U.S. leaders knew we didn’t have to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win the war. We did it anyway (LA Times)

entremet · Aug 7, 2023

I'm not history buff, but this is a very persuasive essay. I was in the bombing was necessary camp in terms of a true dliemma--choosing between two shitty choices.

However, the author here makes a great case that all that was propanganda. Definitely worth the read as Oppenheimer brought this discussion back in the forefront.

Opinion: U.S. leaders knew we didn't have to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win the war. We did it anyway

We've been taught that the U.S. had to drop atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II. Historical evidence shows Japan would have surrendered anyway.

www.latimes.com

The accepted wisdom in the United States for the last 75 years has been that dropping the bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later was the only way to end the World War II without an invasion that would have cost hundreds of thousands of American and perhaps millions of Japanese lives. Not only did the bombs end the war, the logic goes, they did so in the most humane way possible.

However, the overwhelming historical evidence from American and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered that August, even if atomic bombs had not been used — and documents prove that President Truman and his closest advisors knew it.

The allied demand for unconditional surrender led the Japanese to fear that the emperor, who many considered a deity, would be tried as a war criminal and executed. A study by Gen. Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Command compared the emperor's execution to "the crucifixion of Christ to us."

And the Soviet Union factors big here.

"Unconditional Surrender is the only obstacle to peace," Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired Ambassador Naotake Sato, who was in Moscow on July 12, 1945, trying to enlist the Soviet Union to mediate acceptable surrender terms on Japan's behalf.

But the Soviet Union's entry into the war on Aug. 8 changed everything for Japan's leaders, who privately acknowledged the need to surrender promptly.

Allied intelligence had been reporting for months that Soviet entry would force the Japanese to capitulate. As early as April 11, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Joint Intelligence Staff had predicted: "If at any time the USSR should enter the war, all Japanese will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable."

Truman knew that the Japanese were searching for a way to end the war; he had referred to Togo's intercepted July 12 cable as the "telegram from the Jap emperor asking for peace."

Truman also knew that the Soviet invasion would knock Japan out of the war. At the summit in Potsdam, Germany, on July 17, following Stalin's assurance that the Soviets were coming in on schedule, Truman wrote in his diary, "He'll be in the Jap War on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about." The next day, he assured his wife, "We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"

While a majority of Americans may not be familiar with this history, the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., states unambiguously on a plaque with its atomic bomb exhibit: "The vast destruction wreaked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 people made little impact on the Japanese military. However, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria … changed their minds." But online the wording has been modified to put the atomic bombings in a more positive light — once again showing how myths can overwhelm historical evidence.

Before the bombings, Eisenhower had urged at Potsdam, "the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

mrmoose · Aug 7, 2023

There were some posts in the other thread (about Barbenheimer or whatever) that said that the Japanese were using the Soviet negotiations as a delaying tactic to negotiate some sort of surrender that was not absolute (ie: keeping the regime in power). I may be mixing a few disparate things up but I'm interested in hearing the rebuttal.

Vincent Alexander · Aug 7, 2023

The fallacy of the need to drop the bombs should be challenged every single time it comes up be it friends, family, whatever. And I especially hate the framing that the President had such a tough decision and poor him....

entremet · Aug 7, 2023

mrmoose said:
There were some posts in the other thread (about Barbenheimer or whatever) that said that the Japanese were using the Soviet negotiations as a delaying tactic to negotiate some sort of surrender that was not absolute (ie: keeping the regime in power). I may be mixing a few disparate things up but I'm interested in hearing the rebuttal.

This writer did a great job in sourcing his points. Many are primary too. I'd like to see if that can be rebutted. He also wrote a book, so it's not some fly by night analysis.

RetroRunner · Aug 7, 2023

I thought that we dropped them because we didn't want a Germany situation where part of the country was under Soviet control

Skoje · Aug 7, 2023

I'm pretty sure it was dropped because there was no reason to not use them.

Tracksuit Larry · Aug 7, 2023

We dropped them because we had them and we couldn't use them on the people we made them for.

SigSig · Aug 7, 2023

americans can make up all the excuses they want, a single look at their racist-ass propaganda tells the real reason they dropped the bombs louder than they could ever deny on a gaming forum.

DeathbyVolcano · Aug 7, 2023

American Prometheus, Oppenheimer, and various historical sources already made this pretty clear. The bomb was a display of dominance and a warning to the soviets more so than a war-winner. The excuses, like saving more lives in the long run, and that the Japanese would never surrender, were political posturing. The Japanese were crippled - supplies were dwindling, their military was already basically destroyed, and the populace was starving. The willpower of the people was near a breaking point, and surrender was inevitable. It was an arrogant and evil decision that shaped the Cold War, and honestly I'd say we could have prevented a lot of the pain of the 20th century by a) telling the Soviets explicitly about the bomb, regardless of the intelligence leaking to Stalin already and b) Warning the Japanese that they would drop a nuke that would kill X amount of people in milliseconds and to evacuate cities unless they surrender.

Pomerlaw · Aug 7, 2023

Just as Japan deleted their own atrocities from their WW2 history, I would not be surprised there is a lot of truth in this article. Pride is a powerful and dangerous thing.

entremet · Aug 7, 2023

RetroRunner said:
I thought that we dropped them because we didn't want a Germany situation where part of the country was under Soviet control

Still not what was it was framed as in American myth making.

It is framed as a conscious tormenting decision by Truman. It was not.

lorddarkflare · Aug 7, 2023

I wrote a paper on this in High School.

Yeah, I agree. By every measure dropping the bombs, and the firebombings were war crimes and terrorism.

WrenchNinja · Aug 7, 2023

The YouTuber Shaun made an essay on this topic 2 or 3 years ago. It's a worth a watch, there are citations and sources for everything.

FliX · Aug 7, 2023

War crimes are war crimes, no matter how you try and justify it...

Helix · Aug 7, 2023

America was just curious

charmeleon · Aug 7, 2023

Of course Japan was going to lose the war eventually, the bombs hastened it and saved a lot of lives. On average like 300,000-400,000 people died in the Pacific theater per month mostly Chinese civilians.

Vincent Alexander · Aug 7, 2023

charmeleon said:
Of course Japan was going to lose the war eventually, the bombs hastened it and saved a lot of lives. On average like 300,000-400,000 people died in the Pacific theater per month mostly Chinese civilians.

No. And that's all there is to say about it until you actually engage with the content from OP.

entremet · Aug 7, 2023

charmeleon said:
Of course Japan was going to lose the war eventually, the bombs hastened it and saved a lot of lives. On average like 300,000-400,000 people died in the Pacific theater per month mostly Chinese civilians.

Read the article. It's not about giving up eventually. But they basically gave up. They even had diplomatic talks. It was not necessary.

collige · Aug 7, 2023

Yeah, the historical record makes it extremely clear how unjustified the bombs were despite decades of PR trying to cover up the fact.

I believe most of the facts from this article are also included in Shaun's great video on the subject that goes through the timeline chronologically.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCRTgtpC-Go

Another thing that doesn't get brought up is the poll of scientists who worked on the project from July 1945 where only 15% of respondents supporting dropping the bombs without warning like we did. The vastly preferred option was demonstrating it to Japanese leaders without actually destroying cities full of civilians.

Poll Results of the Chicago Scientists | The Manhattan Project | Historical Documents | atomicarchive.com

Poll Results of the Chicago Scientists. Following the suggestion of your letter, AC-2757, I took copies of excerpts of your letter individually to the eight different section chiefs and asked them to show the questions individually to some of the members of their group. these extracts which went...

www.atomicarchive.com

Mar Tuuk · Aug 7, 2023

The Japanese government was definitely going to surrender but the question was if it was conditional or unconditional.

The reaction to the Potsdam Declaration was important.

I think the problem was that the Japanese military wanted conditions. The Japanese military did prolong the government's reaction to the Potsdam Declaration. Their military was not ready for an unconditional surrender but they did want reassurances of the emperor's well being and the allies were pushing for unconditional.

The Japanese military tried to stop Hirohito's recorded address from even being broadcast.
There were elements that tried to have a coup and stop the surrender.

Kyūjō incident

I posted this in the other thread but this film "Japan's Longest Day" focuses on the reactions of the Japanese government and the Japanese military to each of these events from Potsdam, the Atomic bombings and finally the decision by the emperor to surrender.

View: https://www.facebook.com/NavalInstitute/videos/japans-longest-day-trailer/755461678637447/

Grue · Aug 7, 2023

I was just having this discussion the other day and realised I was ignorant about some things.

I don't have time to read the article but if I can pose a question it may or may not answer -

Japan didn't surrender immediately after the first bomb. What is the reason for that?

RagnarokX · Aug 7, 2023

They were basically a terrorist threat aimed at Russia. Wanted to show them we had nukes and were willing to use them (against an enemy that posed no relative threat).

DeathbyVolcano · Aug 7, 2023

charmeleon said:
Of course Japan was going to lose the war eventually, the bombs hastened it and saved a lot of lives. On average like 300,000-400,000 people died in the Pacific theater per month mostly Chinese civilians.

It saved many WESTERN lives. The Japanese would lose tremendously in both cases: nuke or ground strike. It was a racist and evil decision.

Jubilant Duck · Aug 7, 2023

FliX said:
War crimes are war crimes, no matter how you try and justify it...

This is a borderline shitty "well ahhhhhkkkkkksuuuaaaaallllly....." thing to say but warcrime is a legal thing so by definition the use of nuclear weaponry in WW2 was not one.

"Travesty", "heinous", "crime against humanity", "just plain evil" might work better. I'm just concerned their may be confusion on the event having actually been prosecuted as one or not.

Pomerlaw · Aug 7, 2023

Jubilant Duck said:
This is a borderline shitty "well ahhhhhkkkkkksuuuaaaaallllly....." thing to say but warcrime is a legal thing so by definition the use of nuclear weaponry in WW2 was not one.

war crime is legal? Wut

Funkelpop · Aug 7, 2023

As we all watch and enjoy the movie Oppenheimer and make light of the atomic bomb as I've seen on social media, people probably forget that there are still living survivors of the atomic bomb to this day. Most of whom were children who had nothing to do with the war…..

CelestialAtom · Aug 7, 2023

I will never, ever understand the justification for taking a life.

Deleted member 8579 · Aug 7, 2023

How it would have played out not dropping them, I don't know but consensus seems like it was the wrong idea, horrible and likely not needed.

It is interesting in an alternate history view. Would the USSR have continued and got a slice of Japan, would Japan themselves have followed their trajectory we now know, what would the Pacific area be like, would China have followed their trajectory.

Doggg · Aug 7, 2023

Broddity said:
I was just having this discussion the other day and realised I was ignorant about some things.

I don't have time to read the article but if I can pose a question it may or may not answer -

Japan didn't surrender immediately after the first bomb. What is the reason for that?

I read that from their point of view, it made little difference if it took 1 bomb or a thousand to destroy a city. They were already losing cities to bombing campaigns, which is another reason to think that the atomic bombs didn't have that much of an impact on their decision making.

Autumn · Aug 7, 2023

In school, they tell you it's because they wanted to end the war quickly so the Soviets wouldn't join them in the East.

Arilian · Aug 7, 2023

Pomerlaw said:
war crime is legal? Wut

"a legal thing" is what is wrote, as in, warcrime have a legal definition and Jubilant Duck doesn't think the nuclear bombings fall under that definition.

Tacitus · Aug 7, 2023

Broddity said:
Japan didn't surrender immediately after the first bomb. What is the reason for that?

At least some of their high command wanted to fight on.

hom3land · Aug 7, 2023

Just from my cursory interest in history, I believe the most agreed upon stance among the majority of historians is still, Japan War Council was not unanimous on willing to surrender, and the bomb drops did escalate the end of the war. Heck, there was a last minute attempted military Coup by the Japanese military to stop the announcement of a surrender.

Kyūjō incident - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

BossAttack · Aug 7, 2023

This is a pretty shit article that ignores most of the actual facts on-the-ground at the time and the actual evidence we have now of the thoughts of the Japanese government during this period, prior to their surrender. It also buries the fact that not dropping the bomb means an invasion which means MANY more deaths on both the Allied and Japanese side.

Going, "well, the Japanese were going to surrender once the Soviets invaded." Is another way of saying, "yeah, the Japanese were going to surrender after the Soviets killed more Japanese during an invasion and lost a lot of their lives in the process as well." And that's just assuming the U.S. just sat back and allowed the Soviets to invade and didn't even attempt an invasion of the mainland, didn't continue any further bombing efforts such as fire bombings, and also Japanese forces just sat back and did nothing in the interim.

Like the article uses MacArthur's statement against Truman as some proof, you know the guy that wanted to use in nukes in Korea and was trying to run against Truman? That guy? Of course, he'd say the bombings were wrong after the fact.

DarthWoo · Aug 7, 2023

DeathbyVolcano said:
It saved many WESTERN lives. The Japanese would lose tremendously in both cases: nuke or ground strike. It was a racist and evil decision.

What would have happened, nobody can really know now, but the Japanese government had at least planned to convince their population to go full Volkssturm, except without enough actual weapons other than spears/pitchforks/etc. Their propaganda game was strong enough that they'd convinced civilians on the outer islands that suicide was preferable to being captured.

Rosebud · Aug 7, 2023

FliX said:
War crimes are war crimes, no matter how you try and justify it...

Simple as that

Ascenion · Aug 7, 2023

Arilian said:
"a legal thing" is what is wrote, as in, warcrime have a legal definition and Jubilant Duck doesn't think the nuclear bombings fall under that definition.

Geneva Conventions were in 1949, so yeah I think by definition the bombing couldn't have been a war crime. It wouldn't have been considered in 1929.

Pomerlaw · Aug 7, 2023

Doggg said:
I read that from their point of view, it made little difference if it took 1 bomb or a thousand to destroy a city. They were already losing cities to bombing campaigns, which is another reason to think that the atomic bombs didn't have that much of an impact on their decision making.

Fire carpet bombings were already happening and if I remember correctly some of them killed even more people than the atomic bombs. War is pure horror.

charmeleon · Aug 7, 2023

Vincent Alexander said:
No. And that is all there is to say about it until you actually engage with the content from OP.

entremet said:
Read the article. It's not about giving up eventually. But they basically gave up. They even had diplomatic talks. It was not necessary.

Because everything can be cherrypicked about the Japanese surrender. The article for example talks about the messages between Sato and Togo.

Here is the magic intercept for a week later.

“Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1214 – July 22, 1945, Top Secret Ultra | National Security Archive

nsarchive.gwu.edu

Togo the leader of the "peace faction" says

With regard to unconditional surrender (I have been informed of your 18 July message*) we are unable to consent to it under any circumstance whatever.

In the July 18th message Sato begs for Japan to surrender with the sole condition of keeping the Imperial House

*In that message Sato advocated unconditional surrender provided the Imperial House was preserved

The diplomatic talks never got anywhere in Russia because the Japanese government couldn't come up with terms.

Here is Magic from August 2

“Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1225 – August 2, 1945, Top Secret Ultra | National Security Archive

nsarchive.gwu.edu

Togo talks about how concrete terms for peace are difficult/limited to be decided before the enemy lands on the Japanese mainland.

FreedomFrisbee · Aug 7, 2023

Mar Tuuk said:
The Japanese government was definitely going to surrender but the question was if it was conditional or unconditional.

The reaction to the Potsdam Declaration was important.

I think the problem was that the Japanese military wanted conditions. The Japanese military did prolong the government's reaction to the Potsdam Declaration. Their military was not ready for an unconditional surrender but they did want reassurances of the emperor's well being and the allies were pushing for unconditional.

The Japanese military tried to stop Hirohito's recorded address from even being broadcast.
There were elements that tried to have a coup and stop the surrender.

Kyūjō incident

This is basically why things hashed out the way they did. The whole thing is very documented on both sides. The bombs very very directly hastened the end of the war by giving elements of the japanese government leverage against other elements of the japanese government. We can argue about whether people knew that was the situation, or what their intent was, but thats the basic outcome.

BossAttack · Aug 7, 2023

FliX said:
War crimes are war crimes, no matter how you try and justify it...

I mean, the entire bombing campaigns conducted by both sides during the war were war crimes.

Jubilant Duck · Aug 7, 2023

CelestialAtom said:
I will never, ever understand the justification for taking a life.

Not defending the use of nuclear weaponry, but to defend use of lethal force against Japan: they were kinda trying to invade the entire ocean... you gotta put a stop to that and back in the World War era of total warfare, that meant attacking the homeland of your opponent.

Pomerlaw said:
war crime is legal? Wut

Arilian said:
"a legal thing" is what is wrote, as in, warcrime have a legal definition and Jubilant Duck doesn't think the nuclear bombings fall under that definition.

Correct, though it's less about me not thinking that and more about the major nation states of the 1940s and 50s. I personally think their use was pretty heinous and crime-y looking... but I'm no expert on these things

Josh5890 · Aug 7, 2023

How certain is it though that Japan was ready to surrender? There was an attempted military coup against the emperor after the nukes were dropped and it was decided that they would surrender.

Not justifying the bombings obviously, but saying that Japan was for sure going to surrender seemed a little premature. For many in Japan, the word surrender was considered worse than death.

Blackbird · Aug 7, 2023

i think anyone that likes to think otherwise should see first hand what that bomb did.

it's one thing to know how dangerous and destructive it is from an outside perspective, just knowing the raw destructive power of its explosion.

the other part it is watching the NSFL consequences from survivors descriptions, drawings, real footage after the bomb's outcome and learning how it managed to destroy people's lives years and years after it flattened homes:

View: https://youtu.be/C3ARusnC37o

these are by far the darkest and most cruel examples of humanity, there's no danying it.

a necessary evil?

nah, it was a vile demonstration of power and control.

Disco Infernal · Aug 7, 2023

Pomerlaw said:
Fire carpet bombings were already happening and if I remember correctly some of them killed even more people than the atomic bombs. War is pure horror.

The reason Tokyo didn't get the first nuke was because firebombs had previously decimated the city already.

HellofaMouse · Aug 7, 2023

isnt this common knowledge in the us?

Pomerlaw · Aug 7, 2023

War is a crime.

Greg NYC3 · Aug 7, 2023

Tracksuit Larry said:
We dropped them because we had them and we couldn't use them on the people we made them for.

There's no part of me that believes the US intended to ever drop the bombs on Germany. Once the war in Europe was over the usual bloodthirsty fucks that always happen to be in earshot of the president convinced him that a show of power needed to be made and Japan was just non-white enough to qualify as the sacrificial lambs.

Rosebud · Aug 7, 2023

BossAttack said:
I mean, the entire bombing campaigns conducted by both sides during the war were war crimes.

But no one says it was justified when their own country is affected

Odesu · Aug 7, 2023

I have no data to support this but I feel like supporting the murder of hundreds of thousand civilians, children, babies, seniors and every other kind of person in an effort to prevent something that MIGHT or MIGHT not happen is a pretty US centric notion based on their own propaganda.

U.S. leaders knew we didn’t have to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win the war. We did it anyway (LA Times)

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