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History’s Most Catastrophic Man-made Errors

Khalid Elhassan December 9, 2020 34 min

Wanggongchang Explosion - Beijing — The Wanggongchang Explosion devastated Beijing. Pintrest

3. The Myth That the Atomic Bombing of Japan Was Unnecessary

A Japanese soldier training women in 1945 to fight off an expected Allied invasion with sharp sticks. Air Force Magazine

After WWII, a myth grew that the atomic bombing of Japan was unnecessary because Japan was on her last legs, and about to surrender. Supposedly, the Allies could have blockaded Japan, and the Japanese government would have given in. That might have held water if the war had been confined to Japan itself, where the Japanese could have been isolated. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Japanese strength overseas in what was left of the empire on August 15th, 1945, when Japan threw in the towel. US Army Center of Military History

At war’s end, Japan still held an extensive empire in the Pacific and Asia, in which hundreds of millions of conquered subjects were forced to endure a barbaric occupation. Additionally, millions of Japanese soldiers were still fighting Allied forces in China, Burma, and in the Pacific. Whether or not Japan was blockaded – and it was – the war still went on elsewhere. Also, the Japanese held hundreds of thousands of Allied POWs, who were daily subjected to brutal treatment. In short, every day the war continued was another day in which millions suffered, and in which thousands more became casualties.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.