How the atomic bombing of Nagaski spared the Greatest Generation

Thank you my friend MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. for posting the Task & Purpose 'The Pentagon Run-down'

"How the atomic bombing of Nagaski spared the Greatest Generation
Most accounts of World War II in the Pacific tend to overlook an important fact: Japan did not sue for peace immediately after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It took two atomic bombs – and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria – to finally end the conflict.

This Aug. 9 marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. While the attack is treated as an afterthought by historians, it is worth examining why the coup de grâce was necessary in light of the continued belief that Japan’s surrender was inevitable before the first atomic bomb was even dropped.

Historians broadly agree that, by 1945, Japan’s leaders knew they could not win the war but still felt they could avoid losing it by inflicting so many casualties on the Americans that the U.S. government would seek a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.

The Japanese military had become so skilled at defense that U.S. troops would have to pay for every inch of ground with blood. Iwo Jima, where American casualties outnumbered the Japanese defenders, has become synonymous with deadly combat. Far less recognition has been afforded to Okinawa, where the U.S. military suffered the most casualties of the entire Pacific campaign.

From late March until the end of June 1945, more than 12,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, and Marines were killed at Okinawa. The dead included Army Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., the highest ranking U.S. military officer killed during the war. Nearly half of the American fatalities were sailors: of the 1,300 U.S. and 50 British ships that took part in the operation, 36 allied vessels were sunk and more than 350 others were damaged by Japanese Kamikaze attacks. The Japanese lost 100,000 troops and another 100,000 civilians, many of whom were forced to commit suicide by their supposed defenders.

What this gruesome toll shows is that Japan was a nation prepared to die in the summer of 1945. Unlike the invasion of Normandy, the Japanese had anticipated where U.S. troops would land troops to begin Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan that was scheduled for November 1945. The Japanese home islands dwarfed the previous objectives in the island hopping campaign, so many more U.S. and Japanese troops would have fought each other at Kyushu than at Okinawa."

FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs Lt Col Charlie Brown SMSgt Lawrence McCarter GySgt Thomas Vick MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi SGT Denny Espinosa SP5 Mark Kuzinski PO2 (Join to see) LTC (Join to see) Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SFC (Join to see) SSG Robert Mark Odom

We would have lost so many more on both sides had we been forced to a land battle in Japan

There's no way that I will ever forget what the greatest generation did for us my Stepfather was on Iwo Jima, and he stated many times before his death that the two atomic bombs saved at a minimum of millions of lives.