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The REAL Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan
Atomic Weapons Were Not Needed to End the War or Save Lives
Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives.
But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise.
The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded (52-56):
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.
General (and later president) Dwight Eisenhower – then Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces, and the officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for Europe and Japan – said:
The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.
Newsweek, 11/11/63, Ike on Ike
Eisenhower also noted (pg. 380):
In [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.
During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude….
Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):
It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.
General Douglas MacArthur agreed (pg. 65, 70-71):
MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed …. When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.
Moreover (pg. 512):
The Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face ‘prompt and utter destruction.’ MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General’s advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary.
Similarly, Assistant Secretary of War John McLoy noted (pg. 500):
I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe that even in the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of the Japanese to give it favorable consideration. When the war was over I arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. I believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs.
Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bird said:
I think that the Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and, I think, the Swiss. And that suggestion of [giving] a warning [of the atomic bomb] was a face-saving proposition for them, and one that they could have readily accepted.
***
In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb. Thus, it wouldn’t have been necessary for us to disclose our nuclear position and stimulate the Russians to develop the same thing much more rapidly than they would have if we had not dropped the bomb.
War Was Really Won Before We Used A-Bomb, U.S. News and World Report, 8/15/60, pg. 73-75.
He also noted (pg. 144-145, 324):
It definitely seemed to me that the Japanese were becoming weaker and weaker. They were surrounded by the Navy. They couldn’t get any imports and they couldn’t export anything. Naturally, as time went on and the war developed in our favor it was quite logical to hope and expect that with the proper kind of a warning the Japanese would then be in a position to make peace, which would have made it unnecessary for us to drop the bomb and have had to bring Russia in.
General Curtis LeMay, the tough cigar-smoking Army Air Force “hawk,” stated publicly shortly before the nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan:
The war would have been over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.
The Vice Chairman of the U.S. Bombing Survey Paul Nitze wrote (pg. 36-37, 44-45):
[I] concluded that even without the atomic bomb, Japan was likely to surrender in a matter of months. My own view was that Japan would capitulate by November 1945.
***
Even without the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seemed highly unlikely, given what we found to have been the mood of the Japanese government, that a U.S. invasion of the islands [scheduled for November 1, 1945] would have been necessary.
Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence Ellis Zacharias wrote:
Just when the Japanese were ready to capitulate, we went ahead and introduced to the world the most devastating weapon it had ever seen and, in effect, gave the go-ahead to Russia to swarm over Eastern Asia.
Washington decided that Japan had been given its chance and now it was time to use the A-bomb.
I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds.
Ellis Zacharias, How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender, Look, 6/6/50, pg. 19-21.
Brigadier General Carter Clarke – the military intelligence officer in charge of preparing summaries of intercepted Japanese cables for President Truman and his advisors – said (pg. 359):
When we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn’t need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs.
Many other high-level military officers concurred. For example:
The commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, stated that the naval blockade and prior bombing of Japan in March of 1945, had rendered the Japanese helpless and that the use of the atomic bomb was both unnecessary and immoral. Also, the opinion of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was reported to have said in a press conference on September 22, 1945, that “The Admiral took the opportunity of adding his voice to those insisting that Japan had been defeated before the atomic bombing and Russia’s entry into the war.” In a subsequent speech at the Washington Monument on October 5, 1945, Admiral Nimitz stated “The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war.” It was learned also that on or about July 20, 1945, General Eisenhower had urged Truman, in a personal visit, not to use the atomic bomb. Eisenhower’s assessment was “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing . . . to use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting [negotiations], was a double crime.” Eisenhower also stated that it wasn’t necessary for Truman to “succumb” to [the tiny handful of people putting pressure on the president to drop atom bombs on Japan.]
British officers were of the same mind. For example, General Sir Hastings Ismay, Chief of Staff to the British Minister of Defence, said to Prime Minister Churchill that “when Russia came into the war against Japan, the Japanese would probably wish to get out on almost any terms short of the dethronement of the Emperor.”
On hearing that the atomic test was successful, Ismay’s private reaction was one of “revulsion.”
Why Were Bombs Dropped on Populated Cities Without Military Value?
Even military officers who favored use of nuclear weapons mainly favored using them on unpopulated areas or Japanese military targets ... not cities
For example, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss proposed to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal that a non-lethal demonstration of atomic weapons would be enough to convince the Japanese to surrender … and the Navy Secretary agreed (pg. 145, 325):
I proposed to Secretary Forrestal that the weapon should be demonstrated before it was used. Primarily it was because it was clear to a number of people, myself among them, that the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate… My proposal to the Secretary was that the weapon should be demonstrated over some area accessible to Japanese observers and where its effects would be dramatic. I remember suggesting that a satisfactory place for such a demonstration would be a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo. The cryptomeria tree is the Japanese version of our redwood… I anticipated that a bomb detonated at a suitable height above such a forest… would lay the trees out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the center. It seemed to me that a demonstration of this sort would prove to the Japanese that we could destroy any of their cities at will… Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation…
It seemed to me that such a weapon was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, that once used it would find its way into the armaments of the world…
General George Marshall agreed:
Contemporary documents show that Marshall felt “these weapons might first be used against straight military objectives such as a large naval installation and then if no complete result was derived from the effect of that, he thought we ought to designate a number of large manufacturing areas from which the people would be warned to leave–telling the Japanese that we intend to destroy such centers….”
As the document concerning Marshall’s views suggests, the question of whether the use of the atomic bomb was justified turns … on whether the bombs had to be used against a largely civilian target rather than a strictly military target—which, in fact, was the explicit choice since although there were Japanese troops in the cities, neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki was deemed militarily vital by U.S. planners. (This is one of the reasons neither had been heavily bombed up to this point in the war.) Moreover, targeting [at Hiroshima and Nagasaki] was aimed explicitly on non-military facilities surrounded by workers’ homes.
Historians Agree that the Bomb Wasn’t Needed
Historians agree that nuclear weapons did not need to be used to stop the war or save lives.
As historian Doug Long notes:
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission historian J. Samuel Walker has studied the history of research on the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan. In his conclusion he writes, “The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisors knew it.” (J. Samuel Walker, The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update, Diplomatic History, Winter 1990, pg. 110).
Politicians Agreed
Many high-level politicians agreed. For example, Herbert Hoover said (pg. 142):
The Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945…up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; …if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs.
Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew noted (pg. 29-32):
In the light of available evidence I myself and others felt that if such a categorical statement about the [retention of the] dynasty had been issued in May, 1945, the surrender-minded elements in the [Japanese] Government might well have been afforded by such a statement a valid reason and the necessary strength to come to an early clearcut decision.
If surrender could have been brought about in May, 1945, or even in June or July, before the entrance of Soviet Russia into the [Pacific] war and the use of the atomic bomb, the world would have been the gainer.
Why Then Were Atom Bombs Dropped on Japan?
If dropping nuclear bombs was unnecessary to end the war or to save lives, why was the decision to drop them made? Especially over the objections of so many top military and political figures?
One theory is that scientists like to play with their toys:
On September 9, 1945, Admiral William F. Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet, was publicly quoted extensively as stating that the atomic bomb was used because the scientists had a “toy and they wanted to try it out . . . .” He further stated, “The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment . . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it.”
However, most of the Manhattan Project scientists who developed the atom bomb were opposed to using it on Japan.
Albert Einstein – an important catalyst for the development of the atom bomb (but not directly connected with the Manhattan Project) - said differently:
“A great majority of scientists were opposed to the sudden employment of the atom bomb.” In Einstein’s judgment, the dropping of the bomb was a political – diplomatic decision rather than a military or scientific decision.
Indeed, some of the Manhattan Project scientists wrote directly to the secretary of defense in 1945 to try to dissuade him from dropping the bomb:
We believe that these considerations make the use of nuclear bombs for an early, unannounced attack against Japan inadvisable. If the United States would be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race of armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons.
Political and Social Problems, Manhattan Engineer District Records, Harrison-Bundy files, folder # 76, National Archives (also contained in: Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, 1987 edition, pg. 323-333).
The scientists questioned the ability of destroying Japanese cities with atomic bombs to bring surrender when destroying Japanese cities with conventional bombs had not done so, and – like some of the military officers quoted above – recommended a demonstration of the atomic bomb for Japan in an unpopulated area.
The Real Explanation?
History.com notes:
In the years since the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, a number of historians have suggested that the weapons had a two-pronged objective …. It has been suggested that the second objective was to demonstrate the new weapon of mass destruction to the Soviet Union. By August 1945, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States had deteriorated badly. The Potsdam Conference between U.S. President Harry S. Truman, Russian leader Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill (before being replaced by Clement Attlee) ended just four days before the bombing of Hiroshima. The meeting was marked by recriminations and suspicion between the Americans and Soviets. Russian armies were occupying most of Eastern Europe. Truman and many of his advisers hoped that the U.S. atomic monopoly might offer diplomatic leverage with the Soviets. In this fashion, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan can be seen as the first shot of the Cold War.
New Scientist reported in 2005:
The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory.
Causing a fission reaction in several kilograms of uranium and plutonium and killing over 200,000 people 60 years ago was done more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan, they say. And the US President who took the decision, Harry Truman, was culpable, they add.
“He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species,” says Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington DC, US. “It was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity.”
***
[The conventional explanation of using the bombs to end the war and save lives] is disputed by Kuznick and Mark Selden, a historian from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, US.
***
New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman’s main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia, Kuznick claims. Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union began an invasion a few days after the Hiroshima bombing, not because of the atomic bombs themselves, he says.
According to an account by Walter Brown, assistant to then-US secretary of state James Byrnes, Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that Japan was “looking for peace”. Truman was told by his army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his naval chief of staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb.
“Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan,” says Selden.
John Pilger points out:
The US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, told President Truman he was “fearful” that the US air force would have Japan so “bombed out” that the new weapon would not be able “to show its strength”. He later admitted that “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb”. His foreign policy colleagues were eager “to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip”. General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project that made the bomb, testified: “There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis.” The day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Truman voiced his satisfaction with the “overwhelming success” of “the experiment”.
We’ll give the last word to University of Maryland professor of political economy – and former Legislative Director in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and Special Assistant in the Department of State – Gar Alperovitz:
Though most Americans are unaware of the fact, increasing numbers of historians now recognize the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945. Moreover, this essential judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services in the years after the war ended: Army, Navy and Army Air Force. Nor was this the judgment of “liberals,” as is sometimes thought today. In fact, leading conservatives were far more outspoken in challenging the decision as unjustified and immoral than American liberals in the years following World War II.
***
Instead [of allowing other options to end the war, such as letting the Soviets attack Japan with ground forces], the United States rushed to use two atomic bombs at almost exactly the time that an August 8 Soviet attack had originally been scheduled: Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9. The timing itself has obviously raised questions among many historians. The available evidence, though not conclusive, strongly suggests that the atomic bombs may well have been used in part because American leaders “preferred”—as Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Martin Sherwin has put it—to end the war with the bombs rather than the Soviet attack. Impressing the Soviets during the early diplomatic sparring that ultimately became the Cold War also appears likely to have been a significant factor.
***
The most illuminating perspective, however, comes from top World War II American military leaders. The conventional wisdom that the atomic bomb saved a million lives is so widespread that … most Americans haven’t paused to ponder something rather striking to anyone seriously concerned with the issue: Not only did most top U.S. military leaders think the bombings were unnecessary and unjustified, many were morally offended by what they regarded as the unnecessary destruction of Japanese cities and what were essentially noncombat populations. Moreover, they spoke about it quite openly and publicly.
***
Shortly before his death General George C. Marshall quietly defended the decision, but for the most part he is on record as repeatedly saying that it was not a military decision, but rather a political one.
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Did you know that Richard Frank and John Dower were disciples of Wile E. Coyote? He greatly shaped their world view. Much like Wile E. Coyote, I suspect Ricahrd Frank and John Dower were fast on the straights but clearly had trouble with the corners. History has shown us that fact.
I find it sickening that we Americans are so brainwashed by propaganda that even when the TRUTH is spelled out for them they still stick to what their 5th grade history teacher told them. I'm sure Mrs. Crabapple knew much more than Ike or MacArther.
Great article, GW. Keep them coming. Maybe in the next article you could teach the sheep why Pearl Harbor was NOT a sneak attack. The zombies may even read it if they could stop arguing about Romney and Obama.
Original Sin is one thing, but somebody has already taken the fall for that. Sorry, too late. YOU, however, can engage in the righteous and honorable act of seppuku and carry the sins of all those "brainwashed" Americans who refrain from full and unquestioning acceptance of revisionist history considered with the luxury of six plus decades. Before you spread the white cloth, however, perhaps you can educate everyone on the various forms of death and explain why being shot, bayonnetted, tortured, starved or blown apart by "conventional" weapons is so much more preferable to death via instant vaporization or radiation after effects. Perhaps you can also offer links detailing the maximum allowable power of bombs in WWII and how the US violated that limit.
Oh, and I guess we can all be thankful that neither George nor any of his "sources" would ever engage in attempts to brainwash or engage in sophistry. No doubt they would vaporize in an instant if they ever strayed from 'just the facts' or if they selectively quote mined for effect. I couldn't find the quote from Tojo and the other holders of military power, where they said they were on their way to surrender that Sunday morning, but I'm sure the omission was simply due to space limitations in George's tome.
Mr Pink
It seems your understanding of History is limited by Ms. Crabapples' 5th grade history class. Real History contains damn few "heros" and ugly decisions get made with the best information available.
Take a History class in Japan to find out the "truth" that Japan never invaded Manchuria and that the citizens of Nanking simply couldn't take a joke.
Oh, is that what they teach in Japanese histroy classes? Where did you read that? Xinhua? The Japanese are well aware, WELL AWARE of Manchuria and the deeds in Nanking.
"historian Stephen Ambrose noted that "The Japanese presentation of the war to its children runs something like this: 'One day, for no reason we ever understood, the Americans started dropping atomic bombs on us.'"[4
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. You should open that one-eye.
Stephen AMBROSE? You're fucking kidding me, right? This is the book-du-jour, "popular" historian who was defrocked by the profession for plagarism? Tell me, did he read Japanese or did he just hear this from someone? How is his opinion or quote on the matter even relevant? Let's see what JimDavis has to say, while we're at it?
You excel at ad hominem. Ambrose was often accused of Plagiarism. But you have not addressed his cogent summary of Japanese whitewashing of their history before and during WW2.
It continues to this day and is one of the impediments in fixing their relationship with China.
Then let me address it: That is a gross over-simplification. And Ambrose is not a credible source. He is not a reputable source. He is not a knowledgeable source.
The Japanese school system decides its textbooks on the local level, by school boards,who are free to choose whatever material their voting constituency sees fit. Most Japanese students are taught the same bland hero-myth tripe about the Pacific war as American students. Every EVERY school textbook I have seen deals with the bomb as a consequence of militarism, a needed, yet cruel catharsis. Ambrose was talking out of his rear. Iam not.
The impediment to fixing relations with the Chinese is the Chinese. The Vietnamese, India, Russians, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Tibet, AND Japan have all had problems with China's "relationship" and only half of those countries have actually had a shooting conflict with China in the past 70 years.
Maybe you should learn that "ugly decisions" are made by ugly people who , believe or not, are not worried about protecting you or saving lives. Which I believe was the theme of the article, not whether Japan's government was deserving
Mr. Pink, Your post reminds me of a Colombian friend's comment about 9/11: "Three buildings and 3,000 people? 'What's the big deal,' people said, 'We've been living that way for 20 years.' But what really surprised us was how naive Americans are. They think that government actually has a duty to protect them. Here, we all know that government is in business for itself."
Now now...you're going against the self flagellation grain common to GW articles ;-)
Self flagellation? How does criticism of government equal criticism of self? The government and the individual are not one and the same you flag-humping, statist puke.
No, you dead ender nihilist.
The object of this GW piece is to make YOU feel guilt without any context, governments are not living breathing things, so they can feel no guilt, can they?
You're a fucking dolt.
Don't ever include "me" in your "we." If you can't distinguish yourself from the government that's your problem. Typical collectivist/statist logic - as laughable as the playground logic you always roll out when your precious government is being criticized ("But Timmy did it too"). You probably weep when watching the Hearst Corp's "History" (govt. propaganda) channel.
Japan was not at war with the US whent they attacked Pearl Harbor. Seriously. Their embassy in Washington was supposed to deliver the Declaration of War one hour before the attack but they did not have it ready in time.
Call it a sneak attack or a kendo stroke or whatever you like.
But the US was at war with Japan long before Pearl Harbor. We call them "sanctions" today. In the early 40s we called them "embargoes."
Isn't it amazing what seemingly intelligent people will do and say to hold onto their illusions. It is more amazing because they are defending their illusions (primarily with ad hominem attacks) on a site that exposes the illusionists one hundred times per day.
Fascinating cognitive dissonance.
I've suggested before: read The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.
Six thousand planes, perhaps, but no aviation fuel: the Enola Gay went in without fighter cover.
Many of those missions over Japan ended up ditching over China and Korea because of fuel.
They had saved fuel and hidden bunkers for those planes. They also had manned torpedoes and frogmen with explosives in the water off the invasion beaches.
The enola gay was thought to be a weather plane and not considered a threat.
The Enola Gay was part of a flight of three B-29s; the other two were nicknamed the Great Artiste and Necessary Evil.
Three weather aircraft, you say?
Hmm...
Are you stating that a typical bombing mission profile consist of 3 B-29s? Of course not, right?
So, the Japanese knew it was not a typical bombing mission - where raids typically consisted of several hundreds of B-29s.
It was also payback for Pearl Habor.
*bellysnort*
I hope you just forgot to add your /sarc tag.
The modesty and independent spirit of the Japanese led to a group of Japanese intellectuals, dissaffected with traditional western-style religions, meeting at Mount Ikus, near Tokyo, and starting the SUKI (tm) RELIGION, The New World Religion (tm). Today, SUKI (tm) is a motherfucking religion with over two million members.
Some 700+ new cults arose in Japan after 1945: there was just this deep need to make some spiritual sense out of the madness, I dare guess.
The US abolished Shinto because of its relationship with the deified Emperor, leaving most Japanese without a religion.
" need to make some spiritual sense out of the madness "
How about finding out that your God/Emperor is a man of flesh-and-blood. That your God speaks to you over the radio and tells you he is powerless.
For those that need to believe that there is some all-knowing, all-powerful Daddy in the sky, then seeking out a cult, when you are programmed to be a follower, makes emminent sense.
"programmed to be a follower" , as opposed to people like yourself who still cling to the belief that their loving government serves to protect them and acts in the best interests of its citizens. Im guessing that you also believe that they want to keep our soldiers out of harms way
You are a master at non sequitur. How does it follow that my belief, and it is only belief, that there is no big, angry guy in the sky, predisposes me to believe I have a loving government.
You have a mighty big brain stuck in a tiny, little skull.
I don't believe government has any answers anymore than I believe you could grab your ass with both hands.
The US could have been magnanimous in victory, but instead acted like the same thugs that occupy all governments. All they needed to do was enforce a blockade, but they wanted blood.
There is no such thing as a good government, only various shades of bad.
I call bullshit. It's easy enough to be an armchair quarterback long after the fact. This story is also perfectly in line with the way the Japanese have been spinning the facts since the end of the war.
The Japanese would not have surrendered without the A bomb. As late as 1980, holdout Japanese soldiers were coming out of the jungle and when they returned to Japan, the people made heros out of them. The same spirit was much much stronger in 1945.
The A bomb was the Kendo stroke, the masterpiece of Japanese military strategy. The Kendo stroke is a single overwhelming blow that comes without warning and devastates the opponent. Japan's attack on Port Arthur in 1904 was a Kendo stroke and so was the similar attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
If Japan was so ready to surrender what stopped them? Why did they not surrender before the first A bomb? By that time they had known for months they were finished. They were warned. Why did they not surrender after the first A bomb? By that time they were not only warned, they knew the warning was no trick. Why did they wait until after the second bomb?
Only the A bomb made it possible for the Japanese high command to surrender without losing face. Without it they would have defended the Homeland to the last drop of their peoples' blood. If you do not believe this you need to study the defence they put up on islands that they did not regard as theirs and that they were willing to give up. Give up but not retreat from, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were left to certain death just to delay the invasion of the Home Islands for a few days.
The best military experts calculated the Allied casualties at 1,000,000 for an invasion of the Home Islands. Japanese casualties would have been multiples of that. The A bomb allowed Japan to surrender without losing face at a much lower cost in lives and property than an invasion.
Best military experts? Do you mean people like, Generals Lemay, MacArthur and Eisenhower? Those experts? Did you even read the article? Go back to sleep...ZZZZZZZZ
One should always be suspicious of stories like this, where it is assumed that the alternative timeline with an unwritten history would necessarily be as good or better than our actual timeline.
GW, thank you for writing this, but a bir more balance would give it a lot more credibility.
A bit more balance? Are you serious? Thats like asking for balance and forgiving Nazi's for Auschwitz, saying - they had their reasons - the use of these nuclear weapons was a criminal, terrorist act - period.
Notice how the author of this blatantly biased screed neglects to quote any Japanese sources to find out their opinion over whether or not they were ready to surrender. In actuality, the Japanese cabinet was divided between those who thought they could somehow negotiate a peace and those who advocated "the honorable death of 100 million". Unconditional surrender was not one of the positions being considered before the atomic bombs were dropped.
After the atomic bombs were dropped, this was enough for the peace faction to get the upper hand and the decision of the cabinet was to accept the Potsdam declaration calling for unconditional surrender. Even then, there was a attempted coup by military officers to prevent Hirohito from recording his "accept the unacceptable and endure the unendurable" speech to the Japanese nation.
Cities of no military value? Hiroshima was the headquarters of a corps responsible for the defense of southern Honshu, as well as, a major industrial center and seaport. Nagasaki was not the primary target of the second bomb. Kokura was targeted as the primary because of the big Mitsubishi steelworks. After arriving at Kokura, the B-29 found that the city was clouded over so the decision was made to move on to the secondary target which was Nagasaki.
When they got to Nagasaki, the B-29 was low on fuel and had barely enough to make it to Okinawa. In addition, because of the design of the bomb, it was fully armed. Nagasaki was partially clouded over, but the bombadier spotted some large buildings and released the bomb. The intended target was the Mitsubishi shipyards. They missed their target by about three miles.
An elderly Japanese gentleman I once met gave his take on the subject: "I think that atomic bomb was good thing. If it wasn't for atomic bomb, I would be dead now! All Japanese would have died fighting in the streets!"
The author needs to crack open a history book.
Crack or history book? same result
Five cities were earmarked for the A-bomb in 1940 and spared any military action at all: this was to optimize the damage assessment for the A-bomb.
I'm sorry but, to qualify for the list, they couldn't have been of that much military significance, e.g. Kyoto was among them and chosen because it had a high proportion of educated people who would be better equipped than the average citizen to fully appreciate the effects of the weapon.
Say what you will, the bombings made history on the scale of an event the USA will never live down. The other example that comes to mind is the burning of the Royal Library of Alexandria in 46 BC.
In closing, I sincerely recommend a visit to Hiroshima. If I found the experiencehaunting, I also found inspiring the resilience of its population. But stay a little longer: beyond the mass mureder and messed up DNA caused by the weapon, there are the psyhcological effects. Hiroshima has the highest rates in the country for suicide, divorce, depression, emigration and intermarriage with non-natives. Then there is the medical center sponsored by the USG that gave free checkups to everybody in town but never dispensed any treatment until 1968.
Definitely; visit Hiroshima.
And, for appropriate historical perspective visit:
Additional research, again for appropriate historical perspective, interview:
Finally, this from historian Chalmers Johnson:
"It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians (i.e. Soviet citizens); the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays,Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers—and, in the case of the Japanese, as (forced) prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war fromBritain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not the Soviet Union) you faced a 4% chance of not surviving the war; (by comparison) the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30%."
Abbreviated Timeline:
March 10, 1945 - The single most destructive air raid in history destroys 267,000 building and kills 100,000 in Tokyo. The Japanese do not surrender.
August 6th, 1945 - The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The Japanese do not surrender.
August 8th, 1945 - The Soviet Union declares war on Japan. The Japanese do not surrender.
August 9th, 1945:
August 10th, 1945
August 14th, 1945 - Military coup d'etat fails to arrest Emperor and stop surrender process.
August 15th, 1945 - Emperor publicly annouces intent to surrender.
So, for the morbid body counters out there...forced Imperial Japanese labor of conquered peoples, of different nations, ALONE, killed more than the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs COMBINED.
I think we can put this atomic puppy to bed.
I don't know where you get your information.
Kyoto was off-limits for any bombing, despite what Curtis LeMay felt, because the US considered the amount of cultural treasures that would have been lost. Same goes for Nara also. The only thing of military value in Kyoto was the Tokaido rail line which could be severed in any number of other places.
In fact, the Imperial Palace grounds in Tokyo were also off-limits because the US was worried about what the Japanese reaction would be if the Emperor was killed in a bombing attack.
FYI, I've been to Nagasaki about a dozen times and, unless you look hard, you can't tell that anything ever happened there. In fact, it looks just like any other small to medium sized Japanese city. People there are going about their business and not walking around traumatized as you would like them to.
"The author needs to crack open a history book."
At least a few not 'Zinn-ified' with a particular political agenda.
Well, under this angle, it qualifies as:
Crime against humanity
just saying....
but it does anyway, no lame excuses please !!!
I read something saying the cities bombed were Christian as opposed to Shinto or some such.
Also, I read about the selling/giving of bearing technology to the Soviets by traitors in the US that basically made their nuke program successful.
SKS Bearings or some such..
Forrestal knew too much, they tossed him out of a building btw.
The "real" reason is the desire for world domintation by a relatively small cadre of socio-psychopathic smart people...
For the ball bearings, I guess you mean SKF or Svenska Kullager Fabriken. It's Swedish and releasing Q3 results on October 17 but anyhow, the country was nominally neutral during WW2 and entitled to deal with anybody. That said, its secret service was nicer to Brit and German spies than to their Soviet counterparts and, well, the kingdom made other little compromises here and there, now and then.
The really useful thing the USSR got a gift (!) from Rolls Royce was their Nene engine, which was manufactured as the Klimov VK-1 and powered the MiG-15.
The Soviets would have built their A-bomb sooner or later anyhow. Even Japan had an A-bomb going during the war but it didn't, um, get off the ground, so to speak.
SKF had and continues to have one of the best quality bearings made; no disrespect intended to DoChen. Nevertheless, Nazi Germany was one of their best paying customers.
In a way, this is a foolish article.
Of course saving millions of lives wasn't the real reason. That's because a decision like this is too important to have a "single" reason. How simplistic can you get.
There are *numerous* reasons why the bomb was dropped IMHO. Here is a quick list in no particular order of importance, except perhaps the one with the stars.
1) to save thousands of American lives, and perhaps millions of Japanese lives (just in case the Japs wanted to continue Iwo Jima/Okinawa style)
2) to try out the new toy and justify its development cost (a variant of why does the dog lick its balls)
3) ** to send a message to history that anyone who sneak attacks the US (even if there was an element of provocation by the US in bringing it on) will be "messed up real good"
4) to scare the hell out of Uncle Joe. (e.g the "real reason" according to the article)
5) to establish the Anglo-American imperium.
Actually, the US had already broken the Japanese military codes and had advance warning of the attack. Moreover, I quote the following from Wikipedia:
After World War II, [Japanese Ambassador] Nomura denied that he knew beforehand of the attack.[4] Reportedly Nomura and [Japanese special envoy] Kurusu had to personally decode the radioed message of Japan's breaking off the negotiations with the United States (which given the circumstances practically meant war), as it had been sent from Japan on Monday, December 8 and was received when the embassy's technical support staff was still on Sunday holiday. Nomura stated that this is why he had been unable to deliver the message until after the actual attack had taken place.[5] In his memoirs, Hull credited Nomura with having been sincere in trying to prevent war between Japan and the USA.[6]
It's amazing what a difference little things can make sometimes.