Ethics and the atom bomb, and a personal connection

One thing I learned at the funeral of my great-uncle was that, when the uranium bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, he was on a ship sailing from Britain to join the invasion of Japan.

I have always felt that the USA's deployment of atom bombs against Japan amounted to mass murder (just as the bombing of Coventry, and Dresden, and so on did earlier in the war). The specific justification for the act was always that using the A-bomb forced Japan to surrender and prevented the deaths of many more people in protracted and bloody battles on the Japanese mainland.

Robert Jungk, in his classic work "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns", telling the personal history of the scientists who worked on the atom bomb, informs us that:

The intelligence services of both the Army and the Navy of the United States were in fact at this date already convinced that the final downfall of Japan could only be a question of a few more weeks.

...

The surrender of Japan could not only have been achieved by intensification of the blockade. The chances of it being brought about by clever diplomacy were even more favourable. For Japan was at that time more than ripe for capitulation. The country was to a great extent willing to capitulate.

Jungk recounts the various overtures that were made by individuals high up in Japan's military hierarchy (including by the Emperor) of which the US was aware, and that President Truman spurned.

That it was not necessary to use the A-bomb to end the war with Japan seems obvious now. But suppose it were true that the only way to end it otherwise was to invade at the risk of heavy casualties on both sides. In the funeral service, the invasion of Japan was described as being "almost a suicide mission" for the people, my great-uncle included, who would take part in it.

My feeling has always been that, if you're going to fight a war, then civilian lives have to be placed at a huge premium over the lives of the soldiers who are sent to fight, just because ultimately, the deal is that soldiers are expected to die for their country, while civilians generally are not, and soldiers know that that's the deal. It's harder when conscription is introduced, of course, because then people don't have a choice about the deal, but at least they know what it is.

So, have my feelings changed now that I know that one of those soldiers with whose lives I would have been willing to buy the lives of (Japanese) civilians would have been a man who in his later years was a great joy to my family?

I still feel the same way about the mass murder of civilians in Dresden, Hiroshima, etc. I feel a much deeper sense of anguish about the choice that has to be made when making military decisions. I feel torn by the personal connection, and yet, still, were it my own relative and I the commander-in-chief making the call whether to invade Japan or drop the A-bomb (still using the hypothetical that those were the only two options - we know from Jungk that in real-life this was not the case), I would still have to give the order to invade rather than to kill many thousands of civilians in cold blood. I would cry, a lot, once I had given that order, but that is what I would do and what I would feel was the right thing to do.

Some people might say to me, "But what about the people left behind? The friends and relatives of those you condemned to death by your decision?" But I find it hard to choose between different people's grief. The grief is as all-consuming, as deep, as heartfelt, whoever they are, and will have the same meaning. Whether you say "kill the civilians" or "kill the soldiers", the people whose relatives are killed will then turn to me and say, "Why did you let my loved one die? Why couldn't it have been someone else?" And talking about numbers (or indeed, talking about soldier versus civilian - especially if the soldier is a conscript) will make no difference to them.

Some people might have said, "Why did you choose to save Japanese lives over our boys' lives?" But I will not value a person's life more highly because of the accident of birth or race or whatever.

So my opinion remains the same, just with another layer of sadness at the horrors that wars inflict upon our souls.