"On July 26, 1945, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declarations calling for Japan's surrender. Two days later the Japanese Premier announced to the Japanese press that his government would ignore the ultimatum."
The Japanese govmnt was split into factions. If I'm remembering this correctly, one group included the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, most members of the nascent Diet, and some military leaders. The other main faction consisted of many military leaders, especially those on the asian continent (Manchuria, Korea, China) who had not fought the allied powers to any great extent, along with some members of the General Staff and many die-hard junior officers. The Premier was more or less stuck in the middle. The second faction (see above) had more guns.
The die-hards and firebrand juniors didn't want to surrender under any circumstances. For many of the others, the only real sticking point had to do with the status of the Emperor, who they wished to protect and retain.
It is to Hirohito's credit that he made his address ordering surrender before he knew whether he would be retained or tried as a war criminal.
It's true that an invasion of the home islands would almost certainly have resulted in enormous casualties on both sides. The opinion that there was no way for us to win without either dropping nuclear bombs or invading the home islands with conventional weapons is only one more example of the impatience and lack of imagination of the US administration and the leaders of our armed forces, examples of which there have been many before, during, and after that war.
Why bring this stuff up, anyway? This is nothing to do with your, or your misinformed source's, innocence of historical knowledge or the existence of a Japanese nuclear program during WWII. |
