In fact, two days after the Council agreed to surrender, a Japanese submarine attacked the Oak Hill, an American landing ship, and the Thomas F. Nickel, an American destroyer, both east of Okinawa. The US military used to say 5,000, then started saying 20,000- 25,000, but frankly I don't think they have any idea" As for the Magic intercepts, an excellent article on this topic by Richard Frank is currently posted on the Weekly Standard website. On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, immediately killing 80,000 people . But what chiefly motivated him to"bow to the inevitable" and"bear the unbearable" was his desire to save a politically empowered throne with himself on it. "insurgency strength is estimated at 200,000." But the U.S. had already crossed a terrifying moral threshold when it accepted the targeting of civilians as a legitimate instrument of warfare. The Japanese surrender USS Missouri: Japanese surrender The Allies' reply to the Japanese offer of August 10, 1945, agreed to respect the sovereign status of the Japanese emperor on condition that he should be subject to the directives of the supreme commander of the Allied Powers. 8.) Professor Cole wrote, "General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, head of Iraqi intelligence, estimated on Monday that the force strength of the guerrilla insurgency was about 200,000 men. They were indoctrinated from an early age to revere the Emperor as a living deity, and to see war as an act that could purify the self, the nation, and ultimately the whole world. The military became increasingly uncontrollable, and Japan was gripped by the politics of assassination. Even today, Hiroo Onoda insists they believed the missions were enemy tricks designed to lower their guard. Finally, the Magic decrypts allowed Truman to KNOW what the Japanese were planning; therefore his decision was an informed one. But give credit also to the journalists, radio announcers, and government officials who interpreted the sacred, high-pitched"voice of the jewel" (gyokuon). Onoda's grim determination personifies one of the most enduring images of Japanese soldiers during the war - that Japanese fighting men did not surrender, even in the face of insuperable odds. They did not surrender after the first atomic bomb due to the amount of time it usually would take to officially declare surrender, which in this case would have been a bit longer considering japan was not so keen on surrender. Yet not everybody was to lay down their arms. Revisionists argue that this shows the bombings were unnecessary. Many historians say the bombings did not lead to the Japanese surrender, and the Soviet declaration of war on Japan two days later was a bigger shock. As my 2nd post stated - I was commenting on the authors pros, not Mr. Heisler's. Do not live in shame as a prisoner. In any case, I am not yet persuaded that the intercepts are as clear cut about Japanese determination to fight as you and Richardson are ready to believe. But your quote does not prove the earlier claim by Richardson in his post. The central and west of Iraq where the heavy fighting is underway has estimates ranging between 20,000 and 100,000 fighters. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pacific/sfeature/sf_forum_0503.html#a I had no idea that the rules of debate limited me to ONLY commenting on posts made in regard to articles under which they appear. Magic Diplomatic and Magic Far East radio intercept decryptions contradict Mr. Bix's opinion that the japanese were ready to surrender before Truman approved the use of the A-Bombs. Mr Tanaka said it was a criminal act under international law. "Small-scale regional conflicts." The Americans said they took the drastic step to put an early end to World War II and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of US soldiers, but this official narrative is now being overturned. Truman's efforts to get the Soviets involved is better explained by the fact that the japanese still occupied Korea and significant territory in China the fruits of which helped sustain the japanese war effort and feed the japanese people. Give me a viable link to a relevant article by Frank and I will look at it. Fair warning was issued to the Japanese in the form of the "Potsdam Declaration" of July 1945, which demanded the "unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces". I suspect the doves who chant the "chickenhawk" mantra -- implying that the only people who are fit to make war decisions are military personnel -- would be very horrified indeed if that were codified in law, judging by the very generally hawkish and right-leaning attitudes expressed by the great majority of servicepeople, both currently serving and retired. Russia then entered the war with Japan, and the Americans dropped another bomb on Nagasaki. Hirohito's language helped to transform him from a war to a peace leader, from a cold, aloof monarch to a human being who cared for his people. 4. After all, the United States employed the strategy of letting the Soviets wear down the Germans in Europe before attempting the amphibious landings at Normandy. I want them to come to Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she said. The debate in academic circles now is how much other factors came into play in America becoming the first and still the only nation to drop the atomic bomb in warfare. It implies a consistency and integrity that does not exist. Nearly three million Japanese were dead, many more wounded or seriously ill, and the country lay in ruins. Truman and Byrnes introduced nuclear weapons into modern warfare when it had been militarily unnecessary to do so. (Don't all the best sources?) was Nixon actively talking about intervening in the Watergate affair shortly after the June 1972 break-in ?, or what did Washington know about what Japanese military movements in the first few days of December, 1941 ?) If the military posed no threat to the imperial house, the people did. To me, that is quite a large commitment of resources. So we come to the question of ideology, or the national polity and essence, which they called kokutai. in this PBS forum: Japan surrendered nine days after the bombing of Hiroshima. Japan's samurai heritage and the samurai code of ethics known as 'bushido' have a seductive appeal when searching for explanations for the wartime image of no surrender. Sellers are braced for huge demand, Queen Victoria Market to undergo historic $1.7 billion redevelopment amid community concerns, England makes bold selection call for Lord's Test as Stokes prepares for Aussie stars to bounce back. For top-quality history, I prefer the book reviews in the New York Times or Economist, for example, or the academic journals. He never spoke explicitly about 'surrender' or 'defeat', but simply remarked that the war 'did not turn in Japan's favour'. The National WWII Museum, Gift of Dylan Utley, 2012.019.721 Prior to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Hirohito failed to intervene as the Soviet mediation effort went nowhere. Consider the "Great Stink" of 1858 London, As More Schools Ban "Maus," Art Spiegelman Fears Worse to Come, PEN Condemns Censorship in Removal of Coates's Memoir from AP Course. Why doesn't the administration recognize the deaths of our service men. Again, yesterday (14) Marines were killed by IED on the Syrian border. "The Soviet Union would demolish the emperor system and they would execute the emperor as well as all members of the royal family," he said. The big six leaders again gathered to discuss the situation. http://hnn.us/readcomment.php?id=66202#66202. The army and navy ministers and chiefs of staff in August 1945 equated kokutai with the emperor's right of supreme command, the mechanism by which they controlled the armed forces. Stalin began to worry that the United States would renege on promises made at Yalta. "A flash of light and the blast slammed me to the ground and I lost consciousness," she said. On August 6, 1945 the world's first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, wiping out the city centre and killing about 140,000 people by the years' end. for the future;" and"work with resolution so as ye may enhance the innate glory of the Imperial State." Background Allied landings in the Pacific Theatre of operations, August 1942 to August 1945 By 1945, the Japanese had suffered a string of defeats for nearly two years in the South West Pacific, India, the Marianas campaign, and the Philippines campaign. http://hnn.us/articles/10168.html I disagree that historians who attack the use of the A-bomb equate the US as bad. Not all of us who question the modus operandi in Iraq are against the use of our military in protecting US interests. After Iwo Jima and Okinawa (sp? If the Japanese could suffer a destroyed Tokyo why not the A-bomb? 5.) A truthful, public post-mortem on both Hirohito's"green light" for war in 1941 and his true role in the surrender process was never conducted. Adm. William Leahy, Truman's chief of staff, wrote in his 1950 memoir I Was There that "the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against. Hirohito said something similar in 1946 in the"Monologue" that he dictated to his palace entourage. Even after Stalin ended a neutrality pact with Japan in April 1945 and began massing troops toward. The point of my original comment was that the Magic decrypts are significant, material and primary sources which arguably contradict Bix's conclusion that use of the A-Bomb was either unnecessary or unjustified. -30-, Mr. Clarke- Governments that start or end wars of aggression characteristically care little for the safety of their own people. For essentially selfish reasons of state, Truman and MacArthur treated Hirohito as leniently as they did many other institutions that had promoted war, such as the Yasukuni Shrine. This gross underestimation can in part be explained by the fact that Japan had become interminably bogged down by its undeclared war against China since 1931. For the US to quell the violence and win the war we need more ground troops, divide Iraq into local (tribal) spheres, secure the borders especially, the Saudi border where most foreign fighters enter Iraq not Syria or Iran as the press reports and begin to show marked progress in the rebuilding effort not have contractor skim millions of out tax dollars. Let's be fair here - many publications - including the good gray Times have not always done a fine job of upholding scholarship. I have long wondered why Truman, once he had the bomb and had decided to use it, still bargained with Stalin to get what at that point was a militarily useless and absurly late nth hour declaration of war from the USSR. Japanese leaders still had to decide whether they wanted to make an immediate decision to surrender under the circumstances. To the horror of American troops advancing on Saipan, they saw mothers clutching their babies hurling themselves over the cliffs rather than be taken prisoner. Charles V. Mutschler "The troops will likely start heading home in the spring." I now see the Republicans attack Paul Hackett an Iraqi Vet running for an Ohio congressional seat with the same vigor. BBC 2014 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. I am not saying you are wrong, but Bix's account is at least plausible to me, absent solid and convincing counter-evidence. Al Queda, or whatever the West calls them, is not, nor have they ever been intent on bringing the war to US soil. This Day In History September | 2 Choose another date 1945 Japan surrenders, bringing an end to WWII Photo Credit: Carl Mydans/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Aboard the USS Missouri. Japan barely scratched US soil during WWII and Vietnam had no designs or capability to do so during the Southeast Asian War. For surrender to the Soviet Union would surely have doomed the monarchy, whereas the Potsdam Declaration, which Truman had deliberately prevented Stalin from signing, held out the slim possibility of maintaining it. What Bix misses is that fact that it is possible for leaders to be wrong without being evil. Japan did not surrender until a week after the Nagasaki bombing. Academic historians seem to have been been slow to react to an important work by a non-academic, and I expect to hear more about this book in the future. Frank does not, for example, address the relative role of Soviet entry in prompting Japans surrender, and he says nothing about the fire-bombing which preceeded Hiroshima. his position that most of Japanese big shots were not eager to throw in the towel prior to Hiroshima. I hit the submit button prematurely, I was not commenting on your views, but that of the author. He was the sole survivor of a small band that had sporadically attacked the local population. Why did the war in Japan cost so much, and what led so many to fight on after the end of the hostilities? He does also say, without explaining, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were somehow "unncessary", but I am still not ready to assume that he means by this that Japan would have surrendered RIGHT AWAY in early August without any use of the atom bomb. On the eve of 70th anniversary, the children of Hiroshima sing for a future free of nuclear weapons, but today more countries than ever have the bomb. For what its worth, Frank is a formidable writer, and the HNN page on him (which should have been about his full book, not just the sound-bite-rich Weekly Standard sensationalized adapation of it) deserves at least a fraction of the comments about his views that are misplacedly piling up here. Your suggestion to the contrary is not supported by anything in the text. Granted both Kennedy and Nixon served. 8. The second bomb was also dropped just 3 days later. It was a war without mercy, and the US Office of War Information acknowledged as much in 1945. If we are to win this war it will take additional boots on the ground. Pas de tout. Insurgent troop strength is estimated at 200,000 while the US posts 130,000 strong. The tangent in this thread re the decoded Japanese communications has led nowhere conclusive, partly because those decrypts are supposed to somehow "contradict" Bix by reinforcing (?!) This was intended for various reasons. I don't believe we will be coming home any time soon. The use of the A-bomb was inevitable. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pacific/sfeature/sf_forum_0503.html, http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/13429.html), www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/894mnyyl.asp, Health Researchers Show Segregation 100 Years Ago Harmed Black Health, and Effects Continue Today, Understanding the Leading Thinkers of the New American Right, Want to Understand the Internet? And during the entire month of June and well into July, when U.S. terror bombing of Japanese civilian targets peaked, he resisted and showed no determination to do so.
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