The narrative was originally that we saved all those American fighting men from being killed in an invasion. But it worked both ways.
Is starving a country and fire bombing it any less cruel or atrocious here? Especially if it didn’t hasten the war’s end?
We really didn’t think much on the effects of the blockade. My in laws did. They were adolescents in Japan and barely made it to the war’s end without starving to death. If you want a good view of what that was like, see “Grave of the Fireflies“. A film virtually nobody can sit through twice.
You are discounting the human costs of our blockade and firebombing campaign in Japan’s population. Firebombing the cities were already killing far more people than the a bombs did. Yet it was not leading to a quick surrender. Far from it.
Without the bombs we would be seeing a Communist North Japan and hundreds of thousands more dead for every month the war kept going. Not even counting the mounting atrocities.
OH! Now it’s no one cared about the fire bombing… except all the people who did.
Yes. I’ve seen Graveyard of the Fireflies… it’s horrific. The people of Japan were fucked over by their own government, no doubt. The US was not their friend… The US government did not care about the citizens of Japan. They cared about letting Stalin know they had more than one atomic bomb.
No, I am discounting how much Truman and the leadership cared. They didn’t care in Germany. We didn’t care in Korea. We didn’t care in Vietnam. We dropped more explosives on Korea and Vietnam each than we did in the entirety of WW2.
With Russia beginning a surge into the pacific, it’s a coincidence we suddenly cared about the Japanese people? You might make the case we did it to save American and Soviet lives in an impending war, but Japan? No.
They didnt. But it worked out that way regardless. Ending the war quickly was the motivation. The effect it had in Japan, its people and future was far more beneficial then the alternative.
Firebombing and blockade were not going to end the war as quickly as invasion or the atomic bombs.
Japan’s efforts are surrender before the atomic bombings were half hearted affairs without official sanction. The fact that there was an effort which almost desposed the emperor to prevent surrender shows how even the the a bomb was not guaranteed to bring Japan to surrender.
We didn’t help Japan out of charity. But a charitable result came from our efforts regardless.
I think I read an extract of the 1946 book back in grade school during the 1960s. It was beyond horrific to my elementary grade school mind. I’ve been anti-nuke since then but not to the point of marching against nuclear power as an energy source. Even Three-Mile Island didn’t get me to march. I think nuclear power is the future.
Of course, there was no way for the Red Army to get to the Japanese Home Islands without US or British assistance. The Soviet Pacific Fleet was relatively small (its only capital ships were 2 cruisers, and I’m not sure if either of those were actually in working order at the time) and had limited amphibious capability. The largest landings they managed, in the Kuril islands, were tiny compared to what would have been needed for an invasion of the home islands- and even those landings relied on ships lent by the US.
The American Historical Association forums (unsurprisingly) has an ongoing discussion about this issue this week, so I’ve got some links that might be of interest to some here…
Here is another take on dropping the bombs from Gar Alperovitz:
Someone posted links to these books that could shed light on what happened:
And if you are really nerdy on this history, this has a collection of primary sources:
And much like here, the historians at AHA do not agree on whether or not the bomb was a good thing, was necessary, was purely about whether or not it was all about Stalin, whether or not the Japanese were already negotiating to surrender, etc, etc… but that’s the nature of historical scholarship…
We were reading Japanese military and diplomatic traffic in more or less real time in the summer of 1945. We knew that several Japanese diplomats had put out feelers in Europe regarding a negotiated armistice. Unfortunately, we also knew that these diplomats were acting without authority from the cabinet (i.e., had no actual authority to negotiate or implement any peace terms), and we also not considering a “surrender” under anything approaching acceptable terms.
The only peace feeler with the sanction of Japan’s leadership went through Ambassador Sato in Moscow in July '45, when he was instructed to inquire about the USSR’s willingness to act as an intermediary in armistice discussions. He responded (and we were reading all of this as it transpired) that this was problematic because (1) the Soviets were extremely unlikely to bestir themselves for the benefit of Japan, and (2) if this was a serious attempt, it MUST be accompanied by terms. Togo responded that the Cabinet itself was unable to agree on any acceptable terms. (the cabinet couldn’t even agree on what to offer Stalin as a carrot to act as intermediary, much less any armistice terms)
On July 17th & 18th, Sato asked whether he could float the idea of a surrender with the one condition of retention of the Emperor, and Togo responded that this was an absolute non-starter. Japanese leadership was committed to a strategy of Ketsugo, of forcing a decisive battle upon the US that would inflict sufficient casualties that it would bring them to the bargaining table for a negotiated armistice.
They knew that they could not “win” the war as it was understood in, say, 1941, but they still thought they had the power to make it too costly for the Americans to bear.
Whether or not the bombs were “necessary” to end the war, or the moral calculus of their use in comparison to the alternatives are separate questions, but this is the information Truman et al actually had in their possession in the lead-up to August.
But the results were far more beneficial for them than the alternatives would have been.
Millions of civilians survived who would not have
There is no communist North Japan
Japan’s “economic miracle” would have never happened
Japan was able to give up nearly a century of modern day militarism
The horrors of atomic warfare have a tangible example. Making the world far less flippant about its use
That’s from 1973… Alperovitz wrote that in 2015. While it’s likely relevant to the overall discussion (although hopelessly out of date with the scholarship, given that there were probably still tons of documents STILL classified at the time he wrote that), it can’t really be relevant to the Alperovitz article. I do note he talks about a book he wrote in 65, but I suspect that the 2015 article had some more current scholarship since included… Also, ALL works of history are selective in their source base, because history writing IS about making arguments.
Also, I’m not sure jstor links that most people here probably can’t access are particularly helpful to further discussion…
