GEORGE SANTAYANA WAS RIGHT

Welcome to a new Blog I have created for those times when someone says something really stupid which requires a single long response. Early in my blogging experience, one of the masters of the art, Rev. Bill Crawford, reminded me that short is sweet. Said he, "If you have a long response, break it up into parts."

Ordinarily, I agree with Bill. But sometimes someone writes something so incredibly naive, so out of touch with the real but sinful nature of the world in which we live, that it needs to be answered all at once.

Now, one can always respond right on the blog which posted the comment, but it is bad form to hijack someone else's blog for a lengthy reply. At the same time, on my regular blog,I am in the midst of a series that has a historic deadline. So, for this innaugural response, I answer a response by a reader to a short blog dated 13 December 2008 appearing over at The Reformed Pastor.

On December 13, David Fischler, The Reformed Pastor, posted the following “Quote of the Day”:

Today is Dec. 7, the day that this government killed over 80,000 Japanese civilians at Hiroshima in 1941, two days before killing an additional 64,000 Japanese civilians at Nagasaki by dropping nuclear bombs on innocent people.

–The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, preaching at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago on December 7.

It made me sick, but considering the evident lack of basic historical education of the speaker, a response quoting that eminent philosopher, Bluto Blutarsky, seemed to handle things very well.

But then, a usually erudite commentator posted an even more appalling response, as follows:

The Japanese civilians killed in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were just as innocent as all those civilians killed in any war. Wright is correct. We can argue whether the bombings were justified or not. It did end the war. God does judge the nations. Do you think God will let us off easy on this one?

John McNeese

I am praying that John was kidding, but I am afraid that he was serious.

The absolute ignorance of our own history that appears in both the quote and the response, the blame America first mind-set, and the willingness of some Americans to swallow the lies of the Japanese and American apologists for Japanese duplicity and barbarism, is reprehensible.

I’ll say this for Rev. Wright, however. He’s not as bad as a high school teacher who, when the insipid motion picture Pearl Harbor premiered, taught a friend’s daughter that “America deserved it because we dropped the bomb on the Japanese for no reason.” Arrrrrgh!

Disclosure

First, I apologize for the length of this post. Ordinarily, on the sage advice of the Bayou Christian, I would have broken it down.

But because the impetus for this post is something so monumentally stupid and because it evidences a sad lack of knowledge of fundamental American history, I think it it needs to be said in one seemless document.


Furthermore,in the interests of full disclosure, I need to say that I was 18 before I knew that “goddamnsneakyjapsonsabitches” was not one word.

My Dad enlisted in the Navy in 1940, and by 1941 he had been at sea aboard USS Relief (AH-1) for a year. On 7 December, Relief was anchored at Gander, Newfoundland, providing medical support to a US Army radio station there.

He remained aboard Relief until late November 1944, when the ship finally returned to the States for a much needed overhaul in anticipation of the Invasion of Japan. In other words, he was at sea in Relief for some 50 consecutive months, 36 of them in war-time.

Dad was detached and ordered to report to Yosemite National Park, where he was Chief Petty Officer-in-charge of construction and provisioning at the National Park Service hotel which was to become one of a number of new west coast Naval Hospitals to receive wounded from the invasion of Japan.

Dad and Mom had married in February 1942, just before Relief sailed to the Pacific. While there, Dad was the leading Chief in the Collecting and Clearing Company of Relief’s embarked Naval Hospital. He and his pharmacist’s mates would make runs in to the beach, triage the casualties, and send them back to the ship in order of priority.

Between November 1943 and October 1944, Dad participated in 5 bloody invasions in the Pacific—Tarawa (Nov 1943), Kwajalien (Feb 1944), Saipan (Jun 1944), Tinian (July 1944) and Pelelieu (Sep 1944).

Mom was delighted to have him home. She told him that she was ready to start a family. Dad refused, although he probably agreed to practice making babies. It had been a long cruise! His reason for saying "No"?

“When we invade Japan, they will send me back. I won’t come home from that one. I’ve used up all my luck. I won’t leave you a young widow with a baby.”

I was born on 13 May 1946. Do the math. I’m a memento of a really good VJ-Day celebration.

When I was teaching Military Law and the Law of War at The (Marine Corps) Basic School (1983-85), I was often invited by the lieutenants to be a guest at their formal mess nights. At one such dinner, an Air Force Major General was seated at the head table as an honored guest. It turns out that his youngest son was a member of the class. I later learned that he was a crew member of Bock’s Car on 9 August 1945. Name doesn’t ring a bell? That was the B-29 that dropped the one that finally got Japan's attention.

Later that night (actually at about 0300), long after the President of the Mess had announced, “Gentlemen, will you join me at the bar?”, I wandered out to the formal garden behind O’Bannon Hall to get a breath of air. I just happened to have three cold ones with me—still in the plastic loops.

Suddenly, a match flared. The General was sitting there, smoking his pipe.

“Sorry, sir,” I said. “Didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“That’s quite all right, Colonel. Care to have a seat?”

I offered and he accepted a beer, and we sat and enjoyed the night. Finally, I told him about my Dad and his premonition.

“I want to thank you, sir,” I said. “I’m here because of you.”

“Aw, hell, son." He patted me on the knee. "We did it for you.”

And for the Jeremiah Wrights and the John McNeeses and all the other folks in this world who just cannot understand.

A Little History

On 8 December, President Roosevelt addressed the Congress, saying (in pertinent part):

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives: yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. . . .

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. . . .

But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us. . . .

With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

He had it just right. They sucker-punched us and the American people “in their righteous might” came together to set things straight.

The Marine Corps launched the road to victory on 7 August 1942, 8 months to the day after Pearl Harbor. The First Marine Division, God bless 'em, landed at Guadalcanal and began a 6 month operation to shake the enemy loose. Guadalcanal was the start of the westernmost pincer of the road to Tokyo, then up the Solomons, and then New Guinea, and then the Philippines and Pelelieu to Okinawa.

The eastern pincer began in November 1943 at "Bloody" Tarawa, when the Second Marine Division suffered 5,000 casualties in 76 hours of fighting to capture what the Japanese CO had said 1,000,000 men could not take in 1,000 years. Still, the Japanese soldiers fought to the last man, making certain that the cost to the United States was as high as possible.

At Saipan,in June 1944, not only did the Japanese military fight to the death, they made sure the civilians on the island suffered, too.

The invasion began on 15 June 1944 with landings by the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions and 27th Infantry Division. In response, the IJN sent a carrier task force to attack the invasion. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea (19-20 June) Task Force 58 broke the back of Japanese Naval aviation. In what history remembers as "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot," TF58 destroyed nearly 400 enemy aircraft and their experienced pilots, sank three IJN carriers, and ended any real Japanese air threat to the fleet—for awhile, until the "Divine Wind" began to blow.

Meanwhile, back on Saipan, with resupply now an impossibility, the battle became hopeless for the defenders. Nonetheless, the Japanese were determined to fight to the last man. General Saito organized his troops into a line anchored on Mount Tapotchau in the defensible mountainous terrain of central Saipan. Attacking over and through "Hell's Pocket", "Purple Heart Ridge" and "Death Valley", our soldiers and Marines pressed forward, at high cost.

By July 7, the Japanese had nowhere to retreat. General Saito made plans for a final suicidal banzai charge. At dawn, the remaining able-bodied Japanese troops — about 3,000 men — charged forward in the final attack. The Japanese surged over two battalions of American troops, killing or wounding 650 of them. The attack was defeated by that afternoon.

As for the remaining civilians on the island, Saito said, "There is no longer any distinction between civilians and troops. It would be better for them to join in the attack with bamboo spears than be captured."

Saito, along with commanders Hirakushi and Igeta, committed suicide, and almost the entire garrison of Japanese troops on the island — at least 30,000 — died. Additionally, some 22,000 Japanese civilians also died, despite frantic efforts by U.S. troops to persuade them to surrender. Most committed suicide in the last days of the battle.

US troops were stunned to see parents throwing their children from "Suicide Cliff" and "Banzai Cliff" and then jumping themselves. Japanese propaganda on Saipan and in Japan portrayed Americans as "devils" who would kill civilian men, rape and kill the women, and eat the children. (Disgustingly, it was actually the Japanese who were eating American POWs. See James Bradley’s recent book, Flyboys.)

American losses at Saipan were 2,949 killed in action and 10,364 wounded in action (a 19% casualty rate).

Next, on 21 July, the 3rd Marine Division, the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, and the 77th Infantry Division made amphibious landings on Guam, approximately 100 miles south of Saipan. By nightfall the Americans had established beachheads about 2,000 meters deep. Japanese counter-attacks were made throughout the first few days of the battle, mostly at night, using infiltration tactics. Several times they penetrated the American defenses and were driven back with heavy loss of men and equipment.
By mid-August 4, the Guam was secured.

As in other battles of the Pacific War, on Guam, the Japanese refused to surrender, and almost all were killed.(The last Japanese soldier surrendered in the Phillippines in 1972! They weren't real big on surrendering.) At Guam, US casualties were nearly eight thousand, including more than one thousand killed in action. Japanese losses included 17,500 killed.

On 24 July 1944, the 2d and 4th Marine Divisions landed on Tinian, an island about 4 miles from Saipan.

Japanese forces on Tinian included the 50th Infantry Regiment, the 56th Keibitai (Naval Guard Force), four Army infantry battalions and the 18th Infantry Tank Company with nine tanks, totaling 8,350 men.

The Japanese commander was Colonel Takashi Ogata who was aware that an invasion was imminent and worked furiously to improve the island's defenses. Ogata prepared to destroy his enemy at the water's edge and if that failed, his plan was to order his men to fall back to prepared positions inland and defend them to the last man.

By nightfall on 24 July, the 4th Marine Division had established a beach head 2,900 meters wide and almost two kilometers inland. On this first day, American casualties were 15 killed and 225 wounded. During the night of the 24 July,” Colonel Ogata launched a five-hour counter attack at a cost of 1,241 killed and six tanks lost.

The Marines turned south and proceeded over the next several days to the southern tip of Guam. Colonel Ogata made his last stand in the south on July 31st and was killed by machine gun fire while leading a counter attack. He was last seen hanging over Marine barbed wire.

On 7 August, the island was declared secured. American losses totaled 328 killed and 1,571 wounded. The Japanese lost their entire garrison of 8,000 men.

With the capture of Tinian, work was immediately commenced on turning it into a massive air field. Soon, the XXth Air Force with its new long-range B-29s began to attack the Home Islands. One of those islands was Iwo Jima.

There was a Japanese early-warning radar installation on Iwo Jima which alerted the Home Islands of approaching attacks. Fighter aircraft based on three airfields on Iwo Jima attacked the XXth Air Force B-29s which were especially vulnerable on their way to Japan because of their heavily bomb and fuel loads. Additionally, because of the distance between Tinian and the Home Islands, the Air Corps began to lose battle-damaged planes and crews that had nowhere else to go. At about the mid-point between Tinian and Tokyo, Iwo Jima could serve as a haven.

Accordingly, on 19 February 1945, the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions landed on Iwo Jima. The 3d Marine Division was in reserve.

The battle was the first American attack on the Japanese Home Islands and the Imperial soldiers defended their positions tenaciously. The Japanese positions on the island were heavily fortified, with vast bunkers, hidden artillery, and 11 miles of underground tunnels.

In June 1944, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was assigned to command the defense of Iwo Jima. Rather than contest a beach landing, Kuribayashi ordered the creation of strong, mutual supporting positions in depth utilized the advantages of being in a defensive position to use static and heavy weapons and tanks were used as camouflaged artillery positions. Hidden artillery and mortar positions along with land mines were placed all over the island.

The battle saw also the introduction of a new weapon by the Japanese, the Kamikaze.

Kuribayashi knew that Japan could not win the battle, but he hoped to inflict massive casualties on the American forces, so that the United States would reconsider an invasion of the Japanese main islands.

The fighting was extremely fierce. The Americans' advance was stalled by numerous defensive positions augmented by artillery, where they were ambushed by Japanese troops that occasionally sprung out of tunnels. On February 23, 1945, Suribachi fell. Despite the loss of Mount Suribachi (located on the south end of the island), the Japanese still held strong positions on the north end.

After running out of most water, food, and supplies, the Japanese troops became desperate towards the end of the battle. Kuribayashi, who had argued against banzai attacks at the start of the battle, realized that Japanese defeat was imminent. Marines began to face increasing numbers of nighttime attacks; these were only repelled by a combination of machine gun defensive positions and artillery support. At times, the Marines engaged in hand-to-hand fighting to repel the Japanese attacks.

On the night of March 25, a 300-man Japanese force launched a final counterattack in the vicinity of Airfield Number 2. Army pilots, Seabees and Marines of the 5th Pioneer Battalion and 28th Marines fought the Japanese force until morning but suffered heavy casualties (more than 100 Americans were killed and another 200 were wounded). The island was officially declared "secured" by the U.S. command the following day.

Of the over 22,000 Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island, 20,703 died either from fighting or by ritual suicide. Only 1,083 were captured during the battle. The Americans suffered 27,909 casualties, with 6,825 killed in action.

By war’s end, 2,251 B-29 Superfortress (with crews of 10 or more) made emergency landings on Iwo Jima.

[Aside: Talk about “righteous might!” In the 1990s, when the Air Force proposed to build its national Air Force Memorial in a position that would over-shadow the Marine Corps War Memorial (a depiction in bronze of 5 Marines and a Corpsman raising a flag on, you guessed it, Iwo Jima), the resultant fire-storm of public opinion made Tokyo in March 1945 look like a marshmallow roast. The entire Air Force finally took note that two or three 80 year old vets of the 5th Marine Division, those steely-eyed killers, were planning to come to DC for a little heart-to-heart about 28,000 dead and wounded Marines and sailors and 25,000 live Air Force air-crew and being rude and ungrateful, and stuff like that. (I suspect that one Marine came to hold the second Marine's coat, while the third would sell tickets.)

The Air Force backed-down. Smart move! Semper Fi!!]

On the night of 9–10 March, some 279 B-29s left Tinian and Guam and raided Tokyo, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Approximately 16 square miles of the wood and paper city were destroyed and at least 100,000 people (some sources would double, triple or even quadruple that number, suggesting that Japan had propaganda reasons to hide the real numbers) were killed by the bombs or in the resulting firestorm.

In other words, there were more immediate deaths from this conventional raid, which took place just a short distance from the Imperial Palace, than from the atomic attacks (not nuclear, Rev. Wright!)on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

By comparison, at the end of 1945, an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki were dead as a result of the atomic attack, roughly half occurring in each city on the days of the bombings.

The next objective was Okinawa, where the First and Sixth Marine Divisions landed as part of X Corps on Easter Sunday, 1 April 1945. 82 days later, the island was declared secure.

Like Iwo Jima, the Okinawa land campaign was mainly defensive, with the intent of inflicting massive American casualties in the hope that the US would sue for peace. The Japanese also used kamikaze tactics as a major part of the defense. In the first 8 weeks of the campaign, seven major kamikaze attacks were attempted, involving more than 1,500 planes. The U.S. Navy sustained greater casualties in this operation than in any other battle of the war.

In the three-month battle for Okinawa, the Japanese flew 1,900 kamikaze missions, sinking dozens of Allied ships and killing more than 5,000 U.S. sailors at the cost of 1,465 expended kamikaze planes....

U.S. losses were over 48,000 casualties, of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing—over twice the number of casualties as at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. Several thousand servicemen who died indirectly (from wounds and other causes) at a later date are not included in the total. The U.S. Navy's dead exceeded its wounded with 4,907 killed and 4,874 wounded, primarily from kamikaze attacks.

By one count, there were about 107,000 Japanese combatants killed and 7,400 captured. Some of the soldiers committed seppuku or simply blew themselves up with hand grenades. In addition, about 20,000 were sealed in their caves alive.

The battle has one of the highest number of casualties of any World War Two engagement: the Japanese lost over 100,000 troops, and the United States suffered more than 50,000 casualties, with over 12,000 killed in action. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, wounded or attempted suicide. Approximately one-fourth of the civilian population died due to the invasion.

At some battles, such as at Iwo Jima, there had been no civilians involved, but Okinawa had a large indigenous civilian population and, according to various estimates, somewhere between 1/10 and 1/3 of them died during the battle.[Okinawan civilian losses in the campaign were estimated to be between 100,000 and 150,000 dead. The U.S. Army figures for the campaign showed a total figure of 142,058 civilian casualties, including those who were pressed into service by the Japanese Imperial Army.]

As should be evident, from early on,Japan had no national intent to surrender. In fact, at Saipan and Okinawa, both considered to be home islands,the plan to make full use of civilians to prolong the fighting and to increase American casualties was honed.

Now, To Respond To Some Statements1.

To John and Jerry: This government did not kill any “innocent people.” Their own government did that for them. We just made it a lot quicker and cleaner for them, while saving a couple hundred thousand guys like my Dad from being killed and another 800,000 to 1.3 million from having their otherwise clean Health Records all messed up. Oh, and all those millions of school boys and school girls who would have died with bamboo spears in their hands or withgrenades tucked inside their clothing.

You ask, “Their government…? No, their government didn't kill them.”

Awwwww, I buy you books, send you to school, and you eat the covers. Read the background.

You guys seem to think that the Japanese government was going to suddenly see the light, the bright light, the great white light and come to its senses. Sure they were, just as soon as they ran out of kamikaze pilots and people who would line up to be in local “blood and iron brigades”, who wanted only to take my Dad or some other Marine or soldier to wherever good little bushido-babies go after they stop being people.

Their government told them that Hirohito was God, that they alone were people, and all others were gaijin (barbarians, or in the language of their late buddies in Europe, untermenschen), that the Americans were going to kill and eat them, and that it would be really cool to die like a samurai. And if Saipan and Okinawa are evidence, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Kobe and Tokyo—what was left of it—believed them.

2. But couldn’t we have dropped them a note saying “Pretty, pretty, pretty please, with fish heads and sake on it, please, surrender—or we are going to do a one-second slum clearance on Nagoya.”

I guess, but if they hadn’t gotten the idea that we meant business on 9-10 March, it probably wasn’t going to work. And don’t forget—we waited three days between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they still didn’t quit.

About the only utility that that note might have had would have been for the Prime Minister, as he walked to the binjo (head, lavatory, bathroom, etc).

3. But they were civilians. . . .

Yeah, and so were about 12 million Americans until 0755 Hawaii time on Sunday, 7 December 1941. And almost all of them had Moms or sisters or daughters or girlfriends. Can you imagine the reaction in America if all those Japanese civilians did as they were told and started taking out our guys in the hundreds of thousands and it came out that we had the means of stopping the war and did not use it?

The hangman at Nuremburg could have made one more of Mary Surratt’s necklaces, medium small, for a former haberdasher from Missouri—if the “American people in their righteous might” didn’t just find a rope and a local tree and skip all those unnecessary formalities.

4. But they were civilians. . . .

Yeah, and those nice, genteel folks who lived just outside the gate at Auschwitz and Belsen-Bergen were innocent of any knowledge of what was cookin’ there—you will pardon the expression. Probably thought someone had left dinner on the barbee just a little too long.

This was a people believed in the deity of their Emperor, who yelled “Banzai” in the movie theaters when they saw newsreels of their army in China using women and babies for bayonet practice and other innocent civilians to test the sharpness of their swords.

In his book Ripples of Battle, Victor Davis Hanson, writes:

"...because the Japanese on Okinawa, including native Okinawans, were so fierce in their defense (even when cut off, and without supplies), and because casualties were so appalling, many American strategists looked for an alternative means to subdue mainland Japan, other than a direct invasion. This means presented itself, with the advent of atomic bombs, which worked admirably in convincing the Japanese to sue for peace, without American casualties. Ironically, the American conventional fire-bombing of major Japanese cities (which had been going on for months before Okinawa) was far more effective at killing civilians than the atomic bombs and, had the Americans simply continued, or expanded this, the Japanese would likely have surrendered anyway. Nevertheless, the bombs were a powerful symbolic display of American power, and the Japanese capitulated, obviating the need for an invasion of the home islands."

Makes perfect sense to me!

About 14 years ago, I was at the National Air and Space Museum in DC, with my father-in-law, a WWII vet. This was the summer before the Enola Gay dust up. In the area where the cockpit of the Enola Gay was going to be displayed, the museum had a display about the 9-10 March raids on Tokyo. The tape was a continuous loop.

There were about 25 Japanese tourists, including a couple of kids of about 13. They were talking to one another in Japanese. Finally, one man looked around, and in almost a shout, he said, “Oh, my son. I do not know why they would do such terrible things to our people.”

Without missing a beat, my father-in-law tapped the kid on the shoulder. He turned around and looked up at this towering gentle giant.

“Well, son,” said my father-in-law. “Let this be a lesson to you. Americans don’t take kindly to sneaky little foreigners who kill our sailors in their sleep without declaring war. Didn’t then. Don’t now. Hope we never will!”

There was a stunned silence and sagging mouths that made it obvious that our visitors understood English very well.

So did the Americans in the area—-my father-in-law’s voice tends to carry. There was a loud cheer and a lot of “Damn rights!”

So, I will weep for the Arizona sailors and Marines who still rest in their shattered ship before I have any concern for the people who put them there.

And because we invoked God’s name and asked for His help (“With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.”), He gave us the tools to stop the march of evil across the Pacific. I think—I pray—that He . . . "will let us off easy on this one.”