OPINION:
Eddie Desmond is one of an estimated 10,000 sailors who manned 130 small, high-firepower navy gunboats called LCSs, and it is almost certain that he is the last man standing from that group.
Today, Aug. 6, marks an important milestone for many Americans. It is the 81st anniversary of a day of infamy — when a president of the United States chose to deliberately target innocent civilians in a war.
For the 100-year-old Mr. Desmond, formerly a U.S. Navy petty officer second class, however, the date has a special meaning and a very positive one at that. It was when the U.S. military dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
Some 16 hours after the bomb dropped, word reached the whole of the Pacific fleet in an ALNAV message — and the word spread fast.
Mr. Desmond’s commanding officer assembled the crew and read the message announcing that an American airplane had dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and that President Truman had warned that if Japan did not accept the Allies’ demand for unconditional surrender, it could expect a “rain of ruin from the air.”
A few days later, Japan surrendered, and the sailors at sea celebrated massively, firing their weapons into the sky in celebration of the end of the war.
I spoke to Mr. Desmond in his home in Waltham, Massachusetts, last month. He said that for him and his shipmates, Japan’s surrender “was a sudden and very welcome relief from the near certainty” that he and his shipmates would be killed in action.
He said that his LCS gunboat and dozens of others “were going to be in the first line of assault in the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands and the casualties would [have been] massive.”
These sailors and their fellow soldiers and Marines had spent months or years enduring brutal combat, kamikaze attacks, lousy food and grueling conditions. Mr. Desmond and his buddies, he recalled, “were exhausted from getting little sleep for weeks on end. [We] were sick with fear and traumatized by the death and destruction all around … The relief was overwhelming.”
He continued: “No one knew what an atomic bomb was, but [it] was viewed as an unexpected stay of execution. It meant [we] would survive the war and return home.”
The toll on the U.S. Navy at Okinawa was severe. Dozens of ships were sunk, hundreds were damaged, and more than 5,000 sailors were killed in the heavy combat at sea.
Okinawa was the bloodiest naval battle of World War II.
Now, with 81 years of hindsight, Mr. Desmond still believes that Truman made the right decision in using the atomic bomb.
Truman and his advisers were faced with only bad options, Mr. Desmond said.
It was “a tragic situation in which every available option would cause massive casualties … in the end, the president chose the atomic bomb as the least destructive means of ending the war and saving lives overall.”
Playing devil’s advocate, I mentioned to Mr. Desmond that Catholic theologians and other Monday-morning quarterbacks have argued for decades that there was no question about it: Truman’s decision was immoral.
Mr. Desmond acknowledged that the intentional killing of civilians is immoral, but said the president “weighed the options, and only the good Lord knows” what was in Truman’s mind when he made the decision.
The bottom line is that there had been “massive death and destruction all around,” and the war had to end, Mr. Desmond said.
“Those alive today can’t possibly understand the circumstances of the time,” he told me.
Mr. Desmond, who turns 101 on Nov. 10, is looking forward to his birthday. The man who was instrumental in helping save the last LCS in existence says that his fondest wish now is to see the ship continue life as a U.S. Navy museum and memorial that can inspire future generations to join the Navy.
On his last birthday, he set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds to sustain the ship so that future generations can know what the LCS sailors did in the Pacific during World War II. He hopes his fundraising campaign goes viral.
• Christopher M. Lehman, Sr. is a historian and a national security analyst with extensive experience, having served in senior defense and national security positions in the U.S. Senate, the State Department and as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan for national security affairs.
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