Eighty years ago yesterday, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. In total, an estimated two hundred thousand people were killed.
Over the years, opinions have been sharply divided over whether the bombings were justified. According to Pew Research Center, 35 percent of Americans say they were, while 31 percent say they were not, and 33 percent are not sure.
So, on the anniversary of the only time nuclear bombs have ever been used in war, let’s ask if they were necessary. Then we’ll apply our discussion to an even more significant question, one that is relevant to each of us today.
Why this is so personal for me
By August 1945, it was clear that Japan had lost World War II. However, their leaders refused to surrender and instead had prepared to be invaded by Allied forces, recruiting civilians to fight alongside soldiers. Their purpose was to force the US to negotiate a peace that would leave Japan’s emperor and military government in power.
US President Harry Truman had four options:
- Continue conventional bombing of the Japanese homelands. This had already caused an estimated 333,000 Japanese deaths with no move on Japan’s part to surrender.
- Stage a ground invasion of the Japanese homelands. This would have caused “the largest bloodbath in American history,” with as many as a million American deaths.
- Demonstrate the atomic bomb on an unpopulated area. However, there were only two bombs in existence at the time. If the test failed, Japan’s resolve would have been strengthened. And there was no way to know if such a demonstration would cause Japan to surrender.
- Use the atomic bomb on a populated area. Truman chose cities primarily devoted to military production that were not centers of traditional cultural significance to Japan.
This issue could not be more personal for me, since my father fought the Japanese in the South Pacific. If an invasion of Japan had been attempted, he would likely have been among the soldiers staging the attack. And he would likely have been killed.
But there’s more to the story.
Averting “an even worse bloodbath”
In Atomic Salvation: How the A-Bomb Attacks Saved the Lives of 32 Million People, military historian and former naval officer Tom Lewis (PhD, strategic studies) examines what would have happened if the Allied forces had conducted a conventional invasion of Japan. He writes that an offensive in the manner by which Germany was defeated would have been “by amphibious assault, artillery, and air attacks preceding infantry insertion, and finally by subduing the last of the defenders of the enemy capital.”
By choosing to employ atomic bombs instead,
The deaths of two hundred thousand Japanese in the A-bomb attacks prevented the deaths of more than a million Allied troops, around 3.5 million dead in territories the Empire held, and around 28 million Japanese. Millions more on both sides would have been wounded (my emphasis).
He cites extensive data in great detail to support his conclusions. He also extensively documents the fact that Japan’s leaders and soldiers had no intention of surrendering to the Allies prior to the bombings; many did not want to do so even after the bombs fell. In fact, after the Japanese emperor chose to surrender, rebellions against his decision were staged in an attempt to continue the war.
Previous bombing raids had already killed more people than died as a result of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki strikes; such raids would likely have continued as part of a conventional assault and likely would have killed more people than the two atomic bombs. Lewis also documents evidence that Japan was working on a nuclear bomb when the war ended and responds in detail to arguments that the bombings were unnecessary for ending the war.
He quotes Japanese nuclear engineer Yoichi Yamamoto, who stated that if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, “millions more [from both sides] would have died. Japan was preparing to defend the homeland at all costs. . . . As terrible as they were, the American bombs averted an even worse bloodbath.”
The only way war will end
The Sixth Commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13), expresses an impulse enshrined in civilizations across recorded history. We know instinctively that we must not condone the murder of others lest we be murdered.
And yet Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 people and causing the death of over thirty million people in the Pacific theater. Hitler invaded Europe, murdered six million Jews, and caused the death of at least thirty-nine million people in the European theater.
Americans are not exempt. Our Civil War led to the deaths of 750,000 soldiers and more than 50,000 civilians. Nearly twenty-three thousand Americans were murdered in 2023.
From Cain and Abel to today, every person killed by another person is a loss grieved by their Maker (cf. Genesis 4:9). Conversely, every murder pleases the devil, who was “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). Our fallen, sinful human nature is powerless to resist fully his temptation to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).
This is why the gospel is so crucial, not just for our eternal life in the world to come, but for our flourishing in this world as well.
No one in human history but Jesus died for our sins, purchased our salvation, and promised to forgive our every failure, remake us as God’s children, and send his Spirit to live within us and transform us into his holy character. Only Jesus could turn a murderer like Saul into a missionary like Paul (cf. Acts 22:20–21). Only he could empower and impassion an English aristocrat like William Wilberforce and use him to abolish slavery in the British Empire. Only he can give us his sacrificial, selfless love for every person on our planet.
If we would submit our lives to his Spirit, murder and war would end. There would be no need for bombs to kill hundreds of thousands to prevent the deaths of millions. If all of us truly made Christ our Lord and truly lived by his word and will, imagine the impact on crime and culture. And imagine the “joy of the Lᴏʀᴅ” that would be our “strength” today (Nehemiah 8:10).
A prayer that changes everything
Jesus gave us the key to such joyful living in a simple prayer:
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
Will you join me in praying these words from your heart right now, and then in aligning your actions with your words?
Your life, and our world, can never be the same.
Quote for the day:
“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be even more careful to have it even more fully in your heart.” —Francis of Assisi
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