Aug 24^th

Yesterday, Sunday August 23^rd, a letter by Richard Fidler to the editor of the Traverse City, Record Eagle (R-E), was published. Mr. Fidler has published two books dealing with the history of Traverse City; now he has expanded his interests to the appropriateness of using atomic weapons to end World War 2.  (I would have sent this to the R-E except they, just today, published a letter from me so now I must wait six weeks to send another letter.)  

Mr. Fidler makes some statements about Japanese military capabilities in the terminal stages of the war that are, at best, debatable. He writes, “In 1945 Japan essentially had no army, navy or air force. It had no ammunition for weapons. The narrative about the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Americans was made up out of whole cloth.” In April of 1945, the year Mr. Fidler claims that Japan had essentially no army and no air force, we invaded Okinawa. In a little over three months we needed an army of 282 thousand men, which suffered 23 percent causalities, to subdue the island. In addition the Japanese “no air force” consisting of kamikaze planes sank 26 of our ships.

Then Fidler tells us that, “Truman authorized dropping the bombs to end the war quickly so the Russians wouldn’t be able to intervene.” But the Russians did intervene, declaring war on August 9^th the day we dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki.

I believe that Fidler does not appreciate the Bushido-like code which governed the conduct of most Japanese military during the war.  Surrender meant severe loss of face, essentially a ritual death, very few books have been written by former Japanese POWs. Indeed it was common for the Japanese government when given the names of prisoners so as to inform their families, to deny that they could have surrendered.

There was also a substantial difference in the treatment of military and civilian POWs by the Japanese. This may have been due to the Japanese believing that their military prisoners had disgraced themselves by surrendering. My wife’s uncle, a petroleum engineer working for Royal Dutch Shell was interred by the Japanese and was treated relatively well. He was able to receive packages from his relatives and from his company. Military POWs did not have that luxury.

I was in the USAAF in the summer of 1945 and if Japan had not surrendered I would have been on one of those ships hoping to avoid the kamikazes. I also have a friend who was a Marine fighting on Okinawa; neither of us believes that Uncle Harry made a mistake dropping those bombs… it all depends on your perspective.