"weary" wrote:

"Matt Wiser" wrote
in message
news:400029ec$1@bg2....

"weary" wrote:

"Greg Hennessy" wrote in
message
.. .
On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 06:14:59 GMT, "weary"
wrote:


It was an Eisenhower who(as the quote
notes)
had been briefed by the
Stimson you refer to below and who was
presumably
as aware of the
situation
as Stimson himself.

That would be Stimson who claimed that
Nagasaki
was picked as the primary
target for Fatman, when it clearly wasnt.

Even if this is true it says nothing about
Stimson
except he was
confused on that point.





and Stimson whose own memoirs put the
cost
of an allied invasion of
Japan
at at least 250,000 casualities.

So what - the whole point of the discussion
is that an invasion was not
necessary.
Even the USSBS says that Japan would have
surrendered.


Of course you will give us the precise
quote
detailing when exactly *when*
this would have happened and you also tell
us how this information was
beamed back in time to allied planners
taking
tough decisions.

The US was well aware of peace feelers being
put out by Japan at least
two months before the bombs were dropped..



http://www.paperlessarchives.com/olympic.html


Nevermind Leahy whose own briefing to
truman
put allied casualities at
30-35% within 30 days of invasion.

But Leahy didn't think the landings would
be necessary.

Leahy wasnt sat in a foxhole in Okinawa.

Irrelevant as to what he thought, but introducing
irrelevancy
is your trademark, isn't it.

"It is my opinion that the use of this
barbarous
weapon at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was of no material assistance
in
our war against Japan.

Oh really. Have you asked anyone who would
have been at the sharp end of
Operation Zipper that question.

I think his opinion based on the intelligence
information available to him
is more credible than that of an infantryman.


"The Japanese were already defeated and
ready
to surrender because of the
effective sea blockade and the successful
bombing with conventional
weapons.

So Leahy would have preferred to starve
the
japanese 'civilians' to death
and keep allied naval personnel in harms
way
from daily kamikaze attack.
Very moral.

Your woeful comrehension skills noted - he
was
speaking of
something that had already happened.



snip.

Anything quoting Gar Alperovitz as 'evidence'
clearly is revisionism

I didn't quote one word from Gar Alperovitz,

Your tired little charade has relied on
a
website which peddles
alperovitzes line.

Unlike you , the site doesn't lie.



Weary, when you keep repeating USSBS, remember
that was written by those
who thought that all the U.S. had to do was
essentially bomb everything in
Japan and they would surrender; notwithstanding
all other
factors-destruction
of her navy, the submarine, air, and mining
destruction of her merchant
marine,
the destruction of her best armies in Burma,
the Philippines, New Guinea,
Solomons, Okinawa, etc. The guys who put USSBS
together were commendable
people, but besides surveying damage, they
wanted it to be the final
document
to get Congress to agree to a postwar independent
Air Force. Air Power
advocates
to the extreme.
You still haven't answered the question I
posed to you earlier: with the
information Truman had on his desk in the
Summer of '45, what would you
have
done? Invade, continue bombing and blockade
(and hope for Stalin to attack
Manchuria as promised at Yalta),

The agreed latest date for the Soviets to attack
was 8 August. He would
have only had to wait 2 days to see that and
another 3 or 4 would have
revealed the result of that attack - a total
rout of the Army on the
mainland.

or use Little Boy and Fat Man. I prefer
the latter as the least time-and manpower
intensive option of the three.
As for the peace feelers: NONE OF THEM HAD
THE FULL APPROVAL OF THE
JAPANESE
GOVERNMENT. All were done by the peace faction
in the government with the
Emperor's unspoken sympathies, but the militarists
still called the shots
(and that could include threat of assassination)
and could bring down the
government if the Army felt the government
was getting too soft for its
liking.
And don't forget the coup attempt on the night
of 14-15 Aug to attempt to
put in a government to keep fighting. It took
the combination of the bomb
AND the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the
Kuriles to force the peace
faction's
hand in getting the Emperor to urge acceptance
of Potsdam. I prefer
BLACKLIST
(peaceful occupation) to OLYMPIC/CORONET (invasion).

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Stalin only gave a general date: three months after Germany's defeat to
enter the Pacific War. Exactly when he was going to attack was known only
to the Soviet General Staff. He never gave a precise date to Truman at Potsdam.


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