Truman's Decision: Kamikazes the Unknown Factor
by Bill Sholin
Mountain View Publishing, 1997, 130 pages
A title of Truman's Decision and a cover with an
atomic bomb blast lead one to believe that the book will be an analysis of
President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
However, only the last of nine chapters deals with this historical controversy,
and other chapters cover topics not directly related to dropping the atomic
bombs. This privately published book focuses on damage caused by kamikaze
attacks, a topic also covered by Bill Sholin in his 1994 book, The Sacrificial
Lambs (Who fought like Lions). Sholin served aboard the destroyer Wren
during World War II and witnessed kamikaze attacks as his ship served on the
Okinawa picket line. Much like his first book on Japanese kamikaze, Truman's
Decision tends to lack focus and to resort more to emotional appeal rather than
relevant evidence to support Sholin's claims.
The first two chapters discuss who started the Pacific War
and show the destruction inflicted by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. Chapters 3
to 8 give a pictorial review of U.S. ships hit by Japanese kamikaze planes,
with the chapters divided by ship type: fleet carriers, escort (jeep) carriers,
destroyers, and auxiliary ships. Most photos take up more than half a page, and
some are blurry or distorted. The last chapter examines Truman's decision to
drop atomic bombs, and the Postscript describes details of what could have
happened if the Allies had decided to invade the Japanese home islands. The
book also contains brief comments from various survivors of kamikaze attacks.
The book's main argument is that Truman's decision to drop
the atomic bombs was sensible because of the great losses that the Japanese,
especially by kamikaze planes and other suicide weapons, would have inflicted
on the Allies if they had decided to invade the Japanese home islands. Sholin
presents limited evidence and reasoning to support this argument, but the
five-page Postscript, consisting entirely of an article from a USS LST
Association News Bulletin, provides an organized and detailed description of what
could have happened during such an invasion. Sholin's most frequently mentioned
support for Truman's dropping the atomic bombs is that no American leader
seriously could have considered an invasion of Japan after taking into account the
devastation by Japanese kamikaze during the Battle of Okinawa. However, Sholin
does not discuss other relevant issues such as Japan's possible willingness to
surrender, the accuracy of estimated casualties in an Allied invasion of the
Japanese mainland, and dropping of bombs on non-military targets.
"KAMIKAZES A DEEP DARK UNITED STATES SECRET,"
reads the title of one section in the book (p. 109). Sholin writes, "The United States
did not talk about Kamikazes at the time, and the press, historians, and film
industry -- still choose to minimize or pretend this major catastrophic event
never happened!" (p. 2). The facts do not agree with
Sholin's assertions. The U.S. Navy did censor information about kamikaze
attacks until April 1945, but soon after in 1945 many popular magazines and newspapers
published detailed articles about Japan's kamikaze corps. Since the end of
World War II until today, numerous books cover the lives and ships lost due to
kamikaze attacks. Sholin also claims that Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur did
not have information about Japanese kamikazes when they considered the invasion
of mainland Japan, because they would have chosen the atomic bomb if they had
known the details (p. 119). This suggestion seems far-fetched, since these two
top U.S. Army leaders would have had access to any
sensitive military intelligence information on kamikaze attacks.
Some WWII U.S. Navy veterans may enjoy this slanted
examination of Japan's kamikaze attacks and Truman's decision to drop the
atomic bombs, especially those who feel in the same way as Sholin that
"heroic deeds of Americans [who faced kamikaze attacks] are ignored,
minimized, or even denied -- as if they didn't happen" (p. 106). However,
other books on these topics provide a more objective and organized presentation
of history.
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