Did General Patton oppose the dropping of atom bomb?

Answer 1

Why would he? The bombs brought the Japanese to the point they could bring themselves to surrender, eliminating the necessity of invading the Home Islands. In the operations planned for doing so, projected Allied casualties were one million, and it was assumed that ALL Japanese would have to be killed. In all the battles across the Pacific only a handful of prisoners had been taken (mostly unconscious, or impressed Korean laborers who somehow managed to evade death until an opportunity to give themselves up presented itself). The Japanese fought to the death, as required to maintain their honor under their code of Bushido. Japanese civilians on Saipan and Okinawa committed suicide in large numbers to prevent falling under US occupation, in many instances hurling their own children off cliffs before leaping after. In the Home Islands the Japanese were training civilians, including women, to fight the invading Americans with bamboo spears.

Not that Patton had any foreknowledge of the atomic bomb program, which was very highly secret.

I've never heard of anyone who was in an American uniform in 1945 who was anything other than delighted that the bombs were dropped and the bloodbath could end, and they could go home. The war had been lost to the Japanese for over three years, since the Battle of Midway, but they had heretofore insisted on extermination rather than surrender. Patton had been disappointed that the Army refused to give him a command in the Pacific Theater of Operations, but he was not so bloodthirsty that he would have preferred the war to go on so he could add honors to his reputation.

In 1945 even the scientists who created the bomb had little knowledge of ramifications of use such as fallout and nuclear sickness. Had all of this been known, however, it would not have changed attitudes in 1945 the slightest bit.

The US had been firebombing Japanese cities for months. Many square miles of 61 out of 65 of the largest Japanese cities had been completely incinerated along with hundreds of thousands of their inhabitants. (The other four were preserved as nuclear targets, though this reason was not generally known, so that the effect of the bombs could be accurately gauged.) This had brought the Japanese no closer to surrender. More people were killed in the firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 than in either of the atomic raids. Dead is dead, but the shock of a single airplane obliterating a city was what awoke the Japanese into the necessity of finally giving up on their dreams of conquering an Empire. The bombs saved lives, American but especially Japanese.