“Classical Japanese, which had fallen into disused”.
Tsk,tsk. Should be “…fallen into disuse”.
“It was Truman who made the difficult decision to drop the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the rationale being that only such a devastating, horrendous display of destructive power would convince Japan that it had to surrender. Truman also made the decision to drop the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, the rationale being that, hey, we had another bomb.” --Dave Barry.
4 Likes
I’m confused. How would stealing the record have stopped the emperor from just making another one?
Hatanaka wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. It is presumed that once he stopped the broadcast that the other officers would stage a coup, he hoped.
If you’re referring to the use of conventional bombing then I’m sure you’re right. However if you’re talking about the two nuclear bombs then you’re wrong, there is plenty of doubt as evidenced by the aforementioned Wikipedia page.
Hatanaka represented a clique of young officers at the War Office and they certainly did attempt a coup. When Lt. Gen. Mori, commander of the 1st Imperial Guards Division, refused to join them he was shot dead by Hatanaka personally. Then, using the Generals seal, they forged an order and with troops from the Imperial Guards set out for the palace, surrounding it and searching the office of the Chamberlain. The Prime Ministers official residence was also ransacked and burned by the conspirators. Hatanaka even tried to address the nation via radio (an NHK broadcast crew was at the palace) but couldn’t find anyone that could/would operate the equipment. Only the personal intervention of General Tanaka, the Eastern Region Commander, ended the coup attempt, sending the troops back to their barracks. Realising his coup was over, Hatanaka then shot himself.
1 Like
My impression’s a little different.
The gun type design was intended for mass production and was the most probable design that would work. Early work was done on gun type plutonium based design(Thin Man), however during the process it was discovered the requirement for it to work was impractical. The uranium design worked fined and was certain to work.(Little Boy)
Fortunately another design, implosion was researched. However the design was complex, made into a sphere, explosion have to be just right, thus a lot of people thought it would not work. Thus the trinity test.
It was after the test, now knowing the device would work, that implosion type design would be mass produced. Pre-test, most of the work was on the gun-type design.
2 Likes
I can remember the Emporor’s death if only because in Australia (where a shirt-load of seafood is exported to Japan) in the months after the price of lobster plummeted.
Hmmmmm. Lobster…
And to put the shits up the Russians.
Overrated. Dublin Bay Prawns, m’good man. Superior.
I’ll take your recommendation but that still leaves the question, “who has to die before Dublin Bay prawns become cheap?” Tell me the answer is “Bono” and I’ll happily forsake lobster.
1 Like
Yeah I don’t have a lot of moral qualms about dropping the bomb on Japan. The island to island fighting was bloody and brutal. The Japanese in the conquest were shown to be ruthless and barbaric towards POWs and civilians. They had no trouble slaughtering the inferior Chinese for shits and giggles.
The bombs, while horrific, ended it, with definitely a lot less blood and destruction that a traditional campaign would have caused. Leaflets were dropped telling civilians to get the hell out of Dodge. At least an attempt was made.
I also think it helped stabilized the world. We had tangible evidence of what the bombs could do. Even better that Japanese architecture was mostly wood, resulting in even more devastating results than if it had been used on say a European city with brick buildings. It is a much more “real” impact than just exploding one in the desert. With the proliferation of nuclear weapons after WWII, it truly would have taken a mad man who would have wanted to actually use these weapons in a full scale war.
While the specter of a nuclear holocaust sucked, MAD did keep, and does keep, major factions from fighting one another in a full scale, head to head fight. Which ultimately is a good thing.
1 Like
I had a dozen of 'em in a restaurant for eighteen quid the other day. They’re less than a fiver a pound where I live 
I get your point. But there are always doubters, and personally I’d say doubting that the use of nuclear force against Japan was justified is pretty much like doubting climate change; the doubt is not really based on anything but purely emotional memes and no amount of real data will ever convince the doubters of anything. Your own viewpoint may differ, of course.
Anyway, to be clear, I was referring specifically to the USA’s use of terror weapons as an alternative to the physical invasion of Japan. I don’t find any claims that the latter would have been less destructive of lives and treasure to be at all credible.
Thats some seriously wishful thinking right there as it really just ignores all of the history of Asia east of India much less the events of the post war/Cold War era. Frankly this is one thing you can’t blame the Japanese or the Americans for.
2 Likes
You’re right - I blame the Americans. And if it was the OSS/CIA then so much the better.
As to the wishful thinking: are you saying that had Japan entered the post-war era with a head of state who had not been present when his war cabinet discussed most of the atrocities committed in Asia between 1936 and 1945, and without a bunch of shady second-class war criminals like Sasakawa pulling political strings until as late at 1991, then the rest of Asia would have viewed them no differently?
I should’ve specified the uranium gun bomb, which AFAIK was always a back-up plan in case other methods didn’t pan out.
When it comes to US foreign policy I think it’s fair to argue that you should always be sceptical of any and all stated reasons or aims for any action. They have an incredible capacity for doing one thing and saying whatever sounds the most palatable first to the American people and second to the rest of the world.
2 Likes
Rather than enjoying those savory words you seem to be trying to put in my mouth, lets look at your previous claim of a “unified and stable Asia” for a moment from a regional historical perspective in quick summary form of events of the late 19th/early 20th century:
- Korea: coming out of a faded monarchy to a colonized condition then to civil war and military dictatorship. Strong historical rivalry with all its neighbors.
- China: Failed state in modern terms. Failed empire, colonized by at least three different external empires, multiple active civil wars which finally ended well after the end of WWII. Lets not forget how Mao told a Japanese PM that there was no need to apologize for wartime actions of Imperial Japan in China.
- Vietnam: minor monarchy to civil war to cold war. Historical animosity with China over borders that continues to this day.
- Thailand: Reasonably stable monarchy with some historical animosity and border conflicts with neighbors.
- Philippines: colony of several external empires/nations, no history of being a unified or all that stable country before or after colonial periods. Historical border conflicts with its neighbors.
- Taiwan: created as a result of Chinese civil wars, did not fare as badly under Japanese colonial period as others. Ongoing border conflicts with its neighbors.
Note that pattern of historical conflicts and border conflicts much less the civil wars? I’m curious as to how a region which has not been out of the monarchy phase very long, most of which sees its nations as based on ethnicity would have ben “unified” much less “stable” w/o post-war Japan as it was, where as it was wasn’t self governing (GHQ period lasted a while) and where under the post war constitution, the Emperor is no more than a symbolic head of state with no actual governance function. When one looks at history rather than propaganda its quite clear that even without the Showa Emperor, there most certainly would have been animosity towards Japan.
Finally, if you are going to complain about Sasakawa, you can surely find parallel examples in every other country in this region.
I realize that blaming Japan for everything wrong in Asia is popular but most of the time it shows a very weak understanding of regional history. When you get right down to it assigning blame is probably not the best way to understand history in the first place.
1 Like
You can say letting the emperor stay is another thing to blame America for - in the long run it was a minor point to concede. They did a much better job of governing Japan than they did Iraq for instance. (Though it is sort of apples and oranges)
They brought in people to help write the Japanese constitution (at least one of whom was a woman who insisted on equal rights for Japanese women). The Japanese ruling party was stunned when the Americans presented the constitution - they said they wanted to think about it, but there really was no choice. So actually for a time Japanese women had more equal rights than US women (though in practice Japan remained very much a male controlled society - even until the 90’s when I lived there.
