cdshaw@watmum.UUCP (Chris Shaw) (07/27/85)
In article <3306@garfield.UUCP> lionel@garfield.UUCP (Lionel H. Moser) writes: >> Nuking cities is something that was done once, strictly for dramatic effect, >> to end the second world war. I don't think it's on people's minds today >> Brad Templeton > >Was the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki required to win WWII? Hadn't >it become just a mopping-up operation when the bombs were dropped? >Lionel H. Moser Absolutely not. The alternative to the American forces was the invasion of the Japanese home islands, which would be substantially different from invading various & sundry colonial possessions along the way. The casualties were estimated to be in the range of 1 million or so, and there was fear that the war would have continued to 1948. The Bomb was NOT merely a straw to break the camel's back. It was instrumental in bringing the war to a quick conclusion with minimal loss of American lives. When discussing politics, it is usually very useful to get the facts straight, the most important of which is the historical perspective on the issue. Chris Shaw watmath!watmum!cdshaw or cdshaw@watmath University of Waterloo Work is the curse of the drinking classes. - Oscar Wilde
jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) (07/29/85)
> In article <3306@garfield.UUCP> lionel@garfield.UUCP (Lionel H. Moser) writes: > >> Nuking cities is something that was done once, strictly for dramatic effect, > >> to end the second world war. I don't think it's on people's minds today > >> Brad Templeton > > > >Was the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki required to win WWII? Hadn't > >it become just a mopping-up operation when the bombs were dropped? > >Lionel H. Moser > > Absolutely not. The alternative to the American forces was the invasion of the > Japanese home islands, which would be substantially different from invading > various & sundry colonial possessions along the way. The casualties were > estimated to be in the range of 1 million or so, and there was fear that the > war would have continued to 1948. The Bomb was NOT merely a straw to break the > camel's back. It was instrumental in bringing the war to a quick conclusion > with minimal loss of American lives. > > When discussing politics, it is usually very useful to get the facts straight, > the most important of which is the historical perspective on the issue. > > > Chris Shaw watmath!watmum!cdshaw or cdshaw@watmath I'm not as familiar with that part of our history as I should be so maybe I shouldn't comment (but I can resist :-) ). Wouldn't one bombing have been enough; perhaps even one bombing on an unpopulated area? e.g. Americans tell Japanese to pick a spot, any spot, and watch it dissappear. Maybe I'm wrong but I would be jut as impressed by seeing the top of a mountain dissappear as by a city dissappearing. -- John Chapman ...!watmath!watcgl!jchapman Disclaimer : These are not the opinions of anyone but me and they may not even be mine.
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (07/31/85)
There's been enough interest, I think, for me to post the following. This
is a lengthy note I sent to fa.arms-d some years ago when this issue came
up. It touches on a number of other issues, but does address the point:
it is doubtful whether a demonstration of the atomb bomb would have sufficed,
because the people whose opinion was most important -- the Japanese Army --
would not have approached it with open minds from a rational viewpoint.
-----
atomic bombs on Japan
The various flames on this subject have all ignored one key issue: the
Japanese view of the situation. It may well be true that the American
decision to use the bomb was motivated by political considerations such
as one-upmanship with respect to the Soviets. It is a mistake to assume
that the bombs therefore did not accomplish anything useful.
It is true that Japan was in bad shape in the summer of 1945. Submarine
warfare had imposed an effective blockade. Food was short. What navy
Japan had left was helpless in port for lack of fuel. USAAF firebombing
raids were systematically devastating the cities (causing, by the way,
far more death and destruction than the atomic attacks ever did). Japan
was suffering very badly indeed. But it is a serious mistake to assume
that the Japanese viewed the situation the same way the US did. (It seems
to be a standard mistake of Western countries to assume that everybody
else thinks the same way they do.)
Oh, it is entirely possible that the average "man in the street" thought
the situation was hopeless and surrender inevitable. It is not in fact
clear that this was the case, but it's not important. Because the man
in the street had NO SAY in the matter. None. Zero. The political
power in Japan in 1945 basically rested with the armed forces. The
Cabinet and other related bodies had major representation from the Army
and the Navy. There were still civilians in key positions, including
the Prime Minister, but their situation was increasingly precarious.
The armed forces had enough men in the inner circles of the government
that they could, at any time, (a) force the equivalent of a Vote of
Non-Confidence, and (b) win such a vote, thus toppling the government.
Given the political realities of the situation, the new government
(Cabinet, etc.) formed after such an event would inevitably have been
totally controlled by the armed forces, and in particular the Army's
General Anami would almost certainly have become Prime Minister.
What did the Army think about the idea of surrender? Well, most of
them had been trained in the precepts of Bushido, in which surrender
was the ultimate form of disgrace, such that it was literally better
to die fighting than to surrender. This is why the Allies did not
get many Japanese prisoners, why the reconquest of some miserable little
pieces of rock in the Pacific was so difficult, and incidentally was
also a large part of the reason why the Japanese treated Allied POW's
so savagely -- by their standards, men who surrendered were craven
cowards, barely human degenerates.
The Army's view of surrender in summer 1945 was, basically, total and
unconditional opposition. To even voice such thoughts was to betray
that one was a "Badoglio" (Badoglio was the man who negotiated Italy's
surrender to the Allies), both a coward and a traitor. If one was too
highly placed and had been too intimately involved with the war for
such an accusation to ring true, one had obviously been corrupted,
seduced by the Badoglios. The Army was determined to fight to the last
man, not because they thought they could win but because there was NO
other honorable course of action open to them.
The Prime Minister and most of the civilian higher-ups were in favor
of surrender, but they dared not force a confrontation. It took direct
intervention by the Emperor himself -- unprecedented and technically
illegal, since the Emperor was in law essentially a figurehead -- to
break the impasse. And despite his intervention being, LITERALLY, the
Word Of God to the Japanese of that time, he had to intervene TWICE in
the Cabinet and then PERSONALLY broadcast the orders -- the first time
most Japanese had ever heard the voice of their emperor/god.
And at that, if he'd simply ordered a surrender, he'd have been ignored,
on the grounds that he had been tricked by the Badoglios. Such an attempt
would probably have triggered a military coup; this was being seriously
considered earlier (no, this would not have been a revolt against the
Emperor: it would have been against the Badoglios who were misleading
him). At that, there WAS an attempted military coup after the decision
was made to surrender; it failed for lack of support by senior officers.
(What has all this to do with atomic bombs? I thought you'd never ask.
I'm just coming to that.)
The reason the Emperor was able, in his broadcast, to convince the Army
to go along with him was that he offered an escape from the moral dilemma
of surrender-is-disgrace. Basically, he argued that the atomic bomb was
something utterly new under the sun, so totally different from anything
that had come before that the old rules could not be expected to apply.
The new weapon was so terrible that Japan had no alternative but to
"bear the unbearable" and surrender. The situation was quite literally
unbearable to some Army officers: they committed suicide after hearing
the Emperor's broadcast. But few disobeyed; even half-plausible reasoning
sufficed, coming from their personal deity. This is why the attempted
coup failed.
Could the Japanese have been convinced without actual atomic attacks?
It's unlikely; as it was, the Army did its best to minimize the
seriousness of the situation until the evidence overwhelmed them.
The early reports from Hiroshima were widely belittled or taken to be
exaggerations. Perhaps a demonstration could have been sufficiently
convincing, but I doubt it.
In short, the atomic bombs were a key event in making Japan's surrender
possible (not desirable, POSSIBLE!). Possibly the pro-surrender faction
could have swung it without them, but it's not likely. The military
coup would have been almost inevitable, and substantial parts of the
Army would have fought to the last man regardless.
Don't forget, also, that the surrender saved more than just the lives
of the Allied invasion troops. Probably an equal number of Japanese
would have died in the fighting. And until the atom bombings, both
the Allied POW's in Japan and the Allied intelligence agencies charged
with their welfare considered it almost certain that final Japanese
defeat would result in the massacre of all Allied soldiers in Japanese
hands, orders or no orders.
For more details on the matter (a couple of hundred pages of them), the
best book by far that I have found is Thomas Coffey's IMPERIAL TRAGEDY.
Part 2 of this book is an attempt to reconstruct every detail of the
events in Japan leading up to the surrender. (Part 1 is a similar
treatment of Pearl Harbor.) Coffey is the only author whose work
I've seen whose primary sources include first-hand accounts from the
men involved (or their immediate associates, for those no longer alive).
Another good (although more limited) discussion of the subject can be
found in NAGASAKI: THE NECESSARY BOMB? (author's name forgotten, dammit,
and my copy isn't handy). Both published circa 1975, possibly still
in print.
-----
[Addendum:
Thomas M. Coffey, Imperial Tragedy, Pinnacle Books 1970.
Joseph L. Marx, Nagasaki: The Necessary Bomb?, Macmillan 1971.
Older than I thought. Probably both out of print by now, alas.]
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henryjimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) (08/01/85)
In article <2260@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes: >> In article <3306@garfield.UUCP> lionel@garfield.UUCP (Lionel H. Moser) writes: >> >> Nuking cities is something that was done once, strictly for dramatic effect, >> >> to end the second world war. I don't think it's on people's minds today >> >> Brad Templeton >> > >> >Was the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki required to win WWII? Hadn't >> >it become just a mopping-up operation when the bombs were dropped? >> >Lionel H. Moser >> >> Absolutely not. The alternative to the American forces was the invasion of the >> Japanese home islands, which would be substantially different from invading >> various & sundry colonial possessions along the way. The casualties were >> estimated to be in the range of 1 million or so, and there was fear that the >> war would have continued to 1948. The Bomb was NOT merely a straw to break the >> camel's back. It was instrumental in bringing the war to a quick conclusion >> with minimal loss of American lives. >> >> When discussing politics, it is usually very useful to get the facts straight, >> the most important of which is the historical perspective on the issue. >> >> >> Chris Shaw watmath!watmum!cdshaw or cdshaw@watmath > > I'm not as familiar with that part of our history as I should be so > maybe I shouldn't comment (but I can resist :-) ). Wouldn't one > bombing have been enough; perhaps even one bombing on an unpopulated > area? e.g. Americans tell Japanese to pick a spot, any spot, and watch > it dissappear. Maybe I'm wrong but I would be jut as impressed by > seeing the top of a mountain dissappear as by a city dissappearing. > >-- > > John Chapman > ...!watmath!watcgl!jchapman > > Disclaimer : These are not the opinions of anyone but me > and they may not even be mine. That's an interesting thought. The only piece of real estate worth dropping it on (without people) would have been Mt. Fuji. I don't know what the effect of that would really be. It could be that leveling the top of Mt. Fuji would only have infuriated the more nationalistic of the Japanese (sorry guys, my name and my genes are japanese, but to a great extent I'm as much a foreigner as anybody else 'here'--I'm just guessing). Cheers! -- Jim O. -- James Omura, Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto ihnp4!utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
ray@othervax.UUCP (Raymond D. Dunn) (08/08/85)
Organization: > ..... perhaps even one bombing on an unpopulated > area? e.g. Americans tell Japanese to pick a spot, any spot, and watch > it dissappear. Maybe I'm wrong but I would be jut as impressed by > seeing the top of a mountain dissappear as by a city dissappearing. According to all accounts I have read/viewed on the subject, the option to invite a Japanese representative to view a test of the A-bomb was indeed seriously considered but rejected for at least two (reported) reasons: a) they were unsure of the reliability of the bomb and did not want to demonstrate a 'dud', and b) because of the major internal conflict in Japan between the military and civil authorities, it was doubted whether such a demonstration to a few individuals would be enough to have any effect. It must be noted that the US was very much in a hurry to win the war, not just to save US lives but to preempt the USSR invasion of Japan. It is interesting that in the Hiroshima discussions taking place on TV over the last 2 or 3 days, several "informed authorities" on the subject have queried very strongly the "500,000 American lives to invade the Japanese home islands" estimates. They reckon the figure would have been more like 40,000. I think also, that in the atmosphere of the times, the militaristic viewpoint would take precedent over any other. Ray Dunn.