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.
I feel that it is only out of the realm of possibility because we are able to review the outcome with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.
I think you would have to agree that Germany was intent on conquering and invading Britain. I can’t help but believe they were sure of their eventual success.
Being confident, why would they not start developing methods to take the “next step”? That being, the direct assault of the US.
I don’t see anything to indicate that they had any desire to take the war to the United States. Hitler did not want war with Britain. He believed, even quite late into the war that he could be friends with Britain, and that the war between them was insensible.
Truman had some real issues, I think. He pulled out our very best general from Korea, thereby dooming the entire north to slavery which lasts even today.
What I said
After Iwo, the allies knew what was in store for them ashore.
“What, as a deterrent?
Germany develops the bomb. They either keep it secret or announce it to the world.
The US would do as they did - publish shots at trinity demonstrating the yield and the capabilities.”
An over-cute modernism called upon in bad faith, to cast doubt on decisions taken in earlier times. I don’t know if “ahistoricism” is the proper term for this sort of ploy, or “presentism,” or some other word. It should be obvious that lots of modern academics indulge in it, deeming themselves “historians” (which is not a profession), and thus above moral reproach. Whatever the case, JCBreckenridge loves to chase after them, panting and salivating in agreement, as this example suggests.
“Deterrence” was in the dictionary in 1945, but its meaning contained nothing like what it does today. And it did not do so for some years after USAAF dropped those two bombs.
That little intellectual development had to wait for a coterie of intellectuals to dig up the word, dust it off, spin new meanings out of the thinnest air, and ram them down the throats of the military and the public. In this latter day, it now reeks of paradox, because an explicit - a keystone - assumption is that it deals chiefly with weapons we dare not use.
If any American citizen of 1945 voiced the opinion that any weapon existed - could exist - which ought not be used because of moral scruples, he/she would have encountered immediate resistance, and become (instantly) the subject of great suspicion: that (1) the citizen was a lunatic, or (2) an agent for the Axis. Possibly both.
A co-development was the reaction of the nation’s “moral leaders” (mostly, the clergy, the academics, and the upper echelons of the scientific community ... “public intellectuals” and their activist/groupie hangers-on as we now know them scarcely existed in 1945). In December 1945, Harper’s Magazine published the results of a poll, which asked questions of citizens concerning the wartime use of atomic weapons: Did we use the right number? Too many? Not enough? Something above three quarters of respondents expressed the opinion that the nation had employed either a sufficient number of bombs, or too few.
Our self-appointed “moral leaders” were shocked. Plainly, this was not acceptable, and immediate steps were taken to re-educate the great unwashed masses, and the evil military-industrial complexers who had hoodwinked them. Various Manhattan Project physicists formed pressure groups (ironically, Dr Leo Szilard, who’d led the way in getting the project approved, had grown to doubt the whole affair so seriously that he led the way in arguing - to authorities, behind closed doors - against using the bombs in battle).
Many of these groups are not only still around, but enjoy uninterrupted and ever-mounting moral gravitas (go look up The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists). 68 years later, our self-appointed moral betters have just about triumphed.
Not only do all Progressives support their goals, most scientists do, and almost all academics. More ironically, much of the military now dismisses such weapons as counterproductive, if not downright immoral. Our arsenals shrink year by year. Public figures boost their popularity with the unwashed masses by calling for “the end” of nuclear weapons. Some once wore uniforms.
The conceit that noncombatants can hope for safety in wartime became a non-issue no later than the 17th century. Many moralizers wish it otherwise - sometimes quite intensely - but their objections amount to nothing greater than addled sentiment.
The fact that the Allies complained about various enemy “violations” of international law in both World Wars, and whipped their own citizenry into a frenzy with propaganda about Nazi and Japanese “war crimes”, does not transform these into worthy moral concepts; all it really does is reinforce the validity of the truism notably codified by Winston Spencer Churchill, about truth becoming the first casualty.
Those who accuse the United States of hypocrisy are singularly obtuse: evidently, they labor under the misconception that we will become more effective if we comply with their notions of morality, which are irreducibly subjective. No conceit is more wrongheaded, nor more dangerous. Especially in the realm of armed conflict.
There is another possibility: they seek our destruction.
Oki was an 82 day battle, Iwo was 35 days. Oki had a monster sea battle against the kamikazes, Iwo didn’t. At Iwo, the American casualties surpassed the number of the enemy forces. Iwo Jima US casualties were 26000. As for a the significant step up in casualties, the naval forces suffered more casualties than the ground forces, definitely not the case at Iwo Jima.
Naval engagement was necessary in order to establish the attack on Okinawa. Because of it, it made bomber attacks on the Home Islands possible. There was no way they could get around that engagement.
I agree with you, the idea that a blockade would have brought a timely conclusion to the war with Japan is fantasy at best, past posting at the worst.
If I am not mistaken, I believe Szilard's view was colored by the prospect of using the bomb against Japan. He had not voiced an objection to using it against Germany. Only after Germany surrendered did he become anti-nuclear.
Strategic bomber attacks began in October of 1944 from the Marianas.
“An over-cute modernism”
I can cite contemporary opinion, (including that of American nationals), who believed the same, and expressed that the necessity of the bomb development for American deterrence. Even before 1945 and the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I can cite contemporary opinion regarding negotiation wrt to Japan an opinion that I do not share as yet another alternative to the blockade.
Arguing that citation of contemporary opinions as ‘bad faith’ does a disservice to these men and women, many of whom were instrumental in the development of the Atomic bomb. Many of whom would later go on to the development of the postwar theories of Detente.
“or some other word.”
Citation of contemporary opinions is the precise opposite of your accusations of ‘recentism’. These are not recent theories. In fact, they aren’t talked about much because they are contrary to more recentism and revisionism that seeks to state, “there were no viable alternatives to the bomb” This is false. There were many other options taken into consideration even if they were not used back in 1944 and 1945, and even earlier in some cases.
“deeming themselves “historians” (which is not a profession)
In what way is ‘historian’ not a profession?
“thus above moral reproach.”
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!
“Deterrence was in the dictionary in 1945, but its meaning contained nothing like what it does today.”
It tended to be called Proliferation in the early 50s and deterrence today. The label is used for convenience. The concept that American possession of the atomic bomb would deter nuclear attack from Germany or others is precisely what FDR wrote about in 1939, well before the initiation of the Manhattan project.
“Dr Leo Szilard, who’d led the way in getting the project approved, had grown to doubt the whole affair so seriously that he led the way in arguing - to authorities, behind closed doors - against using the bombs in battle).”
So you’re arguing that it was in fact contemporary opinion, which corroborates with what I am saying here. Thank you.
Again, I suggest you spend some time reading my posts first - I don’t believe that it was wrong to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. I also don’t believe that the atomic bomb was the only viable option.
Before labelling me a progressive lickspittle it would be helpful for you to do due diligence in the future.
Kamikazes were an indication on the Japanese side that they knew the war was lost and they were simply staving off defeat and making victory as expensive as possible. They had lost the initiative by then.
A winning army does not engage in Kamikaze, and Japan was no exception. It is only after most of their planes were shot down that they engaged in kamikaze, not before.
I believe the historic reason is that they had expended their trained aircrew, and that their fleet of carriers had been relocated to Davey Jones' anchorage. Japan's only aviation recourse was to try and overwhelm air defenses by mass and take one way trips. The Japs had plenty of aircraft, not enough guys for the skill positions to use those assets in a conventional way.
And? How long could they last? After Nagasaki they were still stalling in the face of naval bombardments and an 800 plane B-29 raid. The US would have been stupid to blockade and cease all attacks, the Japs need a convincing show of power. Fortunately they didn't know how many bombs we had, but there would have been three more by October. Had they not capitulated they would have got those as well.
They only had 40 zeros that were flight worthy at Leyte Gulf. By Okinawa they were not using Zeros. They were using little wooden ‘rocket planes’.
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“And? How long could they last? After Nagasaki they were still stalling in the face of naval bombardments and an 800 plane B-29 raid. The US would have been stupid to blockade and cease all attacks, the Japs need a convincing show of power. Fortunately they didn’t know how many bombs we had, but there would have been three more by October. Had they not capitulated they would have got those as well.”
Well, that’s the question isn’t it? How long could they have lasted in 1945? I don’t think they would have been able to hold out through the winter.
Would you have been willing to bet the lives of a million US Servicemen on it?
I doubt it too, we would have had many bombs by then. Many Japs dead from starvation, but not all, via blockade. Is the method of their death the deciding factor? More likely would have died than died via the bomb, along with the Allied POWs. Doesn't seem like a good trade. We kept the faith with our POWs by ending the war quickly. MacArthur would have had two extra pens at the surrender ceremony had we relied on the blockade though.
The Japs had 300 ac available at Leyte. They sunk the USS Princeton, they didn't use a Zero or a kamikaze.
little wooden ‘rocket planes’
If you are referring to the Ohka, those had to be ferried, they accounted for 7 ships damaged or sunk. Japs only had 755 of them. The Japs expended 1900 aircraft in kamikaze arracks.
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