Posted on 08/07/2015 10:37:28 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The advent of the Cold War saved the Emperor. The U.S. decided he was more valuable as the leader of a U.S. ally in Asia.
In the months leading up to August 1945, Japan was constantly negotiating with Russia. They wanted to extend the neutrality pact, or use Russia to negotiate better terms with the allies.
I don’t remember anything about Jon Stewart.
He isn’t worth allocating a brain cell to that effort.
I agree.
How exactly were the Soviets going to get an army onto Japanese soil when they had no ability to do so?
Russia only declared war to seize whatever they could. The Japanese were still holding large areas of Manchuria after the surrender. The Russians had not even come close to invading Japan unless you think taking a few isolated islands as invading.
Russia agreed to join the war at Potsdam and the reason is they knew we had the bomb yet they still waited until the last minute. They did so because they still feared Japan at least until we destroyed them.
The USSR behaved in their usual way. Taking what they could after the Western allies had broken Japan.
Small wonder why the War Department authorized the use of the atomic bomb to finally force the Japanese to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.
In the War Planning for the invasion of Japan, the 1st Marine Division, leading the invasion forces, only appears in the first couple of days. It was thought they would have been decimated in those first few days.....
With those lives in the balance I’ll choose the lives of the Old Breed over those Japanese cities any day.....
Sorry Charlie. Russia, a last minute entrant to the War with Japan, tried to negotiate terms favorable to Japan to end/suspend the war.
The US rightfully demanded “unconditional surrender” and got it.
Read Jim Webb’s “The Emperor’s General.”
And by the way, Russia invaded Japan, and was kicking their butt in Manchuria.
MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."
William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512.
Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-7
'Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism' by Robert James Maddox (ISBN 978-0826219626)
"The Supreme War Council failed to break the three-to-three deadlock. Suzuki, Togo, and Yonai insisted on terminating the war on the sole condition concerning the emperor system, while Anami, Umezu, and Toyoda called for a decisive homeland battle unless the United States accepted the three additional conditions as well.
Anami fiercely opposed Togo and Suzuki. In fact, Anami’s utterances became almost irrational. As recalled by those who attended the meetings, Anami declared: “The appearance of the atomic bomb does not spell the end of war....We are confident about a decisive homeland battle against American forces.” He admitted that “given the atomic bomb and the Soviet entry, there is no chance of winning on the basis of mathematical calculation,” but he nevertheless declared that “there will be some chance as long as we keep on fighting for the honor of the Yamato race.... If we go on like this and surrender, the Yamato race would be as good as dead spiritually.” Such was the mentality of the Japanese military. Urged by middle-echelon and young officers who were “half mad,” Anami would not retreat from making the last sacrificial homeland battle."
[...]
"What the peace party had been worrying about most was how many more A-bombs the United States had in readiness. Nonetheless, at the beginning of the Supreme War Council meeting, “a rather bullish atmosphere” prevailed, as Admiral Toyoda Soemu, Chief of the Naval General Staff, recalled in his memoirs. “To be sure, the damage of the atomic bomb is extremely heavy, but it is questionable whether the United States will be able to use more bombs in rapid succession.”
Although the proceedings of the council meeting do not exist, it appears that Army Minister Anami indulged in wishful thinking when he said that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was the only atomic bomb the United States possessed. At precisely this moment, just before 1:00 p.m., news reached the meeting that a second atomic bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki."
My liberal neighbor used to come up with the most outlandish things; and claimed to stay very informed on what was going on in the U.S./world. After she made one of her crazier statements about something I asked her where she got her news from- expecting her to say MSNBC, she told me she watched Jon Stewart regularly and that is all she needed to do to be informed. My jaw must have dropped, this woman is a retired pharmacist so supposedly well educated- but as my dad would have said she is only book smart.
Yawn......
Dropping the bomb saved American lives. That is all that matters. Period.
Russia can go stump. As in Europe, they were in it for a land grab. Pure empire building. When have they ever acted for anything other than that? When they joined with Nazi Germany in invading Poland to start WWII in 1939?
Question! Are you saying or making the case for the end of WWII was all because Russia seized the opportunity to be the life savior for the US? My time frame is different than yours as to the Japs surrendering, it was after the second a-bomb was dropped. I was in the Philippines at the time being geared up for the invasion of Japan without any Russian help expected so perhaps I missed a part of history.
No! I am not saying that at all. If anything, I have always thought it was a horrendous decision by FDR not to require the USSR to declare war on Japan in return for any assistance. Things could have been a lot different in the Pacific.
Thank you for your service, and I am glad you didn’t have to go through with invading Japan. And I knew several people who were captured thereabouts and were in deplorable conditions as Japanese prisoners.
Typical opinion of a loud-mouthed coward who leaves others to do his fighting for him.
I don’t remember. But who hasn’t wanted to take a swipe at Harry Truman at least once?
Yup, a palace coup almost happened the day the emporer made the surrender recording. The insurgents wanted to destroy the record and kill the emporer.
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