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". . . to create a weapon of mass destruction that would soon kill and maim more than 200,000 people, ushering in the atomic age." The use of the bomb ended t

by jdkee 3y ago

". . . to create a weapon of mass destruction that would soon kill and maim more than 200,000 people, ushering in the atomic age." The use of the bomb ended the war in the Pacific early and saved untold lives, both military and civilian. See https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima

Brananarchy 3y ago
There are deep complexities to the war with Japan. The willingness of Japanese pilots to use kamikaze tactics provides evidence that they'd fight until the end costing, as you said, untold lives in the conflict. But we also cannot escape the fact that the majority of the people affected by Little Boy and Fat Man were civilians. I believe that we could have chosen targets which properly demonstrated the futility of continued military resistance, without the need for the civilian deaths which we incurred by bombing cities.
- Animats 3y ago
  Read "Japan's Longest Day", by Kazutoshi Hando and the Pacific War Research Society, which goes into great detail about how the decision to surrender was made. Many of the key players were still alive when this was written in the 1960s, and many were interviewed. The surrender almost didn't happen. A sizable fraction of the Army leadership wanted to fight on, and tried hard, in a near-coup, to block the Emperor from issuing the surrender proclamation. The US plan for invasion, "Operation Downfall" [1], called for what planners expected to be an invasion with a million casualties on the American side alone. It was scheduled for 1 November 1945. On the Japanese side, "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" was a slogan. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
  - Animats 3y ago
    There is a movie version of "Japan's Longest Day".(1967). It's from Toho, and the Internet Archive has a subtitled version. This is a reasonably accurate account of the decision to surrender and the infighting around it, entirely from the Japanese side. Parts of the Army desperately wanted to continue the war. The war faction attacked the Imperial Palace, killed people there, tried to kill the Prime Minister but couldn't find him, and burned his house. The senior Army leadership's thinking was not insane. They realized ultimate defeat was inevitable. If the Allies invaded and suffered high casualties, Japan might be able to negotiate better terms than unconditional surrender. The Emperor rejected that plan. The Minister of War and the Army chief accepted that decision. Some junior Army leaders still wanted to take that path and revolted. The revolt was violent but unsuccessful. It was a close thing. All this was after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Before that, surrender was not seriously considered. [1] https://archive.org/details/japans-longest-day-1967 https://archive.org/details/japans-longest-day-1967
leetrout 3y ago
I am listening to the Oppenheimer biography and was surprised to learn we were much closer to a surrender than I had known. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-05/hiroshima-anniversary-japan-atomic-bombs https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-05/hiroshima-a...
- refurb 3y ago
  The thing that blows a hole in this alternative view of history is that it took two bombs to get Japan to surrender. The militarists who controlled the government were bombed on Aug 6, 1945. Within 24 hours it was understood the magnitude of the destruction (they had their own atomic program) and loss of life. Then they sat down and asked "Is it time to surrender now?" and the answer was "no". Indeed even after the 2nd bombing on August 9, 1945 and the news of the Soviet Invasion, the War Council met and the decision was "senior leadership of the Japanese Army took the news in stride, grossly underestimating the scale of the attack. With the support of Minister of War Anami, they started preparing to impose martial law on the nation, to stop anyone attempting to make peace." It was only after other intercede with the Emperor was capitulation seriously discussed. I'm not sure how anyone could look at that and think "Yeah, Japan was on the cusp of surrendering before the atomic bombs". And the alternatives to the atomic weapons were no less grisly. A potential invasion by the USSR and US, with how many loss in lives? Iwo Jima alone cost 25,000 American and Japanese lives. And even if we decided to just blockade, how many Japanese civilians would have starved to death before the government capitulated? There were no good options, only "least worst", and the atomic bombs would at least bring the war to quick end.
bexsella 3y ago
There's a strong argument for the fact that Japan was effectively on its last legs by the time the bombs dropped. Indeed, the fire bombings that preceded dealt far more damage to Japan than both bombs, in real terms. Nuclear intervention wasn't a requirement for ending the war, the war was effectively over, and a sustained bombing campaign could have seen the end without the atomic bomb. Now, the argument I find the most interesting in the case for using the bomb is public, and national and international political opinion. It is arguable that Truman saw very little options other than use the bomb at the time. They had spent millions on the project, politicians knew that something was being developed, and the Cold War was already on the horizon. Further if not used, and the existence of the bomb post war would come to light for the public, there might well be questions as to why it wasn't dropped, and, exactly the line you used, if it could have ended the war early. Ultimately, I think a combination of international clout spun into national pride in total victory sealed the decision (although this conclusion was probably made by FDR before him as well). I will say, that the post-Hiroshima speech by Truman is also one of the most powerful speeches by a US president ever made. > It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.
- AbrahamParangi 3y ago
  This is a material argument that is totally undercut by the fact that the bomb gave japan an excuse to surrender that they needed and otherwise would not have had. The bomb was directly referenced in Hirohito's surrender speech: Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. It gave them an excuse to save face.
  - howbadisthat 3y ago
    Correct. The incentives for individuals rarely align with the incentives of polities (and it can be argued those entities only exist in history books). The bombs and their awesome power served to align the incentives of individuals in decision making positions with the incentives ascribed to the polity named Japan to issue surrender.
fulafel 3y ago
After WW2 we call it a war crime (or terrorism) to mass kill civilians to save military casualties. Though the US did this already before the use of nuclear weapons through mass bombing cities with conventional weapons.
- himinlomax 3y ago
  The Japanese were killing more civilians in China and other occupied territories in two weeks than a single nuclear bomb did. If the bombs shortened the war by just a month, and that's a perfectly reasonable estimate, they were morally justified. Read up on Japanese atrocities. They were just as bad as Nazi concentration camp.
  - fulafel 3y ago
    Was this really the motivation, or a post war found justification? Regardless, we'd then need to consider what were the military options to defend chinese civilians (eg bombing (nuking?) Japanese military assets there).
    - himinlomax 3y ago
      Atrocities committed by Japan in China were very much a concern in the US (and even in Germany for that matter!) already before the war, and were incontrovertibly the reason for the US foreign policy towards Japan then, and thus arguably a distant cause for Pearl Harbor. You'd have to argue that the US had forgotten about it, and then not gotten the memo on the atrocities committed since then.
    - refurb 3y ago
      Does it have to be the motivation? It's true in either case.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  See Fog of War, the Erroll Morris's interview with Robert McNamara, who was US Secretary of Defense during Vietnam and helped manage the bombing of Japan in WWII. McNamara says he and compatriots would have been convicted as war criminals if the US had lost, and IIRC says they were war criminals.
bell-cot 3y ago
> The use of the bomb ended the war... Yes, although the situation is now understood quite differently. The atom bomb gave Japan's leaders a critically necessary (due to their culture) way to both save face and surrender. Their need for a way out was desperate. Not particularly because of the US (& UK), whose invasion of southern Japan they felt well-prepared to fight. (Inch-by-inch, and to the death.) But because of the Soviets, who the Japanese had assumed would say neutral, per the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact (signed 13 April 1941, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutrality_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutra...). Unfortunately, the Soviets declared war against Japan on 7 August 1945. Two days later, they invaded Japanese-held Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, northern Korea, etc. The Red Army, with 1.5 million men, quickly inflicted massive defeats on the Japanese army - and parts of the latter were retreating in panic. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manchuria_Operation_map-en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manchuria_Operation_map-e... for some sense of the speed and scale of this offensive.) Hence Japan's decision, on 15 August, to surrender. Neither their ability to hold off the US in the south, nor their willingness to absorb hits from the new American bomb, would matter one bit if the Red Army quickly conquered Japan from the north and west.
- pests 3y ago
  It wasn't the only way out. We were the ones that backed them into a corner with the "unconditional" qualification while behind closed doors it really wasn't unconditional - so why not just make that public? That America would accept a non-unconditonal surrender? Or did we not want to embarrass Roosevelt and Churchill? If we were willing to make concessions and allow the Emperor to remain in position, why not just disclose this? It's a complicated time and nearing 100 years ago. I don't think we will ever have a solid answer to this.
  - defrost 3y ago
    There's a lot of "after the fact" discussion about the dropping of the two nuclear weapons. It was always a given that they would be dropped - developed for use on Germany, completed after the German surrender .. where else could the then DoD live field test the two "actual bomb" designs that resulted from the single most expensive R&D program in the world to date? The US President was only recently made President and prior to that had no knowledge of the programme not being on the need to know list .. Japan was being carpet bombed, with 72 cities already completely destroyed there was a looming shortage of "clean" untouched test sites .. that were going to be destroyed with or without atomic weapons. It's a subject with a wealth of viewpoints, you might, if you've not seen it already, like a historians helicopter view of the range of positions taken and the movement toward a post factum consensus view many years later (2013 IIRC) https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-use-the-bomb-a-consensus-view/ https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-u...

by jdkee 3y ago

Brananarchy 3y ago

There are deep complexities to the war with Japan. The willingness of Japanese pilots to use kamikaze tactics provides evidence that they'd fight until the end costing, as you said, untold lives in the conflict. But we also cannot escape the fact that the majority of the people affected by Little Boy and Fat Man were civilians. I believe that we could have chosen targets which properly demonstrated the futility of continued military resistance, without the need for the civilian deaths which we incurred by bombing cities.

Animats 3y ago
Read "Japan's Longest Day", by Kazutoshi Hando and the Pacific War Research Society, which goes into great detail about how the decision to surrender was made. Many of the key players were still alive when this was written in the 1960s, and many were interviewed. The surrender almost didn't happen. A sizable fraction of the Army leadership wanted to fight on, and tried hard, in a near-coup, to block the Emperor from issuing the surrender proclamation. The US plan for invasion, "Operation Downfall" [1], called for what planners expected to be an invasion with a million casualties on the American side alone. It was scheduled for 1 November 1945. On the Japanese side, "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million" was a slogan. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
- Animats 3y ago
  There is a movie version of "Japan's Longest Day".(1967). It's from Toho, and the Internet Archive has a subtitled version. This is a reasonably accurate account of the decision to surrender and the infighting around it, entirely from the Japanese side. Parts of the Army desperately wanted to continue the war. The war faction attacked the Imperial Palace, killed people there, tried to kill the Prime Minister but couldn't find him, and burned his house. The senior Army leadership's thinking was not insane. They realized ultimate defeat was inevitable. If the Allies invaded and suffered high casualties, Japan might be able to negotiate better terms than unconditional surrender. The Emperor rejected that plan. The Minister of War and the Army chief accepted that decision. Some junior Army leaders still wanted to take that path and revolted. The revolt was violent but unsuccessful. It was a close thing. All this was after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Before that, surrender was not seriously considered. [1] https://archive.org/details/japans-longest-day-1967 https://archive.org/details/japans-longest-day-1967

leetrout 3y ago

I am listening to the Oppenheimer biography and was surprised to learn we were much closer to a surrender than I had known. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-05/hiroshima-anniversary-japan-atomic-bombs https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-05/hiroshima-a...

refurb 3y ago
The thing that blows a hole in this alternative view of history is that it took two bombs to get Japan to surrender. The militarists who controlled the government were bombed on Aug 6, 1945. Within 24 hours it was understood the magnitude of the destruction (they had their own atomic program) and loss of life. Then they sat down and asked "Is it time to surrender now?" and the answer was "no". Indeed even after the 2nd bombing on August 9, 1945 and the news of the Soviet Invasion, the War Council met and the decision was "senior leadership of the Japanese Army took the news in stride, grossly underestimating the scale of the attack. With the support of Minister of War Anami, they started preparing to impose martial law on the nation, to stop anyone attempting to make peace." It was only after other intercede with the Emperor was capitulation seriously discussed. I'm not sure how anyone could look at that and think "Yeah, Japan was on the cusp of surrendering before the atomic bombs". And the alternatives to the atomic weapons were no less grisly. A potential invasion by the USSR and US, with how many loss in lives? Iwo Jima alone cost 25,000 American and Japanese lives. And even if we decided to just blockade, how many Japanese civilians would have starved to death before the government capitulated? There were no good options, only "least worst", and the atomic bombs would at least bring the war to quick end.

bexsella 3y ago

There's a strong argument for the fact that Japan was effectively on its last legs by the time the bombs dropped. Indeed, the fire bombings that preceded dealt far more damage to Japan than both bombs, in real terms. Nuclear intervention wasn't a requirement for ending the war, the war was effectively over, and a sustained bombing campaign could have seen the end without the atomic bomb. Now, the argument I find the most interesting in the case for using the bomb is public, and national and international political opinion. It is arguable that Truman saw very little options other than use the bomb at the time. They had spent millions on the project, politicians knew that something was being developed, and the Cold War was already on the horizon. Further if not used, and the existence of the bomb post war would come to light for the public, there might well be questions as to why it wasn't dropped, and, exactly the line you used, if it could have ended the war early. Ultimately, I think a combination of international clout spun into national pride in total victory sealed the decision (although this conclusion was probably made by FDR before him as well). I will say, that the post-Hiroshima speech by Truman is also one of the most powerful speeches by a US president ever made. > It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

AbrahamParangi 3y ago
This is a material argument that is totally undercut by the fact that the bomb gave japan an excuse to surrender that they needed and otherwise would not have had. The bomb was directly referenced in Hirohito's surrender speech: Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. It gave them an excuse to save face.
- howbadisthat 3y ago
  Correct. The incentives for individuals rarely align with the incentives of polities (and it can be argued those entities only exist in history books). The bombs and their awesome power served to align the incentives of individuals in decision making positions with the incentives ascribed to the polity named Japan to issue surrender.

fulafel 3y ago

After WW2 we call it a war crime (or terrorism) to mass kill civilians to save military casualties. Though the US did this already before the use of nuclear weapons through mass bombing cities with conventional weapons.

himinlomax 3y ago
The Japanese were killing more civilians in China and other occupied territories in two weeks than a single nuclear bomb did. If the bombs shortened the war by just a month, and that's a perfectly reasonable estimate, they were morally justified. Read up on Japanese atrocities. They were just as bad as Nazi concentration camp.
- fulafel 3y ago
  Was this really the motivation, or a post war found justification? Regardless, we'd then need to consider what were the military options to defend chinese civilians (eg bombing (nuking?) Japanese military assets there).
  - himinlomax 3y ago
    Atrocities committed by Japan in China were very much a concern in the US (and even in Germany for that matter!) already before the war, and were incontrovertibly the reason for the US foreign policy towards Japan then, and thus arguably a distant cause for Pearl Harbor. You'd have to argue that the US had forgotten about it, and then not gotten the memo on the atrocities committed since then.
  - refurb 3y ago
    Does it have to be the motivation? It's true in either case.
wolverine876 3y ago
See Fog of War, the Erroll Morris's interview with Robert McNamara, who was US Secretary of Defense during Vietnam and helped manage the bombing of Japan in WWII. McNamara says he and compatriots would have been convicted as war criminals if the US had lost, and IIRC says they were war criminals.

bell-cot 3y ago

> The use of the bomb ended the war... Yes, although the situation is now understood quite differently. The atom bomb gave Japan's leaders a critically necessary (due to their culture) way to both save face and surrender. Their need for a way out was desperate. Not particularly because of the US (& UK), whose invasion of southern Japan they felt well-prepared to fight. (Inch-by-inch, and to the death.) But because of the Soviets, who the Japanese had assumed would say neutral, per the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact (signed 13 April 1941, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutrality_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutra...). Unfortunately, the Soviets declared war against Japan on 7 August 1945. Two days later, they invaded Japanese-held Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, northern Korea, etc. The Red Army, with 1.5 million men, quickly inflicted massive defeats on the Japanese army - and parts of the latter were retreating in panic. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manchuria_Operation_map-en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manchuria_Operation_map-e... for some sense of the speed and scale of this offensive.) Hence Japan's decision, on 15 August, to surrender. Neither their ability to hold off the US in the south, nor their willingness to absorb hits from the new American bomb, would matter one bit if the Red Army quickly conquered Japan from the north and west.

pests 3y ago
It wasn't the only way out. We were the ones that backed them into a corner with the "unconditional" qualification while behind closed doors it really wasn't unconditional - so why not just make that public? That America would accept a non-unconditonal surrender? Or did we not want to embarrass Roosevelt and Churchill? If we were willing to make concessions and allow the Emperor to remain in position, why not just disclose this? It's a complicated time and nearing 100 years ago. I don't think we will ever have a solid answer to this.
- defrost 3y ago
  There's a lot of "after the fact" discussion about the dropping of the two nuclear weapons. It was always a given that they would be dropped - developed for use on Germany, completed after the German surrender .. where else could the then DoD live field test the two "actual bomb" designs that resulted from the single most expensive R&D program in the world to date? The US President was only recently made President and prior to that had no knowledge of the programme not being on the need to know list .. Japan was being carpet bombed, with 72 cities already completely destroyed there was a looming shortage of "clean" untouched test sites .. that were going to be destroyed with or without atomic weapons. It's a subject with a wealth of viewpoints, you might, if you've not seen it already, like a historians helicopter view of the range of positions taken and the movement toward a post factum consensus view many years later (2013 IIRC) https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-use-the-bomb-a-consensus-view/ https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-u...