Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Although Japan's
position was hopeless by early 1945, an early end to the war was not in sight.
The Japanese navy would not be able to come out in force again, but the bulk of
the army was intact and was deployed in the home islands and China. The
Japanese gave a foretaste of what was yet in store by resorting to kamikaze
(Japanese, “divine wind”) attacks, or suicide air attacks, during the fighting
for Luzon in the Philippines. On January 4-13, 1945, quickly trained kamikaze
pilots flying obsolete planes had sunk 17 U.S. ships and damaged 50. See
Kamikaze.
Kamikaze,
which in Japanese means “divine wind,” were suicide squadrons organized by the
Japanese air force in the last months of World War II. Pilots flew their
aircraft, loaded with explosives, directly into U.S. naval vessels. Kamikaze
pilots, sacrificing their lives in a last-ditch effort to stop the American
advance, sank about 40 U.S. ships.
_________
The next attack was
scheduled for Kyūshū in November 1945. An
easy success seemed unlikely. The Japanese had fought practically to the last
man on Iwo Jima, and
hundreds of soldiers and civilians had jumped off cliffs at the southern end of
Okinawa rather than surrender. Kamikaze planes had sunk 15 naval vessels and
damaged 200 off Okinawa.
The Kyūshū
landing was never made. Throughout the war, the U.S. government and the
British, believing Germany was doing the same, had maintained a massive
scientific and industrial project to develop an atomic bomb. The chief
ingredients, fissionable uranium and plutonium, had not been available in
sufficient quantity before the war in Europe ended. The first bomb was exploded
in a test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945.
Two more bombs had been
built, and the possibility arose of using them to convince the Japanese to
surrender. President Harry S. Truman decided to allow the bombs to be dropped.
For maximum psychological impact, they were used in quick succession, one over
Hiroshima on August 6, the other over Nagasaki on August 9. These cities had
not previously been bombed, and thus the bombs' damage could be accurately
assessed. U.S. estimates put the number killed or missing as a result of the
bomb in Hiroshima at 60,000 to 70,000 and in Nagasaki at 40,000. Japanese
estimates gave a combined total of 240,000. The USSR declared war on Japan on
August 8 and invaded Manchuria the next day.
The Japanese Surrender
On August 14 Japan
announced its surrender, which was not quite unconditional because the Allies
had agreed to allow the country to keep its emperor. The formal signing took
place on September 2 in Tokyo Bay aboard the battleship Missouri. The Allied
delegation was headed by General MacArthur, who
became the military governor of occupied Japan.
INSTRUMENT OF SURRENDER
This document formally
announced the surrender of Japan to the Allied Powers, signed in Tokyo Bay on
the deck of the USS Missouri, September 2, 1945.
We, acting by command
of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese Government and the
Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, hereby accept the provisions set forth
in the declaration issued by the heads of the Governments of the United States,
China and Great Britain on 26 July 1945, at Potsdam, and subsequently adhered
to by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which four powers are hereafter
referred to as the Allied Powers.
We hereby proclaim the
unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General
Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under
Japanese control wherever situated.
We hereby command all
Japanese forces wherever situated and the Japanese people to cease hostilities
forthwith, to preserve and save from damage all ships, aircraft, and military
and civil property and to comply with all requirements which may be imposed by
the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by agencies of the Japanese
Government at his direction.
We hereby command the
Japanese Imperial General Headquarters to issue at once orders to the
Commanders of all Japanese forces and all forces under Japanese control
wherever situated to surrender unconditionally themselves and all forces under
their control.
We hereby command all
civil, military and naval officials to obey and enforce all proclamations,
orders and directives deemed by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers to
be proper to effectuate this surrender and issued by him or under his authority
and we direct all such officials to remain at their posts and to continue to
perform their non-combatant duties unless specifically relieved by him or under
his authority.
We hereby undertake for
the Emperor, the Japanese Government and their successors to carry out the
provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith, and to issue whatever
orders and take whatever action may be required by the Supreme Commander for
the Allied Powers or by any other designated representative of the Allied
Powers for the purpose of giving effect to that Declaration.
We hereby command the
Japanese Imperial Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters at
once to liberate all allied prisoners of war and civilian internees now under
Japanese control and to provide for their protection, care, maintenance and
immediate transportation to places as directed.
The authority of the
Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems
proper to effectuate these terms of surrender.
Source: National
Archives and Records Administration
Bombing Hiroshima Was Not Necessary
In the last months of
World War II (1939-1945), Allied forces urged Japan to surrender
unconditionally or face “prompt and utter destruction.” Japan refused. On
August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan,
and three days later a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Japan accepted
the Allied terms of surrender on August 14. In this Point/Counterpoint sidebar,
Gar Alperovitz, a professor of government and
politics at the University of Maryland in College Park, argues that using the
atomic bomb was unnecessary because Japan had already been defeated. Historian
J. Samuel Walker counters that the United States won the war at the earliest
possible moment precisely because it did use the bomb against Japan.
Bombing Hiroshima Was Not Necessary
By Gar Alperovitz
The place to begin is
with the top military leaders in the United States during World War II
(1939-1945). In his book Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (1963), Dwight D.
Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allies in Europe during the war, and
president of the United States from 1953 to 1961, recalled the day in 1945 when
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson told him an atomic
bomb was about to be used against one of Japan’s cities:
“During his recitation
of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I
voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan
was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and
secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion
by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as
a measure to save American lives.”
Eisenhower put it
bluntly in a 1963 Newsweek interview: "It wasn't necessary to hit them
with that awful thing."
William D. Leahy, a
conservative five-star admiral who served as President Harry S. Truman’s chief
of staff and chaired both the World War II U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
Combined American-British Chiefs of Staff, was even more forceful in his book I
Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and
Truman (1950):
“…The 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.…
“…In 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.”
President Richard M.
Nixon (1969-1973) recalled in a 1985 Time article how the supreme commander in
the Pacific felt about the atomic bomb:
“[General Douglas] MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it, pacing
the floor of his apartment in the Waldorf. He thought it a tragedy that the
Bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the
same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons,
that the military objective should always be limited damage to noncombatants.…
"MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using
force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned
him off.”
The list of World War
II military leaders who felt the use of the atomic bomb was unnecessary is very
long. It includes men such as General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold,
commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces; Admiral Chester W. Nimitz,
commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet; Admiral William Halsey, commander of
the Third Fleet; Curtis LeMay,
Army Air Force major general and commander of the 21st Bomber Command; and many
others. We also know that General George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the
U.S. Army, who shortly before his death in 1959 gave interviews defending the
decision, expressed very different views inside the government before the bomb
was used. A top secret memorandum from 1945, dated two months before Hiroshima,
records that:
“He [Marshall] thought
these weapons might first be used against straight military objectives such as
a large naval installation and then if no complete result was derived from the
effect of that, he thought we ought to designate a number of large
manufacturing areas from which the people would be warned to leave—telling the
Japanese that we intend to destroy such centers.…
Every effort should be made to keep our record of warning clear. We must offset
by such warning methods the opprobrium which might follow from an
ill-considered employment of such force.”
One of the reasons so
many American military leaders felt as they did was that Japan was already
essentially defeated and everyone knew it. Japan had virtually no navy, almost
no air force, very little fuel or ammunition, and few of the basic supplies
required to make war against the most powerful nation in the world.
Furthermore, U.S. intelligence experts had broken Japanese diplomatic codes
early in the war and were secretly listening to all Japanese cable traffic
between Tokyo and its embassies around the world. It was clear that Japan was
searching for a way to somehow end the war.
An illuminating way to
gain perspective on the decision to use the atomic bomb is to go back to April
12, 1945, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died and a new president, Harry
S. Truman, took office. At this time, and for the next three months, the atomic
bomb was merely a scientist’s theory. Although it was hoped that the new weapon
would work, no one could say for sure that it would because it had never been
tested. And certainly no one could count on a theoretical weapon to end the
war.
For this reason, all
planning during the spring and summer of 1945 had to be based on the assumption
that the theory might remain a theory and never become a bomb. Accordingly,
beginning as early as April 1945, top officials offered three key points of
advice.
First, many felt there
was a very good chance Japan would surrender if the United States merely
offered some modest face-saving concessions, assuring the Japanese that their
emperor, Hirohito, whom they regarded as a god, would
not be removed from office or tried as a war criminal. In
general, letting him stay on without any power, in a manner akin to the king of
England, seemed extremely important.
Second, even if this
did not end the war as many believed it would, U.S. intelligence experts
advised that combining assurances for the emperor with a massive new military
shock would almost certainly do so. That shock would be a declaration of war
against Japan by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), followed by a
Red Army attack on Manchuria, a region of China that bordered the USSR and that
had been seized by Japan. The declaration was expected in early August. The
Soviet Union, fighting for its life against Germany, had maintained neutrality
for most of the Pacific war, and U.S. diplomats had worked hard to secure a
Soviet pledge to join the war against Japan three months after Germany was
defeated.
Once Germany
surrendered in May 1945, both Britain and the United States concentrated their
combined military might against Japan, which was already on its last legs.
Intelligence experts believed the Red Army’s attack would force Japan to
realize the war must end. Even before the end of April 1945 a secret
intelligence report judged that increasing "numbers of informed Japanese,
both military and civilian, already realize the inevitability of absolute
defeat."
“The increasing effects
of air-sea blockade, the progressive and cumulative devastation wrought by
strategic bombing, and the collapse of Germany (with its implications regarding
redeployment) should make this realization widespread within the year,” the
report said.
But this was without
the Russians. The report went on to a much stronger judgment: “The entry of the
USSR into the war would, together with the foregoing factors, convince most
Japanese at once of the inevitability of complete defeat.”
Before the atomic bomb
was tested, President Truman traveled to the Potsdam
Conference in Germany to meet Soviet premier Joseph Stalin precisely because he
wanted to be sure to get the Russians into the war. As he later wrote: “If the
test [of the atomic bomb] should fail, then it would be even more important to
us to bring about a surrender before we had to make a
physical conquest of Japan.”
The third point of
advice given by top officials during the summer of 1945 was similar to, but
slightly different from, the first point. Many U.S. experts believed Japan was
likely to surrender if assurances were given about the emperor, and far more
likely to surrender if these assurances were combined with a Red Army attack.
But virtually all agreed that Japan was highly unlikely to surrender if the
United States did not make it clear that the emperor would not be harmed.
A few key dates help
clarify how the summer months unfolded. First, it is important to understand
that the full invasion of Japan could not have taken place, and was not even
planned for, until the spring of 1946. Moreover, the first step toward the full
invasion—an initial landing on the island of Kyūshū—could
not take place until November 1945. In short, there was plenty of time to test
advice that the war could likely be ended by a combination of assurances for
the emperor and the Red Army attack expected in early August.
The next date is July
16, when the atomic bomb was successfully tested in New Mexico. After this
test, the alternatives proposed to gain Japan’s surrender during the early
summer were abandoned. Instead, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima
on August 6 and the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9—just before
the date the Russians had originally been expected to attack. In fact, U.S.
leaders now tried to stall the Russian declaration of war. The November landing
date at Kyūshū was still almost three
months off.
After the war a top
secret internal War Department study concurred with the intelligence judgments
offered in April: “The Japanese leaders had decided to surrender and were
merely looking for sufficient pretext to convince the die-hard Army Group that
Japan had lost the war and must capitulate to the Allies.”
The study judged that
Russia's early August entry into the war “would almost certainly have furnished
this pretext, and would have been sufficient to convince all responsible
leaders that surrender was unavoidable.” It also concluded that an initial
November landing had been only a "remote" possibility and that the
full invasion of Japan in the spring of 1946 would not have occurred.
Some historians believe
that it was simply assumed that the bomb would be used once it was ready, or
that there were political reasons why the terms given the emperor could not be
changed. However, evidence discovered in recent years, together with
intercepted Japanese cables, makes it clear that this was not the view at the
top level of the U.S. government. For instance, early in August 1945, before
the bombs were dropped, the diary of Walter Brown, an assistant to the secretary
of state, records the following discussion of the latest intelligence
information by the president, Admiral Leahy, and “JFB” (Secretary of State
James F. Byrnes):
“Aboard
Augusta/President, Leahy, JFB agrred [sic] Japas [sic] looking for peace. (Leahy had another
report from Pacific) President afraid they will sue for peace through Russia
instead of some country like Sweden.”
Some historians who
agree that an invasion was highly unlikely have attempted to defend the use of
the atomic bomb for other reasons. They argue that even though the war would
almost certainly have ended before November, fighting was still going on and
American lives were being lost. Accordingly, even if the atomic bombs were not
needed to prevent either the November landing or the full 1946 invasion, using
them may have saved lives that otherwise would have been lost during the period
when a surrender was being arranged without using the bombs. How many lives, of
course, is impossible to know. Combat was reduced at
this point, and the number of days, weeks, or months involved is highly
speculative.
So far as we know, top
U.S. leaders did not make this argument, although many later tried to defend
the use of the atomic bomb by suggesting that it saved perhaps one million
American men, a figure that has been shown to have no factual basis. Moreover,
if saving every possible life was the overriding consideration, it is difficult
to explain why, against the advice of the U.S.
military, American leaders made surrender so much more difficult by putting off
assurances to the emperor and by attempting to delay the Russian attack after
the bomb test was successful.
Others have not only
challenged the argument that the atomic bomb may have saved a small number of
lives, but have suggested that it actually may have cost many thousands of
American and Japanese lives. One of those who implied as much was Secretary of
War Stimson, the Cabinet member responsible for
building the atomic bomb.
After the war, Stimson returned to the understanding on all sides that if
assurances for the Japanese emperor were not given, it was always clear that
Japan would likely fight to the last man and the war would continue
indefinitely. It was quite possible, he later wrote, that “history might find
that the United States, by its delay in stating its position, had prolonged the
war."
Stimson, along with virtually
every other top U.S. official involved, had urged that such assurances be given
early enough in the summer to allow Japan time to make its decisions. However,
on the advice of Secretary of State Byrnes, President Truman decided not to do
this. Indeed, the assurances regarding Hirohito that
were already written into the Potsdam Declaration, which warned Japan to
surrender, were deliberately removed just before the bomb was used. This made
it all but inevitable that the war would continue and that Japan would not
surrender.
Japan was not given
assurances for the emperor early on because it had been decided to wait for the
test of the atomic bomb. Had there been no bomb, there would almost certainly
have been far less delay in offering these assurances. And then, as Martin
Sherwin, a historian at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, has
observed, the war might well have ended much earlier in the summer and “many
more American soldiers and Japanese of all types might have had the opportunity
to grow old.”
We will never know, of
course, whether the war could have been ended earlier had it not been decided
to delay offering assurances. However, it seems increasingly clear to many
historians that, as so many top World War II generals and admirals believed, using the atomic bomb was not militarily necessary.
Moreover, even after two atomic bombs were used, Japan did not surrender until
the assurances for the emperor were finally given in a U.S. message implicitly
accepting this fundamental condition.
Many historians now
also understand that diplomatic considerations regarding the Soviet Union
figured importantly in the decision to use the atomic bomb because it offered
an alternative to a Russian attack. Indeed, once the successful atomic test
occurred, Secretary of State Byrnes and others reversed course entirely and
tried to end the war before the Russians got in. It is also quite clear that
many top U.S. officials saw the bomb as a powerful “big stick” to wave in
diplomacy against the Russians. The precise role such diplomatic, as opposed to
military, factors played in the decision is still not entirely clear, but many
experts recognize their importance.
Very few historians
believe the bombing of Nagasaki, the second city, can be justified on any
grounds. Moreover, even those who defend the use of the atomic bomb in general
often avoid the central point made by General Marshall that if a bomb were used,
it should first be used on a strictly military target such as a naval base.
Then, if such a bombing did not produce the desired results, a clear warning
should be given so civilians could be evacuated from the cities before another
bombing. And only if this did not work, should an inhabited city be bombed.
None of this occurred,
of course. Neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki were
important military targets. The bombs were used without explicit warning and
targeted in a manner designed to create shock by destroying as many workers’
homes as possible. It is conceivable, given all the facts we now have in our
possession, that some strictly military use and targeting of the bomb, as
Marshall urged, can be defended. But there can be no legitimate military or moral
defense of the decision to use the atomic bomb mainly
against the women, children, and elderly civilians who were left behind in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki when most of the young men had gone to war.
About the author: Gar Alperovitz is Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political
Economy in the department of government and politics at the University of
Maryland, College Park. He is the author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb
(1995) and Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (1965).
The Atomic Bomb Ended the War at the Earliest Possible
Moment
By J. Samuel Walker
In the summer of 1945,
President Harry S. Truman and his advisers focused their attention on the most
important problem they faced—achieving a complete victory in the war with Japan
as quickly as possible. The war with Germany had ended on May 8, 1945, allowing
the United States for the first time to concentrate its energies and resources
on the Pacific campaign. The Japanese were badly weakened and reeling toward
defeat, but they were not prepared to surrender. It was apparent to both the
American and the Japanese governments that the United States would win the war,
but Truman and his advisers were not certain how long the war would last before
they found a way to end it. The president was committed to a total victory at
the lowest possible cost in American lives; the Japanese planned to keep
fighting to extract more acceptable surrender terms.
The Pacific war was a
dreadfully savage affair. American forces assaulted a series of islands
occupied by the Japanese that served as stepping stones across the Pacific. The
Japanese defenders were determined to drive back the invaders, or in the later
stages of the war, to inflict heavy casualties even in a lost cause. In each
battle, the Americans eventually managed to overcome often-fanatical Japanese
resistance, but achieving their objective was a wretched and terrifying
experience. Journalist and historian William Manchester, who participated in
several offensives as a Marine sergeant, later recalled the faces of his
battle-weary comrades in his book Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War
(1979): "haggard, with jaws hanging open and the expressionless eyes of
men who had left nowhere and were going nowhere.” American troops were forced to
flush Japanese soldiers from caves, pillboxes, and other defenses,
to endure suicidal banzai attacks, and to conquer an enemy who refused to
surrender.
American progress in
the island campaign sealed the fate of the Japanese empire. After U.S. troops gained
control of Saipan, a part of the Mariana Islands, in
July 1944, Japanese military leaders acknowledged that they could not win the
war. "We can no longer direct the war,” they concluded, "with any
hope of success.” But the recognition that Japan was on the verge of defeat did
not mean that it was on the verge of surrender. Gradually, some high officials
in the Japanese government looked for ways to end the war promptly on a
satisfactory basis. Their efforts were adamantly opposed by most military leaders,
who insisted that Japan should fight a last-ditch decisive battle to secure
more favorable surrender terms. The key deliberations
over continuing the war or seeking peace took place among the six members of
the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, who were
evenly divided.
Despite their sharp
differences over the issue of war or peace, both factions agreed that Japan
would not surrender unless it received assurances that the emperor, Hirohito, would be allowed to remain on his throne. The emperor
was viewed as a deity whose removal from the throne, or worse, trial as a war criminal, was totally unacceptable to all Japanese. One U.S.
report observed in 1944 that "hanging of the Emperor to them would be
comparable to the crucifixion of Christ to us.”
The emperor himself was
ambivalent about ending the war and did not clearly favor
the position of either faction. Thus, the Japanese government was paralyzed by
indecision and internal dissension, and the war continued. From April 1 to June
21, 1945, the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war took place on the island of
Okinawa, 500 km (310 mi) south of the main Japanese islands. American
forces eventually prevailed, but only after a tortuous campaign in which about
7,000 U.S. soldiers and 5,000 sailors were killed or missing in action.
Within this context,
Truman sought a way to force a Japanese surrender with the lowest possible cost
in American lives. He and his advisers feared that an American invasion of the
Japanese homeland that would take a terrible toll in U.S. casualties might be
necessary, and they looked for other options that would end the war on American
terms. The president and other top officials seriously considered three
alternatives to an invasion. None offered a certain path to victory, alone or
in combination, and all carried major drawbacks that made them of dubious
value.
The first was to
continue and intensify the bombing and naval blockade of Japan. Waves of
American B-29 bombers had attacked Japan since late 1944. The single most
destructive raid occurred on March 9 and 10, 1945, when the firebombing of
Tokyo, the capital of Japan, flattened an area of about 41 square kilometers (16 square miles) and killed more than 83,000
Japanese. Despite the enormous death tolls and damage they caused, the bombings
of Japanese cities did not bring about surrender. Many military leaders,
notably the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Army, Chief of Staff George C.
Marshall, did not believe that the bombings would force an early Japanese surrender.
A second alternative to
an invasion was to wait for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to
enter the war by attacking Japanese forces in Manchuria, which Japan had seized
from China. The Soviets and the Japanese had signed a nonaggression pact in
1941, and U.S. leaders hoped that once the Soviets declared war on Japan, as
they had promised to do, it would hasten the end of the war. But American
military officials did not suggest that Soviet participation would be enough in
itself to force the Japanese to quit the war. Marshall's staff told Truman on
June 4, 1945, that Soviet entry into the war would be helpful but would trigger
a Japanese surrender only if "coupled with a landing, or imminent threat
of landing, on Japan.” Furthermore, the Soviets' entry into the war would
inevitably expand their power and influence in Asia, which was not a welcome
prospect when tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were
already steadily increasing over contentious issues in Europe.
A third possible
alternative to an invasion was to allow the Japanese to retain the emperor with
his power greatly reduced. The United States had announced a policy of
"unconditional surrender” in 1943, but by the summer of 1945, some leading
officials argued that Japan might be more likely to surrender if it received
assurances that the institution of the emperor would not be abolished.
But modifying the
demand for unconditional surrender in this way presented serious risks. It
could strengthen the hand and increase the credibility of the militants in the
Japanese government who opposed surrender, especially after the heavy price
that U.S. forces had paid at Okinawa. Softening the unconditional surrender
requirement could also undermine support among the American people for the war
and perhaps lead to a compromise settlement that would allow Japan to renew its
aggression in the future. And because the American people passionately hated
the Japanese and strongly endorsed unconditional surrender, Truman could lose
political support at home if he relaxed the policy. As a result, he vacillated
and never made a decision on whether to modify the policy.
Advocates of moderating
the unconditional surrender formula received some potentially encouraging
information on July 13, 1945, when American intercepts of Japanese diplomatic
cables decoded a message in which the foreign minister, Shigenori Togo, told
his ambassador to the Soviet Union, Naotake Sato,
that the emperor wanted to end the war and that the major obstacle to peace was
the demand of the United States for unconditional surrender. But U.S. officials
were highly skeptical that this cable reflected the
emperor's true feelings. General John Weckerling, one
of the top intelligence officers on Marshall's staff, thought the chances that
the emperor had decided on peace were "remote.” He found it much more
likely that the cable was a ploy to “appeal to war weariness in the United
States.” Other U.S. leaders accepted Weckerling's
conclusions.
Whatever the reasons
behind Togo's message, the Japanese government never sent a signal to the
United States that it would surrender on the sole condition that the emperor
could remain. If it had done so, as it did a month later after the atomic
bombings, the Truman administration would almost certainly have approved, as it
did after the atomic bombings, and the war would have ended. But Japanese
leaders were so torn by discord in July 1945 that they could not agree to make
such an appeal, and the emperor still had not made his own position clear.
There was a fourth
alternative to a U.S. invasion of Japan that only a few high officials in the
U.S. government knew about. Throughout the war, the United States had been
striving feverishly to develop a new weapon, the atomic bomb. By the spring of
1945, it was expected to be ready soon, and assuming that it worked as
designed, it might provide a means to force a Japanese surrender without the
disadvantages that burdened the other options. On July 16, 1945, the first
atomic bomb was successfully tested in New Mexico, which presented Truman with
an awesome new weapon that might—no one could be certain— bring about a prompt
end to the war.
The successful test of
the bomb occurred one day before the opening of the Potsdam Conference in
Germany, during which Truman negotiated with British and Soviet leaders over
the shape of the postwar world. The president was
elated by the news of the atomic explosion. It gave him much greater confidence
in dealing with his formidable counterparts, British prime
minister Winston Churchill and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, over a
series of difficult questions.
Truman's secretary of
state, James F. Byrnes, was convinced that the bomb would give the United
States increased leverage in negotiating with Stalin over disputed issues.
Truman shared the hope that the atomic bomb would improve his diplomatic
bargaining position, but he still viewed it primarily as a weapon of war.
Byrnes was not involved in military policy, and U.S. military leaders, not the
secretary of state, were instrumental in the decision to use the bomb. Their
principal concern was to end the war at the earliest possible moment, and they
regarded the bomb as the most promising and least risky way to do it.
As the Potsdam
Conference drew to an end, the United States, Britain, and China issued a
warning to Japan. The document, known as the Potsdam Declaration, called on the
Japanese government to surrender unconditionally or face "prompt and utter
destruction.” Several of Truman's advisers had urged that the declaration
unambiguously state that Japan could retain the emperor after it surrendered.
Byrnes opposed this proposal, largely on political grounds, and removed
language in a draft of the declaration that would have made a clear offer that
the emperor could remain. Nevertheless, the Potsdam Declaration included
language that left an opening for the retention of the emperor by calling for
the establishment of a peaceful government formed by the "freely expressed
will of the Japanese people.” There was no doubt that the "freely
expressed will” of the Japanese people would be to keep the emperor.
Foreign Minister Togo
recognized that acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration as a basis for peace
could very well preserve the institution of the emperor. But the Japanese
government remained paralyzed by its internal divisions. The die-hard military
faction found the declaration offensive and unacceptable, and the Japanese
premier, Kantaro Suzuki, dismissed it by saying that
Japan would "press forward to carry the war to a successful conclusion.”
A clearer statement by
the United States that it would not seek to remove the emperor might have
persuaded the Japanese to surrender, but in light of the implacable hostility
of the militants and the emperor's continuing ambivalence about ending the war,
this is highly doubtful. The Japanese rejected the declaration not because they
failed to recognize the flexibility it demonstrated on the issue of the status
of the emperor, but because they hoped to win other concessions by fighting on.
By rejecting the
Potsdam Declaration, Japan forfeited its last opportunity to avoid the horrors
of the atomic bomb. The city of Hiroshima was largely destroyed, and according
to U.S. estimates somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 people were killed or
missing as a result of a single atomic bomb dropped from a B-29 bomber on
August 6, 1945. Three days later a second bomb wiped out much of Nagasaki, and 40,000 people were either killed or missing.
Despite the two atomic
attacks, the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War remained bitterly
divided. To end the stalemate, the emperor, whose ambivalence about seeking
peace had ended after the bombing of Hiroshima, appealed to the Supreme Council
to surrender with the single condition that the imperial institution be
preserved. The militants reluctantly agreed to honor
this request, in part because of their respect for the emperor and in part
because the devastation of Nagasaki had demolished their arguments that the
bomb used against Hiroshima had not been an atomic weapon. The Japanese sent a
message to the United States offering to surrender if the emperor were not
removed. After intense deliberations by Truman’s advisers, the United States
sent a vague response to the Japanese message that avoided an explicit
guarantee about the status of the emperor but suggested that the imperial
institution might be allowed to continue. The U.S. reply caused a new crisis in
Tokyo and revived sharp conflicts among the members of the Supreme Council for
the Direction of the War. Finally, after a second appeal by the emperor, the
Japanese agreed to surrender.
The atomic bomb was
decisive in ending the war. Truman's use of the new weapon was an easy and
obvious military decision for him. As he had hoped, it brought about a prompt
and complete victory over Japan without risking the drawbacks of the other
possible approaches for ending the war. In light of the circumstances that
existed in the summer of 1945, it is difficult to imagine Truman or any other
American president electing not to use the bomb.
Following the end of
the war, myths about the reasons behind the use of the bomb became articles of
faith for many Americans. The most prominent is that Truman authorized the
atomic attacks because the only alternative would have been an invasion of
Japan that would have cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. This postwar explanation for the decision to drop the bomb,
advanced by Truman and some of his advisers, was seriously misleading. Other
alternatives for ending the war existed, even if they were not as attractive to
U.S. policy-makers as using the bomb. Because of the severe hardships it was
suffering, Japan probably would have surrendered before the American invasion
began around November 1, 1945. If an invasion had proved necessary, U.S.
military experts estimated that in the worst case, the number of American
deaths would have run in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands.
But even without an invasion, U.S. soldiers and sailors would die as long as
the war continued. In the minds of Truman and his advisers at the time, ending
the war and saving even a relatively small number of American lives was ample justification for using the bomb.
Another myth about the
end of the war is just as misleading. It suggests that Truman was well aware
that the Japanese were looking for a way to surrender, and that he used atomic
weapons not to defeat Japan but to intimidate the Soviet Union in the emerging
Cold War. A key element in this formulation is that the United States could
have persuaded the Japanese to surrender at the time of the Potsdam Declaration
by guaranteeing the status of the emperor. However, the statement that the
United States made about the emperor's status after Hiroshima was no clearer
than the Potsdam Declaration. After flatly rejecting the Potsdam Declaration as
a basis for peace, Japan accepted equally vague U.S. assurances about the
emperor only two weeks later. The dramatic shift in the position of the
Japanese government was a direct result of the atomic bomb. The bomb,
therefore, was essential for ending the war on American terms at the earliest
possible moment.
About the author: J.
Samuel Walker is the author of Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use
of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (1997).
Effects of the Atomic Bombs
Upon witnessing the
first test explosion of an atomic bomb, American physicist J. Robert
Oppenheimer recalled a line from the Hindu poem, the Bhagavad-Gita, “Now I am
become death, the destroyer of worlds.” On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United
States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, and the metaphor
of destruction became reality. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey was a
joint Army-Navy commission formed to study the impact of bombing during World
War II (1939-1945). In 1946 the group produced this report, detailing the
devastating effects of the bombs on those two cities. The report also
speculates on whether the bombs were necessary to force a Japanese surrender,
part of a historical debate that still engenders controversy.
The United States
Strategic Bombing Survey
The Attacks and Damage
1. The attacks.—A single atomic bomb, the first weapon of its type ever used
against a target, exploded over the city of Hiroshima at 0815 on the morning of
6 August 1945. Most of the industrial workers had already reported to work, but
many workers were enroute and nearly all the school
children and some industrial employees were at work in the open on the program
of building removal to provide firebreaks and disperse valuables to the
country. The attack came 45 minutes after the "all clear" had been
sounded from a previous alert. Because of the lack of warning and the
populace's indifference to small groups of planes, the explosion came as an
almost complete surprise, and the people had not taken shelter. Many were
caught in the open, and most of the rest in flimsily constructed homes or
commercial establishments.
The bomb exploded
slightly northwest of the center of the city. Because
of this accuracy and the flat terrain and circular shape of the city, Hiroshima
was uniformly and extensively devastated. Practically the entire densely or
moderately built-up portion of the city was leveled
by blast and swept by fire. A "fire-storm," a phenomenon which has
occurred infrequently in other conflagrations, developed in Hiroshima: fires
springing up almost simultaneously over the wide flat area around the center of the city drew in air from all directions. The
inrush of air easily overcame the natural ground wind, which had a velocity of
only about 5 miles per hour. The "fire-wind” attained a
maximum velocity of 30 to 40 miles per hour 2 to 3 hours after the explosion.
The "fire-wind” and the symmetry of the built-up center
of the city gave a roughly circular shape to the 4.4 square miles which were
almost completely burned out.
The surprise, the
collapse of many buildings, and the conflagration contributed to an
unprecedented casualty rate. Seventy to eighty thousand people were killed, or
missing and presumed dead, and an equal number were
injured. The magnitude of casualties is set in relief by a comparison with the
Tokyo fire raid of 9–10 March 1945, in which, though nearly 16 square miles
were destroyed, the number killed was no larger, and fewer people were injured.
At Nagasaki, 3 days
later, the city was scarcely more prepared, though vague references to the
Hiroshima disaster had appeared in the newspaper of 8 August. From the Nagasaki
Prefectural Report on the bombing, something of the
shock of the explosion can be inferred:
The day was clear with
not very much wind—an ordinary midsummer's day. The strain of continuous air
attack on the city's population and the severity of the summer had vitiated
enthusiastic air raid precautions.…
The city remained on
the warning alert, but when two B-29's were again
sighted coming in the raid signal was not given immediately; the bomb was
dropped at 1102 and the raid signal was given a few minutes later, at 1109.
Thus only about 400 people were in the city's tunnel shelters, which were
adequate for about 30 percent of the population.
When the atomic bomb
exploded, an intense flash was observed first, as though a large amount of
magnesium had been ignited, and the scene grew hazy with white smoke. At the
same time at the center of the explosion, and a short
while later in other areas, a tremendous roaring sound was heard and a crushing
blast wave and intense heat were felt. The people of Nagasaki, even those who
lived on the outer edge of the blast, all felt as though they had sustained a
direct hit, and the whole city suffered damage such as would have resulted from
direct hits everywhere by ordinary bombs.
The zero area, where
the damage was most severe, was almost completely wiped out and for a short
while after the explosion no reports came out of that area. People who were in
comparatively damaged areas reported their condition under the impression that
they had received a direct hit. If such a great amount of damage could be
wreaked by a near miss, then the power of the atomic bomb is unbelievably
great.
In Nagasaki, no fire
storm arose, and the uneven terrain of the city confined the maximum intensity
of damage to the valley over which the bomb exploded. The area of nearly
complete devastation was thus much smaller; only about 1.8 square miles.
Casualties were lower also; between 35,000 and 40,000 were killed, and about
the same number injured. People in the tunnel shelters escaped injury, unless
exposed in the entrance shaft.
The difference in the
totals of destruction to lives and property at the two cities suggests the
importance of the special circumstances of layout and construction of the
cities, which affect the results of the bombings and must be considered in
evaluating the effectiveness of the atomic bombs.…
Hiroshima before the
war was the seventh largest city in Japan, with a population of over 340,000,
and was the principal administrative and commercial center
of the southwestern part of the country. As the
headquarters of the Second Army and of the Chugoku Regional Army, it was one of
the most important military command stations in Japan, the site of one of the
largest military supply depots, and the foremost military shipping point for
both troops and supplies. Its shipping activities had virtually ceased by the
time of the attack, however, because of sinkings and
the mining of the Inland Sea. It had been relatively unimportant industrially
before the war, ranking only twelfth, but during the war new plants were built
that increased its significance. These factories were not concentrated, but
spread over the outskirts of the city; this location, we shall see, accounts
for the slight industrial damage.
The impact of the
atomic bomb shattered the normal fabric of community life and disrupted the
organizations for handling the disaster. In the 30 percent of the population
killed and the additional 30 percent seriously injured were included
corresponding proportions of the civic authorities and rescue groups. A mass
flight from the city took place, as persons sought safety from the
conflagration and a place for shelter and food. Within 24 hours, however,
people were streaming back by the thousands in search of relatives and friends and
to determine the extent of their property loss. Road blocks had to be set up
along all routes leading into the city, to keep curious and unauthorized people
out. The bulk of the dehoused population found refuge
in the surrounding countryside; within the city the food supply was short and
shelter virtually nonexistent.…
The status of medical
facilities and personnel dramatically illustrates the difficulties facing
authorities. Of more than 200 doctors in Hiroshima before the attack, over 90
percent were casualties and only about 30 physicians were able to perform their
normal duties a month after the raid. Out of 1,780 nurses, 1,654 were killed or
injured. Though some stocks of supplies had been dispersed, many were
destroyed. Only three out of 45 civilian hospitals could be used, and two large
Army hospitals were rendered unusable. Those within 3,000 feet of ground zero
were totally destroyed, and the mortality rate of the occupants was practically
100 percent.…
Fire-fighting and
rescue units were equally stripped of men and equipment. Father Siemes reports that 30 hours elapsed before organized
rescue parties were observed. In Hiroshima, only 16 pieces of fire-fighting
equipment were available for fighting the conflagration, three of them
borrowed. However, it is unlikely that any public fire department in the world,
even without damage to equipment or casualties to personnel, could have
prevented development of a conflagration in Hiroshima, or combatted
it with success at more than a few locations along its perimeter. The total
fire damage would not have been much different.
All utilities and
transportation services were disrupted over varying lengths of time. In most
cases, however, the demand fell off even more precipitously than the available
supply, and where the service was needed it could be restored at a minimal
level.…
By 1 November, the
population of Hiroshima was back to 137,000. The city required complete
rebuilding. The entire heart, the main administrative and commercial as well as
residential section, was gone. In this area only about 50 buildings, all of
reinforced concrete, remained standing. All of these suffered blast damage and
all save about a dozen were almost completely gutted by fire; only 5 could be
used without major repairs.…
…The official Japanese
figures summed up the building destruction at 62,000 out of a total of 90,000
buildings in the urban area, or 69 percent. An additional 6,000 or 6.6 percent
were severely damaged, and most of the others showed glass breakage or disturbance
of roof tile. These figures show the magnitude of the problem facing the
survivors.
Despite the absence of
sanitation measures, no epidemics are reported to have broken out. In view of
the lack of medical facilities, supplies, and personnel, and the disruption of
the sanitary system, the escape from epidemics may seem surprising. The
experience of other bombed cities in Germany and Japan shows that this is not
an isolated case. A possible explanation may lie in the disinfecting action of
the extensive fires. In later weeks, disease rates rose, but not sharply.…
At Nagasaki, the scale
of destruction was greater than at Hiroshima, though the actual area destroyed
was smaller because of the terrain and the point of fall of the bomb. The
Nagasaki Prefectural Report describes vividly the
impress of the bomb on the city and its inhabitants:
Within a radius of 1 kilometer from ground zero, men and animals died almost
instantaneously from the tremendous blast pressure and heat; houses and other
structures were smashed, crushed and scattered; and fires broke out. The strong
complex steel members of the structures of the Mitsubishi Steel Works were bent
and twisted like jelly and the roofs of the reinforced concrete National
Schools were crumpled and collapsed, indicating a force beyond imagination.
Trees of all sizes lost their branches or were uprooted or broken off at the
trunk.…
General Effects
1. Casualties.—The most striking result of the atomic bombs was the great
number of casualties. The exact number of dead and injured will never be known
because of the confusion after the explosions. Persons unaccounted for might
have been burned beyond recognition in the falling buildings, disposed of in
one of the mass cremations of the first week of recovery, or driven out of the
city to die or recover without any record remaining. No sure count of even the preraid populations existed. Because of the decline in
activity in the two port cities, the constant threat of incendiary raids, and
the formal evacuation programs of the Government, an unknown number of the
inhabitants had either drifted away from the cities or been removed according
to plan. In this uncertain situation, estimates of casualties have generally
ranged between 100,000 and 180,000 for Hiroshima, and between 50,000 and
100,000 for Nagasaki. The Survey believes the dead at Hiroshima to have been
between 70,000 and 80,000, with an equal number injured; at Nagasaki over
35,000 dead and somewhat more than that injured seems the most plausible
estimate.
Most of the immediate
casualties did not differ from those caused by incendiary or high-explosive
raids. The outstanding difference was the presence of radiation effects, which
became unmistakable about a week after the bombing. At the time of impact,
however, the causes of death and injury were flash burns, secondary effects of
blast and falling debris, and burns from blazing buildings.…
The seriousness of
these radiation effects may be measured by the fact that 95 percent of the
traced survivors of the immediate explosion who were within 3,000 feet suffered
from radiation disease.…
A plausible estimate of
the importance of the various causes of death would range as follows:
Flash burns, 20 to 30
percent.
Other
injuries, 50 to 60 percent.
Radiation sickness, 15
to 20 percent.…
Flash burns.—The flash of the explosion, which was extremely brief,
emitted radiant heat travelling at the speed of light. Flash burns thus
followed the explosion instantaneously. The fact that relatively few victims
suffered burns of the eyeballs should not be interpreted as an indication that
the radiant heat followed the flash, or that time was required to build up to
maximum heat intensity. The explanation is simply that the structure of the eye
is more resistant to heat than is average human skin, and near ground zero the
recessed position of the eyeball offered protection from the overhead
explosion. Peak temperatures lasted only momentarily.
Survivors in the two
cities stated that people who were in the open directly under the explosion of
the bomb were so severely burned that the skin was charred dark brown or black
and that they died within a few minutes or hours.…
Because of the brief
duration of the flash wave and the shielding effects of almost any
objects—leaves and clothing as well as buildings—there were many interesting
cases of protection. The radiant heat came in a direct line like light, so that
the area burned corresponded to this directed exposure. Persons whose sides
were toward the explosion often showed definite burns of both sides of the back
while the hollow of the back escaped. People in buildings or houses were
apparently burned only if directly exposed through the windows. The most
striking instance was that of a man writing before a window. His hands were
seriously burned but his exposed face and neck suffered only slight burns due
to the angle of entry of the radiant heat through the window.
Flash burns were
largely confined to exposed areas of the body, but on occasion would occur
through varying thicknesses of clothing. Generally speaking, the thicker the
clothing the more likely it was to give complete protection against flash
burns. One woman was burned over the shoulder except for a T-shaped area about
one-fourth inch in breadth; the T-shaped area corresponded to an increased
thickness of the clothing from the seam of the garment. Other people were
burned through a single thickness of kimono but were unscathed or only slightly
affected underneath the lapel. In other instances, skin was burned beneath
tightly fitting clothing but was unburned beneath loosely fitting portions.
Finally, white or light colors reflected heat and
afforded some protection; people wearing black or dark-colored
clothing were more likely to be burned.
…Comparatively few
instances were reported of arms or legs being torn from the body by flying
debris. Another indication of the rarity of over-pressure is the scarcity of
ruptured eardrums. Among 106 victims examined by the Japanese in Hiroshima on
11 and 12 August, only three showed ruptured eardrums.…
Injuries produced by
falling and flying debris were much more numerous, and naturally increased in
number and seriousness nearer the center of the
affected area. The collapse of the buildings was sudden, so that thousands of
people were pinned beneath the debris. Many were able to extricate themselves
or received aid in escaping, but large numbers succumbed either to their
injuries or to fire before they could be extricated. The flimsiness of Japanese
residential construction should not be allowed to obscure the dangers of
collapse; though the walls and partitions were light, the houses had heavy roof
timbers and heavy roof tiles. Flying glass from panels also caused a large
number of casualties, even up to 15,000 feet from ground zero.
The number of burns
from secondary fires was slight among survivors, but it was probable that a
large number of the deaths in both cities came from the burning of people
caught in buildings. Eyewitness accounts agree that many fatalities occurred in
this way, either immediately or as a result of the lack of care for those who
did extricate themselves with serious burns. There are no references, however,
to people in the streets succumbing either to heat or to carbon monoxide as
they did in Tokyo or in Hamburg, Germany. A few burns resulted from clothing
set afire by the flash wave, but in most cases people were able to beat out
such fires without serious injury to the skin.
Radiation disease.—The radiation effects upon survivors resulted from the gamma
rays liberated by the fission process rather than from induced radio-activity
or the lingering radio-activity of deposits of primary fission products. Both
at Nagasaki and at Hiroshima, pockets of radio-activity have been detected
where fission products were directly deposited, but the degree of activity in
these areas was insufficient to produce casualties. Similarly, induced
radio-activity from the interaction of neutrons with matter caused no
authenticated fatalities. But the effects of gamma rays—here used in a general
sense to include all penetrating high-frequency radiations and neutrons that
caused injury—are well established, even though the Allies had no observers in
the affected areas for several weeks after the explosions.
Our understanding of
radiation casualties is not complete. In part the deficiency is in our basic
knowledge of how radiation affects animal tissue. In the words of Dr. Robert
Stone of the Manhattan Project, "The fundamental mechanism of the action
of radiation on living tissues has not been understood.…”
According to the
Japanese, those individuals very near the center of
the explosion but not affected by flash burns or secondary injuries became ill
within 2 or 3 days. Bloody diarrhea followed, and the
victims expired, some within 2 to 3 days after the onset and the majority
within a week. Autopsies showed remarkable changes in the blood picture—almost
complete absence of white blood cells, and deterioration of bone marrow. Mucous
membranes of the throat, lungs, stomach, and the intestines showed acute
inflammation.
The majority of the
radiation cases, who were at greater distances, did not show severe symptoms
until 1 to 4 weeks after the explosion, though many felt weak and listless on
the following day. After a day or two of mild nausea and vomiting, the appetite
improved and the person felt quite well until symptoms reappeared at a later
date.… Within 12 to 48 hours, fever became evident. In many instances it
reached only 100° Fahrenheit and remained for only a few days. In other cases,
the temperature went as high as 104° or 106° Fahrenheit. The degree of fever
apparently had a direct relation to the degree of exposure to radiation. Once
developed, the fever was usually well sustained, and in those cases terminating
fatally it continued high until the end. If the fever subsided, the patient
usually showed a rapid disappearance of other symptoms and soon regained his
feeling of good health. The other symptoms commonly seen were shortage of white
corpuscles, loss of hair, inflammation and gangrene of the gums, inflammation
of the mouth and pharynx, ulceration of the lower gastro-intestinal tract,
small livid spots (petechiae) resulting from escape
of blood into the tissues of the skin or mucous membrane, and larger hemorrhages of gums, nose and skin.…
A decrease in the
number of white blood corpuscles in the circulating blood appears to have been
a constant accompaniment of radiation disease, even existing in some milder
cases without other radiation effects. The degree of leukopenia
was probably the most accurate index of the amount of radiation a person
received. The normal white blood count averages 5,000 to 7,000: leukopenia is indicated by a count of 4,000 or less. The
white blood count in the more severe cases ranged from 1,500 to 0, with almost
entire disappearance of the bone marrow. The moderately severe cases showed
evidence of degeneration of bone marrow and total white blood counts of 1,500
to 3,000. The milder cases showed white blood counts of 3,000 to 4,000 with
more minor degeneration changes in the bone marrow. The changes in the system
for forming red blood corpuscles developed later, but were equally severe.
Radiation clearly
affected reproduction, though the extent has not been determined. Sterility has
been a common finding throughout Japan, especially under the conditions of the
last 2 years, but there are signs of an increase in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
areas to be attributed to the radiation. Sperm counts done in Hiroshima under
American supervision revealed low sperm counts or complete aspermia
for as long as 3 months afterward in males who were within 5,000 feet of the center of the explosion. Cases dying of radiation disease
showed clear effects on spermatogenesis. Study of sections of ovaries from
autopsied radiation victims has not yet been completed. The effects of the bomb
on pregnant women are marked, however. Of women in various stages of pregnancy
who were within 3,000 feet of ground zero, all known cases have had miscarriages.
Even up to 6,500 feet they have had miscarriages or premature infants who died
shortly after birth. In the group between 6,500 and 10,000 feet, about
one-third have given birth to apparently normal
children. Two months after the explosion, the city's total incidence of
miscarriages, abortions, and premature births was 27 percent as compared with a
normal rate of 6 percent. Since other factors than radiation contributed to
this increased rate, a period of years will be required to learn the ultimate
effects of mass radiation upon reproduction.…
Unfortunately, no exact
definition of the killing power of radiation can yet be given, nor a
satisfactory account of the sort and thickness of concrete or earth that will
shield people.… In the meanwhile the awesome lethal effects of the atomic bomb
and the insidious additional peril of the gamma rays speak for themselves.
There is reason to
believe that if the effects of blast and fire had been entirely absent from the
bombing, the number of deaths among people within a radius of one-half mile
from ground zero would have been almost as great as the actual figures and the
deaths among those within 1 mile would have been only slightly less. The
principal difference would have been in the time of the deaths. Instead of
being killed outright as were most of these victims, they would have survived
for a few days or even 3 or 4 weeks, only to die eventually of radiation
disease.…
2. Morale.—As might be expected, the primary reaction to the bomb was
fear—uncontrolled terror, strengthened by the sheer horror of the destruction
and suffering witnessed and experienced by the survivors.…
The behavior
of the living immediately after the bombings, as described earlier, clearly
shows the state of shock that hindered rescue efforts. A Nagasaki survivor
illustrates succinctly the mood of survivors:
…I was working at the
office. I was talking to a friend at the window. I saw the whole city in a red
flame, then I ducked. The pieces of the glass hit my
back and face. My dress was torn off by the glass. Then I got up and ran to the
mountain where the good shelter was.
The two typical
impulses were those: Aimless, even hysterical activity or flight from the city
to shelter and food.
The accentuated effect
of these bombs came not only from the surprise and their crushing power, but
also from the feeling of security among the inhabitants of the two cities
before the attacks. Though Nagasaki had undergone five raids in the previous
year, they had not been heavy, and Hiroshima had gone almost untouched until
the morning of 6 August 1945. In both cities many people felt that they would
be spared, and the various rumors
in circulation supporting such feeling covered a wide range of wishful
thoughts. There were so many Christians there, many Japanese-Americans came
from Hiroshima, the city was a famous beauty spot—these and other even more
fantastic reasons encouraged hopes. Other people felt vaguely that their city
was being saved for “something big,” however.…
3. The Japanese
decision to surrender.—The further question of the
effects of the bombs on the morale of the Japanese leaders and their decision
to abandon the war is tied up with other factors. The atomic bomb had more
effect on the thinking of Government leaders than on the morale of the rank and
file of civilians outside of the target areas. It cannot be said, however, that
the atomic bomb convinced the leaders who effected the
peace of the necessity of surrender. The decision to seek ways and means to
terminate the war, influenced in part by knowledge of the low state of popular
morale, had been taken in May 1945 by the Supreme War Guidance Council.
As early as the spring
of 1944, a group of former prime ministers and others close to the Emperor had
been making efforts toward bringing the war to an end.…
Thus the problem facing
the peace leaders in the Government was to bring about a
surrender despite the hesitation of the War Minister and the opposition
of the Army and Navy chiefs of staff. This had to be done, moreover, without
precipitating counter measures by the Army which would eliminate the entire
peace group. This was done ultimately by bringing the Emperor actively into the
decision to accept the Potsdam terms. So long as the Emperor openly supported such
a policy and could be presented to the country as doing so, the military, which
had fostered and lived on the idea of complete obedience to the Emperor, could
not effectively rebel.
A preliminary step in
this direction had been taken at the Imperial Conference on 26 June. At this
meeting, the Emperor, taking an active part despite his custom to the contrary,
stated that he desired the development of a plan to end the war as well as one
to defend the home islands. This was followed by a renewal of earlier efforts
to get the Soviet Union to intercede with the United States, which were
effectively answered by the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July and the Russian
declaration of war on 9 August.
The atomic bombings
considerably speeded up these political maneuverings
within the government. This in itself was partly a morale effect, since there
is ample evidence that members of the Cabinet were worried by the prospect of
further atomic bombings, especially on the remains of Tokyo. The bombs did not
convince the military that defense of the home
islands was impossible, if their behavior in
Government councils is adequate testimony. It did permit the Government to say,
however, that no army without the weapon could possibly resist an enemy who had
it, thus saving "face” for the Army leaders and not reflecting on the
competence of Japanese industrialists or the valor of
the Japanese soldier. In the Supreme War Guidance Council voting remained
divided, with the war minister and the two chiefs of staff unwilling to accept
unconditional surrender. There seems little doubt, however, that the bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki weakened their inclination to oppose the peace group.
The peace effort
culminated in an Imperial conference held on the night of 9 August and
continued into the early hours of 10 August, for which the stage was set by the
atomic bomb and the Russian war declaration. At this meeting the Emperor, again
breaking his customary silence, stated specifically that he wanted acceptance
of the Potsdam terms.
A quip was current in
high Government circles at this time that the atomic bomb was the real Kamikaze,
since it saved Japan from further useless slaughter and destruction. It is
apparent that in the atomic bomb the Japanese found the opportunity which they
had been seeking, to break the existing deadlock within the Government over
acceptance of the Potsdam terms.
Source: Articles from Bibliobase edited by Michael A. Bellesiles.
Copyright © 1998 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All
rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.