Nutjob tries to vandalize the Enola Gay

[Admiral Valdemar]

So am I alone in knowing of a story whereby after Hiroshima the Japanese command were falling over themselves to get a decent reply to the Allies before they dropped the second bomb, but due to clerical error, failed to deliver on time? I always heard the Emperor was even seeing it as the end and a conditional surrender was necessary.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The High Command didn't unconditionally surrender within a few days of nuking the first city, you mean. They are not as irrational as you claim; they knew the war was lost, and they were only trying to save face by negotiating a conditional surrender rather than an unconditional one.

The fact that they were still deadlocked after Nagasaki save for Hirohito's call for surrender is quite telling to me. By your own admission we're dealing with a regime which was willing to gamble with hundreds of thousands of their own people to save face and win some concessions, and I find that neither rational, nor in support that a big flash and cloud in Tokyo harbor would've precipitated a surrender.

The solution costing the lowest number of lives would've been to demonstrate a nuke, and let it be known that we'd negotiate a conditional surrender. However, fear was strong that Japan needed to answer for her crimes as well that it might have a future wellspring of militancy if it was not unconditionally defeated and occupied.

[Illuminatus Primus]

So am I alone in knowing of a story whereby after Hiroshima the Japanese command were falling over themselves to get a decent reply to the Allies before they dropped the second bomb, but due to clerical error, failed to deliver on time? I always heard the Emperor was even seeing it as the end and a conditional surrender was necessary.

Hm. If this is true, I will concede that Nagasaki was unnecessary and resulted in the needless deaths of thousands.

I still think that without at least one city, a surrender would not have come unconditionally or before the Soviet hit Hokkiado.

[Admiral Valdemar]

So am I alone in knowing of a story whereby after Hiroshima the Japanese command were falling over themselves to get a decent reply to the Allies before they dropped the second bomb, but due to clerical error, failed to deliver on time? I always heard the Emperor was even seeing it as the end and a conditional surrender was necessary.

Hm. If this is true, I will concede that Nagasaki was unnecessary and resulted in the needless deaths of thousands.

I still think that without at least one city, a surrender would not have come unconditionally or before the Soviet hit Hokkiado.

I only remember reading somewhere that the first bomb "demonstration" succeeded in getting the message that the jig was up, but communication problems meant it was too late to get their conditional at least surrender to the Allied command before another A-bomb fell.

I'd corroborate it now but it's near 0400 in the morning and I don't think I can find such stuff this sleep deprived. I may be wrong.

[The Cleric]

So am I alone in knowing of a story whereby after Hiroshima the Japanese command were falling over themselves to get a decent reply to the Allies before they dropped the second bomb, but due to clerical error, failed to deliver on time? I always heard the Emperor was even seeing it as the end and a conditional surrender was necessary.

Yes. Yes you are.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I always heard the Emperor was even seeing it as the end and a conditional surrender was necessary.

You mean unconditional?

[Admiral Valdemar]

I always heard the Emperor was even seeing it as the end and a conditional surrender was necessary.

You mean unconditional?

Maybe... I know it was a surrender notice, I'd expect conditional at first with unconditional being something to appear as soon as they saw America dropping another nuke.

[Darth Wong]

The High Command didn't unconditionally surrender within a few days of nuking the first city, you mean. They are not as irrational as you claim; they knew the war was lost, and they were only trying to save face by negotiating a conditional surrender rather than an unconditional one.

The fact that they were still deadlocked after Nagasaki save for Hirohito's call for surrender is quite telling to me. By your own admission we're dealing with a regime which was willing to gamble with hundreds of thousands of their own people to save face and win some concessions,

That's not what I meant, although I suppose I could have worded that more carefully. I was trying to say that they were already looking for a face-saving way to surrender before Hiroshima. The delay between Hiroshima and Nagasaki was too short for the reality of the Americans' technological achievement to sink in.

and I find that neither rational, nor in support that a big flash and cloud in Tokyo harbor would've precipitated a surrender.

You believe there was no target in Japan which would have served as a demonstration of the A-bomb's city-flattening power that would have gotten the job done with fewer casualties than Hiroshima?

The solution costing the lowest number of lives would've been to demonstrate a nuke, and let it be known that we'd negotiate a conditional surrender. However, fear was strong that Japan needed to answer for her crimes as well that it might have a future wellspring of militancy if it was not unconditionally defeated and occupied.

That "answer for her crimes" bit was the biggest reason, and everyone knows it. Japan was utterly devastated by the war even without Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one on that island would have thought "oh yeah, this war worked out FUCKING GREAT! Let's do it again!" if they'd surrendered after a less murderous A-bomb demonstration.

[Illuminatus Primus]

That's not what I meant, although I suppose I could have worded that more carefully. I was trying to say that they were already looking for a face-saving way to surrender before Hiroshima. The delay between Hiroshima and Nagasaki was too short for the reality of the Americans' technological achievement to sink in.

Well I'm ready to concede that Nagasaki was too close to Hiroshima and was certainly unnecessarily brutal.

Though on time: the Soviets really were weeks from Hokkaido, and we knew it, not necessarily worth the price, but definitely a fear of U.S. strategic advisors.

You believe there was no target in Japan which would have served as a demonstration of the A-bomb's city-flattening power that would have gotten the job done with fewer casualties than Hiroshima?

I've speculated on whether it would've been sufficient to nuke one of the militarily fortified harbors/beaches on Kyushu where Operation OLYMPIC was to hit land.

That "answer for her crimes" bit was the biggest reason, and everyone knows it. Japan was utterly devastated by the war even without Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one on that island would have thought "oh yeah, this war worked out FUCKING GREAT! Let's do it again!" if they'd surrendered after a less murderous A-bomb demonstration.

Didn't mean it was rational, just that it was probably a motivating factor out of the circlejerk that was Versailles and all the treaties with Japan.

[Glocksman]

Let's go back to my original comment:

This is going to sound cold, but if using that bomb saved even one US soldier, then I don't give a rat's ass how many of the enemy died to save that soldier's life.

I should have phrased it more delicately such as: ' I don't care about Japanese casualties caused by the bomb, I do care about the numbers of US soldiers who didn't die in the the invasion that the bomb forestalled.'


Either way, in a total war you can't be concerned with enemy casualties at the expense of the lives of your soldiers.

I wasn't saying 'lets go slaughter Japanese just for the hell of it'.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:

I'm betting my great grandfather wished the German commander had forgone the gas attack...

I know that several of my great uncles (ex-USAAC, Army, and Marines) were damned glad that Truman used those bombs.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Glock, that rephrase sounds exactly the same.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Considering what the Japanese Military did to POW's the surrender that was brought about by way of the Atomic bomb rather then invasion, also saved lots of lives, in ways you guys are simply not counting.

Prior to invasion ALL POWs were to be executed by military ORDER!

[Glocksman]

Glock, that rephrase sounds exactly the same.

Should I feel any other way?

While the Japanese casualties were regrettable, the point is that I am an American, and the lives of US servicemen mean more to me than the lives of people who were the enemy at the time.

I'm not going to sit here sixty years removed from the event and condemn Truman and the others for the tradeoff in lives they made to end the war with fewer Allied casualties.

[HemlockGrey]

That "answer for her crimes" bit was the biggest reason, and everyone knows it. Japan was utterly devastated by the war even without Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one on that island would have thought "oh yeah, this war worked out FUCKING GREAT! Let's do it again!" if they'd surrendered after a less murderous A-bomb demonstration.

Yeah, it was devestated, but the high command was still, even after Hiroshima, clinging to, as I said before, the idea of a decisive battle that would be capable of ending the war with terms that would allow Japan to ressurect itself as a military power. Its conditions for surrender did not merely include keeping the Emperor; it wanted, among other things, no occupation, which was absolutely unacceptable, and rightly so.

Further, the announcement of surrender was not greeted with relief by the general populace, but with anger.

[MrAnderson]

So because of the tyranny of the Japanese military and its total control over the information the people viewed (which made them dislike the US) justifies killing Japanese citizens wholescale just to save one US soldiers life?

YES.

[The Cleric]

The High Command didn't unconditionally surrender within a few days of nuking the first city, you mean. They are not as irrational as you claim; they knew the war was lost, and they were only trying to save face by negotiating a conditional surrender rather than an unconditional one.

The fact that they were still deadlocked after Nagasaki save for Hirohito's call for surrender is quite telling to me. By your own admission we're dealing with a regime which was willing to gamble with hundreds of thousands of their own people to save face and win some concessions,

That's not what I meant, although I suppose I could have worded that more carefully. I was trying to say that they were already looking for a face-saving way to surrender before Hiroshima. The delay between Hiroshima and Nagasaki was too short for the reality of the Americans' technological achievement to sink in.

How long does the near instant destruction of a huge city take to sink in?

and I find that neither rational, nor in support that a big flash and cloud in Tokyo harbor would've precipitated a surrender.

You believe there was no target in Japan which would have served as a demonstration of the A-bomb's city-flattening power that would have gotten the job done with fewer casualties than Hiroshima?

Hiroshima was also choosen because of it's military significance. It's tragic, but not our fault, that they put military industries in a huge city. It's like putting an Abram's factory in NYC and complaining about collateral damage when it's attacked.

The solution costing the lowest number of lives would've been to demonstrate a nuke, and let it be known that we'd negotiate a conditional surrender. However, fear was strong that Japan needed to answer for her crimes as well that it might have a future wellspring of militancy if it was not unconditionally defeated and occupied.

That "answer for her crimes" bit was the biggest reason, and everyone knows it. Japan was utterly devastated by the war even without Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one on that island would have thought "oh yeah, this war worked out FUCKING GREAT! Let's do it again!" if they'd surrendered after a less murderous A-bomb demonstration.

[/quote]
See Germany -> WWII after the destruction of WWI. It happens.

[Darth Wong]

That's not what I meant, although I suppose I could have worded that more carefully. I was trying to say that they were already looking for a face-saving way to surrender before Hiroshima. The delay between Hiroshima and Nagasaki was too short for the reality of the Americans' technological achievement to sink in.

How long does the near instant destruction of a huge city take to sink in?

More than a couple of days. It takes a while just to get your experts to the scene in a country with no functioning infrastructure. Command and control is shot to hell, railways are fucked, etc. Then, they have to determine whether what they found was really the result of a nuclear attack (the Japanese already knew that such a thing was possible, but didn't think that the Americans were anywhere near making one).

Hiroshima was also choosen because of it's military significance. It's tragic, but not our fault, that they put military industries in a huge city. It's like putting an Abram's factory in NYC and complaining about collateral damage when it's attacked.

Oh, I see. So that's why they decided to bomb it in the morning, when people would be showing up at those factories. To destroy the facilities with a minimum of civilian casualties, right?

Why is it so hard to simply admit that they were simply out to kill a lot of people?

That "answer for her crimes" bit was the biggest reason, and everyone knows it. Japan was utterly devastated by the war even without Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one on that island would have thought "oh yeah, this war worked out FUCKING GREAT! Let's do it again!" if they'd surrendered after a less murderous A-bomb demonstration.

See Germany -> WWII after the destruction of WWI. It happens.

See a history book. Germany after WWI was not in the condition of Japan after WWII.

[HemlockGrey]

More than a couple of days. It takes a while just to get your experts to the scene in a country with no functioning infrastructure. Command and control is shot to hell, railways are fucked, etc. Then, they have to determine whether what they found was really the result of a nuclear attack (the Japanese already knew that such a thing was possible, but didn't think that the Americans were anywhere near making one).

The leadership knew Hiroshima had been destroyed by a terrifying new weapon shortly after it happened, so its not like they had no idea what was going on, not to mention that Harry Truman pretty much told them in advance what would happen.

Why is it so hard to simply admit that they were simply out to kill a lot of people?

I don't really see what's wrong with admitting it, considering it saved the lives of far more people.

See a history book. Germany after WWI was not in the condition of Japan after WWII.

And yet the Japanese 'conditional surrender' was basically a treaty that would allow them to rise from the ashes as an imperial military power. It included provisions allowing Japan to oversee her own disarmament and excluding the possibility of occupation, which were rightly considered to be unacceptable terms.

[Darth Wong]

The leadership knew Hiroshima had been destroyed by a terrifying new weapon shortly after it happened, so its not like they had no idea what was going on, not to mention that Harry Truman pretty much told them in advance what would happen.

No, he didn't. He made a very vaguely worded threat, deliberately so because they wanted it to be a nice surprise.

Why is it so hard to simply admit that they were simply out to kill a lot of people?

I don't really see what's wrong with admitting it, considering it saved the lives of far more people.

False dilemma fallacy. Assuming that no other method of employing the bombs would have worked.

See a history book. Germany after WWI was not in the condition of Japan after WWII.

And yet the Japanese 'conditional surrender' was basically a treaty that would allow them to rise from the ashes as an imperial military power. It included provisions allowing Japan to oversee her own disarmament and excluding the possibility of occupation, which were rightly considered to be unacceptable terms.

Oh no, they tried to start negotiations with a position more favourable to their side than the opposition wanted! Egads, you've successfully proven your point! They MUST be insanely irrational!

[MKSheppard]

They MUST be insanely irrational!

Yeah, they're insane fucks when their cities are being firebombed nightly,
their entire navy is SUNK, their air force is reduced to Kamikazi raids
on US Carriers, and hundreds of thousands of troops are starving to death
on pacific islands, cut off from all supply lines, and of course US Submarines
are raiding the sea of Japan in Tokyo bay, sinking merchant shipping
right on the shores of Toyko.

Yeah, that's real rational, to actually think you could dictate a favorable
peace treaty when you've got shit to go on, unlike the Germans in 1918,
they still held large parts of france back then.

[Darth Wong]

They MUST be insanely irrational!

Yeah, they're insane fucks when their cities are being firebombed nightly, their entire navy is SUNK, their air force is reduced to Kamikazi raids on US Carriers, and hundreds of thousands of troops are starving to death on pacific islands, cut off from all supply lines, and of course US Submarines are raiding the sea of Japan in Tokyo bay, sinking merchant shipping right on the shores of Toyko.

Yeah, that's real rational, to actually think you could dictate a favorable peace treaty when you've got shit to go on, unlike the Germans in 1918, they still held large parts of france back then.

Except that they knew they could extract an extremely heavy price in blood from anyone who attempted to invade the island itself, and they thought they could use this as deterrent in negotiations. Come on Shep, I know you already know this because you've studied WW2 upside down and sideways. Don't pretend otherwise.

[HemlockGrey]

The Suzuki government knew that Hiroshima had been destroyed fifteen minutes after the detonation of the bomb. It knew that it had likely been an atomic bomb a few hours later.

On August 9th, after withstanding firebombings, the destruction of two cities, and a massive Soviet invasion, the chief council of Japan joined to laid down terms for ending the war. The Army Minister and the two Chief of Staffs both insisted on maintaining the old order, which was, for obvious reasons, unacceptable to the Allies. They did not choose this posistion as an opening bargain; without it, there could be no surrender. I think there commitment to this is amply demonstrated by the fact that Anami actuall committed suicide instead of surrender.

The Emperor himself, who was head of the 'peace faction' (which itself championed a conditional surrender) did not advocate surrender until after Nagasaki had been destroyed, and even then, it was not a sure thing, as Lord Kido's failure to object to Anami's peace plan shows.

So, after the annhilation of two cities, a blatant ultimatum on August 6th (in which Truman clearly revealed the existance of atomic weapons and demanded Japan's surrender), months of unrelenting blockade, bombardment, a massive Soviet invasion, and the threat of a massive American invasion looming close, the leadership of Japan was deadlocked on the decision to surrender, which was broken only by the intervention of the Emperor, which was only made possible because of the direness of Japan's situation. And even then, he initially did not object to the conditional peace proposed by Anami.

After withstanding the brunt of everything listed above, Japanese surrender was still not a sure thing, and almost did not happen. What then makes you think that an unconditional surrender would have been forthcoming after a mere demonstration? Do not forget that if Japan deliberated too long, it would find itself knee-deep in Soviet troops, and the invasion and subsequent Soviet occupation would be far more horrific than the atomic bombs. Of course, such a thing would have been welcomed by the IJA, who were fully willing to prove the worth of Ketsu-Go.

And a last word on the idea of unconditional surrender. The objective of the Allies was, in the words of Richard B. Frank, to have peace, not merely victory. (Frank's excellant book Downfall thoroughly proves the necessity of the atomic bombs).

A conditional surrender which would allow Japan to recover herself, while maintaining the same old order, would only ensure another bloody and violent clash in the Pacific. The entire body politic had to be dismantled and the old order washed away in order to ensure that there would never again be war between the Allies and Japan.

[Darth Wong]

The Emperor himself, who was head of the 'peace faction' (which itself championed a conditional surrender) did not advocate surrender until after Nagasaki had been destroyed, and even then, it was not a sure thing, as Lord Kido's failure to object to Anami's peace plan shows.

The fact that the Emperor himself was pushing for peace does not raise any flags at all? Hawks will always act like hawks; their preferences do not dictate the course of the government's actions, as we saw later.

After withstanding the brunt of everything listed above, Japanese surrender was still not a sure thing, and almost did not happen. What then makes you think that an unconditional surrender would have been forthcoming after a mere demonstration?

I reiterate: Hiroshima WAS a demonstration. The only distinction between that demonstration and any other proposed demontration is the number of casualties, not the demonstration of power. And what convinced the Japanese to surrender? The number of casualties? That seems doubtful, since they'd taken more casualties from conventional bombing than from nuclear bombing, hadn't they? No, they surrendered because they knew the Allies had the A-bomb. Hiroshima demonstrated that to them. I made this point in a previous post, but it apparently went unnoticed.

[HemlockGrey]

The fact that the Emperor himself was pushing for peace does not raise any flags at all? Hawks will always act like hawks; their preferences do not dictate the course of the government's actions, as we saw later.

The Emperor only began to really push for peace after Hiroshima, and even then it was a fairly half-hearted effort. Further, at that time the Suzuki Cabinet had power over Japan. The Emperor was not the government, the hawks were the government.

I reiterate: Hiroshima WAS a demonstration. The only distinction between that demonstration and any other proposed demontration is the number of casualties, not the demonstration of power. And what convinced the Japanese to surrender? The number of casualties? That seems doubtful, since they'd taken more casualties from conventional bombing than from nuclear bombing, hadn't they? No, they surrendered because they knew the Allies had the A-bomb. Hiroshima demonstrated that to them. I made this point in a previous post, but it apparently went unnotice

Japan knew America had the A-bomb within hours of the destruction of Hiroshima. That did not convince those in power to agree to an unconditional surrender. It was Nagasaki which decided the Emperor, and thus it could be argued that such a demonstration made the peace, but it ignores the fact that it was the scope of the demonstration which allowed the Emperor to have any impact at all on the decision. The mere existance of the A-Bomb did not provide him with the impetus to end the war, as was shown by the demonstration at Hiroshima.

[Darth Wong]

Japan knew America had the A-bomb within hours of the destruction of Hiroshima.

They probably leapt to that conclusion based on the sketchy information they had available. I don't see how they could have come to a solid scientific conclusion that quickly, given their limited resources.

That did not convince those in power to agree to an unconditional surrender. It was Nagasaki which decided the Emperor, and thus it could be argued that such a demonstration made the peace, but it ignores the fact that it was the scope of the demonstration which allowed the Emperor to have any impact at all on the decision. The mere existance of the A-Bomb did not provide him with the impetus to end the war, as was shown by the demonstration at Hiroshima.

And your evidence that, say, an extra week and an ultimatum would have made no difference is ...?