Yes it was known before the bombing that Japan would surrender.
Among others:
We now know that the allies were aware by May 1945 that the Japanese were attempting to make contact in order to negotiate a surrender and that Japan was being overcome by conventional might. According to Admiral William D. Leahy, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Truman's Chief of Staff:
"The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... In being the first to use it [the atomic bomb], we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."
April: General Curtis le May (US Air Force) expressed a belief that the war could be ended by September or October without an invasion.
May 12: William Donovan, Director of the Office of Strategic Studies, reported to President Truman that Shuichi Kate, Japan's Minister to Switzerland, wished to "help arrange for a cessation of hostilities."
Mid-June: "A surrender of Japan can be arranged with terms that can be accepted by Japan and that will make fully satisfactory provision for America's defense against future trans-Pacific aggression." Admiral W.D. Leahy, President's Chief of Staff.
July 16: The US exploded a nuclear bomb secrety in the New Mexico desert to prove to themselves that it would work.
July 18: Stalin told Truman that he had had a telegram from the Japanese Emperor himself asking for peace. Code-breakers were already aware of this. The Soviet Union was still officially neutral at that time.
August 10: The Japanese publicly broadcast an offer of surrender. Truman ordered conventional military operations to continue full force.
August 14: The Japanese surrender was accepted.
"It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the first bomb fell." (UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill.)
"Certainly prior to 31 December 1945... Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." (US Strategic Bombing Survey, 1946.)
If Japan was ready to surrender, there must have been another reason for the atom bombs to have been used. This, unbelievable as it might seem, was to make a point to the Soviet Union.
Vannevar Bush (Chief Aide for atomic matters to Stimson, the Secretary of State for War) confirmed this when he said that the bomb was: "delivered on time so there was no necessity for any concessions to Russia at the end of the war."
oneworld.org |
