The dropping of the bombs were necessary and fair due to the refusal of the Japanese to surrender, the millions of lives saved by a quick end to the war, and the warnings given to the Japanese. All this is not to deny that like the Russian Revolution, the atom-bombing of Japan was a vast historical tragedy, and every passing year magnifies the dilemma into which it has lodged the contemporary world. germany gives greece names of 10 000 citizens suspected of. List Price: $17.95. Or simplified." Comment. It didnt know then what everyone knows now about leukemia and various kinds of carcinoma and birth defects. What role does his own experience of history play in shaping his views as an historian? . Why not, indeed, drop a new kind of bomb on them, and on the un-uniformed ones too, since the Japanese government has announced that women from ages of seventeen to forty are being called up to repel the invasion? 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. Just awful was the comment on the Okinawa slaughter not of some pacifist but of General MacArthur. 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. This post is a stunning essay by Paul Fussell published in The New Republic in 1981. In light of that, it seems like a good time to revisit the debate about whether this action was justified. Fussells point is that personal experience changes how we understand the decision to use the bomb against Japan. Again he writes: We existed in an environment totally incomprehensible to men behind the lines . In short, I strongly disagree with the author because the bomb needed to be dropping in order to end the war. 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. 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. If the atom bomb was not dropped, many more lives would have been lost. To this end he quotes Arthur T Start your 48-hour free trial to unlock this answer and thousands more. What had I done to deserve this? He makes this apparent with his title and with the experiences of other people. With this in mind, they would have continued to drag out the war, which shows that dropping the bombs sped up the war which lessened the casualties. (Dower 353). Times change. . 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. Scarred by his experiences in France in 1945, Paul Fussell has sought to demystify the romanticism of battle, beginning with his literary study of the Great War. Endowment Chairman Sheldon Hackney talked recently with Paul Fussell about the impact of World War I on the twentieth century. So many maimed. 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. And not just a staggering number of Americans would have been killed in the invasion. ) Why does Fussell "thank God" for the atom bomb? The testimony of experience has tended to come from rough diamondsJames Jones is an examplewho went through the war as enlisted men in the infantry or the Marine Corps. What is the material covered?" . If around division headquarters some of the people Gray talked to felt ashamed, down in the rifle companies no one did, despite Grays assertions. Having read the two I count myself a fan of Paul Fussell. Another bright enlisted man, this one an experienced marine destined for the assault on Honshu, adds his testimony. 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 But in one of his effusions he was right, and his observation tends to suggest the experimentaldubiousness of the concept of just wars. War is not a contest with gloves, he perceived. We were going to live. Good Essays. Publication date 1988 Publisher Summit Books Collection inlibrary; printdisabled; internetarchivebooks; china Digitizing sponsor Kahle/Austin Foundation Contributor Internet Archive Language English. One of the strong supporters of the dropping of the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima is Paul Fussell. I was a twenty-one-year-old second lieutenant of infantry leading a rifle platoon. 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. 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. A professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania whose speciality is the eighteenth century, Paul Fuss View the full answer All Japanese must become soldiers and die for the Emperor. Sledges First Marine Division was to land close to the Yokosuka Naval Base, one of the most heavily defended sectors of the island. The marines were told, he recalls, that. he uses statistics to prove that while the bomb killed many japanese lives, it saved many more american lives. ) Why does Fussell "thank God" for the atom bomb?What role does his own experience of history play in shaping his views as an historian? knew war, and he knew better than some of his critics then and now what he was doing and why he was doing it. They did not know the horrors the soldiers went through. Bottom Line Thank God for the Atom Bomb is my second collection of Paul Fussell essays. Hiroshima, he says, was "the most cruel ending of that most cruel war." To begin, the Japanese soldiers have it ingrained in their brains that it is dishonorable to surrender. On August 2, we observed the 76th anniversary of the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The people became prejudice. 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. Rhetorical Questions Thank God For The Atom Bomb essays. What role does his own experience of history play in shaping his views as a historian? Theres no denying that Grays outlook on everything was admirably noble, elevated, and responsible. Hiroshima, he says, was the most cruel ending of that most cruel war. He reminds us of what war is like for those who are actually fighting it as oppposed to theorizing about it after the fact. Of the two the first was a tighter and better book. President Harry Truman, in his speech, Announcement of the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb, supports his claim that the dropping of the A-bomb shortened the war, saved lives, and got revenge by appealing to American anger by mentioning traumatic historical events and. The Glenn Grays of this world need to have their attention directed to the testimony of those who know, like, say, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, who said, Moderation in war is imbecility, or Sir Arthur Harris, director of the admittedly wicked aerial-bombing campaign designed, as Churchill put it, to de-house the German civilian population, who observed that War is immoral, or our own General W. T. Sherman: War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it. Lord Louis Mountbatten, trying to say something sensibleabout the dropping of the A-bomb, came up only with War is crazy. Or rather, it requires choices among crazinesses. Question: 1.) The underlying assumption is that the war was something somewhat savage to imagine: He notes; the experience I am discussing is coming to grasps, up close and personal . Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. Fussell begins by stating that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a necessary evil. It is a peculiarly human activity. by Paul Fussell. 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 . Three days later, on August 9th, 1945, America dropped another bomb on Nagasaki with the code name Fat Man. . What did you do in the Great War, Daddy? The recruiting poster deserves ridicule and contempt, of course, but here its question is embarrassingly relevant, and the problem is one that touches on the dirty little secret of social class in America. Everybody in Japan was willing to die to for the war effort. To this day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still a source of pain and shame for those afflicted and for those who survived. 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.". document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. . Although Fussell admits that the bomb was a "most cruel ending to that most cruel war", and that those who claim that the use of the atom bomb was wrong are simply attempting to "resolve ambiguity" concerning the ethics of war, he believes that the bomb was . But for the atomic bombs, a British observer intimate with the Japanese defenses notes, I dont think we would have stood a cat in hells chance. I wanted to forget this miserable world. More delay would have made possible deeper moral considerations and perhaps laudable second thoughts and restraint. They were too horrible and obscene even for hardened veterans. It would shock the American public and the world. But The Warriors, his meditation on the moral and psychological dimensions of modern soldiering, gives every sign of error occasioned by remoteness from experience. 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. One does, doesnt one? Sitting in stunned silence, we remembered our dead. To intensify the shame Gray insists we feel, he seems willing to fiddle the facts. My division, like most of the ones transferred from Europe, was to take part in the invasion of Honshu. Explains that paul fussell's thank god for the atom bomb is one of many essays written in favor of the bomb that aided the ending of world war 2. 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