atomic bombing of Hiroshima

Japan

is an action justified because, given that Japanese civilians were all mobilized to resist invasion, one could make the argument that there were in fact no noncombatant 'civilians' in Japan.

A spokesman for the Fifth Air Force argued that since the Japanese government was mobilizing civilians to resist invasion, 'the entire population of Japan is a proper military target. Colonel Harry F. Cunningham put it bluntly: 'We military men do not pull punches or put on Sunday School picnics. We are making War and making it in the all-out fashion which saves American lives, shortens the agony which War is and seeks to ring about an enduring Peace. We intend to seek out and destroy the enemy wherever he or she is, in the greatest possible numbers, in the shortest possible time. For us, THERE ARE NO CIVILIANS IN JAPAN.'23 This kind of thinking generated a certain military logic that would rapidly and inexorably lead to the use of the atomic bomb.

Harry F. CunninghamThinkers

Harry F. Cunningham