ON THIS DAY – AT 8:47 A.M. ET:  On this day, 70 years ago, the world's first operational atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. 

Several days later a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki.  On August 14th the Japanese surrendered.  A war that had begun with their invasion of Manchuria in 1931 ended within days of history's first use of atomic weapons.

We must be prepared for the intellectual hand-wringing that today's anniversary will bring, especially on the academic and political left.  No doubt there are still some "scholars" hanging around who will announce their finding that the use of the bomb was unnecessary, that Japan would have surrendered without it.  Actually, the number of people arguing that position has declined over the years, as more and more information has come to light.  The people who held the real power in Japan had no intention of surrendering, and a continuation of the war would have produced casualties in the millions.  In addition to the dropping of the two atomic bombs, the Soviet invasion of Korea that same week figured in the Emperor's decision to end the war on American terms.

At a time when we're examining possible "breakout" times for Iran to have an operational nuclear weapon after a decision to produce it, let us not forget that the first nuclear test took place in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945.  Hiroshima happened only three weeks later.  And this was 1945, before the age of high-speed computers that can cut development time.  Three weeks from first test to operational use.

The political left, which had no problem at all with the saturation bombings of Germany and Japan, when they were helpful to the Soviet Union, has for decades tried to send America on a guilt trip over the use of nuclear weapons.  Of course we regret the lives that were lost, as we always regret death and destruction in war, but guilt is not required.  In what is sometimes called the bloody arithmetic of war, the nuclear bombs reduced the ultimate death toll of World War II dramatically.  And as the late historian Paul Fussell, a soldier in the Pacific at the time of Hiroshima later wrote, recalling his thoughts when he learned of the atomic bomb's use, "We were going to live.  We were going to grow to adulthood after all."  For that we can be grateful.

August 6,  2015     Permalink