Every August, the left comes together to condemn the U.S. use of atomic bombs against Japan in 1945. This year is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The use of nuclear weapons ended World War II and saved millions of lives. But why should facts get in the way of the liberal narrative?
As Japan surrendered in 1945, Emperor Hirohito complained about the “cruel” weapon the United States had used. The nation that had given the world the Rape of Nanking and the Bataan Death March had no right to complain.
When World War II began, the Japanese were not like any enemy America had faced before, nor were American soldiers prepared for this enemy. On Guadalcanal, Americans were surprised by the fanatical and suicidal Banzai charges the enemy would launch. Instead of surrendering when the battle was lost, the Japanese would fight to the last man or kill themselves.
As the war progressed across the Pacific, the Japanese became more and more fanatical. At Saipan, of almost 30,000 Japanese soldiers, less than a thousand surrendered. Twenty-two thousand Japanese civilians died, mostly from suicide. As the battle came to an end, Americans watched in horror as Japanese civilians, men and women gathered on a cliff. They threw children into the ocean, then jumped to their deaths.
As the noose tightened on Japan, the Japanese fanaticism got worse. Kamikazes flew into American ships. The pilots killed themselves in a futile attempt to stop the U.S. Navy. After Iwo Jima and Okinawa fell, Allied military planners turned to the invasion of Japan that was to occur in 1946. The Japanese had fought to the death every place else, so there was no reason to believe anything less would happen when mainland of Japan was invaded. American leaders believed a million Americans would die in the invasion. Most conceded the Japanese people would be mostly wiped out.
Then, President Harry Truman decided to drop the Hiroshima bomb. Three days later, the U.S. bombed Nagasaki. A week later, the war was over. Estimates are that between 130,000 and 250,000 died in the two bombings.
In 1937, my father enlisted in the U.S. Army. At the time, then-President Franklin Roosevelt’s economic policies were still destroying the American economy, so jobs were scarce and the Army offered him a chance at some adventure. Four years later, his plans to get out were cancelled by World War II. For the first couple of years of the war, service was kind to him. He was stationed in Hollywood, California. But then, he was sent overseas for an all-expense paid tour of Western Europe with Gen. George Patton.
Nazi Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, and after the celebrations of VE Day were over, the men in Europe settled down to a long hot summer with a nagging uncertainty. The war in the Pacific was not over. Many of those men who had survived the fiercest fighting in Western Europe knew they would now go to the Pacific. And they knew they might not come home from that fight.
Then Truman ordered Japan to be nuked.
The war ended and those men and women, including my father, came home.
When Adm. William F. Halsey brought his flagship back to Pearl Harbor only hours after the attack had ended and as American ships still burned, he vowed by the time the war was over that the only place Japanese would be spoken would be in hell.
Because Truman ordered the atomic bombing of Japan, there is a vibrant and prosperous Japan today. Because he nuked Japan, millions of American Baby Boomers, myself included, were born and have now lived good and full lives.
Because Truman acted, only a couple hundred thousand people died instead of the millions who would have died. Because Truman acted, Japan’s reign of terror and its atrocities against millions of people ended.
This week, the international left is going to try and rewrite history again and claim America is evil for using nuclear weapons against Japan. That isn’t the truth, and real Americans should not let them get away with that big lie.
And we should all be grateful Harry Truman nuked Japan.
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