Blood, Gas & Morality

In his high, airy office in Manila, with the glare of summer Sun cut down by Venetian blinds, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur conferred with General Joseph W. Stilwell. The commander of all Army forces in the Pacific and the commander of all the Army's ground forces had a knotty problem to resolve: how to deploy more than 3,500,000 men for the final onslaught against Japan.

Not even these two able strategists could know precisely what sort of campaign they must prepare for. Japan supposedly has 1,750,000 men under arms, ready to defend the homeland. Would they fight to the same bitter end as the 85,000 on Okinawa? Would they exact the same toll, of one U.S. soldier killed for every ten Japanese? Must the U.S. prepare for at least 175,000 killed--twice as many as in the European Theater of Operations? Would the enemy succeed in mobilizing into the People's Volunteer Corps 100,000,000 automatons for suicidal defense?

Untried Weapon. Almost as a reflex of such dismal ideas, the question whether poison gas should be used against Japan rose again in the U.S. press. Among military thinkers, the consensus was that gas would save Allied lives if poured into cave defenses in the enemy's home islands. However, the final decision did not lie with military thinkers, but in the realm of politics and public morals. The U.S. has a great and valued reputation throughout the world as a civilized, humane nation ; in the last analysis the people themselves would have to decide whether to abandon that moral position.

Up to this week, no one knew how the people would decide such a problem; no one had asked them. As MacArthur and Stilwell looked out of the window upon the charred corpse of downtown Manila, the two generals had to plan for a campaign that might involve maximum commitments and maximum casualties.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.