Was it a war crime when US nuked Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

Steve - will you accept the word of the emperor on why they did surrender?
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"Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalcuable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. [...] This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers."
http://www.star-games.com/exhibits/rescript/rescript.html
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This is from a link posted by Cicerone a few pages back. You can't possibly suspect the emperor of being a party to such a plot. Read also the links to the Truman library, couple of pages ago.

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Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

So we have considerable means, coupled with a fanantical will. So why did they surrender? The fire storms created by bombing Tokyo killed more than the atomic bombs. If their code of honour was to fight to the last, why didn't they?

Because they (meaning their government, not their army) had been broken, and unbeknown to us, were ready to give up. They just wanted to pursue their negotiation gambit with the Soviets first.

Note: Today is the anniversary of the Tokyo bombing I believe.

Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

What changed was the allies position from uncompromising unconditional surrender to accepting surrender with guarantees regarding the emperor's status. It is my contention that such a shift in the allied position (trivial for the Americans, vital for the Japanese) could have brought about an end to the war at any time during 1945, but that a state of war was preserved to enable the atomic bombing experiments to proceed.

We allowed only one guarantee regarding the Emperor's status, and that was the guarantee that MacArthur had the power to depose the Emperor at will.

Given the fact that the Japanese government would not countenance surrender in any form before Potsdam, and after Potsdam was not going to try to accept our terms until their Soviet-negotiation gambit fell through, it seems unlikely that surrender would have been expedited if we had clarified that we were going to guarantee MacArthur the power to depose the Emperor at will.

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You're entitled, welcome, even, to any position you find agreeable, Steve. I submit, however, the available primary source documentation, historic and official alike, including interviews with and memoirs of, directly involved and/or responsible principals, fails to support the position you espouse in this instance.

Among the documentation most inconvenient to your contention are the following:

The Potsdam Ultimatum:

Quote:

Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, July 26, 1945

(1) We-The President of the United States, the President of the National Government of the Republic of China, and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war.

(2) The prodigious land, sea and air forces of the United States, the British Empire and of China, many times reinforced by their armies and air fleets from the west, are poised to strike the final blows upon Japan. This military power is sustained and inspired by the determination of all the Allied Nations to prosecute the war against Japan until she ceases to resist.

(3) The result of the futile and senseless German resistance to the might of the aroused free peoples of the world stands forth in awful clarity as an example to the people of Japan. The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of life of the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, All mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.

(4) The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason.

(5) Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.

(6) There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world.

(7) Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan's war-making power is destroyed, points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies shall be occupied to secure the achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth.

(8) The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.

(9) The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives.

(10) We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established.

(11) Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those [industries] which would enable her to re-arm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of, raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted.

(12) The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.

(13) We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.

The Cairo Declaration, as referrenced in paragraph 8 above:

Quote:

Statement of Cairo Conference of November 1943

November, 1943
Released December 1, 1943
The several military missions have agreed upon future military operations against Japan. The Three Great Allies expressed their resolve to bring unrelenting pressure against their brutal enemies by sea, land, and air. This pressure is already mounting.

The Three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion.

It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen form the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China.

Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent.

With these objects in view the three Allies, in harmony with those of the United Nations at war with Japan, will continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan.

The Instrument of Surrender:

Quote:

Instrument of Surrender

We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, hereby accept the provisions set forth in the declaration issued by the heads of the Governments of the United States, China, and Great Britain on 26 July 1945 at Potsdam, and subsequently adhered to by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which four powers are hereafter referred to as the Allied Powers.

We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under the Japanese control wherever situated.

We hereby command all Japanese forces wherever situated and the Japanese people to cease hostilites forthwith, to preserve and save from damage all ships, aircraft, and military and civil property and to comply with all requirements which my be imposed by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by agencies of the Japanese Government at his direction.

We hereby command the Japanese Imperial Headquarters to issue at once orders to the Commanders of all Japanese forces and all forces under Japanese control wherever situated to surrender unconditionally themselves and all forces under their control.

We hereby command all civil, military and naval officials to obey and enforce all proclamations, and orders and directives deemed by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers to be proper to effectuate this surrender and issued by him or under his authority and we direct all such officials to remain at their posts and to continue to perform their non-combatant duties unless specifically relieved by him or under his authority.

We hereby undertake for the Emperor, the Japanese Government and their successors to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith, and to issue whatever orders and take whatever actions may be required by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by any other designated representative of the Allied Powers for the purpose of giving effect to that Declaration.

We hereby command the Japanese Imperial Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters at once to liberate all allied prisoners of war and civilian internees now under Japanese control and to provide for their protection, care, maintenance and immediate transportation to places as directed.

The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of surrender.

Signed at TOKYO BAY, JAPAN at 0904 I on the SECOND day of SEPTEMBER, 1945

MAMORU SHIGMITSU
By Command and in behalf of the Emperor
of Japan and the Japanese Government

YOSHIJIRO UMEZU
By Command and in behalf of the Japanese
Imperial General Headquarters

Accepted at TOKYO BAY, JAPAN at 0903 I on the SECOND day of SEPTEMBER, 1945, for the United States, Republic of China, United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and in the interests of the other United Nations at war with Japan.

DOUGLAS MAC ARTHUR
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers

C.W. NIMITZ
United States Representative

HSU YUNG-CH'ANG
Republic of China Representative

BRUCE FRASER
United Kingdom Representative

KUZMA DEREVYANKO
Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics Representative

THOMAS BLAMEY
Commonwealth of Australia
Representative

L. MOORE COSGRAVE
Dominion of Canada Representative

JACQUES LE CLERC
Provisional Government of the French
Republic Representative

C.E.L. HELFRICH
Kingdom of the Netherlands
Representative

LEONARD M. ISITT
Dominion of New Zealand Representative

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oralloy wrote:

Note: Today is the anniversary of the Tokyo bombing I believe.

On the night of 9/10 Mar 1945, nearly 300 20th Air Force B-29s struck Tokyo with what amounted to the most detructive single attack in history. 17 square miles of the city were burned out. The human toll is impossible to determine with greater precision than estimates to have exceeded 80,000 (some 83,000+ deaths were accounted in surviving documentation - many records and record-keeping facilities failed to survive the war ) and have been less than a quarter million.

An interesting sidelight into the contemporary Japanese collective psyche is that no public outcry resulted from considerable fire-fighting assets having been committed to protecting the Imperial Palace, to the dire expense of neighboring districts. Two months later, another strike incinerated an additional 19 square miles of the city, though as the area struck was less densely built and in fact the greatest part of the population had evacuated the city following the March holocaust, overall damge an loss of life was considerably less.

Another notable strike was that which inflicted 100% physical destruction on the city of Toyama the night of July 31/Aug 1 - not a single edifice left standing. Again, the death toll is uncertain, but the city's reported population was in the vicinity of 130,000, of whom perhaps half to two thirds survived.

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Wouldn't they accept surrender if they had been able to keep their emperor? Which would be a similar agreement int he end anyways. It seems as if they are more concerned about Stalin than Japan when they dropped the bomb.

I also doubt if they do not know the effect of the nuclear bomb. There have been incidents of x-ray producing radiation sickness and other things documented before, so I doubt that they don't have an idea of the radiation that might ensue afterwards since the whole point of the atomic bomb was energy transfer.

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HofT said "Steve - will you accept the word of the emperor on why they did surrender"

What, you want me to accept the word of lying bastard Hirohito, imperialist, war criminal and horticulturalist? Smile

Certainly not.

I know thats what he said. But he had to say something as to why the people "must now endure the unendurable".

For Hirohito to come on the radio and say basically "sorry, I got us into a disastrous war and now we're ****ed" must have been a bit difficult even for the Divine Emperor.

It was all part of the Japanese face saving game plan. Even then it didn't work. Many in the officer corps wanted to fight to the death.

As I said...IT IS MY CONTENTION that the war could have been halted earlier had the Allies wanted to stop it. I'm arguing my case, others against me. Fair enough, not complaining. And I'm not accusing America of war crimes. But I do CONTEND that the A bomb project was SO big, of such vital strategic interest, that it was imperative to find out and demonstrate what it would do to an enemy.

Suppose Japan/America had agreed terms similar to the final document, in February 1945. The world had not heard of atomic bombs. If the US decided to demonstrate that it had such weapons and blow up a coral reef or a patch of desert, it would not have had half the psychological impact as the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had. Those names went deep into the human psyche. There were some scientists who were deeply shocked that the weapon was used. Others worried that it was not powerful enough to deter mankind from atomic warfare.

All I'm really saying is that the Atom Bomb was big news. And in a war in which millions had died, they weren't going to pass by the opportunity of finding out how big it really was.

Nice seeing you Helen.

(ps of course the "official" version of events differs from mine. Even governments dont like to acknowledge that they operate in the ruthless way they in fact do....but they soon get used to it)

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Steve - to see why your interpretation of the decision is mistaken consider that not only the "official" documents, but also logs of telephone conversations, notes on all related meetings, diary entries, military orders, memoirs of many participants have been available for years, in addition of course to the participants themselves.

Some of the original Manhattan Project physicists (like Richard Feynman) taught at schools I attended; others I met as advisors to the Star Wars program of the first Reagan administration. Yet other members of the original team, including military officers and politicians, were for decades active in arms control negotiations with the then Soviet Union.

What you're suggesting came up time and again as both a strategic and ethical question with each new weapon development and countermeasure, and was categorically denied by all these people - many of whom btw supported total nuclear disarmament on moral grounds.

This is my evidence. If you choose to persist in a belief that some conspiracy to use Japanese cities as test targets ever existed, then kindly keep in mind that all, repeat all, available evidence flatly contradicts you.

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timberlandko wrote:

oralloy wrote:
Note: Today is the anniversary of the Tokyo bombing I believe.

On the night of 9/10 Mar 1945, nearly 300 20th Air Force B-29s struck Tokyo with what amounted to the most detructive single attack in history. 17 square miles of the city were burned out. The human toll is impossible to determine with greater precision than estimates to have exceeded 80,000 (some 83,000+ deaths were accounted in surviving documentation - many records and record-keeping facilities failed to survive the war ) and have been less than a quarter million.

The 80K figure has to be terribly low. The sections of Tokyo which were burned down were said to have a population density of around 100,000 per square mile and somebody in the middle of that would not have known which way to run. There's a 50/50 shot they'd have been running right into it.

Logically you'd figure a half a million to a million people might have been killed.

Basically, the two A bombs were a coup de grace; the real damage had already been done in the torching of 75 cities by the B29s. Moreover a responsible Japanese government would have surrendered after the fall of the Mariannas since at that point you didn't really have to be Albert Einstein to comprehend what was going to happen next. There was zero excuse for that government putting the Japanese people througbh all that.

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Gungasnake - Japanese overtures were by no means dismissed out of hand, as others here have suggested. See e.g. the letter of then undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard listed among others on this list >

http://www.dannen.com/decision/index.html

> in which he suggests holding off dropping the bomb until some meeting could be held with Japanese officials on the coast of China. Japan didn't send anybody with the authority to negotiate, on that or on any other occasion until the Nagasaki bomb.

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Just to clarify, gunga, the "exceeded 80,000" figure is not a low-side estimate, it represents only the documentation which survived the war. Also, impacting any high side estimate, there is the fact that by that point in the war many Japanese had evacuated the urban centers, while many others left the areas at night. As said, the exact toll is impossible to determine. There can be no doubt that however indeterminable it may be, it ranks at the very top of that unenviable list.

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Ray wrote:

Wouldn't they accept surrender if they had been able to keep their emperor?

Before the Soviets joined the war, Japan was holding out for FOUR terms:

a) Emperor retain complete sovereignty as ruler of Japan

b) No occupation of the home islands

c) they be in charge of trying their own war criminals

d) they be in charge of standing down and disarming their own soldiers

Japan had hoped that the Stalin would pressure us into letting them have those terms in exchange for close post-war relations between Japan and the Soviets.

So long as they had some hope that the Soviets could help them secure those terms, they were not going to go for anything less.

Ray wrote:

Which would be a similar agreement int he end anyways.

Grew's suggestion that "we guarantee that the imperial line would continue as constitutional monarch" was incompatible with what both the Japanese and the US were demanding.

The Japanese wanted Hirohito to have complete sovereignty as ruler, not have his son be constitutional monarch.

The US wanted the power to depose the Emperor at will.

The Japanese would have accepted Grew's guarantee after the Soviet attack foreclosed their "four surrender term" gambit, but this would have still been after Nagasaki.

The US, however, would have never accepted having such a guarantee in the surrender terms. We would have nuked them again had Japan insisted on getting such a guarantee.

Ray wrote:

It seems as if they are more concerned about Stalin than Japan when they dropped the bomb.

When we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, Truman's main concern with Stalin was how to get him to honor his agreement to enter the war against Japan.

By the time we hit Nagasaki, Truman's concerns about Stalin were relieved, and he was back to worrying about how to secure our surrender terms without invading Japan.

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Of course it was a crime against humanity. Not to mention the firing-bombing of multiple Japanese cities that were constructed of wood; hundreds of thousands of people (women & children) were burnt to death by allied fire-bombing.

Such is the cruel nature of war.

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Hi SrChicano

Welcome to a2k

Agree with everything you said

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Thank you for the welcome.

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SrChicano wrote:

Of course it was a crime against humanity. Not to mention the firing-bombing of multiple Japanese cities that were constructed of wood; hundreds of thousands of people (women & children) were burnt to death by allied fire-bombing.

Such is the cruel nature of war.

The Japanese government could have thrown it in at any time after the fall of the Mariannas. The most major war crime in the picture is their not having done so and putting their own population through all that for no rational reason.

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gunga, Yes, they did put their population through all that for no rational reason, but you must remember that the cultural norms in Japan was much different than our way of thinking. You ever hear the word "gaman?"

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"The Japanese government could have thrown it in at any time after the fall of the Mariannas."

-gungasnake

OK, but what does that have to do with the crimes against humanity that the US committed in WWII?

"The most major war crime in the picture is their not having done so and putting their own population through all that for no rational reason."

-gungsnake

I disagree. They had no knowledge of the bomb. And the Japanese "crime" in no way lessens the crime committed by the US. At least you haven't argued as much.

In other words, your post doesn't address the question on which this thread is predicated.

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It doesn't matter that they had no knowledge of the bomb. It mattered that 1) they struck the US first without warning, and 2) they were given the opportunity to surrender.

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You too have failed to address the topic.

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SrChicago, Since you're a Newbie, you are forgiving for your ignorance. If you bother to read through this whole thread, you will find my answer to the question. I am now responding to subsequent, more current, posts.

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Was it a war crime when US nuked Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

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