The lives President Harry Truman saved.
PMpWed, 07 May 2008 18:09:01 +000009Wednesday 3, 2008 — brendabowers********************************************************************************************
I have forever been a fan of President Harry Truman. In fact I believe that history will eventually see him as one of our greatest presidents. He was certainly the most ethical and moral of them. To Truman right was right and wrong was wrong and during his entire political career he never deviated from that stand. Many people then (and now) have searched for instances where he bent his principles to expedience and have yet to find one instance.
Initially I suppose it was the fact that when President Truman decided to drop the atomic bombs on Japan and ending WWII one of the lives he saved was my Daddy’s. Army Pfc. William Anthony Morris was on a ship bound for the invasion of Japan. Dad would have been in the first group of soldiers to set foot on Japanese soil. Dad probably would not have returned home. At the time it was estimated that the United States would lose 500,000 soldiers in the first weeks of the invasion. Since then historians have increased that figure.
Many over the decades have condemned President Truman for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan and if any of you want to know more of the controversy here is a good site for that information. Needless to say the soldiers who came home believed it saved their lives and hundreds of thousands more lives both American and Japanese. The firebombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 people and yet the Japanese would not surrender. They were beat, they had lost the war but the mentality of the leaders was not to surrender no matter what. And as for the people we know from the Japanese suicides when our soldiers landed on Okinawa that the common people were so indoctrinated by their God Emperor (the belief was that the Emperor was a God) that taking the home Island would have been first a blood bath of fighting and then a horror of mass suicides.
I was gratified to read a story today in the Washington Post relating again the moral stand taken by President Truman in being the first world leader to recognized the newly formed Country of Israel just 11 minutes after it was announced by Ben-Gurion. By recognizing Israel and going against both the US military commanders advice and the vehement desires of the US State Department there is no doubt President Truman was, and continues to be, responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of lives of Jews all over the world. Jews who finally had a homeland to return to from a world of countries who only tolerated them and treated them to periodic pogroms fueled by ignorance and hate. See story here
( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/06/AR20080 )
PMpTue, 13 May 2008 17:36:29 +000036Tuesday 3, 2008 at 2:39
INERESTING! Im in middle school and doing a report on WWII! WELL ITS MORE LIKE A PROJECT.
AMpWed, 14 May 2008 11:06:49 +000006Wednesday 3, 2008 at 2:39
Thank you for stopping by and your comment Middle School student.
Doing a project on WWII is quite an undertaking. I know since I remember my own way, way back in the Stone Age! The subject is sop large that you can only focus in on one segment.
I had uncles in the European theater and of course my Dad in the Pacific theater so both “wars” were interesting to me. I say both wars because tho they did overlap some WWII really was two separate wars.
If you do the Pacific an interesting fact: Japan has never apologized to the United States or China for their invasions. In fact, the Japanese have simply ignored the subject except to make themselves out to be victims of the big bad US for dropping the Atomic Bomb. We now know that several German scientist escaped to Japan after the defeat of Germany and were continuing their research in the production of an atomic bomb that Hitler had been conducting. Considering the actions of the Japanese thru out their invasion of first China and then their attack on Pearl Harbor I for one have no doubt that they would had been ruthless in the use of such a bomb if they had developed it before we did.
The Japanese are good allies now. In fact, because General MacArthur literally ruled Japan thru the reconstruction period Japan is very Americanized with a democracy and a way of thinking and a way of life that had been totally alien to their culture before this. Remember, the people actually worshiped their Emperor and believed him to be a God. The change after the war was really remarkable and a testament to the adaptability of the Japanese people. I guess this is why I chose to do my project on the Pacific Theater because I found the clash of two very different cultures so much more interesting.
The war in Europe was just one of getting rid of a mad man tyrant. There was no differences in the way of viewing the world between the combatants as the United States had been settled by Europeans. The interesting point is that Germany had by far the more outstanding and brilliant generals and would have actually won the war if not for Hitler’s interference with what his generals wanted to do. BB