That's a poor reading of the quotes, imo. They read like this to me: C) The Top Military Leaders in the war thought that Japan would surrender under the current blockade and conventional bombing compaign. With that advice, it appears Truman's decision was based on time factors. imo, what the military leaders often don't understand is the politics behind Presidential decisions. At the time, there was worry that Russia was going to join the Japan war and then try to carve Japan up just like Europe. A quick ending had its longterm benefits to both Japan and the world. Stalin was a frigging maniac. What would he have done with a port on the Japanese mainland or one of the northern islands, much less a puppet govt in a divided Japan? for instance, why was Stalin declaring war on Japan in 1945...to have an excuse for invading Manchuria and dividing up Korea? Well, Korea was definitely divided at the 38th Parallel between USSR and the US to administer the Japanese surrender and set up two interim governments. Fancy that. Did bringing about that surrender quicker prevent the USSR from getting their hands onto other things?
There are three different questions here, all of which are important enough that they deserve to be separated. 1. With all that we know now, should we have dropped the bomb? We probably should have done a "demonstration" on a relatively deserted island close to the Nipponese homeland. Close enough to let them see the devastation. They might, then, have refused to believe we'd actually drop it on a city... but we can't be sure. 2. Knowing what we did then, should we have dropped it? Yes. Cost estimates in life for the invasion of Nippon were well above the human cost of dropping the bomb. Perhaps we overestimated Nippon's ability to resist. But at the same time, in war... the enemy's life is not as valuable as your own. Before you cross the line of war... everyone is important. Afterward, it's your soldiers you try to protect. The lives of the enemy are... far less meaningful. A tragic, but necessary rationale for war planners. 3. Should we have dropped the 2nd? I'd like to qualify my answer here. We should have waited 1 week, not 3 days. Although I understand the thinking behind the shortened wait. Unconditional surrender was necessary, whatever the above poster might say. A surrender could not be allowed in which the Nipponese were later able to rationalize that it was a peace treaty, or only a partial defeat. Moreover, while internal discussions existed concerning total surrender in Nippon, nothing was resolved. And for the Occupation project to work, total acceptance of defeat was required. The US believed that the emperor was crucial to the expansionist Nipponese ideology. Certain Nipponese officials that had not been too[/] implicated in the war convinced MacArthur that the Emperor desired peace long before the military regime. Everything needed to be available to the Occupation for the recreation of Nippon. Edit: Oh, one last thing... Heypartner has the cynical interpretation down pat. He's utterly correct in that... it's possible thousands of people died for A. Truman's re-election bid, and B. to prevent Russia from invading (though that would have some real significance). I don't suscribe to A at all, and B in a more limited fashion...
Why do people question the dropping of the atomic weapons on Japan, but not the carpet bombing of Tokyo which was much more devastating?
haven, I do not believe your "A" at all. I meant Geopolitics, not local politics. "cynical interpretation??" not at all. There was concern about USSR getting into the Japan War and dividing everything like in Europe. They, in fact, declared war on Japan 2 days after Hiroshima and invaded Manchuria the same day, and that invasion was already planned way before. The Soviets where pre-mobilized to invade with a massive force, so it is unlikely that the bomb triggered that. We can presume Truman knew they were poised to invade. Although Truman the caused a surrender within one week, Korea was occupied by Japan, and the surrender resulted in the USSR and US dividing it at the 38th parallel for each to administer the surrender and establish new governments. This division caused another "war." All I'm suggesting is that there were concerns that Stalin was extending his campaign East, and that might have led Truman to ignore the earlier advice of Eisenhower, Leahy, and MacArthur who each said a surrender was imminent with no invasion necessary. Question was: was it imminent enough?
I agree with you concerning Russia... and I'm glad you weren't suggesting the former. Heh... I read about that idea in the same book that suggested that Neville Chamberlain really knew Hitler was a tyrant and signed peace accords in order to set trip wires.
If you look at the amount of TNT equivalent of bombs dropped daily in Tokyo/Japan, you will see that its larger than the TNT equivalent of either of the relatively small atomic bombs dropped in Nagasaki/Hiroshima. So in a sense, we were dropping atomic bombs daily. Of course, radiation is another story....
haven -- excellent posts! i agree with almost all of it...though I must say I'm not certain I agree with a demonstration of the bomb...or maybe it's not so much that i don't agree with it..but rather i see clearly the administration's concerns at the time that the thing would not work and that it would make us look weak in the midst of a war. I remember doing a project on this decision in a small-group communication class at Baylor...seems, if I remember right, that no one was entirely certain what these things would do...there was speculation it would be far worse and there was speculation that it wouldn't cause as much damage as it did. but, nevertheless, i agree with the thrust of your post...and the tragedy that, when planning for war (particularly when you're the attacked, not the aggressor), your view of the value of life becomes a bit skewed. as patton once said (paraphrase), "if we can get more of them to die for their cause, then we'll win."
MadMax - here is the Patton quote - he was a great warrior "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other b*stard die for his " http://www.quotemeonit.com/patton.html
Half the posters answer with a military justification. I don't know if that speaks to the question. It certainly doesn't answer it for me. Is it not possible for something to be militarily advisable, beneficial for one's homeland and (as some suggested) perhaps for one's enemy and still -- despite everything -- be morally wrong? I think this is the case with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US was engaged in a war of attrition in which they did everything they could think of to destroy Japan's (and Germany's) military, industry and population. As Hydra and Dream Sequence have already pointed out, fire-bombing raids were more destructive than any single atom bomb. These were also targeting civilians. In fact, the a-bombs' targets were spared from the fire-bombings so that they would make more dramatic targets. This is a sick sort of logic we were engaged in when deciding to drop the bomb; but it is the same logic we employed throughout the war. If the a-bomb is a problem, you must take 5 steps back and look at the justification of engaging in a war of attrition in the first place. Is there really any moral justification for bombing (nuclear or otherwise) civilians? I'm not saying it was a bad idea, so please no one object on that point. The Japanese did start the war; the Japanese themselves fought the war on this level; it would have been wrong to allow the Japanese to get away with the campaign of expansion they were engaged in; we probably would not have been able to defeat them with any strategy other than a war of attrition; by being so good at it, we were actually able to keep the Japanese from continuing their own war of attrition and conquest and we were able to shorten the time we had to do it ourselves; for all these reasons and more, our hand was forced. But, it was still morally wrong. Damned if we do, damned if we don't? Yes, but so much of life works that way; what else would you expect? P.S. Piranha suggested we could have shown the Japanese what our capacity was instead of dropping the second one. I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong), we only had 3 at the time, including the two we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't think they'd have been too impressed with our arsenal. In fact, I think the Americans wanted to be sure that the Japanese didn't know how many more we had.
Okay. I'm trying to recall this from memory but the assertions that Japanese surrender was imminent are not entirely correct. The Japanese government was controlled by six individuals (and the Emperor was NOT one of them) who were known as the Supreme War Councel or Big 6. Three were military and the other three were civilian. The military members were not going to surrender under ANY circumstances. The civilian members wanted to surrender and, after the bombs were dropped the emperor felt that Japan should surrender as well. The civilian members actually had the Emperor record the surrender message on tape because they knew the military members would do anything to prevent surrender. There was even threat of a coup by the military members to prevent surrender. Even after the bombs were dropped there were powerful factions who wanted to fight to the bitter end. IMO, the bombs were totally necessary. Here is a link that describes the finals days before Japan surrendered. http://www.danford.net/end.htm This link is NOT where I got the above information (I got it out of encyclopidia at my parents house) but it does explain what happened. Charlie
wow. how smart. i think i burst into tears. anyway, try looking at it from the perspective of someone else. just try. the war was pretty much over. nazis were pretty much done. u guys have a simple minded perspective. do you look at life in black and white, good guys vs. bad guys or do you actually stop and think? maybe im wrong about some things i dont no but at least im thinking about it from anothe point of view and not just the crap i was told when i was little.
This is simply not the case. The Nazi's were at this point only several months removed from having to delay their plans for an invasion of England. They controlled the majority of Europe, and if given a year or so of status quo, they'd have been able to invade England. The moment that perhaps would be most analogus to the situation which you seem to be trying to describe would be the Battle of the Buldge, when Hitler overcommited his armor in a last, futile effort to punch through the advancing Americans. D-Day occured on June 6th, 1944. German surender didn't come until May 7th, 1945. That was more than a year of hard fighting, and included things like Operation Market Garden, where the US, and particularly the British got their ass handed to them by the Nazis.
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