In honor of MAYDAY! I have decided to write an article about war and how it is (mis)remembered. The topic I have chosen is the Pacific War because it is one of the few that I have the ability, although limited, to comment on.

The debate about the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki continues to be divisive, especially for American citizens. Most of the controversy is a result of propaganda that has been used by high government and military officials to justify the atomic bombings.
I have included gruesome descriptions of war because as human beings, we must try to understand the horrors of war. Our species has a violent past and present. If we do not study history and work for progress, we will certainly have either a violent future or no future at all.

In seven months, the United States firebombed 67 Japanese cities, causing 500,000 Japanese deaths, largely civilian. The resulting firestorms were a human-created hell. Imagine tornadoes of fire with winds of 150 mph. An inferno that “sucked pedestrians off the sidewalks like leaves into a vacuum cleaner.” Temperatures reached 1,500 °F. Imagine raging fires for miles in your hometown. Perhaps there is a river nearby that you could jump into. Tragically, you would still be boiled alive. The atomic bombs were a sort of continuation of this bombing campaign. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were saved from firebombing because they held little strategic value, and so the atomic bombs could be used on virgin cities.

Monstrous deeds were not unique to impersonal bombings or to one particular side. Professor E. B. Sledge, who was a front-line Marine at Okinawa and Peleliu, recounted an “excruciating scene of a wounded Japanese thrashing on the ground as a Marine slit his cheeks open and carved his gold-crowned teeth out with a kabar.” Scenes like this were common. Paul Fussel said, “Anyone who actually fought in the Pacific recalls the Japanese routinely firing on medics, killing the wounded (torturing them first, if possible) and cutting off the penises of the dead to stick in the corpses’ mouths.”

The Pacific War was motivated in part, undeniably, by racism, xenophobia and thoughts of genocide. John W. Dower states in War Without Mercy, “Public opinion polls in the United States indicated that some 10 to 13 percent of Americans consistently supported the ‘annihilation’ or ‘extermination’ of the Japanese as a people.” Also, “A poll conducted by Fortune in December 1945 found that 22.7 percent of respondents wished the United States had had the opportunity to use ‘many more of them [atomic bombs] before Japan had a chance to surrender.’” One could dismiss these people as “evil,” but it seems to me that this is a narrow view that espouses defeatism.

It should be recognized that American citizens largely thought of the enemy as “Japs,” “The Yellow Peril,” as something that was subhuman. The popular imagery of the time depicted them as such. Although more subtle, one can easily find similar dehumanizing depictions of Arabs and Hispanics today. A new law, signed last week in Arizona, requires immigrants to carry papers proving their rights to residency, thus encouraging racial profiling.

Reducing the enemy to sub-human status is one of the first steps in constructing an official narrative that the public can accept as justification for war.

The Japanese people were thought of as a fanatical monolithic mass. This contrasts with the Nazis who were thought of as “bad Germans.” There was a distinction between a “good German” and a “bad German.” Of course, we firebombed them all in Dresden. So it goes.

Here is a rough outline of the official narrative. The Japanese cowardly bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (a Sunday!). This was the start of the war. The U.S. Military then began an island hopping campaign that seemed to verify the idea that the Japanese were a monolithic and fanatical sub-species. Because of this, the only acceptable option was to force “unconditional surrender.” After much deliberation, Truman decided to drop the bomb so that the war may end as soon as possible. The nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, respectively. On August 15, the Japanese surrendered. This indicated that the bombs caused the end of the war and saved up to 1 million American lives.

The above-mentioned official narrative was manufactured to obtain the consent of the American public. The estimate Truman gave increased from tens of thousands (at the time of his presidency) all the way to 500,000 and even 1 million. Military generals placed estimates in the tens or low hundreds of thousands at the time. Truman, however, was told that an invasion would cost 31,000 American casualties in the first 30 days.

It is true that the bomb was dropped with the intent of ending the war as soon as possible. It did not, however, play a major role in the Japanese decision to surrender. The sudden and unexpected (to the Japanese) Soviet entry into the war played a much more significant role. Also relevant is that American leaders knew months before the bombs were dropped that Emperor Hirohito had communicated that he wished to quickly end the war. The requirement of unconditional surrender was the primary obstacle from the perspective of the Emperor.

The final myth I wish to address is the idea that Truman and other high officials used the bomb after much deliberation, with reluctance. Although conflicted on the idea, Truman often called the atomic bomb “just another weapon.” The atomic bombs were used as other military advancements have been. They were used, without significant moral questioning, as soon as they were made.

I wish I had more space to outline the ideas in this article but I do not. The argument in this article was necessarily a great oversimplification because of length constraints. Sources used in this article include Prompt and Utter Destruction; Hiroshima in America; Hiroshima; War Without Mercy; Atomic Holocaust, Nazi Holocaust; Thank God for the Atom Bomb; Did the Bomb End the War? I would also like to thank professor David Obermiller as a source of information and inspiration. I encourage everyone to read A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I say this because it was to me what the red pill was to Neo. Conveniently, it can be found for free, in its entirety, on www.historyisaweapon.com.

“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.”—Malcolm X