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The Soon Coming Judgment Of God Upon America and How To Escape It 464
invasion, but the invasion itself was never authorized.
1492
Admiral Leahy further writes in regards to discussions of an invasion of Kyushu and a
later invasion and occupation of Japan: “I was unable to see any justification, from a national
defense point of view, for an invasion of an already thoroughly defeated Japan. I feared that the
cost would be enormous in both lives and treasures.”
1493
In a “third person” autobiography on Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief of U.S. Fleet
and Chief of Naval Operations, it is recorded that King also felt an invasion would never be
necessary. King and his co-author write:
The President in giving his approval for these [atomic] attacks appeared to
believe that many thousands of American troops would be killed in invading
Japan, and in this he was entirely correct; but King felt, as he had pointed out
many times, that the dilemma was an unnecessary one, for had we been willing to
wait, the effective naval blockade would, in the course of time, have starved the
Japanese into submission through lack of oil, rice, medicines, and other essential
materials.
1494
General Dwight D. Eisenhower was depressed after Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson,
informed him that the atomic bomb would be used against the Japanese. General Eisenhower
expressed his objections to Stimson about the use of the bomb. He records this in his book
Mandate for Change. He writes:
…I had conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him
[Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of
my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was
completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should
avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I
thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my
belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a
minimum loss of “face.”
1495
On July 16, 1945 at a Combined Chiefs of Staff meeting, General Henry H. Arnold,
Commanding General United States Army Air Force, gave the following report: “…by October
Japan will have 'tremendous difficulty together for continued resistance to our terms of
unconditional surrender.'”
1496
In his memoirs, General Arnold wrote the following concerning the use of the atomic
bomb on Japan: “It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese
were already on the verge of collapse.”
1497
In a September 2, 1945 press conference, major General Curtis LeMay expressed that the
war would have been over in two weeks without the use of the atomic bomb. The press
conference went as follows:
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