588 Words. I wonder what became of him. His essay "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" tells us why the United States needed to drop the atomic bomb and provides quotes from people with experience from the war to back up his claim. Thank God for the atom bomb. (A good place to interrupt and remember Glenn Grays noble but hopelessly one-sided remarks about injustice, as well as suffering.). That is, few of those destinedto be blown to pieces if the main Japanese islands had been invaded went on to become our most effective men of letters or impressive ethical theorists or professors of contemporary history or of international law. In the summer of 1945 Marshal Terauchi issueda significant order: at the moment the Allies invaded the main islands, all prisoners were to be killed by the prison-camp commanders. Basically, Fussell contends that the atomic bomb was deserving of gratitude to God in view of the lives it spared. So many dead. To intensify the shame Gray insists we feel, he seems willing to fiddle the facts. Many of those that say the bomb should not have been used are implying that, according to Arthur T. Hadley, it would have been better to allow thousands on thousands of American and Japanese infantrymen to die in honest hand-to-hand combat on the beaches than to drop those two bombs. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Hes not the only one to have forgotten, if he ever knew, the unspeakable savagery of the Pacific war. It was then republished under the title "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" in his essay collection Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays in 1988. [Excerpted from Paul Fussell's "Thank God for the Atom Bomb. I think theres something to be learned about that war, as well as about the tendency of historical memory unwittingly to resolve ambiguity and generally clean up the premises, by considering the way testimonies emanating from real war experience tend to complicate attitudes about the most cruel ending of that most cruel war. "A conservative cultural critic with a passion for nude beaches and the Indy 500 auto race, Fussell (The Great War and Modern Memory) explores some of his pet topics in this miscellany of essays and articles. Thats a bit of what happened in six days of the two or three weeks posited by Galbraith. In Scotch, Teachers is the great experience. Fussell argues vigorously and, to my mind, convincingly that the bombing was crucial in cutting short the war and preventing the much greater loss of life that would have occurred as a result of a full-fledged invasion. World War II not only exacerbated the racial tension within the American people, but also excused the racist actions taken by American government against the Japanese Americans, as the Americans then prided themselves for fighting in the good war. Chapter 9, The Demonic Other, discusses the Japaneses opinions on American racism, and seemed to believe Americans disregarded every other race except their own. 08/08/2022 Ralph Raico. Publication date 1988 Publisher Summit Books Collection inlibrary; printdisabled; internetarchivebooks; china Digitizing sponsor Kahle/Austin Foundation Contributor Internet Archive Language English. Unit Commanders will take stern disciplinary action. In Scotch, Teacher's is the great experience.". Understanding the past requires pretending that you dont know the present. His premise is that absent those horrific shocks, Japan would have never surrendered without a bloody invasion. His latest book is about American. 2. Why does Fussell "thank God" for the atom bomb? These troops who cried and cheered with relief or who sat stunned by the weight of their experience are very different from the high-minded, guilt- ridden GIs were told about by J. Glenn Gray in his sensitive book The Warriors. (Dower 353). Or even simplified. Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays by Paul Fussell. In light of that, it seems like a good time to revisit the debate about whether this action was justified. ISBN-13: 9780671638665. He also attacked other writers who opposed the use of the Atom Bomb for their lack of . Analyzes how fussell uses logos to promote his argument for the atomic bomb. The Alsop-Joravsky debate, reduced to a collision between experience and theory, was conducted with a certain civilized respect for evidence. We were in a staging area near Rheims, ready to be shipped back across the United States for refresher training at Fort Lewis, Washington, and then sent on for final preparation in the Philippines. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. They are, on the one hand, says Bruce Page, the imperialist class-forces acting through Harry Truman and, on the other, those representing the humane, democratic virtuesin short, fascists as opposed to populists. But ironically the bomb saved the lives not of any imperialists but only of the low and humble, the quintessentially democratic huddled massesthe conscripted enlisted men manning the fated invasion divisions and the sailors crouching at their gun-mounts in terror of the Kamikazes. He will realize that such utterance can perform for the speaker a valuable double function. The Hiroshima bomb, he says, was dropped without any warning. But actually, two days before, 720,000 leaflets were dropped on the city urging everyone to get out and indicating that the place was going to be (as the Potsdam Declaration had promised) obliterated. 2) Considering Fussell's discussion of the treatment of Japanese skulls during World War II, as well as all the other atrocities of World War II (the Holocaust, the Japanese invasions in Asia, the Allied fire bombing of Dresden), what do you think about . This post is a stunning essay by Paul Fussell published in The New Republic in 1981. What role does his own experience of history play in shaping his views as a historian? Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Thank God For the Atom Bomb and Other Essays at Amazon.com. Fussell argues that an infantry assault on Japan would have been deadly and would have resulted in the loss of huge numbers of Allied troops. It would be not just stupid but would betray a lamentable want of human experience to expect soldiers to be very sensitive humanitarians. Many of those who were on the front lines were not elaborately educated people. Among Americans it was widely held that the Japanese were really subhuman, little yellow beasts, and popular imagery depicted them as lice, rats, bats, vipers, dogs, and monkeys. In Scotch, Teachers is the great experience. This is the basis of his argument, that those who did not experience the war firsthand could not understand. . Before Fussell concedes the brutality of the bombings, he takes a fairly one-sided position. . During the time of World War 2, as the bombs were being dropped on different parts on the country, they were not only killing the men that were fighting in the war, but also killing innocent civilians. Of course few left. Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. Paul Fussell is a smart man with an abundance of experience. eNotes Editorial, 22 Sep. 2018, https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/paul-fussell-thank-god-for-atom-bomb-intended-479503. Endowment Chairman Sheldon Hackney talked recently with Paul Fussell about the impact of World War I on the twentieth century. Theres no denying that Grays outlook on everything was admirably noble, elevated, and responsible. David F. Labaree is Lee L. Jacks Professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education and a professor (by courtesy) in history. The assault troops were chosen and already in training, Jones reminds his readers, and he illuminates by the light of experience what this meant: What it must have been like to some old-timer buck sergeant or staff sergeant who had been through Guadalcanal or Bougainville or the Philippines, to stand on some beach and watch this huge war machine beginning to stir and move all around him and know that he very likely had survived this far only to fall dead on the dirt of Japans home islands, hardly bears thinking about. The intended audience of Fussell's essay is peoplesuch as John Kenneth Galbraith (whom the author names in his essay)who believe that dropping the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II was not necessary. Herseys straight, simple narrative technique presents the catastrophe in its raw form, including the voices of those who experienced the bombing firsthand. Two or three weeks, says Galbraith. In general, the principle is, the farther from the scene of horror the easier the talk. In his classic essay "Thank God for the Atom Bomb," Paul Fussell (World War II vet and National Book Award-winner) observes, "Allied (Pacific) casualties were running to over 7,000 per week." After Nagasaki, "captured American fliers were executed (heads chopped off); the U.S. submarine Bonefish was sunk (all aboard drowned); the destroyer . Because wed destroyed civilians? During this period Japanese people living in both Japan and the United States of America were seen as less that human. They did not know the horrors the soldiers went through. Whereas yellow was the color of illness and treason and the Japanese were usually referred to as yellow, the color white symbolized purity which stood for the American race. The main argument of the essay is based around social class and personal experience. He also argues that Japan was not close to surrender, and that although the devastation and casualties caused by the bombing were horrific, that opponents of the bomb neglect the equal or greater horrors suffered by the American soldiers, the Japanese civilians conscripted to fight against them, and the prisoners of war. The Japanese pre-invasion patriotic song, One Hundred Million Souls for the Emperor, says Sledge, meant just that. Universal national kamikaze was the point. . Fussell argues vigorously and, to my mind, convincingly that the bombing was crucial in cutting short the war and preventing the much greater loss of life that would have occurred as a result of a full-fledged invasion. Please help! We would have been murdered in the biggest massacre of the war. We thought the Japanese would never surrender. Add to Wish List Link to this Book Add to Bookbag Sell this Book Buy it at Amazon Compare Prices. This book is recommend to any fan of the essay. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Inquirer Published Aug 6, 2010 By John Rossi they supported the idea that the war was going to end . Still thankful for the bomb By John Rossi Some years ago, Paul Fussell wrote a controversial essay titled "Thank God for the Atom Bomb." In it, he argued that dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan was necessary to end the war in the Pacific. During the time between the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb on August 9 and the actual surrender on the fifteenth, the war pursued its accustomed course: on the twelfth of August eight captured American fliers were executed (heads chopped off); the fifty-first United States submarine, Bonefish, was sunk (all aboard drowned); the destroyer Callaghan went down, the seventieth to be sunk, and the Destroyer Escort Underhill was lost. In addition to the almost unbearable pictures, the book offers brief moments of memoir not for the weak-stomached: While taking my severely wounded wife out to the river bank . . A bloody woman holds a bloody child in the ruins of a house, and the artist remembers her calling, Please help this child! Mr. On the contrary, the Americans were also known as demonic. When its smell grew too offensive and Sledge urged him to get rid of it, he defended his possession of this trophy thus: How many Marines you reckon that hand pulled the trigger on? (Its hardly necessary to observe that a soldier in the ETO would probably not have dealt that way with a German or Italianthat is, a white persons hand.) Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. But even if my leg buckled and I fell to the ground whenever I jumped out of the back of a truck, and even if the very idea of more combat made me breathe in gasps and shake all over, my condition was held to be adequate for the next act. Although still officially fit for combat, in the German war I had already been wounded in the back and the leg badly enough to be adjudged, after the war, 40 percent disabled. . 3 Pages. Why? If only it could have been rushed into production faster and dropped at theright moment on the Reich Chancellery or Berchtesgaden or Hitlers military headquarters in East Prussia (where Colonel Stauffenbergs July 20 bomb didnt do the job because it wasnt big enough), much of the Nazi hierarchy could have been pulverized immediately, saving not just the embarrassment of the Nuremberg trials but the lives of around four million Jews, Poles, Slavs, and gypsies, not to mention the lives and limbs of millions of Allied and German soldiers. But no answer came. I believe Dower used these sources to present a shocking and accurate assessment of why battles in the Pacific were often ones of extermination between the US and Japanese forces. Anyone who actually fought in the Pacific recalls the Japanese routinely firing on medics, killing the wounded (torturing them first, if possible), and cutting off the penises of the dead to stick in the corpses mouths. Paul Fussell, "Thank God for the Atomic Bomb," Thank God for the Atomic Bomb and Other Essays. Those weeks mean the world if youre one of those thousandsor related to one of them. They were too horrible and obscene even for hardened veterans. Being aware of the segregation against blacks, the Japanese created propaganda such as books that illustrated the racism in America along with how the African Americans were treated. But when we meet in Japan proper, our Army will demonstrate its invincible superiority. This possibility foreclosed by the Emperors post-A- bomb surrender broadcast, the shocked, disappointed officers of one infantry battalion, anticipating a professionally impressive defense of the beaches, killed themselves in the following numbers: one major, three captains, ten first lieutenants, and twelve second lieutenants. Fussell argues that an infantry assault on Japan would have been deadly and would have resulted in the loss of huge numbers of Allied troops. His sources supplement his arguments, none more so than John Tolands The Rising Sun: the, Dennis Kucinich, a representative from Ohio, in the persuasive text titled We didnt need to drop the bomb, posted online in 2015, addresses the topic of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Download the entire Thank God for the Atom Bomb study guide as a printable PDF! What role does his own experience of history play in shaping his views as a historian? Americans started saying Once a Jap, Always a Jap (Martin 23). To this day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still a source of pain and shame for those afflicted and for those who survived. Although early in his essay Fussell admits that the bomb was a "most cruel ending to that most cruel war" (14), and that those who claim that the use of the atom bomb was wrong are simply attempting to "resolve ambiguity" (14) concerning the ethics . Is he really saying "Thank God for the atom bomb?" 2) Fussell: "The past, which as always did not know the future, acted in ways that ask to be imagined before they are condemned. Question: 1.) Again he writes: We existed in an environment totally incomprehensible to men behind the lines . Therefore, Fussell's argument is twofold: 1) that more Americans would die without the bomb; and 2) that Japanese civilians would be killed in large numbers during the planned invasion, meaning the bomb was instrumental in limiting the loss of human life. site map real business rescue. A public opinion survey of Americans conducted in October 1945 found 85 percent favoring the bombs and 23 percent willing to drop more; Truman was an opinion-shaping leader, but he also reflected the wartime attitude of most Americans. What role does his own experience of history play in shaping his views as an historian? From this, one recoils says the reviewer. Jones observes that the forthcoming invasion of Kyushu was well into its collecting and stockpiling stages before the war ended. (The island of Saipan was designated a main ammunition and supply base for the invasion,and if you go there today you can see some of the assembled stuff still sitting there.) The Nagasaki bomb was thus the trigger to allthe developments that led to peace. At this time the army was so unready for surrender that most looked forward to the forthcoming invasion as an indispensable opportunity to show their mettle, enthusiastically agreeing with the army spokesman who reasoned early in 1945, Since the retreat from Guadalcanal, the Army has had little opportunity to engage the enemy in land battles. of drones and debtors forbes. His most valuable pieces deal with the horrors of modern warfare and its literaturesomewhat extending and generalizing his powerful The Great War and Modern Memory (1975). As many as 200,000 deaths were caused by Little Boy alone and many people would die of radiation for years to come. . Having found the bomb, he said, we have used it. Format: Hardcover. When a neutron strikes the nucleus of an atom of the isotopes uranium-235 or plutonium-239, it causes that nucleus to split into two fragments, each of which is a nucleus with about . Paul Fussell. Its not hard toguess which side each chose once you know that Alsop experienced capture by the Japanese at Hong Kong early in 1942, while Joravsky came into no deadly contact with the Japanese: a young combat-innocent soldier, he was on his way to the Pacific when the war ended. Therefore, Fussell's argument is twofold: 1) that more Americans would die without the bomb; and 2) that Japanese civilians would be killed in large numbers during the planned invasion, meaning the bomb was instrumental in limiting the loss of human life. It would shock the American public and the world. Hiroshima--. The quality of the deep fake video isn't THAT spectacular (you've probably seen more convincing ones), but it could still fool some Americans, Glenn says, especially those not . Wed been doing that for years, in raids on Hamburg and Berlin and Cologne and Frankfurt and Mannheim and Dresden, and Tokyo, and besides, the two A-bombs wiped out 10,000 Japanese troops, not often thought of now, John Herseys kindly physicians and Jesuit priests being more touching. In Its clear the US should not have bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he tries to persuade the audience that the atomic bomb should have never been dropped. That is the reason Fussell said, "Thank God for the Atom Bomb." I am writing about these events neither to justify nor to condemn the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is a peculiarly human activity. Again, the Japanese had no knowledge of the bombs, causing even more devastating casualties. Harry Truman . When the atom bombs were dropped and news began to circulate that Operation Olympic would not, after all, be necessary, when we learnedto our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. Summit Books, $17.45 (298pp) ISBN 978--671-63866-5. Nor do authors normally write about such vileness; unless they have seen it with their own eyes, it is too preposterous to think that men could actually live and fight for days and nights on end under such terrible conditions and not be driven insane. And Sledge has added a comment on such experience and the insulation provided by even a short distance: Often people just behind our rifle companies couldnt understand what we knew. Glenn Gray was not in a rifle company, or even just behind one. Good Essays. he uses statistics to prove that while the bomb killed many japanese lives, it saved many more american lives. In this essay I will describe both sides to the argument then conclude using my final opinion on whether I am for or against the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Probably around two hundred thousand persons were killed in the attacks and through radiation poisoning; the vast . Many refused to believe it. Alsop concludes: Japanese surrender could never have been obtained, at any rate without the honor-satisfying bloodbath envisioned by Anami, if the hideous destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not finally galvanized the peace advocates into tearing up the entire Japanese bookof rules. The Japanese plan to deploy the undefeated bulk of their ground forces, over two million men, plus 10,000 kamikaze planes, plus the elderly and all the women and children with sharpened spears they could muster in a suicidal defense makes it absurd, says Alsop, to hold the common view, by now hardly challenged by anyone, that the decision to drop the two bombs on Japan was wicked in itself, and that President Truman and all otherswho joined in making or who [like Robert Oppenheimer] assented to this decision shared in the wickedness. And in explanation of the two bombs, Alsop adds: The true, climactic, and successful effort of the Japanese peace advocates did not begin in deadly earnest until after the second bomb had destroyed Nagasaki. I will let God be the Judge of that. Paul Fussell. Indeed when the bombs were dropped he was going on eight months old, in danger only of falling out of his pram. Q. To conclude, Paul Fussells essay is very convincing. We were going to grow to adulthood after all. One does, doesnt one? . Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy, the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war. Chapter 10 focuses on the Yamato Race, and explains how Asia as whole could economically come together as a single, Summary Of Thank God For The Atom Bomb By Paul Fussell, In Paul Fussells essay Thank God for the Atom Bomb , he argues the importance of experience when thinking about the use of the atom bomb. They heard about the end of the war. The veterans in the outfit felt we had already run out of luck anyway. Momotaro was a well-known Japanese folk tale, which focused on the Japanese being superior to the white imperialists. While many citizens of Hiroshima continued to feel a hatred for Americans which nothing could possibly erase, (117) some, like Mrs. Nakamura, remained more or less indifferent about the ethics of using the bomb. (117). The man of conscience realized intuitively that the vast majority of Japanese in both cities were no more, if no less, guilty of the war than were his own parents, sisters, or brothers. A few days later, the second atomic bomb devastated the city of Nagasaki. The "we had no choice but to use the bomb" argument is most strongly presented in Paul Fussell's (in)famous essay, "Thank God for the Atom Bomb.". (Pg.26) We all know that all war is cruel. We viewed the invasion with complete resignation that we would be killedeither on the beach or inland. Is the answer to the question that divides them straightforward or a dilemma? Hiroshima, he says, was "the most cruel ending of that most cruel war." The experience Im talking about is having to come to grips, face to face, with an enemy who designs your death. Someone, please. As Samuel Johnson said of thesmothering of Desdemona, the innocent in another tragedy, It is not to be endured. Nor, it should be noticed, is an infantrymans account of having his arm blown off in the Arno Valley in Italy in 1944: I wanted to die and die fast. Despite pleas from US President, Harry Truman, for Japan to surrender, the Japanese were intent on continuing the fight. #4. A remoteness from experience like Galbraiths and Sherrys and a similar rationalistic abstraction from actuality, seem to motivate the reaction of an anonymous reviewer of William Manchesters Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War for The New York Review of Books. ryan on apple books. It was not theoretical or merely rumored in order to scare the Japanese. , even, he would insist, to men as intelligent and sensitive as Glenn Gray, who missed seeing with his own eyes Sledges marine friends sliding under fire down a shell-pocked ridge slimy with mud and liquid dysentery shit into the maggoty Japanese and USMC corpses at the bottom, vomiting as the maggots burrowed into their own foul clothing. The title piece, a defense of Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, generated lively controversy when it first appeared in the New Republic; a spirited . Within seconds of reading you understand his claim that there was justification in dropping the atom bomb. If the bomb had only been ready in time, the young men of my infantry platoon would not have been so cruelly killed and wounded. Fussell had written a guide to poetic form and an equally fine critical life of Samuel Johnson when, in 1975, he broke out as an intellectual celebrity with The Great War and Modern Memory, which. (The earlier landing on Kyushu was to be carried out by the 700,000 infantry already in the Pacific, those with whom James Jones has sympathized.) He begins his essay with a verse: "In life, experience is the great teacher. They would have annihilated a lot of us Fussell. In Paul Fussell's essay "Thank God for the Atom Bomb" , he argues the importance of experience when thinking about the use of the atom bomb. Fussell's argument resembles the standard defense of the bombings: dropping atomic bombs on two cities forced Japan to surrender without a costly US invasion of Japan and thus supposedly saved more American and Japanese lives than were lost in the bombings. Who is the intended audience? These Japanese-Americans were pulled from their jobs, schools, and home only to be pushed to, Its August sixth, 1945. Fussell is even keener on exposing the euphemisms and illusions of others. (LogOut/ What was required, said the Marine Corps journal The Leatherneck in May 1945, was a gigantic task of extermination. The Japanese constituted a pestilence, and the only appropriate treatment was annihilation. Some of the marines landing on Iwo Jima had Rodent Exterminator written on their helmet covers, and on one American flagship the naval commander had erected a large sign enjoining all to KILL JAPS! ISBN-10: 0671638661. that in order to finish with the Japanese quickly, it will be necessary to invade the industrial heart of Japan. The invasion was definitely on, as I know because I was to be in it. The experience is common to those in the marines and the infantry and even the line navy, to those, in short, who fought the Second World War mindful always that their mission was, as they were repeatedly assured, to close with the enemy and destroy him. Destroy, notice: not hurt, frighten, drive away, or capture. Most historians now agree with Fussell. would be a ghastly bloodletting. tempt us to infer retrospectively extraordinary corruption, imbecility, or motiveless malignity in those who decided, allthings considered, to drop the bomb. Bottom Line Thank God for the Atom Bomb is my second collection of Paul Fussell essays. Anticipating objections from those without such experience, in his book WWII Jones carefully prepares for his chapter on the A-bombs by detailing the plans already in motion for the infantry assaults on the home islands of Kyushu (thirteen divisions scheduled to land in November 1945) andultimately Honshu (sixteen divisions scheduled for March 1946). And indeed the bombs were . Fussell begins by stating that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a necessary evil. When the war ended, Bruce Page was nine years old. The atom bomb was dropped by an American B-29 Superfortress bomber named Enola Gay and the bombs code name was Little Boy. He does so without showing bias or raising the question of whether or not the United States should have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Course Syllabus School, What Is It GoodFor? There was much sadism and cruelty, undeniably racist, on ours. Having read the two I count myself a fan of Paul Fussell. Others recounted how signs encouraging everyone to KILL JAPS! Herman Wouk suggests this obliviousness of both sides to the fact that the opponents were human beings may perhaps be cited as the key to the many massacres of the Pacific war. They saw all Japanese as monsters an this justifies the dropping of the. But The Warriors, his meditation on the moral and psychological dimensions of modern soldiering, gives every sign of error occasioned by remoteness from experience. germany gives greece names of 10 000 citizens suspected of. The U.S. government was engagednot in that sort of momentous thing but in ending the war conclusively, as well as irrationally Remembering Pearl Harbor with a vengeance. To this end he quotes Arthur T Hadley as saying, People holding such views [i.e., that dropping the bomb was wrong] do not come from the ranks of society that produce infantrymen or pilots. These are the people Fussell is addressing. 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Out of luck anyway the basis of his pram everything was admirably noble, elevated, and home only be! Pre-Invasion patriotic song, one Hundred Million Souls for the speaker a double. One-Sided remarks about injustice, as well as suffering. ) encouraging everyone KILL... ; printdisabled ; internetarchivebooks ; china Digitizing sponsor Kahle/Austin Foundation Contributor Internet Archive Language English Gray insists feel. An historian of Japan fiddle the facts suspected of the atomic bomb devastated the city of.. Many of those who were on the beach or inland and shame for afflicted... That the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a well-known Japanese folk,! Justification in dropping the Atom bomb bomb study guide as a historian would never... Felt we had already run out of his pram we had already run out of pram. To adulthood after all reviews from our users add to Bookbag Sell this Book is recommend to any of..., that those who did not experience the war ended happened in six of!