Hiroshima: A Meditation on the Horror

[struggle4progress]

Ronald Takaki,
Pacific News Service, Jul 26, 2005

Editor's Note: A tough-guy stance by an insecure president, racist rhetoric and a refusal to compromise led to a nuclear attack that was initially criticized by U.S. editors and military generals alike. August 6, 2005, is the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

BERKELEY, Calif.--During the days before that fateful August 6, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur learned that Japan had asked Russia to negotiate a surrender. “We expected acceptance of the Japanese surrender daily,” one of his staff members recalled. When he was notified that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, the general was “livid.” MacArthur declared that the atomic attack on Hiroshima was “completely unnecessary from a military point of view.”

Why then did the president make the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima? <snip>

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=79580138b2a0834e76f8e79883870a1c

[wli]

1. I've mostly heard that it was to intimidate the USSR

Supposedly everyone knew that Japan was down and out and Japan was offering to surrender repeatedly. The idea was that Truman was trying to demonstrate a "madman" approach regarding Soviet invasions to prop up satellite states by showing he had new, incredibly powerful weaponry and was even willing to use it when not necessary.

I'm not entirely sure how widely-accepted that interpretation is.

[Spinzonner]

2. Those terms did not come close to what the allies expected and demanded

and it's not at all clear that Russia would have been an intermediary or a party to those or any lesser terms. They also had their own agenda to getting a stake in the surrender of Japan, as evidenced by their later joining the war against Japan.

And with MacArthur, its always tempting to speculate about how his dreams for glory might have affected his inclinations to avoid major battles. He was due to head the invasion of Japan, starting in the south.

[bpilgrim]

3. every Military Leader in Theater then said the Bomb Wasn't NECESSARY

* In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words:

(T)he 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. . . .

(I)n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. (THE DECISION, p. 3.)

more...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

fyi

peace

[Spinzonner]

4. Yes they were defeated

but ready to surrender is another matter.

The Japanese culture and attitude towards war and their emperor - especially amongst the armed forces - calls into question whether they would choose to fight a suicidal battle for the homeland rather than surrender. There was considerable conflict in the leadership over this and the emperor wasn't inclined to lose the imperial tradition.

The expectation that a rain of atomic mombs might remove any chance of having a war of attrition that would convince the allies to accept less than unconditional surrender might have thrown the decision by the Japanese to accept the unacceptable.

And I wonder how 'barbaric' those military leaders considered the firebombing of Tokyo which is estimated to have killed more civilans than either atomic bomb.

One should also consider whether the actual use of the bomb in war moved the consequences from the theoretical to the actual and kept the world from subsequently resorting to use of nuclear weapons in subsequent conflicts to much worse individual and cumulative effect.

[bpilgrim]

5. they were also suing for peace

once the japanese 1 condition was agreed to, the war ended, in spite of some objections from fanatical warriors, from a minority in the military.

and the crysthanthemum throne remains to this very day as the longest unbroken imperial throne in the world and as a witness to the wisdom of this decision.

"And I wonder how 'barbaric' those military leaders considered the firebombing of Tokyo which is estimated to have killed more civilans than either atomic bomb."

they knew too well how barbaric that was and presumably is why they protested the new one in order to SAVE LIVES.

but it is simply NOT true that more died in the tokyo firebombing when the tally alone from hiroshima is approaching a quarter MILLION people.

"One should also consider whether the actual use of the bomb in war moved the consequences from the theoretical to the actual and kept the world from subsequently resorting to use of nuclear weapons in subsequent conflicts to much worse individual and cumulative effect."

the only thing our SHOCK-n-AWE of the world did was foster an arms race that we have still not escaped from and may well be all our undoing.

"THE DECISION TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB"
http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm

"Hiroshima is the 2nd most horrid word in the american lexicon succeeded only by NAGASAKI" - Kurt Vonnegut

peace

[Spinzonner]

6. I'm afraid that you have tunnel rear vision

and choose your points selectively from history.

A sizeable contingent of the army wished to fight on and Hirohito was initially inclined to try and keep the royal perogatives. His mind was only changed at the end by both the perceived futility that was heavily influenced by the devastation of the atom bomb. It represented death and destruction that could be visited upon Japan without Japan exacting great casualties on the allies through resisting an invasion.

How would having to engage in a massive invasion which would have incurred great casualties for both armies and the Japanese civilian population - both through bombings and secondar effects of war (starvation, disease) - have saved lives ?

It's not at all clear where you get the quarter-million casualty figure for Hiroshima. That was the estimated population of the city at the time of the bombing (probably undercounted by prisoners, etc.) and while a substantial portion of them have died over the years that's hardly attributable to only the bomb.

There were arms races long before the introduction of atomic weapons. It's hardly surprising that their development would result in one of their own. Did you expect them to change human nature. But other than and since their use, they have not been used in war. That's hardly true of the weapons produced in previous arms races. (THere are arguable comparisons and considerations vis-a-vis chemical and biological weapons.)

Without the use of atomic bomb would there NOT have been a Cold War ? What is the likelihood that it would have turned hot had the threat of their use not been realized ?

All that is unprovable but so is your revisionist view.

[Violet_Crumble]

8. Sorry, but I don't think it's bpilgrim who's got the tunnel vision...

Claims that the bomb was justified because Japan would have been zealously defended by its citizens are a fairy tale. I saw some old footage from the last days and the savage defense of a country that had run out of oil and weaponry was Japanese civilians armed with things like brooms and rakes...

The Japanese wanted to retain the Emperor. That was the only part of the 'unconditional surrender' they opposed. Most folk would think that's not much of a justification to drop an atomic bomb on a city of civilians, but the victors get to write history, so it's been widely accepted as justified...

Truman was very aware of the Japanese attempts to negotiate a surrender. There is no reason to believe that those attempts weren't genuine, but it seems that some are fond of the image of an inhuman crazed and suicidal enemy to maintain their version of events...

Violet...

[bpilgrim]

14. email hiroshima's city gov for LATEST statistics on how many DEATHS

remember the atomic bomb is the bomb that keeps on killing long after it's initial shock-n-awe even reaching up into the womb and across the generations.

anyways to learn what the men who were there had to say about it and explore the debate more fully please read the current the debate online if you think i am misstating any of the relevant facts.

http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm

psst... pass the word :hi:

peace

[rayofreason]

7. Japanese surrender???

The battle of Okinawa was fought just 70 days before the end of the war and it was the bloodiest battle yet fought, with 100,000s dead and wounded. Many Japanese committed sucide rather than surrender.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa

Operation Olympic would have followed, with millions dead. Meanwhile, the exceptionally cruel Japanese occupation of numerous countries (as well as the brutal treatment of Allied POWs) would have continued (Google "comfort women").

In pre-war Japan, militarists had routinely assassinated opponents, including several government ministers including PM Inukai Tsuyoshi in 1932. That was much on people's minds as they considered the situation in 1945.

http://www.grips.ac.jp/teacher/oono/hp/lecture_J/lec09.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inukai_Tsuyoshi

So even after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima there was strong opposition to surrender in the military.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/hando/hando.htm

After Nagasaki, when the decision to surrender had been made, a small group of militarists tried to sieze Hirohito himself on 8/14 to prevent the famous surrender broadcast by the Emperor, an episode that was the subject of a History Channel show.

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~fljpm/chron/jc40.showa.prewar.html

With all of that, it strains the bounds of credulity to think that Japan would have surrendered without the atomic bombings. Japan would have gone on fighting, and millions more would have died. Using this new weapon, ending the war, and dismantling Japanese militarism was the right thing to do.

[Emendator]

10. You beat me to it

I was just about to link to the site.

[rasputin1952]

9. I can only look at this through the lens of history, as I was not alive at

the time of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings. By using history as a guide, all sides considered, I conclude that although horrendous, the bombing of those two cities were a military necessity at the time.

The Japanese were not about to sit down and say, "Come on in and occupy us." Nor was this all about the retention of the Emperor, it was about the mindset of a population that had values we could not easily understand.

The Japanese has fought ruthlessly throughout the Pacific Theater. The occupation of parts of China were seen by Americans, British, Australians, Dutch and others, as genocidal in nature. The Army and Navy of Japan were brutal in how they dealt with their enemies, and the propaganda at the time enhanced this view 1000 fold.

The official Japanese stance at the time was to meet an invasion with millions on the beaches fighting desperately with anything at hand to push the Allies back into the sea. The cost would have been immense for both sides.

The atomic bombings of the two cities was a decision made with available information and the thought that a million American casualties would result in just a few months. The fire bombing of Tokyo had shown the Truman administration that the Japanese would not accept capitulation easily, and the Island battles of the Pacific had been particularly bloody. The Banzai Charges of the war had shown the administration, and Allied military leaders that the Japanese were intent on holding off the inevitable, no matter how many were killed.
In a scenario that is eerily akin to what the Japanese thought at the time, we see contemporary suicide bombers going about their grim business...multiply this a million-fold and you can see what the Truman administration was thinking at the time.

I could be wrong on this, but I look at it like this: The Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, initiating our aggressive aspects of the Pacific War. Throughout the war, the Japanese had been proven to be harsh occupiers of the areas they conquered. They had proven that they would not surrender lightly, and even after the horror of the Tokyo bombing and massive loss of life, they were not about to allow an invading Army conquer them w/o a massive loss of life. After the bombing of Hiroshima...it was STILL unknown if the Japanese would capitulate, hence the bombing of Nagasaki...which moved the Emperor to say enough.

There may well have been other ways to deal with the situation, and 20/100 hindsight comes into play, hazed over by a possibly unwarranted sympathy nurtured over 60 years. Point is, the bombs were dropped in an attempt to end the war with as few Allied casualties as possible; and for that reason alone, I can say it was a decision that holds merit.

[puddycat]

11. Japanese attacked a military base; the USA purposely bombed CIVILIANS

that's the diffence. Although I once excused the USA for the horrendous crime of dropping the bomb, I don't anymore. I think that dropping of the Atomic Bomb spelled the end of American innocence and moral superiority in the world. You just can't purposely snuff out the life of so many civilians and maintain a position of moral authority. But as a culture we had to defend the horror, as so many defend the horror of invading Iraq. As a nation we make excuses.

Where is the official memorial and museum to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki dead in America? We have a huge Holocaust memorial in D.C. to Hitler's concentration camp dead, and the USA had nothing to do with that! It seems that the least we could do is to have a huge memorial to the thousands of civilians the USA did have a hand in killing. Its ironic that many of the Jewish people of this nation want us to feel forever trapped in a Holocaust guilt trip that we had nothing to do with, yet the actual crimes of our country are glossed over and forgotten and excused.

[rasputin1952]

13. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets, there was war

industry there. Dresden, on the other hand was not a war target, and the Firestorm sucked people into the center of city and the inferno.

I am not necessarily saying that dropping either the "Fat Man" or "Little Boy" was just or moral. But those who were in line to land on the beaches of Japan were hap
It is estimated that over a million people wold have died in an invasion...a war that had already seen 13 million+ dead and millions more maimed. Bottom line, it saved lives through the horror of taking them. Certainly not moral, nor dignified, but certainly effective.

Perhaps it is the very horror of nuclear warfare that has kept it at bay. I pray it remains at bay, and there is nothing we can do to change the past, we can only learn from it, or fail to learn; it is humanities choice.

[bpilgrim]

12. imagine

if iwo jima wasn't necessary? or okinawa?

imagine how many lives would have been saved?

thats what ALL our military leaders voted for... accept japans one condition in order to save LIVES.

but we choose to SHOCK-n-AWE the world :nuke:

peace

[Igel]

15. Leahy said that in 1950.

The usual MacArthur "quote" is a paraphrase with the source being published in the 1980s.

It's very, very easy to form your original first impressions years after you first year about something, after you've had a chance to sit back and think about how erroneous your obvious pre-first impressions really were. Consider Oppenheimer: obviously, given his view of the bomb, he couldn't have worked on it. But he did.

Of greater interest would be to know what they wrote in their diaries and reports without 24 hours after hearing of the event.

As for me, when evaluating the properness of a decision, I don't much care what information comes out hours, weeks, or months after the decision was made. If you wait for all the information, you do nothing; castigating one's self for a decision based on the best evaluation of all information available at the time of the decision is also a bad idea, unless it can be shown that the decision itself was flawed, *on those same terms*.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

16. read "Black Rain" by Masuji Ibuse in 1970 and wept for days...

a profoundly personal account of the horror on the day the bomb dropped on Hiroshima...from his diaries and interviews with survivors.

:cry: