On This Day In 1945…

Posted on | August 9, 2013 | 57 Comments

…the United States Army Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and six days after that the Japanese agreed to an unconditional surrender. Ever since then, all manner of intellectualloids have been moaning about the inhumanity of it all, how it didn’t need to happen, and 31 other flavors of morally superior nonsense. Ace has a really excellent post which he admits is nothing more than an extended tease to get people reading Paul Fussell’s Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays, which he generously excerpts in the post.

I’m not going to rehash Fussell’s arguments, especially since I’ve seen them before in George MacDonald Fraser’s Quartered Safe Out Here; the TL;DR version is that some sorry whiners think Japanese lives were more important than the lives of American men in uniform*. Strange but true. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for that argument, and think that anyone holding that opinion ought to consider getting a brain implant. One look at how the landings would have gone is in Alfred Coppel’s The Burning Mountain; if you enjoy reading about bloodbaths and slaughterhouses, this will be right up your alley. Sweet dreams. I for one am grateful we had the bomb, because the alternative would have been a lot worse for all concerned.

*Also Australian, British, Chinese, Dutch, Filipino, French and Indian soldiers, sailors, and airmen, to say nothing of civilians in the war zones.

Category: Ace of Spades, History, Intellectuals

Comments

57 Responses to “On This Day In 1945…”

MrEvilMatt
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:30 pm

On This Day In 1945…: – Wombat-socho …the United States Army Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and… http://t.co/qw3U2m0Hbd
Lockestep1776
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:30 pm

On This Day In 1945…: – Wombat-socho …the United States Army Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and… http://t.co/ze0iZCBZqX
CHideout
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:30 pm

On This Day In 1945…: – Wombat-socho …the United States Army Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and… http://t.co/JgE3oc62df
Citzcom
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:30 pm

On This Day In 1945…: – Wombat-socho …the United States Army Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and… http://t.co/ph1gUWru5p
jwbrown1969
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:30 pm

On This Day In 1945…: – Wombat-socho …the United States Army Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and… http://t.co/pYuo4Mv9kt
Zandraeixb0m
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:36 pm

@smitty_one_each http://t.co/Kxd499haYL
preciseBlogs
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:37 pm

On This Day In 1945… http://t.co/3TFrqX0BN5 #news #conservative #history #aceofspades #intellectuals
pdxracefan
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:40 pm

Amen.
pdxracefan
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:40 pm

RT @smitty_one_each: TOM On This Day In 1945… http://t.co/0DxYFSen1p #TCOT
RS
August 9th, 2013 @ 6:44 pm

Read the Fussell column via Ace. My dad, whose Navy PB-1 Ventura ditched in the Aleutians in 1945, told me he was quite happy the A-bombs ended the war. He believed that surviving one crash was more than enough luck for one war. He didn’t think he’d come home if the attack on Japan went forward.
Finrod Felagund
August 9th, 2013 @ 7:18 pm

Interesting fact that I just recently became aware of: the War Department, anticipating the number of casualties that would result from the invasion of Japan, ordered so many Purple Hearts made that they’re still using up that supply of them today.

http://www.stripes.com/blogs/the-rumor-doctor/the-rumor-doctor-1.104348/are-purple-hearts-from-1945-still-being-awarded-1.116756
Wombat_socho
August 9th, 2013 @ 7:40 pm

Yep. They were figuring on one million casualties just from OLYMPIC. After the war, they found out their estimates of Japanese strength were underestimated by a factor of three…
Wombat_socho
August 9th, 2013 @ 7:41 pm

The father of a close friend was in one of the divisions being sent from the ETO to the Pacific to prepare for CORONET. Odds are good that without the bomb, my friend and his family wouldn’t exist.
Joe Dokes
August 9th, 2013 @ 7:46 pm

So had we not dropped the bombs, Japan might never have been forced to surrender and one of us would have sued for peace after multi-millions were lost on both sides. Had that happened, we’d likely never have rebuilt Japan the way we did. Which means they’d never have produced the cheaply exported technology starting in the ’50s that made them the giant they are today. Which means the chain of events leading to practically all the precious consumer tech everyone today takes for granted would have never existed. Which means we’d probably still be on landline phones and tube TVs with UHF and VHF.

Put it in those terms to your pet self-righteous liberal. They’ll eye their Iphone and say, “You know, maybe Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a good thing.”
NoFixedAddress
August 9th, 2013 @ 7:51 pm

Hear, Hear.

Well said.
Adobe_Walls
August 9th, 2013 @ 7:55 pm

The Japanese have never thanked us for that.
richard mcenroe
August 9th, 2013 @ 8:01 pm

No they won’t. They’ll use their iPhone to tweet about how clueless you are about your own fascist bloodlust. There isn’t enough money to buy a clue they’d recognize.
Finrod Felagund
August 9th, 2013 @ 8:06 pm

Not to mention the fact that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably played a major role in nuclear weapons never being deployed in anger again.
Quartermaster
August 9th, 2013 @ 8:15 pm

The Japs did not surrender unconditionally. They had been putting out peace feelers for a year before the war ended and they asked one thing – the recognition of the Emperor as head of state and that he would not be killed. The Allies gave that to the Japs shortly after the bombs were dropped and the war ended almost immediately. The war could have been ended 6 months earlier, but Acheson and his boys couldn’t bring themselves to their senses. They also caused problems in Korea.

Both Eisenhower and MacArthur were asked about dropping the bombs. Both were against it. Eisenhower told Stimson it wasn’t necessary as Japan was already down (he knew about the peace feelers) and that it would stain the US to employ such a fearful weapon. MacArthur was asked nothing further, and his full reason doesn’t seem to be recorded, but he flew into a rage after the bomb was dropped because he had not been informed they were to be dropped.

There was no military need for the bombs. LeMay stated that point blank. The Japs were also quite willing to keep fighting if the Emperor was not recognized. The bombs did nothing to their grim determination to fight on. The war was ended when Hirohito told the troops to lay their arms down.
Paratisi
August 9th, 2013 @ 8:19 pm

On This Day In 1945… http://t.co/5ufZwVxgW8
Finrod Felagund
August 9th, 2013 @ 9:03 pm

You’ve got several things wrong there. The Japanese also were insisting on self-disarming, which just worked so well when we let Saddam Hussein do it at the end of Gulf War I in 1991. Leaving the Emperor as a Japanese deity instead of just a man as he ended up also would have been a huge mistake and very likely would have led to another war with Japan a decade or two into the future. Your portrayal of the Japanese as near surrender is also complete bunk. Even after we dropped two atomic bombs and the Emperor decided to surrender, he still had to deal with an attempted coup from Japanese officers that still wanted to fight. The idea that they would have surrendered without either the atomic bombs being dropped or an invasion happening is absurd and bogus revisionist history. I don’t know about MacArthur, but Eisenhower’s information about the Japanese defenses was about an order of magnitude less than the information we actually had (Eisenhower was concerned with the European theater and was not fully informed about the Pacific theater), and our information was lower than what things actually were, we found out later.
Steve Skubinna
August 9th, 2013 @ 9:23 pm

Comparing Fussell’s and Fraser’s assessments is interesting in that both were young, intelligent, thoughtful front line combat soldiers (while Fraser was an enlisted rifleman in the 14th Army he was selected for officer training at war’s end and served a few years postwar in a Highland Regiment before demobilization). As you note, their responses were similar – it meant they and their comrades in arms got to live and have families and reach old age.

Perhaps the best possible book on events in Japan at that time is Japan’s Longest Day. Out of print but it should be available on ABE. It makes clear that it was the nuclear strikes that convinced the Emperor that Japan was facing extermination and he needed to become directly involved and order a surrender. It also is a harrowing account of the attempted coup by the army when they got wind of the Emperor’s intent and how narrow the margin was.

A personal note: my house lady in Korea had been born and raised in Japan, near Nagasaki. Although Korean she was “honored” by receiving the same training as the Japanese school girls of her age, in wielding the sharpened bamboo poles with which they were expected to attack US troops. I asked her once “Miss Pak, what did you expect to happen when you and your schoolmates attacked GIs and Marines with your sticks?” She shrugged matter-of-factly and said “Oh, I think we all would die.” Didn’t matter – she and everyone else would have marched forward and died in the massive national immolation the army had planned for Japan.
Quartermaster
August 9th, 2013 @ 9:38 pm

You can believe what you will. I chose the facts. You actually know a great deal less than what you think, and I chose to not engage in the argument with you. I have given a broad overview that covers a year, you just deal in pin pricks.

As things turned out, the guys in the PTO weren’t fully informed either. Sending Eisenhower to the PTO was considered and that’s why Stimson had the conversation with Eisenhower. There are some other things in your screed that are true as far as such things go, but you ignore the truly germane things. There was a reason why Nimitz was named CincPAC and ComPacFlt, and very good reasons why MacArthur was made SCAP and commanded the occupation. I seriously doubt you know those reasons, because if you did, you would not post the BS you posted. The real revisionist is the one who ignores the germane facts, and that, my friend, is you.
RS
August 9th, 2013 @ 9:51 pm

No snark intended, but could you point to a couple of references for this. I’d be interested in reading what you’ve got, simply because the PTO has always interested me, given my father’s participation.

Thanks.
thatMrGguy
August 9th, 2013 @ 10:13 pm

On This Day In 1945… http://t.co/KbGPf41JJO
Finrod Felagund
August 9th, 2013 @ 11:40 pm

A lot of people smarter than you disagree with you. I’ll stand with them, thank you very much.
Bob Belvedere
August 9th, 2013 @ 11:50 pm

Same with my brother and myself.

My father was in charge of the broadcast equipment on Okinawa. He came in after the main part of the battle was fought and was nearly killed by a sniper. He tells me there were pockets of them everywhere and you never felt safe for months afterwards.
Bob Belvedere
August 9th, 2013 @ 11:52 pm

He’s back!
Bob Belvedere
August 9th, 2013 @ 11:56 pm

We often forget that the Japanese were planning a Gotterdammerung that was going to be just as bad as the one Hitler planned [and Speer and others supposedly prevented].
Adobe_Walls
August 10th, 2013 @ 2:10 am

Alas not for long.
Adobe_Walls
August 10th, 2013 @ 2:17 am

If we hadn’t dropped those two bombs we would never have become the only nation to have nuked another…twice. One must take ones exceptionalism where one finds it. The negative effects of not having nuked the nips are incalculable vis a vis our future relations with the soviets.
Junior Samples
August 10th, 2013 @ 2:42 am

He probably commanded my late father, a communications landline Marine. The atomic bombs saved millions of people on both sides.
SDN
August 10th, 2013 @ 6:33 am

“I chose the facts.”

When you cite some, let us know.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 8:45 am

When you get out of your your little provincial knot and read someone that hasn’t plagiarized someone else, you let me know.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 8:47 am

They’re incalculable because the bombs were actually dropped. It is sheer speculation on anyone’s part as to what effect it would or would not have.

It is known that dropping the second bomb was for the benefit of Ivan, not of the Jap regime.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 8:48 am

Standard ad hominem. Stand with them. I don’t care. As I said above. I choose the facts.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 8:58 am

I don’t have the books in my library, alas. The readings I refer to were read back in the late 60s and were checked out from a military Library in Germany and I do not recall the titles, alas.

I know where you are coming from, however, as I had family over there too.
cubanbob
August 10th, 2013 @ 2:59 pm

It wasn’t the death count of the atomic bombings that finally convinced the Emperor to surrender. it was the ease and casualness of one plane, one bomb, one city and no apocalyptic battle to the end that convinced him. That and a Soviet invasion of the corpse of Japan finally did the trick.
cubanbob
August 10th, 2013 @ 3:29 pm

Japanese intelligence had determined which were the invasion beaches and they had six thousand Kamikaze planes and pilots in reserve with massive numbers of troops in place ready for the invasion. Something not known to the Allied planners at the time.

Sure the Japanese sent peace-feelers out months earlier-through the Soviets-who weren’t exactly forthright and timely with them. And considering the factions in the Japanese government how serious were those feelers anyway unless the terms were pretty much what the militarist were willing to accept? And how was Truman supposed to sell to the American people a negotiated peace that left the Japanese standing in place everywhere they still occupied and leaving the militarist in power?

Now its true we could have avoided dropping the bomb and possibly avoided an invasion but absent accepting a peace on Japan’s terms how would have the war been terminated? Would the American people accept another three, four or five years of ‘relatively’ low casualties as we firebombed every city, town, village and hamlet in japan to ashes and at the same time have the Navy impose a blockade so tight most of Japan’s population would have starved to death? Would that have been more humane and morally acceptable?

What level of ‘tolerable’ Kamikaze deaths and casualties would have been acceptable for the Navy to suffer while imposing the blockade for several years? Would the American people have accepted this drawing out of the war?

The folks whose lives were on the line in 1945 had a different perspective than yours of today.
Shawn Gillogly
August 10th, 2013 @ 3:40 pm

What facts? The revisionist tripe that said a minority of Japanese could overthrow a military junta that became MORE fanatical as losses mounted?

The ‘fact’ that Eisenhower was told well after the fact by someone who wasn’t a major decision maker that he had second thoughts?

Oh, and MacArthur wasn’t upset the bomb got dropped because of what it did to the Japanese. He was upset because it denied him his Grand Triumph. It was the same nonsense that caused us to get bogged down from the successful island-hopping campaign to attack the Philippines when Nimitz said point-blank the islands no longer had strategic value and should be bypassed. MacArthur was a man with no moral compass beyond his own glory, and no sense of duty unless you were doing it for HIM.

Olympic would have been the greatest nightmare in the history of warfare. It would’ve easily rivaled Stalingrad for brutality, and on a much larger scale. The submarine warfare that most revisionists put their stock in already had destroyed Japan’s production capacity. And STILL they were going to fight. Because you can’t stop someone committed to self-sacrifice, unless you make that sacrifice meaningless.

Far from being useless, the atomic bomb saved millions more lives–on both sides–than it cost.

Oh, and the facts you glossed away earlier about Japan wanting the Emperor’s godhood maintained and the military ‘self-demobilized’ to Washington Treaty levels are accurate. And of course, we should add here that Japan had done SO well keeping to the Washington Treaty in the first place. Oh, and of course, they fortified the entire Solomon Chain in violation of League of Nation’s sanction. Yeah, just take their word for it.

So an armistice with Japan would’ve involved keeping the basis for Japan’s war machine intact. Keeping their ideology that led them to war in place. That would’ve been a recipe for round 2 in 20 years.

And yes, Japan’s surrender was Unconditional. Unconditional Surrender means the terms are imposed by the victor. Not that there are not terms. Just because Japan could have agreed (really they wouldn’t have, but for the sake of argument, I’ll grant it) with ONE of those terms ahead of time does not mean it wasn’t Unconditional Surrender. It just means we weren’t after their total annihilation, like the Walter Zinn’s of the world would have us believe–oh, and that’s the ‘source’ for your argument too. The ever inaccurate “People’s History of the United States.”
Shawn Gillogly
August 10th, 2013 @ 3:44 pm

Known by whom? Zinn and his friends? No, we didn’t want the Soviets involved in the Pacific. But we also didn’t want a bloodbath that anticipated the slaughter of every man, woman, and child on Honshu.

And before you pooh-pooh that again, look at what happened on Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa for examples of what the Samurai mentality was willing to do. It would have been carnage, and the absolute destruction of the Japanese way of life.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 4:13 pm

I had family in the war, and when they found out the war could have been ended earlier they were shocked.

You can say they were insincere, but much depends on who sent the feelers. As the Soviet feelers came through the Japanese Ambassador I would say it’s likely they came from Tojo’s regime. They did get passed on quickly by the Soviets as well.

By 1945, they asked one thing – recognition of the Emperor. The call for unconditional surrender was stupidity, as people who knew the Japs told them. In the end, the Allies gave them what they asked for and the war ended quickly after that.

You show little military experience behind your post. A close blockade was not needed. Their merchant marine was on the bottom of the Pacific. We had enough Subs to be able to keep them quarantined. LeMay’s planes would have kept pounding the place, and with the leaflet drops, the population had taken to the hills.

In the end, there was no negotiated peace, but neither was there and unconditional surrender. They got their Emperor, and we got peace.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 4:16 pm

I don’t credit Zinn, and I don’t take seriously people that engage in ad hominem. All of you people that are so bought into the lie that the bombs ended the war think some invasion would also have had to be made to bring them down. That was not needed either. The way the war ended is proof enough of that. They got the one thing they asked for, we got peace. ’nuff said.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 4:18 pm

Unconditional surrender means just that. There are no conditions on the part of the vanquished that will be met. Period. Even someone educated in public schools should understand that. Asking for recognition of the Emperor and telling the allies you will surrender after that is a condition.

After your initial outburst it’s clear you haven’t thought through what you were going to say, so I’m not going to take it seriously.
Shawn Gillogly
August 10th, 2013 @ 4:20 pm

It wasn’t the ‘one thing’ they asked for. When you stop repeating what you already know to be a lie, you can be taken seriously as having an academic discussion.
Shawn Gillogly
August 10th, 2013 @ 4:32 pm

Wrong. I replied to each of your fables with historical facts that can be looked up. Nimitz DID specifically tell MacArthur & Roosevelt that the Philippines was a wasteful operation and non-objective. MacArthur appealed to ‘national honor’–by which he meant, “I stuck my foot in my mouth and want you to bail me out.”

Japan violated both the Washington Treaty and the Trust that gave the Solomons their Pacific Empire between Wars. That’s fact.

You make a big deal out of ‘knowing’ about the war. My grandfather flew in WWII. My Great Uncle was a Frogman, captured by the Japanese, and escaped the same night during the island campaigns.

And I served on submarines myself. I know the history and the lore. 90% of wartime tonnage in the Pacific was sunk by subs. It was the campaign the Germans WISHED to have pursued against the British. The only successful undersea campaign in history.

It still didn’t bring them to their knees, as it would have England. Why? Different mentality.

Now you can sit here and say everyone who disagrees with you is using ad hominem attacks, while you commit them by waving your hand in the air and saying ‘You don’t count.’ Pot, kettle much?

And yes, Zinn does use that pathetic argument. Having had to read that biased excuse for history, I know the stench. These days, when someone does a serious history that takes into account the victors’ arguments, they’re shot down for being ‘traditionalist.’ But when a ‘revisionist’ uses sources from the ‘disadvantaged’–even when they’re about as reliable as Goebbels himself–they’re lauded as ‘serious.’

Discipline and critical thinking left the study of history 20 years ago in this country. Now all you have to do is hold up ‘postmodern’ and you’re a hero.
Shawn Gillogly
August 10th, 2013 @ 4:36 pm

Calling people provincial isn’t ad hominem? So far, you’re the only one that I’ve seen use the textbook definition of that fallacy. Perhaps you should try some of the Classics of rhetoric, I realize modern liberal arts and humanities departments don’t like them in this country. But once you leave the academic bubble, you’re not free to define terms how you wish anymore.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 5:31 pm

Who defined this as an academic discussion? I didn’t. I don’t recall you sending down any regal decrees that it was. When you ignorance is brought out then you say it is.

Too bad for you.

You really, badly, need to get out some. If you want to call the truth lies, go ahead. No skin off my nose. If you want to tell the world that the Japs were asking for more, go right ahead. The initial feelers asked what would be required. The demand for unconditional surrender came later, after the Japs had simply asked for recognition of the Emperor. In ’45, that’s all they asked for. They knew they would keep nothing else, and without that, they were not going to surrender. It would have come down to defending the Emperor. You need to read some about the cultural attitudes of the Japs. It will both enlighten and expand your horizons. Start with MacArthur’s “Reminisces.”

But, as of now, you have marked yourself as an idiot. And I refuse to have a discussion with an idiot of any kind.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 5:43 pm

The argument over the PI is irrelevant. The primary argument there was strategic, but MacArthur did appeal to honor as well. Nimitz wanted Formosa, but Formosa, just looking at teh charts, was a bad choice, and was one of teh few strategic mistakes of judgment made by Nimitz.

I don’t care about Zinn. Zinn is a lefty who ground axes hard and didn’t care about the facts, just his leftist viewpoint.

No I’m not saying that attacking what I say is ad hominem. I obviously know what that means. You surely do not. What you call my fables, are simply facts that you find uncomfortable. Saying they are “your fables” is ad hominem. Like it or not.

Your posts are becoming more disjointed as you go forward and bringing in things that are utterly irrelevant. I served in the Military, both Navy and Army. My family has been involved in every war that has been in and by this country. I am well aware of the “lore” of this country as the tenure of my family in this country goes back to 1649.

I can’t remember who said it, but he was on the money – “History is simply lies agreed upon.” There is a good reason why history is argued about. What usually gets written first is, often, just the propaganda of the time. It is well after the events when more is found, we discover we have been lied to. WW2 is no different.

Frankly, this has gone far enough. I see nothing coming of this, and you just get more idiotic as you go forward. You can even have the last say for all I care, because I won’t be back to this thread. I won’t argue with an emotional idiot.
Quartermaster
August 10th, 2013 @ 5:52 pm

No, that is an observation. It would seem you aren’t well enough educated to realize that. Farewell Mr. Gillogly.