Leahy didn't say anything like that when the A-bombs were being dropped.
My test is that Japan was being given the opportunity to Unconditionally Surrender, and didn't. My test was to save the lives of Allied forces.
Considering his obvious revulsion to the use of the bombs being used on women and children,
it would be disingenuous of you to pretend that he didn't hold that same view when the bombs were being dropped or even before.
In fact . . .
Privately, on June 18, 1945--almost a month before the Emperor's July intervention to seek an end to the war and seven weeks before the atomic bomb was used--Leahy recorded in his diary:
It is my opinion at the present time that a surrender of Japan can be arranged with terms that can be accepted by Japan and that will make fully satisfactory provisions for America's defense against future trans-Pacific aggression. (See p. 324, Chapter 26)
can we move on to the next military leader; specifically what he said and when he said it?
Hiroshima was destroyed because it was a major military center with tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers and held one of the most important military headquarters in Japan.
Also a private note to his diary that no one else in the government likely had any knowledge of.
However, do note that Leahy never expressed any opposition to using the A-bombs when they were actually being used.
Ninety percent of those who were destroyed were innocent civilians.
And of course, there is the fact that most military leaders said that the bombs were unnecessary, or that they had virtually no impact militarily.
Are you pulling rank on these military leaders?
Whether or not anyone was aware of it does not detract from the opposition expressed in it.
Um, I just showed you what he wrote in a diary.
It appears that you will accept nothing presented to you which is inconvenient to your belief that no military leaders opposed the use of the bomb.
In his "third person" autobiography (co-authored with Walter Muir Whitehill) the commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, stated:
The President in giving his approval for these [atomic] attacks appeared to believe that many thousands of American troops would be killed in invading Japan, and in this he was entirely correct; but King felt, as he had pointed out many times, that the dilemma was an unnecessary one, for had we been willing to wait, the effective naval blockade would, in the course of time, have starved the Japanese into submission through lack of oil, rice, medicines, and other essential materials. (See p. 327, Chapter 26)
Private interview notes taken by Walter Whitehill summarize King's feelings quite simply as: "I didn't like the atom bomb or any part of it." (See p. 329, Chapter 26; See also pp. 327-329)
As Japan faltered in July an effort was made by several top Navy officials--almost certainly including Secretary Forrestal himself--to end the war without using the atomic bomb. Forrestal made a special trip to Potsdam to discuss the issue and was involved in the Atlantic Charter broadcast. Many other top Admirals criticized the bombing both privately and publicly. (Forrestal, see pp. 390-392, Chapter 31; p. 398, Chapter 31) (Strauss, see p. 333, Chapter 26; pp. 393-394, Chapter 31) (Bard, see pp. 225-227, Chapter 18; pp. 390-391, Chapter 31)
Does that sound like approval or opposition to you?
If they say something untrue, yes.
Many other top Admirals criticized the bombing both privately and publicly.
I see. So if any of the military leaders involved at the time say something that you disagree with, we should take your word over theirs. Understood.
Anyway:
The commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, gave a strong indication of his views in a public statement only eleven days after Hiroshima was attacked. Asked on August 17 by a New York Times reporter whether the atomic bomb caused Japan to surrender, Arnold said:
The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air. (See p. 334, Chapter 27)
In his 1949 memoirs Arnold observed that "it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." (See p. 334, Chapter 27)
Arnold's deputy, Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, summed up his understanding this way in an internal military history interview:
Arnold's view was that it [the dropping of the atomic bomb] was unnecessary. He said that he knew the Japanese wanted peace. There were political implications in the decision and Arnold did not feel it was the military's job to question it. (See p. 335, Chapter 27)
Eaker reported that Arnold told him:
When the question comes up of whether we use the atomic bomb or not, my view is that the Air Force will not oppose the use of the bomb, and they will deliver it effectively if the Commander in Chief decides to use it. But it is not necessary to use it in order to conquer the Japanese without the necessity of a land invasion. (See p. 335, Chapter 27)
[Eaker also recalled: "That was the representation I made when I accompanied General Marshall up to the White House" for a discussion with Truman on June 18, 1945.]
That doesn't have the ring of opposition to you?
Quote:Many other top Admirals criticized the bombing both privately and publicly.
Your answer to that was: "The likelihood that this effort was an attempt to avoid using the A-bombs is just about zero."
No. If a military leader says something that conflicts with clearly documented history, you should take the word of clearly documented history over theirs.
Let's have his full quote: "It always appeared to us that atomic bomb or no atomic bomb the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse. Nevertheless, the abrupt surrender of Japan came more or less as a surprise, for we had figured we would probably have to drop about four atomic bombs or increase the destructiveness of our B-29 missions by adding heavy bombers from Europe."
He dodged the reporter's question there. That wasn't a comment about whether the A-bombs caused surrender.
That does not change the reality that using all the weapons that you possibly can will do the most to bring down your enemy as quickly as possible.
No. I saw nothing about military leaders expressing opposition to the use of the A-bombs when they were actually being used.
The top military leaders are the source of documented history when it comes to this kind of thing.
You've just decided to accept the narrative as dictated to you by political entities.
The number of bombs, or types of bombs, he figured would have to be dropped does not negate the fact that he believed that they were not necessary to bring the Japanese to the point of collapse, as he made clear that they were already on the verge of collapse.
But it was a comment indicating the inevitability of a surrender.
You forget that an effective Naval blockade and bombing campaign was causing severe shortages of food and resources everywhere.
If that were true, then the U.S. would have used the same type of bombs on Iraq and Afghanistan, citizens be damned.
That's odd. I've been putting up walls of information containing top military leaders expressing their opinion that they did not agree with the decision to use the bombs.
But as the commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces said, it's not the job of the military to question their political masters' decisions. You are playing the part of a lawyer who is trying to convince a jury that what they are hearing is not really what they are hearing simply because the word "oppose" was not included in statements by military leaders.
Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander U.S. Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946:
The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it. . . . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . .
It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before.
Personally dictated notes found in the recently opened papers of former Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman describe a private 1965 dinner with General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, who in July 1945 commanded the U.S. Army Strategic Air Force (USASTAF) and was subsequently chief of staff of U.S. Air Forces. Also with them at dinner was Spaatz's one-time deputy commanding general at USASTAF, Frederick L. Anderson. Harriman privately noted:
Both men . . . felt Japan would surrender without use of the bomb, and neither knew why the second bomb was used. (See p. 337, Chapter 27)
Harriman's notes also recall his own understanding:
I know this attitude is correctly described, because I had it from the Air Force when I was in Washington in April '45.
In an official 1962 interview Spaatz stated that he had directly challenged the Nagasaki bombing:
I thought that if we were going to drop the atomic bomb, drop it on the outskirts--say in Tokyo Bay--so that the effects would not be as devastating to the city and the people. I made this suggestion over the phone between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and I was told to go ahead with our targets.
Spaatz insisted on receiving written orders before going forward with the atomic bombings in 1945. Subsequently, Lieutenant General Thomas Handy, Marshall's deputy chief of staff, recalled:
Well, Tooey Spaatz came in . . . he said, "They tell me I am supposed to go out there and blow off the whole south end of the Japanese Islands. I've heard a lot about this thing, but my God, I haven't had a piece of paper yet and I think I need a piece of paper." "Well," I said, "I agree with you, Tooey. I think you do," and I said, "I guess I'm the fall guy to give it to you."
In 1962 Spaatz himself recalled that he gave "notification that I would not drop an atomic bomb on verbal orders--they had to be written--and this was accomplished."
Spaatz also stated that
"The dropping of the atomic bomb was done by a military man under military orders. We're supposed to carry out orders and not question them. "
(I hope this answers your question regarding the absence of the word "opposed" in all of these quoted statements I've been providing you with).
In a 1965 Air Force oral history interview Spaatz stressed: "That was purely a political decision, wasn't a military decision. The military man carries out the order of his political bosses."
Notice how every single one of these statements offer no opposition to using the A-bombs at the time that they were actually being used.
You're ignoring the fact that the quotes from top military officials come just short of declaring that they were opposed to using atomic bombs on the populations of those cities.
Their reluctance to state what they really felt is explained by this:
"The dropping of the atomic bomb was done by a military man under military orders. We're supposed to carry out orders and not question them."
They carried out their orders and did not question them.
They did, however, indicate as clear as possible that Japan was already defeated, that Japan was being strangled by a naval blockade, that food and resources were scarce, and that the bombing was not necessary.
You are using their reluctance to speak out against superiors whom they are under orders to not question as proof that they were not opposed to bombing innocent civilians with atomic bombs.
Using their understandable reluctance to challenge orders from their superiors as a way to detract from what they all did say will not make what they all said not true.
It doesn't matter that you won't draw the obvious conclusion from the quotes of the top military leaders concerning the use of atomic bombs on the innocent people of an already defeated country. Anyone can read them and and understand exactly what they meant.
no military official made any such declaration (or near declaration) when the A-bombs were being dropped.
they offered no opposition to using the A-bombs when the A-bombs were being used.
Not when the A-bombs were being dropped they didn't.
They didn't say anything at all in opposition to using the A-bombs when the A-bombs were being used.
I'm curious, is the mass starvation of 10 million Japanese civilians (to say nothing of all the non-Japanese civilians dying under the tender mercies of Japanese occupation) being offered as morally superior to the deaths of 200,000 people via A-bombs?
