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Politics : World Affairs Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (2570)	12/11/2002 10:15:35 AM
From: zonder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3959

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

To: Thomas M. who wrote (2570)	12/11/2002 1:28:22 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3959

That isn't even a serious topic of debate That simply isn't true. Its even a further stretch to call the source dishonest instead of (in your opinion) mistaken. since the post-war study revealed that a US invasion would have cost 20-40,000 lives. I have never heard of this study. Who did it? Its very unlikely that an invasion would have only cost 20 to 40k lives. Iwo Jima cost about 28,000 lives and Okinawa might have cost 250k many of them Japanese civilians. It is not reasonable to assume that you could have counted on less death then that from an invasion. If you are just talking about deaths of American soldiers then you ignore all the Japanese that would have died, and in any case avoiding 20 to 40k American deaths would have in the minds of those at the time and probably most people today been enough justification for the dropping of the atomic bombs. okinawatimes.co.jp geocities.com trumanlibrary.org emory.edu We could likely have gotten a Japanese surrender without an invasion. The only serious debate is whether it was known BEFORE the bombing that Japan was ready to surrender. That's not the only serious debate but even if it was, if we didn't know that Japan would surrender without an invasion then the prospect of death from the invasion still serves as justification for the bombs. The lack of knowledge would make the bomb dropping a horrible mistake rather then an unjustified atrocity. And there where many in Japan who did now want to surrender even after the bombs where dropped. A surrender probably would have happened without either an invasion or dropping the bomb but it is not certain, and in the mean time many Japanese civilians would have died from conventional bombs, incendiaries, or from starvation do to the destruction of Japan's economy (and the fact that what did survive was used for the war effort). Tim

To: Thomas M. who wrote (2570)	12/11/2002 7:58:54 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3959

post-war study revealed that a US invasion would have cost 20-40,000 lives. And that was an invasion. Well, first of all POST-WAR studies weren't available at the time the decisions were made. Second, the study must be crap because it is foolish to conclude that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would cost far fewer lives than the invasion of Okinowa had. In 1945, we'd had a lot of experience invading Japanese held territory - i.e. the Japanese held islands in the Pacific. That experience showed that Japanese would stubbornly resist invasion.