The Nuking of Nagasaki: Even More Immoral and Unnecessary than Hiroshima

[Open Bolt]

Months before we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan was already prostrate, starving, and virtually powerless. The home islands were cut off from China. The Japanese people were approaching the point of starvation. Japan was virtually defenseless against air and naval attacks.

Yet they kept refusing to surrender, and they had millions of soldiers and thousands of kamikazes ready to defend against our invasion.

-- By June 1945, Japan had a grand total of 9,000 planes of any kind. Most of these were trainers or old planes designed for kamikaze raids, and less than half of them were properly equipped for such raids. Many of those planes could not have been flown anyway due to the lack of fuel.

They all had enough fuel for one kamikaze flight.

-- By June 1945, the Japanese Navy’s surface fleet had essentially ceased to exist. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey reported,

After the liberation of the Philippines and the capture of Okinawa, oil imports into Japan were completely cut off; fuel oil stocks had been exhausted, and the few remaining Japanese warships, being without fuel, were decommissioned or were covered with camouflage and used only as antiaircraft platforms. Except for its shore-based Kamikaze air force and surface and undersea craft adapted for anti-invasion suicide attack, the Japanese Navy had ceased to exist. (p. 11)​

Yes. Except for all those thousands of kamikazes and suicide boats waiting to pounce on our invasion.

So this nonsense that we had to use nukes to "save hundreds of thousands of lives" is gross revisionism of the basest kind.

It is true that saving lives was not the issue.

The reason why we used the nukes was to try to make Japan surrender.

Again, weeks before Hiroshima, we knew from multiple sources that Japan's civilian leaders, including the emperor, wanted to surrender, and that their only condition was that the emperor not be deposed, which was exactly the arrangement that we later accepted--after we had nuked two cities.

It is a shame those civilian leaders were not in control of the Japanese government. Their lack of actual power made their willingness to surrender rather pointless.

I see some people are doing everything but addressing the point that three days was far too soon to be dropping another atomic bomb on Japan,

I disagree with said point. We should have introduced the atomic bombs by nuking three Japanese targets all in one day.

not to mention the fact that the bomb should not have been dropped on a civilian target,

It wasn't. Kokura Arsenal and Nagasaki were both military targets.

We rightly said that the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in NYC was barbaric,

The World Trade Center attack deliberately targeted civilians. That makes it quite different from military targets like Kokura Arsenal and Nagasaki.

You don't kill another batch of tens of thousands of civilians of an enemy who you know wants to surrender and who is virtually defenseless and starving.

We do however nuke military targets in an enemy nation that is refusing to surrender and has millions of soldiers and thousands of kamikazes ready to pounce on our invading forces.

It is surprising to see conservatives defending FDR's provocation of Japan and Truman's nuking of Japan.

Conservatives like facts.

Truman, in refusing to give the Japanese any assurance about the emperor's status, even though he knew from intercepts that this was the only real sticking point for surrender, carried out Soviet policy and enabled the Soviets to invade Manchuria.

Truman knew from intercepts that the Emperor's status was not the only sticking point for surrender. He knew that the military faction (the faction with the actual power) wanted more than one condition.

* Japan's leaders offered very reasonable concessions to try to get FDR to lift his draconian sanctions, which were crippling Japan's economy.

Did they offer to stop their genocide against the Chinese people?

* The Soviets were able to gather sufficient forces and equipment to invade Japan's northern and central Kuril Islands, in addition to invading Manchuria, thanks to Truman's stalling on the Japanese surrender. If the Soviets had not met such fierce resistance in their assaults on the Kuriles, such as at the Battle of Shumshu, they might have followed through with their plans to invade Hokkaido, one of Japan's four main home islands. According to some sources, the Soviets were about to carry out their planned invasion of Hokkaido when Truman suddenly awoke from his stupor and realized what a blunder it had been to stall the Japanese surrender so the Soviets could join the war against Japan.

There was no such stalling of the surrender. Not by Mr. Truman. And not by anyone in the Truman Administration.

* Truman and his inner circle knew from Japanese intercepts that Japan's civilian leaders, including the emperor, wanted to surrender, and that the only real sticking point was the emperor's status in a surrender.

They also knew that Japan's civilian leaders had no power and their willingness to surrender was irrelevant.

Numerous military and civilian officials told Truman that if he would just assure the Japanese that the emperor would not be deposed, they would surrender on acceptable terms.

Mr. Truman received all sorts of contradictory advice regarding the Emperor.

 

[Open Bolt]

But in retrospect, we know they didn’t keep refusing after we nuked them

Yes. In retrospect.

People who are fighting a war do not have the advantage of retrospect. They have to do their best with the information that they have in real time.

What if after Hiroshima we told them they had ten days to surrender or we would drop a bomb a week?

Then right now I'd be addressing questions about why didn't we wait 15 days.

Choose a military target with military infrastructure and a port. The Japanese were capable of assessing the magnitude of the destruction.

That's exactly what we did do. Hiroshima was Japan's primary military port.

Again, give them a reasonable amount of time to assess their situation. Three days is not enough.

Japan already knew what an atomic bomb was because of their own atomic program. Japan knew that we claimed to have dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima because we announced that claim to the world. And by August 7 Japan knew that we were telling the truth. That gave them two more days to surrender if they wanted to.

I am not aware of any requirement that we stop and give the enemy an opportunity to assess the damage after every blow that we land on them.

 

[Open Bolt]

Wrong,

Not wrong. Japan refused to surrender until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

Japan HAD been trying to surrender for over 6 months, but Truman deliberately pretended to not understand them.

Japan's first surrender offer came on August 10, which was after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

They thought they had made it clear they HAD surrendered.

Japan knew very well that they were refusing to surrender.

Neither Nagasaki nor Hiroshima were valid military targets.

Hiroshima was a huge military center with tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers, and was the military headquarters in charge of repelling our invasion of Japan.

Nagasaki was a industrial center with large weapons factories.

There was minimal weapons production, and that was in deep tunnels, so unaffected by the nuclear attacks.

The second atomic bomb was intended for Kokura Arsenal, a massive (4100' x 2000') factory complex that was Japan's primary sours of light machine guns, heavy machine guns, and 20mm anti-aircraft guns, as well as the ammo for all of said guns.

The plane unfortunately had to divert to the secondary target of Nagasaki where it exploded between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works (which made steel for Japanese warships and also built naval torpedoes) and the Mitsubishi Ordnance Works (which built aerial torpedoes, and had built special torpedoes just to overcome Pearl Harbor's defenses).

The destruction of both factories was quite satisfactory.

Japan did nothing to provoke anything.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki show that you are wrong. Japan provoked us into nuking both targets.

Pearl Harbor was provoked by the illegal economic embargoes by the US.

There is nothing even remotely illegal about us refusing to sell our stuff to regimes that are using that stuff to commit genocide.

There were no direct diplomatic cables possible, and the desire to surrender was sent through Russia.

No such message was sent. All Japan did was ask Russia to let Prince Konoye come and talk to them.

Japan never asked for anything except the security of the Emperor.

Not quite. They asked that he retain unlimited dictatorial power. Needless to say we refused.

A build up of Jap troops was impossible, since there was no new sources, and most troops were stuck on various islands.

Japan had millions of troops already in their home islands.

Japan had zero defense left because they had no oil, planes, or pilots.

Japan had a couple million troops, ten thousand kamikazes, and thousands of suicide boats all ready to pounce on our invasion when it came ashore.

The Japanese feared Soviet invasion, not hope of mediation.

History says otherwise. They were trying to escape the war through Soviet mediation. The declaration of war eliminated the possibility of that mediation.

the US murders more people than anyone.

Nonsense.

 

[Open Bolt]

Look it up. 2 differnt bombs detonated on ground and in the air

No. Two airbursts.

I never forget that BECAUSE it sure looked like we were conducting experiments in lethality.

No experiments. The reason why we bomb countries that we are at war with is to try to force them to surrender.

 

[Open Bolt]

Um, no, they were already willing to surrender.

Strange how Japan didn't actually ask to surrender then.

We just refused to let them do it on their terms until Russia entered the war and we realized we might have to share the spoils of war.

We did not have the ability to prevent Japan from presenting surrender offers.

Japan was free to present any surrender offers that they wanted at any time that they wanted.

 

[Open Bolt]

Be very specific and link to a document FROM Japan to the US BEFORE August 9 1945 that offered to surrender with only one demand that the Emperor be maintained.

You're right.

But note also that Japan presented no surrender offers of any sort whatsoever, regardless of the terms, before that date.

 

[Open Bolt]

No, we would not LET them surrender.

That's silly. We had no ability to prevent Japan from making surrender offers.

The Japanese had been begging to surrender for over 6 months, and we would not let them.

Japan did no such thing. They only tried to surrender after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

We knew the Japanese were trying to surrender,

We knew no such falsehood. If Japan had been trying to surrender, we would have been receiving surrender offers from them.

However, the overwhelming historical evidence from U.S. and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered in August even if the atomic bombs had not been used, and the documents show that President Truman and his closest advisors knew this.

Not true. Mr. Truman and his advisers had no knowledge of what it would take to finally make Japan surrender.

Wrong.
Prisoners were not being abused.

Denial of atrocities is ugly.

 

[Open Bolt]

In his radio address to announce the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Harry Truman claimed that Hiroshima was "a military base," and that it was chosen as the first target in order to minimize "the killing of civilians." Either Truman did not want the American people to know the truth about Hiroshima or he was ignorantly repeating what others had told him.

Well, Truman was ignorantly repeating what others had told him, but what he said is true.

Ralph Raico, a professor of history at Buffalo State College, had this to say about Truman's claim:

Truman doubtless was aware of this, so from time to time he advanced other pretexts. On August 9, 1945, he stated: "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."​

This, however, is absurd. Pearl Harbor was a military base. Hiroshima was a city, inhabited by some three hundred thousand people, which contained military elements. In any case, since the harbor was mined and the U.S. Navy and Air Force were in control of the waters around Japan, whatever troops were stationed in Hiroshima had been effectively neutralized.​

The military elements were substantial. Hiroshima was the headquarters in charge of repelling our invasion of Japan.

On other occasions, Truman claimed that Hiroshima was bombed because it was an industrial center. But, as noted in the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, "all major factories in Hiroshima were on the periphery of the city – and escaped serious damage." The target was the center of the city. That Truman realized the kind of victims the bombs consumed is evident from his comment to his cabinet on August 10, explaining his reluctance to drop a third bomb: "The thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible," he said; he didn’t like the idea of killing "all those kids." Wiping out another one hundred thousand people . . . all those kids. . . .​

He got his wires crossed. Kokura Arsenal and Nagasaki were the industrial centers.

Many books incorrectly claim there were 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers stationed in Hiroshima, but there were actually only about 10,000, and they were reservists and supply troops (Paul Ham, Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath, p. 410).

The British scientific mission to Japan, aka the British Mission, concluded that at the time of the attack there were 10,000 soldiers in Hiroshima and that the city’s population might have been as high as 320,000:

The census figures quoted are probably what Japanese call the “registered” population, used for such purposes as rationing. This is usually thought to be about 80 per cent, of the actual population which, with about 10,000 troops, and perhaps 5,000 workers brought in to cut fire breaks, may therefore have been as high as 320,000 at the time of the attack. (The Effects of the Atomic Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Report of the British Mission to Japan, London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1946, p. 1)​

If such early counts debunk latter estimates, then the estimates of 140,000 dead at Hiroshima and 70,000 at Nagasaki are likewise null and void.

The atomic bombs therefore only killed 70,000 at Hiroshima and 40,000 at Nagasaki.

I might add that Hiroshima had no fortifications and that its troops were garrison troops.

10,000 soldiers is quite a garrison.

Why do we suppose that the Enola Gay flew with no fighter escorts? There was a weather plane and another plane to take photos and footage of the blast. But there were no fighters. Why? Because we knew that Hiroshima was not a military target, certainly not a “military base,” and because we also knew that Japan was virtually defenseless against air attack.

We did not know any such falsehood. Hiroshima was very much a military target.

 

[Open Bolt]

I agree with what former MacArthur aide and Far East expert Lester Brooks said about what Truman should have done when he learned that Emperor Hirohito wanted to end the war as soon as possible, namely, that he should have opened up a diplomatic channel with the Japanese to end the war:

And how would you have managed to open this diplomatic channel?

The Soviet move, less than 72 hours after the Hiroshima bombing, was staggering. None knew this better than [Foreign Minister] Togo, who, through the Japanese ambassador in Moscow [Ambassador Naotake Sato], had been trying since Germany’s surrender in May to get the Soviets to act as peace mediator with the Allies.​

This timeline is inaccurate. After Germany's surrender, Japan tried to convince the Soviets to enter the Pacific war on Japan's side.

It was only after our capture of Okinawa that Japan stopped trying to win the war and started trying to escape the war.

The Americans knew this also, because the U.S. had cracked the Japanese code and was diligently monitoring and reading Japanese communications. One of the most important messages of the war was Togo’s cable of July 12 to Sato in Moscow: “. . . it is His Majesty’s heart’s desire to see the swift termination of the war. In the Greater East Asia War, however, as long as America and England insist on unconditional surrender our country has no alternative but to see it through in an all-out effort for the sake of survival and the honor of the homeland.” Though this flat statement should have caused the U.S. to make quick and direct diplomatic efforts to end the war at that point, no action was taken to capitalize on this golden opportunity. (Behind Japan’s Surrender: The Secret Struggle that Ended an Empire, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968, pp. 15-16)
​

So Truman knew from Togo’s July 12 cable, at least three weeks before Hiroshima, that the emperor himself wanted to end the war swiftly, and that the only obstacle was the demand for unconditional surrender. From other sources—such as Grew, McCloy, Forrestal, and Leahy—Truman knew that Japan’s main concern about unconditional surrender was the status of the emperor in such a surrender.

Mr. Truman didn't have a magical "diplomatic channel generating" wand available to him at the time.

Truman ended up agreeing to allow the emperor and the imperial court to remain in place anyway, but he did not give the Japanese any indication that he would do so until after he had nuked Hiroshima and after the Soviets had invaded.

The Potsdam Proclamation did tell Japan that they would be allowed to choose their own form of government. That was a pretty clear indication that we would let them keep a constitutional monarchy.

If he had done this immediately after learning of Togo’s July 12 cable, as so many of his advisers urged him to do, Japan might well have surrendered in late July, and hundreds of thousands of innocent lives would have been saved.

There is little chance of that. Japan was dead set on ending the war only through Soviet mediation.

Keep in mind that even after the Japanese had been nuked twice and the Soviets had attacked them, they named retention of the emperor as their one condition for accepting the Potsdam Declaration's surrender terms.

Actually Japan requested that Hirohito be allowed to retain unlimited dictatorial power as Japan's living deity.

Debate raged in the White House over this condition, but, finally, finally, finally, Truman listened to all the advisers who had long been telling him that the Japanese would fight to the death if we did not agree to retain the emperor.

Funny. I've never heard anything about this raging debate. How come there are no records of it?

However, Truman almost undid his good decision by entrusting his Japan-hating Secretary of States, James Byrnes, with crafting the language of our reply to the Japanese surrender offer. In his reply, Byrnes implied that we would not depose the emperor, but he did not expressly state this, and his verbiage left room for an alternative interpretation.

There was no ambiguity. Truman and Byrnes outright rejected Japan's request that the Emperor retain unlimited dictatorial power.

Fortunately, however, the Japanese Foreign Ministry was getting indications through back channels that Truman was not going to depose the emperor, and all of this created a situation that enabled the emperor to intervene and order the military to surrender.

What back channel indications are these? And why are there no records of them?

 

[Open Bolt]

First off, he has presented you with documented statements by senior American military leaders that using the atomic bomb was unnecessary and wrong.

Irrelevant. Those expressions of opinion do nothing to back up the untrue claims about imaginary surrender offers.

Second, **so what** if you have "official government documents"??? Government documents are often inaccurate and incomplete, and sometimes they're misleading and even fraudulent.

In this case, it is the untrue claims about imaginary surrender offers that are fraudulent.

Japan made no attempt to surrender until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

How do you figure that? Internal Japanese records make it clear that it was the Soviet invasion that finally pushed the hardliners into agreeing to surrender. This has been documented in numerous studies.

While I am sympathetic to the argument that the elimination of the Soviets as potential mediators did push Japan to surrender to us directly, there is little hard documentation that can indisputably prove this.

Truman never should have let the Soviets enter the Pacific War.

It's not like Mr. Truman had any power over whether the Soviets entered the war or not.

But even if he actually had such power, the possibility that we would invade Japan meant that it might be a good thing to have the Soviets help us with the invasion.

This is just obscene, inhumane nonsense. The ease with which the Soviets plowed through Japanese forces in Manchuria shows the depleted, pitiful state of the once powerful Japanese Kwantung Army.

Yes, the Japanese had just over 2 million men on the home islands. Yeah, and they had no air cover--none, zilch, zippo. The U.S. Navy was bombarding Japan's coastal cities at will, because the Japanese navy had ceased to function as any kind of a credible fighting force. The U.S. Air Force was bombing Japanese cities at will. The Japanese people were not getting enough food to maintain basic health. Most of those 2 million Japanese troops had no combat experience and were surviving on meager rations.

That didn't mean that those defenses couldn't have done some damage to our invading forces.

Weeks before Truman decided to vaporize a defenseless city with an atomic bomb, the Japanese had been putting out peace feelers, and we knew all about those feelers and knew that Japan's only ironclad condition was the retention of the emperor.

We knew the exact opposite. The military faction was clearly demanding more than one condition.

 

[there4eyeM]

We can see the rationale behind the use of the bombs on Japan, but in the historical perspective it was a huge mistake, especially in humanitarian terms, and will always be regarded as such. Jingoistic pseudo-patriotism won't change that.

 

[Open Bolt]

We can see the rationale behind the use of the bombs on Japan, but in the historical perspective it was a huge mistake, especially in humanitarian terms, and will always be regarded as such. Jingoistic pseudo-patriotism won't change that.

I don't perceive any mistake. Things turned out pretty well actually.

 

[Open Bolt]

Troops and an HQ? Yeah, they were garrison troops.

10,000 troops is quite a garrison. And the headquarters was in charge of repelling our invasion of Japan.

It is sad and obscene to see an alleged former Marine trying to justify the murder of over 100,000 people, at least half of them women and children, by making the ludicrous claim that Hiroshima was a valid military target.

No more than 70,000 people. If early figures are what you use to measure soldiers killed in Japan, then early figures are what should measure civilians killed in Japan.

There is nothing ludicrous about pointing out the fact that Hiroshima was a military target.

We don't bomb civilian centers.

Indeed. But we do bomb military targets like Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Over 200,000 died from those two nuke attacks,

No they didn't.

If you are going to use early figures for soldiers killed at Hiroshima, then the two atomic bombs only killed 110,000 people.

70,000 dead at Hiroshima and 40,000 dead at Nagasaki.

First of all, you realize that Eisenhower and Leahy stated in their own memoirs that they had opposed nuking Japan and that they still thought it was wrong and unnecessary, right?

Wrong. Leahy never claimed to have voiced any opposition to using the atomic bombs.

Ike's opposition can be chalked up to the fact that he was a general all-around nutcase.

You realize that Admiral, the Chief of Naval Operations at the time, indicated in his memoir that nuking Japan was unnecessary and that Japan could have been defeated by naval blockade alone, right? We’re not talking about second-hand accounts in these cases.

Second, MacArthur’s opposition to nuking Japan was confirmed by his biographer, William Manchester, and by his former consultant during our occupation of Japan, Norman Cousins. What’s more, Richard Nixon said that MacArthur told him that he believed we should not have nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Who cares?

You wanna see a link to a “Government document”? Okay, how about the report of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), which concluded that Japan would have surrendered without nukes and without an invasion by no later than December 1945, even if the Soviets had not invaded? The USSBS spent months studying the effects of our conventional and atomic bombing of Japan, interviewing former Japanese officials, and interviewing former Japanese generals and admirals, and concluded that Japan would have surrendered by no later than December 1945, and probably before November, even if we had not used the atomic bomb and even if the Soviet Union had not entered the war against Japan:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. (page 26, available at United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report (Pacific War))​

Nothing in that document confirms the untrue claims about imaginary surrender offers.

 

[Open Bolt]

Yes they bombed Pearl Harbor first but it was a military target and yeah civilians probably died but it was a military target.

It was no such thing. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in peacetime.

Dropping a bomb on cities which were primarily civilian targets can never be justified.

That's why we bombed military targets like Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The fact remains Japan was defeated, they had lost all territories gain, there military was defeated, Kamikaze is interesting but in the end you are destroying your military assets. they could have blockade the island into submission but the president decided that its best to bring the boys home and they wanted that signed surrender

If Japan was defeated it is strange how they kept refusing to surrender.

also it was a test and show for the destructive power of nuclear weapons

No. It was an attempt to make Japan surrender.

US had a strong case for a just war but they put a question mark on it by the last act of targeting a civilian city which had no defense

We did no such thing. We dropped the atomic bombs on military targets.

 

[Open Bolt]

Professor Sean Malloy has written a book on Henry Stimson’s role in the decision to nuke Japan. Therein he examines Truman’s failure to follow the advice of so many of his advisers who were telling him that clarifying the emperor’s status might very well induce Japan to surrender without an invasion. Malloy also notes Truman’s failure to include the Soviets in the Potsdam Declaration, even though he knew they were going to enter the war no later than mid-August. This is from Professor Malloy’s book Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb Against Japan (Cornell University Press, 2008):

The Potsdam Declaration issued on July 26, 1945, contained no guarantee or reassurance on the postwar status of the emperor. Nor was the Soviet Union invited to sign the document, despite the fact that Stalin had formally agreed to enter the war in mid-August and was eager to join in a public ultimatum to Japan. While the declaration did contain a partial clarification of what unconditional surrender would entail—denying that the Allies intended to exterminate the Japanese people or permanently occupy that country—it had been stripped of the two important incentives to surrender that Stimson and others had recommended earlier in the month. Without the immediate threat of Soviet entry or the atomic bomb and a clear statement on the postwar status of the emperor, the Potsdam Declaration was publicly dismissed by the Japanese government as representing nothing more than “a rehash of the Cairo Declaration.” As historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa has observed, the decision to release the declaration in a public broadcast, rather than through formal or informal diplomatic channels, further encouraged the belief in Japan that it was intended primarily for propaganda purposes.​

Why Truman failed at Potsdam to make use of the full arsenal of diplomatic threats and incentives is a matter of some mystery. . . .​

The failure to offer any reassurance on the emperor is particularly troublesome. Nobody on the American side could guarantee that such reassurance would lead to a speedy Japanese surrender. Diplomatic cables intercepted and decrypted by the Americans in summer 1945 revealed that the Japanese government was badly divided on the issue of surrender terms. But amid this uncertainty, it was widely agreed by American military and diplomatic experts that failure to clarify the emperor’s postwar status would almost certainly delay surrender and prolong the war. According to a State Department analysis from mid-June, “every evidence, without exception, that we are able to obtain of the views of the Japanese with regard to the institution of the throne indicates that the non-molestation of the person of the present emperor and the preservation of the institution of the throne comprise irreducible Japanese terms.” It was this belief that had led Stimson to push for such a reassurance on the grounds that “the country will not be satisfied unless every effort is made to shorten the war.” Recognizing the “irreducible” importance of the emperor, Truman did eventually allow Hirohito to remain on the throne after two atomic bombs and Soviet entry into the war in early August. Why did he not follow Stimson’s advice and make such an offer at Potsdam? Even if it did not produce immediate capitulation, it would at the very least have presented a clear set of terms to Japanese leaders in late July rather than forcing them to guess or intuit the American position on this pivotal question. (pp. 128-129)​

The Potsdam Proclamation made it clear that Japan would be allowed to choose their form of government. That made it pretty clear that we would allow them to continue to be a constitutional monarchy.

There were several reasons for not clarifying the Emperor's position even further than that.

Some advisors thought that if we appeared to be too soft on Japan, they would see that as flagging will on our part and be less likely to surrender.

Some advisors thought that a promise to continue Hirohito's dynasty as a constitutional monarchy would be mistaken as a declaration of intent to execute Hirohito and put his son on the throne.

Some advisors feared a backlash from the voters unless the reassurances for the Emperor came right at the moment of our victory.

Anyway, as for this silly game of what if....

If we had put further reassurances for the Emperor into the Potsdam Proclamation, it would not have made any difference. Japan was dead set on only ending the war through Soviet mediation regardless or what terms we offered them.

If we had included the Soviets in the Potsdam Proclamation, that would have precluded including further reassurances for the Emperor, as the Soviets would have then had input into the text of the Potsdam Proclamation, and the Soviets would have made the terms as harsh as possible to make Japan put off surrender for as long as possible.

Possibly including the Soviets in the Potsdam Proclamation would have disabused Japan of their delusion that they could have gotten the Soviets to mediate. That may have made Japan try to surrender directly to us sooner than they did. But letting the Soviets make the surrender terms much harsher may have also locked us into unconditional surrender and made the war last even longer yet. It's really hard to tell how it all would have turned out.

Japan’s militarists and their backers seek to minimize Japanese war crimes. America’s militarists and their backers seek to deny that nuking Japan was unnecessary and immoral.

Necessity is irrelevant. Japan was refusing to surrender so we kept attacking them.

Morality is a matter of opinion. Nuking military targets is perfectly moral in my view.

It is beyond obvious that, at the bare minimum, Truman blundered horrendously by allowing Byrnes to remove from the Potsdam Declaration the most powerful military threat (Soviet entry into the war) and the most powerful diplomatic incentive for surrender (an assurance about the emperor’s post-war status).

I see no obvious blunder. Things turned out pretty well in the end.

Whether he did this because he was unable to withstand his own hardliners’ pressure or because he wanted to nuke Japan to exact revenge and to show the Soviets the bomb’s power,

It was neither one of those.

the fact remains that he tragically failed to use two powerful diplomatic tools that provided an excellent chance of ending the war early and without an invasion.

One had no chance of ending the war early. The other did have a chance of ending the war early, but also had a chance of prolonging the war.

 

[Open Bolt]

Those are not necessarily the only two options (nuking the cities, invading). We could have dropped one in a more remote area. The japanese scientists would have gotten the picture.

We chose to attack military targets instead.


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We shut the USSR out of surrender negotiations

What surrender negotiations were these?


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Does anyone think that maybe the Japanese had an atomic weapon program and we did not know how close to having the bomb if they did?

Japan did have an atomic weapon program. They were quite far from having a weapon though. But they did know what an atomic bomb was when we hit them with one.


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And due to the fact that once a 2nd one detonated, they knew it wasn't a one-off weapon (although it would have been a while before the US had another one).

Actually the third atomic bomb was only a week away from being ready to use when Japan surrendered.

 

[Open Bolt]

it seems (unsurprisingly) that conservatives miss the main point.
it was IMMORAL to nuke a city.
period.
you nuke a military target....like an army or a navy....
NOT a city.
If the point was to get japan to surrender then wouldn't they surrender just as fast if they lost an army to a nuke?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets.

Japan did lose an army when Hiroshima was nuked.

so we had to nuke 2 cities full of grand parents and children because they didn't have a navy but t hey did have an army so we couldn't nuke the army because we needed them to say "UNCLE" so we kill a whole bunch of innocent grandparents and children because conservatives love killing people...

No. We nuked their army. Thousands of soldiers were killed at Hiroshima.

I am certain that had the 2 nukes been dropped on MILITARY INSTALLATIONS then the emperor would have been just as willing to surrender.
NOT cities full of old people
MILITARY INSTALLATIONS.

Hiroshima was a military installation. It was the headquarters in charge of repelling our invasion of Japan.

The second atomic bomb was dropped on weapon factories.

if they had no forces left to fight with then there was no reason to nuke those cities.

Japan had a couple million soldiers ready to fight to the death when we invaded.

 

[Open Bolt]

Invasion was not the only other option besides unleashing the worst weapon in history on helpless civilians.

Actually no. Invasion was the way to force Japan to surrender if they had kept refusing to surrender.

The conditions offered were the same ones we ultimately accepted after slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Japan presented no conditions of any kind whatsoever before the atomic bombs were dropped.

When Japan did finally present conditions (which they did only after both atomic bombs had already been dropped) those conditions were not accepted.

Another one hiding behind “no choice!” to avoid the central moral issue.

There is no central moral issue. We bombed military targets in an enemy country that was refusing to surrender.

The attack on Pearl Harbor (very bad decision) was of course understood as an instigation to war, and war is always terrible, but it is worth remembering that Pearl Harbor was a military base (and not even in one of the United States)

Irrelevant. It was peacetime and the attack was a war crime.

while the only two atomic bombs in existence at the time were dropped on civilian centers clearly and deliberately to incinerate women, children, and the elderly in an essentially defeated nation.

That is incorrect. Both atomic bombs were dropped on military targets.

If fdr hadn't dismissed overtures to surrender as being politically untenable, the war might have ended much sooner, saving the lives of many thousands of US servicemen.

The fact that these early Japanese overtures were imaginary made them pretty untenable.

The conditions offered ended up being the same ones we accepted after fdr got his wish in hell.

The conditions were offered only after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

We did not accept the conditions, and Japan surrendered without them.

 

[elektra]

Wrong.
If you read it, these US planes were shot down by antiaircraft fire, NOT a dogfight.
{...
More losses would follow that month when the Air Group challenged Kure Naval Base, an enemy outpost protected by guns placed on nearby hills and more batteries anchored on warships. In fact, veteran fighter pilots cautioned the Air Group 88 aviators to “stay away from Kure.”

During the July 24, 1945 attack, multi-coloured antiaircraft bursts greeted the Air Group while it was still five miles from its target.

“They shot coloured tracers and everything they had,” said torpedo gunner Ralph Morlan. “[It was] the heaviest barrage I have ever seen yet.”

Seven Americans died in the attack on Kure, bringing the unit’s total battle casualties in only three weeks of action to 12.
...}

And obviously even that was desperation, where they had to resort to firing tracers, which are only useful at night.

From my link, anti aircraft guns and aircraft, with bullets and fuel. Proves you can't even read let alone tell us history.

"An enemy fighter jumped onto Sahloff’s tail, pumping bullets into the Hellcat. With his plane streaming smoke, Sahloff made for the open sea. He ducked in and out of clouds and then bailed out before his plane rolled twice and then tumbled earthward. He did not survive."

 

[there4eyeM]

The grave error of how the weapons were used is glaringly obvious in retrospect. THEY WERE NOT USED STRATEGICALLY.
Their use was tactical. Bombing cities to kill civilians was a tactic used throughout the war by both sides. It was aimed at weakening capacity and will in the enemy. The program was perhaps strategic, but each strike merely tactical.
The atomic bombs dropped on Japan did not change the fact that the war was over and lost for that nation. Dropping them was a tactic for convincing Japan's government to stop. It was a tactic to announce to the world (read, Joe Stalin) we had the weapon and would use is. That did not stop Russia from occupying and dominating large swaths of the earth's surface. It did not have sufficient strategic effect. It was just inhumanity effected upon a helpless population for limited results.
Dropping such a bomb on a Moscow full of Soviet leadership would have had strategic effect. It would not have been more inhumane. In fact, it would have avoided enormous suffering. America was not thinking that way. America was, as now, caught up in old way thinking and protection of certain vested interests.