I had always heard that prior to the live bombing runs, leaflets were dropped over the target cities-- mostly propaganda, yes, but also legitimate warnings to evacuate. Does this mean that Nagasaki didn’t have a chance to recieve its warnings? Somehow, that seems troubling to me… Even if people are going to ignore the warnings anyway, as most did, it still seems only humane to make the effort.
First off: We simply don’t know whether the Japanese would have surrendered. On the one hand, we have the desperate suicide attacks and the suicides of many civilians on Okinawa when U.S. forces got too close. On the other hand, we have the very real attempts by the Japanese government to explore peace options. On the third hand (?), after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the decision to surrender, there was an attempt by an army detachment to stage a coup and nullify the surrender. On the fourth hand (good thing I always let my millipedes keep tally), the coup failed, and had it succeeded, there is no guarantee that the people would have actually supported the coup if they felt that the insurgents had violated the dignity of the emperor.
As to the “unconditional surrender” vs “keep the emperor” debate–they got to keep the emperor. The sticking point was that the U.S. has always been enamored of the phrase ever since Unconditional Surrender Grant used it at Fort Donnelson, but the U.S. generally intends through that phrase that there will be no negotiations of disputes before the cessation of hostilities. The option to work out the “details” of the surrender are always a real possibility–as is exemplified by the fact that the Japanese were allowed to keep their symbolic emperor (as long as he avoided politics) without any real trouble once the surrender had been agreed to.
The U.S.S.R. may have been “prepared” to declare war prior to the actual bombings, but (as a number of people more cynical than I are fond of pointing out), the actual Soviet declaration of war did not occur until after Hiroshima.
There were no leaflets dropped on the A-bomb targets prior to the attack. (I’m not sure what good they might have done, anyway, of course.)
The really thorough exploration of these issues in Great Debates (U.S. bombing Hiroshima/Nagaski?) was archived in the earlier attempts to clean up the UBB board. Unfortunately, it seems that the archives have not made the transfer to the vBB board.
jwg wrote:
I’ll second that recommendation. Richard Frank’s “Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire” is far and away the best account of the end of the war that I’ve ever read. It does an excellent job of winnowing out the truth in the historical debates on a wide variety of topics: internal politics in the Japanese government, Japanese surrender initiatives and American casualty estimates and invasion planning.
Andrew Warinner
For someone who knows their WW2 history a lot better than me…
Wasn’t the agreement that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan 6 months after Yalta, or 3 months after Germany surrendered or something like that – the argument being that Stalin was not simply jumping on at the last second but that he was living up to an agreement he made before the Bomb had even been tested?
kunilou wrote:
<<Wasn’t the agreement that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan 6 months after Yalta, or 3 months after Germany surrendered or something like that – the argument being that Stalin was not simply jumping on at the last second but that he was living up to an agreement he made before the Bomb had even been tested?>>
You’re exactly correct. One of the secret Yalta protocols was that the Soviets would declare war on Japan three months after Germany surrendered. V-E day was May 8th, so the declaration of war on August 8th was right on time. The decision to drop the bomb was FDR’s - Truman saw no reason to change the decision, especially after the successful Trinity test on July 16th while at the Potsdam conference. There was a minority within the US gov’t. to allow the Japanese to keep their Emperor, (McCloy & Grew) but they were overruled. FWIW, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kyoto were listed to be A-bomb targets for a couple of years prior to the bombings, so to preserve the targets as much as possible, they were not bombed with conventional explosives and were largely untouched until 8/45. Secretary of War Stimson personally removed Kyoto from the A-bomb target list several times, citing the beautiful shrines and lack of war potential, and Kokura was added later. Tokyo was “spared” atomic attack because large areas of the city had been leveled in the Meetinghouse incendiary raids in March (luckily they didn’t kill the Emperor or the war would have lasted for several more years). We were set to invade Kyushu in November of 1945 and Honshu in March `46, and millions of Japanese would have been killed in the atomic attacks that were scheduled to “soften up” the invasion zones (as well as many American casualties as our troops moved in through the radioactive beach-head. With Soviet participation, there wouldn’t have been a South Korea, but there might have been a North and South Japan.
Speaking of whether the atomic bomb was right or not, I like the question of using weapons that won’t kill people but will blind them. Now that night vision is common soldiers are very susceptible to light. So if you use a special kind of light you can blind all the people using night vision goggles. But you won’t kill them. They say this is a “sick” weapon. But is it worse then killing them? Is fire bombing worse that nukes?
Interesting question