(This is an opinion piece. You might want to skip this post if such things offend you).
It is interesting to see that sixty-five years from the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the issue is still controversial. It is not extremely surprising to me at least because I belong to that small minority who believed the surrender of Japan would have arrived even without the use of the atom bombs. Holding this view point as I do, I had a few debates back in college, beyond college, and in workforce. And writing this post flared up the debate again … this time with my girlfriend. She wrote this beautiful piece below to help ‘elucidate’ a few points. I guess it elucidates me not to date history majors (:P love you). Anyhow, two of us went over the piece, abridged it, and I suggested we put a few photo-related themes in. And here it is:
These days, we often forget that the atomic bombs were nearly used on Japan during the Second World War. With the anniversary of the Soviet declaration of war on Imperial Japan (or as they call it in Orwellian jargon of Socialist Democratic Republic of Japan, “Fraternal Help for Pacification”) looming, it is hard to remember another more obscure non-event that would have also happened sixty-five years ago today, had it not been for President Truman’s decision two weeks prior. The bible-quoting haberdasher from Missouri wrote in his diary on July 25th 1945 that with an atomic bomb, military objectives and soldiers and sailors will be targets indiscrimately along with women and children. He overruled the Department of War which was advocating its use, by writing: “It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler’s crowd or Stalin’s did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, and it should not be made useful.”
The Battle of Okinawa and its devastating aftermath prompted the United States to look for alternatives to subdue mainland Japan. But with Truman vehemently against the atomic bomb and the Soviet invasion of Japan imminent, the United States had no choice but to go forward with the plans for Operation Olympic. In the ensuing decades, much had been made of heroism on the beaches of Miyazake, from Carl Mydans’ photos of X-Day landings to Clint Eastwood’s box-office hit Our Boys of Kyushu, but it was tragic and demoralizing that Japan’s strategic geography, its awaiting guerillas and kamikaze troops meant the Allies casulties were high. Despite these setbacks, the war in the Pacific was over in eighteen months. With the Soviets invading from the north, and the Americans blockading the ports, the Japanese morale was soon cracking. That winter, Emperor Hirohito sat in pallor as his youngest brother denounced him in the privy council. But the martial law imposed to quell riots in Tokyo and Yokohama was the signal to the wider world that Japan would fight to the bitter end. That end arrived on 24th January 1947, with Emperor Hirohito signing the instrument of surrender inside the war-ravished Imperial Palace in front of General MacArthur and Marshal Vasilevsky.
The next day, the flag used by Commodore Perry when he entered Tokyo Bay in 1853, was flown atop the Imperial Palace. Hidden behind that iconic W. Eugene Smith photo of flag rising — which now graces the National Pacific War Memorial in Chesapeake, Virginia — were deeper discomforts that there might be an ‘influence gap’ between the U.S. and the Soviets. With the war for mainland Japan consuming most of American manpower, Truman failed to prevent Turkey, Iran, Greece, Italy and Korea from falling into the communist camp. Churchill bemoaned this failure in his ‘Iron Curtain’ speech at Westminster College, London. Encroaching Soviet sphere withered away America’s last remaining shreds of isolationism, but like Wilson before him, Truman was too occupied by a single issue to fully grasp America’s place on the world’s stage. In his magisterial book “Colossus: the Price of America’s Empire”, Niall Ferguson wrote, “Truman’s moral decision not to use the Atom Bomb — which rehabilitated his posthumous reputation — was revealed only after his presidency, the end of which was prematurely facilitated by hesitance and spinelessness he displayed towards the blockaded citizens of West Berlin.” That November, Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York — an isolationist who reverted his stance to vehemently urge America to join Britain in her courageous but eventually doomed Berlin Airlift — had all the good reasons to be smiling manaically from ear to ear when he held up a newspaper predicting his victory four hours before the polled closed.
- Dewey campaigned as a decisive leader and won
In 1950, Japan was divided into North and South Japans with Tokyo itself jointly administered between the Soviet Union, China and the United States. In 1955, the Chiyoda Wall dissecting the Imperial Palace went up; in the years that followed, its importance was underlined in two famous presidential speeches made in front of it: Adlai Stevenson’s “Today we are all Japanese,” and Ronald Reagen’s “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall”, but back in 1955, so palpable were the fears that the Soviet Union would drive 20 miles down the 36th parallel delimitation line to invade Tokyo that the wall came as a relief.
The idea of using the atomic weapons seems ridiculous now, knowing as we do the atom’s perverse effects. But back in the 1950s, everyone entertained those ideas; Generals MacArthur and Le May nearly prevailed upon President Dewey to use them when the Soviets invaded Korea and Hungary and squashed revolts there. There were proposals to use nuclear weapons to shot down Russian satellites, to quell insurgants against American-supported dictators in South America, and to control weather. Senator Joseph MacCarthy of Wisconsin denounced Dewey as a red agent for his refusal to use them against the Russian fleet. Only with President Steveson’s gentle explanation after the Cuban Missile Crisis, did we finally come to terms with the dangers of what Oppenheimer called, “Destoryer of Worlds”. Even then, we didn’t fully understand the true horror of nuclear weapons until Richard Nixon annihilated North Vietnam.
To yearn nostalgically for the destruction of multiple Japanese cities is definitely a taboo, but it is always tempting to indulge in some alternative history. Atom bombs would undoubtably have ended the war before the Soviets joined it, and would have led to the American occupation of entire Japan, not just its southern parts. And without the constant anxieties about the Soviet presence in the Far East, America would not have gone into Vietnam. Without the costly war for Japan, American would have prevented the communist encroachments in China and East Europe. On the other hand, a Japan devastated by nuclear bombs and its population alienated by such inhumanity would not have warmed up to Americans occupiers who dropped the bombs. It is equally hard to imagine a modern futuristic Japan without the industrial centers in the south. But all these counterfactuals aside, this much is certain: despite its high human costs and less-than-satisfactory outcome, Operation Olympic was America’s finest hour.
You have to put yourselves into the mindset of those who had to decide, knowing what they knew at the time. The U.S. public has never been very willing to suffer lots of casualties — one reason Eisenhower supported letting the Russians take Berlin was the casualties that was going to involve. Recent island invasions had proved that the Japanese were capable of extremes in defense — fighting to the last man, suicide attacks, kamikaze, etc. The only rational position was that an invasion would involve a great many casualties — on both sides. Everyone knew the war would soon end, but there was no way to know how the Japanese would have reacted to specific proposals. U.S. policy was “unconditional surrender” — in the post-Pearl Harbor era, that was the only politically feasible position. To think that negotiations would have been successful, while possibly true, was IMHO an impossible position to take at the time. An interesting scenario, nothing more.
Actually, Japanese forces dug in and did NOT conduct Banzai attacks ala Guadalcanal. They did exact horrific death tolls at Peleliu, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Tarawa, and other places. To get a feel for it, read “With the Old Breed” by Marine E.B. Sledge, who fought at Peleliu and Okinawa, both brutal WWI style battles in the Pacific. About half his company were killed in each battle.
The Navy pressed for a blockade, sure it would work. LeMay pressed for 10,000 and 20,000 bomber raids onto villages, sure it would work, stripping Europe of all the bombers there after VE Day. The Army pressed for an invasion.
A catastrophic blood bath would have ensued. True, the Japanese were beaten and knew it after Midway, and certainly after the invasion of the Philippines and the defeat of their naval task force to stop it. Their strategy was to inflict such massive casualties that they could keep *SOME* of their conquests and maintain a Western Pacific Empire.
It is unlikely Stalin would have invaded Japan’s mainland — the USSR had no real effective navy, and was not really interested in anything besides Korea and Manchuria, where they rapidly rolled up the Japanese troops.
Not dropping the A-bombs would have produced a million US War Dead (all of WWII produced half a million dead) … and eventual use anyway. Because Americans would not have tolerated massive casualties and would have used the A-Bombs to kill about half of Japan. As it was, firebombing of Tokyo killed about 250,000, more than the two A-bombs combined.
Dug in troops with hard, well-prepared defensive positions, are impossible to dislodge without massive casualties (the Israelis in Lebanon found that out) unless the mass population is held hostage. This is the reality of cement, barbed wire, machine guns, and mortars.
I loved the way the article managed to gloss over the death and serious injuries to what were estimated at the time to be half a million American soldiers, which would have attended a longer war by saying only:
“Despite these setbacks, the war in the Pacific was over in eighteen months.”
Any reasonable assessment might have weighed these incremental American losses, and the loss of more Japanese lives and others associated with eighteen additional months of war against the destruction caused by the two A-bombs.
Instead the sophomoric framework of this essay assigns all of those deaths a zero weight in pursuit of its assertion of a self-aggrandizing moral superiority.
I’m having trouble imagining how embarrassed I would be if, even as a student, I had published a piece of drivel like this.
I’ve enjoyed reading your foray into alt-history if a vote counts.
Note that dating a history major is far preferable to loads of other choices – actresses and nurses are definitely overrated.
why dont you all shut up and let the guy have an opinion – we DO live America, where we are guaranteed such things. Jeez.
Ripley, your comment is ironic.
I must repeat my comment from before, the best alternative history is Thurber’s: “If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomatix.”
I’d also suggest that it is the most believeable.