We’ve somehow convinced ourselves that Hiroshima was an act of mercy.
By Christian Appy, Nation Daily, August 4, 2015

[image: Hiroshima Today[

70 Years Later, We Still Haven’t Apologized for Bombing Japan
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An Open Response to Christian Appy:

It would be easy to note that Japan has yet to apologize to us for their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, on that Sunday morning, December 7, 1941—a date that has and will forever live in infamy. No, that would be too easy. As unprepared as we were for war, we nevertheless rallied together, pooled our resolve and our resources, and pushed them back—way back—to their own shores. It did not come easy. They were fierce fighters in a cause that had not an iota of merit or justification. Japan sought lands to conquer, oil to ravage, and an empire to build in much the same manner as had megalomaniacs for most of human history.

During the course of that war, Japan’s leaders boozed up hundreds of their warriors with saké, put them into Kamikaze planes with just enough fuel to fly one-way into our fleet of ships, with this numbing message resonating in their skulls: “Die for your emperor, die for your country, and take as many of those maniac Americans with you as you can.” I have never read or heard of an apology for their suicidal attacks. Still, I won’t make that my main point.

And when they captured 80,000 Americans and Filipinos and marched them 80 miles along a path of death known as the Bataan death march, and dealt out butchery, untreated disease, exposure to the blazing sun, lack of food, and lack of water that took the lives of approximately 5,200 Americans along the way. Many prisoners were bayoneted, shot, beheaded or just left to die on the side of the road. "A Japanese soldier took my canteen, gave the water to a horse, and threw the canteen away," reported one escapee. "The stronger were not permitted to help the weaker. We then would hear shots behind us." The Japanese forced the prisoners to sit for hours in the hot sun without water. "Many of us went crazy and several died." This eyewitness account appears in: Dyess, William E., The Dyess Story (1943). No apologies from Japan for this death march, and still, this is not my main message.

But after fighting to the death at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, where thousands of Americans died in trying to end that war, my patience wears thin about apologies. Especially, when bombing their factories and their war-making machinery in at least 64 of their cities brought not the faintest hint of surrender, just a determined mindset to battle until the last Japanese warrior or civilian fell. We faced two equally bitter choices: To invade or to bomb. In a study done by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April, the figures of 7.45 casualties/1,000 man-days and 1.78 fatalities/1,000 man-days were developed. This implied that a 90-day Olympic campaign would cost 456,000 casualties, including 109,000 dead or missing. If Coronet took another 90 days, the combined cost would be 1,200,000 casualties, with 267,000 fatalities. A second study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan. They chose the latter, not us, and we acted on their intransigence. And for that, Mr. Appy, they earned no apology, and they got none. (Frank, Richard B. (1999). Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. New York: Random House). Still, there is much more to this story.

Here is my main gripe about your story: You conveniently left out the part that in the aftermath of that war, under our direction, we helped the Japanese people rebuild their country, restored their immense plant and equipment to become second only to us as the leading economic power in the world. Today they are a prosperous country. I am sure that most of Japan’s men and women of good will appreciate that bit of compassion and honor on our part, even though their own government showed none of the same. By my reckoning, our actions of immense compassion and restoration to the Japanese people—sustained for 70 years--go far above and beyond your hollow call for an undeserved apology.