But if, as appears to be the case, they can be reasonably interpreted to support the Truman administration's unwavering claim that they felt they had no choice but to use the bomb, then anyone who seeks to challenge that position must account for them. A producer for the Korean Broadcasting System, which is doing a special program commemorating August 15, 1945, recently asked me why Japan's ruling elites rejected the Potsdam Declaration. Again, yesterday (14) Marines were killed by IED on the Syrian border. Last updated 2011-02-17. Intentions are a very slippery thing to nail down: intercepted internal communications are a better source for addressing more factual questions (i.e. They were indoctrinated from an early age to revere the Emperor as a living deity, and to see war as an act that could purify the self, the nation, and ultimately the whole world. This is wrong. The use of the A-bomb was inevitable. Just can't help but point out a rather obvious point of difference here in your fallacious analogy. I suspect the doves who chant the "chickenhawk" mantra -- implying that the only people who are fit to make war decisions are military personnel -- would be very horrified indeed if that were codified in law, judging by the very generally hawkish and right-leaning attitudes expressed by the great majority of servicepeople, both currently serving and retired. But Kido gave extensive depositions to the interrogators of the International Prosecution Section of GHQ, which wrote the scenario for the Tokyo Tribunal in accordance with Truman administration policy. Thanks for the reference, Mr. Mutschler (no online link I suppose ? Thus for them, the kokutai was always more than a mere slogan for unifying the nation. But six months of intensive U.S. terror bombing of the Japanese civilian population had forced him, the Court group, and the government to take into account not only their huge losses of men and materials, but also food shortages and the growing war-weariness of the Japanese people. 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So quite some time back I remember hearing a theory about how he Japanese did not surrender to the United States because of the nuclear bombs but instead because Russia threatened to invade. Yet they rejected the four-power ultimatum, feeling as former prime minister and navy"moderate," Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa, said to his secretary on July 28,"There is no need to rush." "A flash of light and the blast slammed me to the ground and I lost consciousness," she said. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Encyclopedia Britannica Namely, one who would start a war and commit fellow citizens to die in it, but who evaded serving in military combat himself. not including Weekly Standard) ignoring or covering up such a historiographical breakthrough is not high. But, for a scholarly review that tends to support the use of the A-Bombs, will the following do? The Dangerous Illusion of Japan's Unconditional Surrender Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. General MacArthur would not allow him to be questioned. Hiroshima survivor Keiko Ogura wants people to come and see for themselves. With time accelerating and their sense of the urgency of the situation deepening, Hirohito responded to this defeat by forcing the army and navy leaders to agree to the idea of an"early peace." And these historians are driven by ideology (US = bad) and must ignore a mountain of evidence to maintain this point of view. The same cannot be said of the Special Attack Forces, more popularly known as kamikaze. And during the entire month of June and well into July, when U.S. terror bombing of Japanese civilian targets peaked, he resisted and showed no determination to do so. And you might want to pick up a paper before you start talking about your imagined desire by Bush to hang around in Iraq much longer. Some people in the world still do not understand the cruelty of nuclear weapons and that they are absolute evil. Your suggestion to the contrary is not supported by anything in the text. It was a classic piece of understatement. The word "chickenhawk" is normally used in reference to a certain kind of hypocrite. The statement was also a necessary means of forcing consensus on a fractious Japanese political and military elite, some of whose . 6. -30-, Mr. Clarke- After the Hiroshima attack, a faction of Japan's supreme war council favored acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, but the majority resisted unconditional surrender. That is why the idea of Potsdam vs Soviet takeover of Japan, as a sort of Good-Cop Bad Cop negotiating strategy vs Hirohito, ala Bix, does at least suggest a plausible rationale for what otherwise looks like a "hand the USSR territory on a silver platter" blunder by Truman. As my 2nd post stated - I was commenting on the authors pros, not Mr. Heisler's. Nationalists and militarists alike looked to the past for inspiration. Revisionists argue that this shows the bombings were unnecessary. If we remove what was specific to Japan from this sketch of war termination in 1945, then we see that their desire to accept defeat in a way that would obfuscate their own war responsibility and allow them to stay in control was hardly unique. What they place first are their own interests and their own"mission." No wonder Iraq smells like Vietnam revisited. Letters and diaries written by student conscripts before they were killed in action speak of harsh beatings, and of soldiers being kicked senseless for the most trivial of matters - such as serving their superior's rice too slowly, or using a vest as a towel. You posit a strength approx. If he did not act immediately with the Russians bearing down on Japan and the national capacity for protracted resistance nearly exhausted, the monarchy, which he equated with the state, would be destroyed. The shock and awe of the initial front has failed to break the will of the Iraqi people. 8.) It put an end to any hope the Soviets would negotiate a favourable surrender for Japan. Bix fails to do so, and thereby undermines some of his tangential claims. After early attempts to flush them out had failed, humanitarian missions were sent to Lubang to try to persuade Lieutenant Onoda and his companions that the war really was over, but they would have none of it. Half of the Japanese inner Cabinet, . Hirohito (1901-1989) was emperor of Japan from 1926 until his death in 1989. As a Libertarian I neither support the Democratic platform nor have I ever listened to Air America. "The troops will likely start heading home in the spring." The ideologues who drafted it deliberately obfuscated the Allies harsh terms of surrender because national pride was at stake. Of course, no news analysis outlet is "always accurate", not even Economist. With numbers like that they should be, you know, actually fighting! So, Professor Cole showed his normal contempt for the US military and happily depended on a Western wire service messed-up translation of "al-Sharq" Arabic text. He and the other top leaders figured that the new U.S. weapon of mass destruction, the atomic bomb, had given them a face-saving excuse -- a way to accept defeat that would enable them to lead the nation through the immediate post-surrender situation. Mr. Bix's article would be more persuasive if he addressed the conflict between his opinion and what Magic shows. It noted that the unwillingness of Allied troops to take prisoners in the Pacific theatre had made it difficult for Japanese soldiers to surrender. This is not defeatist but is the reality of the moment. On August 8, Japan's . Not all of us who question the modus operandi in Iraq are against the use of our military in protecting US interests. It is unclear at what point Hirohito abandoned the illusion that his armed forces remained capable of delivering at least one devastating blow to the enemy so that his diplomats could negotiate a surrender on face saving terms. Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Since Japan was having such difficulties in China, the reasoning went, its armed forces would be no match for the British. Its basic thesis is that only a samurai prepared and willing to die at any moment can devote himself fully to his lord. why so many soldiers survived the trenches, how Pack Up Your Troubles became the viral hit. The issue is perspective and as a student of military history you should know that US combat deaths in Iraq are still less than the casualties on D-Day or 9/11 for that matter. Even assuming your interpretation of the decoded Japanese messages is correct, I cannot locate the supposed "conflict" between this and Bix's article. Former prime minister Prince Konoe Fumimaro, former foreign minister Shigemitsu Mamoru, the emperor's brother, Prince Takamatsu, and their respective secretaries and advisers all fell into this category. Mike, Mr. Ebbitt, On the question of USSR entering the war, I do not see what relevance Japan troops in Korea or China had once America decided to start nuking the Japanese mainland. But your quote does not prove the earlier claim by Richardson in his post. Come back and post when the US and Israel actually invade either Syria or Iran and we can discuss your "4th Generation Global war." Go pedal your defeatist nonsense elsewhere please. Since this is now a long, now multiple thread tangent already, I will note only briefly in passing that an interesting US Army vs Navy debate is also intriguingly brought up by Frank in the above linked piece. Of the 100 units planned by Don Rumsfield only 3 are fully operational to date. Hirohito said something similar in 1946 in the"Monologue" that he dictated to his palace entourage. Grateful to Washington and GHQ for protecting Hirohito and preserving the monarchy, Japan's ruling elites never demanded that the U.S. apologize or show contrition for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is another attempt to hurt US War effort and reduce morale. I disagree with him on many points but we have made a mess of Iraq and to date I surely would not say we are winning this war. It's one of those things that has a . It implies a consistency and integrity that does not exist. The military became increasingly uncontrollable, and Japan was gripped by the politics of assassination. Yet not everybody was to lay down their arms. 50,000 higher than Saddam's Republican Guard in the "good old days", and all this strength without the benefit of a robust and secure logistical network (think Vietnam)? If we are to win this war it will take additional boots on the ground. One of the most common invocations made in the service of "the atomic bombs weren't necessary" argument is that the Japanese offered to surrender well before Hiroshima, and that this was ignored by the United States because they wanted to drop the bombs anyway (for various other asserted reasons). The American presidents you point out, weren't and aren't defeated in the field with cities reduced to rubble and no armies in the field. If you believe he has a case, it would be "lazy or mindless" to foist the job of documenting that case on those YOU want to convince of it. On the eve of 70th anniversary, the children of Hiroshima sing for a future free of nuclear weapons, but today more countries than ever have the bomb. After the Suzuki government rejected Potsdam, Hirohito waited to hear from Stalin, worried about defending the tokens of his legitimacy -- the three"imperial regalia" -- and lost the chance to end the war before the Soviets entered it. Hiroshima: Atomic Blast That Changed The World Turns 75 : NPR In fact, two days after the Council agreed to surrender, a Japanese submarine attacked the Oak Hill, an American landing ship, and the Thomas F. Nickel, an American destroyer, both east of Okinawa. "To Bear the Unbearable": Japan's Surrender, Part II After twelve years of Japanese military aggression against China and over three and one-half years of war with the United States (begun with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor), American leaders were reluctant to accept anything less than a complete Japanese surrender. I want them to come to Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she said. Academic historians seem to have been been slow to react to an important work by a non-academic, and I expect to hear more about this book in the future. They don't have the strength or resources. Yet, even though nearly 5,000 of them blazed their way into the world's collective memory in such spectacular fashion, it is sobering to realise that the number of British airmen who gave their lives in World War Two was ten times greater. It is true enough that his main point has to do with the determination of Japanese leaders to hold on to power following the war, but he himself introduces the tangents to which others have responded with references to the Magic intercepts. The surrender of the Japanese was held in Tokyo Bay aboard the battleship USS Missouri. To survive in the jungle of Lubang, he had kept virtually constantly on the move, living off the land, and shooting cattle for meat. Recorded on January 16, 2013 In a 2013 event at Carnegie Council, Ward Wilson, now the executive director at Realist Revolt, says that the Soviet declaration of war and not the Hiroshima nuclear bombing caused Japan to surrender at the end of World War II.An audience member then posits that the Soviets declared war because of Hiroshima. Peter: Mr. Clarke- Moreover, he at least partially contradicts himself by pointing out that Truman had deliberately kept Russia from signing the Potsdam Declaration, a fact which kept alive the slim possibility of maintaining (the monarchy). If, as Bix argues, this was the chief concern of Japanese leaders at the time, then the Potsdam terms should have been appealing right from the start. And, by the way, congratulations on your pointless dig at Mr. Ryan for his typo on Bix's name. Against overwhelming US firepower they would not stand a chance on a conventional battlefield. Not only were there virtually no survivors of the 30,000 strong Japanese garrison on Saipan, two out of every three civilians - some 22,000 in all - also died. .Japanese fighting men did not surrender, even in the face of insuperable odds.