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

To: bentway who wrote (189199)	6/13/2006 3:47:19 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 281500

The first article gets into that, in the part I didn't post. My second one contained a lot of the details. Technically speaking, there wouldn't have been many civilians in Japan after an invasion. They would all have been soldiers ready to protect the Emperor God. I am always amazed by this story... Following the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 (right), the Japanese government met to consider what to do next. The emperor had been urging since June that Japan find some way to end the war, but the Japanese Minister of War and the heads of both the Army and the Navy held to their position that Japan should wait and see if arbitration via the Soviet Union might still produce something less than a surrender. Military leaders also hoped that if they could hold out until the ground invasion of Japan began, they would be able to inflict so many casualties on the Allies that Japan still might win some sort of negotiated settlement. Next came the virtually simultaneous arrival of news of the Soviet declaration of war on Japan of August 8, 1945, and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki of the following day. Another Imperial Council was held the night of August 9-10, and this time the vote on surrender was a tie, 3-to-3. For the first time in a generation, the emperor (right) stepped forward from his normally ceremonial-only role and personally broke the tie, ordering Japan to surrender. On August 10, 1945, Japan offered to surrender to the Allies, the only condition being that the emperor be allowed to remain the nominal head of state. Planning for the use of additional nuclear weapons continued even as these deliberations were ongoing. On August 10, Leslie Groves reported to the War Department that the next bomb, another plutonium weapon, would be "ready for delivery on the first suitable weather after 17 or 18 August." Following the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only two targets remained from the original list: Kokura Arsenal and the city of Niigata. Groves therefore requested that additional targets be added to the target list. His deputy, General Kenneth Nichols, suggested Tokyo. Truman, however, ordered an immediate halt to atomic attacks while surrender negotiations were ongoing. As the Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace recorded in his diary, Truman remarked that he did not like the idea of killing "all those kids." On August 12, the United States announced that it would accept the Japanese surrender, making clear in its statement that the emperor could remain in a purely ceremonial capacity only. Debate raged within the Japanese government over whether to accept the American terms or fight on. Meanwhile, American leaders were growing impatient, and on August 13 conventional air raids resumed on Japan. Thousands more Japanese civilians died while their leaders delayed. The Japanese people learned of the surrender negotiations for the first time when, on August 14, B-29s showered Tokyo with thousands of leaflets containing translated copies of the American reply of August 12. Later that day, the emperor called another meeting of his cabinet and instructed them to accept the Allied terms immediately, explaining "I cannot endure the thought of letting my people suffer any longer"; if the war did not end "the whole nation would be reduced to ashes." The only question remaining now was if Japan's military leaders would allow the emperor to surrender. Loyalty to the emperor was an absolute in the Japanese military, but so was the refusal to surrender, and now that the two had come into conflict, open rebellion was a possible result. The emperor recorded a message in which he personally accepted the Allied surrender terms, to be broadcast over Japanese radio the following day. This way everyone in Japan would know that surrender was the emperor's personal will. Some within the Japanese military actually attempted to steal this recording before it could be broadcast, while others attempted a more general military coup in order to seize power and continue the war. Other elements of the Japanese military remained loyal to the emperor. The Minister of War, General Anami Korechika, personally supported continuing the war, but he also could not bring himself to openly rebel against his emperor. The strength of his dilemma was such that he opted for suicide as the only honorable way out. In the end, his refusal to assist the coup plotters was instrumental in their defeat by elements within the military that remained loyal to the emperor. mbe.doe.gov