The Trial of Harry S Truman Defense Witness: Ross Neely Occupation: Navy Veteran Documents: --America made 'right choice' in dropping A-bombs on Japan, say Birmingham WWII vets, The Birmingham News, August 06, 2015

Notes: You are a sailor who fought in the Pacific. Mr. Neely firmly believes that the atomic bomb saved his life because it prevented an invasion of Japan. For this role, you may also assume that Mr. Neely has firsthand knowledge of the fighting at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. You can testify about what combat against Japan was like. You are encouraged to do additional research on what it was like at Iwo Jima and Okinawa—anything you use in the trial must be made available to the other side 24 hours before you bring it up.

America made 'right choice' in dropping A-bombs on Japan, say Birmingham WWII vets The Birmingham News, August 06, 2015 Seventy years after the United States dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an attempt to hasten the end of World War II, a solid majority of Americans still believe the use of the bombs was justified, according to a recent study by Pew Research Center. But for decades there have been critics of the atomic strikes who say they were inhumane, even in wartime, or not absolutely necessary to convince Japan to surrender. However, these critics of the American use of nukes better not share their opinions with Ross Neely of Birmingham, a World War II U.S. Navy veteran. "Tell me that and I will hit them in the mouth," Neely told AL.com in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "Nobody wants to talk to me about that." Like many other Americans, Neely -- he served in the Pacific as an electrician third class on the destroyer USS Samuel N. Moore and saw action in Tokyo Bay in the last weeks of the war – believes that an invasion of the mainland could have caused more than a million American casualties. In fact, Neely is convinced that he would not have survived the conflict if the United States had been forced to invade Japan. "There is no doubt in my mind that... I would not be talking to you today," Neely told a visitor to the office of his Pratt City trucking company in March. "I'm not going to apologize for a thing," Neely said. Neely and some of the other World War II veterans we spoke to feel strongly that the atomic bombs – horrible weapons that they were – were necessary tools of war. Some of them remember with great clarity where they were and what they were doing when the bombs dropped on Japan on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, and the world changed forever. And a couple of the veterans stressed how horrible nuclear weapons are and why they should never be used again – by the United States or anybody else. 'Fighting to the last man' Virgil Mitchell of Birmingham served in the Pacific as a flight crewman with the U.S. Army Air Forces and agrees that the use of the atomic bomb saved American lives. "That would have been one more bloody invasion," he told AL.com in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "The Japanese would have fought to the last man, and the nuclear bomb... did the trick. It ended the war. We had to do it. There might have been 700,000 American boys killed."

"It was the certainly the right thing to do," U.S. Army combat veteran James A. Landmon of Pell City, who fought in Burma and China with the famed "Merrill's Marauders" Ranger unit, told AL.com in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "It saved a lot of lives. It killed a lot of people, too, I know." "Over the years the United States has been criticized for using nuclear weapons during WWII, but just think how many American lives would have been lost with an invasion of Japan," Mitchell said in recent letter to AL.com. "All is fair in love and war." Invasion could have been 'a slaughter on both sides' Many of the U.S. veterans of World War II share this belief that the use of the A-bombs saved American lives, according to Jim Baggett, head of the Department of Archives and Manuscripts at the Birmingham Public Library. And Baggett's late grandfather, Birmingham native T.E. Carmack, who served in the Pacific with U.S. Army infantry, was one of them. "My grandfather was convinced to his dying day that the atom bomb saved his life," Baggett said. "I honestly don't know if he had been told officially that he would be part of the invasion, but he believed so." "I remember him talking about the possible invasion," Baggett said. "The military was predicting just horrific casualties. If you look at what occurred on Okinawa, it could have just been a slaughter on both sides if we had invaded the Japanese mainland." Where they were The USS Moore was only 35 or 40 miles off the Japanese coast when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, according to Neely, and he remembers hearing that the bomb had been dropped, but otherwise recalls few details of that red-letter day in world history. Landmon, on the other hand, recalls exactly where he and his fellow Marauders were when he heard the news of the atom bomb. "We were deep in the jungle, and we had finished all our objectives," he said. "The PX was closing and was selling beer for a nickel a can. I had a jeep I had stolen from the Chinese. I bought four cases of beer and drive to a tent where we all sat down and got drunk. One of the boys in the tent had a little radio. It worked and we picked it up on the radio." The news of the atomic strike at Hiroshima sounded good to Landmon. "I was glad of it," he said. "I thought [the atom bomb] would end the war more quickly."

And Landmon – who like the other Marauders had endured horrific fighting and harsh jungle conditions – had good reason to long for the end of the war. "I saw a lot of combat," he said. "I'm not saying it to brag, but I did." 'Something few people have seen' Mitchell and his fellow crewman – he served in the Sixth Emergency Rescue Squadron with the 5th Air Force – flew a B-17 bomber modified to carry a lifeboat and, along with submarines, provided support for U.S. bombing runs over Japan. This gave Mitchell had a unique vantage point for the second atomic strike, the bombing of Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu on Aug. 9, 1945 -- a sight he has never forgotten. They were patrolling the China Sea off the coast of Kyushu, and Mitchell was stationed in the middle of the plane in an area with no windows. "One of the waist gunners called over the intercom for me to come to the waist," said Mitchell, who did so and looked out the windows toward Nagasaki, along with the radio operator. "And there it was, the mushroom cloud that I had heard about," said Mitchell, who – along with the other crewman – knew that the first bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. But seeing the massive cloud was still a bit of a shock, however. "All I remember saying was, 'What the hell is that?' Mitchell said. None of them had been told anything about the timing or target of a second atom bomb, according to Mitchell. "Everything is secret, so they didn't tell us anything," he said. The radio operator later heard that Admiral (Chester) Nimitz had confirmed the second atomic bomb had been dropped. Mitchell and the crew saw the cloud clearly, despite the fact that they were probably about 40 miles away from Nagasaki. "It is something that few people have seen," he said. 'Lots of different opinions' U.S. Army veteran Gabriel Kinney of Calera – a Ranger, he also saw fierce combat with "Merrill's Marauders" – was back in the United States when the bombs were dropped and hesitates to offer an opinion as to whether dropping the bombs was a good thing.

"There are a lot of different opinions," he told AL.com in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "It was a terrible thing, but did it save lives or not save lives -- American lives or Japanese lives? I could not give you an opinion on that. I would leave that to people with more insight." He is sure of at least one thing regarding the A-bomb. "It definitely ended the war," he said. "There was no question about that. The war could not go on." Neely remains convinced of the moral soundness of the American use of the bomb and says that avoiding the invasion also saved Japanese lives. In surrendering, the Japanese "made the right choice for them and for us, too," Neely said. "We made the right choice in (dropping the bombs), and they made the right choice quitting." Hope that no 'idiot pulls the trigger' Kinney hopes that the world will not again see the use of nuclear weapons. "To think that the atom bomb would be dropped now, with as many people as have it? I don't believe the world is that dumb," he said. "That would be the end of civilization. Too many countries have it." Mitchell got a glimpse of the horror of nuclear weapons on a later mission with the B-17, on Aug. 17, 1945. "We had a mission to the same area of Kyushu and we flew close to Nagasaki," he said. "Because of radiation we did not get too close, but from a distance it appeared the city was completely destroyed." Mitchell, too, hopes that nuclear weapons will not be used again. "It is a lesson to the whole world, dropping those two bombs," he said. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was relatively small, the equivalent to about 20,000 tons of dynamite, according to Mitchell. "The bombs are bigger now" and could likely "wipe out half of North Alabama," he said. "We should never, ever do anything like that again," said Mitchell, who fears that the use of one bomb would lead to more, especially with so many countries – India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea – having or seeking nuclear weapons. "If they have any more of those nuclear bombs, it likely to be the end of the world," he said. "You younger people, you don't know what the future is if some idiot pulls the trigger."