The New-Age-Liberals have forgotten:
A. Japan started the war with us, using a sneak attack to do it. Despite their denial, despite their attempt for it not to have happened until they'd actually declared war upon us, it DID happen; it WAS a sneak attack.
B. At the time, China was a friend of the USA. The whole disagreement between Japan and the USA began over their aggression against China.
C. Japan had given its word to Hitler to go to war with us.
D. The brutality of the Japanese against POWs and the peoples of the lands they'd conquered is well-documented. This occurred long before food shortages hit conquered and conqueror alike. THEY HAD NO EXCUSE.
E. Whatever they got, they DESERVED it....they brought it upon themselves. They sowed a wind & reaped a whirlwind.
Don't get me wrong...I have never held any Japanese of my lifetime as an enemy, but in my parents' younger days, they WERE. They started a war with us, and we were perfectly justified in using the means available to us to WIN it. Killing the known enemy in time of war is NOT murder.
Japan lost "only" some 1.3 million military people killed in the war outta some 9 million under arms. There were still large, well-armed, well-fed forces of high morale in China and in Japan itself. Despite her economic collapse, they still had plenty of weapons and ammo, and woulda fought to the very last person had not the emperor ordered the surrender, long as they believed he'd be removed if they were occupied. Besides the military, there were some 80 million civilians who woulda fought with whatever was available & we woulda been forced to "conquer a peace" with MUCH-higher casualties in both sides.We forget, their culture is different from ours; they did NOT hold human life as dearly as WE do and they considered it a supremeact of righteousness to die fighting for the emperor, whom they believed was their god on earth.
The fire-bombing of Tokyo early March 1945 killed as many civilians as did each atom bomb. When I was in Tokyo in 1968, some Japanese showed me the Sumida River that flows through Tokyo. It is no small creek; it was prolly a coupla hunderd feet wide from my viewpoint. These Japanese were pre-teens during the war, and they said the river in that area was almost dammed by the bodies of people jumping into it to escape the firestorm which engulfed that part of Tokyo on both sides of the river. They said the dam of corpses eventually broke apart & that most of the bodies were washed to sea. The Japanese had no means nor manpower available to retrieve them, what with the overwhelming flood of injured.
Did those Japanese feel any bitterness toward me, the USN, or the American forces during the war? No. Most of'em to whom I'd spoken accepted their nation's responsibility of starting the Pacific war, and were grateful to MacArthur for being a far-seeing shogun who genuinely worked in the best interests of all the Japanese people, quickly providing the essentials of life for the millions made into street people by the destruction of their homes.
I was very impressed, even moved, by seeing the meetings between Japanese and American military people of the war, especially the pilots. Those elderly men truly showed that the past was over with, and that they could be as good friends as they'd been bitter enemies. Japan's greatest fighter pilot, Saburo Sakai, survived the war, and was able to meet some of his adversaries, including some whom he'd shot down, and ot was just awesome to see those men look upon each other's faces for the first time ever, to see fifty years of antagonism just vanish & to see'em hug each other in true peace & the beginning of a friendship that would last long as they all lived.
Again, we cannot overestimate the importance of MacArthur's rule of Japan during the Occupation. His efforts changed a bitter enemy into a loyal ally. But while we were at war, I believe the end justified the means. What if JAPAN had had the nuke first? What makes anyone think they wouldn'ta used it if they coulda found the means to deliver it?
Had never thought of that before.