70 million downed —decades AFTER WWII —in ‘peacetime’ —unoutted
and utterly unanswered for…

ESP. galling on this, the once again ‘msteriously overlooked’ 60th Anniversary
of the epically relevant, STILL unfolding —-ongoing nightmare —that IS
the KOREAN WAR…

AMEN

The Allies insisted on unconditional surrender, the Japanese could never accept that until the Emperor was convinced. That said even after Hirohito was convinced, a lot of hardliners resisted. There was a Coup attempt that failed, by the hard liners.

The Japanese would have surrendered eventually without the A Bomb, but a lot more lives would have been lost on both sides.

We did the correct thing. Those that say it was not warranted, should look at the Japanese war crimes before Pearl Harbor, and after it. The Rape of Nanking, the bayoneting of pregnant Filipinos. The death marches. I don’t see the anti-nuke people crying about Japanese human right crimes. Does to Wrongs Make a Right? Three Rights make a left.

The use of the atomic bombs by the United States on Japan saved more lives then continued fighting. Perhaps 10 X the number of Japanese would have died if there was an invasion. It would have taken such to end the war. Also at least 10s of thousands of American lives were saved by ending the war quicker.

Thousand more lives were saved in understanding that the US had Nukes and how terrible such weapons are.

We CAN learn from the dead.

I had an uncle who fought in New Guinea- a fair minded and thoughtful man. He went to his grave maintaining that the Japanese were determined to fight all the way.

He said that during his time in New Guinea (he was part of the AIF who returned from the middle east per Curtain’s orders- see Kakoda movie for detail on who they are), he never saw a live Japanese soldier. He said that even when pinned down, outnumbered or abandoned, they just fought on until they were killed.

So he maintained that a culture that had created such soldiers would surely beahve in the same way and fight to the end. I am sure that you can dind evidence to suggest that the Americans dropped the bomb for all the wrong reasons- but I am slo sure there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Japanese were ready to fight an invasion down to every last man woman and child.

The Japanese making overtures about peace is also no suprise. German negotiators tried the same and were summarily executed.

It is perhaps a touch easy to look at 1945 from 2008 eyes and say WE were too harsh, but then it is easy to jump over the raft of Japanese atrocities without considering that a people prepared to commit such atrocities might also be preopared to fight by any means to defend their homeland.

I understand completely the “experiment” and the “Send the Russions a Message” factor, but I think after 6 years of World War, an atomic bomb would have seemed like a panacea to end all panaceas.

hey- it prevented a 3rd world war did it not?

Tom

The responses to it are pretty disturbing, and suggest that it wasn’t simply a case of a few crazy generals pushing for a demonstration, but rather that was the prevailing attitude. Which says a lot of unpleasant things about human nature, really..

In his later memoirs, Stimson (US Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson) admitted that no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb.

And that effort could have been minimal. In July, before the leaders of the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union met at Potsdam, the Japanese government sent several radio messages to its ambassador, Naotake Sato, in Moscow, asking him to request Soviet help in mediating a peace settlement. His Majesty is extremely anxious to terminate the war as soon as possible …, said one communication. Should, however, the United States and Great Britain insist on unconditional surrender, Japan would be forced to fight to the bitter end.

On July 25, while the Potsdam meeting was taking place, Japan instructed Sato to keep meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Molotov to impress the Russians with the sincerity of our desire to end the war [and] have them understand that we are trying to end hostilities by asking for very reasonable terms in order to secure and maintain our national existence and honor (a reference to retention of the emperor).

Having broken the Japanese code years earlier, Washington did not have to wait to be informed by the Soviets of these peace overtures; it knew immediately, and did nothing. Indeed, the National Archives in Washington contains U.S. government documents reporting similarly ill-fated Japanese peace overtures as far back as 1943.

(end quote)

So, assuming this is true, it’s quite clear that the Japanese were genuinely offering a surrender, an end to the war, but that the USA were more interested in testing out their new toy than attempting to follow through the Japanese offer.

But, I’m also pretty convinced that there wasn’t another way out that would have resulted in less loss of life, assuming the Japaneses weren’t willing to sue for peace.

I don’t attach any special moral value to the use of a nuclear weapon as opposed to, say, massive loss of life due to strategic bombing or a land invasion. Consequently, it doesn’t seem logical to suffer or cause more deaths than those caused by the bomb in order to avoid it’s use*. I’m not sure you’re arguing that, though.

I also don’t see it as particularly useful to dwell on the fact that American generals held such gung ho attitudes towards the war – it’s awful, but I’m not convinced any other winning side would be more gracious.

To me, the really interesting part of this is the possibility of Japanese surrender, and the suggestion that these overtures were simply not followed. This is a pretty strange attitude for the American government to have taken, particularly given the losses taken at Okinawa and Iwo Jima – conducting those campaigns in the face of a Japanese desire to surrender (and, given the losses taken on both sides) would be truly twisted.

Have you seen any more evidence of this desire? It would be really interesting to see primary source material for this – particularly on the idea that America was treating the late Pacific campaign as preparation for an eventual confrontation with Russia.

One telling piece of evidence to attitudes at the time was recently mentioned on Boing Boing – a survey of scientists at a US national lab in Chicago taken four days before trinity. The plurality of votes was for ‘a military demonstration in Japan followed by a renewed opportunity for surrender’, suggesting that no such opportunity would exist during the lead up. Even more interestingly, the second most voted option was for a non-military demonstration in front of Japanese delegates – meaning that those who voted for the military demonstration were actively deciding that people needed to die for the ‘demonstration’ to be compelling. Chilling..

Anyway, interesting and provocative post, as always..

* Of course, to honestly play ethical calculus with this, you have to take into account the long term effects of the bomb on the environment and the surviving populace; effects that simply weren’t understood at that time. The risk of these long term effects can’t then have been considered, and it’s pretty reasonable to be appalled by this.