The Passing of an American Hero

Greetings from the Left Coast! It's been a while since we talked...not because nothing's been going on - far from it! - but because I was on a business trip, then busy playing catch-up after I returned from the business trip.

Today's entry is, I believe, a sad commentary on American society in general, and on our educational system and revisionist historians in particular. Retired Brigadier General Paul Tibbets died today at age 92. You may not have heard his name before today, but perhaps you've heard of the airplane he flew on August 6, 1945. It was named the Enola Gay (after his mother), and it was the B-29 that dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima.

Now please don't misunderstand me. It wasn't the dropping of the bomb that I referred to as a sad commentary on American society. Here's what I find sad: General Tibbets told family and friends before he died that he did not want a funeral service or a headstone, because he feared a burial site would only give detractors a place to protest. Surely, you say, we haven't come to that, have we? Well, yes, we have.

Consider this quote from Eric Malnic writing in today's L.A. Times: "He never apologized for unleashing the devastating explosive force and insidious nuclear radiation that leveled more than two-thirds of the buildings in Hiroshima and killed at least 80,000 people, and perhaps as many as 127,000." The clear implication here, of course, is that he should have apologized. Takashi Mukai, the head of the Japan Congress Against A- and H-Bombs was quoted in Forbes as saying, "What Mr. Tibbets did should never be forgiven. His actions led to the indiscriminate killing of so many, from the elderly to young children." Now, on one hand, I suppose I can understand that attitude from a Japanese citizen, particularly someone who had a close relative injured at Hiroshima, as Takashi Mukai did...but did he never hear of the Rape of Nanjing? Try cranking that phrase into your Internet search engine, or just go to http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njmassac/nmintro.htm, if you have a strong stomach. In the context of World War II, Japan is the last nation that should be pointing fingers at others for indiscriminate killing.

I doubt that very many of you have been given this historical context in school, but World War II was brutal beyond the understanding of most people who are alive in America today. It was total war - and the cold, hard truth about war is that the only goal of war that makes any sense is to destroy your enemy's ability to wage war against you as expiditiously as possible. The faster and more efficiently you can do that, the more lives are saved on both sides of the conflict.

Hiroshima wasn't targeted at random, it happened to be the headquarters of the Japanese Second Army and the Chungoku Regional Army, and the Army Marine Headquarters was located at the nearby port of Ujina. It had large depots of military supplies, and was a key center for shipping. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima.) Likewise, the main industry of Nagasaki, on which the world's first plutonium bomb was dropped three days later, was ship-building. Specifically, the ships used by the Japanese Navy.

Nor was the large-scale bombing of industrial centers unusual in WWII. The German bombing of Stalingrad killed 40,000 people. At least 30,000 died in London over the course of the war. 25,000 - 30,000 people were killed in the Allied bombing of Dresden. 80,000 - 100,000 people had been killed in the conventional bombing of Tokyo just a few months before General Tibbets' mission. And I could go on and on. No one had precision-guided smart bombs or cruise missiles in 1945.

In August of 1945, preparations were underway in Okinawa for Operation Downfall - the invasion of the Japanese homeland. Estimates of the cost of conquering Japan that were made by military strategists at the time ranged from 1.2 million to 4 million American casualties, and 5 to 10 million Japanese casualties. Indeed, the Japanese defensive strategy was to attempt to raise the cost of invasion to a point where the Allies would negotiate an armistice rather than pay that cost. By contrast, the combined casualty count from Hiroshima and Nagasaki was somewhere between 275,000 and 300,000, depending on whose estimates you believe. So, taking the high end of that estimate against the low end of the invasion estimates, the math is pretty clear: the two nuclear bombings that ended the war resulted in roughly 5% as many casualties as the most conservative estimates had we not dropped the bombs and proceeded with a conventional invasion. Any clear-thinking, intellectually honest person should be able to see that it was the right decision at the time.

Here's something else to consider as well: had there been a conventional invasion, the Soviet Union would have been part of it. And when it was over, we would probably have had a "North Japan" to go along with North Korea and East Germany. Think for a moment how different our world would be today if that had come to pass!

Here's some of what General Tibbets has had to say over the years: “I was anxious to do it...I wanted to do everything that I could to subdue Japan...I have been convinced that we saved more lives than we took. It would have been morally wrong if we’d have had that weapon and not used it and let a million more people die.” And, on another occasion, "I viewed my mission as one to save lives. I didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor. I didn’t start the war, but I was going to finish it.” And, "You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war...You use anything at your disposal."

Former U.S. Senator John Glenn, who also knows a thing or two about war, has defended Tibbets, and has pointed to the number of lives that were saved by bringing the war to a swift ending. He is quoted in the Forbes article as saying, "It wasn't his decision. It was a presidential decision, and he was an officer that carried out his duty. It's a horrible weapon, but war is pretty horrible, too."

"I sleep clearly every night," General Tibbets said in a 1975 interview. May you sleep in peace now, General. And please accept my thanks, on behalf of the untold thousands of Americans alive today who would have never been born had their fathers died in Operation Downfall, for doing your duty on that August morning in 1945. And may I also express my profound regret that our collective memory has become so distorted that you must rest in anonymity rather than in the place of honor that you deserve.

Thanks for listening.