I always hear radio talk show hosts, mostly conservative, justify the use of the atomic bomb by saying X number of American lives were saved. If my memory serves me correctly the most commonly quoted figure is 200,00 soldiers lives. How true is this?
I’ve seen figures that range from 100,000 to 1,000,000, but it’s pretty hard to say that one number is “true.” Since the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands never took place, we’ll never know for sure.
In any case the argument hinges on the assertion that the atomic bomb ended the war, which is subject to debate. I’ve read at least one history that claims that it didn’t happen that way, that the surrender would likely have occurred at about the same time without the bombs.
But IF, for the sake of this discussion, we assume that the atomic bombs ended the war, and if we assume that the Japanese would have defended their home islands with the same fanatical zeal they exhibited on other islands, I think that an estimate of 200,000 American dead is not unreasonable. And the Japanese, of course, would have lost many multiples of that.
This is admittedly rough, but I don’t feel long-winded…
There is precious little doubt that the bomb ended the war. While it is true that after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (and the field reports came in), the military commanders in charge of the decision still refused to authorize surrender and their obdurate recalcitrance would have guaranteed that the war continue, but, the bombs finally provoked the Emperor to formally request that the military cede to his wishes to surrender and end the war.
If it not been for the actual dropping of the two bombs (demonstrations and the like we now know would have been quite useless, considering that the military wasn’t much impressed, let alone deterred, even by the first bomb), the Allies were virtually certain to have invaded Japan proper, leading to an indeterminable – but surely huge – death toll on both sides.
It is extraordinarily unlikely the Japanese would have held out much longer. I know the military junta was unwilling to surrender, but the schisms were already appearing. Japan was a dying nation, unable to feed itself and essentially incapable of striking back at its enemies. Peace would have been arranged one way or another.
While the death toll would have been high, 200,000 has always struck me as a ridiculously exagerrated figure. That’s 2/3rds of the American death toll for the entire war, including a lot of disastrously bad losses. I find it difficult to believe that a weakened Japanese army, mostly made up of reserves and lacking heavy weapons, would have killed twice was many Americans as the Wehrmacht did during the France-Germany campaign, especially when many Japanese leaders already favored surrender. I strongly believe the invasion would have gone very badly for the Japanese and they would have given up within a few months. 20,000 US casualties is a better guess, IMHO.
This is all pure speculation and is really more of a GD issue.
That said, I don’t think 200,000 is an exagerated estimate at all. Consider, it took about a month for U.S. forces to secure the island of Okinawa, and in that month, there were about 41,000 casualties, including something like 7,000 deaths.
Considering an invasion of Japan would have been harder by many a factor to mount and sustain, and (in my opinion) the Japanese high command would have been even less likely to surrender with invaders on their home islands, I could see that end game lasting for many months.
Remember, the Allies entered Germany in March 1945 and, even with troop pressures on both eastern AND western fronts, the Germans didn’t surrender for almost two months.
On the one hand, yeah, its possible they would surrender even if the bombs werent dropped. Quite possible, IMO, but not so certain as to justify not dropping the bomb, when looked at ONLY in terms of u.s. casualties.
On the other hand, there is a remote possibility that the bombs saved tens of millions of lives, through making us realize the horrow of the actual use of nuclear weapons. If we hadnt used them and had gotten into the same arms race with Russia, we might not have been as loath to get into a nuclear confrontation.
Near the end of the war, there was a change in government in Japan. The new government wanted peace, and sent a message to Stalin offering to surrender with one condition: that they get to keep the emperor. Stalin delayed passing the message on to Truman - the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan, but Stalin probably hoped he could expand his territory in Asia if the Soviet Union did enter the Pacific war. Stalin did eventually convey the message to Truman.
The U.S. held out for unconditional surrender, which was achieved through the use of the atomic bombs. After the war, we let the Japanese keep the emperor, anyway.
Given this, I would say that the only reason the atomic bombs shortened the war is that the U.S. would only accept unconditional surrender. If the U.S. had accepted Japan’s only condition - a condition that was realized anyway - the war would have ended sooner than it did.
Well, yes, it’s a lot of “what if,” but there are official estimates and the like.
For example, not too long ago someone from the USMCR decided to take another look at Operation Olympic, which was the invasion of Kyushu, which in turn was a preperatory invasion for the purposes of the even bigger invasion of Honshu, called Operation Coronet. The following is a summary of the article, so all “facts” and “figures” are still speculation.
The upshot is that not only did the United States badly underestimate the number of Japanese troops, the state of their prepared fortifications, and their stockpiles of arms and ammunition, the V Marine Corps was targeted to land exactly where the Japanese expected them to land–the very best prepared territory on the island. The Marines usually liked to go in with a 3:1 local superiority in numbers. If Olympic had gone down as planned (it’s likely the Americans would have got wind of the situation and postponed the operation), the Marines would have been outnumbered by the local defenders.
The Japanese had apparently put together nearly ten thousand planes and pilots for suicide attacks at Kyushu. The above article estimates that if Kamikaze pilots improved their success ratio to one hit on a ship for every six or seven planes committed (because they would be flying from close by bases and the USN would not have the luxury of early radar spotting and long interception times), 1,400 to 1,600 planes would have hit. Their success ratio at Okinawa was nearly 1 in 9–which would still equate to over a thousand hits on the Allied fleet.
The author of that article estimates that there would have been 328,000 American casualties (94,000) killed, 57% of the ground forces slated for the operation. Perhaps two million Japanese, civilian and military, would have been killed or wounded.
And that’s just for Olympic. Coronet, by most estimates, would have been bigger and bloodier.
I see this careering into Great Debates to join its dozen or so predecessors.
There are way too many variables:
Had reconaissance discovered the preparations at the Olympic site in time, the various officers arguing for siege over assault might have prevailed–at least until the winter had done its work on the defenders.
Beyond which, an additional five or seven months in which the B-29s could redirect their efforts from cities to troop concentrations would have had a serious effect.
Had the bombs not been dropped, the sporadic attempts to negotiate a truce would have been further along (with, of course, no guarantee of success).
The “ten thousand” kamikaze planes may or may not have been a factor once the U.S. moved in close enough to perform deliberate interdiction on the airfields–such efforts being little more than desultory prior to August, 1945. (And the 10,000 planes tended to be older and lighter than the first line planes being used in the somewhat successful attacks off Okinawa.)
There were efforts within Japan by politicians and military leaders favoring both surrender and fight-to-the-death positions, and it is not possible to know which would have prevailed under prolonged siege or assault.
Ultimately, the best we can do is paint a scenario and choose to believe it or not. Had the bombs not been dropped when they were, more people would probably have died, but who and how many depends on too many conditions that were already changing in the days before the bombings.
Of course, even if the Japanese were considering surrender, the US was conventionally bombing Japan with impunity. The conventional firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than Hiroshima. Even if an invasion of Japan turned out not to be neccesary, several extra months of conventional bombings would probably have killed many more people than were killed in the two nuclear bombings.
That’s interesting, Lemur. This is DEFINITELY a Great Debate topic. Anyway, the one bit of info I’ve heard - not sure if it’s true or where it’s from, so I’d love to know - is that the Japanese could’ve surrendered earlier, with or without the bomb, had an unconditional surrender not been demanded.
Yeah! The point is that we were killing more Japanese by firebombing the cities (mainly Tokyo and Yokohama, but there were others) every single night than we killed in Hiroshima on 8/6/45. At least two of the histories I’ve read (sorry, no cites, the books are in storage) suggest that Hirohito began leaning toward surrender some weeks before Hiroshima, AND even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nature of the bombs used was only vaguely understood at best. The Emperor knew that we were killing 100,000+ of his subjects per night with the incendiaries.
Great site outlining briefing Operation Downfall (OlYMPIC +CORONET)
http://www.spk.usace.army.mil/cespk-pao/oct-02/oct02-08.html
From here
http://oror.essortment.com/presidenttruman_rywp.htm
Two separate estimates exist to rate the number of American casualties that would result from such an invasion. A joint war plans committee comprised of the army and navy came to the conclusion that 46,000 Americans would die in an invasion of Kyushu and later Honshu. The number of American wounded averaged three to one during the later years of the war, so according to this estimate, 175,000 American casualties were not out of the question. However, these figures were based on such tentative intelligence that George Marshall, the army’s chief of staff, bluntly rejected them.
A second estimate proposed by Admiral Leahy was much higher. The invasion of Iwo Jima caused 6,200 American deaths, and the U. S. outnumbered the Japanese by four to one. Okinawa cost 13,000 U. S. servicemen, and they outnumbered the Japanese by two and one-half to one. These 13,000 men made up more than 35% of the U. S. landing force. Consequently, Admiral Leahy came to the conclusion that it was absurd to think that any less than 35% of the American force that invaded Japan would be killed. Based on the estimate of 560,000 Japanese soldiers on Kyushu as of early August, Leahy predicted that at very minimum over 250,000 American soldiers would lie dead as a result of an invasion of the Japanese islands.
It was later found that the troop strength on Kyushu was greatly under-estimated, and that by August 6 the Japanese had over 900,000 men stationed on Kyushu, nearly twice as many as thought. Leahy’s estimates that the Americans would have a preponderance, when in fact the 767,000 American soldiers who would comprise the landing force were already greatly outnumbered three months before Operation Olympic was actually to begin. By November, Japanese troop strength could easily double or triple, making between 500,000 and 1,000,000 American deaths conceivable.
These numbers do not even begin to account for the Japanese dead …
One thing about the surrender of Japan, is that the Emperor was in total control. A biography described the whole aspect of the Japanese military being the real leaders of Japan as an illusion and that Hirohito was the actual behind-the-scenes ruler of Japan. Also, that Hirohito was only waiting for something to come up to allow him to surrender with some grace - or somesuch like that, I can’t really describe it - and that the atomic bomb was just the thing he was looking for. It didn’t make him look weak, it made him seem sympathetic to the Japanese people, and it was never revealed just how in control he actually was. So basically, the atomic bombs did end the war.
I have no idea how authoritive that biography is.
Psychopachik Vampire
General Marshall, as repoted by Truman, estimated an additional loss of American troops of 250,000, with the wounded perhaps twice that figure, had they continued upon their planned course.
Had plans changed to continueing devastating conventional bombing longer, I doubt the American losses would have been that great. But there was great domestic political pressure in the US to end the war as quickly as possible and great concern by Truman and some advisers Russia might enter the conflict–either to annex portions of Japan’s holdings or even on the side of Japan. As I recall, Russia only declared war on Japan the day after the first bomb.
The U.S. wanted the U.S.S.R. to enter the war against Japan. We had aided them in fighting Hitler and were asking for reciprocal support. In early 1945, Stalin noted that he would need time to reorganize his forces to fight Japan and that he would enter the war on the side of the Allies three months after the defeat of Germany. Germany surrendered on May 7, and the Soviets declared war on Japan on August 7.
This is not to say that Stalin was not playing his own games for conquest and expansion, but the timing of the Soviet declaration was coincident to, not dependent on, the dropping of the first A-bomb.
Was this considered an acceptable loss, and the invasion plan a viable option? Or would this estimate have caused them to seek other options? If the latter, it’s illogical to say that the atomic bombs saved 250,000 Americans.
Can someone create some links to previous threads on this subject?
Basically there were five options in 1945:
1 - Drop the atomic bomb
2 - Invade Japan
3 - Continue the aerial bombardment of Japan
4 - Continue the blockade of Japan
5 - Negotiate a surrender with Japan
Despite claims made elsewhere, the Japanese government was not willing to surrender on terms that only guaranteed the Emperor’s safety. All offers made before the atomic bombings included terms such as no foreign occupation of Japan, no surrender of Japanese officials to foreign powers, and perhaps a willingness to withdraw from some of the territories it occupied. Basically Japan was willing to go back to the way things were before the war.
So a negotiated end to the war was not going to happen. And of the other four options, the atomic bomb was not only the one that would produce the fewest American casualties, it was also the one most likely to minimize Japanese casualties.
For what it’s worth, in my opinion, 200,000 American casualties would have been a very low estimate. Based on the Japanese plans that existed at the time and the history of how the Japanese had fought in previous campaigns, I’d say the real casualty figures would have been over a million Americans and tens of millions of Japanese dead or disabled.
However, the garbled transmission of surrender terms exchanged in July are not, necessarily, the terms that Japan would have insisted upon in late August, September, or later as more pressure was brought to bear.
The U.S. Bombing Survey reported that Japan would have folded before December 31, 1945, even without the A-Bomb, but they have been criticised for having a political reason for saying so. Neither their claims nor the charges of bias have been proven.
Most of the threads (of substance) that have appeared in great Debates:
Dropping the atomic bomb.
Was dropping the bomb on Japan unnecessary?
Sure the first A-bomb dropped was necessary. Why the second?
Hiroshima was a terrorist act
Was the US attack on Hiroshima justified?
A-Bomb, what was it good for?
Why did the US drop the second atomic bomb?
And that’s where this one is headed too.
Off to GD.
bibliophage
moderator GQ