Question regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor

Factual Questions
161

Were it only that simple.

The respective military services were actually each divided into two lines of command, for the Army, the War (Army) Ministry, which was within the cabinet, but directly – although nominally – reported to the Emperor, and the Chief-of-Staff which also directly reported to the Emperor in parallel to the ministry. Note that it was completely outside of any civilian oversight. The Navy was similarly set up. There were not only inter-service conflicts but intra-service ones as well.

While it seems mind boggling to non-Japanese, this is actually quite normal within Japanese organizations. I can only tell you of the frustrations encounter in the 25 years of living there.

The army did not all belong to the Strike North faction, and in fact key members of the rival Strike South were also army officers. A higher percentage of navy officers were in the South camp.

The division was not characterized by diametric opposition to each other. They agreed on many issues while violently (as in action of assassination for the leadership of their rivals) opposed on others.

The Strike North group was reactionary to the Taisho democratic movement and was centered on the Chosen group, officers from one of the former clans responsible for overthrowing the bakufu (shogun) government in the 19th century. They wanted to return Japan to her nostalgic past and key members were the ones who corrupted bushido to fit their ambitions.

The Strike South group was a reaction to the reactionaries. They were more worldly and knew that they couldn’t offload the zaibatsu industrial and merchant giants and other more ideological desires of the North group. Key members were from Satsuma, another of the key players in the Meiji Restoration. The IJN was build around the Satsuma group. Yamamoto was from that area as well.

Political maneuvering resulted in Hirohito’s 1920 engagement to a daughter of a royal family member from Satsuma. Chosen group members attempted to get it cancelling and to replace her with someone from their area, but that failed. The whole question of the degree of responsibility of Hirohito is beyond the scoop of this post, so we’ll leave it at this.

The North group was fiercely anti-Communist and that was a factor in their chosen desire.

The influence of Strike North group was already in decline prior to the fiasco against the Red army. Being on the wrong side of attempted coups does that for you. Hitler’s non-aggression pack with Stalin, which he didn’t inform Tokyo until afterward, was another factor.

All of this was made irrelevant on August 1, 1941 when the US established the oil embargo following on the heels of freezing Japanese assets. Once that happened, given the people in charge in Tokyo and Washington, war was inevitable.

One problem with alt-his is that they have to rewrite this part of history to what is equivalent to having Hitler buddy up with non-Russian Serbs or to not attack the USSR. At that point, it’s no longer WWII, either for Germany or Japan. The chain of decision which lead up to the war have to depend on certain factors.

Japan would never have invaded Siberia for Siberia. It was only to protect her gains in Manchuria and China.

162

Failed to make my standard disclaimer that this does not mean the war was the fault of the US. I place the blame squarely on Japan, as they were clearly the aggressors. Someone needed to stop them, and the US was the only country which could, at the time.

The point is that there were certain steps by both countries which lead us closer and closer to war. The Japanese were much more eager for war, so it makes sense that it was the US crossing one of their red lines which set the stage in motion.

US was headed for war in the Pacific. The Two Ocean Act and ensured the Navy would be ready in a couple of years. A growing acceptance by the population ensured that it was much easier to begin in the Pacific than in Europe.

Given the militarism in Japan in the late 30s, my belief is that war between the US and Japan was inevitable. Japan was going to get her empire or die. However, they were arguing within themselves on which direction and course to take, and they were bitterly divided.

The point I had wanted to make was is you were to point to one event which allowed everyone to coalesces around a plan of action, it was the freezing of Japan’s assets and the oil embargo. Unless Japan were to retreat from China, which they would not, then it became a ticking bomb.

There were a number of prominent people who argued against those sanctions for that very reason. Understandably, the Secretary of the Navy were among them. He wanted more time to prepare.

163

I dug up the source of my MacArthur post. It was John Burton, author of Fortnight of Infamy: The Collapse of Allied Airpower West of Pearl Harbor. But not that book (which I haven’t read). It was in an interview where Burton was discussing MacArthur’s actions of the first day of the war:

164

Reading the page in Google Books, it speculates on that being one of the reasons for not doing the 6:00 am attack. It also seemed to place more importance on MacArthur not acting until getting “official” word from Washington.

It does not connect this with any of the subsequent failures to take any of the myriad of available, preplanned options.

I see nothing there to counter the idea that MacArthur had some sort of temporary panic or something. For example, he didn’t send planes up to Formosa, which would have let them know the reason the Japanese planes weren’t already attacking was because of bad weather.

It also don’t change my opinion that Mac should been sacked for this.

165

I’m not disputing MacArthur also had an attack of nerves. And I certainly won’t dispute he should have been fired.

My original point -

was that the dual nature of MacArthur’s command was a factor in his poor response that day. You requested a cite for that and I provided it. If you still want to argue the point, you can take it up with John Burton.

166

Thank you for providing the cite.

I disagree with you, that Burton’s speculation can be accepted without question, especially as it doesn’t seem the Burton is building that strong of an argument. He spends more time discussing the Washington angle.

Had your post represented that opinion as speculation rather than as accepted fact, I would not have challenged it. You are again, in this post, arguing that that it is indeed a factor, but just by going on the pages in Google Book, I can’t accept it as anything more than speculation that it could be a factor.

If there is more evidence then I’d reconsider.

167

Actually, I don’t know. I’m learning a lot from this thread.

Thanks.

The premise seems to be to strike terror into America, to hit us hard and fast so we concede they deserve more room in Asia. Yeah, doesn’t take reality into consideration.

“Defensive absurdity” seems about right.

No, you missed the point. What makes distances insurmountable? The shipping available, the ability to cache supplies like fuel, so that ships can go there and come back here without running out of fuel. Take as a ludicrous example: Tokyo has one tug boat and the US has the entire Post WWII fleet (Atlantic and Pacific). Who is capable of getting across the Pacific, independent of an island layouts? At the time of Pearl Harbor, while the situation wasn’t that one sided, it definitely was disproportionately toward the side of the US.

Add in the starting conditions pointed out, that the US was in the Phillippines already and had a logistics train already stretching across much of the Pacific, whereas the Japanese were starting with a logistics train localized around Japan and the South China Sea. The two were not starting on equivalent grounds.

Factor in the other point already mentioned, the geography of the Pacific. There are tons of islands in the Western Pacific. There are very few in the Eastern Pacific. America had good supply lines to Hawaii and beyond, while the Japanese would be struggling to get to Hawaii, nevermind from Hawaii to the US mainland. Especially if they didn’t conquer Hawaii first to use as a staging base.

Just because the distance is the same, that does not mean the obstacles for each side are the same. Example: you and I both need to travel from New York City to Los Angeles. Each of us has $1000. You get to use commercial air travel, I am constrained to bus. Who gets there first? What about if I have a bicycle and a fanny pack?

Japan and the US did not have equal resources, did not have equal starting points, and the geography of the ocean favored the US to Japan route.

I would love to see more real discussion of this. Recently I read an article via LinkedIn where Oliver Stone was in Japan claiming that the US story of the bomb ending WWII by forcing Japan to surrender was a “lie”. I find that a ludicrous exaggeration. My feeling is that it is believed Japan was prepared to fight to the last man, woman, and child defending their homeland from a US invasion, that they would not contemplate defeat to conventional invasion. How would that change by mustering more troops for conventional invasion? The A Bomb changed the dynamic - no longer was Japan facing an enemy they could combat face to face, but rather they were facing destruction from above with not recourse. But I admit to being ill-informed and would love to hear more on the reasoning.

DrDeth, your statement was not originally clear that you meant “5th column and guerrilla activity” in conjuction with US ground forces. Musicat had proposed at that point guerrilla activity without regular military support. Ergo, it was assumed that is what you meant also.

Viet Nam showed that 5th column and guerrilla warfare can be effective in keeping an invading force destabilized. However, that outcome was not decided by face-to-face encounters, but rather by the loss of support for continuing the endeavor. And it also showed the costs to both sides of that continued activity, in terms of US casualties but also in terms of civilian life and damage to the country.

Japan could never have conquered the US. Even without the US regular military, the country was just too big and too populated for Japan to mount an effective subjugation. They could have killed a lot of people and destroyed some cities, but ultimately would not prevail. Not on top of trying to take China and most of southeast Asia. Probably not instead of trying to take China and southeast Asia.

168

That assumption could have been valid the first time, but not the 2nd, 3rd, etc. In other words, they had a legit reaction to Musicat, which caused them to kneejerk to my reasonable position (which agreed with their original position) but once I pointed that out they could not admit they were simply arguing with someone in their head and had to keep it up, rather than just doing a Emily Littela.:rolleyes:

169

As you can see, *no one * other than you understood what you were talking about. I think a lot of people may not even qualify that statement with the exception given.

We did respond:

And what exactly was your position? Let’s go back and look at it.

This position is simply absurd. As has been pointed out, even in the absence of the US army, the Japanese could not have been able to handle the logistics. It would not have taken any “intense” anything.

As I said upstream

Go roll your eyes at someone else.

And I’ll add, if the Japanese were somehow to have landed, they could not have secured enough territory where a guerilla war would be necessary. They didn’t have enough troops to occupy even the coast of California, let alone anywhere even deeper.

Reality is sooo much different than your war games.

170

We’ve done this on a number of times, but there really isn’t a way to determine which of the two factors, the atomic bombs or the Soviet entry into the war was more important in the decision to surrender.

The facts are: Hiroshima occurred August 6, the Soviet declared war on the night of August 8th and the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th. The Japanese government made a counter offer on the terms of surrender on August 10th.

The debate among scholars has gone on for decades and will likely go on for decades more. However, the average person isn’t really aware of the importance of the Soviet entry into the war and believes that it was simply the dropping of the bombs.

Stone says his position comes from listening to Peter Kuznick, a well-known historian who is very much opposed to nuclear weapons. (Which contradicts the early made assertion that the only ones who argue this point are Russophiles who believe that the Soviets did it all.)

Kuznick and Stone have a point, that there are many more factors involved. What he seems to be saying, though, is that the “great lie” was that it was entirely the atomic bomb which saved us. I don’t think it was a “great lie” but it was a gross simplification of history, and there certainly were many factors which contributed to that becoming the quick explanation. Among them was the interservice rivalry post WWII and fighting for budget. Others was the minimization during the cold war of the Soviet contributions to WWII.

As for the decision, I always have to stress this, but one simply cannot use broad terms such as “Japan” when discussing the decision to surrender. The final decision had to be made by a split cabinet which was divided into a number of factors and had limited powers, including not having direct control over the military.

There was Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, which was also divided into various factions, and the Big Six:
Prime Minister: Admiral Suzuki Kantarō
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Togo Shigenori
Minister of War: General Anami Korechika
Minister of the Navy: Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa
Chief of the Army General Staff: General Yoshijirō Umezu
Chief of the Navy General Staff: Admiral Toyoda Soemu

which was split down the middle on the question of admitting defeat. It took the Emperor intervening and tipping the balance toward surrender. Hardliners in the military had been holding out even discussing the surrender while they waited to see if the Soviets would intercede for them with the West.

For your point, it simply wasn’t that they now faced destruction from the air. Most of their cities were already burned out by the extensive firebombing, the first of which actually killed more than the immediate deaths and Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

For Stone, I completely disagree with his position and say that argument can only be made in retrospect. I believe the double shock was what changed Hirohito’s mind, but since he was declared off limits to historian, we will never know for sure.

171

So now, “reality= TokyoBayer personal opinion”? :dubious:

172

I’ve mentioned my theory before. One of the biggest impacts of the atomic bomb was psychological - the physical damage was massive but it was not out of proportion to other attacks Japan had already endured. But its unexpectedness was a factor.

Japan had a strong belief in its exceptionalism (ironically it shares this belief with many other countries, including the United States). There was a shared belief that Japan was special and that “fate” or “destiny” or “the Gods” was protecting Japan. There was the legend of the original kamikaze - the divine wind that came up out of nowhere and destroyed invading fleets. There was a sense that this was real - that if the Japanese people held on and kept fighting, some last minute miracle would save them.

And then the miracle happened - but it happened for the Americans not the Japanese. The atomic bomb was like a sign that fate itself had switched sides and now preferred the United States. This caused a collapse of Japanese morale that far exceeded the actual damage and loss of life caused by the bombs. This shook the Japanese people’s belief in themselves and their place in the universe.

173

This seems to be how you “debate,” resorting to insults rather than back your case.

Anything you wish to actually discuss?

And when you said this previously I’ve argued that this theory is without merit. I don’t recall you replying to my comments, although I could be mistaken.

In short. Nope.

The Japanese believed that their fighting spirit was special. True. However, they were well aware that the US had a technical edge as well as greater resources. They were counting on their soldiers to provide the edge and were never counting on any divine intervention. They simply did not have that concept. We cannot project our meanings and and concepts of divine or god(s) on theirs.

Second. I have found no evidence or suggestion that there was this collapse of moral which you suggest.

The Japanese had made attempts to build a bomb, but lacked the necessary resources. Rather than admit this, the upper-ups said it was impossible and stopped the program. However, the Big Six and the Cabinet, those tasked with the decision if to end the war or not would not be so naive.

The important thing to remember is that half of the war counsel wanted to continue fighting, even after the bombings and the Soviet declaration of war.

Once forced to admit that the US could have a bomb, one of the Big Six (Amani?) was arguing that the US could only have one. Nagasaki proved we had at least two. Even then the hardliners didn’t want to quit.

Ironically, the Naval Chief of Staff actually became more severe after the bombing:

Something convinced Hirohito that it was enough. He was growing increasing wary of the military and its promises. He and his inner court counsel were concerned about the possibility of a coup, enough so that he had refused to evacuate the palace.

There were a number of concerns which could have lead to the decision by the Emperor to break the deadline. There was a real concern that if the Soviets joined the attack on the homeland, that the emperor would not be allowed to continue even in the limited role, as he was under US occupation.

174

There was the surrender itself. Japan finally decided it had enough after eight years of fighting and three million deaths. On August 5, the Japanese were still planning on continuing the war. On August 9, they decided to surrender. As you noted “Something convinced Hirohito that it was enough.”

175

Hey, just be glad you didn’t have TB from the age of 13 and he’s not trying to discredit you for not having served in the military. On that note, Keegan has mentioned this fact as well as his being too young to have served in WW2 anyway in the foreword of several of his books. He was, however, senior lecturer for many years at RMA Sandhurst. Think British West Point, DrDeth.

Just to add, as you are certainly aware of but other readers may not, his fear of a coup was not misplaced. There was an attempted military coup on the night of August 14-15 to prevent the radio broadcast of Hirohito’s prerecorded speech to the Japanese people announcing the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration known as the Kyūjō Incident.

The officers involved felt they were patriotically committing treason by acting in the “true” wishes of the Emperor by acting against his expressed wishes. It didn’t get very far, and Minister of War General Anami Korechika who was approached by the officers planning the coup and was aware of it but neither supported it nor acted to stop it committed seppuku shortly afterwards leaving behind a suicide note reading

176

It doesn’t matter why he didn’t serve, no one is calling him a shirker. But his opinions differ greatly from other well known historians- who were decorated serving officers.
In any case, you claimed Keegan said XX, but were unwilling to back it with an actual quote. I quoted actual decorated serving officers, men with boots on the ground, recognized experts in the field- at least two of which said Keegan was wrong. All you have is a name, not even what he said.

177

The historical fact that something convinced Hirohito to make is move is not in question. The question is your logic.

Your argument is (1) the Japanese believed in a divine destiny, that they were favored and protected by their gods or fate. Something like the god of the Old Testament and the ancient Israelites. (2) That the American development of the atomic bomb was a sign to the Japanese that the gods or fate now favored the Americans. (3) That this sudden realization caused a (presumably massive) collapse in Japanese morale which (4) led to the Japanese surrender.

Taking these in turn, and sort of repeating what I said earlier.

(1) Nope.
(2) Nope.
(3) Nope.
(4) Nope.

In a little more depth:

(1) The Japanese believed they had a right to rule Asia. However, I have not read, seen or heard anything which would indicate a believe in divine protection for them or the homelands. In contrast, everything I’ve read talks about the yamato spirit of the warriors and the belief that the Army gunts would rain such devastation on the Americans that we’d turn around and run like the real cowards we really were.

(2) Covered that in my previous post.

(3) This sudden collapse of morale did not occur. It simply did not. The army was prepared to fight to the bitter end. Many in the navy were as well. Of the Big Six, three out of four of the members representing the military still voted to continue, even after the atomic bombs and the Soviet declaration of war. That’s three out of four. This is not a sudden collapse of morale. Incidentally, all three of the hawks were born in Oita Prefecture.

As Dissonance pointed out, there still was a coup, unsuccessful, but an attempt nevertheless. In the final days of deliberation, the Army would play the inability to control their officers card, and not just once. This is clear evidence that this theory is without merit.

As I said in a previous post, one simply cannot talk about the decision to accept a surrender and attribute it to “Japan” or “the Japanese.” It is far too complex for such simplification.

There were the hardline militants who never gave up until the attempted coup was squashed. It should be painfully obvious but the revolt was not an attempt to surrender quicker and the fact that it was known to a member of the Big Six demonstrates that this was not simply something by junior officers.

There were the “pacifists” and I use scare quotes with them because many (most?) of them were delusional as well. The ambassador to the USSR was getting really annoyed by the insane ideas proposed by Tokyo.

A number of the wimps had wanted to quit from the previous year, but were unable to persuade the rest, or even whisper the words. There were graveyards filled with people who had spoken less treasonous words.

After the bloody battle of Okinawa, the tide was ever so slowly turning toward the peace faction. The Emperor was getting increasingly disillusioned with the Army and the inability to get straight answers from the generals.

Knowing that Tokyo was vulnerable to attack a headquarters were built in the mountain in Nagano and called the Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters. A palace was secretly made and the Army attempted to have the Emperor relocate there in July. He refused twice, knowing that without him in Tokyo, the Army could effectively run in the government in his name, but keep him in the dark.

There has been a fair amount of study on the final days. Nothing points to your conclusions.

and (4) Yup. Japan surrendered. However, it was not because of (1), (2) and (3).

There is just simply too much evidence against this theory. Take, for example,

These are not people who were unable to get out of bed in the morning because of shock.

Worse, I don’t play war games so I’m not qualified to comment.

General Anami had been classmates with some of the princes, the Emperor’s uncles, at war academy, and the aide-de-camp to the Emperor back in the 1920s. Although he was the most open of the hawks, he had a great deal of personal loyalty to his leader.

178

Waiting for an answer to what the scenario is that we are supposed to be debating. How does the US Army be in the neighborhood, but allows the Japanese to land and conquer territory, and requires the need for untrained freedom fighters to do a job which they were very capable?

Yet another problem with your war gaming is that the US forces could do their own guerilla fighting, just the the NVA did in America.

Here you have it. I’m not confusing you with anyone else. If you have a case, make it.

179

Calling Keegan an armchair tactician is just silly. The British military regarded Keegan very highly – enough that they hired him to teach them.

As far as a cite goes, meh. I gave you two books to read. The concept I am trying to explain in this thread would be somewhat hard to explain in a sound bite, but the books seemed pretty persuasive to me. I can’t find searchable texts online – not ones I’m willing to use (I did see a good summary of what I’ve been trying to say on an innocuously-named site, but further investigation reveals it is dedicated to fighting the “enemies of freedom, the Zionist-Jewish conspiracy”…I am SO not going to use it). When I get home, maybe I’ll have time to read through them and type something up, but frankly, you don’t seem curious to learn more, you just seem to be using the lack of online cites as a club, so it’s not very motivating.

I think it’s not accurate to portray Keegan’s opinion on this as out of the mainstream, either, unless you’re talking about his reappraisal of Clausewitz.

And while I don’t mean to slight the bravery of anyone who fought the Nazis in any capacity, your quote was, as I mentioned, not very persuasive – it was pretty light on specifics:

180

Tokyo you’re nitpicking. Obviously when I say “Japan surrendered” I’m referring to Japan in a somewhat abstract sense. I’m talking about the consensus among a group of individual people who had roles in the government of the Empire of Japan.

Duh.

I stand by my theory (with the acknowledgement that it is a theory). If you have a different theory maybe you’d like to contribute to the conversation. It seems all you’re doing here is telling other people they’re wrong without coming up with anything yourself.