If Truman refused to use the atomic bomb on Japan, what should he have done instead?

[hack89]

54. The Japanese murdered between 3 and 10 million civilians from 1937 to 1945

The table next lists estimates of the total Asian forced laborers who died from Japanese maltreatment. The most notorious case of indifference to the health and welfare of prisoners and forced laborers was the building of the Burma-Thailand railroad in 1942 to 1943. Estimates of those killed, including POWs, are given (lines 97 to 104) in the table. I already included these POW deaths under the POW total (line 93). As for Asian forced laborers working on the railroad, 30,000 to 100,000 died, probably 60,000 (line 105).

I also list forced labor deaths for specific countries, beginning with Indonesia (Dutch East Indies, at the time). How many Indonesian forced laborers were actually conscripted by the Japanese is unknown. Estimates run as high as 1,500,000 (line 110a); even more speculative is the death toll. This varies in the sources from 200,000 to 1,430,000 deaths, with perhaps the most likely figure being 300,000 (the figure "accepted" by the United Nations--line 114).

For the Burma-Thailand railroad, and for Indonesia, Korea, and Manchuria, 600,000 to 1,610,000 Asian forced laborers died (line 131). Note that this is probably very conservative, even were some of the estimates too high for a few of the countries included. No figures, even a basis for rough estimates, are available in the sources for Malaysia, Indochina, and Burma (except for those dying while working on the Burma-Thailand railroad). Yet, based on Japanese behavior in other countries, many forced laborers from these countries also must have died elsewhere.

A problem is how to handle the forty-three massacres for which there is a question mark (line 221). For the six massacres in this list for which there are estimates, the average is 1,348 killed. In China, where many more reports of the number massacred were available, the average killed for all the low estimates was 800.2 Moreover, the average killed in massacres in Indonesia (lines 253-284) for which figures are given is a low of 820 (line 286). Taking the three averages into account (1,348, 800, and 820), I assume an average of 800 for the 43 question marks (line 220). This average times the number of question marks gives a low of 42,000 killed; a high of 85,000 if doubled. These figures are surely conservative, since they do not take into account the many massacres that undoubtedly occurred, but were not reported in the sources. Consider that in the Philippines alone, where after the war American military teams made a special effort to investigate all Japanese massacres, about 90,000 civilians were reported killed (lines 339 and 340).

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