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

[ptbw forever]

Whatever labored, embarrassing arguments one can make for the nuking of Hiroshima cannot be made for the nuking of Nagasaki just three days later. From my article "Did We Really Need to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan?":

On August 9, 1945, just three days after we nuked Hiroshima, and before Japan’s leaders had sufficient time to process and respond to our nuclear attack on Hiroshima, we dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, which was home to Japan’s largest Christian population. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki was even more inexcusable than the nuking of Hiroshima. . . .

On August 9, we nuked Nagasaki, just three days after Hiroshima, and hours after the Soviets began to maul the Japanese army in Manchuria,, and while Japan’s civilian leaders were understandably absorbed with trying to process what had happened to Hiroshima and with responding to the Soviet attack in Manchuria. Surely Truman and other high officials knew that three days was not enough time for Japan’s government to formulate a formal response to the unprecedented use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and to the Soviet invasion in Manchuria. Even McGeorge Bundy, who helped Henry Stimson write his defense of the atomic bombing of Japan, acknowledged that Truman was too quick to nuke Nagasaki:​

"It is hard to see that much could have been lost if there had been more time between the two bombs. . . . Such a delay would have been relatively easy, and I think right." (https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf)
​

The Japanese were not even able to get a scientific team to Hiroshima until August 7, the day after the attack. Meanwhile, Japan's leaders were getting conflicting, fragmentary information about what had happened in Hiroshima. Some Army officials were telling the government that the bombing of Hiroshima was merely a very large conventional bombing raid, and they were suppressing information about the kinds of wounds that had been inflicted. There was no Internet back then, no fax machines, no Skype.

Surely it was obscene for us to nuke Nagasaki just three days, 72 hours, after we had nuked Hiroshima.

If we wanted to just kill a bunch of Japanese we would have bombed Tokyo instead.

 

[Unkotare]

Whatever labored, embarrassing arguments one can make for the nuking of Hiroshima cannot be made for the nuking of Nagasaki just three days later. From my article "Did We Really Need to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan?":

On August 9, 1945, just three days after we nuked Hiroshima, and before Japan’s leaders had sufficient time to process and respond to our nuclear attack on Hiroshima, we dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, which was home to Japan’s largest Christian population. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki was even more inexcusable than the nuking of Hiroshima. . . .

On August 9, we nuked Nagasaki, just three days after Hiroshima, and hours after the Soviets began to maul the Japanese army in Manchuria,, and while Japan’s civilian leaders were understandably absorbed with trying to process what had happened to Hiroshima and with responding to the Soviet attack in Manchuria. Surely Truman and other high officials knew that three days was not enough time for Japan’s government to formulate a formal response to the unprecedented use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and to the Soviet invasion in Manchuria. Even McGeorge Bundy, who helped Henry Stimson write his defense of the atomic bombing of Japan, acknowledged that Truman was too quick to nuke Nagasaki:​

"It is hard to see that much could have been lost if there had been more time between the two bombs. . . . Such a delay would have been relatively easy, and I think right." (https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf)
​

The Japanese were not even able to get a scientific team to Hiroshima until August 7, the day after the attack. Meanwhile, Japan's leaders were getting conflicting, fragmentary information about what had happened in Hiroshima. Some Army officials were telling the government that the bombing of Hiroshima was merely a very large conventional bombing raid, and they were suppressing information about the kinds of wounds that had been inflicted. There was no Internet back then, no fax machines, no Skype.

Surely it was obscene for us to nuke Nagasaki just three days, 72 hours, after we had nuked Hiroshima.

If we wanted to just kill a bunch of Japanese we would have bombed Tokyo instead.

We did, idiot. There wasn’t much left of Tokyo after the fire bombings.

 

[ptbw forever]

Whatever labored, embarrassing arguments one can make for the nuking of Hiroshima cannot be made for the nuking of Nagasaki just three days later. From my article "Did We Really Need to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan?":

On August 9, 1945, just three days after we nuked Hiroshima, and before Japan’s leaders had sufficient time to process and respond to our nuclear attack on Hiroshima, we dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, which was home to Japan’s largest Christian population. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki was even more inexcusable than the nuking of Hiroshima. . . .

On August 9, we nuked Nagasaki, just three days after Hiroshima, and hours after the Soviets began to maul the Japanese army in Manchuria,, and while Japan’s civilian leaders were understandably absorbed with trying to process what had happened to Hiroshima and with responding to the Soviet attack in Manchuria. Surely Truman and other high officials knew that three days was not enough time for Japan’s government to formulate a formal response to the unprecedented use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and to the Soviet invasion in Manchuria. Even McGeorge Bundy, who helped Henry Stimson write his defense of the atomic bombing of Japan, acknowledged that Truman was too quick to nuke Nagasaki:​

"It is hard to see that much could have been lost if there had been more time between the two bombs. . . . Such a delay would have been relatively easy, and I think right." (https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf)
​

The Japanese were not even able to get a scientific team to Hiroshima until August 7, the day after the attack. Meanwhile, Japan's leaders were getting conflicting, fragmentary information about what had happened in Hiroshima. Some Army officials were telling the government that the bombing of Hiroshima was merely a very large conventional bombing raid, and they were suppressing information about the kinds of wounds that had been inflicted. There was no Internet back then, no fax machines, no Skype.

Surely it was obscene for us to nuke Nagasaki just three days, 72 hours, after we had nuked Hiroshima.

If we wanted to just kill a bunch of Japanese we would have bombed Tokyo instead.

We did, idiot. There wasn’t much left of Tokyo after the fire bombings.

I mean nuked it to hell, moron.

 

[elektra]

........even more excited..... big....... tingle?

You say what? sicko!

 

[elektra]

Here is good article written in 2015 by Dr. Geoffrey Shepherd titled "It's Clear the US Should Not Have Bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Dr. Shepherd outlines one of the several alternative courses of action that we could have taken instead of nuking two cities:

Much of a fanatic Japanese soldiery—and possibly many citizens—might fight to the last inch. One early study estimated 40,000 American soldiers’ deaths, yet President Harry Truman and others soon spoke of “half a million.”
​

No links, no source?
Over 12,000 died attacking okinawa, against 150,000 japanese..
There were at least a million soldiers on the mainland of japan, hence it is easy to see at least a 100,000 americans could lose their life. And let us not forget, estimates of casualties is a worst case scenario, so that you can prepare and overcome the worst.
Either way, without a source it appears Dr. Shepherd is simply a liar.

 

[elektra]

The bombings probably killed more than 200,000 Japanese civilians and maimed untold more.​

Probably? Untold more?

Uh, we know how many were killed and how many were wounded. No secret and no need to speculate. Give us the number, it is a real number well documented.

But then again, to sensationalize the story fits the false premise narrative much better.

 

[mikegriffith1]

America needed to pretend that it had dozens of nukes available, which was what Hirohito and his advisers believed before making the surrender proclamation. But there were only few atomic bombs available at the time. The target for the third A-bomb was the emperor's palace in Tokyo.

Actually, we had plenty of nukes in the pipeline that could have been available in a matter of weeks.

However, the atomic bomb, as Japanese records show, had very little influence on the emperor, his advisers, and the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War (aka Supreme War Council) on their decision to surrender. In fact, as has been pointed out already, the Supreme War Council did not even think that confirmation of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was sufficient reason to convene the council. But, when news of the Soviet invasion reached Tokyo, the Supreme War Council met almost immediately.

Historian Gregg Herken, a professor emeritus of U.S. diplomatic history at the University of California:

The notion that the atomic bombs caused the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, has been, for many Americans and virtually all U.S. history textbooks, the default understanding of how and why the war ended. But minutes of the meetings of the Japanese government reveal a more complex story. The latest and best scholarship on the surrender, based on Japanese records, concludes that the Soviet Union’s unexpected entry into the war against Japan on Aug. 8 was probably an even greater shock to Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima two days earlier. Until then, the Japanese had been hoping that the Russians — who had previously signed a nonaggression pact with Japan — might be intermediaries in negotiating an end to the war. As historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa writes in his book Racing the Enemy, “Indeed, the Soviet attack, not the Hiroshima bomb, convinced political leaders to end the war.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...e5-b673-1df005a0fb28_story.html?noredirect=on)​

To follow up on Herken's use of Tsuyoshi Hasegawe's Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, it is one of the most highly acclaimed books on Japan's surrender ever written, and Hasegawe spends dozens of pages documenting the fact that it was the Soviet invasion, not the nukes, that (1) enabled the moderates to convene a meeting with the emperor and the Supreme War council where the emperor could order a surrender and (2) persuaded the hardliners to accept the emperor's order to surrender.

Indeed, at the Big Six meeting on August 9 when Hirohito broke the deadlock and ordered a surrender, he said nothing about Hiroshima or the atomic bomb in his remarks to the meeting--not one word (Kawamura, Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, Kindle Edition, locs. 3287-3314; see also Robert Butow, Japan's Decision to Surrender, p. 175).

The moderates needed no convincing. They had already decided many weeks earlier that Japan needed to surrender.

 

[elektra]

However, the atomic bomb, as Japanese records show, had very little influence on the emperor, his advisers, and the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War (aka Supreme War Council) on their decision to surrender. In fact, as has been pointed out already, the Supreme War Council did not even think that confirmation of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was sufficient reason to convene the council. But, when news of the Soviet invasion reached Tokyo, the Supreme War Council met almost immediately.

Nice, given you had to post something completely different, it is apparant, everything else you posted was a lie. You can not address it, you can not link to the source of quotes. You can not link and quote studies you claim exist. And now you post more bullshit.

It is obvious you are charlatan that parrots what you can cut/paste from the internet. So be it.

You claimed that the bombing was extreme, immoral, that the japanese needed weeks to contemplate what happened, and now here, you claim dropping two atomic bombs on japan was nothing, that it did not even garner a response?

The bombs meant absolutely nothing to the Japanese? So why do you claim they needed time to study, investigate, send scientists? How is the bombing immoral, if the japanese did not care, at all?

More questions derived from the ridiculous parroting of the charlatan griffter.

 

[elektra]

To follow up on Herken's use of Tsuyoshi Hasegawe's Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, it is one of the most highly acclaimed books on Japan's surrender ever written, and Hasegawe spends dozens of pages documenting the fact that it was the Soviet invasion, not the nukes, that (1) enabled the moderates to convene a meeting with the emperor and the Supreme War council where the emperor could order a surrender and (2) persuaded the hardliners to accept the emperor's order to surrender.

“Without the twin shocks of the atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war, the Japanese never would have surrendered in August.”

So much for your use of Hasegawe, he says something different than you claim. Feel free to quote your copy of the book. Ha, ha, ha, you aint got a copy, do you!

 

[elektra]

[The latest and best scholarship on the surrender, based on Japanese records, concludes that the Soviet Union’s unexpected entry into the war against Japan on Aug. 8 was probably an even greater shock to Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima two days earlier. .

"The latest and best..." Meaning, we must dictate we are right by dictating our writers are right!
So be it, but what is missing, is that the Soviet Union's entry into the war was not unexpected. The japanese tried to get the soviet uniton to negotiate a peace settlement that they refused. Certainly the Russian refusal to negotiate a ceasefire and their build up of military in China was telling. Peoples think the soviet invaded out of nowhere? That the Japanese did not see the soviet buildup?

The japanese were not shocked, the japanese fought the USSR until September of 1945, weeks after they surrendered to the USA, yet we are to believe the japanese feared fighting the soviets more than seeing two cities destroyed in a fraction of a second?

Think about it, the Japanese fought the USSR, the Russians until september! They did not surrender to the Russians, they fought after the Russians entered the war! The Japanese fought the Russians for weeks after they entered the war? But the Russian entry into the war caused the Japanese to quit fighting the Americans but not the Russians?

Revisionist require their parish of worshipers to be brain dead.

 

[elektra]

Until then, the Japanese had been hoping that the Russians — who had previously signed a nonaggression pact with Japan — might be intermediaries in negotiating an end to the war.

And now we have gone from, the Japanese were trying to surrender to, "the japanese were negotiating with Russians".

Yes, it is well known, that the Japanese wanted to negotiate a peace where they lost nothing that they had invaded. They were not trying to surrender, they were negotiating a truce, where they still win.

Thank you for once again proving the morality of using atomic bombs to end the war. As it was the only way the war was to end, in august of 1945.

 

[Unkotare]

...

Thank you for once again proving the morality of using atomic bombs to end the war. As it was the only way the war was to end, in august of 1945.

Nothing could be more obvious than that you do not believe that.

 

[MaryL]

Whatever labored, embarrassing arguments one can make for the nuking of Hiroshima cannot be made for the nuking of Nagasaki just three days later. From my article "Did We Really Need to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan?":

On August 9, 1945, just three days after we nuked Hiroshima, and before Japan’s leaders had sufficient time to process and respond to our nuclear attack on Hiroshima, we dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, which was home to Japan’s largest Christian population. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki was even more inexcusable than the nuking of Hiroshima. . . .

On August 9, we nuked Nagasaki, just three days after Hiroshima, and hours after the Soviets began to maul the Japanese army in Manchuria,, and while Japan’s civilian leaders were understandably absorbed with trying to process what had happened to Hiroshima and with responding to the Soviet attack in Manchuria. Surely Truman and other high officials knew that three days was not enough time for Japan’s government to formulate a formal response to the unprecedented use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and to the Soviet invasion in Manchuria. Even McGeorge Bundy, who helped Henry Stimson write his defense of the atomic bombing of Japan, acknowledged that Truman was too quick to nuke Nagasaki:​

"It is hard to see that much could have been lost if there had been more time between the two bombs. . . . Such a delay would have been relatively easy, and I think right." (https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf)
​

The Japanese were not even able to get a scientific team to Hiroshima until August 7, the day after the attack. Meanwhile, Japan's leaders were getting conflicting, fragmentary information about what had happened in Hiroshima. Some Army officials were telling the government that the bombing of Hiroshima was merely a very large conventional bombing raid, and they were suppressing information about the kinds of wounds that had been inflicted. There was no Internet back then, no fax machines, no Skype.

Surely it was obscene for us to nuke Nagasaki just three days, 72 hours, after we had nuked Hiroshima.

Lets see here: yeah, it took 2 nukes to convince the Japanese military they were washed up. And more people were killed in the firebombing of Tokyo. Its too bad for the Japanese. It sucks, most of us prefer Nagasaki to millions killed in a needless invasion that would taken years? How humane would that have been? Explain that to us.

 

[22lcidw]

War seems to be nobility of rules on who dies. We spent centuries trying to stop the killing of civilians and then in the 20th century threw that away. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just the last two dominoes in that breech of civility. Anyway I get the feeling that the Japanese were just a little goody two shoes people during this time period. Their empire designs and treatment of people was not nice during the decades leading up to WW2. The argument over the use of nukes on them can go on. But they lived by far more honor in their cause and disdain for the enemy was part of it. So if they had it, would they have used the bomb?

 

[Dan Stubbs]

Whatever labored, embarrassing arguments one can make for the nuking of Hiroshima cannot be made for the nuking of Nagasaki just three days later. From my article "Did We Really Need to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan?":

On August 9, 1945, just three days after we nuked Hiroshima, and before Japan’s leaders had sufficient time to process and respond to our nuclear attack on Hiroshima, we dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, which was home to Japan’s largest Christian population. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki was even more inexcusable than the nuking of Hiroshima. . . .

On August 9, we nuked Nagasaki, just three days after Hiroshima, and hours after the Soviets began to maul the Japanese army in Manchuria,, and while Japan’s civilian leaders were understandably absorbed with trying to process what had happened to Hiroshima and with responding to the Soviet attack in Manchuria. Surely Truman and other high officials knew that three days was not enough time for Japan’s government to formulate a formal response to the unprecedented use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and to the Soviet invasion in Manchuria. Even McGeorge Bundy, who helped Henry Stimson write his defense of the atomic bombing of Japan, acknowledged that Truman was too quick to nuke Nagasaki:​

"It is hard to see that much could have been lost if there had been more time between the two bombs. . . . Such a delay would have been relatively easy, and I think right." (https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf)
​

The Japanese were not even able to get a scientific team to Hiroshima until August 7, the day after the attack. Meanwhile, Japan's leaders were getting conflicting, fragmentary information about what had happened in Hiroshima. Some Army officials were telling the government that the bombing of Hiroshima was merely a very large conventional bombing raid, and they were suppressing information about the kinds of wounds that had been inflicted. There was no Internet back then, no fax machines, no Skype.

Surely it was obscene for us to nuke Nagasaki just three days, 72 hours, after we had nuked Hiroshima.

 

[elektra]

War seems to be nobility of rules on who dies. We spent centuries trying to stop the killing of civilians and then in the 20th century threw that away. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just the last two dominoes in that breech of civility. Anyway I get the feeling that the Japanese were just a little goody two shoes people during this time period. Their empire designs and treatment of people was not nice during the decades leading up to WW2. The argument over the use of nukes on them can go on. But they lived by far more honor in their cause and disdain for the enemy was part of it. So if they had it, would they have used the bomb?

The Japanese soldiers gang raped 10 year old girls until they died, fact, documented. There is no civility in war, never was.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Dr. Ward Wilson has written extensively about Japan's surrender and, like so many other scholars, has debunked the traditional story that Japan surrendered because we nuked them. I quote from one of his articles on the surrender, "The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan . . . Stalin Did":

The first problem with the traditional interpretation is timing. And it is a serious problem. The traditional interpretation has a simple timeline: The U.S. Army Air Force bombs Hiroshima with a nuclear weapon on Aug. 6, three days later they bomb Nagasaki with another, and on the next day the Japanese signal their intention to surrender.* One can hardly blame American newspapers for running headlines like: “Peace in the Pacific: Our Bomb Did It!”

When the story of Hiroshima is told in most American histories, the day of the bombing — Aug. 6 — serves as the narrative climax. All the elements of the story point forward to that moment: the decision to build a bomb, the secret research at Los Alamos, the first impressive test, and the final culmination at Hiroshima. It is told, in other words, as a story about the Bomb. But you can’t analyze Japan’s decision to surrender objectively in the context of the story of the Bomb. Casting it as “the story of the Bomb” already presumes that the Bomb’s role is central.

Viewed from the Japanese perspective, the most important day in that second week of August wasn’t Aug. 6 but Aug. 9. That was the day that the Supreme Council met — for the first time in the war — to discuss unconditional surrender. The Supreme Council was a group of six top members of the government — a sort of inner cabinet — that effectively ruled Japan in 1945. Japan’s leaders had not seriously considered surrendering prior to that day. Unconditional surrender (what the Allies were demanding) was a bitter pill to swallow. The United States and Great Britain were already convening war crimes trials in Europe. What if they decided to put the emperor — who was believed to be divine — on trial? What if they got rid of the emperor and changed the form of government entirely? Even though the situation was bad in the summer of 1945, the leaders of Japan were not willing to consider giving up their traditions, their beliefs, or their way of life. Until Aug. 9. What could have happened that caused them to so suddenly and decisively change their minds? What made them sit down to seriously discuss surrender for the first time after 14 years of war?

It could not have been Nagasaki. The bombing of Nagasaki occurred in the late morning of Aug. 9, after the Supreme Council had already begun meeting to discuss surrender, and word of the bombing only reached Japan’s leaders in the early afternoon — after the meeting of the Supreme Council had been adjourned in deadlock and the full cabinet had been called to take up the discussion. Based on timing alone, Nagasaki can’t have been what motivated them.

Hiroshima isn’t a very good candidate either. It came 74 hours — more than three days — earlier. What kind of crisis takes three days to unfold? The hallmark of a crisis is a sense of impending disaster and the overwhelming desire to take action now. How could Japan’s leaders have felt that Hiroshima touched off a crisis and yet not meet to talk about the problem for three days? ( The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan ... Stalin Did )
​

Another thing to keep in mind is that a number of the Japanese records that prove that the Soviet invasion was the main factor in the surrender decision were never meant to be seen by the public, and some of them were only found years after the war. These include records and notes of secret meetings to decide Japan's fate; nobody ever intended that they would be made public. So the fact that they show that it was the Soviet invasion that spurred the surrender decision is especially insightful and decisive.

 

[elektra]

Another thing to keep in mind is that a number of the Japanese records that prove that the Soviet invasion was the main factor in the surrender decision were never meant to be seen by the public, and some of them were only found years after the war. These include records and notes of secret meetings to decide Japan's fate; nobody ever intended that they would be made public. So the fact that they show that it was the Soviet invasion that spurred the surrender decision is especially insightful and decisive.

More copy/paste, no replies to all the other posts that show this charlatan's lies ad the lies they are.

Fiction based on fact.

A nuclear bomb was insignificant? A meeting which must be pre-arranged, to get all the leaders in one spot, takes how long? It is said that this meeting is because of the soviets entering the war?

Yet, the Japanese knew prior to this day that the USSR was going to attack and had already prepared their troops to defend against the USSR.

Why would the Japanese wait so long to respond to the USSR? Yes, the USSR declared war on the 9th, after they saw the Japanese were beaten by the USA. Yes, the Japanese did not surrender to the USSR, the fought them for weeks. Yes the Japanese saw the inevitable, the USSR would not negotiate peace the weeks prior. The Japanese were fully aware of the USSR's military buildup in China.

Like all charlatans, he will not let us see the source material this canard is s based upon.

You can be assured, the one or two sentences about the surrender are cherry picked from documents you could right a book from.

More lies. I expect even more lies.

As you can see the OP is no longer addressed by the author, the OP has been proven a false premise, as this newest post by the author of the OP has.

 

[elektra]

Dr. Ward Wilson has written extensively about Japan's surrender and, like so many other scholars, has debunked the traditional story that Japan surrendered because we nuked them. I quote from one of his articles on the surrender, "The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan . . . Stalin Did":

The first problem with the traditional interpretation is timing. And it is a serious problem. The traditional interpretation has a simple timeline: The U.S. Army Air Force bombs Hiroshima with a nuclear weapon on Aug. 6, three days later they bomb Nagasaki with another, and on the next day the Japanese signal their intention to surrender.* One can hardly blame American newspapers for running headlines like: “Peace in the Pacific: Our Bomb Did It!”

When the story of Hiroshima is told in most American histories, the day of the bombing — Aug. 6 — serves as the narrative climax. All the elements of the story point forward to that moment: the decision to build a bomb, the secret research at Los Alamos, the first impressive test, and the final culmination at Hiroshima. It is told, in other words, as a story about the Bomb. But you can’t analyze Japan’s decision to surrender objectively in the context of the story of the Bomb. Casting it as “the story of the Bomb” already presumes that the Bomb’s role is central.

Viewed from the Japanese perspective, the most important day in that second week of August wasn’t Aug. 6 but Aug. 9. That was the day that the Supreme Council met — for the first time in the war — to discuss unconditional surrender. The Supreme Council was a group of six top members of the government — a sort of inner cabinet — that effectively ruled Japan in 1945. Japan’s leaders had not seriously considered surrendering prior to that day. Unconditional surrender (what the Allies were demanding) was a bitter pill to swallow. The United States and Great Britain were already convening war crimes trials in Europe. What if they decided to put the emperor — who was believed to be divine — on trial? What if they got rid of the emperor and changed the form of government entirely? Even though the situation was bad in the summer of 1945, the leaders of Japan were not willing to consider giving up their traditions, their beliefs, or their way of life. Until Aug. 9. What could have happened that caused them to so suddenly and decisively change their minds? What made them sit down to seriously discuss surrender for the first time after 14 years of war?

It could not have been Nagasaki. The bombing of Nagasaki occurred in the late morning of Aug. 9, after the Supreme Council had already begun meeting to discuss surrender, and word of the bombing only reached Japan’s leaders in the early afternoon — after the meeting of the Supreme Council had been adjourned in deadlock and the full cabinet had been called to take up the discussion. Based on timing alone, Nagasaki can’t have been what motivated them.

Hiroshima isn’t a very good candidate either. It came 74 hours — more than three days — earlier. What kind of crisis takes three days to unfold? The hallmark of a crisis is a sense of impending disaster and the overwhelming desire to take action now. How could Japan’s leaders have felt that Hiroshima touched off a crisis and yet not meet to talk about the problem for three days? ( The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan ... Stalin Did )
​

Another thing to keep in mind is that a number of the Japanese records that prove that the Soviet invasion was the main factor in the surrender decision were never meant to be seen by the public, and some of them were only found years after the war. These include records and notes of secret meetings to decide Japan's fate; nobody ever intended that they would be made public. So the fact that they show that it was the Soviet invasion that spurred the surrender decision is especially insightful and decisive.

How about linking to what you quote as the forum rules demand.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Until then, the Japanese had been hoping that the Russians — who had previously signed a nonaggression pact with Japan — might be intermediaries in negotiating an end to the war.

And now we have gone from, the Japanese were trying to surrender to, "the japanese were negotiating with Russians".

Yes, it is well known, that the Japanese wanted to negotiate a peace where they lost nothing that they had invaded. They were not trying to surrender, they were negotiating a truce, where they still win.

Thank you for once again proving the morality of using atomic bombs to end the war. As it was the only way the war was to end, in august of 1945.

Incorrect. From a cable intercepted by the United States:

"We consider the maintenance of peace in East Asia to be one aspect of the maintenance of world peace. Accordingly, Japan—as a proposal for ending the war and because of her concern for the establishment and maintenance of lasting peace—has absolutely no idea of annexing or holding the territories which she occupied during the war." - Shigenori Tōgō, Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Empire of Japan, via Naotake Satō, Japanese Ambassador to the U.S.S.R., July 12, 1945

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/29.pdf