Today is the 65th anniversary of VJ Day, the day that World War II really ended. I remember my mother talking about how she felt when the Germans surrendered. She was happy, but her happiness was subdued. Her war wasn’t over. My dad was in the Philippines, and the Japanese didn’t look like they were going to surrender any time soon.
The Battle of Okinawa was only half over when the Germans surrendered. By the time it ended, an estimated 100,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. The US suffered 62,000 casualties, of which 12,000 were dead or missing. Estimates of civilian deaths range from 42,000 to 150,000. In other words, more died on Okinawa than at Hiroshima.
And that is why I thank President Harry Truman for dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It saved lives. It saved American lives; it saved Japanese military lives; and it saved Japanese civilian lives.
I realize there are many people today who think we shouldn’t have dropped the bombs. Even some of our military leaders thought, after the fact, that it wasn’t necessary.
But if the Japanese were going to surrender anyway, why did it take two bombs to convince them to do so? Why didn’t they surrender after the bomb on Hiroshima? And why, even after the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, was the Japanese war cabinet still evenly divided on whether to surrender or not, requiring the Emperor to make the decision?
On April 7, 1865, Abraham Lincoln sent this telegram to Ulysses S. Grant:
"Gen. Sheridan says ‘If the thing is pressed I think that Lee will surrender.' Let the thing be pressed."
In 1945 Harry Truman "let the thing be pressed" – in order to end the war - and stop the killing. It was the right thing to do.
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