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a science in the world. I'm John Bachelor with Professor Craig Simons.

Nimitz at war, command leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay.

Ernest King Comench, who is always present.

Sixteen times they meet.

King's messages to Nymets and Nimys's messages to King, the professor is quoted throughout the book.

Now they're debating in person and also by wire about what is to be done about the Japanese

homelands who will not surrender.

The opinion I take it, Professor, from Nimitz and King's point of view is blockade will force

them to the peace table. I think that's true. I think naval officers at almost

every level did not believe an invasion of the home islands was worth the risk. Here we

are back to calculated risk. It would cost so much and we've all heard the line,

oh what would cost a hundred thousand American killed, very likely perhaps more. Fewer considered the fact that it would have cost possibly millions of Japanese to die because

Japanese culture was such that surrender was so obnoxious that no Japanese soldier, no Japanese

participant in the war at any level could honorably surrender himself, therefore you must fight to the death so if everyone in

Japan fights to the death what are the consequences of that there was literally

talk within the combined staff in Japan of the honorable death of a hundred million.

Now the prospect of that was so horrifying that both King and especially Nimitz believed that avoiding an invasion

by depending on a strict naval blockade executed mostly by submarines by the way as well as bombing from the air would create a

circumstance where the Japanese would have to accept the Potsdam agreement and that is

to say accept an end of the war on terms that the United States would dictate to them.

Now that did happen, but of course we know there was also an outside influence that we may talk about subsequent.

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