No choice but to drop the bomb

Re: Ron Hertz's Aug. 5 commentary, "Timely reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki":

The author correctly reflected on the horrors of nuclear war, but conveniently tried to rewrite history regarding options available to the U.S. military in mid-1945 in forcing Japan to surrender with minimal loss of life on both sides.

Several years ago, my husband and I visited the Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, N.M., and saw a film that fully delineated the atomic and nonatomic options available in 1945 and the potential consequences of failure with each option.

The decision to attack two cities with civilian populations was made over the objections of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower who wanted to drop in the ocean offshore the cities to convince them to surrender without loss of life. Turns out that he was wrong, as the Japanese military leaders wanted to continue the war after both atomic detonations and despite horrendous loss of life. It took the emperor to overrule the military and surrender unconditionally.

What we didn't know at the time of our visit to the atomic museum was "Operation Downfall," the recently declassified plan to invade Japan if the atomic plan failed. A Web site, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall, provides much information about the plan. You can Google the term "Operation Downfall" to get more details.

Casualty estimates vary from hundreds of thousand of deaths to several million (up to 10 million, as a matter of fact) depending upon the level of Japanese civilian resistance following a U.S. and Allied forces ground invasion.

Bottom line: The Japanese attacked us to start World War II; we ended it by using atomic weapons.

It's up to us to counter the outrageous lies about the decision to employ atomic weapons perpetrated by folks like Hertz and to keep the truth in the forefront.

— Anne Marie Reilly, Thousand Oaks

Death rather than surrender

Re: Ron Hertz's Aug. 5 commentary, "Timely reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki":

Hertz claims that the atomic bombs were unneeded because the Japanese "were already on the verge of surrendering." Yet, nowhere in his commentary does he proffer any evidence for such an assertion, although he writes of "profit-oriented texts" and "self-serving propaganda." Assertion and emotive language do not an argument make.

At the time the bombs were dropped, Japan had a 2 million-man army intact in China and was busy at home making preparations for a fight to the last Japanese man, woman and child. After the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan did not surrender. After the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan did not surrender.

Several days later, when military leaders learned that Emperor Hirohito and the Supreme Council for the Conduct of the War were preparing to surrender, they attempted a coup that nearly succeeded. Two atomic bombs and the Japanese militarists were still not convinced.

As astounding as that seems to us, their reasoning was actually sound: Their intelligence told them that we did not have more than two bombs and, not understanding the effects of radiation, they saw the devastation wreaked at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as no worse than that caused by the firebombing of Tokyo five months earlier.

The Japanese had fortified Kyushu, the island that was bound to be the site of our first landing, with concrete bunkers and tunnels and 900,000 men. Thousands of boys as young as 12 and 13 were practicing running with bomb packs strapped to their backs. Japan had almost 13,000 airplanes for use by kamikaze pilots.

For the Japanese, death was preferable to surrender. Without the atomic bombs, the latter would have been unthinkable.

— Roger McGrath, Thousand Oaks