Naval History Blog

A really gripping account of life as a Japanese POW is the story of Louis Zamperini, an AAF bomber crewman captured in 1943. His experiences are related by Laura Hillenbrand in “Unbroken”, currently on the New York Times Best Seller List.

It’s not “revisionist history” to criticize the use of atomic bombs on Japan. It’s a moral issue for which there is no right answer. The weapons were used, for reasons that seemed justification at the time, and hindsight allows us to question that reasoning. But Americans facing a cataclysmic invasion, and civilians at home, felt only elation at the swift end to the war the bombings seemed to have effected. I was seven years old — and I know the relief and pride the country felt. But it’s perfectly legitimate to look back on a decision one has made and think, “Hm. Maybe I could have done it differently.” Criminal treatment of war prisoners by the Japanese has no bearing on this debate… which turns on the awful “collateral damage” the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki entailed.

As a professional historian I tend to view the atomic bomb issue as an unfolding saga filled with surprises and details that continue to emerge. Originally the Manhattan Project was undertaken by British Scientests who were convinced that Germany housed the World’s leading authorities on nuclear fission and had an active program to build a bomb. When the United States entered the war the British turned over virtually all their data and personnel to us because they simply didn’t have the resources to continue research and solve the engineering problems associated with the production of nuclear bombs. The Manhattan Project continued under the conviction that we were in a “race” with the Germans. Fortunately the Germans were headed down the wrong path and their project ultimately came to nothing but it did attract the attention of the Japanese who set up their own atomic bomb project at a secret laboratory in Manchuria. Based on German research and plagued by lack of resources the Japanese bomb effort accomplished very little but the intention was there, a fact little recognized in today’s Japan. By the time Germany surrendered the United States had already spent eleven billion 1940′s dollars on the Manhattan Project and it was very close to fruition. To the Truman Administration it just made horse sense to get some payback for all that effort. Only a few of the scientests who had helped create the bomb sensed that there would eventually be a moral issue surrounding its practical application but by that time the political establishment had taken over and rather rudely shoved the scientests aside. The bombs were dropped, the War ended and everyone rejoiced. Even better, the Russians were put on notice and their ambitions curtailed for four critical years until they caught up with a bomb of their own. Those of the “revisionist” persuasion can wring their hands over the dawn of the Nuclear Age all they want to but there’s no going back now. And, what are the Japanses taught about all this? Their historians mention that in the 1920′s and ’30′s Japan undertook a quest for vitally needed resources following a path already legitimized by the major European Powers ( Imperialism ).
For some reason this brought down upon Japan a powerful coalition of enemies. Ultimately Japan was subjected to nuclear bombardment, utterly defeated and laid in ruins after fighting a was that began in obscure circumstances and developed “not necessarily to Japan’s advantage”.