The A-Bombs

I guess this is as much of a 'buzz' topic as Roseanne, but every year near the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima we have to hear the story of the Bombs That Won WWII. I don't want to argue the morality of atomic weapons, or of war itself. I only want to assess how necessary the use of atomic weapons was to ending the war.I found the book "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb" by Gal Alperowitz extrememly useful in dispelling many myths about the end of WWII, and Doug Long has an excellent website No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.doug-long.com/ that also deals with the debate.My own opinion (shared by neither author mentioned above, incidentally) is that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were merely the final steps in the Manhattan Project, and were not necessary to end the war. The Potsdam Declaration explicitly avoided any mention of the imperial dynasty. The Allies realized the Japanese would never surrender without assurances that they would be able to retain their Emperor. They also had knowledge that during July, Japan had sent a diplomat to then-neutral Russia at the behest of the Emperor to negotiate acceptable peace terms with the Allies.The decision to call for unconditional surrender was made against the advice of high-ranking military officials. When the Japanese ignored the Potsdam Declaration, Hiroshima was bombed without warning. Three days later the Soviets declared war and invaded Manchuria. The same day, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Still the surrender did not come.It was only after U. S. Secretary of State Byrnes assured Hirohito that his fate would be in the hands of the Supreme Allied Commander (MacArthur, who had earlier advised Roosevelt that the support of the Emperor would be essential to rebuilding Japan) that Hirohito gave the order to surrender. This was a full week after the bombing of Hiroshima.The figures we hear concerning cost-benefit analyses of American lives saved by the use of the atom bombs are mere post-hoc rationalizations. These constitute the same revisionism that A-bomb supporters claim to deplore. If the fate of Japan's Emperor had been made explicit in the Potsdam Declaration, surrender may have come before the end of July. In that case, the casualties of the A-bombs as well as the anticipated Allied invasion would have been rendered absolutely unnecessary.------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.[This message has been edited by MrHambre, 08-04-2003]

While I tend to agree, these are the sorts of areas I didn't want to get into: what's acceptable in hindsight, etc. Anyone else have any thoughts about the necessity of dropping the bombs to end WWII?------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

Let's start with the A-bombs and work backward then. Any thoughts?------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

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The atomic bombings broke this political stalemate and were thus described by Mitsumasa Yonai, the navy minister at the time, as a "gift from heaven."

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What's interesting is that the political stalemate only existed because the Potsdam Declaration called for unconditional surrender and had no provision for the retention of the Emperor. The hawks in the Japanese cabinet must have considered the Declaration a gift from heaven, since it allowed them to argue in favor of prolonging the war.

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"The atomic bomb was a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war," Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief cabinet secretary in 1945, said later.

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In that case, why didn't they end the war when the bomb was dropped? Surrender only came at the behest of the Emperor when his status was clarified by the U.S. government, four entire days after the second bomb was detonated.I don't doubt that the U.S. intended to allow the Japanese to retain their Emperor all along. However, the Potsdam Declaration allowed the U.S. to detonate the bombs ostensibly in response to the refusal of the Japanese to accept the unconditional surrender.------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

Like I said, both bombs were the test runs that concluded the expensive Manhattan Project. Hiroshima was decimated by a uranium bomb, and Nagasaki got it with plutonium. Also, the Soviets invaded Manchuria right before Nagasaki was destroyed, an extremely fortuitous coincidence I'm sure.------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

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An editorial in the New York Times today suggests that Japanese historians are generally of the consensus that the atom bombs were largely responsible for the end of the war because they shocked the hard-line military majority into accepting surrender.

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The fact remains that surrender came only after, and immediately after, the Emperor demanded it.War Minister Anami was certainly the most extreme hard-liner in the government. He didn't accept the call for unconditional surrender, even after both bombs had dropped and the Soviets had declared war and invaded. When the Emperor's status had been assured by the Allies, Anami sent troops to the Imperial Palace in a last-ditch effort to keep the Emperor from giving the order to surrender. However, Hirohito escaped and expressed that it was his wish that the Cabinet accept the terms of surrender. Anami obediently complied, then returned home and committed ritual suicide.------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

Can I ask where you came about your knowledge of this plan?Before, during, and after the decision to use the atomic bombs was made, the overwhelming opinion among high-ranking US military officials was that the Japanese were defeated. This page gives you the distinct impression that by late July 1945 the American government and military insiders knew that it was only a matter of time before the Japanese gave up. This opinion seemed to be shared by people like General Eisenhower, General MacArthur, Truman's Chief of Staff Admiral William D. Leahy, Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard, among others.After the war was long over, there were bound to be rationalizations for using a defeated civilian populace for atomic testing. The military didn't consider estimates of American and Japanese casualties relevant when they made the decision to use atomic weapons, because they realized it was unlikely such an invasion would be necessary.regards,
Esteban Hambre[This message has been edited by MrHambre, 03-24-2004]

I've never made it a point to criticize the morality of the decision to use the atomic bombs. Obviously that's a debate in and of itself. However, there are many sources available that give a pretty clear picture of what the basis for the decision was, and I wanted to explore how necessary the bombs were to ending the war. The fact remains that the surrender only came only after the Emperor demanded it.You're absolutely right that the protracted firebombing of Tokyo was just as destructive as the atomic bombs would later be. The fact that the conventional bombing took place before the Allied victory at Okinawa in June is a significant point. By July, the Japanese were cut off from their resources in the south Pacific, and had already sent an envoy to the Soviet Union so that Moscow could mediate peace terms between Japan and the Allies.After the first atomic test at Alamogordo in July, it seemed Truman and Secretary of State Byrnes set their sights on calling for Japan's unconditional surrender. They removed language from paragraph 12 of the Potsdam Declaration that was clearly a provision suggesting their Emperor would not be tried as a war criminal:

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This may include a constitutional monarchy under the present dynasty if it be shown to the complete satisfaction of the world that such a government will never again aspire to aggression.

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The language that remained was calculated to generate a refusal from the Japanese:

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There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest...stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals...

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I submit that the call for unconditional surrender was made, against the advice of many top-ranking American military officials, in order to use Japan's refusal to surrender as an excuse to test atomic weapons. General Marshall and General Groves were both in charge of the Manhattan Project, and had been responsible for raising an amazing $20 million from Congress for this secretive plan. The two cities targeted for the bombs had been largely avoided during the firebombing earlier in 1945. Both cities had military installations on their outskirts, but the detonations were planned and executed in the populated center of each city. Hiroshima's bomb was uranium, and Nagasaki's plutonium.The correspondence from Japan's Minister in Switzerland to U.S. Secretary of State Byrnes on 10 August only requests clarification on one point: the Emperor. After receiving assurances that his fate was in the hands of General MacArthur, Emperor Hirohito requested that the Japanese government accept the surrender. Even those who strongly opposed surrender complied. If the Allies had really wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, they would have made this stipulation in the original declaration. The evidence seems clear that this was not the intention of the U.S. government at the time.regards,
Esteban Hambre[This message has been edited by MrHambre, 03-24-2004]

Loudmouth,I'm not sure I understand your point. If the Emperor represented the hawkish regime of Imperial Japan, why bother exempting him from being tried as a war criminal? Why was his status of no concern to the Allies at the end of July, if they were going to afford him special treatment anyway after the bombs were dropped?I'm not claiming that Hirohito wasn't a war criminal. By most accounts, he participated in the planning of some key military events before and during the war. He was at least aware of, and some even say active in, the planning of the Pearl Harbor attack. He made few attempts to rid the Japanese cabinet of the hawks who would later oppose surrender when even he considered it inevitable.Hirohito was seen as a God by the Japanese people, including those in the government. The call for unconditional surrender was a godsend to those hawks who insisted on prolonging the war: they realized that it was unacceptable to surrender if the Emperor's status may be threatened. And according to Secretary of War Stimson and his Assistant Secretary of War McGrew, this point had been made repeatedly to President Truman and Secretary of State Byrnes.It seems that the Potsdam Declaration was less a call for surrender and more a green light for the use of atomic weapons against the Japanese.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Since it's early August, we're going to be hearing about the "bombs that won WWII" all over again. It's always been my contention that the A-bombs were not necessary to win WWII. I'm not addressing the decision to drop the atomic bombs on any other basis than whether they were necessary to defeat the Japanese.I always plug Doug Long's exhaustive website as well as Gar Alperovitz's book The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, in appreciation for the help they've been in my research into the history of the A-bombs and people's misperceptions of what the conditions were during that time.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Mark24,Hindsight is much weaker than 20/20, as demonstrated by people's willingness to see what they want to see in the events of the past. In fact, the hawks (War Minister Anami in particular) who sent troops to the Imperial Palace to prevent Hirohito giving the order to surrender knew what the Allies had known all along: the only thing that would force the Japanese to surrender was the command of the Emperor. When, in fact, Hirohito gave the order, even Anami complied. Then he went home and committed ritual suicide.The realization that the Japanese were done for, and the understanding that they would not surrender without explicit reassurances that the Emperor would be retained is what made the Allies call for unconditional surrender. The Japanese refusal to accept the surrender was the Allies' excuse for carrying out atomic testing on a defeated civilian populace.If the Japanese had surrendered after one bomb was dropped, or both bombs were dropped, you may have had a point. However, the truth is that the Japanese only surrendered after (and immediately after) the Emperor commanded it. That happened an entire week after the first bomb was detonated.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Amlodhi,I don't see what's so PC or revisionist about trying to gauge the necessity for using atomic weapons to end WWII. I'm sure one of the things that made it so easy to excuse the use of the new war tecnology was the knowledge of not only the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor, but also their atrocities in Nanking, Manchuria, Burma, Bataan, the Philippines, and throughout the South Pacific.One of the criticisms leveled at the Truman administration, not by pacifist Pollyannas but by various Allied military leaders like MacArthur and Eisenhower, was that by the summer of 1945 Truman and his Secretary of State Byrnes couldn't grasp that they had diplomatic options as well as military ones. The costly Allied military victory at Okinawa was decisive enough to have given Truman an opportunity to end the war swiftly. His decision to remove verbiage concerning the Emperor in the Potsdam Declaration that would have allowed the Japanese to surrender and retain its figurehead can be seen as one of two things: a massive diplomatic blunder that only prolonged the agonizing endgame, or a measure calculated to allow the US to test atomic weapons on the Japanese under the pretext that Truman had no other conceivable options.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Mark24 says:

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But ultimately the bombs did cause Hirohito to issue his "bear the unbearable" speech, & therefore the bombs were instrumental in the capitulation of Japan.

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I disagree with this. Remember, the second bomb was dropped on 9 August. Japan's requests to Secretary of State Byrnes on 10 August still focused on the issue of the Emperor. It was not until 14 August that Byrnes clarified the Allied position: the Emperor's fate was in the hands of the Supreme Allied Commander. Since MacArthur had always been outspoken in opposing unconditional surrender and in asserting that Hirohito's support would be indispensible in rebuilding Japan, the Emperor gave the order to surrender that very day.I don't doubt that the Allies always intended to allow the Japanese to retain their Emperor anyway, so why not clarify that at the outset? If it was so important to have an unconditional surrender, why eventually allow the Japanese to stipulate even one condition? Simple, the atomic testing was done, and that was the only reason for the delay in the first place.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Mark24 states:

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The point is that the offer of surrender was agreed immediately after the second bomb fell. [emphasis in original]

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This is demonstrably untrue. Certainly Togo, Suzuki, and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Kido had been looking for a way to negotiate peace for months. Togo and Hirohito met even before the Nagasaki detonation to make plans to get the Japanese government to make a counter-offer to the Allies. However, on 14 August both the Cabinet and the Big Six met and were still deadlocked on the subject of surrender. As I've said many times, when Hirohito was assured by Byrnes that his position was secure, he gave the order to surrender. This was on 14 August.I'm certainly not saying that the A-bombs didn't influence the decision-making of japanese officials. But by that time, the damage had been done: the call for unconditional surrender (which the Allies knew would be rejected by the Japanese, since Suzuki himself had said so in a speech on 9 June) had steeled the hawks to resist ending the war for as long as it would take for the Allies to concede their demands.regards,
Esteban Hambre[edited to add: The meetings of the Supreme War Council (the "Big Six") and the Cabinet actually took place on 13 August, not 14 August, according to information on Doug Long's website.]This message has been edited by MrHambre, 08-03-2004 11:52 AM

mark24,There actually was more debate in the Cabinet than that passage by Toland suggests:This is from Doug Long's website. The references are to Leon Sigal's Fighting to the Finish and Robert Butow's Japan's Decision To Surrender. Toland himself (p. 939) claims the Cabinet did not agree to the Allied terms until the 14th.There seems to have been a very complicated tangle of motivations within the Japanese government, but the Allied command realized it was just a matter of time. Again, I'm not saying that the A-bombs didn't influence Hirohito's decision, but neither did they cause immediate capitulation. The Emperor's wishes for an acceptable surrender were well known by July 1945. If the Potsdam Proclamation had made it clear that Hirohito's status was secure, there may have been no need to drop the bombs. Remember, it was Suzuki himself who refused to even consider the Proclamation because of its strong language concerning Japan's leaders (presumably the Emperor), and he was not among the hawks in the Japanese government. The demands for which even the hard-liners were holding out don't seem outrageous: retention of the Emperor, Japan disarms itself, and no occupying force.The questions remain, were the bombs really a last resort for the Allies, or was there a vested interest involved in delaying the Japanese surrender?regards,
Esteban Hambre