Did We Need to Nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[mikegriffith1]

In The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth, Gar Alperovitz, a former research fellow at Harvard and King's College and a research scientist at the University of Maryland, makes a powerful case that the U.S. did not need to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that Truman and other senior officials knew that the Japanese were prepared to surrender weeks before Hiroshima.

Come to find out that many, many U.S. military leaders, including Eisenhower, felt that we should not have nuked the Japanese and that there was no valid military reason for doing so.

We knew from intelligence intercepts of Japanese communications that the Japanese would surrender and meet all of our demands if we would merely assure them that the emperor would not be molested.

It's hard to feel sorry for the Japanese, given the vicious way their army conducted itself in so many cases. But one set of war crimes does not justify another.

Defenders of Truman's action have long claimed that if we had not nuked Japan, hundreds of thousands of casualties would have been suffered in a land invasion. But this is a false choice. As many military experts pointed out at the time, no invasion would have been necessary if the naval and air blockade had simply been allowed to continue to strangle Japan for a few more months, even assuming the Japanese were not ready to surrender by June 1945 (which they were).

Here are some online articles on this tragic episode in American history:

http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/atomicdec.htm

http://www.doug-long.com/summaryc.htm

https://mises.org/library/hiroshima-myth

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/

 

[MRC_Hans]

It could not be known that the Japanese would surrender. Their record was one of fighting to death, occasionally taking their own civilians with them. At the time of WW2 the doctrine of saving enemy lives was not yet accepted. Any war leader would use what weapons available to win the war.

In hindsight, we can see that the nuclear bombs had probably nor been necessary, but you could not reasonably expect the Americans to know that at the time.

IF they had held back the bombs and the battle for the Japanese mainland had subsequently cost thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands lives on both sides, conspiracy theorists would blame the US leadership for NOT using the bombs.

Hans

 

[TubbaBlubba]

One major concern was the possibility of Anami to revolt against a surendering government. His associates were willing even after Nagasaki.

 

[Sherman Bay]

bobtaftfan, isn't hindsight wonderful? Not to mention the revisionist history you cite. I assure you that those who survived Pearl Harbor were in no mood to be overly nice to the Japanese 4 bloody years later. And those who died there weren't, either.

 

[Trebuchet]

We knew from intelligence intercepts of Japanese communications that the Japanese would surrender and meet all of our demands if we would merely assure them that the emperor would not be molested.


... even assuming the Japanese were not ready to surrender by June 1945 (which they were).

Do you have a cite or two for that?

 

[Degeneve]

One of the reasons sometimes evoked in some readings is that the USA did not wish an involvment of the Soviet Union into the war with Japan because this would allow the Russian to share the control of Japan and to move they army in China.

 

[crescent]

Come to find out that many, many U.S. military leaders, including Eisenhower, felt that we should not have nuked the Japanese and that there was no valid military reason for doing so.

I don't know about Eisenhower, but many of the other WWII leadership who made similar statements only did so after the war - it is hard to say if they felt so when the bombs were actually dropped, or formed that opinion in hindsight.

Defenders of Truman's action have long claimed that if we had not nuked Japan, hundreds of thousands of casualties would have been suffered in a land invasion. But this is a false choice. As many military experts pointed out at the time, no invasion would have been necessary if the naval and air blockade had simply been allowed to continue to strangle Japan for a few more months, even assuming the Japanese were not ready to surrender by June 1945 (which they were).

Even with no land invasion, there is no certainty that a hypothetical non-nuclear Japanese surrender three or four months later than the actual surrender would have saved lives. It is possible that the non-nuclear death toll during those months could have been higher than what the nukes actually caused, even with no land invasion.

In those few months, how many would have died? Combat was on-going in Vietnam/Indochina and in China, island garrisons in the Pacific were dying from starvation, and the Japanese mainland was already sliding into famine. People were dying every day, lots of them. Mostly Japanese, but also a great many Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans and other groups living under Japanese occupation and in Japanese slavery.

ETA: The Soviet Invasion of Manchuria was extremely fast and effective, but even they would have eventually needed to pause to consolidate supply lines and enforce coherence over a large front. The Japanese forces in China could probably not have been defeated by the USSR in just a few months.

 

[John Jones]

Did We Need to Nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Yes.

 

[Brainster]

Why didn't they surrender after Hiroshima?

 

[Ray Brady]

In the Japanese were prepared to surrender weeks before Hiroshima.

Then what were they waiting for? Germany had surrendered three months prior to the Hiroshima bombing. The Japanese were on their own at this point. What exactly was it going to take to get them to commit?

 

[Border Reiver]

It's hard to feel sorry for the Japanese, given the vicious way their army conducted itself in so many cases. But one set of war crimes does not justify another.

Which of the laws of armed conflict did the dropping of the atomic bomb violate? I understand the argument that dropping of the bombs might violate the 1949 Geneva Conventions concerning the use of indiscriminate weapons, but these bombs were dropped 4 years before the coming into effect of that treaty, and this treaty dId not have an ex post facto effect.

 

[Steve]

Re the title of the op - yes, the bombing was necessary.

 

[Foolmewunz]

In The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth, Gar Alperovitz, a former research fellow at Harvard and King's College and a research scientist at the University of Maryland, makes a powerful case that the U.S. did not need to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that Truman and other senior officials knew that the Japanese were prepared to surrender weeks before Hiroshima.

Come to find out that many, many U.S. military leaders, including Eisenhower, felt that we should not have nuked the Japanese and that there was no valid military reason for doing so.

We knew from intelligence intercepts of Japanese communications that the Japanese would surrender and meet all of our demands if we would merely assure them that the emperor would not be molested.

It's hard to feel sorry for the Japanese, given the vicious way their army conducted itself in so many cases. But one set of war crimes does not justify another.

Defenders of Truman's action have long claimed that if we had not nuked Japan, hundreds of thousands of casualties would have been suffered in a land invasion. But this is a false choice. As many military experts pointed out at the time, no invasion would have been necessary if the naval and air blockade had simply been allowed to continue to strangle Japan for a few more months, even assuming the Japanese were not ready to surrender by June 1945 (which they were).

Here are some online articles on this tragic episode in American history:

http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/atomicdec.htm

http://www.doug-long.com/summaryc.htm

https://mises.org/library/hiroshima-myth

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/

Largely based on a single source who reached dubious conclusions, IMHO. Alperovitz' views are very well known. His refusal to acknowledge the contemporary sources around Truman, though, taints his "research".

The "Peace Party", as it was called, was not working for the highest authorities in Tokyo, but for a faction that hoped to gain the ascendancy. They were solidly rebuffed, even in the face of the first bomb. The CIA releases of their overtures from the first seven months of 1945 leave a pretty clear record, but a record of THEIR wishes, not those of official Japan. It was a self-serving cabal of Japanese trying to get the best terms, terms that included right up to the end throwing the military under the bus and leaving the government and many of the primary architects of fifty years of Japanese imperialist policy in place.

Even if you accept Donovan's communications at face value, it's very easy to see the Japanese thinking. Their first approaches hoped they could get the Russian Bear to intercede (Crazy Joe proved even more duplicitous than the Japanese negotiators, to their chagrin). They then decided that Stalin wasn't really someone who they wanted at the table carving up Japan (I guess seeing his approach to Eastern Europe and Germany was a wake-up call), and insisted on negotiating with the Americans, which they felt was to their huge advantage because the allies' proscribed team was ALL the allies, including China. Japan decidedly did not want China at that table, being the most aggrieved party to the discussions.

The US had been burned very badly trusting peace overtures from Japan in 1941. With nothing official from Tokyo in terms of an offer to surrender, why would they trust diplomats in Bern, Berlin or Stockholm? At one point, one of those supposed "Peace Party" overtures included that (I paraphrase) "we know our wood and paper houses will be ashes in a few weeks but we've got a whole hunk of Manchuria and China and we can continue fighting there, indefinitely"....

 

[sackett]

What did Robert Fustian Taft have to say about the a-bombing of Japan?

 

[BStrong]

Yes.

As far as the opinions of senior officers, any advancement in weapons or tactics may be seen by some as a threat to their positions.

Even as late as GW I, Gen. Schwarzkopf maintained the old regular infantry/armored unit antipathy for Special Operation units in any flavor and did what he could to keep them out of the conflict or on a very short leash.

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/50-years-of-the-u-s-navy-seals/3/

"These operations turned out to be the special operations force (SOF) undercard event for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the 1990-1991 campaign to liberate Kuwait – a campaign in which, had it not been for Goldwater-Nichols, SOF would have been denied participation.

CENTCOM Commander Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., had a dislike of SOF dating back to the Vietnam War, the result of some negative experiences with special warfare “Snakeaters.” During the planning stages of Desert Shield he tried to block SOF participation, but was prevented from doing so by Goldwater-Nichols."

Knowing how much of an issue that Distinctive Unit Headgear (read as Beret) created in the Army for about thirty years before it became GI, I have no doubt that there were individuals at the NCA level that looked at the idea of one bomb ending a conflict as a potential threat to their authority.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Why didn't they surrender after Hiroshima?

General Anami was sure they could only have produced one bomb. They didn't know about plutonium.

 

[ddt]

Yes.

Even after the two bombs plus the Soviet offensive into Manchuria, there was a deadlock within the Japanese war cabinet.

 

[smartcooky]

Even after the two bombs plus the Soviet offensive into Manchuria, there was a deadlock within the Japanese war cabinet.

Yes.

Everything I have read and seen about this issue tells me that the Japanese Supreme Council for the Direction of the War were not in the least bit interested in unconditional surrender (which is what the Allies were demanding) even after the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, and it was only the personal intervention of Emperor Hirohito himself that eventually convinced the Council to surrender. Even then, they argued about it for another six days before Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in a radio address on August 15. He cited the reason for the surrender as the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb”, making it quite clear that the nukes were a key deciding factor in his decision.

Until that point, there was every indication that the Japanese would fight to the very last man, woman and child. The invasion plan (known as Operation Downfall) would have been required to go ahead, and the invading force would have faced a large, well armed and well equipped army as well as millions of lightly armed but determined civilians. A study (done by William Shockley for US War Secretary Henry Stimson) estimated the invasion would have cost the lives of as many as 800,000 servicemen out of a total of up to 4 million casualties, and would also have resulted in between 5 and 10 ten million Japanese fatalities. Even from a "numbers" viewpoint, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki (together, and estimated 120,000 deaths) was a far more acceptable prospect.

By comparison, the US fire-bombing campaign which ran from January 1944 to the end of July 1945 and which resulted 157,000 tons of bombs (including napalm) being dropped on 67 Japanese cities such as Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe resulted in the deaths of over 200,000 Japanese civilians. In many ways, that fire-bombing campaign was more horrific than what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

[abaddon]

<snip>

...we should not have nuked the Japanese and that there was no valid military reason for doing so.

WTF? You would prefer millions of casualties on both sides instead?

 

[imodium]

There is an argument Japan was going to surrender to Russia however, Japan didn't surrender after the first bomb showing they weren't in the mood for giving up.
Therefore, IMHO second bomb was necessary.
Fortunately none have been used since in anger.