Justifications for Wartime Bombings

Re “Why Agonize Over Hiroshima, Not Dresden?” Aug. 30: To justify our Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings, Ernest Lefever makes the usual claim that the bombings actually saved both Japanese and American lives by avoiding the need for an invasion of mainland Japan. Lefever believes, as do most Americans, that once Japan’s leaders saw the bomb’s enormous destructive power, they understood that further resistance was futile and quickly accepted our terms for unconditional surrender.

I ask an obvious follow-up question: Why, then, could not a bloodless demonstration of the bomb (say over Tokyo Bay) have achieved the same result? Even if the demonstration had failed, had it been attempted first we would not be agonizing over the morality of that decision--a decision which resulted in the incineration and radiation deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians--over five decades later.

CHARLES MILBOURNE

Woodland Hills

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I could not agree more with Lefever’s article about the relative merits of bombing Hiroshima and Dresden. I am always appalled at the lack of historical knowledge shown by those who criticize the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima. The bomb ended the war and saved American lives. If the Japanese did not like it, they should have thought twice before instigating a racial war against the U.S. and committing numerous unspeakable atrocities.

Dresden was primarily an RAF operation, with limited support from the American air forces. It is hard to blame the British for wanting to hit back at the Germans after all they had suffered over 5 1/2 years of war.

JERRY BOURBON

Tijuana

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Lefever argues persuasively that some wartime killing is more justified than other wartime killing. But nobody during the past couple thousand years has tried to deny the truth of Sophocles, that war never kills the evil, “but the good always.”

WILLARD HANZLIK

Seal Beach