Paul Fussell — “Thank God for the Atom Bomb”

[Mushroom]

Potsdam decree was a decree signed by Russia, America and Britain that called for Japan's immediate surrender or Japan would face utter annihilation, a hint that America had the bomb.

Japan didn't respond.

Oh, it is much more than that.

Potsdam actually called for a surrender of the military and not the government. "We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces". This is something that I bet most do not know, because they have never actually read the document itself. It never called upon the surrender of the government, just the military forces. There were enough in the governments that knew the nation would never surrender their political and government, and that is what caused consternation among the Japanese as they could not understand surrendering their military and not their government. As they had always fought for complete wars of conquest.

And yes, Japan did indeed respond to the declaration.

Through back-channels, they had their Ambassador to the Soviet Union inform them that unless they agreed to the previous Japanese proposal (which Moscow refused to deliver) that they would continue the war to the end.

The "Big Six" met and talked about it, and outright rejected it 6-0.

Interestingly enough, an edited version was released to the public in Japan, which deleted phrases like the threat of "utter destruction".

And finally, we have the words of Premier Kantaro Suzuki. This is famously known as the Mokusatsu Speech.

I think that the joint statement is a rehash of the Cairo Declaration. The government does not think that it has serious value. We can only ignore [mokusatsu] it. We will do our utmost to complete the war to the bitter end.

Now Mokusatsu can be translated several ways. It literally is a combination of the words "Silence" and "Killing". Which means "Kill with Silence". In more simple words, they officially stated that it was rejected.

A rejection is much more than simply "no response".

 

[zaangalewa]

And by saying that, it shows you understand nothing of Japan in the early Showa era.

Good that you are a Japanese who had lived in this time of history.

Peace was not possible short of destroying Japan as a nation and a people. ...

End of discussion, Nazi.

 

[Mushroom]

Good that you are a Japanese who had lived in this time of history.



End of discussion, Nazi.

I have only lived in Japan, and been studying this era for over 30 years. Tell me, what do you know of Showa era Japan.

And if that is all you can say and provide absolutely nothing to back up your statements, I can only assume you are one of those idiots that calls everybody they can not possibly win a debate with a "Nazi". You are simply a troll that does not know anything of history or the culture you are talking about, and screams what you think are insults at any that does not bow down to you.

However, let me see if you even understand anything about Japan and its culture.

Please, feel free to go back and look at any of my posts here. I have only been here for about a decade after all. And how often exactly that I ever called the Emperor of Japan by his name during any of my posts? I can tell you, damned near never, if even ever. If you notice, I only refer to him by his Reign Name, as is the tradition of Japan. Hence, the person most call "Emperor Hirohito" I actually address as "Emperor Showa". Now tell me, exactly how many people have you ever seen do that?

That alone by itself should scream that I have a damned good idea of what I am talking about. I do not just scream random things as you do, I actually give specific details, talk about specific documents, people, and events. even discuss things like Mokusatsu, even the "Golden Voice" recording, which is the pre-recorded speech that Emperor Showa used to announce the surrender to the Japanese people.

In fact, I actually had some rather enjoyable conversations with my uncle before he died last year. He was a devout Leftist and Communist, but also an Asian Studies Professor. And while we did not agree on much, even he was surprised with my knowledge and understanding of Japan and her culture during that period. And I even taught him many things he did not know, as he had never even been to Japan, while I had actually lived there.

So tell me, what exactly do you know of Showa Era Japan? Can you name any of the Big Six off the top of your head without resorting to Google? Can you tell me who flipped in the Privy Council, and when? Can you in fact provide anything, other than random insults simply because you do not like being faced with facts you can not refute?

No, I don't think so. But that's alright, I am used to being called a "Nazi" by any leftist who can not debate at the level above that of a second grader. Just as I am used be those on the far right screaming I am a Communist for the same reason. Means nothing to me.

Now put up some facts to back your claims, or Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform.

 

[Mac-7]

The article makes ridiculous militaristic arguments that have been utterly debunked for decades now. I thought you were a liberal? Ah, I guess since Truman ordered the atomic bombings, you're defending them. You're aware that the vast majority of scholars who specialize in Hiroshima and Nagasaki reject the myth that nuking Japan was necessary and saved lives, right?

The following article by historian Ward Wilson debunks every argument made in Fussell's silly propaganda piece:

https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/is3104_pp162-179_wilson.pdf

Ward wilson is an anti nuclear ideologue who makes his living as an anti nuke

 

[zaangalewa]

I have only lived in Japan, and been studying this era for over 30 years. ...

Your problem - not my problem. I'm able to love the Japanese culture without your big knowledge.

 

[zaangalewa]

The Japanese suffered from exactly that "everything or nothing" mentality.

Not as far as I know.

The only peace proposal they were willing to accept was a return to status quo ante of December 5th, 1941, with the exception of giving up some territories already controlled by the Nationalist Chinese or Allies. No war crimes trials for the leadership, other war crimes trials in Japanese courts and under the control of the Imperial Japanese Government, any disarmament would be carried out by the Japanese and completely under Japanese supervision. That works out to no war crimes trials because the Japanese didn't consider anything their troops did war crimes and no real disarmament either. The Japanese Government was prepared to drown Allied invasion forces in oceans of both Japanese and Allied blood to get those terms accepted.

US-Americans find always good reasons for their crimes - except they have no reason at all. When I had been a teenager I read the reports of a Japanese who had died the radiation death. This man impressed me. In case of the Enola Gay I ask only how it had happened that inhuman nationalistic rats were able to fly like pseudo-angels of death.

 

[Otis Mayfield]

Not as far as I know.



US-Americans find always good reasons for their crimes - except they have no reason at all. When I had been a teenager I read the reports of a Japanese who had died the radiation death. This man impressed me. In case of the Enola Gay I ask only how it had happened that inhuman nationalistic rats were able to fly like pseudo-angels of death.

Don't you have any compassion for the 200,000 or more American soldiers who were going to die invading Japan? Or their families?

 

[mikegriffith1]

What would you say if I told you that Secretary of State James Byrnes, the most anti-Japanese member of Truman's cabinet and a staunch advocate of nuking Japan, admitted after the war that the atomic bombs did not force Japan to surrender, that Japan was already beaten before they were nuked, and that this was evidenced by Japan’s peace feelers and Russian intel?

Well, here’s how it happened: Some Japanese officials were claiming that they had had no choice but to surrender once they saw that America had nukes, and they implied that in a “fair” fight (i.e., a conventional fight), Japan would have defeated an American invasion of the home islands and forced America to sue for a negotiated peace.

When Byrnes heard these claims, he held a press conference on August 29 to refute them. He told reporters that Japan was already beaten before we nuked them, and as proof he cited Japan’s peace feelers and Russian intel that the Japanese knew they were beaten before Hiroshima. The next day, August 30, the New York Times printed a story on Byrnes’ remarks—the story was titled “Japan Beaten Before Atom Bomb, Byrnes Says, Citing Peace Bids.” Dr. Peter Kuznick discusses the New York Times article on Byrnes’ comments:

The New York Times reported, “…Byrnes challenged today Japan’s argument that the atomic bomb had knocked her out of the war. He cited what he called Russian proof that the Japanese knew that they were beaten before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.” (The Decision to Risk the Future: Harry Truman, the Atomic Bomb and the Apocalyptic Narrative)​

Very few books on Japan’s surrender mention this amazing fact.

The best, virtually hour-by-hour, account of Japan's decision to surrender is found in Dr. Noriko Kawamura's 2015 book Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War. Dr. Kawamura, a professor of history at Washington State University, uses previously unavailable or mistranslated Japanese primary sources. The primary sources make it crystal clear that the A-bomb had little effect on Japan's leaders but that the Soviet attack shocked them, even including some of the worst of the militarists.

This should not surprise us at all. In the three weeks before Hiroshima, we bombed 26 Japanese cities, and eight of those cities suffered a larger percentage of destruction than Hiroshima. In fact, if you graph the destruction of the cities destroyed, Hiroshima ranks 17th--yes, just 17th. We had been terror bombing Japan's cities for months, bombing over 60 cities. So it is illogical to argue that Japan's leaders caved in because of one or two more bombed cities that were not even destroyed as much as 16 previous cities had been destroyed, not to mention the fact that the primary sources show that the nukes had little effect on Japan's leaders but that the Soviet invasion had a huge impact.

Oh, yes, to save face after the war, some Japanese leaders claimed that the A-bomb forced them to surrender, and that in a "fair fight" Japan would have defeated an invasion and forced a negotiated surrender. But, as we have seen, even nuke-loving James Byrnes rejected this false argument, and Japanese primary sources prove that it was the Soviet invasion, not the A-bomb, that galvanized enough of Japan's leaders to overcome the militarists' refusal to surrender.

 

[zaangalewa]

Don't you have any compassion for the 200,000 or more American soldiers who were going to die invading Japan? Or their families?

Soldiers are professional murderers. They know their risk. 50% of the German soldiers in Stalingrad were killed there before the others surrendered. The other 50% were murdered in pow camps of your Russian allies. Only very few survived. I do not feel any compassion or hate or regret or any other emotion when I think about such things. ... Oh by the way: the battle in Stalingrad had been totally senseless and superflous.




Du siehst, wohin du siehst, nur Eitelkeit auf Erden.
Was dieser heute baut, reißt jener morgen ein:
Wo jetzt noch Städte stehn, wird eine Wiese sein,
Auf der ein Schäferskind wird spielen mit den Herden.

Was jetzt noch prächtig blüht, soll bald zertreten werden.
Was jetzt so pocht und trotzt, ist morgen Asch’ und Bein,
Nichts ist, das ewig sei, kein Erz, kein Marmorstein.
Jetzt lacht das Glück uns an, bald donnern die Beschwerden.

Der hohen Taten Ruhm muss wie ein Traum vergehn.
Soll denn das Spiel der Zeit, der leichte Mensch, bestehn?
Ach! Was ist alles dies, was wir für köstlich achten,

Als schlechte Nichtigkeit, als Schatten, Staub und Wind;
Als eine Wiesenblum’, die man nicht wieder find’t.
Noch will, was ewig ist, kein einig Mensch betrachten!

Es ist alles eitel, Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664)

 

[mikegriffith1]

Before I further document that the nukes did not cause Japan's surrender, I need to correct an error that I've seen several people make, namely, the claim that the Soviets signed the Potsdam Declaration. This is incorrect. Stalin did not sign the Potsdam Declaration. If he had, this would have alerted the Japanese that they were wasting their time trying to get the Soviets to mediate a peace deal with the U.S., and that the Soviets were not going to honor non-aggression pact with Japan.

The atomic bomb, as Japanese records show, had very little influence on the emperor, his advisers, and the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War (aka Supreme War Council) on their decision to surrender. In fact, as has been pointed out by many scholars, the Supreme War Council did not even think that confirmation of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was sufficient reason to convene the council. But, when news of the Soviet invasion reached Tokyo, the Supreme War Council met almost immediately.

Historian Gregg Herken, a professor emeritus of U.S. diplomatic history at the University of California:

The notion that the atomic bombs caused the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, has been, for many Americans and virtually all U.S. history textbooks, the default understanding of how and why the war ended. But minutes of the meetings of the Japanese government reveal a more complex story. The latest and best scholarship on the surrender, based on Japanese records, concludes that the Soviet Union’s unexpected entry into the war against Japan on Aug. 8 was probably an even greater shock to Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima two days earlier. Until then, the Japanese had been hoping that the Russians — who had previously signed a nonaggression pact with Japan — might be intermediaries in negotiating an end to the war. As historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa writes in his book Racing the Enemy, “Indeed, the Soviet attack, not the Hiroshima bomb, convinced political leaders to end the war.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...e5-b673-1df005a0fb28_story.html?noredirect=on)​

To follow up on Herken's use of Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, it is one of the most highly acclaimed books on Japan's surrender ever written. Hasegawa spends dozens of pages documenting the fact that it was the Soviet invasion, not the nukes, that (1) enabled the moderates to convene a meeting with the emperor and the Supreme War Council where the emperor could order a surrender, and (2) persuaded the hardliners to accept the emperor's order to surrender.

Indeed, at the Supreme War Council meeting on August 9, i.e., the meeting where Hirohito broke the deadlock and ordered a surrender, he said nothing about Hiroshima or the atomic bomb in his remarks at the meeting--not one word (Kawamura, Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, Kindle Edition, locs. 3287-3314; see also Robert Butow, Japan's Decision to Surrender, p. 175).

The moderates needed no convincing. They had already decided many weeks earlier that Japan needed to surrender.

 

[Otis Mayfield]

Before I further document that the nukes did not cause Japan's surrender, I need to correct an error that I've seen several people make, namely, the claim that the Soviets signed the Potsdam Declaration. This is incorrect. Stalin did not sign the Potsdam Declaration. If he had, this would have alerted the Japanese that they were wasting their time trying to get the Soviets to mediate a peace deal with the U.S., and that the Soviets were not going to honor non-aggression pact with Japan.

The atomic bomb, as Japanese records show, had very little influence on the emperor, his advisers, and the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War (aka Supreme War Council) on their decision to surrender. In fact, as has been pointed out by many scholars, the Supreme War Council did not even think that confirmation of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was sufficient reason to convene the council. But, when news of the Soviet invasion reached Tokyo, the Supreme War Council met almost immediately.

Historian Gregg Herken, a professor emeritus of U.S. diplomatic history at the University of California:

The notion that the atomic bombs caused the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, has been, for many Americans and virtually all U.S. history textbooks, the default understanding of how and why the war ended. But minutes of the meetings of the Japanese government reveal a more complex story. The latest and best scholarship on the surrender, based on Japanese records, concludes that the Soviet Union’s unexpected entry into the war against Japan on Aug. 8 was probably an even greater shock to Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima two days earlier. Until then, the Japanese had been hoping that the Russians — who had previously signed a nonaggression pact with Japan — might be intermediaries in negotiating an end to the war. As historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa writes in his book Racing the Enemy, “Indeed, the Soviet attack, not the Hiroshima bomb, convinced political leaders to end the war.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...e5-b673-1df005a0fb28_story.html?noredirect=on)​

To follow up on Herken's use of Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, it is one of the most highly acclaimed books on Japan's surrender ever written. Hasegawa spends dozens of pages documenting the fact that it was the Soviet invasion, not the nukes, that (1) enabled the moderates to convene a meeting with the emperor and the Supreme War Council where the emperor could order a surrender, and (2) persuaded the hardliners to accept the emperor's order to surrender.

Indeed, at the Supreme War Council meeting on August 9, i.e., the meeting where Hirohito broke the deadlock and ordered a surrender, he said nothing about Hiroshima or the atomic bomb in his remarks at the meeting--not one word (Kawamura, Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, Kindle Edition, locs. 3287-3314; see also Robert Butow, Japan's Decision to Surrender, p. 175).

The moderates needed no convincing. They had already decided many weeks earlier that Japan needed to surrender.

Furthermore, the United States, Great Britain, and China released the “Potsdam Declaration,” which threatened Japan with “prompt and utter destruction” if it did not immediately surrender (the Soviet Union did not sign the declaration because it had yet to declare war on Japan).

Milestones: 1937–1945 - Office of the Historian

history.state.gov 3.0 shell

history.state.gov

That's interesting.

They knew that the Soviets weren't going to give them a peace treaty though.

The Soviets giving the Japanese an armistice or peace treaty was a long shot of long shots.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Furthermore, the United States, Great Britain, and China released the “Potsdam Declaration,” which threatened Japan with “prompt and utter destruction” if it did not immediately surrender (the Soviet Union did not sign the declaration because it had yet to declare war on Japan).

Milestones: 1937–1945 - Office of the Historian

history.state.gov 3.0 shell

history.state.gov

That's interesting.

They knew that the Soviets weren't going to give them a peace treaty though.

The Soviets giving the Japanese an armistice or peace treaty was a long shot of long shots.

No, the Japanese did not know that the Soviets weren't going to "give them a peace treaty," i.e., mediate a peace deal with the U.S. The Japanese were not asking the Soviets to "give them a peace treaty." Japan already had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. The Japanese wanted the Soviets to mediate a surrender with the U.S., and they did not realize until the Soviets attacked that they had been horribly wasting their time seeking Soviet mediation.

 

[Otis Mayfield]

No, the Japanese did not know that the Soviets weren't going to "give them a peace treaty," i.e., mediate a peace deal with the U.S. The Japanese were not asking the Soviets to "give them a peace treaty." Japan already had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. The Japanese wanted the Soviets to mediate a surrender with the U.S., and they did not realize until the Soviets attacked that they had been horribly wasting their time seeking Soviet mediation.

Yeah, the Japanese knew the Soviets weren't going to give them anything short of unconditional surrender.

If you google it, you'll find the Japanese ambassador to the Soviet Union saying as much.

The Soviets giving the Japanese anything short of unconditional surrender was a dream put forward by the hard liners who wanted to fight to the bitter end.

A big victory for the Soviets would've been their capture of Japan and turning Japan into another North Korea, a Soviet client state.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Yeah, the Japanese knew the Soviets weren't going to give them anything short of unconditional surrender.

If you google it, you'll find the Japanese ambassador to the Soviet Union saying as much.

The Soviets giving the Japanese anything short of unconditional surrender was a dream put forward by the hard liners who wanted to fight to the bitter end.

A big victory for the Soviets would've been their capture of Japan and turning Japan into another North Korea, a Soviet client state.

You are confused. The Japanese were not asking the Soviets for a peace deal between Japan and Russia. They were asking the Soviets to mediate peace negotiations between Japan and the U.S. in order to end the war as soon as possible and to get the best terms possible, whatever those might end up being. Yes, I'm well aware that Ambassador Sato was skeptical about the effort, but, as any serious student of Japan's surrender knows, Sato was overruled and was ordered to continue to make the approach. It was not a matter of what the Soviets would give the Japanese but what the Americans would give the Japanese.

Someone made the argument that Ward Wilson is an anti-nuke idealogue. Perhaps so, but this does not invalidate his arguments, nor does it make the facts he cites go away. Facts are facts, regardless of who cites them. And this is a curious argument for Truman apologists to be making, since they routinely cite the works of pro-nuke, militaristic idealogues, and yet, oddly enough, also cite the arguments of Truman cronies who helped preside over the sellout of China to the Communists, the handing over of Eastern Europe to Stalin, and the disastrous handling of the beginning of the Korean War.

How many conservatives who misguidedly defend Truman's nuking of anti-communist Japan realize that the conservatives in the government were the ones who wanted to modify the surrender terms and/or to only nuke a genuine military target and only after a clear warning, while it was the liberals in the government who opposed altering the surrender terms and who wanted to nuke cities with no warning?

 

[Otis Mayfield]

You are confused. The Japanese were not asking the Soviets for a peace deal between Japan and Russia. They were asking the Soviets to mediate peace negotiations between Japan and the U.S. in order to end the war as soon as possible and to get the best terms possible, whatever those might end up being. Yes, I'm well aware that Ambassador Sato was skeptical about the effort, but, as any serious student of Japan's surrender knows, Sato was overruled and was ordered to continue to make the approach. It was not a matter of what the Soviets would give the Japanese but what the Americans would give the Japanese.

Someone made the argument that Ward Wilson is an anti-nuke idealogue. Perhaps so, but this does not invalidate his arguments, nor does it make the facts he cites go away. Facts are facts, regardless of who cites them. And this is a curious argument for Truman apologists to be making, since they routinely cite the works of pro-nuke, militaristic idealogues, and yet, oddly enough, also cite the arguments of Truman cronies who helped preside over the sellout of China to the Communists, the handing over of Eastern Europe to Stalin, and the disastrous handling of the beginning of the Korean War.

How many conservatives who misguidedly defend Truman's nuking of anti-communist Japan realize that the conservatives in the government were the ones who wanted to modify the surrender terms and/or to only nuke a genuine military target and only after a clear warning, while it was the liberals in the government who opposed altering the surrender terms and who wanted to nuke cities with no warning?

Hiroshima was bombed August 6th

Soviets declared war on Japan August 9th

Secretary of State Byrnes sent his letter to Hirohito on the 11th

Hirohito announced Japan's surrender on the 15th


You can read Byrnes letter here:

https://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1945/1945-08-11a.html

 

[AZrailwhale]

Not as far as I know.



US-Americans find always good reasons for their crimes - except they have no reason at all. When I had been a teenager I read the reports of a Japanese who had died the radiation death. This man impressed me. In case of the Enola Gay I ask only how it had happened that inhuman nationalistic rats were able to fly like pseudo-angels of death.

"Not so far as you know" eh. Just look at the conduct of Japan throughout the entire war. Every battle was a throw of the dice to get a massive victory that never happened. The Japanese never changed their minds about the attitude that esprit de corps could and would overcome numerical and technological superiority.

As far as the Enola Gay and Bock's Car crews, they did nothing different than the bomber crews that dropped German bombs on British cities in the Blitz, or the RAF and USAAF crews that dropped bombs on German cities, or USAAF crews that dropped conventional bombs on Japanese cities and killed far more people than the two nukes did. The German and Japanese crews that dropped bombs on cities that had been declared "open" meaning that they wouldn't even be defended were far worse.

 

[zaangalewa]

"Not so far as you know" eh. Just look at the conduct of Japan throughout the entire war.

War is over when war is over.

Every battle was a throw of the dice to get a massive victory that never happened. The Japanese never changed their minds

Why should they?

about the attitude that esprit de corps could and would overcome numerical and technological superiority.

As far as the Enola Gay and Bock's Car crews, they did nothing different than the bomber crews that dropped German bombs on British cities in the Blitz, or the RAF and USAAF crews that dropped bombs on German cities, or USAAF crews that dropped conventional bombs on Japanese cities and killed far more people than the two nukes did. The German and Japanese crews that dropped bombs on cities that had been declared "open" meaning that they wouldn't even be defended were far worse.

I said soldiers are murderers - some say only they are a "tool for murder" - but I think meanwhile it is better to make clear that not only the commanders are responsible. And I'm sure you - and many others - make the way free for future murder psychologically. Without any doubt it had been an extremely heavy crime to do a nuclear strike against the Japanese cities Horishima - oh sorry Mr Freud: Not "Horrorshima" "Hiroshima" is the Japanese name - and Nagasaki. That it also had been crimes to bomb down civilists in London or to bomb down refugees in Dresden changes nothing in this crime of the USA in Japan.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Some people might be very surprised to learn that Dr. Michael Sherry, author of the famous and classic book The Rise of American Air Power (Yale University Press, 1987), condemns Truman for nuking Japan without first trying to determine if the Japanese would surrender if he assured them that the emperor would not be deposed. Given that Dr. Sherry’s famous book has been endorsed by such heavyweights as Stephen Ambrose and Russell Weigley, when I began to read the book, I just assumed that Sherry would defend—indeed, staunchly defend—Truman’s decision to nuke Japan. So I was astounded to discover that Sherry does the opposite. Here is part of what Dr. Sherry says about Ike and the nuking of Japan:

Eisenhower provided a striking example of how doubt arose outside of normal channels. When he heard about the atomic bomb is unclear, but apparently at the time of Potsdam he learned that an atomic bomb was a weapon in hand. He immediately objected to its use. According to the various accounts of his talk with Stimson, he objected on the grounds that Japan “was already defeated,” that the United States “should avoid shocking world opinion” by using the bomb, and that it might prevent a nuclear arms race if other nations remained “ignorant of the fact that the problem of nuclear fission had been solved”. . . .​

And here is part of Dr. Sherry’s eloquent condemnation of Truman’s decision to nuke without first trying negotiation:

Since precisely this issue of the emperor’s fate held up surrender even after Hiroshima and Russia’s entry into the war, until Byrnes and Truman offered firmer assurances, their decision at Potsdam has been widely and rightly condemned as the most tragic blunder in American surrender policy, even by insiders who otherwise supported the bomb’s use. There can be no certainty would have accepted in July what it submitted to in August, but the chance was there, and as Ralph Bard had argued earlier, the risks of pursuing it were small. Moreover, the moral risks in the opposite direction, in pursuing an atomic solution before attempting to break the diplomatic impasse, were large. Michael Walzer has explained them persuasively:

“If killing millions (or many thousands) of men and women was militarily necessary for their conquest and overthrow, then it was morally necessary—in order not to kill those people—to settle for something less. . . . If people have a right not to be forced to fight, they also have a right not to be forced to continue fighting beyond the point when the war might justly be concluded. Beyond that point, there can be no supreme emergencies, no arguments about military necessity, no cost-accounting in human lives. To press the war further than that is to re-commit the crime of aggression. In the summer of 1945, the victorious Americans owed the Japanese people an experiment in negotiation. To use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting such an experiment, was a double crime.”

Of course, the double crime extended beyond use of the atomic bomb. A larger failure in surrender policy had sanctioned the razing of Japan’s cities. (pp. 329, 334-335)​

 

[Otis Mayfield]

Some people might be very surprised to learn that Dr. Michael Sherry, author of the famous and classic book The Rise of American Air Power (Yale University Press, 1987), condemns Truman for nuking Japan without first trying to determine if the Japanese would surrender if he assured them that the emperor would not be deposed. Given that Dr. Sherry’s famous book has been endorsed by such heavyweights as Stephen Ambrose and Russell Weigley, when I began to read the book, I just assumed that Sherry would defend—indeed, staunchly defend—Truman’s decision to nuke Japan. So I was astounded to discover that Sherry does the opposite. Here is part of what Dr. Sherry says about Ike and the nuking of Japan:

Eisenhower provided a striking example of how doubt arose outside of normal channels. When he heard about the atomic bomb is unclear, but apparently at the time of Potsdam he learned that an atomic bomb was a weapon in hand. He immediately objected to its use. According to the various accounts of his talk with Stimson, he objected on the grounds that Japan “was already defeated,” that the United States “should avoid shocking world opinion” by using the bomb, and that it might prevent a nuclear arms race if other nations remained “ignorant of the fact that the problem of nuclear fission had been solved”. . . .​

And here is part of Dr. Sherry’s eloquent condemnation of Truman’s decision to nuke without first trying negotiation:

Since precisely this issue of the emperor’s fate held up surrender even after Hiroshima and Russia’s entry into the war, until Byrnes and Truman offered firmer assurances, their decision at Potsdam has been widely and rightly condemned as the most tragic blunder in American surrender policy, even by insiders who otherwise supported the bomb’s use. There can be no certainty would have accepted in July what it submitted to in August, but the chance was there, and as Ralph Bard had argued earlier, the risks of pursuing it were small. Moreover, the moral risks in the opposite direction, in pursuing an atomic solution before attempting to break the diplomatic impasse, were large. Michael Walzer has explained them persuasively:​

​

“If killing millions (or many thousands) of men and women was militarily necessary for their conquest and overthrow, then it was morally necessary—in order not to kill those people—to settle for something less. . . . If people have a right not to be forced to fight, they also have a right not to be forced to continue fighting beyond the point when the war might justly be concluded. Beyond that point, there can be no supreme emergencies, no arguments about military necessity, no cost-accounting in human lives. To press the war further than that is to re-commit the crime of aggression. In the summer of 1945, the victorious Americans owed the Japanese people an experiment in negotiation. To use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting such an experiment, was a double crime.”​

​

Of course, the double crime extended beyond use of the atomic bomb. A larger failure in surrender policy had sanctioned the razing of Japan’s cities. (pp. 329, 334-335)​

Lots of people condemn America for dropping the bomb.

Lots of people didn't have hundreds of thousands of soldiers who were going to die invading Japan.

Okinawa and Iwo Jima were extremely bloody with Japanese troops fighting til the last man.

The main islands of Japan were going to be one big Okinawa.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Here is just some of the evidence that Japan was beaten and prostrate by no later than June 1945:

* By June 1945, we were losing only 0.003 of our bombers in air raids on Japan—in other words, only 3 out of every 1,000 bombers were being shot down (Paul Ham, Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath, p. 176).

* By June 1945, every major Japanese port was mined by the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Indeed, U.S. Navy mines closed the Shimonoseki Straights, which cut off naval activity between the Japanese main islands of Honshu and Kyushu. U.S. Navy mines also shut down 18 of Japan’s 21 naval repair yards on the Inland Sea. Hiroshima’s port was shut down. Nagasaki’s port, formerly a major port, became nearly worthless.

* By June 1945, Japan had a grand total of 9,000 planes of any kind. Most of these were trainers or old planes designed for kamikaze raids, and less than half of them were properly equipped for such raids. Many of those planes could not have been flown anyway due to the lack of fuel.

* By June 1945, the Japanese Navy’s surface fleet had essentially ceased to exist. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) reported,

After the liberation of the Philippines and the capture of Okinawa, oil imports into Japan were completely cut off; fuel oil stocks had been exhausted, and the few remaining Japanese warships, being without fuel, were decommissioned or were covered with camouflage and used only as antiaircraft platforms. Except for its shore-based Kamikaze air force and surface and undersea craft adapted for anti-invasion suicide attack, the Japanese Navy had ceased to exist. (USSBS, p. 11)​

* The USSBS also reported the following about our bombing of Japanese cities and about Japan’s condition:

Not only were the Japanese defenses overwhelmed, but Japan's will and capacity for reconstruction, dispersal, and passive defense were less than Germany's. In the aggregate some 40 percent of the built-up area of the 66 cities attacked was destroyed. Approximately 30 percent of the entire urban population of Japan lost their homes and many of their possessions. (USSBS, p. 86)​

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Even though the urban area attacks and attacks on specific industrial plants contributed a substantial percentage to the overall decline in Japan's economy, in many segments of that economy their effects were duplicative. Most of the oil refineries were out of oil, the alumina plants out of bauxite, the steel mills lacking in ore and coke, and the munitions plants low in steel and aluminum. Japan's economy was in large measure being destroyed twice over, once by cutting off of imports, and secondly by air attack. (USSBS, p. 90)​

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By 1944, the average per capita caloric intake had declined to approximately 1,900 calories. By the summer of 1945 it was about 1,680 calories per capita. . . .​

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The average diet suffered even more drastically from reductions in fats, vitamins and minerals required for balance and adversely affected rates of recovery and mortality from disease and bomb injuries.​

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Undernourishment produced a major increase in the incidence of beriberi and tuberculosis. (USSBS, p. 94)​

* By early 1945, the vast majority of Japan’s merchant vessels had been destroyed. According to the USSBS, by the end of the war, we had sunk or disabled about 90% of Japan’s merchant fleet shipping:

Japan entered the war with some 6,000,000 tons of merchant shipping of over 500 tons gross weight. During the war an additional 4,100,000 tons were constructed, captured or requisitioned. . . .​

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Eight million nine hundred thousand (8,900,000) tons of this shipping were sunk or so seriously damaged as to be out of action at the end of the war. Fifty-four and seven-tenths (54.7) percent of this total was attributable to submarines, 16.3 percent to carrier-based planes, 10.2 percent to Army land-based planes and 4.3 percent to Navy and Marine land-based planes, 9.3 percent to mines (largely dropped by B-29s). . . .​

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Due to their ability to penetrate deeply into enemy-controlled waters, [U.S. Navy] submarines accounted for approximately 60 percent of sinkings up until the final months of the war.​

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During 1944, carrier task forces made deep sweeps which accounted for large numbers of ships. After April, 1945, when Japanese shipping was restricted to the Korean and Manchurian runs and to shallow inland waters, mines dropped by B-29s in Japanese harbors and inland waterways accounted for 50 percent of all ships sunk or damaged. In isolating areas of combat from ship-borne reinforcements land-based aircraft also sank large numbers of barges and vessels smaller than 500 tons gross weight, not included in the tabulation prepared by the Survey. . . .​

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Up to the end of 1942, ship sinkings exceeded new acquisitions by a small margin. Thereafter, the aggregate tonnage sunk increased far more rapidly than could be matched by the expansion of the Japanese shipbuilding program. The size of the usable fleet thus declined continuously and at the end of the war amounted to little more than 10 percent of its original tonnage. (USSBS, pp. 72-74).​

* In July 1945 the Japanese government was forced to impose yet another cut in staple food rations: a cut of 10%, in fact. As a result, the food ration per person fell below 1700 calories, well below the minimum needed to maintain basic health.

-- Cases of night blindness due to malnutrition became common.

-- Japan was even running so low on rice that the government announced a program to process acorns as a substitute for rice.

-- The food shortage became so bad that the government actually published articles and booklets on how to eat food no one would usually eat, such as “Food Substitution: How to Eat Things People Normally Wouldn’t Eat.” One government booklet advised citizens to eat locusts and insect pupas.

* Japan was running so low on fuel that the government began exploring pine-root oil as a fuel substitute for aircraft.

* By October 1944, many new fighter pilots were being trained with films instead of live flight training in order to save fuel:

The Toho Motion Picture Company constructed a lake in Setagaya and filled it with six-foot models of U.S. warships. Atop a tower a movie camera on a boom took pictures of the vessels from various angles, simulating different speeds of approach. These films were shown as a substitute for flight training in order to save fuel. (John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936-1945, New York: Random House, 2003 Modern Library Paperback Edition, p. 536)​

* Japan was running so low on metal that its military aircraft were increasingly made with larger amounts of wood. In fact, in July the government announced it had established a department to make planes out of wood.

* Starting in early 1944 the lack of metals became so severe, due to the U.S. naval blockade, that the Japanese government was forced to start confiscating and melting bridge railings, metal fences, metal statues (even those in Buddhist temples), gate posts, notice boards, and even household items.

* Although Japan built underground aircraft factories, raw materials were in such short supply that only 10—yes, just 10—aircraft were manufactured in those factories.

* In March 1945, imports of crude oil, rubber, coal, and iron ore ceased—that’s right, they ceased, stopped, ended. Why? Because of the U.S. Navy’s naval blockade.

* By early 1945, few Japanese stores remained open because there were so few commercial goods being produced or imported.

* As mentioned earlier, Japan was virtually defenseless against air attacks. By June 1945, the odds of a U.S. bomber being shot down in a bombing raid over Japan were 3 out of 1,000—not 3 out of 100 but 3 out of 1,000. The pitiful state of Japan’s air defenses persuaded General Curtis LeMay that he could safely remove machine guns and gunners from his bombers. Gene Santoro:

To up the B-29’s bomb capacity, as Arnold kept demanding, LeMay again boldly flaunted conventional wisdom. His analysis told him there was little low-altitude flak over Japan, and that the enemy’s night fighters were negligible risks. He stripped 325 B-29s of defensive guns and gunners to lessen their weight, allowing an increase in bomb and fuel loads; then he filled them with incendiary clusters, magnesium bombs, white phosphorus bombs, and a new product called napalm, and ordered them to fly over Japan at night at 5,000 to 7,000 feet instead of 30,000, which had his crews gnashing their teeth. . . .​

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The night of March 9, 1945, LeMay’s reconfigured B-29s took off. In three hours, they dumped tons of incendiaries on Tokyo, killing some 80,000 civilians and destroying the homes of a million others. The crews in the last aircraft reported being assaulted by the stench of burning flesh. Unlike in Europe, LeMay waited behind at HQ, grounded because he was one of the few to know about the atomic bomb and couldn’t risk capture and interrogation. When the planes taxied in, only 14 were lost. “Eighty-six percent of them attacked the primary target,” LeMay later wrote. “We lost just four-and-three-tenths per cent…. Sixteen hundred and sixty-five tons of incendiary bombs went hissing down upon that city, and hot drafts from the resulting furnace tossed some of our aircraft two thousand feet above their original altitude. We burned up nearly sixteen square miles of Tokyo.” (“Outkilling the Enemy,” HistoryNet, Outkilling the Enemy)​

* By June 1945, Japan posed no threat to us. The Japanese were purely on the defensive and their situation was only getting worse by the day because of our virtually total naval embargo and total control of the air. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the USSBS concluded that “in all probability” Japan would have surrendered before 1 November 1945 even if we had not dropped nukes and even if the Soviets had not invaded:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. (USSBS, p. 26)​