Soviet Spies in the 1940s

Klaus Fuchs: What One Evil Man Can Do

The Soviets began an active spying campaign while they were still our “allies” in WWII, beginning as early as 1941, when a British traitor informed the Soviets about America’s attempt to create an atomic weapon. Dozens of people were tried, convicted, and often executed for passing nuclear secrets to Russia.  There is no estimate as to how many escaped justice such as John Cairncross, who lied an said the material he gave the Soviets was “nominal”.  When the Kremlin released their records, they found out Cairncross had lied and had actually given the Soviets crucial information about America’s atomic research.

Some spies were from America and Western Europe, who believed in communism and under the false pretense of being pro-democracy and capitalism, did serious damage to their nations. Some believed that only nuclear parity would avert an atomic was. I found a list of some of these people in an article entitled Spies Who Spilled Atomic Bomb Secrets, published by the Smithsonian and written by Marian Smith Holmes in 2009

John Cairncross- was the first atomic spy, John Cairncross was eventually identified as one of the Cambridge Five, a group of upper-middle class young men who had met at Cambridge University in the 1930s, became passionate communists and eventually Soviet spies during World War II and into the 1950s. In his position as secretary to the chairman of Britain’s scientific advisory committee, Cairncross gained access to a high-level report in the fall of 1941 that confirmed the feasibility of a uranium bomb. He promptly leaked the information to Moscow agents. 

Klaus Fuchs is known as the most important atomic spy in history.  He was a physicist on the Manhattan Project and a lead scientist at Britain’s nuclear facility by 1949. Just weeks after the Soviets exploded their atomic bomb in August 1949, a decryption of a 1944 message revealed that information describing important scientific processes related to construction of the A-bomb had been sent from the United Sates to Moscow. FBI agents identified Klaus Fuchs as the author.

Born in Germany in 1911, Fuchs joined the Communist Party as student, and fled to England during the rise of Nazism in 1933. By the time he became a British citizen in 1942, he had already contacted the Soviet Embassy in London and volunteered his services as a spy. He was transferred to the Los Alamos lab and began handing over detailed information about the bomb construction, including sketches and dimensions. 

When he returned to England in 1946, he went to work at Britain’s nuclear research facility, and passed information on creating a hydrogen bomb to the Soviet Union. In December 1949, authorities questioned him. In a matter of few weeks, Fuchs confessed all. He was tried and sentenced to 14 years in prison. After serving nine years he was released to East Germany, where he resumed work as a scientist. He died in 1988. 

When he became a British citizen, he would have had to promise by covenant to support and defend Great Britain.  By knowingly violating that covenant, I would call him an evil, not just misguided, man. Considering that there would not have been a nuclear Soviet Union (at least not so quickly) without him I am surprised he escaped the death penalty.  Fuchs is a perfect example of the damage one evil man can do.  

Theodore Hall (Holtzberg) was a young Jewish boy who had become a Marxist when he entered Harvard (from which he graduated at 18.)  He was also assigned to the Manhattan Project and passed on secrets to the Soviets years before Fuchs, but he flew under the radar.  He felt such guilt after seeing what the bomb could do in 1945, he was motivated to give secrets to Russia in order to create nuclear parity and avoid another atomic was.  The bomb the Soviets tested in 1949 was an exact copy of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. He was never convicted, but confessed in 1995 when old, encrypted documents were translated. He lived out his in England and died two years after he was revealed to be a spy, at the age of 79.

Harry Gold was an American chemist who had been spying for the Soviets since 1935.  He was named by Fuchs when he eventually confessed. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

David Greenglass was the third “mole” in the Manhattan Project. Working with Hill and Fuchs, he began passing information from Los Alamos, where he began work as a machinist in 1944. He also went to prison but escaped the death penalty because, like Gold, he confessed and cooperated with the authorities and named names.

Lana and Morris Cohen – were professional industrial spies.  They gathered leaked secrets from Los Alamos in 1945.  When the arrests of spies began in 1949, the fled to Moscow. In 1961, they resurfaced in England where they continued to spy for Moscow under their new aliases. When they were finally convicted, they were sentenced to 20 years, but were released early in an exchange for a British spy incarcerated in Moscow.

Ethel Rosenburg (sister to Greenglass) and her husband, Theodore are the only spies I actually remember.  They were arrested in the same group with Hall, Greenglass, and Gold.  Unlike their colleagues, they refused to give any information or names.  They claimed to be innocent.  A jury found them guilty.  They were convicted in 1951 and sentenced to death.  They died in the electric chair at Sing-Sing prison in 1956. 

I remember reading about them in the newspaper and seeing a picture of them with shaved heads just prior to their execution. I remember having a really sick feeling, not only about them betraying their nation, but because of their grisly deaths. I was about 6 at the time.  That picture traumatized me for a long time.

They left behind two young sons, which is heartbreaking to me now.  They continued to claim their innocence right to the end.  Another example of otherwise sane people doing inhumane things by reacting in anger and retribution.

This would lead into the McCarthy Era and the communist witch hunts of the 1950s.  I’ll talk about them in my next installment.

Aunt Kath

My Word by Decades, Part 2

1945-1950

            

My paternal grandmother, Corinne Wilson Rawlings, reading to me, circa 1949 

I was between the ages of 1 to 5 during the last half of the decade of the 1940s.  I was not aware of a lot of what was going on internationally, although the word, communism¸ was added to my vocabulary.

The Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Heber J. Grant, died in 1945.  He and the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostle sent a special gift and message to all young Latter-day Saints who enlisted in the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The gift was a small, brown leather-bound New Testament and Book of Mormon.  The letter encouraged them to stay faithful and prayerful; if they lived, they would be living unto Christ; if they died, they would die unto Christ.  Dad showed me the letter and books several years ago.  I don’t know where they went after his death in 2008.

Following the death of President Grant, George Albert Smith became the Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Yes, you can believe it: I am really that old! I don’t consciously remember these two great men, but I was alive for at least part of their presidencies.

I do vaguely remember the Berlin airlift from 48-49.  Mom allowed my dad to talk about it around me (she tried not to allow anything she thought would scare me*.) I even saw pictures in the newspaper.  I remember feeling proud of my country that they were taking food and clothing and blankets to the people of West Berlin, so they could survive the winter of 48-49.

       

One of the most popular pilots in Operation Air Lift was a young LDS officer from Idaho, Gail Halverson. The US sent WWII planes over Eastern Germany (which as held by the Soviets) to and airfield in West Berlin.  As he was stretching his legs, he noticed a group of German children standing with their faces pressed against the wire fence. He walked over and offered them 3 pieces of gum he had in his flight suit.  Instead of fighting over it, the children broke the gum into as many little pieces as they could and shared.  Those who didn’t get a small piece was given a wrapper to smell and lick.  After that, Halverson never flew his cargo without taking candy and gum for the children.  He attached the sweets to white handkerchiefs and dropped them like little parachutes.  Before he landed to unload his official supplies, he’d fly over the field behind the fence and wiggle his airplane’s wings, so the children would know that treats were coming soon.  The children called him “Uncle Wiggle Wings.” Halverson received candy and handkerchiefs from all over the Western World to “bomb” the children of West Berlin.

It was during this time that we moved from Ohio back to Las Vegas. In blood type, Mom was Rh- and Dad was Rh+. As a result of this factor, Mom lost a baby around 1947 when we were living in the motel.  I remember her lying on the couch so sick, she couldn’t lift her head.  I decided she needed eye drops and proceeded to use a dropper we had in the medicine cabinet to squirt plain water in her eyes. The water didn’t hurt her, but I can now imagine how Mom must have felt under the care of a 3-year-old “nurse,” bent on drowning her with “eyedrops!”

Dad found us a one-bedroom apartment on 5^th Street in Las Vegas, not far from Fremont St.  I was still sleeping in my crib in my parents’ room.  We had to walk up a flight of stairs to the apartment.  I remember Helldorado in May of 1949. It was a big western celebration with parades and a carnival.  I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to take a nap.  Mom told me I had to nap, or I couldn’t go.  I whined and fussed in my best 4-year-old manner that I should be able to go to the carnival and not nap.  I remember thinking at the time that it was a very logical argument.! It didn’t take much of that for Mom, tired of my whining, to pick me up and put me in my crib and let me cry myself to sleep. Needless to say, I did nap, and I did go to the carnival!

When I started kindergarten in the fall of 1949, at the 5^th Street Grammar School, I wanted to be a big girl and walk the 2 blocks to school.  I think dad has a home movie of me in a pink dress, turning around to wave as I took my grown-up walk (remember: I was still 4.)  It wasn’t until years later, Mom told me that Dad had followed me ½ a block behind every day!

By late fall, Mom got pregnant with my brother, Brent.  It was considered a high-risk pregnancy and Doctor Eklund told her she couldn’t climb the stairs to our apartment. We moved to cute little duplex just off of E. Charleston and 5^th St.  This time, the crib was retired for the new baby and they bought me a set of bunkbeds, which sat just at the foot of there double bed. I felt so grown-up! Since I was already in school, I thought that was a nice touch! (Thanks, Brent!)

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In the larger world outside my tiny world

·         February 4-11, 1945 - President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Premier Josef Stalin held the Yalta Conference in the Soviet Union. The discussion centered around what they were going to do once the war was over (by then, it was pretty much of a foregone conclusion that the Allies would achieve unconditional surrender of the Axis.

Notice how ill President Roosevelt looked.  He would die shortly after the Yalta Conference. Winston Churchill would live on well into his 80s and remained powerful and respected. Joseph Stalin remained in power until his death in 1953.  He was responsible for the deaths of at least 15 million.  Scholars say we will never know the extent of his terror because Russians didn't keep records of their victims like Hitler did in Germany.  His death toll was 6million.

We despise Fascism, but we enthrone Socialism when both are pure evil!

·         February 19, 1945 - Thirty thousand United States Marines landed  on Iwo Jima. On April 1, American troops invaded Okinawa, beginning the Battle of Okinawa, which would continue until June 21. 

·         March 1, 1945 - American troops crossed the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany. Two weeks later, on March 18, twelve hundred and fifty U.S. bombers attacked Berlin, causing Adolf Hitler to announce the destruction of his own industries and military installations one day later. (On a personal note: Dad had been furloughed home just before that raid.  I was over 3 months old when he saw me for the first time.)

·         April 12, 1945 - President Roosevelt died suddenly; Vice President Harry S. Truman (D) assumed the presidency and role as commander in chief of World War II. 

·         April 30, 1845, Adolph Hitler committed suicide by gunshot in his bunker. Because the Soviets got to Berlin before the Allies, there have always been rumors that somehow, Hitler survived. It’s a moot point now because Hitler was born in 1889 and would have to be 129 years old!

·         May 7, 1945 - The unconditional surrender of Germany at Reims, France concludes the military engagements of World War II in Europe. It is accepted by General Dwight D. Eisenhower in his role as the commander of Allied troops in the European theater of the war. 

·         July 16, 1945 - The first atomic bomb was tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico, after its production at Los Alamos, New Mexico (The Manhattan Project.) 

·         August 6, 1945 - President Harry S. Truman gave the go-ahead for the use of the atomic bomb with the bombing of Hiroshima. Three days later, the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito of Japan surrendered to General MacArthur on the deck of a US battle ship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Harbor.

·         January 10, 1946 - The first meeting of the United Nations general assembly occurred after its founding on October 24, 1945 by fifty-one nations, including the Security Council nations of China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.A. These actions would lead to the disbanding of the League of Nations on April 18, when its mission was transferred to the U.N. 

·         April 1, 1946 - Four hundred thousand mine workers began to strike, with other industries following their lead.  This is important to note because the US Communist Party was always behind the scenes stirring the pot.

·         June 6, 1946 - The NBA was founded for all you basketball fans

·         July 4, 1946 - The island nation of the Philippines was given their independence by the United States. That ended four hundred and twenty-five years of dominance by the west. 

·         August 1, 1946 - The Atomic Energy Commission was established. 

·         March 12, 1947 - The Truman Doctrine was announced to the U.S. Congress. When passed it granted $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey to battle Communist terrorism. President Harry S. Truman implemented the act on May 22. The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was upon this doctrine that US involvement was based. It referred to the spread of Communism into South East Asia as the “Domino Effect" which led to the Vietnam War.

·         April 2, 1947 - The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the trusteeship of Pacific Islands formerly controlled by Japan to the United States. 

·         April 15, 1947 - Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's barrier against colored players when he debuts at first base for Branch Rickey's Brooklyn Dodgers (for all you baseball fans.) 

·         April 25, 1947 - Theodore Roosevelt National Park is established by President Harry Truman along the Little Missouri River and scenic badlands of North Dakota. 

·         June 5, 1947 - Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposes aid extension to European nations for war recovery, known as the Marshall Plan, which would lead to Congressional approval of $12 billion over the following four years. 

·         June 20, 1947 - President Harry S. Truman vetoes the Taft-Hartley Labor Act that would have curbed strikes, only to be overridden by Congress on June 23. It is interesting to me that Harry Truman was a democrat, but his form of anti-communist and socialism would be more a Republican move today.  Our 2-party system has been turned on its head since then.  The breach between the liberals and conservatives gets wider every year and political moderates seem pulled between the two camps.

·         April 1, 1948 - The Soviet Union begins its land blockade of the Allied sectors of Berlin, Germany. A counter blockade by the west was put into effect, as well as a British and U.S. airlift of supplies and food, until both blockades were lifted on September 30, 1949.

·         April 30, 1948 - The Organization of American States is founded by twenty-one nations to provide a mutual security pact after World War II. Founding nations were Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. 

·         July 26, 1948 - Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the United States military, is signed into effect by President Harry S. Truman.

·         November 2, 1948 - President Harry S. Truman rallies from behind, capturing his first president election from the supposed winner Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York. Headlines in national newspapers had overtly announced a Dewey victory, only to be proven wrong. Truman won the Electoral College vote with 303 to Dewey's 189, with Strom Thurmond, running as the States' Rights candidate, receiving 39 Electoral votes. Truman won the election with less than 50% of the popular votes.  The media of the day got its proverbial foot caught in its proverbial mouth by announcing a Dewey win.

·         December 15, 1948 - Alger Hiss, former State Department official, is indicted for perjury in connection to denials of passing state secrets to a communist spy ring. He would be convicted of the conspiracy on January 21, 1950 and receive a five-year sentence. This shows how the actions of one man can alter history.  The Soviets Union used that information and information from other spies to accelerate their own development of the atomic bomb. Quite honestly, I’m surprised the Hiss received such a short sentence. See today's other post for more about Soviet spies of the 1940s

·         April 4, 1949 - NATO, the North American Treaty Organization, was formed by the United States, Canada, and ten Western European nations (Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom). The treaty stated that any attack against one nation would be considered an attack against them all. 

·         June 29, 1949 - United States withdraws its troops from Korea.

·         October 7, 1949 - Tokyo Rose, the femme fatale of Japanese war broadcasts, was sentenced to ten years in prison. She was paroled in 1956 and pardoned in 197

·         October 14, 1949 - Eleven leaders of the United States Communist party are convicted of advocating a violent insurrection and overthrow of the U.S. government. The Supreme Court would uphold the convictions on June 4, 1951.[1]

More later!

Aunt Kath

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[1] All timeline references are from https://americasbesthistory.com/abhtimeline1940.htm

[2] All information about spies and traitors are from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/spies-who-spilled-atomic-bomb-secrets-127922660/

Ooops

Excuse the glitch in today's post.  For some reason, my computer won't allow me to edit.  I was going to define de-mobbing as being a British term for excused from active duty but still in the AF Reserves.

My World by Decades: 1940-1945

My World by Decades, Part 1:

The 1940’s (1940 - 1945)

;It may be a bit of a cheat to begin my discussion of the 40s before I was born, but I was a true “war baby” and not a baby boomer – anyone born 9 months after V-J day.  I heard about the war and the Nazi’s from the time I was an infant.  Having a dad in the military, I was privy to some discussions a little child would be assumed not to grasp. I’ve wondered what I would remember if I did hypnosis regression!

My first conscious memory was when I was about 2.  We were living in Provo and dad had been, what the Brits called “de-mobbed.”  (He was stilHe was working at Geneva Steel in Orem, UT, and taking a few law classes from the University of Utah.  He always left for work before dawn but to me, he was walking out the door in the middle of the night! I remember one night when a bat got caught in the window mechanism.  Another clear memory was when my mother got her finger caught in the sewing machine and the needle went right through the nail and the finger and she couldn’t move it.  I remember a lot of blood and of being scared.  Mom was crying and sent me to the next-door neighbor for help.

My next clear memory was living in a motel in Las Vegas when my dad began singing at the Last Frontier Hotel on the strip in 1947. A short time later, his employers sent him to sing in a Beverly Hills Country Club in Covington, Kentucky. He used his time to study classical singing at the University of Ohio (we lived in Cincinnati, OH, just upriver from Louisville, KY.) I was the Little New Year at the Country Club in Jan. 1949.  I would have just turned 4.

We returned to Las Vegas, not long afterward, and Dad became the singing MC at the Thunderbird Hotel.  He was somewhat of a local celebrity, but to me, he was just Dad.

I started Kindergarten at the 5^th Street Grammer School in the fall of 1949, 3 months before I turned 5.

That covers my personal little life.  Now for what was going on in the world.  I have studied a lot and most of what I know is from later study as an adult.

The Rise of Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich

course available at https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/history-of-hitler-s-empire-2nd-edition.html 

Hitler was a veteran of World War 1.  From the beginning, he thought the Treaty of Versailles put an impossible burden of financial reparation and national guilt upon the German people. (It did, and created a climate in Germany that sowed the seeds that become WWII)

He joined the German Workers Party and was jailed for his part in a failed coup in Munich.  While he was in jail, he wrote Mein Kompf (My Struggle.) His hatred of the Jews and the Communists was apparent from the beginning.  He blamed the Jews for the economic depression of the 1930s in Germany.

It is fascinating to see how he rose to power and you may want to study that further. (Much of the propaganda and violence shown during the rise of the Nazi’s of very reminiscent of the tactics being used by the Democratic Party in America right now. They hurl insults at Republicans and other conservatives by calling them Nazis, homophobes, racially prejudiced and misogynistic.  They call President Trump a Nazi dictator like Hitler and they believe they are right. They don’t have a clue what a real Nazi is.  They sometimes openly attack conservatives and are being urged to do so!  Just the opposite is true, if you read your history with an open mind. If there are Nazi tactics being used in the US, they are not coming from the conservatives. Propaganda 101: Blame the other group and accuse them of the very thing you are doing in order to draw their attention away from the things you are doing: Joseph Goebbels)

Nazi is short for the German National Socialist Democratic Party. (NSDAP) Note: Yes, they were socialists but only in terms of the pure nation - Germany.  Out of this grew the idea of an Arian super race (blonde hair, blue eyes, no physical or mental infirmities.) He came to power in 1933 and within weeks was an absolute dictator.  Truth in Germany was whatever the Nazis said it was.  It wasn’t long before Hitler began his pogrom against anyone with a mental or physical disorder.  These people were taken to “hospitals”.  Months later, their families would get a letter that their child grew ill and died.  That was not true.  Dr. Mengele pulled out some for his “experiments” and the rest were killed in “showers” with shower heads that poured out poisonous gas instead of water.  That was the first use of this method of pressing forward the Nazi’s “final solution.”  Because it worked so well, it became the method of choice in murdering over 6 million Jews and others deemed “undesirable.” (In the book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the character of Delores Umbridge would make a very good Nazi.   She used their tactics so well, giggling all the while she tortured others, feeling justified by being a “pure-blood.” Hmmmmm? Sound familiar?)

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September 1, 1939, Hitler attacked Poland, “justifying” it by saying he just wanted Lebensraum or “breathing room.”  He went on from there to “liberate” German-speaking people who were torn from Germany after WWI.  While he was at it, he just took the rest of Europe with it.

September 3, 1939
Following the attack on the Allied nation of Poland, Britain and France declare war on Germany.

April 9, 1940
Germany invades Norway and Denmark.

May 10, 1940
Germany launches an invasion of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France. Within a few weeks, all but France have surrendered.

June 22, 1940 France signs its official surrender to Germany. The Germans march into Paris. (Have you seen Casa Blanca lately?)

July 10, 1940
Germany begins its bombing raids against Great Britain in what would be called the Battle of Britain.  England held her ground only because of the outstanding courage of one man: Winston Churchill.  It was said that he sent Britain to war using only the power of his words.  Never, never, never give up! (I would refer you to the masterpiece movie, The Darkest Hour for a very accurate, blow-by-blow account of Churchill and the Battle of Britain.)

September 13, 1940
Italian troops invade British-controlled Egypt in an attempt to expand Italian territories in North Africa and capture the strategically important Suez Canal.

September 27, 1940
Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact in Berlin to formalize the alliance of the Axis Powers. The Pact provides for mutual assistance should any of its members suffer attack by any nation not already involved in the war.

June 22, 1941
In the largest German military effort of World War II, Nazi Germany launches Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Within a few weeks, the Soviet Union formally joined the Allied nations.

December 7, 1941
Japan launches a surprise attack on American soil and bombs Hawaii’s naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu. More than 2,300 American soldiers and sailors die in the attack, and another 1,100 are wounded.

December 8, 1941
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt requests, and subsequently receives, a declaration of war against Japan. With approval from Congress, the United States begins the mobilization of civilian defense groups on the home front.

December 11, 1941
In response to the United States’ war declaration on Japan, and as part of the Axis Powers Tripartite agreement, Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The previously neutral United States reciprocates the declarations, officially entering World War II as part of the Allied Powers.

February 19, 1942, began the interment of Americans of Japanese Ancestry, in what I believe to be one of the biggest unconstitutional moves against American citizens in American History. They did not receive due process which was granted to them in the Bill of Rights.  This shows what. happens to otherwise rational people when fear and panic take over. (FYI, Roosevelt was a Democrat - D)

May 13, 1943 After a three-year stalemate in North Africa, Axis troops surrender to Allied forces in Tunisia.

September 8, 1943 General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces Italy’s surrender to the Allies, which had been signed five days earlier in Sicily. Italy becomes the first of the Axis Powers to break and substantially weaken the Tripartite Pact.

June 6, 1944, the Allies launched Operation Overlord, the plan to invade the beaches at Normandy to drive the Germans out of France.  This became known as D-Day, the first huge step to liberate Europe from German control.

February 2, 1943 German troops surrender to the Soviet Red Army in Stalingrad, USSR. The early onset of the brutal Russian winter and the fact that Germany was spending her resources on the Western Front and those on the Eastern Front were starving and frozen from lack of food, clothing, blankets, and ammunition.

May 7, 1945 Germany surrenders to the Allies in Reims, France, ending World War II in Europe, known as V-E Day.

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America’s strategic plan all along was the throw most of her weight on Germany initially, because Hitler posed the biggest threat.  Once the Nazis were defeated, the United States turned its military might on Japan.  American scientists had been working on an atomic weapon under the code name, The Manhattan Project.  By the time the US was ready to make the big push against Japan, two weapons were ready, Big Boy and Little Boy.  The Allies continued to battle Japan, island by island, back across the Pacific at a tremendous loss of life.

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By July 1945, war projections were anticipating months of bloody conflict with a loss of life in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, both Japanese and American dead.  Japan had to “save face” and would never surrender until her last soldier died.  Knowing that this was inevitable was a key factor in President Truman’s (D) decision that it was time to end this war before that could happen.  He authorized the use of the Atomic Bomb against Japan

August 6, 1945 The United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, becoming the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry in a wartime effort. The bomb’s immediate impact takes the lives of an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 Japanese, American, and Korean inhabitants. In the months following the explosion, the total fatalities rise to an estimated 135,000 as a direct or indirect result of the bomb.

The Japanese still refused to surrender, and so the decision was made to drop the second bomb.

August 9, 1945 The United States drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.  An estimated 40,000 to 75,000 people die immediately following the explosion, while an additional 60,000 people suffer severe injuries. By the end of 1945, the total death count reaches an estimated 80,000.

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Horrific losses, but on the balance, it was still a lower human cost than traditional warfare with projected losses being far greater.  It was not an easy decision for President Truman to make.

I am glad that they ended the war when they did for personal reasons because my dad was getting ready to be deployed to the Pacific Theater. I don’t know that he would have come back from that. But in doing so they unleased a fiery dragon, the results of which no one could have even imagined in 1945.

As to the moral dilemma, I am torn.  It was, in my opinion, inhumane, but how do you determine humanity and inhumanity in such a war as that one, or of any war? Additionally, it created an arms race between the US and Western Europe and the Soviet Union that terrified everyone for nearly 3 decades.  No one knew up front the long-term health issues with victims or the long-term political effects it would have.

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September 2, 1945 Japan formally surrenders to the Allies and signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, aboard the deck of the battleship, USS Missouri, in Tokyo Bay, effectively ending World War II in its entirety.

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I’ll pick this up later when I talk about the second half of the decade when I was alive and more cognizant of what was going on around me.

Aunt Kath

copyright Gebara Education, October 2018

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[1] BTW, Roosevelt was a Democrat.  I’m going to indicate party with an (R) or (D)