The Rest Of The Story – Had We Not Used The Bomb
An Invasion Not Found in the History Books
by James Martin Davis reprinted from the Omaha World Herald, November 1987
Deep in the recesses of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., hidden for nearly four decades lie thousands of pages of yellowing and dusty documents stamped "Top Secret". These documents, now declassified, are the plans for Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan during World War II. Only a few Americans in 1945 were aware of the elaborate plans that had been prepared for the Allied Invasion of the Japanese home islands. Even fewer today are aware of the defenses the Japanese had prepared to counter the invasion had it been launched. Operation Downfall was finalized during the spring and summer of 1945. It called for two massive military undertakings to be carried out in succession and aimed at the heart of the Japanese Empire. In the first invasion - code named Operation Olympic - American combat troops would land on Japan by amphibious assault during the early morning hours of November 1, 1945. Fourteen combat divisions of soldiers and Marines would land on heavily fortified and defended Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands, after an unprecedented naval and aerial bombardment. The second invasion on March 1, 1946 - code named Operation Coronet - would send at least 22 divisions against 1 million Japanese defenders on the main island of Honshu and the Tokyo Plain. It's goal: the unconditional surrender of Japan. With the exception of a part of the British Pacific Fleet, Operation Downfall was to be a strictly American operation. It called for using the entire Marine Corps, the entire Pacific Navy, elements of the 7th Army Air Force, the 8 Air Force (recently redeployed from Europe), 10th Air Force and the American Far Eastern Air Force. More than 1.5 million combat soldiers, with 3 million more in support or more than 40% of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945 - would be directly involved in the two amphibious assaults. Casualties were expected to be extremely heavy. Admiral William Leahy estimated that there would be more than 250,000 Americans killed or wounded on Kyushu alone. General Charles Willoughby, chief of intelligence for General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific, estimated American casualties would be one million men by the fall of 1946. Willoughby's own intelligence staff considered this to be a conservative estimate. During the summer of 1945, America had little time to prepare for such an endeavor, but top military leaders were in almost unanimous agreement that an invasion was necessary. While naval blockade and strategic bombing of Japan was considered to be useful, General MacArthur, for instance, did not believe a blockade would bring about an unconditional surrender. The advocates for invasion agreed that while a naval blockade chokes, it does not kill; and though strategic bombing might destroy cities, it leaves whole armies intact. So on May 25, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after extensive deliberation, issued to General MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Army Air Force General Henry Arnold, the top secret directive to proceed with the invasion of Kyushu. The target date was after the typhoon season. President Truman approved the plans for the invasions July 24. Two days later, the United Nations issued the Potsdam Proclamation, which called upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or face total destruction. Three days later, the Japanese governmental news agency broadcast to the world that Japan would ignore the proclamation and would refuse to surrender. During this sane period it was learned -- via monitoring Japanese radio broadcasts -- that Japan had closed all schools and mobilized its schoolchildren, was arming its civilian population and was fortifying caves and building underground defenses. Operation Olympic called for a four pronged assault on Kyushu. Its purpose was to seize and control the southern one-third of that island and establish naval and air bases, to tighten the naval blockade of the home islands, to destroy units of the main Japanese army and to support the later invasion of the Tokyo Plain. The preliminary invasion would began October 27 when the 40th Infantry Division would land on a series of small islands west and southwest of Kyushu. At the same time, the 158th Regimental Combat Team would invade and occupy a small island 28 miles south of Kyushu. On these islands, seaplane bases would be established and radar would be set up to provide advance air warning for the invasion fleet, to serve as fighter direction centers for the carrier-based aircraft and to provide an emergency anchorage for the invasion fleet, should things not go well on the day of the invasion. As the invasion grew imminent, the massive firepower of the Navy - the Third and Fifth Fleets -- would approach Japan. The Third Fleet, under Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, with its big guns and naval aircraft, would provide strategic support for the operation against Honshu and Hokkaido. Halsey's fleet would be composed of battleships, heavy cruisers, destroyers, dozens of support ships and three fast carrier task groups. From these carriers, hundreds of Navy fighters, dive bombers and torpedo planes would hit targets all over the island of Honshu. The 3,000 ship Fifth Fleet, under Admiral Raymond Spruance, would carry the invasion troops. Several days before the invasion, the battleships, heavy cruisers and destroyers would pour thousands of tons of high explosives into the target areas. They would not cease the bombardment until after the land forces had been launched. During the early morning hours of November 1, the invasion would begin. Thousands of soldiers and Marines would pour ashore on beaches all along the eastern, southeastern, southern and western coasts of Kyushu. Waves of Helldivers, Dauntless dive bombers, Avengers, Corsairs, and Hellcats from 66 aircraft carriers would bomb, rocket and strafe enemy defenses, gun emplacements and troop concentrations along the beaches. The Eastern Assault Force consisting of the 25th, 33rd and 41st Infantry Divisions would land near Miyaski, at beaches called Austin, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, and Ford, and move inland to attempt to capture the city and its nearby airfield. The Southern Assault Force, consisting of the 1st Cavalry Division, the 43rd Division and Americal Division would land inside Ariake Bay at beaches labeled DeSoto, Dusenberg, Essex, Ford, and Franklin and attempt to capture Shibushi and the city of Kanoya and its airfield. On the western shore of Kyushu, at beaches Pontiac, Reo, Rolls Royce, Saxon, Star, Studebaker, Stutz, Winston and Zephyr, the V Amphibious Corps would land the 2nd, 3rd and 5th Marine Divisions, sending half of its force inland to Sendai and the other half to the port city of Kagoshima. On November 4, the Reserve Force, consisting of the 81st and 98th Infantry Divisions and the 11th Airborne Division, after feigning an attack of the island of Shikoku, would be landed -- if not needed elsewhere -- near Kaimondake, near the southernmost tip of Kagoshima Bay, at the beaches designated Locomobile, Lincoln, LaSalle, Hupmobile, Moon, Mercedes, Maxwell, Overland, Oldsmobile, Packard and Plymouth. Olympic was not just a plan for invasion, but for conquest and occupation as well. It was expected to take four months to achieve its objective, with the three fresh American divisions per month to be landed in support of that operation if needed. If all went well with Olympic, Coronet would be launched March 1, 1946. Coronet would be twice the size of Olympic, with as many as 28 divisions landing on Honshu. All along the coast east of Tokyo, the American 1st Army would land the 5th, 7th, 27th, 44th, 86th, and 96th Infantry Divisions along with the 4th and 6th Marine Divisions. At Sagami Bay, just south of Tokyo, the entire 8th and 10th Armies would strike north and east to clear the long western shore of Tokyo Bay and attempt to go as far as Yokohama. The assault troops landing south of Tokyo would be the 4th, 6th, 8th, 24th, 31st, 37th, 38th and 8th Infantry Divisions, along with the 13th and 20th Armored Divisions. Following the initial assault, eight more divisions - the 2nd, 28th, 35th, 91st, 95th, 97th and 104th Infantry Divisions and the 11th Airborne Division -- would be landed. If additional troops were needed, as expected, other divisions redeployed from Europe and undergoing training in the United States would be shipped to Japan in what was hoped to be the final push. Captured Japanese documents and post war interrogations of Japanese military leaders disclose that information concerning the number of Japanese planes available for the defense of the home islands was dangerously in error. During the sea battle at Okinawa alone, Japanese kamakaze aircraft sank 32 Allied ships and damaged more than 400 others. But during the summer of 1945, American top brass concluded that the Japanese had spent their air force since American bombers and fighters daily flew unmolested over Japan. What the military leaders did not know was that by the end of July the Japanese had been saving all aircraft, fuel, and pilots in reserve, and had been feverishly building new planes for the decisive battle for their homeland. As part of Ketsu-Go, the name for the plan to defend Japan -- the Japanese were building 20 suicide takeoff strips in southern Kyushu with underground hangars. They also had 35 camouflaged airfields and nine seaplane bases. On the night before the expected invasion, 50 Japanese seaplane bombers, 100 former carrier aircraft and 50 land based army planes were to be launched in a suicide attack on the fleet. The Japanese had 58 more airfields in Korea, western Honshu and Shikoku, which also were to be used for massive suicide attacks. Allied intelligence had established that the Japanese had no more than 2,500 aircraft of which they guessed 300 would be deployed in suicide attacks. In August 1945, however, unknown to Allied intelligence, the Japanese still had 5, 651 army and 7,074 navy aircraft, for a total of 12, 725 planes of all types. Every village had some type of aircraft manufacturing activity. Hidden in mines, railway tunnels, under viaducts and in basements of department stores, work was being done to construct new planes. Additionally, the Japanese were building newer and more effective models of the Okka, a rocket-propelled bomb much like the German V-1, but flown by a suicide pilot. When the invasion became imminent, Ketsu-Go called for a fourfold aerial plan of attack to destroy up to 800 Allied ships. While Allied ships were approaching Japan, but still in the open seas, an initial force of 2,000 army and navy fighters were to fight to the death to control the skies over kyushu. A second force of 330 navy combat pilots were to attack the main body of the task force to keep it from using its fire support and air cover to protect the troop carrying transports. While these two forces were engaged, a third force of 825 suicide planes was to hit the American transports. As the invasion convoys approached their anchorages, another 2,000 suicide planes were to be launched in waves of 200 to 300, to be used in hour by hour attacks. By mid-morning of the first day of the invasion, most of the American land-based aircraft would be forced to return to their bases, leaving the defense against the suicide planes to the carrier pilots and the shipboard gunners. Carrier pilots crippled by fatigue would have to land time and time again to rearm and refuel. Guns would malfunction from the heat of continuous firing and ammunition would become scarce. Gun crews would be exhausted by nightfall, but still the waves of kamikaze would continue. With the fleet hovering off the beaches, all remaining Japanese aircraft would be committed to nonstop suicide attacks, which the Japanese hoped could be sustained for 10 days. The Japanese planned to coordinate their air strikes with attacks from the 40 remaining submarines from the Imperial Navy -- some armed with Long Lance torpedoes with a range of 20 miles -- when the invasion fleet was 180 miles off Kyushu. The Imperial Navy had 23 destroyers and two cruisers which were operational. These ships were to be used to counterattack the American invasion. A number of the destroyers were to be beached at the last minute to be used as anti-invasion gun platforms. Once offshore, the invasion fleet would be forced to defend not only against the attacks from the air, but would also be confronted with suicide attacks from sea. Japan had established a suicide naval attack unit of midget submarines, human torpedoes and exploding motorboats. The goal of the Japanese was to shatter the invasion before the landing. The Japanese were convinced the Americans would back off or become so demoralized that they would then accept a less-than-unconditional surrender and a more honorable and face-saving end for the Japanese. But as horrible as the battle of Japan would be off the beaches, it would be on Japanese soil that the American forces would face the most rugged and fanatical defense encountered during the war. Throughout the island-hopping Pacific campaign, Allied troops had always out numbered the Japanese by 2 to 1 and sometimes 3 to 1. In Japan it would be different. By virtue of a combination of cunning, guesswork, and brilliant military reasoning, a number of Japan's top military leaders were able to deduce, not only when, but where, the United States would land its first invasion forces. Facing the 14 American divisions landing at Kyushu would be 14 Japanese divisions, 7 independent mixed brigades, 3 tank brigades and thousands of naval troops. On Kyushu the odds would be 3 to 2 in favor of the Japanese, with 790,000 enemy defenders against 550,000 Americans. This time the bulk of the Japanese defenders would not be the poorly trained and ill-equipped labor battalions that the Americans had faced in the earlier campaigns. The Japanese defenders would be the hard core of the home army. These troops were well-fed and well equipped. They were familiar with the terrain, had stockpiles of arms and ammunition, and had developed an effective system of transportation and supply almost invisible from the air. Many of these Japanese troops were the elite of the army, and they were swollen with a fanatical fighting spirit. Japan's network of beach defenses consisted of offshore mines, thousands of suicide scuba divers attacking landing craft, and mines planted on the beaches. Coming ashore, the American Eastern amphibious assault forces at Miyazaki would face three Japanese divisions, and two others poised for counterattack. Awaiting the Southeastern attack force at Ariake Bay was an entire division and at least one mixed infantry brigade. On the western shores of Kyushu, the Marines would face the most brutal opposition. Along the invasion beaches would be the three Japanese divisions , a tank brigade, a mixed infantry brigade and an artillery command. Components of two divisions would also be poised to launch counterattacks. If not needed to reinforce the primary landing beaches, the American Reserve Force would be landed at the base of Kagoshima Bay November 4, where they would be confronted by two mixed infantry brigades, parts of two infantry divisions and thousands of naval troops. All along the invasion beaches, American troops would face coastal batteries, anti-landing obstacles and a network of heavily fortified pillboxes, bunkers, and underground fortresses. As Americans waded ashore, they would face intense artillery and mortar fire as they worked their way through concrete rubble and barbed-wire entanglements arranged to funnel them into the muzzles of these Japanese guns. On the beaches and beyond would be hundreds of Japanese machine gun positions, beach mines, booby traps, trip-wire mines and sniper units. Suicide units concealed in "spider holes" would engage the troops as they passed nearby. In the heat of battle, Japanese infiltration units would be sent to reap havoc in the American lines by cutting phone and communication lines. Some of the Japanese troops would be in American uniform, English-speaking Japanese officers were assigned to break in on American radio traffic to call off artillery fire, to order retreats and to further confuse troops. Other infiltration with demolition charges strapped on their chests or backs wold attempt to blow up american tanks, artillery pieces and ammunition stores as they were unloaded ashore. Beyond the beaches were large artillery pieces situated to bring down a curtain of fire on the beach. Some of these large guns were mounted on railroad tracks running in and out of caves protected by concrete and steel. The battle for Japan would be won by what Simon Bolivar Buckner, a lieutenant general in the Confederate army during the Civil War, had called "Prairie Dog Warfare." This type of fighting was almost unknown to the ground troops in Europe and the Mediterranean. It was peculiar only to the soldiers and Marines who fought the Japanese on islands all over the Pacific -- at Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Prairie Dog Warfare was a battle for yards, feet and sometimes inches. It was brutal, deadly and dangerous form of combat aimed at an underground, heavily fortified, non-retreating enemy. In the mountains behind the Japanese beaches were underground networks of caves, bunkers, command posts and hospitals connected by miles of tunnels with dozens of entrances and exits. Some of these complexes could hold up to 1,000 troops. In addition to the use of poison gas and bacteriological warfare (which the Japanese had experimented with), Japan mobilized its citizenry. Had Olympic come about, the Japanese civilian population, inflamed by a national slogan - "One Hundred Million Will Die for the Emperor and Nation" - were prepared to fight to the death. Twenty Eight Million Japanese had become a part of the National Volunteer Combat Force. They were armed with ancient rifles, lunge mines, satchel charges, Molotov cocktails and one-shot black powder mortars. Others were armed with swords, long bows, axes and bamboo spears. The civilian units were to be used in nighttime attacks, hit and run maneuvers, delaying actions and massive suicide charges at the weaker American positions. At the early stage of the invasion, 1,000 Japanese and American soldiers would be dying every hour. The invasion of Japan never became a reality because on August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Within days the war with Japan was at a close. Had these bombs not been dropped and had the invasion been launched as scheduled, combat casualties in Japan would have been at a minimum of the tens of thousands. Every foot of Japanese soil would have been paid for by Japanese and American lives. One can only guess at how many civilians would have committed suicide in their homes or in futile mass military attacks. In retrospect, the 1 million American men who were to be the casualties of the invasion, were instead lucky enough to survive the war. Intelligence studies and military estimates made 50 years ago, and not latter-day speculation, clearly indicate that the battle for Japan might well have resulted in the biggest blood-bath in the history of modern warfare. Far worse would be what might have happened to Japan as a nation and as a culture. When the invasion came, it would have come after several months of fire bombing all of the remaining Japanese cities. The cost in human life that resulted from the two atomic blasts would be small in comparison to the total number of Japanese lives that would have been lost by this aerial devastation. With American forces locked in combat in the south of Japan, little could have prevented the Soviet Union from marching into the northern half of the Japanese home islands. Japan today cold be divided much like Korea and Germany. The world was spared the cost of Operation Downfall, however, because Japan formally surrendered to the United Nations September 2, 1945, and World War II was over. The aircraft carriers, cruisers and transport ships scheduled to carry the invasion troops to Japan, ferried home American troops in a gigantic operation called Magic Carpet. In the fall of 1945, in the aftermath of the war, few people concerned themselves with the invasion plans. Following the surrender, the classified documents, maps, diagrams and appendices for Operation Downfall were packed away in boxes and eventually stored at the National Archives. These plans that called for the invasion of Japan paint a vivid description of what might have been one of the most horrible campaigns in the history of man. The fact that the story of the invasion of Japan is locked up in the National Archives and is not told in our history books is something for which all Americans can be thankful.
Interesting Products:
Peace-and-love atomic bomb apologists of this and the last generation should be made aware of the realities of war. This is a classic public policy decision on a momentous scale. President Truman had a choice between really bad and apocolyptically bad. There was not a “third option”.
When my little girls start getting indoctrinated by their half-educated middle school teachers about WWII and the “evils of the bomb” I will be sure they understand the full scope of how bad war is. The evil part of war is not a choice between “life and death”. War is very often a situation where good people are forced to choose, not between life and death…but rather “how much” death they would prefer.
The Japanese offered a surrender before the bomb was dropped. It was rejected. Then the bomb was dropped.
“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 almost defeated and ready to surrender…in being the
first to use it, we…adopted an ethical standard common to the
barbarians of the Dark Ages.”
—Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy,
Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II
Whats more is that Leyhey wanted to surround and starve Japan. He argued against the bomb because he felt the Navy should win the war.
This is well documented…. he would have held a blockade until hundreds of thousands died, which is the number it would take to get Japan to surrender at best
Did he even consider how many American and Allied POW’s there were dieing every month?!?! No. Those who believe that with the power of hindsight they can condemn the Atomic bombings never care to remember that one…
“The fact that the story of the invasion of Japan is locked up in the National Archives and is not told in our history books is something for which all Americans can be thankful.”
Not sure I understand this. I would think we are all better off knowing more about history, ours and others, not less. Thank you for the terrific article, very well done, and I learned quite a lot from it.
LKM
CA, USA
I agree. That last line is pretty much saying “its a good thing we had this hidden, censorship is the best!”. Somehow I just don’t think its better that people don’t know about this.
I think the author was trying to convey that he was glad it was not the history that manifested in reality not, that it should be covered up.
Im pretty sure the author was saying had we not dropped the bomb and gone through with operation downfall we would be reading about the ensuing blood bath in our history books, rather than the bombs being dropped. We should count ourselves lucky that this story of operation downfall is sitting in a box in the national archives rather than permanently etched in history and blood.
Larry M,
I think what he meant is that it never happened, it was only a plan but I think the people should have been told, that it should not have been locked up.
I am suprised at the response from this but I guess in 1987 when it was told in the Omaha World Herald there was not the technology we have today to send and get information.
Bob Pearcy
I was 4 when WWII came to an end. I was later taught by liberal educators that President Truman was a brave and brilliant man who adhered to the advice of the Pentagon and authorized the use of the 2 bombs in order to end the war without risking the lives of more than 1 million more Americans. That was a wise and courageous decision, albeit, a difficult one.
I must say, however, that I am saddened by the overly belligerent exagerations by those who claim that all liberals have always opposed the appropriate use of atomic weapons and favor weakening America’s military. On the contrary, most of us on the left merely want to be much more juducious and careful in how, when and where we deploy and utilize our forces in order to retain our place atop the global power structure. We do not believe that the last administration did that. Hopefully, over the next few years we will return to the leadership role that Harry truman brought to us through the judicious use of military power followed by the compassionate use of moral support (the “Marshall Plan”) coupled with ongoing maintenance of military strength and a wise foreign policy (the “Truman Doctrine”) which remained in place through all administrations until the fall of the Soviet Union.
Thanks for this article. It fleshes out what I was taught as a student.
That is part of the reason. The real reason was the Japanese were talking to the Soviets to enter the war on there side, evidence based on decoded diplomatic traffic. If the Soviets entered the war the would have continued and that was unacceptable. The world was tired of war and wanted it done. The bomb was the only choice.
I’m afraid that you’ve been sorely misinformed as to the nature of those intercepts. The Japanese were trying to enter talks with the Soviets to act as intermediaries in negotiating a peace with the United States, Operation Super-Sunrise. Unfortunately Stalin had been promised Manchuria and other parts of South-East Asia for entering on the Allies side, territories which Russia and Japan had clashed over for 50 years, and Japan had seized in the 1905 war. The Soviets were refusing to acknowledge this information because they desired the South-East Asian territories. The idea that Russia and Japan would look to each other as allies is ludicrous, not just because of their history of hostilities, but also due to the vast amount of material resources the US was pumping into the Soviet economy.
This is all good and well but I never will understand why we didn’t fire a warning shot first and just say “The next one will hit Tokyo”.
Essentially, there was no warning shot.
The US, except for a few like Leo Sizlard, had no idea what the bomb really ‘was.’ They knew it was big and mean… but that it was somehow different wasn’t exactly clear
More importantly… they had just two. They had to count… Japan was warned something big was about to happen. Of course, they ignored it…
@ Mojo i believe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targeted because of their industrial capabilities as far as i remember from my history classes the general staff didn’t really believed that the nukes would be as powerful as they were but figured that any damage to the industrial centers would help the inevitable invasion.
@ James Martin Davis excellently written thank you for bringing this information to light again it has been several years since i heard the name operation downfall and having your detailed report on it really clarified some questions i had.
@Mojo
We only had two bombs, the Japanese did not know this. The first use was at Hiroshima. They still did not surrender, perhaps doubting that we had any more similar weapons. After Nagasaki, it became clear we had more and were willing to keep using them. Hiroshima WAS the warning shot, and it still failed.
To p. boyer and all the rest of you rightwing-nut assholes: Its your kind of warped thinking that keep war the first response to anything that you find threatening. Usually its just your petty little imagined fears.
“When my little girls start getting indoctrinated by their half-educated middle school teachers about WWII and the “evils of the bomb” I will be sure they understand the full scope of how bad war is.”
Excuse me asshole, have you ever been in a war? On the front lines? I kind of doubt it.
You, and all of the rest of the armchair generals would be wise to stop getting into pissing contests and grow up. Quit being wussies and reacting to threats-real or imagined-with intelligence and sanity instead of deranged machismo.
have you ever been in war? or the front lines? well i have asshole. sanity and intelligence, you must be retarded. when you look straight into the eye of a fanatic you’re about to kill before he kills you; you’ll finally get it. the only thing a fanatic or zealot will ever understand is indoctrinated violence and hatred, and have no intention of listening to your “pretty words” of peace. they only want you dead. they hate you and your way of life because thats what they know and only what they know.
I’m speechles; I was one of the guys in the 11th Abn Div who was waiting on Okinawa for the go ahead to jump on the Emperors Parade Ground in Tokyo. I recall that word filtered down from Gen Mac that many of us would not see home again. Naturally, we knew nothing of what is contained in this writing. Then late one night Okinawa exploded with noise and fireworks and finally someone said that a nuclear bomb had been dropped on a city in Japan. My reaction was, what is that? Thanks to Harry T who made the decision that he did I was able to live to this day in 2009 having raised a large family. I am still glad to be alive.
Funny enough, the Japanese government at the time didn’t care much about the bombs, it was the Soviet declaration of war against Japan that happened shortly after that really scared them.
Go Amerika!
The United Sates did not drop the bomb to end the war. The Japanese offered a surrender before we dropped the bomb. It was rejected. The Bomb was used to scare Russia. I have no problem with Nuclear weapons. We need them. Peace through strength. By the way, just look it up people. There would have been no invasion.
Bah. Highly incorrect. In fact, after the first bomb was dropped, half of the council in Japan(3/6) were still dead set on remaining in the war. Even after the second bomb, the emperor had to step in himself and force them to chose surrender. There is hard evidence showing Japan was far from convinced to end the war, let alone some mystical rejected attempt to surrender.
In the 1970′s scholars argued the bomb was an attempt to ‘scare Russia.’ Sadly it still persists in simplistic tellings of history (like high school classrooms). But no credible scholars continue this dated debate. Read some modern historiography on the debate and you’ll quickly realize this.
The slogan for Japan the summer of 1945 was ‘The sooner the Americans come the better. 100 million will die honorably’. Young girls were being trained to run at GI’s with… sewing needles.
Just in the last few years scholars have uncovered great data that shows Japan knew where the American invasion would have come, and were preparing to slaughter them on the beaches.
The bomb saved many, many lives. The debate over the bomb is dead. Only in one-sided museums in Japan do I still hear the bomb portrayed as an evil act by America with no strategic use.
This may seem presumptuous considering I didn’t read the entire article, but I really didn’t needed to. If I only read the title that would be enough, as this article is clearly advancing the historical myth that most of us learn in high school: that Japan would not have surrendered without being nuked, thus necessitating a bloody invasion of the main islands. In other words, “Nukes save lives.” I invite anyone who wants a more nuanced view of American history to read Ward Wilson’s 2007 article “The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in the Light of Hiroshima.” In it he gives references to primary source documents and to analyses published by other historians, in particular by Robert Pape and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. Here are the facts as summarized by Freeman Dyson:
“1. Members of the Supreme Council, which customarily met with the Emperor to take important decisions, learned of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945. Although Foreign Minister Togo asked for a meeting, no meeting was held for three days.
2. A surviving diary records a conversation of Navy Minister Yonai, who was a member of the Supreme Council, with his deputy on August 8. The Hiroshima bombing is mentioned only incidentally. More attention is given to the fact that the rice ration in Tokyo is to be reduced by ten percent.
3. On the morning of August 9, Soviet troops invaded Manchuria. Six hours after hearing this news, the Supreme Council was in session. News of the Nagasaki bombing, which happened the same morning, only reached the Council after the session started.
4. The August 9 session of the Supreme Council resulted in the decision to surrender.
5. The Emperor, in his rescript to the military forces ordering their surrender, does not mention the nuclear bombs but emphasizes the historical analogy between the situation in 1945 and the situation at the end of the Sino-Japanese war in 1895. In 1895 Japan had defeated China, but accepted a humiliating peace when European powers led by Russia moved into Manchuria and the Russians occupied Port Arthur. By making peace, the emperor Meiji had kept the Russians out of Japan. Emperor Hirohito had this analogy in his mind when he ordered the surrender.
6. The Japanese leaders had two good reasons for lying when they [told the American historian Robert Butow that the bombings impacted their decision to surrender]. The first reason was explained afterwards by Lord Privy Seal Kido, another member of the Supreme Council: “If military leaders could convince themselves that they were defeated by the power of science but not by lack of spiritual power or strategic errors, they could save face to some extent”. The second reason was that they were telling the Americans what the Americans wanted to hear, and the Americans did not want to hear that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria brought the war to an end.”
In reality the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had little to do with WWII. They were not the end of that era, but the start of the next, in which the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. would create enough of these weapons to annihilate the human race many times over. This bloody hypothetical of a Tokyo invasion, this historical myth, serves to legitimize the opening salvo of the Cold War and lay the foundation for a fear-fueled national security apparatus that persists to this day. Not until we dispense with this myth can we collectively view nuclear arms for what they are: a great and greatly unnecessary threat to the world’s inhabitants.
You might want to read the article, it does not say that Japan would not surrender, but that it would only surrender conditionally after constant bloody warfare demoralized Allied forces enough for them to consider that an option.
The article was more about how the nuke in the end saved more lives than if we went through the invasion route.
You read Gar Alperovitz but stopped there… your historiography is about 40 years behind my friend.
@Zach D
So by us having nukes and showing that we have the balls to use them haven’t saved any lives? well then why aren’t we speaking Russian?
Because the knowledge that we “view nuclear arms for what they are: a great and greatly unnecessary threat to the world’s inhabitants”
We do not use them. Russian/USA/etc… I shoot you, WE slaughter the human race.
Germany actually created the nuke before the US, although they didn’t have the resources to make it as powerful, and was slightly dirty. Germany sent UBoats to Japan with the certain resources and tech that Japan needed to make their nuke.
and lets look at the history of JAPAN and their meetings with the USA…oh wait…that was completely a delaying action to allow their carriers to get closer…and then….booomm….pearl harbor.
the rule was, unconditional surrender. meaning no conditions….
they were willing to surrender with conditions…. after they bombed us unprovoked.
Nukes are bad…but i’m glad the usa has them….
hmm..where are your sources?
Bob, This is a very important piece of literature. I am working on my Masters and I am currently working as a substitute teacher to make ends meet. I am a Vietnam Infantry War Veteran, highly decorated, including a Purple Heart. This spring, I was addressing a Psychology class, that was studying serial killers. I compared Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito having the same mentality as serial killers. I was shouted down by two 17-18 year old girls that were defending Hirohito. It cause a short classroom debate, which I stopped as soon as I could. The girls said America was guilty of killing innocent Japaneses. I tried to explain there was a lot more to it that what they know. I even asked them where did they learn their history about World War II but they were having none of it. Bottom line, they filed a complaint saying I was racist against all Asians,which as you know includes over fifty countries and cultures in the region and despite the fact that Hirohito ordered his thugs to butcher millions of Asians. I was kicked out of the high school and told the seniors in high school are to young to hear what I was saying.How about that? I will keep this writing forever with me so I can show the students. The invasion would of included my uncle and my father, I guess the girls don’t care the bomb saved their lives and many more Americans?!