Hiroshima: What would you have done? [View All]

before you vote consider that EVERY military leader in theater at the time agreed with decision and as A MATTER OF FACT, suggested we accept japans 1 condition to surrender (which we did in the end) in order to SAVE LIVES!!!

Imagine no Iwo Jima let alone, Nagasaki & Hiroshima :cry:

* Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, in a public address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings stated:

The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war. . . .The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan. . . . (THE DECISION, p. 329; see additionally THE NEW YORK TIMES, October 6, 1945.)

...

There is a long-standing debate about whether or not General Eisenhower--as he repeatedly claimed--urged Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (and possibly President Truman) not to use the atomic bomb. In interviews with his biographer, Stephen Ambrose, he was insistent that he urged his views to one or another of these men at the time. (THE DECISION, p. 358 n.) Quite apart from what he said at the time, there is no doubt, however, about his own repeatedly stated opinion on the central question:

* In his memoirs Eisenhower reported the following reaction when Secretary of War Stimson informed him the atomic bomb would be used:

During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. . . . (THE DECISION, p. 4.)

* Eisenhower made similar public and private statements on numerous occasions. He put it bluntly in a 1963 interview, stating quite simply: ". . . it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." (THE DECISION, p. 356.) (Several of the occasions during which Eisenhower offered similar judgments are discussed at length in THE DECISION (pp. 352-358).)


more...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

see also...
Hiroshima: What would you have done?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1539275,00.html

psst... pass the word!

peace