Hiroshima: the Crime that keeps on paying

Really? No deviations from the Potsdam Declaration? Then explain why when I was in Japan 86 to 89 the same Emperor that led Japan into WW11 was still in power. He had lost most of his authority, but still had influence over the Japanese government. So, obviously not all the Potsdam Declaration were not enforced.

 

Enforced? That was our choice. Japan signed a unconditional surrender. This is a fact

 

Their conclusion is highly flawed. If Russia had not entered the war, Japan would have kept refusing to surrender while they continued to wait to hear back from Russia.

The entire survey was the result of the Air Force having an axe to grind. After the war all the armed services were being hit with massive budget cuts, and the point of the Strategic Bombing Survey was to claim that air power won the war (and thus the Air Force should be spared budget cuts).

Naval leaders were grinding the same axe when they claimed that the A-bombs were not significant because sea power won the war.

That is not to say that post-war conclusions that Japan was about to surrender are invalid. But it should always be remembered that they are conclusions made in hindsight. No reasonable system of morality expects people to act on knowledge that can only be acquired in the future.

- - - Updated - - -

The Potsdam Proclamation did not actually pledge to remove the Emperor from power.

 

More personal opinion

 

That is incorrect. Those were facts.

 

It wasn't that easy because of the pro-war hardliners in the government. A minister representing the Army opposed Hirohito's plan to surrender and there was a military coup to prevent the emperor's surrender broadcast. The nature of the Japanese government was borderline fascist at that time and the Army thought Japan should fight to the last man just like what happened in Germany. Japanese militarists and Hitler were on the same page on many issues, except for the treatment of the Jews, who were saved in Japanese-occupied Shanghai.

[video=youtube;XTrDeXjd0h4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrDeXjd0h4[/video]

 

A claim that would be dismissed by those without first hand knowledge as propaganda.

Japan's military advisor's did not believe that the US had more than one bomb. No-one even knew what had really happened in Hiroshima until later that day when Truman announced the first ever use of nuclear weapons, and again the Japanese military advisor's would have been very, very sceptical that a single bomb could have destroyed an entire city .. they would have wanted first hand intelligence reports, and even then, as stated, they would have been sceptical tha the US could do it again.

Official surrender of Japan was not made until August 15th and formally signed on September 2nd, one of the deciding factors of that surrender was Russia's declaration of war on Japan on August 9th, the same day the second A-bomb was dropped .. Japan's surrender was as much about maintaining the the preservation of the Emperor, whom they revered as some type of divine figure, and they feared that should the USSR - a communist country who had assassinated their own royal family a couple of decades before - invade, the Emperor and his family would be overthrown. Surrendering to the American forces, was their best case scenario because they believed they could negotiate keeping the Emperor as the head of state, which as history shows us is what happened.

The true extent of the damage to Hiroshima wasn't relayed to Tokyo before their decision to fight on, the phone network was destroyed in the blast, by the time a courier arrived to deliver the startling facts to the Army council, the 2nd bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki.

Even Japan's lead physicist Dr. Yoshio Nishina, who confirmed that the weapon used was indeed an an atomic bomb, gave the impression to the military command that collection enough material to make a weapon was a near-impossible task requiring the application vast amounts of energy over a period of months to years. The military command were led to believe that the Hiroshima bomb was a one-of-a-kind propaganda stunt.

As shown there were numerous factors that prevented Japan from surrendering in the time scale involved.

 

It is entirely your opinion

 

Maybe for the first few hours. But then on August 7 they had reports from their own people that we had destroyed the entire city with a single bomb.

That was not an impediment to surrender in a short time frame. That was Japan deciding not to surrender.

On the morning of August 9 Japan learned that the Soviets had declared war on them and were overrunning their forces in Manchuria.

Midday August 9 the second A-bomb hit an industrial zone just north of Nagasaki.

In the evening of August 9 Japan decided to surrender if we would agree that Hirohito could retain unlimited dictatorial power.

On the morning of August 10 Japan communicated their surrender offer to the US.

On August 11 the US communicated to Japan that we would not accept that offer and Hirohito was going to be subordinate to MacArthur.

Late on August 13 Japan decided to surrender on our terms.

Early on August 14 we received their surrender offer.

The main factor influencing surrender appears to be us overrunning Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Japan had expected us to be stopped there. When we plowed through both islands and kept on coming, Japan suddenly stopped talking about fighting on to ultimate victory and started talking to the Soviets about helping them get out of the war.

Japan had Truman's claim that we had destroyed the entire city with an A-bomb on August 6.

Japan had their reports from their own people that we had destroyed the entire city with a single bomb on August 7.

Nagasaki was not attacked until August 9.

Japan showed twice that they were able to reach a decision in the evening and communicate it to us the next morning.

They had adequate knowledge of Hiroshima by August 7. Had they decided to surrender that evening, they could have communicated that to us on the morning of August 8. That is a good 24 hours ahead of the Nagasaki bombing.

 

Pretending that facts don't exist isn't going to make them go away.

 

I agree. You should stop pretending

 

YOU are the one who took a list of facts pretended that they don't exist.

 

Correction. A list of opinions

 

Hmm .. no they didn't, it took days for any reliable information to reach their military command. The top brass of the military command were located in Tokyo, Hiroshima is 814kn from Tokyo, even today it would take approx 9 hours by car to travel that distance .. in war torn Japan it took around 3 days.

It was one of the factors that delayed the surrender.

As stated and as your time line shows, three days was not enough time for an official surrender.

Not at all, Russia declaring all out war on Japan was one of the major factors for their surrender. Even after the US had taken Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the military command stated "We can no longer direct the war with any hope of success. The only course left is for Japan's one hundred million people to sacrifice their lives by charging the enemy to make them lose the will to fight." - Source The Age of Hirohito - Daikichi Irokawa that does not sound like a pre-emptive desire to surrender to me.

and while tentative feelers were put out to Russia about creating a peace deal they were dismissed by the Japanese Cabinet and stone-walled by Russia .. these transcript of the official communications between Japan and Russia make for very interesting reading - http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/togo-sato/corr_togo-sato.htm

Truman's claim would have been dismissed as propaganda.
No official report reached the military command until AFTER the decision to keep fighting had been taken, and not quick enough to stop the 9th August bomb. Communication in and out of the Hiroshima area was non-existent after the bomb, all reports had to be word of mouth or written reports which took approx 2-3 days to reach the military command in Tokyo.

without the validated evidence any and all here-say would have been dismissed as propaganda, it was not until official reports had arrived would the devastation be believed .. that did not happen until 2-3 days after Hiroshima.

 

I see that you are resolved to deny reality no matter what.

I'll be sure to respond again when you go back to making substantive claims.

 

Your opinions have been noted.....and dismissed

 

"At dawn on August 7, the vice chief of the Army General Staff, Torashiro Kawabe, received a report that stated, 'The whole city of Hiroshima was destroyed instantly by a single bomb.'"

https://books.google.com/books?id=Y...+single+bomb"+"august+7"&source=bl&hl=en&sa=X


"At dawn on August 7 the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Kawabe, had received a further report with a sentence that was at first incomprehensible: 'The whole city of Hiroshima was destroyed instantly by a single bomb.'"

https://books.google.com/books?id=o...+single+bomb"+"august+7"&source=bl&hl=en&sa=X


"At dawn on August 7 another report arrived, this time containing the statement: 'The whole city of Hiroshima was destroyed instantly by a single bomb.'"
https://books.google.com/books?id=L...+single+bomb"+"august+7"&source=bl&hl=en&sa=X

While I can see how "Japan thinking that we didn't have any more A-bombs" might interfere with them surrendering, that wouldn't have had much significance to the three day window.

Even if we had waited five days before dropping another A-bomb on them, Japan would have kept thinking we had no more A-bombs right up to the point when we dropped the next A-bomb on them.

The timeline shows that Japan twice reached a decision to surrender in the evening, and was able to communicate it to us by the next morning.

Had they decided to surrender on the evening of August 7, they could have communicated that to us by the morning of August 8.

Had they decided to surrender midday August 7, they probably could have communicated that to us by the end of the same day.

Okinawa fell on June 22, 1945.

On June 22, 1945, the government of Japan decided to ask the Soviets to help them escape the war.

By the time the Soviets declared war on them, Japan had already been looking for a way to escape the war for some time.

The Soviet war declaration did however make it clear to Japan that the Soviets would not be helping them to escape the war, and that they instead needed to escape the war through some other avenue.

 

none of which were taken as reliable accounts .. did you read further in the books you cited.

The surrender would have come after Russian declared all out war on Japan.

Again without reliable intelligence from Hiroshima, surrender would not have been an acceptable response.

Not disputing that point, merely that Russia declaring war on Japan was a major factor in their decision to surrender .. Japan reaching out to Russia looking for an escape route was an attempt to broker peace, not surrender.

 

Proof?

Proof?

Proof?

Proof?

Agree

Proof?

 

While the Russians did invade Manchuria on August 9, its relevance to the argument is myth.
- If the Japanese were "defeated" and 'ready to surrender" on August 5th, they were brought to this condition entirely by allied efforts in the PTO and CBI; the retention or loss of Manchuria has no effect on this condition.
- Little to none of the post-Nagasaki conversation within the highest levels of Japanese government regarding surrender involved the Russian invasion; virtually without exception it revolved around the threat of the bomb and their inability to defend against it - that is,the Japanese feared the bomb, not the bear.

 

Nuking Japan ended the war. Don't F with the United States of America.

 

If it is so effective we should be using it MUCH more often

 

I'm down. Who's the next target? The middle east in general? Turn it into glass and start over?

 

Put in your discharge paperwork....you are now redundant

 

Yea good luck with that