Was Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?

[Ned]

It does appear that we sent no prior warning to the people of Hiroshima. Nor did we target the factories that were located in the suburbs. We targeted downtown Hiroshima.

Here is a letter to the Smithsonian that demonstrates that much of what we accept as history is a post-war fabrication - meaning - lies.

"Mr. I. Michael Heyman
Secretary
The Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C. 20560

July 31, 1995

Dear Secretary Heyman:

Testifying before a House subcommittee on March 10, 1995, you promised that when you finally unveiled the Enola Gay exhibit, "I am just going to report the facts."[1]

Unfortunately, the Enola Gay exhibit contains a text which goes far beyond the facts. The critical label at the heart of the exhibit makes the following assertions:

* The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "destroyed much of the two cities and caused many tens of thousands of deaths." This substantially understates the widely accepted figure that at least 200,000 men, women and children were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Official Japanese records calculate a figure of more than 200,000 deaths--the vast majority of victims being women, children and elderly men.)[2]

* "However," claims the Smithsonian, "the use of the bombs led to the immediate surrender of Japan and made unnecessary the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands." Presented as fact, this sentence is actually a highly contentious interpretation. For example, an April 30, 1946 study by the War Department's Military Intelligence Division concluded, "The war would almost certainly have terminated when Russia entered the war against Japan."[3] (The Soviet entry into the war on August 8th is not even mentioned in the exhibit as a major factor in the Japanese surrender.) And it is also a fact that even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, the Japanese still insisted that Emperor Hirohito be allowed to remain emperor as a condition of surrender. Only when that assurance was given did the Japanese agree to surrender. This was precisely the clarification of surrender terms that many of Truman's own top advisors had urged on him in the months prior to Hiroshima. This, too, is a widely known fact.[4]

* The Smithsonian's label also takes the highly partisan view that, "It was thought highly unlikely that Japan, while in a very weakened military condition, would have surrendered unconditionally without such an invasion." Nowhere in the exhibit is this interpretation balanced by other views. Visitors to the exhibit will not learn that many U.S. leaders--including Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower[5], Admiral William D. Leahy[6], War Secretary Henry L. Stimson[7], Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew[8] and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy[9]--thought it highly probable that the Japanese would surrender well before the earliest possible invasion, scheduled for November 1945. It is spurious to assert as fact that obliterating Hiroshima in August was needed to obviate an invasion in November. This is interpretation--the very thing you said would be banned from the exhibit.

* In yet another label, the Smithsonian asserts as fact that "Special leaflets were then dropped on Japanese cities three days before a bombing raid to warn civilians to evacuate." The very next sentence refers to the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, implying that the civilian inhabitants of Hiroshima were given a warning. In fact, no evidence has ever been uncovered that leaflets warning of atomic attack were dropped on Hiroshima. Indeed, the decision of the Interim Committee was "that we could not give the Japanese any warning."[10]

* In a 16 minute video film in which the crew of the Enola Gay are allowed to speak at length about why they believe the atomic bombings were justified, pilot Col. Paul Tibbits asserts that Hiroshima was "definitely a military objective." Nowhere in the exhibit is this false assertion balanced by contrary information. Hiroshima was chosen as a target precisely because it had been very low on the previous spring's campaign of conventional bombing, and therefore was a pristine target on which to measure the destructive powers of the atomic bomb.[11] Defining Hiroshima as a "military" target is analogous to calling San Francisco a "military" target because it has a port and contains the Presidio. James Conant, a member of the Interim Committee that advised President Truman, defined the target for the bomb as a "vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers' houses."[12] There were indeed military factories in Hiroshima, but they lay on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, the Enola Gay bombardier's instructions were to target the bomb on the center of this civilian city.

The few words in the exhibit that attempt to provide some historical context for viewing the Enola Gay amount to a highly unbalanced and one-sided presentation of a largely discredited post-war justification of the atomic bombings.

Such errors of fact and such tendentious interpretation in the exhibit are no doubt partly the result of your decision earlier this year to take this exhibit out of the hands of professional curators and your own board of historical advisors. Accepting your stated concerns for accuracy, we trust that you will therefore adjust the exhibit, either to eliminate the highly contentious interpretations, or at the very least, balance them with other interpretations that can be easily drawn from the attached footnotes.

Sincerely,

Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin
Co-chairs of the Historians' Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima"

http://www.doug-long.com/letter.htm

[Heresson]

I'm too lazy to read the entire thread... I just wanted to add that Nagasaki is the center of Japaneese catholicism and some think Americans destroyed it on purpouse...

[Joseph]

And Ned letter mean what?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Joseph
And Ned letter mean what?

Joseph, the letter is from a number of historians who point out that the "official" story behind Hiroshima and Nagasaki is largely a post-event fabrication. The facts make it clear that military planners had for months planned to use the bomb regardless of whether the Japanese wanted to surrender. Truman never followed up seriously with Japanese peace offers. He issued a demand for unconditional surrender at the end of July knowing the Japanese would surrender if they could keep their emperor. Almost all top leaders thought Japan would surrender well short of the November invasion date. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not previously bombed at all so that bomb damage from the A-bombs could be observed. The bomb were targeted on downtown and not in the suburbs where industry was for this purpose as well.

Finally, an most perversely, there was no warning given to Hiroshima as were given to all prior target cities. (This despite Truman's log note that we would do so - this note flatly indicating either that Truman was lying to his diary for historical purposes, or that his orders were disobeyed.)

It all adds up, doesn't it?

[Joseph]

I was alive in 45, but was not invited to their meeting. Of course I was only a year and haft old.

Since none of us was there at their meeting, we really don't know what said by who, and what intel they really had.

We do know that some said later we should not drop the A-bomb and some said let's do it anyway.

We just don't know.

It would nice to have a 24 - 7 account on what goes on in the White House, however the BOYS would not be to happy about it.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
But,
as the Meiji Restoration ended the rule of the Bakufu, and a civilian Government was established, as well as the Samurai as a caste officially ceased to exist, wouldn´t it have made any coups against the Emperor more difficulty?

Other than ending the role of the Bakufu and the Tokugawa's fudai, the abolition of samurai status didn't mean much in the large scale, with one exception - the chain of loyalty in the military class (now professional officers instead of samurai) was based on personal loyalty and factionalism, rather than hereditary bonds. Ni-ni-roku showed the military class had no compuction about assassinations and coups against the government to extent their faction's particular agenda. The exaltation of Hagakure in education also tended to assure that immediate loyalty to one's superiors outweighed any more "distant" loyalties to higher authority.

After all, yes, even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki there was a try amongst some military leaders to seize the Recordings of the Emperors Speech of Surrender. But it failed, because there were enough people among the military which were loyal to the emperor.
So, couldn´t it be that the Military was already divided before Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that enough Generals would have supported Hirohito if he had announced a Ceasefire or conditional Surrender prior to the Bombs? (with one of the Conditions being, that he himself would remain japanese Empror)

IF he had made such an announcement, maybe, although prior to the a-bombings, relatively few issues regarding conduct of the war were brought to the emperor's immediate and personal attention. He was not a "hands on" leader and had no position, except a nominal moral authority, in the chain of command. It was largely the extremity of the news once the bombs were dropped, that the emperor became a central figure in determining whether Japan should surrender or fight to the end.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Joseph
I was alive in 45, but was not invited to their meeting. Of course I was only a year and haft old.

Since none of us was there at their meeting, we really don't know what said by who, and what intel they really had.

We do know that some said later we should not drop the A-bomb and some said let's do it anyway.

We just don't know.

It would nice to have a 24 - 7 account on what goes on in the White House, however the BOYS would not be to happy about it.

I think Japan got caught up in power politics between Truman and Uncle Joe. Truman wanted to use the bomb just as much to impress the Soviets as he did to end the war. As I said earlier in the thread, this latter purpose was indeed important in that it inaugurated MAD, which kept the peace among the superpowers for 50 years. However, what Truman did was truly Machiavellian in that he deliberately used the bomb to send all sorts of messages concerning American power and ruthlessness.

[MichaeltheGreat]

And he succeeded in ending the war virtually then and there - any other outcome from any other "scenario" is just a lot of assumption and second-guessing.

And yes, given the warfighting means and technology of the day, the info available, etc., I'd still drop the thing.

[Dis]

bump

[Kramerman]

this is an old thread

[Dis]

but still relevant. Hiroshima and Nagasaki haven't changed much in a couple of months.

I'm bumping this threads so posters can reference this thread to come up with their arguments for the other thread.