78 years ago today, August 6, 1945, U.S. B-29 aircraft Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, on the city of Hiroshima, which was a Japanese military center. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb (Fat Man), on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. On August 10, 1945, Japan surrendered.

The Japanese war council obeyed Emperor Hirohito’s acceptance of peace, and on August 10th, the message was relayed to the United States. Early on August 12th, the United States answered that “the authority of the emperor and the Japanese government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.” After two days of debate about what this statement implied, Hirohito brushed the nuances in the text aside and declared that peace was preferable to destruction. He ordered the Japanese government to prepare a text accepting surrender.

Yes, surrender. Japan finally surrendered to the U.S., thus ending the carnage of World War ll. Yes war, a brutal and murderous one waged by the Japanese against its enemies, inflicting unspeakable atrocities on them; e.g., Bataan, Corregidor, plus countless others, both large and small. The annual remembrances of these two unprecedented atomic events, which immediately took thousands of Japanese lives while the effects of the radiation fallout contributed to the deaths of many more over the years, gloss over—and sometimes even omit—why the US was forced to use these instruments of destruction; for example, the headline, “For most Japanese, Pearl Harbor is just a footnote” ran in The New York Times in 1985.

Pearl Harbor. World War ll. Ooooh! Yes, at the time of the atomic bombings, the U.S. and Japan had been at war for over three-and-a-half years. For those who do not know about events before they were born, The National Archives explains what precipitated the bloody conflict:

On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers staged a surprise attack on U.S. military and naval forces in Hawaii. In a devastating defeat, the United States suffered 3,435 casualties and loss of or severe damage to 188 planes, 8 battleships, 3 light cruisers, and 4 miscellaneous vessels. Japanese losses were less than 100 personnel, 29 planes, and 5 midget submarines.

The day after the attack, before a joint session of Congress, President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan.

Ooooh! So it wasn’t just racist white Americans aggressing against peaceful foreigners, as some deluded people like those in the Hate America First crowd would say, or American and Japanese history know-nothings who participate in self-righteous ceremonies. Instead, Japan’s surprise attack on that “date which will live in infamy” forced America into war with Japan, and later with Germany. The Japanese were willing to endure, as well as inflict horror on others without any end, prompting then-President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, to declare why he felt compelled to authorize dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. From Truman’s own words:

We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war.

It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware.

So it was the totality of the atomic bombs’ destructive power that ultimately forced Japan's surrender, saving not only American lives, but Japanese as well.

In response to the unleashing of nuclear weapons, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant and uh, eccentric  “father of the atomic bomb” famously said, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.” Oppenheimer is receiving renewed attention because of the current success of the biographical movie Oppenheimer.  It is understandable.

Truman, whose duties as president included winning the war and saving American lives, responded to Oppenheimer’s anguished reaction by  labeling the physicist a “cry-baby scientist.” Also understandable.

Most historians now agree that the deadly display of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and America’s reluctant willingness to use it after other, conventional methods to end the war failed, ultimately saved lives by forcing Japan, willing to fight to the end, to immediately and totally surrender.

So today, acknowledge—maybe even slightly celebrate—how and why Japan finally chose to end the carnage, and surrender to the Americans.

Remember Pearl Harbor.

Also, remind yourself, “War is hell.”

Image: U.S. Navy, Public domain.