Dropping the Bomb: Why Truman was Right

The release of Oppenheimer reignited the debate about Truman's use of the atomic bomb to end World War II.  We weigh in on the controversy.  

Transcript

Dropping the Bomb

July 2023

This past weekend famous director Christopher Nolan released his three-hour Oppenheimer movie. Robert Oppenheimer was a key architect of the Atomic Bomb, creating a functional weapon in 1945. The debate about its usage, beginning from the first moment it was dropped, is a controversy that arises whenever the subject is considered. Whether it be an anniversary or, in this case, a media event, the first and only use of a nuclear device as a weapon continues to engender arguments.  

The decision to use the Atomic Bomb was made at the highest level of our government, the Commander in Chief of all US armed forces, President Harry S Truman. His predecessor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is often considered the third greatest president in American history, right behind Washington and Lincoln. I have long disagreed with that sentiment. His reputation is based on two premises. He prevented the descent of the US into tyranny or anarchy during the Great Depression, and he won World War II. Per the former, his policies encompassed under the New Deal moniker prolonged the depression—and three strikes against his conduct in the war. First, despite repeated warnings throughout 1941, the US was ill-prepared for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He later jailed over 70,000 American citizens, of Japanese descent, on false pretexts. And in the case we discuss here, he ill-prepared his successor for the position of Commander in Chief despite knowing his heart condition and overall health were in severe decline. Therefore Truman did not know of the bomb until he assumed the presidency’s powers. Despite his newness to the job, I firmly believe that Truman made the right decision using these weapons.  

According to the official US Marine Corps history site, “Three Marine divisions, more than 80,000 men, were assigned to take the island of Iwo Jima, which was barely 10 square miles in area and dominated by 556 foot Mount Suribachi. The assault began on February 19, 1945, following a terrific naval bombardment that Japanese Lt. Gen Kuribayashi described as “far beyond description.” The first wave of Marines had more trouble with the terrain than enemy fire, but the Japanese responded quickly from their dug-in positions and swept the beaches with concentrated fire. Iwo Jima would be a very tough fight.

The battle for control of Iwo Jima lasted 36 days. The final death toll among Marines was 5,931 killed in action, died of wounds or missing in action, and presumed dead — more than twice as many Marines as had been killed in World War One. An additional 209 deaths occurred among the Navy corpsmen and surgeons assigned to the Marines. The Fifth Fleet and participating US Army and Army Air Corps units suffered other fatalities during the battle. More than 800 Americans gave their lives for every square mile of Iwo Jima’s black volcanic sand. 

And the final total would exceed 7,000. 

After Iwo Jima there was Okinawa. In a piece by David Kindy entitled the “Bloody Hell of Okinawa,” “The Marines and Army endured gruesome casualties—physically and psychologically—as they slugged it out with an enemy bent on a suicidal defense of the small island. The United States suffered death on a staggering scale: 7,500 Marines and soldiers and another 5,000 sailors. Japan sacrificed even more men: at least 110,000 soldiers, many after losing the battle. An estimated 100,000 civilians also perished, either caught in the crossfire between the two armies or through forced mass suicide.

It was an extremely costly engagement, too, for the US Navy, which lost 36 warships and had another 368 damaged, including the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill, which was struck by two kamikaze—suicide plane—attacks.

Two books examine the carnage of this conflict 75 years ago and its influence on the decision to use a frightening new weapon, the Atomic Bomb. Joseph Wheelan’s Bloody Okinawa: The Last Great Battle of World War II and Saul David’s Crucible of Hell: The Heroism and Tragedy of Okinawa, 1945 recount the human cost of ending a war that was still far from over.

For President Harry S. Truman, what came next was a fateful decision. He learned about the Manhattan Project in April when he took office after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Before the Battle of Okinawa even ended, on June 22, 1945, Truman had concluded that he had no choice but to drop the atomic bomb to avoid “an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other.”

The use of the Atomic bomb, not just in service to American troops, was a good enough reason all by itself, given Pearl Harbor, but also the Japanese civilian population. But almost as if on cue in response to a question raised by Oppenheimer, Nikole Hannah Jones jumps into action.  

I have done several podcasts on Hannah Jones and her terrible, falsified 1619 Project. In a series of 12 essays, the 1619 Project manages to get slavery, the American Revolution, and capitalism wrong. But that was so yesterday. Today she weighs in on World War II, “They dropped the bomb when they knew surrender was coming because they’d spent all this money developing it and to prove it was worth it. Propaganda is not history, my friend.” Nikole Hannah Jones denouncing the use of history as propaganda is a bit like Stalin condemning governmental purges. I usually could be dismissive of the usual crackpot spew from this quarter. Still, as with The New York Times and Pulitzer Committee affirming the 1619 Project, Hannah Jones is not alone in this theory but instead is reflective of thinking on the left regarding the use of the Atomic Bomb.  

Contentions similar to Hannah Jones argue there have been posited three theories around using the bomb. The first was to end the war early. The second was the one provided by Hannah Jones. The third was to send a warning to Stalin. As with much of Hannah Jones’s history, her description of “near surrender” was incorrect, to put it politely.

It is the argument of those who say Truman made a massive blunder, which Hannah Jones implies because the Japanese were either ready to surrender or there were other methods to bring about that outcome. One position is that using firebombing of Japanese cities deteriorated the will to continue the war. The horrific nature of using incendiary bombs on a nation whose buildings were made with flammables, such as paper and wood, was enough. There is also drivel all over the Internet about US troops randomly massacring surrendering Japanese soldiers. As noted in the examples of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Japanese were not ready to surrender, and that term was anathema. 

To those first two stories, I would like to add a third. After the Philippines’ loss and later Iwo Jima, The pride of the Japanese fleet, the Super Battleship Yamato was dispatched on a kamikaze mission to Okinawa in April 1945, with orders to beach herself and fight until destroyed, thus protecting the island. The task force was spotted south of Kyushu by US submarines and aircraft, and on April 7, 1945, she was sunk by American carrier-based bombers and torpedo bombers with the loss of most of her crew. Yamato was hit by at least 11 torpedoes and six bombs. There may have been two more torpedoes and bomb hits, but this is not confirmed. Yamato sank rapidly, losing an estimated 3,055 of her 3,332 crew, including fleet commander Vice-Admiral Seiichi Itō. 

Cataloged in Ulrich A Straus’ The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs in World War II, the author provides a host of examples of Japanese aversion to surrendering, including the Senjinkun or military manual issued to all Japanese army recruits beginning in the 1930s. Here is one passage, “Those who know shame are weak. Always think of preserving the honor of your community and be a credit to yourself and your family. Never live to experience shame as a prisoner. By dying, you will avoid leaving behind the crime of a stain on your honor.” Straus notes, “The Senjinkun was not regarded as the announcement of a new policy but the reaffirmation of an old one.” 

This attitude in the war was a centuries-long indoctrination by Japanese leaders and embedded into their culture since the time of the Shoguns. “Glorified examples of suicidal actions in the process of carrying out a mission for the country’s benefit fell on extraordinarily fertile cultural soil.” Plays and poems both celebrated the concept of seppuku. 

Another passage in Straus’ work illustrates the role of the family in this policy, “They felt certain that their shame (in surrendering) would result in community ostracism of their families and close relatives. Above all, there was the fear of letting “oka-san” the family bond of young Japanese men in uniform.” I have often mentioned that soldiers are not fighting for the king, country, money, glory, or even the folks back home. The guy sitting next to them is one of the strongest impetuses for continuing action. Combine that with the centuries of tradition of bushido, and one can understand that when the Yamato was sent out with explicit orders not to return, the sailors would not have conceived of mutiny as the German Navy did at the end of World War I, when they were ordered out to fight the British. And though the Germans would have lost, they had a better chance than the crew of the Yamato.  

The concept of Gyousai, meaning suicide charge, was an increasing tactic used by Japanese commanders as ammunition and supplies ran low. Conventional thinking would suggest surrender occurs as losing becomes an increasing possibility. In the Pacific, the prevalence of suicidal actions only increased as acts of desperation.  

By this stage of the war, many in the Japanese military high command believed their cause was lost. The best they could hope for was to make each battle as costly as possible so the Americans would lose their taste for combat and offer favorable terms for surrender. Here is a description of tactics from Okinawa, “The Japanese came up with an attritional defense,” Wheelan says. “They would station themselves inside hills and rock formations and let the enemy come to them. They decided they would fight to the death on all these islands, and their purpose was to inflict as many casualties as possible on the Americans.” There were 20,000 Japanese troops on Iwo Jima. There were 132,000 troops on Okinawa. Over 1 million Japanese troops were on the Home Islands, spread over a sizeable mountainous terrain. I would invite you to take a look at some photos of the Nihon Arupusu or the Japanese Alps. The tallest in the range, Mt. Kita, has an elevation of over 10,000 feet. Looking at these heights should give anyone pause.   

With this logistical situation as context, what would the US invasion face? Given that most of the Imperial Japanese Army was fighting in China, how many troops could have realistically been on hand in the Home Islands? One estimate puts the number at over 1 million though 2 million was more likely. And these figures do not count recruits or guerrilla bands. Given what we know from Iwo Jima and Okinawa, US causalities would have been easily north of 250,000, even with superior technology and training. As Truman later stated, “It occurred to me that a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities, and I still think they were and are.” 

Another position is the blockade theory. With total command of the sea and air enjoyed by the allies, stopping all imports of oil, steel, rubber, and the necessities of building a modern army would be easy. One of the original aims of the Japanese in attacking America was the conquest of the Dutch East Indies to obtain these materials. And the nature of Japanese geography, in which only 10% of the land is arable, would soon cause severe food shortages. A proponent of the blockade theory, The top Army air forces commander, Gen. H.H. “Hap” Arnold, said unconditional surrender could be won by October. He outlined the devastation that would hit the Japanese population, with its enormous casualties. “Japan, in fact, will become a nation without cities, with her transportation disrupted, and will have tremendous difficulty in holding her people together for continued resistance.”

It is a little rich for those who contend the inhumanity of using the bomb to argue that a course that is essentially starving over 100 million people is the better way. Add in that disease usually accompanies famine. The combined deaths incurred between Hiroshima and Nagasaki were over 200,000 Japanese, almost all civilians. If 1% of the population died by starvation or disease due to a US blockade, that number would have been over five times the deaths caused by the A-bombs. And of those numbers, given that the military would have kept the food and medicine for the soldiers, much as North Korea does today, the vast majority of casualties would have been civilians.  

And though Hannah Jones does not mention it, there is the Soviet theory of why Truman dropped the Atomic bomb. The late great David McCullough won his Pulitzer prize for writing a biography of Truman and argued, as I do, in the contention for why Truman did what he did. “If you’re looking for an explanation for why the allies decided to use the bomb, the word is ‘Okinawa,’” says Mr. McCullough.  “Truman would have been impeached if it were found out later that he had sent any American soldiers to their deaths knowing he had a weapon that could have ended the war sooner,” McCullough says.

Revisionist historians would say there was another motive behind using the atomic bomb. Once Truman was confident that the weapon would work, they say, he was eager to use it to defeat Japan to keep the Soviet army from entering the war and capturing strategic territory on the Chinese mainland. Using the bomb would make a diplomatic point to the Soviets as well. By demonstrating its military invincibility, the US would be in a far stronger bargaining position after the war when disagreements would surely arise with Moscow over the political future of Europe and the Far East. 

But of the Soviet contention, Gar Alperovitz, author of “Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima & Potsdam, writes, “As early as September 1944, Churchill felt the Japanese might collapse when Russia entered the war. On May 21, 1945, Secretary of War Stimson advised of the “profound military effect” of Soviet entry. In mid-June, Marshall advised the president that “the impact of Russian entry on the already hopeless Japanese may well be the decisive action levering them into capitulation at that time or shortly after that if we land in Japan.” 

A month later, the Combined British-U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed the Russian option at Potsdam. Gen. Sir Hastings Ismay summarized the Combined Intelligence Staff’s conclusion for Churchill: “If and when Russia came into the war against Japan, the Japanese would probably wish to get out on almost any terms short of the dethronement of the emperor.” There was also this from Truman’s diary, the president noted in his diary.  “He’ll be in the Jap war on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about.”

Two contentions to the apparent scenario of waiting until the Soviets invaded. First, their actions would predominate in Manchuria and North China, not on the Japanese home islands. And in the interim, Japan was still conducting Kamikaze raidings on the US fleet. On July 28, just eight days before Hiroshima, USS Callaghan (DD-792) was sunk by a Japanese Kamikaze attack when she was hit on a radar picket station approximately 50 miles southwest of Okinawa. USS Pritchett (DD-561) was damaged by the miss of Kamikaze as she assisted the destroyer. Over 50 died in the encounter.  

As no less, a figure than British Prime Minister Winston Churchill noted, “The historical fact remains, and must be judged in the after time, that the decision whether or not to use the atomic bomb . . . was never even an issue.” Top policymakers, especially the president, wanted to leave no stone unturned to end the war.

What the atomic bombs demonstrated in a way that even firebombing, and especially an invasion of the Home Islands, was that there were no longer any massive costs to the Americans. The US could eviscerate Japanese cities and any locations at will. That was the impetus to surrender. 

Finally, we have two facts. Japan did not surrender before the Atomic Bombs but did surrender after the second one.