IN ONE swoop we took one of the greatest conquering nations out of the Second World War. One that was right on our doorstep. Yes we pushed them from Papua New Guinea but they had taken most of South East Asia.
If there had not been the two bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima seventy one years ago, then more lives would have been lost to the powerful, brutal, and remorseless Japanese war machine.
For the many that were killed in the bombing many many more innocents were saved.
The barbarism of the Japanese military is something that tends to be overlooked these days when we cast our minds back to World War 2. The way they treated POWs and civilians was as bad as NAZI Germany. But not as bad as Stalin was to his own people.
As a human being do you fight a war of attrition where millions more will perish or will you kill thousands to save millions? The choice of life is a terrible choice to make and I don’t envy the men who made it, but they did it. In doing so they saved Australia and New Zealand. They saved Hawaii and the United States mainland as well.
In war life is measured in numbers: How to get the result of peace with the least amount of death. At that particular time, the atomic bomb was that solution.
Put that question to anybody who has doubts as to whether the atomic bombing should have taken place. What would you have done different? Would you have lost more civilians, soldiers, ally countries because of your guilt?
The Pacific War was not one like the mainland war in Europe. It was mostly islands fought over from ships and aircraft.
As an Australian who has a great interest in war history I believe there was no choice. We were holding off the inevitable with all remaining forces that we had left. As a nation the devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were needed to protect ourselves, and an inevitable much greater loss of life.