A Swift End to WW II?

            Secretary of War Henry Stimson was one of Truman’s most respected advisors.  One of his rationales behind the use of the atomic bomb would be to bring a swift end to the longest, bloodiest war in human history.  While Japan’s Navy was brought to its knees by the spring of 1945, according to Secretary Stimson, its army was still quite capable…

            “… The principal political, social, and military objective of the United States in the summer of 1945 [is] the prompt and complete surrender of Japan.  Only the complete destruction of her military power could open the way to lasting peace…

            There [is] as yet no indication of any weakening in the Japanese determination to fight rather than accept unconditional surrender.  If she should persist in her fight to the end, she had still a great military force.

            In the middle of July 1945, the intelligence section of the War Department General Staff estimated Japanese military strength as follows: in the home islands, slightly under 2,000,000; in Korea, Manchuria, China proper, and Formosa [Taiwan], slightly over 2,000,000; in the East Indies area, including the Philippines, over 500,000; in the by-passed Pacific Islands, over 100,000.  The total strength of the Japanese Army was estimated at about 5,000,000 men…

            … As we [understand it], there was a very strong possibility that the Japanese government might determine upon resistance to the end, in all areas of the Far East under its control.  In such an event the Allies would be faced with the enormous task of destroying an armed force of five million men and five thousand suicide aircraft, belonging to a race which had already amply demonstrated its ability to fight literally to the death…

            … We [estimate] that if we should be forced to carry this plan to its conclusion, the major fighting would not end until the latter part of 1946, at the earliest.  I was informed that such operations might be expected to cost over a million casualties, to American forces alone.  Additional large losses might be expected among our allies, and of course, if our campaign were successful and if we could judge by previous experience, enemy casualties would be much larger than our own…”

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