The American War for Independence
Oliver Cromwell’s foundational work in establishing checks and balances for the Rule of Law triumphed in the United States of America. People inspired by his example instituted many of the same principles of government and restrictions of power in the USA as Cromwell had worked so hard to achieve in England. If the American colonists had not fought for the Rule of Law and a constitutionally limited government, then there would have been no United States of America.

The Wencommando
If Andreas Pretorius’s Wencommando had not made the Covenant with Almighty God and ridden out to confront Dingaan’s Impis in the Battle of Blood River in 1838, the history of Southern African would be unrecognizable.

Majuba
We should remember Lieutenant Chard’s men at the Battle of Rorkes Drift, 22 January 1879, the courageous Boer commandos in the Battle of Majuba in 1881, Major Alan Wilson’s Shangani Patrol in the Matebele War of 1893, the courageous examples and achievements of General De La Rey, General Christiaan De Wet and General James Barry Herzog during the Anglo-Boer War.
​

A Heritage of Freedom
For many centuries Christians have believed that there were worse things than war. For our ancestors death in battle was not the worst thing that could happen to them. An eternity in hell was. They did not fear death as much as they feared God. They realised that death for the Christian is not fatal. They declared their belief in eternal life. Principles were more important than personal safety. Duty, honour, country, family and God meant far more to them than selfish desires for peace and safety. And thank God for that, because the faith and freedoms that we enjoy today were won and preserved by their blood, sweat and sacrifices.

The wise Christian does not seek to selfishly avoid the problems of this world, but courageously steps out in faith to be part of the solution. We should recognise that sinful man needs to be restrained by laws and by force. Liberty needs to be defended. Our freedoms come through, and often need to be maintained by, hard fighting.
​

​The Folly of Pacifism
If all Christians became pacifists, would all the jihadists, atheists and communists also become pacifists?
Not likely.

It should concern us that the anti-defence, ban the bomb, end conscription, draft dodgers and pacifists often demonstrate in London, Washington, Berlin and Cape Town, but seemingly never in Havana, Tripoli, Tehran, Harare, or Beijing.

Why?

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism – while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

May God find us faithful to His Word and may we be prepared to defend the defenseless and to rescue the innocent.
When we have to fight may God grant that we will be fast and accurate.
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay one’s life for his friends.” John 15:13.
Dr. Peter Hammond
Director
Frontline Fellowship

See also:
When is it Right to Fight ?
Is the War in Ukraine part of The Great Collapse before The Great Reset?
How Propaganda Changes Perceptions and People

Missionary Action
Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5:9). You have to make peace. It takes action. Sometimes military action. Most times missionary action. May God find us faithful to His Word and may we be prepared to defend the defenceless and to rescue the innocent. When we have to fight, may God grant that we will be fast and accurate. Make disciples. Teach obedience to all things that the Lord has commanded. The Bibles of the Christians are more powerful than the bombs of the Muslims and Marxists. "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." Mark 16:15. See: The Chaplains Handbook

From the Frontline
Please tune in to the latest From the Frontline podcast on www.FrontlineMissionSA.org. It is available on our https://fromthefrontline.podbean.com. As two of the largest nations in Europe are engaged in war, Hunter and I discuss: what are the Biblical principles that we need to consider? When is it right to fight? What constitutes a Just War? What steps could be taken to avert war? How should we as Christians respond when friends and neighbours are involved in conflict? What are our duties in time of war? What does God call us to do during such times of crisis and conflict? How can we pray effectively for those involved in conflict, such as in Ukraine and Russia at this time? "Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked." Proverbs 25:26

Dr. Peter Hammond
Director

​Frontline Fellowship

To view this article www.ReformationSA.org website with pictures, click here.
To listen to this presentation on Sermon Audio, click here.
To view as a video, click here.
 
Atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima, 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, 9 August 1945.
 
Suspicion Over 70th Anniversary Events in Japan
What led to this researched article and presentation, for which there are video and audio links, was when my youngest son, Calvin, was to join the Scouts Jamboree (an international, every four year, event), in Japan, August 2015. I was immediately suspicious that they were going to use this International Scout Jamboree event for some anti-American propaganda concerning the A-bomb which everyone knew was essential to end WW2 and to save both America and Japanese lives.
 
The Facts Can Really Ruin a Good Story
That was why I poured myself into research and was astounded to find that all America’s top military leaders, at the time, opposed it! I am not politically correct, I have never been part of the social justice warriors. I am not part of a “we hate America” movement. I have written many pro-American articles, countered much of the anti-American rhetoric of the left, in camps, courses, on radio, on TV, at public meetings, in schools, in colleges, in debate, for over 40 years. That is why American patriots like Dr. James Kennedy had me regularly on his radio programme, TV programme and in his pulpit.

​The Battle to Understand History
I do not support socialists like Chomsky. However, even a stopped clock can be right twice a day. For this reason, I occasionally even quote Karl Marx. Marx said that the first battlefield is the re-writing of history, his disciples have been super busy doing that.

​Unnecessary and Unethical
Admiral William Leahy, the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote: "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
 
No Military Justification
General Douglas MacArthur agreed: "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed…. He saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
 
The Potsdam Threat
Moreover: The Potsdam Declaration, in July 1945, demanded that Japan surrender unconditionally, or face 'prompt and utter destruction'. MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been unnecessary.

​Missed Opportunity
Assistant Secretary of War John McLoy noted: "I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government issued from Potsdam (July 1945), we had referred to the retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese government, it would have been accepted… We missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs."
 
The War was Already Won
Under Secretary of the Navy, Ralph Bird said: "The Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and the Swiss. And that suggestion of giving a warning of the atomic bomb was a face-saving proposition for them, and one that they could have readily accepted. In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb. Thus, it wouldn't have been necessary for us to disclose our nuclear position and stimulate the Russians to develop the same thing much more rapidly than they would have if we had not dropped the bomb… The Japanese were becoming weaker and weaker. They were surrounded by the Navy. They couldn't get any imports and they couldn't export anything. Naturally, as time went on and the war developed in our favour it was quite logical to hope and expect that, with the proper kind of a warning, the Japanese would then be in a position to make peace, which would have made it unnecessary for us to drop the bomb and bring Russia in." (War Was Really Won Before We Used A-Bomb, U.S. News and World Report, 8/15/60)
 
It Had Nothing to do with Ending the War
General Curtis LeMay, the tough cigar-smoking Army Air Force "hawk", stated publicly shortly after the nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan: "The war would have been over in two weeks… The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all."
 
No Invasion was Necessary
The Vice Chairman of the U.S. Bombing Survey Paul Nitze wrote: "I concluded that even without the atomic bomb, Japan was likely to surrender in a matter of months. My own view was that Japan would capitulate by November 1945. Even without the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seemed highly unlikely, given what we found to have been the mood of the Japanese government, that a U.S. invasion of the islands scheduled for 1 November 1945 would have been necessary."

Opening up Asia for Communism
Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence Ellis Zacharias wrote: "Just when the Japanese were ready to capitulate, we went ahead and introduced to the world the most devastating weapon it had ever seen and, in effect, gave the go-ahead to Russia to swarm over Eastern Asia. Washington decided it was time to use the A-bomb. I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds." (Ellis Zacharias, How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender, Look, 6/6/50)

Immoral and Unnecessary
Brigadier General Carter Clarke, the Military Intelligence officer in charge of preparing summaries of intercepted Japanese cables for President Truman and his advisors, said: "When we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs. Many other high-level military officers concurred. For example: The commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, stated that the naval blockade and prior bombing of Japan in March of 1945, had rendered the Japanese helpless and that the use of the atomic bomb was both unnecessary and immoral."
 
A Double Crime
"Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz stated in a press conference on 22 September 1945, that 'The Admiral took the opportunity of adding his voice to those insisting that Japan had been defeated before the atomic bombing and Russia's entry into the war.' In a subsequent speech at the Washington Monument on 5 October 1945, Admiral Nimitz stated 'The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war.' It was learned also that General Eisenhower had urged Truman, in a personal visit, not to use the atomic bomb. Eisenhower's assessment was 'It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing… to use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting negotiations, was a double crime.' Eisenhower also stated that it wasn't necessary for Truman to 'succumb' to the tiny handful of people putting pressure on the president to drop atom bombs on Japan."

​Revulsion
"British officers were of the same mind. For example, General Sir Hastings Ismay, Chief of Staff to the British Minister of Defence, said to Prime Minister Churchill that 'when Russia came into the war against Japan, the Japanese would probably wish to get out on almost any terms short of the dethronement of the Emperor.' On hearing that the atomic test was successful, Ismay's private reaction was one of 'revulsion.'"
 
Why Were Bombs Dropped on Populated Cities Without Military Value?
Even military officers who favoured use of nuclear weapons mainly favoured using them on unpopulated areas, or Japanese military targets… not cities.
 
Demonstration Proposed
Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss proposed that a non-lethal demonstration of atomic weapons would be enough to convince the Japanese to surrender… and the Navy Secretary agreed: "I proposed to Secretary Forrestal that the weapon should be demonstrated before it was used… the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate… My proposal… was that the weapon should be demonstrated over… a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo… Would lay the trees out in windrows from the centre of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the centre. It seemed to me that a demonstration of this sort would prove to the Japanese that we could destroy any of their cities at will… Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation… It seemed to me that such a weapon was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, that once used it would find its way into the armaments of the world…"
 
Warning Should Have First Been Given
General George Marshall agreed: "'these weapons might first be used against straight military objectives such as a large naval installation and… a number of large manufacturing areas from which the people would be warned to leave - telling the Japanese that we intend to destroy such centres….'"
 
Targeting Civilians
Neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki were deemed militarily vital by U.S. planners. (This is one of the reasons neither had been heavily bombed up to this point in the war.) Moreover, targeting at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was aimed explicitly on non-military facilities surrounded by workers' homes.

Historians Agree that the Bomb Wasn't Needed
Historians agree that nuclear weapons did not need to be used to stop the war or to save lives. As historian Doug Long notes: "U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission historian J. Samuel Walker writes, 'The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisors knew it.'" (J. Samuel Walker, The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update, Diplomatic History, Winter 1990)
 
Politicians Agreed that Atomic Bombs were Not Needed
Ex-president Herbert Hoover said: "The Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945… up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped;… if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the atomic bombs."
 
The Japanese Wanted to End the War
Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew noted: "In the light of available evidence I myself and others felt that if such a categorical statement about the retention of the dynasty had been issued in May 1945, the surrender-minded elements in the Japanese government might well have been afforded by such a statement a valid reason and the necessary strength to come to an early clear cut decision. If surrender could have been brought about in May 1945, or even in June, or July, before the entrance of Soviet Russia into the Pacific war and the use of the atomic bomb, the world would have been the gainer."

Why Then Were Atom Bombs Dropped on Japan?
If dropping nuclear bombs was unnecessary to end the war, or to save lives, why was the decision to drop them made? Especially over the objections of so many top military and political figures?
 
Scientists Like to Test their Toys
One theory is that scientists like to play with their new toys: On 9 September 1945, Admiral William F. Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet, was publicly quoted extensively as stating that the atomic bomb was used because the scientists had a:"toy and they wanted to try it out… The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment… It was a mistake to ever drop it."
 
Even Scientists Opposed Using the Atom Bomb
However, most of the Manhattan Project scientists, who developed the atom bomb, were opposed to using it on Japan. The scientists questioned the ability of destroying Japanese cities with atomic bombs to bring surrender when destroying Japanese cities with conventional bombs had not done so. They recommended a demonstration of the atomic bomb in an unpopulated area of Japan.

A Crime Against Humanity
The conventional explanation of using the bombs to end the war and save lives is disputed by Peter Kuznick and Mark Selden, historians from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman's main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia.
 
New Scientist reported in 2005: "The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory. Causing a fission reaction in several kilograms of uranium and plutonium and killing over 200,000 people was done more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan. 'He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species', says Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington DC, US. 'It was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity.'"
 
Japan was Searching for Peace
According to an account by Walter Brown, Assistant to US Secretary of State James Byrnes, Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that Japan was 'looking for peace'. Truman was told by his army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his Naval Chief of Staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb. "Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan."
 
Russia was our Real Enemy not Japan
John Pilger points out: "The US Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, told President Truman he was 'fearful' that the US Air Force would have Japan so 'bombed out' that the new weapon would not be able 'to show its strength'. He later admitted that 'no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender'… General Leslie Groves, Director of the Manhattan Project that made the bomb, testified: 'There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis.' The day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Truman voiced his satisfaction with the 'overwhelming success' of 'the experiment'".

The Hague Conventions
In the opinion of the court, the act of dropping an atomic bomb on cities was at the time governed by International Law found in the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907 and the Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare of 1922 - 1923 and was therefore illegal.
 
War Crime
In the documentary The Fog of War, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara recalled General Curtis LeMay, who relayed the Presidential order to drop nuclear bombs on Japan, said: "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"
 
Indiscriminate Mass Murder
Takashi Hiraoka, Mayor of Hiroshima, said in a hearing to The Hague International Court of Justice (ICJ): "It is clear that the use of nuclear weapons, which cause indiscriminate mass murder that leaves effects on survivors for decades, is a violation of international law". Iccho Itoh, the mayor of Nagasaki, declared in the same hearing: "It is said that the descendants of the atomic bomb survivors will have to be monitored for several generations to clarify the genetic impact, which means that the descendants will live in anxiety for [decades] to come... with their colossal power and capacity for slaughter and destruction, nuclear weapons make no distinction between combatants and non-combatants or between military installations and civilian communities... The use of nuclear weapons... therefore is a manifest infraction of international law."