My father served in the USMC and was fought his way across the pacific in WWII. Upon learning that President Obama wanted to apologize to the Japanese for Hiroshima and Nagasaki my first thought was to the millions of Americans who would not be alive today because their fathers would have died in an invasion of the Japanese homeland to bring the war to an end. While the many Japanese who died in the atomic bomb attacks is nothing to celebrate, the result in bringing the war to a quick conclusion is to be celebrated.
No one, not even an American president should ever apologize for saving American lives and bringing a war to a quick end. If the United States had invaded Japan there were estimates of up to one million American casualties. If the high end of casualties had been realized in an invasion, it would have meant that millions of the soon to be born boomers would have never been born. Mr. President, this is one boomer that says no apologies necessary!
Well said.
Given the results of the invasions of the outer edges of the Japanese Empire with regards to the mass coerced civilian suicides and the fight to the death of the Japanese military, what would a mainland Japan have looked like post invasion without the A bomb?
Out of a wartime population of 73 Million, how many would have been left after a US invasion?
Germany lost over 5 Million to military deaths with another estimated 3 Million civilian deaths with WHILE surrendering. The total losses of the Reich may have been as much as 10% of the population.
By contrast, Japan lost as much as 4%.
What would the Japanese population losses have been after a US invasion? A hell of a lot more than 4%.
Would there even be a Japan today without the A bombs?
There would certainly be something there but it would be a very different place.
I also likely owe my existence to the Atomic Bomb. My grandfather served in the military in WWII and would have been deployed to invade Japan had we not dropped the bomb.
The US military dropped leaflets over those cities telling folks we were going to bomb them. That is basic history. They did not evacuate for whatever reason. These were not civilian targets. They were military industrial centers, necessary for making wartime equipment. The bombs ended the war; as previously stated, a land war would have been bloody and drawn out. Truman agonized over this decision, as evidenced in his diary. He knew innocent humans would die, but that more humans would die if the war did not end asap. Obama needs to stop apologizing for others, and start apologizing for his presidency.