I’m going on another road trip starting tomorrow morning. I hope to have a piece up before I leave. If not, some time over the weekend.
I always love driving across our beautiful country, and I’ll be gone for a few weeks, coast to coast. I will be updating this site, of course, like I did last time.
A few things
The Trump Town Hall reaction is a really good example of why I am no longer on the left. They’ve all lost their minds. It does make me feel very sad about my former side. This is not “their” country. It’s not “their Democracy,” and it’s not “their internet.”
These people are so insulated in their fear bunker they can’t handle Trump on CNN because it’s “their” network. Any responsible network would put Trump on, Biden on, Vivek Ramaswamy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and anyone else running for president on. If they pretend to care about “democracy itself,” then they have to care about what the public cares about.
It remains shocking that people like Bradley Whitford think they have a right to think for other people or decide for themselves what they should be interested in.
These are not people who should be put in charge of anything, not running the country, not heading up staffs at newspapers, not running Hollywood.
A few things to listen to:
A great interview with Tim Urban and Bari Weiss
Robert Oppenheimer, Truman and the End of the War - and a Question for you…
There is a new movie coming out directed by Christopher Nolan called Oppenheimer. To that end, I’ve gone down the rabbit hole on him. I did not know he was a suspected Communist and was hunted for years.
I watched this documentary and downloaded a couple of books I plan to listen to on the road.
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My question to you all is this: what are your feelings about dropping the A-bomb? Do you think FDR would have done it? Do you think it was necessary? Do you think Truman was in over his head? I’m just curious.
I’m mostly interested in the dynamic that played out vis a vis the Red Scare but I also feel the threat of nuclear war too all of a sudden.
The 2020 Election and Investigating fraud
My next piece is going to be on the 2020 election, and I will be adding some of this podcast to it, but the whole thing is worth listening to over at Sharyl Attkisson’s pod:
Dropping the A-bomb was necessary. We know that the Japanese were ready to go down in their own flames and fight within the cities and the streets. My grandfathers were Navy and Army in Europe and would’ve been sent, along with 1000s of other men, to the Pacific and would’ve likely died. My parents would likely have never been born; millions of Americans would have never existed. I believe FDR would’ve also dropped the bomb because he had no qualms about putting Americans of Japanese descent into internment camps. When all is said and done, Japan rapidly became a westernized country and an important, indispensable ally, despite their imperial and monarchical history.
Second guessing the bomb is the luxury reserved for those who weren't there. My father had spent over three years in the South Pacific with the Marines and had no doubts.
My Dad was there as well, from March 1943 on, with the Army Air Force. The end of the war found him in a hospital, but he was convinced he'd have been sent back if it hadn't been for the bomb.
Ditto. My dad was thrilled. He was in the navy in the Pacific and thought he was probably going to be involved in an invasion of Japan in some way. That was the way the war was being fought.
I envy you. I'm kinda old so I don't know how many road trips I have in me. This summer I'm leave Florida and go to Oklahoma where I lived for many years. Try to spend some time there. The people are wonderful. I miss Tulsa .
From there I'll go to NYC. I was born, raised and had my career there. I still have property and old friends in New York. All other ties are gone and I dislike going back. The people are soulless. I'm finally selling out and never going back. No loss.
Back to Florida where I'm making my last stand. I love Oklahoma but not the weather. Whatever is left of New York has moved down here anyway. People want America back.
While I was in the Navy, I was stationed overseas at Yokosuka, at what prior to the war's end had been a significant Japanese naval base. The base is strategically located across a large bay from Tokyo and Yokohama, hemmed in by steep, volcanic rock hills. I was privileged to be given a special tour of WWII tunnels and bunkers there that formed an immense under-mountain complex, carved out by forced labor, sealed after the war by the occupying Americans. Miles upon miles of stacked, deep passageways that connected chambers large enough to support thousands of dug-in fighters. It's wrong for us today to attempt to make a temporal link between modern people--Japanese or American--and earlier acts of violence. Or to attempt to reinterpret past events in the context of 21st century views and circumstances. But I'll say, going through those tunnels gave me a better understanding of how prepared both sides in the war had been to fight on. And why the war had to be brought to an end.
As for the A-Bomb, absolutely yes, necessary, even in hindsight. The Allies were expecting a million+ casualties in any invasion of Japan's home islands. Not to mention the civilian casualties Japan would have suffered in an invasion, which would have been far more than that. Unlike Germany, Japan fought more ferociously the closer the Allies got to their homeland. It would have been an absolute bloodbath, potentially years long. Plus, had the bombs not been dropped, the world would never have seen their horror, potentially raising the likelihood they'd have been used elsewhere more broadly by the US or Soviet Union in the 1950s.
Back to the Bush-Gore Florida election issue, there was a slower, more reasonable judicial process which was followed to address the situation. Thanks Sharyl!
Watch "2000 Mules" where they highlight ballot issues in the 2000 election's among states.
We are the only country to have zero ballot verification in many states - or identification - which makes fraud a feature not a bug and that is what one party takes advantage of. The other party doesn't care because "we make more money when our guys lose."
Then an outsider wins and does great things for the American People and the bureaucracy goes apeshit because he disrupted trillions of their ill-gotten gains. Your government right now is a cartel in bed with other cartels.
Safe travels; enjoy the true diversity of this country (a genuine diversity of history, culture, music, food, religion, geography… and an astoundingly complex and inclusive diversity of thought.) Actual diversity that is horrifying to those whose grift is equating “lockstep-echo-chamber-admission-bouncers” with “Diversity and Inclusion [TM].”
Enjoy your trip, Sasha. If your posts from the last trip are any indication, we are in for a vicarious treat.
Book recommendation for anyone interested in the history of the atomic bomb: Richard Rhodes' Pulitzer-winning "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" is excellent. (Written when Pulitzers were actually given for outstanding work).
Sasha, about Hiroshima, the definitive history on that is Richard Frank's "Downfall." There was a lot of post-war speculation about what prompted Japan's surrender. The left created a narrative, for obvious reasons and based entirely on speculation, that Japan's surrender had nothing to do with the Bomb. It was the Bomb. Frank's book is based on actual recorded discussions by the Japanese high command, including with Hirohito, and is very extensive. Truman and his advisors read the Japanese perfectly. Guessed exactly their thinking and responses. Our guys don't always get it right, but they nailed it that time. I used to buy into the leftwing position on Hiroshima, but I had to change my mind. Nobody is happy about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the alternative really was likely to be worse. Love your content. Peace.
You have to have talked to people who were living that moment in time and not living via the rearview mirror. My grandmother clearly saw the human tragedy in the decision, but supported it and never backed down.
It's just amazing to watch people who are so sure of themselves that they can view opposition to their views as violence and basically evil. They view debate itself as bad. Like ok it's fine to think of Trump as bad, but how can you think someone who got 74 million votes isn't even worth a hearing? To me that shows that they're actually fragile in their views and don't think they will hold up to scrutiny.
Enjoy your road trip. There's nothing like them. Makes me feel free that I can still go anywhere I want. Exploring America and it's history is very satisfying.
Safe travels Sasha. If you’re heading thru/near Ohio (via the turnpike) & you’d like a place to stay overnight, you’re welcome here. My husband and I would welcome the conversation...we’re just a couple of middle class folks from fly-over Country.
FDR approved the funding to develop the bomb, a good deal of money at the time, I believe he also would have used it. I don't know for sure of course, but I think he would have left the decision in the hands of the military. 3 bombs were built, one used in the test, one on Hiroshima, one on Nagasaki. I am pretty sure I read that Truman would not have used another one even if there had been one available.
VDH is always a must listen/read. The 2020 election was stolen and so was 2022, especially in Arizona.
The result(among other ruinations): Texas and its 55 electoral votes as well as Arizona will now be guaranteed Democrat due to illegal immigration. And the republican party is doing nothing to stop it.
Hanson's "The Second World Wars" gives solid background on the last days of the Pacific War. Allied Forces were looking at a bloodbath until they gained air superiority and Lemay got the B29 working. The jet stream above Japan made high altitude strategic bombing futile. Lemay switched to 5000ft napalm and incinerated Tokyo with most of its inhabitants. "The March 9-10, 1945 napalm firebombing of Tokyo remains the most destructive single twenty-four hour period in military history". It was ghastly, and so we don't talk about it. Lemay, in one raid, showed that he could incinerate most of the population. We talk about the atomic bombs because they were new and only our side had them, but they were far from the most deadly option. We will never know if Imperial Japan would have surrendered to avoid the fire bombings. The atomic bombs fell, and they could no longer fathom any defence.
My ex-wife’s mother was a communist party member in California during the time Oppenheimer was at Berkeley, and she put all her love and loyalty into the Party. She knew Oppenheimer and said he had deep convictions that collectivism was the wave of the future. The FBI was right to suspect him.
Read about the war with Japan in ‘My Helmet For My Pillow’ by Robert Leckie, or the Spielberg-Hanks HBO ‘The Pacific’, an excellent ten-episode series on it. The Japanese were unbelievably suicidal and vicious in war, far beyond western understanding. The invasion of Japan would have caused millions of deaths, many more Japanese than American lives. The A-bomb saved millions because the Japanese consider defeat to be a shame worse than death, civilian or military makes no difference. They didn’t have medics in their army, nor did they care for the seriously wounded, who were just left lying in the field.
Of course FDR would have dropped the bomb. Truman once described FDR as something like "the coldest person I ever met". His persona was an act. Not that I disapprove of anything (very significant) that he ever did. (My father was a passionate New Dealer.) But his reasons were based on political calculation, not human feeling. He saw an opportunity, and he took it.
Sasha, you might like "In the Matter of J Robert Oppenheimer," by Heinar Klipphardt (1964), performed on Broadway in 1969 under the title "In the Matter of J Robert Oppenheimer: A Play."
Good on "Oppie's" persecution on suspicion of being a commie. Good stuff.
Victor offers some interesting history about citizens voting for FDR in his last term as ‘knowingly voting for a dead guy’ and how the D party at the time forced Harry Truman on the ticket, rather than VP at the time, Henry A. Wallace (suspected communist leaning) because Wallace was too liberal and not acceptable to taking over POTUS…
Maybe the correct question is ‘would Henry A. Wallace’ have dropped the A-bomb? .. given FDR extremely poor health when he was elected to a 3rd term. Further, perhaps the D deep state machine at time, chose themselves a Frankenstein in Harry Truman, to ensure the A bomb was used?
Then the parallel to Biden today — Dems will again knowingly vote for a knowing dead guy, and what happens when his dementia completely takes over, he morphs into a Diane Feinstein and then the VP takes over…
This is what I said: I wrote an article for WW II History magazine on the subject of the dropping of the A-bomb and the answer to your question is a resounding NO!!! All documents pertaining to the use of the bomb and the planned invasion of Japan were classified for a period of 50 years - some may still be classified - and reading them makes it clear that Japan was whipped and ready to surrender, and they knew it. Yes, there was a Japanese document calling for the nation to defend with pointed sticks and pitchforks but it was outdated. However, Truman apologists used that to justify the use of the bomb. Sure, Marines took heavy casualties on Iwo Jima, but the Marines always took heavy casualties because of their charge-ahead policies. Kamikazes were more of a propaganda weapon than an actually effective means of sinking Allied ships. The truth is that Truman authorized the dropping of the bomb in order to demonstrate to the Soviets how powerful we were. As a matter of fact, the Soviets didn't detonate their own nuclear weapon until 1949 (using data provided by people working for Oppenheimer, if not Oppenheimer himself) and it wasn't until 1953 that they were able to actually deploy them. Truman and his key advisors wanted to demonstrate the power of the new atomic weapons before Japan surrendered.
Sam, I love your work but on this one I disagree because my father served in WWII and 4 of my brothers and I served after that - and I would almost always take enemy deaths over friendly deaths. I do appreciate that the deployed violence is supposed to be commiserate with the risks to one self (eg not good to kill 1 million to save 10 others). Finally, a nuke is really just a big explosive and wars have featured bigger explosives for about 1000 years.
My dad and uncle both served in World War II, my uncle was a B-24 pilot and my dad was a B-24 flight engineer. I spent 12 years in the Air Force and was stationed on Okinawa although I spent most of my time in Vietnam. I was also trained to transport nuclear weapons and carried a few. No, there were no "bigger explosives" than the A-bomb, much less the nukes that have been developed since then. A single nuke would completely destroy New York City, for example. I don't have a problem with enemy deaths, I killed a thousand or so myself. But there was no military reason to drop the two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Incidentally, Fifth Air Force fighter-bomber and strafer pilots were coming back from missions over Kyushu and reporting that white flags were flying all over the island. The US Strategic Bombing Survey reported that the bombs were unnecessary. Truman dropped the bombs to impress Stalin, that's all.
LIke I said, I wrote an article on this very subject for WW II History magazine. I actually wrote a couple of articles that dealt with some of the same subject matter, and I did a lot of research. There are a lot of formerly classified documents out there. One place where I found a number was on the Mt. Holyoke site. Japan was making peace overtures through the Swiss Embassy. Truman knew they were ready to surrender - as long as the emperor remained on his throne. He also knew we had the bomb. The Army and Navy lost no time in delivering the first two bombs (the only ones they had) to Tinian once the test was a success and they realized it would actually work. Carl Spaatz, who had transferred to Guam from England, was ordered to drop the bombs at the earliest opportunity. The Manhattan Project was set up to develop a bomb to use on Germany, but Germany surrendered, and it was no longer necessary. Some of the project engineers started having second thoughts.
I think the devastation was so complete that no information was coming out of Hiroshima so no one knew for days what had happened. Whether they would have surrendered or not is another question.
They didn't after the second bomb either. Japan only agreed to surrender after Truman sent a back-channel message that the emperor could remain on the throne. FDR had come up with the "unconditional surrender" slogan earlier in the war and Truman was going along with it. MacArthur, who had spent a lot of time in the Orient, and other high-ranking officers had been telling Truman that Japan would surrender if the emperor, who was considered a god, was not dethroned.
By the way, there were no significant battles or campaigns going on at the time of the detonation of the first A-bomb. The last major battle was Okinawa. The invasion was planned for November. There was no military necessity to use the bomb. Here's a link to the report of the interrogation of the Japanese generals in command on Kyushu. When authors refer to it, they leave out the part of the Kamikazes - https://sammcgowan.com/gallery/JapaneseGenerals.pdf This document was classified for 50 years.
The information is out there, the White House kept it hidden for half a century. That's how they do it, classify everything until the main players are dead.
You are right, and that is why government classifies information it doesn't want the public to know about. Thousands of GIs were convinced that the bomb had saved their lives and the White House was keeping secret that Japan had only surrendered after Truman agreed to allow Hirohito to remain on the throne. By August 1945, Japan had been bombed into oblivion by Curtis Lemay's B-29s. Every city in the country had been firebombed but four, four cities the targeting commission in Washington held back. Why were they held back? Because they wanted them to serve as testbeds for fission bombs. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two of those cities. If they had military importance, they would have already been firebombed into ashes. MacArthur's forces had moved up from the Philippines and were occupying the Ryukyus, which are only a few hundred miles from Kyushu, some 375 miles to be exact. General George Kenney's armada of B-24s, B-25 strafers and P-38s and P-47 fighter/bombers were in range of the Japanese home islands. The Japanese air force had been shot out of the sky and the navy was at the bottom of the sea while most of Japan's army was lying in trenches covered over by bulldozers. Yes, Japan had a large "army" in the home islands, but it was made up of raw recruits who had never seen combat. Japan's only combat-tested troops were in China. Some remained in New Guinea where they were being mopped up by Australian troops and in the Philippines, which were in American hands. Of course, the Truman apologists don't tell you that.
Japanese troops on Pacific islands like Iwo Jima fought to the death but only because they had no where to go and surrender was not an option. They couldn't be reinforced and they believed surrender was disgrace, but those were the soldiers of the prewar army who had been victorious for a short while in 1942. The army in Japan was new, poorly trained and ill-equipped.
The sad facts are that the Democrats in the White House deliberately lied to protect Truman's - and their own - reputation. They couldn't admit that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were testbeds and that Japan only agreed to surrender when they received guarantees that the government would remain intact.
That's hypothesis. No one in the military ever advocated the million casualties Truman apologists trumpet. MacArthur's staff, who planned the invasion, expected some 90,000 casualties in the first 90 days, with a third KIA. The USSBS determined that Japan would have surrendered by November. Churchhill threw out the million-men number after the war then Secretary of War Stimson repeated it years later. The facts are that many in government and the military believed the bombs were unnecessary including MacArthur and Kenny, who had been fighting the Japs since 1942, and Eisenhower. There were reasons all communications about the use of the bombs was classified for fifty years, and it wasn't to protect military secrets. Why would the interrogations of the Japanese generals in charge of the defense of Kyushu classified for fifty years? You may not know it, but the United States didn't lose half a million men in the entire war, most of them in Europe. The last actual figure I saw was 336,000. Wikipedia says 405,000 for all causes with 291,000 combat deaths. MacArthur lost less than 100,000 men total. Most of the Marine actions were Navy, and in some cases probably unnecessary. This is particularly true of Iwo Jima. They justified it by claiming it was needed as an emergency base for B-29s but very few B-29s ever landed there with emergencies. Incidentally, the Eighth Air Force in Europe alone lost more men than the entire Marine Corps in the Pacific. (Marines were part of the Navy and did not fight in the ETO.) Patton criticized Marine tactics in the book he wrote after the war, War As I Knew It. The flag-raising on Iwo is classic Navy/Marine hype. The famous picture was taken of a SECOND flag after the mountain had been taken. The Marines who took it raised a flag, but it was too small to be easily seen. Navy secretary James Forrestal was on a ship offshore. He ordered that a larger flag be taken ashore and raised so it could be seen from all over the island. Joe Rosenthal snapped a few pictures and the one so often depicted was selected for its dramatic effect and published.
There is one factor that could have possibly affected the invasion and that is that a typhoon hit Okinawa around the time it was supposed to be launched. I was based on Okinawa for 18 months and there were several typhoons and none of them did any substantial damage. Okinawa was planned to be a second B-29 base but the war ended it before Okinawa-based B-29s became operational.
Even Curtis Lemay, who commanded the B-29s, was critical of the bombs. He said they had nothing to do with the end of the war at all. Lemay even went so far as to admit that it (and the fire-bombing) was a "war crime" and that if the US had lost the war, he'd have been tried as a war criminal. Admiral Halsey said "The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment ... It was a mistake to ever drop it ... [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it." Admiral Nimitz, the commander in the Pacific, said "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan."
I'm not a pacifist, in fact I'm far from it. I lose no sleep over all the Vietnamese communists I killed with ten and fifteen-thousand pound bombs - the first one I dropped got a BDA of 100 KIA -but I'm also open-minded and while I grew up believing the atomic bombs ended the war, I realized after all the previously classified information came out that they were really dropped to see how effective they'd be and to show the world we had them. The fact is that Japan was beaten by August 1945 and the people were ready to quit, regardless of what a few diehards in the army thought. Remember that the attempted coup failed and it failed quickly, Even if Japan had an army of women and children wielding sharp sticks and pitchforks, think how they would have fared against flamethrowers.
And, I know how government lies and why information is classified, not so much to protect military secrets but to protect the reputations of generals and politicians.
In response to Sasha's question about the A-bomb, I decided to make the article I wrote several years ago on that very subject available. https://sammcgowan.substack.com/p/decision. I am also going to post an article I wrote around the same time about what the Japanese generals in charge of the defense of Kyushu had to say. Those articles are free. I am going to start posting other magazine articles I've written behind a pay wall. I wrote numerous articles for World War II and WW II History magazines and was a contributing editor to Vietnam magazine, starting with the premier issue,
Dropping the A bomb saved not only American lives but Japanese live as well. Contemporary estimates at the time predicted 100,000 American men would have lost their live in an invasion. Based on the lives lost in taking the islands that is probably accurate. How many Japanese lives would have been lost in an invasion? At Yalta The Soviet’s agreed to assist. How would that have turned out? Would they take revenge for the Japanese having defeated them earlier in the century? After the defeat of Japan would the country have been divided up by the victorious nations. How did that work out for Germany especially Berlin? Would Truman have had to have two airlifts one for Berlin and one for Japan? Best of bad scenario’s was the bomb was dropped and the war ended quickly thereafter.
My father, a career Army officer, had finished his duty as a combat engineer in Europe and North Africa when his battalion was told to get ready for a deployment to the Pacific theater. He and his men were actually on the West Coast when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed and the war ended. He had been in combat or close to the front since 1943. He’s been gone for 25 years but made it very clear to anyone who asked that he was grateful to Truman for that decision, saving him and countless other American soldiers from additional carnage and death. Interestingly, he returned to Europe in 1948 as part of the Army of Occupation, then shipped out in 1951 or 52 for 18 months in Korea. Truman’s decision looked very different to men like my father and I am grateful for it as well.
btw, the fire-bombing of Tokyo in March `45 was as bad as the a-bombs, but somehow doesn't get the press. Japan knew very well they had lost before the August a-bombs.
No. You ask a question to generate a response. Thus far you have simply indicated your position without explanation. Why shouldn’t we have dropped the bomb. And what is your response to those questions?
Victor Hansen is a national treasure
He’s a great historian for all.
Bingo: ‘This is not “their” country. It’s not “their Democracy,” and it’s not “their internet.” ‘. Thank you. Have a great trip!
Dropping the A-bomb was necessary. We know that the Japanese were ready to go down in their own flames and fight within the cities and the streets. My grandfathers were Navy and Army in Europe and would’ve been sent, along with 1000s of other men, to the Pacific and would’ve likely died. My parents would likely have never been born; millions of Americans would have never existed. I believe FDR would’ve also dropped the bomb because he had no qualms about putting Americans of Japanese descent into internment camps. When all is said and done, Japan rapidly became a westernized country and an important, indispensable ally, despite their imperial and monarchical history.
Second guessing the bomb is the luxury reserved for those who weren't there. My father had spent over three years in the South Pacific with the Marines and had no doubts.
My Dad was there as well, from March 1943 on, with the Army Air Force. The end of the war found him in a hospital, but he was convinced he'd have been sent back if it hadn't been for the bomb.
Ditto. My dad was thrilled. He was in the navy in the Pacific and thought he was probably going to be involved in an invasion of Japan in some way. That was the way the war was being fought.
Agreed. My father (18 years old) was stationed in Okinawa with the SeaBees
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The People That Don’t Like To Share
-Their Jet Fuel
-Their Gated Communities
-Their Private Clubs
& Their Tech Networks
Are Aligned With The People That Naively Demand
That Everything Be Shared With Them.
Spoiler Alert: That Ain’t Gonna Happen.
Not In A Million Years.
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Victor Davis Hanson is always terrific. I'm half-way through reading The Dying Citizen. I learned a great deal from reading The Second World Wars.
I envy you. I'm kinda old so I don't know how many road trips I have in me. This summer I'm leave Florida and go to Oklahoma where I lived for many years. Try to spend some time there. The people are wonderful. I miss Tulsa .
From there I'll go to NYC. I was born, raised and had my career there. I still have property and old friends in New York. All other ties are gone and I dislike going back. The people are soulless. I'm finally selling out and never going back. No loss.
Back to Florida where I'm making my last stand. I love Oklahoma but not the weather. Whatever is left of New York has moved down here anyway. People want America back.
While I was in the Navy, I was stationed overseas at Yokosuka, at what prior to the war's end had been a significant Japanese naval base. The base is strategically located across a large bay from Tokyo and Yokohama, hemmed in by steep, volcanic rock hills. I was privileged to be given a special tour of WWII tunnels and bunkers there that formed an immense under-mountain complex, carved out by forced labor, sealed after the war by the occupying Americans. Miles upon miles of stacked, deep passageways that connected chambers large enough to support thousands of dug-in fighters. It's wrong for us today to attempt to make a temporal link between modern people--Japanese or American--and earlier acts of violence. Or to attempt to reinterpret past events in the context of 21st century views and circumstances. But I'll say, going through those tunnels gave me a better understanding of how prepared both sides in the war had been to fight on. And why the war had to be brought to an end.
Have a safe trip!
As for the A-Bomb, absolutely yes, necessary, even in hindsight. The Allies were expecting a million+ casualties in any invasion of Japan's home islands. Not to mention the civilian casualties Japan would have suffered in an invasion, which would have been far more than that. Unlike Germany, Japan fought more ferociously the closer the Allies got to their homeland. It would have been an absolute bloodbath, potentially years long. Plus, had the bombs not been dropped, the world would never have seen their horror, potentially raising the likelihood they'd have been used elsewhere more broadly by the US or Soviet Union in the 1950s.
Sharyl’s election podcast captures the view that I was trying to express after the 2020 election: + the swiftness to deny irregularities,
+ the cowardice of the judicial system to avoid pursuing integrity claims to some reasonable, lawful conclusion
+ as well as the ‘changing’ description of the denial of the irregularities
I came to the same conclusion that no one wanted to extend themself for Trump.
I was actually screaming at the TV when Barr made his “there’s nothing here” comments.
“What investigations?!”, “What states/localities?”. Details please!!!
Back to the Bush-Gore Florida election issue, there was a slower, more reasonable judicial process which was followed to address the situation. Thanks Sharyl!
Watch "2000 Mules" where they highlight ballot issues in the 2000 election's among states.
We are the only country to have zero ballot verification in many states - or identification - which makes fraud a feature not a bug and that is what one party takes advantage of. The other party doesn't care because "we make more money when our guys lose."
Then an outsider wins and does great things for the American People and the bureaucracy goes apeshit because he disrupted trillions of their ill-gotten gains. Your government right now is a cartel in bed with other cartels.
Either Confucius or Jim Morrison said, “‘Name calling’ is a lazy person’s argument.” Let me see your arguments. Until then nice opinion.
Safe travels; enjoy the true diversity of this country (a genuine diversity of history, culture, music, food, religion, geography… and an astoundingly complex and inclusive diversity of thought.) Actual diversity that is horrifying to those whose grift is equating “lockstep-echo-chamber-admission-bouncers” with “Diversity and Inclusion [TM].”
Enjoy your trip, Sasha. If your posts from the last trip are any indication, we are in for a vicarious treat.
Book recommendation for anyone interested in the history of the atomic bomb: Richard Rhodes' Pulitzer-winning "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" is excellent. (Written when Pulitzers were actually given for outstanding work).
Sasha, about Hiroshima, the definitive history on that is Richard Frank's "Downfall." There was a lot of post-war speculation about what prompted Japan's surrender. The left created a narrative, for obvious reasons and based entirely on speculation, that Japan's surrender had nothing to do with the Bomb. It was the Bomb. Frank's book is based on actual recorded discussions by the Japanese high command, including with Hirohito, and is very extensive. Truman and his advisors read the Japanese perfectly. Guessed exactly their thinking and responses. Our guys don't always get it right, but they nailed it that time. I used to buy into the leftwing position on Hiroshima, but I had to change my mind. Nobody is happy about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the alternative really was likely to be worse. Love your content. Peace.
You have to have talked to people who were living that moment in time and not living via the rearview mirror. My grandmother clearly saw the human tragedy in the decision, but supported it and never backed down.
It's just amazing to watch people who are so sure of themselves that they can view opposition to their views as violence and basically evil. They view debate itself as bad. Like ok it's fine to think of Trump as bad, but how can you think someone who got 74 million votes isn't even worth a hearing? To me that shows that they're actually fragile in their views and don't think they will hold up to scrutiny.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses are the same regarding Apostates.
Travel safe Sasha. We need you.
Thank you for, as always, leaving us with great morsels to chew over until your next post. Have a safe and enjoyable trip!
Enjoy your road trip. There's nothing like them. Makes me feel free that I can still go anywhere I want. Exploring America and it's history is very satisfying.
Safe travels Sasha. If you’re heading thru/near Ohio (via the turnpike) & you’d like a place to stay overnight, you’re welcome here. My husband and I would welcome the conversation...we’re just a couple of middle class folks from fly-over Country.
Same here Sasha but in Iowa!
Drive safely. America needs your voice!
FDR approved the funding to develop the bomb, a good deal of money at the time, I believe he also would have used it. I don't know for sure of course, but I think he would have left the decision in the hands of the military. 3 bombs were built, one used in the test, one on Hiroshima, one on Nagasaki. I am pretty sure I read that Truman would not have used another one even if there had been one available.
VDH is always a must listen/read. The 2020 election was stolen and so was 2022, especially in Arizona.
The result(among other ruinations): Texas and its 55 electoral votes as well as Arizona will now be guaranteed Democrat due to illegal immigration. And the republican party is doing nothing to stop it.
Have a great and safe trip, Sasha!
Pear Harbor barbaric,,,Hiroshima/Nagasaki barbaric,,,,greedy, inhumane psychopaths keep us sliding into de-evolution
Hanson's "The Second World Wars" gives solid background on the last days of the Pacific War. Allied Forces were looking at a bloodbath until they gained air superiority and Lemay got the B29 working. The jet stream above Japan made high altitude strategic bombing futile. Lemay switched to 5000ft napalm and incinerated Tokyo with most of its inhabitants. "The March 9-10, 1945 napalm firebombing of Tokyo remains the most destructive single twenty-four hour period in military history". It was ghastly, and so we don't talk about it. Lemay, in one raid, showed that he could incinerate most of the population. We talk about the atomic bombs because they were new and only our side had them, but they were far from the most deadly option. We will never know if Imperial Japan would have surrendered to avoid the fire bombings. The atomic bombs fell, and they could no longer fathom any defence.
My ex-wife’s mother was a communist party member in California during the time Oppenheimer was at Berkeley, and she put all her love and loyalty into the Party. She knew Oppenheimer and said he had deep convictions that collectivism was the wave of the future. The FBI was right to suspect him.
Read about the war with Japan in ‘My Helmet For My Pillow’ by Robert Leckie, or the Spielberg-Hanks HBO ‘The Pacific’, an excellent ten-episode series on it. The Japanese were unbelievably suicidal and vicious in war, far beyond western understanding. The invasion of Japan would have caused millions of deaths, many more Japanese than American lives. The A-bomb saved millions because the Japanese consider defeat to be a shame worse than death, civilian or military makes no difference. They didn’t have medics in their army, nor did they care for the seriously wounded, who were just left lying in the field.
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Of course FDR would have dropped the bomb. Truman once described FDR as something like "the coldest person I ever met". His persona was an act. Not that I disapprove of anything (very significant) that he ever did. (My father was a passionate New Dealer.) But his reasons were based on political calculation, not human feeling. He saw an opportunity, and he took it.
Sasha, you might like "In the Matter of J Robert Oppenheimer," by Heinar Klipphardt (1964), performed on Broadway in 1969 under the title "In the Matter of J Robert Oppenheimer: A Play."
Good on "Oppie's" persecution on suspicion of being a commie. Good stuff.
Victor offers some interesting history about citizens voting for FDR in his last term as ‘knowingly voting for a dead guy’ and how the D party at the time forced Harry Truman on the ticket, rather than VP at the time, Henry A. Wallace (suspected communist leaning) because Wallace was too liberal and not acceptable to taking over POTUS…
Maybe the correct question is ‘would Henry A. Wallace’ have dropped the A-bomb? .. given FDR extremely poor health when he was elected to a 3rd term. Further, perhaps the D deep state machine at time, chose themselves a Frankenstein in Harry Truman, to ensure the A bomb was used?
Then the parallel to Biden today — Dems will again knowingly vote for a knowing dead guy, and what happens when his dementia completely takes over, he morphs into a Diane Feinstein and then the VP takes over…
Odd, I wrote a response about the A-bomb and although it posted on Notes, it didn't come up here.
This is what I said: I wrote an article for WW II History magazine on the subject of the dropping of the A-bomb and the answer to your question is a resounding NO!!! All documents pertaining to the use of the bomb and the planned invasion of Japan were classified for a period of 50 years - some may still be classified - and reading them makes it clear that Japan was whipped and ready to surrender, and they knew it. Yes, there was a Japanese document calling for the nation to defend with pointed sticks and pitchforks but it was outdated. However, Truman apologists used that to justify the use of the bomb. Sure, Marines took heavy casualties on Iwo Jima, but the Marines always took heavy casualties because of their charge-ahead policies. Kamikazes were more of a propaganda weapon than an actually effective means of sinking Allied ships. The truth is that Truman authorized the dropping of the bomb in order to demonstrate to the Soviets how powerful we were. As a matter of fact, the Soviets didn't detonate their own nuclear weapon until 1949 (using data provided by people working for Oppenheimer, if not Oppenheimer himself) and it wasn't until 1953 that they were able to actually deploy them. Truman and his key advisors wanted to demonstrate the power of the new atomic weapons before Japan surrendered.
Sam, I love your work but on this one I disagree because my father served in WWII and 4 of my brothers and I served after that - and I would almost always take enemy deaths over friendly deaths. I do appreciate that the deployed violence is supposed to be commiserate with the risks to one self (eg not good to kill 1 million to save 10 others). Finally, a nuke is really just a big explosive and wars have featured bigger explosives for about 1000 years.
My dad and uncle both served in World War II, my uncle was a B-24 pilot and my dad was a B-24 flight engineer. I spent 12 years in the Air Force and was stationed on Okinawa although I spent most of my time in Vietnam. I was also trained to transport nuclear weapons and carried a few. No, there were no "bigger explosives" than the A-bomb, much less the nukes that have been developed since then. A single nuke would completely destroy New York City, for example. I don't have a problem with enemy deaths, I killed a thousand or so myself. But there was no military reason to drop the two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Incidentally, Fifth Air Force fighter-bomber and strafer pilots were coming back from missions over Kyushu and reporting that white flags were flying all over the island. The US Strategic Bombing Survey reported that the bombs were unnecessary. Truman dropped the bombs to impress Stalin, that's all.
Thanks Sam. Indeed your experience and knowledge on this is far greater than my own.
LIke I said, I wrote an article on this very subject for WW II History magazine. I actually wrote a couple of articles that dealt with some of the same subject matter, and I did a lot of research. There are a lot of formerly classified documents out there. One place where I found a number was on the Mt. Holyoke site. Japan was making peace overtures through the Swiss Embassy. Truman knew they were ready to surrender - as long as the emperor remained on his throne. He also knew we had the bomb. The Army and Navy lost no time in delivering the first two bombs (the only ones they had) to Tinian once the test was a success and they realized it would actually work. Carl Spaatz, who had transferred to Guam from England, was ordered to drop the bombs at the earliest opportunity. The Manhattan Project was set up to develop a bomb to use on Germany, but Germany surrendered, and it was no longer necessary. Some of the project engineers started having second thoughts.
Sam, I’ll ask the obvious question, not to be contrarian but because I’m genuinely interested in your response:
If Japan was ready to surrender, why did they not do so after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima?
I think the devastation was so complete that no information was coming out of Hiroshima so no one knew for days what had happened. Whether they would have surrendered or not is another question.
They didn't after the second bomb either. Japan only agreed to surrender after Truman sent a back-channel message that the emperor could remain on the throne. FDR had come up with the "unconditional surrender" slogan earlier in the war and Truman was going along with it. MacArthur, who had spent a lot of time in the Orient, and other high-ranking officers had been telling Truman that Japan would surrender if the emperor, who was considered a god, was not dethroned.
By the way, there were no significant battles or campaigns going on at the time of the detonation of the first A-bomb. The last major battle was Okinawa. The invasion was planned for November. There was no military necessity to use the bomb. Here's a link to the report of the interrogation of the Japanese generals in command on Kyushu. When authors refer to it, they leave out the part of the Kamikazes - https://sammcgowan.com/gallery/JapaneseGenerals.pdf This document was classified for 50 years.
Thanks for your responses, a different take on the issue.
The information is out there, the White House kept it hidden for half a century. That's how they do it, classify everything until the main players are dead.
Counter factuals are interesting, and rarely persuasive.
You are right, and that is why government classifies information it doesn't want the public to know about. Thousands of GIs were convinced that the bomb had saved their lives and the White House was keeping secret that Japan had only surrendered after Truman agreed to allow Hirohito to remain on the throne. By August 1945, Japan had been bombed into oblivion by Curtis Lemay's B-29s. Every city in the country had been firebombed but four, four cities the targeting commission in Washington held back. Why were they held back? Because they wanted them to serve as testbeds for fission bombs. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two of those cities. If they had military importance, they would have already been firebombed into ashes. MacArthur's forces had moved up from the Philippines and were occupying the Ryukyus, which are only a few hundred miles from Kyushu, some 375 miles to be exact. General George Kenney's armada of B-24s, B-25 strafers and P-38s and P-47 fighter/bombers were in range of the Japanese home islands. The Japanese air force had been shot out of the sky and the navy was at the bottom of the sea while most of Japan's army was lying in trenches covered over by bulldozers. Yes, Japan had a large "army" in the home islands, but it was made up of raw recruits who had never seen combat. Japan's only combat-tested troops were in China. Some remained in New Guinea where they were being mopped up by Australian troops and in the Philippines, which were in American hands. Of course, the Truman apologists don't tell you that.
Japanese troops on Pacific islands like Iwo Jima fought to the death but only because they had no where to go and surrender was not an option. They couldn't be reinforced and they believed surrender was disgrace, but those were the soldiers of the prewar army who had been victorious for a short while in 1942. The army in Japan was new, poorly trained and ill-equipped.
The sad facts are that the Democrats in the White House deliberately lied to protect Truman's - and their own - reputation. They couldn't admit that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were testbeds and that Japan only agreed to surrender when they received guarantees that the government would remain intact.
What if you were wrong and a half million Allied soldiers died in taking the islands?
That's hypothesis. No one in the military ever advocated the million casualties Truman apologists trumpet. MacArthur's staff, who planned the invasion, expected some 90,000 casualties in the first 90 days, with a third KIA. The USSBS determined that Japan would have surrendered by November. Churchhill threw out the million-men number after the war then Secretary of War Stimson repeated it years later. The facts are that many in government and the military believed the bombs were unnecessary including MacArthur and Kenny, who had been fighting the Japs since 1942, and Eisenhower. There were reasons all communications about the use of the bombs was classified for fifty years, and it wasn't to protect military secrets. Why would the interrogations of the Japanese generals in charge of the defense of Kyushu classified for fifty years? You may not know it, but the United States didn't lose half a million men in the entire war, most of them in Europe. The last actual figure I saw was 336,000. Wikipedia says 405,000 for all causes with 291,000 combat deaths. MacArthur lost less than 100,000 men total. Most of the Marine actions were Navy, and in some cases probably unnecessary. This is particularly true of Iwo Jima. They justified it by claiming it was needed as an emergency base for B-29s but very few B-29s ever landed there with emergencies. Incidentally, the Eighth Air Force in Europe alone lost more men than the entire Marine Corps in the Pacific. (Marines were part of the Navy and did not fight in the ETO.) Patton criticized Marine tactics in the book he wrote after the war, War As I Knew It. The flag-raising on Iwo is classic Navy/Marine hype. The famous picture was taken of a SECOND flag after the mountain had been taken. The Marines who took it raised a flag, but it was too small to be easily seen. Navy secretary James Forrestal was on a ship offshore. He ordered that a larger flag be taken ashore and raised so it could be seen from all over the island. Joe Rosenthal snapped a few pictures and the one so often depicted was selected for its dramatic effect and published.
There is one factor that could have possibly affected the invasion and that is that a typhoon hit Okinawa around the time it was supposed to be launched. I was based on Okinawa for 18 months and there were several typhoons and none of them did any substantial damage. Okinawa was planned to be a second B-29 base but the war ended it before Okinawa-based B-29s became operational.
Even Curtis Lemay, who commanded the B-29s, was critical of the bombs. He said they had nothing to do with the end of the war at all. Lemay even went so far as to admit that it (and the fire-bombing) was a "war crime" and that if the US had lost the war, he'd have been tried as a war criminal. Admiral Halsey said "The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment ... It was a mistake to ever drop it ... [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it." Admiral Nimitz, the commander in the Pacific, said "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan."
I'm not a pacifist, in fact I'm far from it. I lose no sleep over all the Vietnamese communists I killed with ten and fifteen-thousand pound bombs - the first one I dropped got a BDA of 100 KIA -but I'm also open-minded and while I grew up believing the atomic bombs ended the war, I realized after all the previously classified information came out that they were really dropped to see how effective they'd be and to show the world we had them. The fact is that Japan was beaten by August 1945 and the people were ready to quit, regardless of what a few diehards in the army thought. Remember that the attempted coup failed and it failed quickly, Even if Japan had an army of women and children wielding sharp sticks and pitchforks, think how they would have fared against flamethrowers.
And, I know how government lies and why information is classified, not so much to protect military secrets but to protect the reputations of generals and politicians.
I’m not arguing with your thesis, that would be silly. Do you have the names of the 90,000 Allies plus Japanese you would be willing to sacrifice?
LOL who is bullshitting who. You can’t even attempt to make a cogent argument to support your position.
In response to Sasha's question about the A-bomb, I decided to make the article I wrote several years ago on that very subject available. https://sammcgowan.substack.com/p/decision. I am also going to post an article I wrote around the same time about what the Japanese generals in charge of the defense of Kyushu had to say. Those articles are free. I am going to start posting other magazine articles I've written behind a pay wall. I wrote numerous articles for World War II and WW II History magazines and was a contributing editor to Vietnam magazine, starting with the premier issue,
Dropping the A bomb saved not only American lives but Japanese live as well. Contemporary estimates at the time predicted 100,000 American men would have lost their live in an invasion. Based on the lives lost in taking the islands that is probably accurate. How many Japanese lives would have been lost in an invasion? At Yalta The Soviet’s agreed to assist. How would that have turned out? Would they take revenge for the Japanese having defeated them earlier in the century? After the defeat of Japan would the country have been divided up by the victorious nations. How did that work out for Germany especially Berlin? Would Truman have had to have two airlifts one for Berlin and one for Japan? Best of bad scenario’s was the bomb was dropped and the war ended quickly thereafter.
My father, a career Army officer, had finished his duty as a combat engineer in Europe and North Africa when his battalion was told to get ready for a deployment to the Pacific theater. He and his men were actually on the West Coast when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed and the war ended. He had been in combat or close to the front since 1943. He’s been gone for 25 years but made it very clear to anyone who asked that he was grateful to Truman for that decision, saving him and countless other American soldiers from additional carnage and death. Interestingly, he returned to Europe in 1948 as part of the Army of Occupation, then shipped out in 1951 or 52 for 18 months in Korea. Truman’s decision looked very different to men like my father and I am grateful for it as well.
The A-bomb should not have been dropped.
btw, the fire-bombing of Tokyo in March `45 was as bad as the a-bombs, but somehow doesn't get the press. Japan knew very well they had lost before the August a-bombs.
Dropping the bomb saved both American lives and Japanese lives. See my more elaborate explanation
Do you mean your "elaborate explanation" where you ask questions?
Yes the questions were directed to your post
Okay. Questions are explanations. Who knew?
No. You ask a question to generate a response. Thus far you have simply indicated your position without explanation. Why shouldn’t we have dropped the bomb. And what is your response to those questions?
Still hung on "questions are explanations."
I don't owe you anything. Especially when you begin by bullshitting me.