August 1945 - the A-Bombs or conventionally invade the mainland of Japan?
This issue is very sensitive and debatable (forgive the melodrama).
My grandfather flew the P-47s in Burma. He experienced, in their aftermaths, some horrendous events of Japanese crimes outside the measures of war. My mother always hated it when he gave my brother and I his war stories. He couldn't even walk near a Japanese restaurant without exuding a racist remark! I loved him, and miss him, but he was anything but 'objective'. Plenty of veterans have been more forgiving than he.
I don't want to grind the point of Japan's ignominity during WWII (at least by its military), as this topic is, and will always be, again, very touchy and probably never to be interpreted by complete impartial objectivity (myself included). If I may speak for many, one's first inclination of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must certainly be how the killing of some 40% (including the after-affects of radiation exposure) of the civilian population of two major cities can be justified; in August of 1945, Hiroshima had roughly 310,000 people, Nagasaki some 250,000. Well, if it meant 'us' or 'them' it can be construed as the right decision. I'm afraid it comes down to one of those debates - you know, it served a larger end which saved more lives, or for 'security of our side' etc. I am an American, a proud one, but it's easy to be blinded a little by the specificity of the demand of 'unconditional surrender'; the Japanese had undergone a terrible affliction of American firebombing the previous seven months, which took as much as half a million civilian lives. A paper by one John Denson, who repudiates the droppings of the atomic bombs, states,
"...The stark fact is that the Japanese leaders, both military and civilian, including the Emperor, were willing to surrender in May of 1945 if the Emperor could remain in place and not be subjected to a war crimes trial after the war. This fact became known to President Truman as early as May of 1945. The Japanese monarchy was one of the oldest in all of history dating back to 660 B.C. The Japanese religion added the belief that all the Emperors were the direct descendants of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. The reigning Emperor Hirohito was the 124th in the direct line of descent. After the bombs were dropped on August 6 and 9 of 1945, and their surrender soon thereafter, the Japanese were allowed to keep their Emperor on the throne and he was not subjected to any war crimes trial. The Emperor, Hirohito, came on the throne in 1926 and continued in his position until his death in 1989. Since President Truman, in effect, accepted the conditional surrender offered by the Japanese as early as May of 1945, the question is posed, "Why then were the bombs dropped?"...
But is it that simple? Were they all in agreement to terms? Was it worth any risk?
The Japanese were terrific soldiers, who were not afraid to fight, and certainly not afraid to die. When ultimate victory was hopeless by late 1944 or so, they were gearing for a greater sacrifice. The kamikaze pilots ('divine wind') looked forward to their fate, termed tokubetsu kōgeki tai (or shinpu) for the missions of WWII; their suicide attacks on Allied ships (the first on record was in October of 1944 around Leyte Gulf, with kamikaze attacks, perhaps impromptu, on the Australian heavy cruiser HMAS Australia and the American fleet tug USS Sonoma, of which the latter was sunk), akin to the spirit of the Samurai Warrior, around Okinawa in April-June of 1945 produced much havoc on the American ships. The magnitude of ferocity and death toll caused by the Battle for Okinawa (March 18 - June 23, 1945) is surpassed only by Stalingrad among the huge clashes of WWII. With the Anglo-American capture of Okinawa, less than 300 miles south of the Jpanese mainland, the island-hopping campaign to establish strategic points to strike at Japan reached its pinnacle.
Basically, this is what we are presented with:
It seems about two million Japanese troops on their homeland, supported by a citizen militia of as much as thirty million, were going to defend the mainland against maybe 1.5 million American invaders (the proposed 'Operation Downfall'). Japanese troops scattered outside of Japan may have numbered well over a million, but they were thoroughly cut off from their homeland due to American command of the sea and air encompassing Japan. The citizens, including women and young teens, were being trained to use bamboo spears! Overall, the invading Americans would be facing a civilian population recently drilled in guerilla tactics. About 1/3 of Japan's urban population, numbering roughly 1 million at this time, had already perished amid the horrific incendiary bombings - the 'burn jobs' of Curtis LeMay.
This saturation bombing, mainly form the B-29s, intended to break Japan's will to continue (the bombings were certainly breaking their capacity to wage war industrially), was used as an impetus to whip up hatred of the Americans and strengthen their resolve to fight to the death as a nation. This was not as difficult in Japan as it would have been in western countries. Remember, the Japanese were a people of a martial culture dating back hundreds of years. Of course there were exceptions: not every single Japanese kamikaze pilot could have looked forward to perishing, and not every single Japanese citizen wanted to fight American invading forces. They must have known victory was impossible by this time, and maybe the United States could have appealed to the ones opposed to resisiting, saying they could keep their emperor, who was a deity to them. But they were certainly in the minority. Perhaps The United States could have continued the naval blockade of Japan, which would have slowly caused Japan to run out of food, ammunition, and other necessities and forced them to surrender. Moreover, they could have continued the conventional bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which had already destroyed sixty or so of Japan's cities. But why delay bringing the most devastating conflict in history to an end?
The Japanese almost always fought to the last man, and even the wounded were often supplied with two grenades. One was to kill any enemy soldier, preferably enemy medical staff if possible, who approached them, and the other was to kill themselves rather than endure the shame of being captured alive. This imbued doctrine was not lessening at all by 1945. This fanaticism is what the Americans would have faced in an amphibious assault on the Japanese home islands. Japan would have been starved and overcome, but at a terrifying cost. Many G.I.s feel Harry Truman saved tens of thousands of American lives. The Japanese even organized attack units of frogmen, who would have crept along the seabed and jammed bamboo poles wired with explosives up upon the bottom of landing craft, which would have destroyed themselves as well as many invaders. Other methods of suicide attack being developed included explosive-filled 'crash boats', guided human torpedoes, guided human rocket-bombs (the 'Baka'?), and specially trained ground suicide units carrying explosives. Perhaps no nation has ever, in a methodical fashion, been prepared to sacrifice its people on the scale Japan was in waning months of WWII. Many critics of this issue harp on the possibility that Japan might have surrendered quickly, and the bombs were totally unnecessary. Well, I don't think it was worth the risk, judging by the patriotic and fanatical nature of the Japanese in the summer of 1945. A big question is how much did U.S. intelligence know of Japan's defence willingness at the time. I think some reports indicated that the Japanese would probably be able to muster, along with the 2 million or so troops, 8,000 aircraft for the defence of the 4 islands against a conventional amphibious invasion. The dispersal of these military resources across Japan, which would doubtless entail careful concealment, would provide the Americans with no opportunity to destroy them from the air. Suicide attacks on the American troops and their covering warships would become paramount. For this purpose, possibly thousands of aircraft were being adapted for massive suicide attacks.
"I realize the tragic significance of the atomic bomb...having found the bomb, we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us".
- Harry Truman.
There is no substantial evidence that suggests the Japanese were going to surrender UNCONDITIONALLY any time relatively soon. But surrender they were going to. In July 1945 the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, which was part of the Potsdam Conference in Germany (which called for the division of Germany and Austria into four occupation zones). Its purpose was to outline the terms of and hasten Japan's surrender without the need for a difficult and very costly amphibious assault. Japan was warned that it faced prompt and utter destruction unless they quickly agreed to an unconditional surrender. Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki announced that Japan intended to ignore the Potsdam Declaration.
With those profound words, Truman had a very good idea of the full extent of the appalling atrocities committed by the Japanese military in China and during the Pacific War throughout 1941-45. Every aggressor has a 'justified' point of view, and, in this case, it seems Japan felt they didn't violated Chinese sovereignty in 1931 (the 'Manchurian Incident'), but acted as liberators of the Chinese from Western colonialism. They blamed the United States for 'forcing' them to bomb Pearl Harbor, claiming it was a desperate response to Roosevelt's embargoes on raw materials needed by Japan, to wage war no less. But they killed between 5 and possibly 10 million Chinese people between 1937 and 1945. Liberators? The main reason Roosevelt imposed the embargoes of raw materials was to attempt to halt brutal Japanese aggression in China and elsewhere in Asia. But there were certainly other considerations, including political ones.
The brutality, racism, and fanaticism routinely displayed by the Japanese military was horrible, which was resplendent with the murder of prisoners of war and non-combatants. They clearly displayed a willingness to fight to the last man and never surrender, evidenced by the action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The 'Rape of Nanking' and what was perpetrated in Bataan were infamous for the psychopathic brutality afflicted upon prisoners of war and civilians. But they were not isolated incidents; ask any Australian who knows his/her history quite well about the Sandakan Death March and the incident on Bangka Island. Actually, maybe we shouldn't ask them; one can find out for his/herself.
I don't think there is any question that the war with Japan did end sooner because of the atomic bomb. They did surrender immediately with, seemingly, quail upon experiencing the unprecedented destruction wrought from one bomb dropped from one plane. Many lives, both American and Japanese, were doubtless saved in exchange for the loss of life it would entail to take the Japanese mainland conventionally. But would the amount have exceeded the price of the atomic bombs?
'Fat Man' and 'Little Boy' ushered in the nuclear age, and they are the most terrible things, in terms of such a frightening threat upon human existence, ever developed. Possibly the best way to 'justify' the atomic bomb's lone use (well, 2 uses) in 1945 is to work to eliminate every single arm in every nuclear stockpile around the world.
The hydrogen bomb dropped on Bikini in 1954 was about 1,000 times more powerful than the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is scary! How more powerful are they now? There is a lure to these weapons - a lure not a novelty in human history. The lure is none other than power. Are we fortunate that some madman, of which history is rife with, hasn't gotten his hands on these weapons?
I will conclude by stating that, in terms of air warfare, the atomic bombings didn't really change air warfare. Before and since, attacks from the air have merely supplemented ground fighting. Air strikes can certainly harass and humiliate life for civilians, but battles and wars seem to still be decided by ground forces. This could be arguable. The strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only air battles, if they can be considered as such, to directly decide the outcome of a war.
As for how they have impacted the world into more modern times, well, without being verbose, one major issue could be that the United States was provided with unmatched military superiority - in a world that had just been involved in total war. It didn't take long for the Soviets to match the U.S. as a power, and the two superpowers began their competitive advancements in the Cold War, which brought our world to the edge of destruction. The atomic bomb introduced a fear of total annihilation that has inexorably changed world politics. The world must be vigilant! This seems to be a major point of all the advocates against dropping the atomic bombs in 1945. But on scales of unprecedented destruction for their times, didn't the Romans horribly sack Carthage, expunging the great city from the condition of even bare existence? How many millions fell under the Mongol conquests? Come the 20th century, Hitler's odious Final Solution and attempts against the Slavic peoples caused......need I finish that sentence? The supposed Armenian Genocide of 1915-1917? Pol Pot's purges of his 'hidden enemies'? The Communists in China and the Soviet Union destroyed millions of 'enemies of the state'. All this has been done without the benefit of nuclear power. Mmmmmm.
Thanks, James
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Originally Posted by Count of Montesano
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