60th anniversary of a-bomb attack

[Vorkosigan]

Originally Posted by Darren

And if this official policy were in fact realistic, the dropping of the two bombs would have had absolutely no effect whatsoever.
The Honorable Death policy was held by a very small handful of men in the military heirarchy,

Incorrect. It was adopted as governing policy on June 6, 1945, with the approval of the Big Six and the Emperor. It is true that only a handful of men supported it, but those handful were running the country.

and their objections were evidently overturned following the deaths of 200 000 - far from the 100 000 000 you mention above. The fact that a surrender followed the bombings within two weeks indicates that this death-before-surrender story was, in fact, effectively moonshine. If it were otherwise, no surrender would or could have come about as a result of the bombings.

True, but not the way you think. The Honorable Death of 100 Million was tied to a second policy, that of Ketsu-go, defending Kyushu to cause maximum casualties. The atomic bomb proved that the US could destroy Japan from the air without loss, thus adumbrating the policy of national suicide to cause maximum loss and make the US quit the war. Both the Emperor in his postwar rescript and the Suzuki in debriefings in December make that clear.

Your synopsis of the official reasons for the use of the bombs is excellent, but you still don't address the practically certain option of a naval blockade of Japan effecting its surrender. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were undefended targets, and the civilian population was being targeted by the bombings, despite the presence of garrisons and facilities with a potential military utility (at a certain level, any infrastructure has a potential military utility).

The "practical certainty" of a naval blockade had existed since the fall of 1943, with no effect on Japanese leaders. Japan's ports had been mined in the spring, little was getting in from the outside, its tankers had been sunk, and its merchant marine and fishing fleet obliterated. Thus blockade was a reality, yet no surrender was in sight.

Again, speaking of civilians, as the war drags on, 100,000 Chinese civilians die on average every month, not to mention untold numbers of soldiers as fighting goes on all over Asia. Additionally, starvation sets in in Japan itself (by Nov 1 1945, even without the war, there was a four day rice supply in Japan) and in Korea as well, where the Army had seized the rice crop. In other words, your policy would vastly increase the devastation and death toll all over Asi. Further, it argues that Japanese civilian lives are more important than other Asian civilian lives, a posture that reflects your views' origin in the politics of the Japanese Right. By comparison with your suggestion of blockade with no certainty of an early conclusion, the Bomb ends the war in August with no loss of life from continued warfare.

I still do not see how the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives can be justified. Certainly not by considering the chimeric casualties to the united nations military forces by an unnecessary invasion, which was the argument that sold the use of A-bombs to the US and other publics.

The invasion was likely inevitable, as no Japanese surrender was in the offing and the idea that a blockade would cause one is laughable. Recall that sitting in Tokyo, anyone could unroll the map and see Japanese troops still sitting in islands all over the Pacific, and vast reaches of Asia still in Japanese hands. The government, including the Emperor, was not aware of the progress of the war -- for example, not until 1944 did many in the government become aware of the fact that Japan had lost four carriers at Midway -- and no one understood that those numerous garrisons on far-flung islands were so many ripe fruits for the US to pick any time it wanted. Thus no one in Tokyo was going to surrender short of invasion.

That an invasion would have resulted in millions, probably tens of millions, of Japanese deaths, and a million US deaths is by no means unreasonable. At Iwo Jima the number of US casualties exceeded the number of Japanese troops -- and 900,000 troops defended Kyushu. The Japanese at last had the resources, and a handle, on defense in depth, and for the first time the kamikazes were not ordered to expend themselves uselessly on battleships and other high- profile targets, but had been specifically targeted for the transports. Add to this the very high degree of urbanization in Japan, the dense populations.....not until Feb did the US expect to be established in southern Kyushu -- never mind the whole island -- and the death toll would have been stupendous (avg rate was 97% of Japanese troops in islands and Philippines). 200,000 dead at Nagasaki saved 900,000 young men on Kyushu.

Here's another way to think about the invasion: so many purple hearts were minted that the US is still using that stock...if you got a purple heart in Vietnam or Gulf War I, it was among the huge number minted for the invasion of Japan. Yet another thing to think about is that 4 million troops and civilians died in Stalingrad, and the city was completely destroyed. Now consider dumping 5 million or so pissed off, genocidally-angry GIs with late-war technology in the most densely populated urban nation on earth. In Russia, where pop densities were low, upwards of 40 million died as recent data from postwar records indicates, and the Pacific War fighting was every bit as vicious, probably even more so. One-third of civilians in Okinawa and Saipan died....now multiply by 75 million Japanese....

The Japanese forces were in defeat everywhere except Japan itself, where only the army remained intact (the navy and air forces having been destroyed) and its isolation on island Japan rendered it wholly ineffective for anything other than the defence of the islands against a seaborne invasion force. This invasion was not a necessity. Neither was the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Unfortunately while people often make these claims, they do not reflect any reality. Please give a concrete scenario that results in a Japanese surrender. Bear in mind that two years of defeat and blockade had not resulted in any surrender. Feel free to explain why they would have surrendered given that the war was the Emperor's baby and supported by the military, which could stop any surrender plan simply by resigning, or staging a coup (which actually happened).

Vorkosigan

[Darren]

[QUOTE=Vorkosigan]

Originally Posted by Darren

Again, speaking of civilians, as the war drags on, 100,000 Chinese civilians die on average every month, not to mention untold numbers of soldiers as fighting goes on all over Asia. Vorkosigan

Is this figure averaged out over the whole period of Japan's war with China? If so is it actually applicable to 1945?

[Darren]

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Additionally, starvation sets in in Japan itself (by Nov 1 1945, even without the war, there was a four day rice supply in Japan) and in Korea as well, where the Army had seized the rice crop.

Feel free to explain why they would have surrendered given that the war was the Emperor's baby and supported by the military, which could stop any surrender plan simply by resigning, or staging a coup (which actually happened).
Vorkosigan

Don't you answer your own question here? By your own admission, a handful of leaders, detached from reality, continued to labour under the illusion that victory was possible.

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Recall that sitting in Tokyo, anyone could unroll the map and see Japanese troops still sitting in islands all over the Pacific, and vast reaches of Asia still in Japanese hands. The government, including the Emperor, was not aware of the progress of the war -- for example, not until 1944 did many in the government become aware of the fact that Japan had lost four carriers at Midway -- and no one understood that those numerous garrisons on far-flung islands were so many ripe fruits for the US to pick any time it wanted.

Those in contact with reality were aware that they were already defeated. Japan was effectively defeated, except for the admission of a few. How long could those few have held out against reality?

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by Darren

Those in contact with reality were aware that they were already defeated. Japan was effectively defeated, except for the admission of a few. How long could those few have held out against reality?

I don't know much about the Japanese case, but in general the answer seems to be: Right to the bitter end.

Look at the German case. Lots of people knew that Germany was already defeated months before the surrender. Only a very few people in power were that out of touch with reality. But the ones out of touch were in charge, and the ones with no illusions were, strangely but undeniably, ready to fight and die anyhow.

I'm not saying this had to happen in the Japanese case as well -- just that there's very little a priori grounds for imposing rational decision theory on a militarized and propagandized people facing apocalyptic circumstances.

[Darren]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

I don't know much about the Japanese case, but in general the answer seems to be: Right to the bitter end.

Look at the German case. Lots of people knew that Germany was already defeated months before the surrender. Only a very few people in power were that out of touch with reality. But the ones out of touch were in charge, and the ones with no illusions were, strangely but undeniably, ready to fight and die anyhow.

I'm not saying this had to happen in the Japanese case as well -- just that there's very little a priori grounds for imposing rational decision theory on a militarized and propagandized people facing apocalyptic circumstances.

OK. I have to concede here. But the Japanese reation to the A-bombs does indicate that they preferred surrender rather than destruction in the end, a rational decision.

[Vorkosigan]

Originally Posted by Darren

Don't you answer your own question here? By your own admission, a handful of leaders, detached from reality, continued to labour under the illusion that victory was possible.

On the contrary, they knew they were beaten. But they did not want to give up their power, and thus fought against surrender. They chose national suicide rather than surrender, hoping to cause enough losses to invading US troops on Kyushu to make the US end the war, leaving them in power and perhaps a few of their possessions as well. The A-Bomb made that policy impossible.

Those in contact with reality were aware that they were already defeated. Japan was effectively defeated, except for the admission of a few. How long could those few have held out against reality?

As I said, they knew they were defeated. Convincing them of defeat was not the problem. It was getting them to stop the war that the was the problem.

Vorkosigan

[Darren]

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Incorrect. It was adopted as governing policy on June 6, 1945, with the approval of the Big Six and the Emperor. It is true that only a handful of men supported it, but those handful were running the country.


Vorkosigan

In which case how is my claim actually incorrect?

[Darren]

[QUOTE=Vorkosigan]

Originally Posted by Darren

The "practical certainty" of a naval blockade had existed since the fall of 1943, with no effect on Japanese leaders. Japan's ports had been mined in the spring, little was getting in from the outside, its tankers had been sunk, and its merchant marine and fishing fleet obliterated. Thus blockade was a reality, yet no surrender was in sight.


Vorkosigan

I don't think that we mean the same thing by blockade here. I am talking about a total blockade, i.e. nothing gets in or out without the approval of the blockading force, nothing. The united nations had this capacity in 1945, but not in 1944 and certainly not in 1943.

Just for the record, I consider civilians to be wholly unjustified as military targets, no matter what their nationality (or whatever other equally arbitrary criteria might be employed).
I also believe that it should be considered a criminal act for any military force to externalise the human costs of their operations upon any civilians.

[Vorkosigan]

Originally Posted by Darren

I don't think that we mean the same thing by blockade here. I am talking about a total blockade, i.e. nothing gets in or out without the approval of the blockading force, nothing. The united nations had this capacity in 1945, but not in 1944 and certainly not in 1943.

That had been going on since the ports were mined in March of 1945. Still no surrender in sight. As I noted in response to your earlier post, blockade does not end the war. No one has ever produced a scenario that leads to surrender from blockade. This is because blockade contains no mechanism or shock effect that forces Japan to end the war, nor does it render Japanese policy of resistance on Kyushu ineffective. And further, because blockade would not stop the killing in China and elsewhere outside of Asia, it would produce a far greater loss of life than nuking two cities to render Japanese strategy ineffective and end the war. Such a loss of life would stem from (1) deaths by bombardment and starvation in Japan and (2) deaths from fighting in China and elsewhere. Additionally, with no end to the war in April, the Russians would certainly have come ashore in Hokkaido, as they had planned to do, and were only stopped by fanatic japanese resistance that delayed their conquest of other places into Sept, when the WWII finally stopped.

Vorkosigan