or worse are simply
academic. What we can profit from the experience is a lesson in
evaluating options and dealing with the aftermath of choices.

I can't say that if I were in Truman's shoes at the time I would have
decided any differently- nor can anybody else who wasn't there (or
even born) at the time.


My uncle spent the war as a shooter in the South Pacific. He left SF on a
troop ship to Guadalcanal during the first blackout of WWII. He woke up in
a hospital in the Philippines the day the Japanese surrendered. He figured
the bomb saved his life! He would have gone to Japan invasion after
recovering from the handgrenade damage. The worst fear was to be a prisoner
of the Japanese. So most battles were fought to the extreme. When he
arrived in Guadalcanal, there were still marines hung on stakes that the
Japanese used for bayonet practice. When he woke up in the hospital, there
was a Philippine nurse in the room who he mistook for Japanese and he shook
so bad they said he moved the bed across the room. And still shook for 3
days afterwards when the doctor finally convinced him he was in an American
hospital. Yes the bomb was horrific, but the whole war was horrific, and
the Pacific / Asian theater was just a lot worse than the European action.
**** happens in war, and the payback for the Japanese extracted a terrible
penalty. But we were still correct in the bombings. They dropped the first
bomb and the Japanese thought it was a fluke. Nagasaki, happened to be
secondary target as the primary was cloud covered. The 2nd got the
attention the first should have gotten by those in control.