Subject: Hiroshima justified? (was: Enola Gay: Burnt flesh and other
magnificent technological achievements)
From: (me)

Because there were ancillary advantages and long term side effects
doesn't mean that the basic decision was based upon them. It was
like a gift, the ability to send one plane to drop one bomb which
could completely destroy one city. For a country which had
sent hundreds of bombers, on multiple sorties, to attempt to
destroy a single manufacturing facility, it must have sounded like
science fiction.


Japanese civilians were eminently expandable. Truman: "When you have to
deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable
but nevertheless true."

Context is everything and it seems to get lost in these discussions.
The US was in it's 4th year of war. Seemingly every block in every
town had a gold star in some window. Red stars were plentyful.
People had gone without contact with husbands and fathers and brothers
for 4 years. The economy was in a funny sort of standstill where folks
had money, and little upon which to spend it. Wages were frozen,
some items were rationed, and things like new cars and tires were
nonexistent. People were tired, very tired, and many had lived
through a depression just preceding this time. Not to mention
dust bowls. And then someone came along and a offered a huge
weapon which could end the war in DAYS. It was like a fairy tale.
The big super secret weapon that would anilate the enemy. You
better believe Truman used it. In those days, they'd a probably
tried him for treason if he had not.

And be careful about deciding who knew what when. Remember world
wide communications didn't exist then as it does now. Rumors were
rampant. There were no international hot lines with enemies.
We may know more now than any single person back then could be
certian of. And there may be things they believed then, which we
now know isn't true.


To have had the ability to end the war by whatever means, and not having done
so, would have been the greatest war crime of all.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer