Posted on 08/10/2013 6:09:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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.
That was a conclusion of the 1946 U.S. Bombing Survey ordered by President Harry Truman in the wake of World War II.
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said in 1963, “the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
That wasn’t merely hindsight. Eisenhower made the same argument in 1945. In his memoirs, Ike recalled a visit from War Secretary Henry Stimson:
I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”
Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief military advisor, wrote:
It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
I put a lot of weight on the assessments of the military leaders at the time and the contemporaneous commission that studied it. My colleague Michael Barone, who defends the bombing, has other sources — a historian and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan — that lead him to conclude Japan would not have surrendered.
This confusion is not surprising. For one thing, there’s what we call the “fog of war” — it’s really hard to know what’s happening currently in war, and it’s even harder to predict which way the war will break.
Second, more generally, there’s the imperfection of human knowledge. Humans are very limited in their ability to predict the future and to determine the consequences of their actions in complex situations like war.
So, if Barone wants to stick with Moynihan’s and the New Republic’s assessments of the war while I stick with the assessments of Gen. Eisenhower, Adm. Leahy, and Truman’s own commission, that’s fine. The question — would Japan have surrendered without our bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki? — can’t be answered with certainty today, nor could it have been answered in August 1945.
But this fog, this imperfect knowledge, ought to diminish the weight given to the consequentialist type of reasoning Barone employs — “Many, many more deaths, of Japanese as well as Americans, would have occurred if the atomic bombs had not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
We don’t know that. That’s a guess. We didn’t know that at the time. If Pres. Truman believed that, it was a prediction of the future — and a prediction that clashed with the predictions of the military leaders.
Given all this uncertainty, I would lend more weight to principle. One principle nearly everyone shares is this: it’s wrong to deliberately kill babies and innocent children. The same goes for Japanese women, elderly, disabled, and any other non-combatants. Even if you don’t hold this as an absolute principle, most people hold it as a pretty firm rule.
To justify the bombing, you need to scuttle this principle in exchange for consequentialist thinking. With a principle as strong as “don’t murder kids” I think you’d need a lot more certainty than Truman could have had.
I don’t think Truman’s decision was motivated by evil. I’ll even add that it was an understandable decision. But I think it was the wrong one.
Because by WWII, Japan had become again a military dictatorship with a divine Emperor at its head. I doubt the leaders of the Mejii Restoration saw this as an improvement over the Shogun, and while some privilege now extended to the average person with the creation of a bureaucracy, by the 30's Japan was back again bent on conquest, their martial tendencies renewed, this time with modern armaments. You should have extended your study of Japanese history into the time leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Perhaps if you had spent more time on the meaning and purpose of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere you might have discovered it resembled the Shogunate only now with 'lesser races' as the oppressed and ruled and guided by their masters.
The Japanese of the war period were obedient to the leaders, the leaders immersed in Bushido for whom surrender was for cowards. The end of the war showed this as the divine emperor issued the edict, the people obeyed.
The Germans made an effort to depose Hitler to reach a peace, the Japs had no similar effort against the Emperor except at the end, and that effort was focused on continuing the war.
None of this addresses the question however, why was the killing of civilians acceptable, as long as atomic bombs weren't the method? Three of the battles referenced have been so poorly researched (Leyte, Iwo Jima, Okinawa (especially the naval battle)) that there appears to be an unspoken agenda of depicting a country with 2 million military in the field and 3000 operational aircraft readying for a fight on its home court as already on their knees crawling to the surrender table. It isn't an accurate portrayal of the state of the Empire of the Rising Sun in the summer of 1945.
“their martial tendencies renewed”
So your thesis is that Meiji was the anomaly and that they preferred a dictatorship, or that the dictatorship was an anomaly. a) is the Sonderweg btw.
“You should have extended your study of Japanese history into the time leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.”
Who says I didn’t? You?
“you might have discovered it resembled the Shogunate only now with ‘lesser races’ as the oppressed and ruled and guided by their masters.”
It may surprise you but the Japanese didn’t regard themselves as the source of divine governance during the Shogunate. Just the opposite. Nor did they regard themselves as surrounded by lesser races.
“The Germans made an effort to depose Hitler to reach a peace, the Japs had no similar effort”
Oh, so that’s your thesis - that the Japanese had no soul and that all of them marched lockstep into the war?
“None of this addresses the question however, why was the killing of civilians acceptable, as long as atomic bombs weren’t the method?”
Again, I’m not opposed to the use of the atomic bomb. I’m opposed to the ahistorical nonsense that the bomb was ok because there were no other viable options. Eisenhower (and he should know!) argues otherwise.
“It isn’t an accurate portrayal”
Kamikaze is the resort of a nation already defeated.
This is not so, and there are very good reasons why. Japan did not usually ‘invade their neighbours’. They didn’t do it under the Shogunate and they didn’t do it under Meiji.
Maybe not but they have been invaded by Japan several times in their history.
They even ruled long enough to build castles..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_castles_in_Korea
Hideyoshi in 1592 was one of them.
China had Korea in its fist a lot too, Korea had to pay tribute to China for centuries. I wasn’t trying to pick on Japan.
Japan didn’t regard themselves as divinely governed under Meiji and not under the Shogunate. They regarded the Chinese as divinely governed under the Mandate of Heaven.
China’s collapse under post-Qing dynasty, lead them to believe that they were divinely governed and left a large power vacuum. This is what Japan tried to fill.
The fact you referenced wooden rocket planes (By Okinawa they were not using Zeros. They were using little wooden ‘rocket planes’.) during the Kamikaze assault, the references to Leyte OOB (They only had 40 zeros that were flight worthy at Leyte Gulf.). It appears that you thought the only plane the Japs operated was the Zero.
It may surprise you but the Japanese didn’t regard themselves as the source of divine governance during the Shogunate.
No surprise at all, the governance by the 'divine' was a result of the Mejii Restoration. However the dictatorship of the Shogunate was similar to that of Imperial Japan, both under one man, the Shogun or the Emperor.
Again, I’m not opposed to the use of the atomic bomb. I’m opposed to the ahistorical nonsense that the bomb was ok because there were no other viable options. Eisenhower (and he should know!) argues otherwise.
That all depends upon the strategic objectives, lessen Allied casualties, get Japan to the surrender table quickly unconditional surrender, saving the POWs. A blockade achieves 50% of those goals. The invasion 75%. The fact that an invasion was planned and only discarded after the bombs shows that a blockade was the least favorable of the COAs available. A blockade was considered and rejected, Ike notwithstanding.
“It appears that you thought the only plane the Japs operated was the Zero.”
Does it ever occur to you that this is an unwarranted assumption?
“However the dictatorship of the Shogunate was similar to that of Imperial Japan”
In what way? Local control didn’t go away just because of the Shogunate. Meiji actually increased the centralization of the state, not decreasing it. Feudal Japan was far more decentralized.
“shows that a blockade was the least favorable of the COAs available”
Given that they undertook a blockade and did not undertake an invasion demonstrates that Blockade was preferable to invasion.
There was no invasion because there was the bomb. There was no blockade as you have already pointed out. Even Ike said so. A blockade may have been preferable to the invasion, but the fact it was planned and in its preparatory phases shows that ending the war quickly was a primary goal of the Allies. Blockade wasn't going to get it done.
“It appears that you thought the only plane the Japs operated was the Zero.” Does it ever occur to you that this is an unwarranted assumption?
Of course, however your reference to it concludes since there were no Zeros, there was no air threat. Further referencing Zeros meant 'wooden rocket planes' were the main kamikaze threat since there was a lack of Zeros.
I have a piece of this argument/discussion because I was in a line of replacements on Leyte getting geared for the invasion of when we were sent back to our tents because the war was over on that day. My brother was killed a few months before on Okinawa. Those, no matter how high in rank or position, who thought and argued for delay and wait-and-see were very wrong in that there were still spotty fighting and dying such as the Philippines but much more ominous was the probable need to invade Japan to put a final end on the fighting anywhere in Asia and I believe there was no escaping such an invasion. People can have their own remorse over the use of the A-Bomb but it is my understanding that targets chosen were actually contributing to provisions for the Jap military. In fact almost every major city in Japan was a a war factory. Before complaining about the toll on civilians those people like Ike should have recalled what destruction was done and needed in Europe. The Japs were much more fanatical fighters than the Nazi were and Asia was covered with the blood caused by their brutality. I believe that Truman was much more concerned about any more USA lives being lost than the military. He always had the nonprofessional soldier on his mind.
” ... the seven liberal arts. ... Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, Arithematic, geometry, astronomy and Music. ... the Greeks. ... Aquinas called the seven sciences ... Civil law, Canon law, History, Natural Philosophy, Normative Philosophy, Theology and Metaethics. ... demonstrates that history as a discipline is one of the oldest disciplines in existence.
... fold up all of engineering and science into Natural Philosophy ... . The study of rhetoric, logic and oratory are all part of the trivium and go back all the way to Ancient Greece. ... I suggest you look up the word empiricism and get back to me. Empirical history is possible, ... History as a discipline goes back to Herodotus, prior to Aristotle and natural philosophy.”
JCBreckenridge is confusing study and discipline with the workaday activities of professions. One would like to think that is being done inadvertently. It’s diverting to ponder stray bits of our cultural heritage (and it is a nice one), but very little of this stuff governs what we do.
I was thinking in operational terms. Rather less high-flown than “trivium,” “Natural Philosohpy, or “liberal arts” [all seven]. Readers are warned: “operational” might sound military but it is not. I mean it in the sense exposited by Percy W. Bridgman. Assuming any of you can be bothered to leave off kneeling in abasement before the ancients long enough to find out who he was.
” ... I don’t believe I’ve made any claims to being a historian here, nor have I stated that anyone who is one is above moral reproach. That is all you. I’ve simply attacked historical speculation lacking sufficient proof.
“panting and salivating”
No bias here! ...”
I confess to bias. How astute of JCB to notice.
I AM biased. I favor the troops, officers, supply clerks, industrial workers, scientists, technicians, farm families, managers, officials, even the politicians of the 1940s.
They are to be preferred to today’s comfortable, self-righteous, self-satisfied dilletantes, who are pleased to look down on decisions taken in WWII, and deem themselves morally superior just because they don’t like the fact that the United States used atomic bombs against the enemy.
Plenty of people hold to the conceit that it’s a bad thing to kill the enemy. They strain to move heaven and earth to convince the rest of us that they are smarter and more moral.
I think they’re merely dopey.
Enough Americans died in that war, if the atom bomb saved just one, that’s just too damn bad for Japan.
“I AM biased. I favor the troops, officers, supply clerks, industrial workers, scientists, technicians, farm families, managers, officials, even the politicians of the 1940s.”
And I side with Eisenhower here.
“to look down on decisions taken in WWII”
Eisenhower’s own testimony rejects the thesis that the atomic bomb was the only available option.
“deem themselves morally superior”
Again, please point out where I’ve said I’m morally superior.
“Percy W. Bridgman”
Not a historian. He’s outside of his discipline. There are problems with operationalism. It’s fake empiricism. Empiricism has a concrete definition. In history, historical empiricism relies upon primary sources. Anything outside of primary sources is speculative and cannot be relied upon in order to construct a historical narrative.
Empiricism can only deal with measurables. If it cannot be measured, then it is simply not an empirical observation. if two people can look at the same thing and come to different conclusions as to to what they are observing, then it’s not empiricism.
Operationalism assumes that we can acquire reliable knowledge using non-empirical observations.
History has well proven the use of atomic weapons by the US in WWII against Japan was probably the most brilliant method of ending a most violent war with the most peaceful resolution.
Only a fool argues otherwise.
I don't know if it was brilliant or not, but:
During the time between the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb on August 9 and the actual surrender on the fifteenth, the war pursued its accustomed course: on the twelfth of August eight captured American fliers were executed (heads chopped off); the fifty-first United States submarine, Bonefish, was sunk (all aboard drowned); the destroyer Callaghan went down, the seventieth to be sunk, and the Destroyer Escort Underhill was lost.
It was necessary to finish the war asap.
That is the crux of the matter. And I agree.
I was one of those actually lined up for the invasion of Japan on August 15. All in the line up were glad for the news. I was of a somewhat bit different attitude as my brother had been killed on Okinawa in April and I was still filled with revenge. Personal fighting in a war is hell and revenge and I can honestly say my training for such especially after the death of my brother took a while to overcome as morbid and foolish as it might seem to those without the experience. Truman was more of a civilian soldier than the professionals who are given civilians to be their pawns for their games. I believe the Japs intended for the USA to suffer heavy casualties during the landings so they could bargain for a deal benefiting them.
Thank you, and thanks to your family, for your unimaginable sacrifice.
This is what liberalism has brought us to, whining and bawling and picking over our greatest victories as if we didn't earn them with our sacred blood and honor. Damn them.
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