Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site ISM780.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decvax!cca!ISM780!gary From: gary@ISM780.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Orphaned Response Message-ID: <37400001@ISM780.UUCP> Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 00:57:00 EDT Article-I.D.: ISM780.37400001 Posted: Wed Aug 21 00:57:00 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 19:02:41 EDT References: <655@utai.UUCP> Lines: 50 Nf-ID: #R:utai:-65500:ISM780:37400001:177600:2785 Nf-From: ISM780!gary Aug 21 00:57:00 1985 ------- > Note that this >count includes ONLY American servicemen. Remember that there would also be >approximately 500,000 British troops involved in the invasion (source: >"Triumph and Tragedy" by Winston Churchill) as well as a large number of >troops from the Soviet Union. ----------------- ---------------------------- While I agree with Mr Seshadri's point, I think including "a large number of troops from the Soviet Union" is merely a supposition. The fact is that the Soviets did not declare war on Japan until 2 days after we vaporized Hiroshima. Gee, thanks for your help, comrades :-). Also, it is of little use debating whether we would have lost "only" 50,000 or 1,000,000 US troops in a Japanese invasion. In fact the estimates from our miltary did range between those two numbers. (Little known is that the among the casualties in Hiroshima were 12 US Navy fliers, who were prisoners of war in Hiroshima's city jail. Also there was an Allied prisoner of war camp one mile north of the center of Nagasaki, but I can't find any number of estimated lives lost in my references.) Unfortunate as the entire affair was, it is true that there probably would have been *at least* as many Japanese casualties had the war proceeded with a conventional invasion, complete with the fire bombing Japanese cities. Consider, between May 9-10, 1945, incendiary bombs on Tokyo had destroy 1/4 of the city with 83,000 killed and 40,000 injured, and *that* didn't prompt the Japenese to sue for peace. That figure is almost equal to the casualties in Nagasaki (100,000 killed in Hiroshima). Does it really matter whether they occurred over 2 days or 2 milliseconds? It's pretty obvious that the bomb accelerated an end to the war and that, even if it didn't save Japanese lives (that it saved Allied lives in indisputable), it probably didn't cost any more than would have been lost otherwise. I do agree, however, that the Nagasaki bomb wasn't necessary. We probably wouldn't have dropped that one had it not been an unfortunate translation of the Japanese response to the Hiroshima bomb and threat to drop another one. The message was translated something like "We choose to *ignore* your demand to surrender", when it really meant something like "We want to think about your demand to surrender a while." For an execellent account to the entire atomic bomb project during WWII, I refer the reader to _A World Destroyed, The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance_, by Martin J. Sherwin, Vintage Books, copyright 1973, 1975. Gary Swift, INTERACTIVE Systems Corp., Santa Monica, Ca., (213) 453 8649 {decvax!cca | yale | bbncca | allegra | cbosgd | ihnp4}!ima!ism780!gary