The Descision to Use Atomic Weapons

Note: Color Key for highlighted sections:
Red: Atom Bomb and Death Tole
Green: Racism used to convince Americans
Blue: Invasion and Death Tole if bomb was not used
Orange: Japan possibly surrendering before atom bombs were dropped
Yellow:

Text in red is comments on highlighted sections.






The Descision to Use Atomic Weapons
from

A People's War?
Howard Zinn

Still, the vast bulk of the American population was mobilized, in the army, and in civilian life, to fight the war, and the atmosphere of war enveloped more and more Americans. Public opinion polls show large majorities of soldiers favoring the draft for the postwar period. Hatred against the enemy, against the Japanese particularly, became widespread. Racism was clearly at work. Time magazine, reporting the battle of Iwo Jima, said: "The ordinary unreasoning Jap is ignorant. Perhaps he is human. Nothing .. . indicates it." ....

Right here, Zinn is trying to convince people by quoiting things like how Time Magazine reported the battle of Iwo Jima and how racist they are being in order to convince the American public into thinking that it would be okay to kill large numbers of Japanese people because they are "ignorant" and "unreasoning". I do agree with what he is saying, that during that time racism was used to get the public fired up and convince them into thinking that killing large numbers of Japanese, and that anyone now days that has a mind would agree that it was a tactic just to get the public going and for them to except the unneeded death tole from the atom bombs dropped.

The bombing of Japanese cities continued the strategy of saturation bombing to destroy civilian morale; one nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000 lives. And then, on August 6, 1945, came the lone American plane in the sky over Hiroshima, dropping the first atomic bomb, leaving perhaps 100,000 Japanese dead, and tens of thousands more slowly dying from radiation poisoning. Twelve U.S. navy fliers in the Hiroshima city jail were killed in the bombing, a fact that the U.S. government has never officially acknowledged, according to historian Martin Sherwin (A World Destroyed). Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, with perhaps 50,000 killed.

Right here, Zinn is trying to convince people by showing the death toles from the atomic bomb attacks. In a way I do agree that they shouldn't have bombed that much just to blow up a few factories to end the war. Yet at the same time, we kind of had to use scare tactics in order to convince them to surrender.

The justification for these atrocities was that this would end the war quickly, making unnecessary an invasion of Japan. Such an invasion would cost a huge number of lives, the government said-a million, according to Secretary of State Byrnes; half a million, Truman claimed was the figure given him by General George Marshall.

Here, Zinn states the estimated amount of lives that could be lost in the atomic attacks. I do agree that is was a lot of life lost that shouldn't have been lost but then again we kind of needed to use scare tactics during that time.

(When the papers of the Manhattan Project-the project to build the atom bomb- were released years later, they showed that Marshall urged a warning to the Japanese about the bomb, so people could be removed and only military targets hit.) These estimates of invasion losses were not realistic, and seem to have been pulled out of the air to justify bombings which, as their effects became known, horrified more and more people. Japan, by August 1945, was in desperate shape and ready to surrender. New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote, shortly after the war:

The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position by the time the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender was made on July 26.
Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Need we have done it? No one can, of course, be positive, but the answer is almost certainly negative.

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and reported just after the war:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

But could American leaders have known this in August 1945? The answer is, clearly, yes. The Japanese code had been broken, and Japan's messages were being intercepted. It was known the Japanese had instructed their ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had begun talking of surrender a year before this, and the Emperor himself had begun to suggest, in June 1945, that alternatives to fighting to the end be considered. On July 13, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired his ambassador in Moscow: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace.. .." Martin Sherwin, after an exhaustive study of the relevant historical documents, concludes: "Having broken the Japanese code before the war, American Intelligence was able to-and did-relay this message to the President, but it had no effect whatever on efforts to bring the war to a conclusion."

Right here, Zinn is saying that World War II could have ended sooner and more peacefully then it did with the atom bombs dropped. I do agree with this because sometimes the government gets information about stuff that they ignore sometimes.

If only the Americans had not insisted on unconditional surrender- that is, if they were willing to accept one condition to the surrender, that the Emperor, a holy figure to the Japanese, remain in place-the Japanese would have agreed to stop the war.
Why did the United States not take that small step to save both American and Japanese lives? Was it because too much money and effort had been invested in the atomic bomb not to drop it? General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, described Truman as a man on a toboggan, the momentum too great to stop it. Or was it, as British scientist P. M. S. Blackett suggested (Fear, War, and the Bomb), that the United States was anxious to drop the bomb before the Russians entered the war against Japan?
The Russians had secretly agreed (they were officially not at war with Japan) they would come into the war ninety days after the end of the European war. That turned out to be May 8, and so, on August 8, the Russians were due to declare war on Japan, But by then the big bomb had been dropped, and the next day a second one would be dropped on Nagasaki; the Japanese would surrender to the United States, not the Russians, and the United States would be the occupier of postwar Japan. In other words, Blackett says, the dropping of the bomb was "the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia.. .." Blackett is supported by American historian Gar Alperovitz (Atomic Diplomacy), who notes a diary entry for July 28, 1945, by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, describing Secretary of State James F. Byrnes as "most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in."
Truman had said, "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." It was a preposterous statement. Those 100,000 killed in Hiroshima were almost all civilians. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey said in its official report: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population."
The dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped. Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb? Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki victims of a scientific experiment? Martin Shenvin says that among the Nagasaki dead were probably American prisoners of war. He notes a message of July 31 from Headquarters, U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces, Guam, to the War Department:

Reports prisoner of war sources, not verified by photos, give location of Allied prisoner of war camp one mile north of center of city of Nagasaki. Does this influence the choice of this target for initial Centerboard operation? Request immediate reply.

The reply: "Targets previously assigned for Centerboard remain unchanged."
True, the war then ended quickly. Italy had been defeated a year earlier. Germany had recently surrendered, crushed primarily by the armies of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, aided by the Allied armies on the West. Now Japan surrendered.

Weekly Reflection #2

This week in history, we learned more about World War II and the atom bombs that were dropped on Japan, which is good I guess. It was more interesting then some of the things I have learned about World War II in the past. It was finally good to learn about somewhere else besides Germany during World War II. I still don't get get how at that time an electromagnetic pulse would stop clocks in Japan during the atom bomb attacks, especially since there were no transistors in electronics at that time, simply because they did not exist, because at that time they used vacuum tubes in radios and in the early computers that were being developed at the time. From what I can see its more likely that the vacuum tubes in whatever they had for electronic devices shattered because of the shock created from the atom bombs. Anyways, that's besides the point, I guess what I'm really saying is that I'm glad that were not always focusing on Germany during World War II, because I am REALLY SICK about hearing about just Germany all the time. So yeah, that's all I have to say about that at this point.

Weekly Reflection #1

Last week was alright in history. We got a lot of information about World War II, which I guess is good, even though I can't remember a whole lot about it.

Book Portfolio: The "Good War" by Studs Terkle

"The Good War" by Studs Terkel was about how World War II effected American culture, as well as the rest of the worlds culture.

The main theme of this book, I would have to say, is how World War II effected culture in the world. It affected the people of the time in many ways because most everything at that time was focused on the war efforts. One example is that most factories, in the world, were geared for the war effort by making parts for tanks, jeeps, air planes, guns, bombs and various other war related things of the time. It also effected the soldiers of the time because there had never been a war like it before, especially since it was during the time the USA developed the Atom Bomb.

The significance of World War II was that it was when the allied forces (USA, Brittan and a few others) went against the axis forces (Germany, Japan, and Italy) in order to stop fascism from spreading throughout the world.

Personally I do think that it was necessary for the USA to join the efforts of WWII because if we didn't then we probably would be under the control of the Germans and the terrible fascist way of life.

So, in general, "The Good War" by Studs Terkel did show how WWII effected American, as well as the rest of the worlds culture by showing how people were effected by it.

Defeat of Erwin Rommel

The defeat of Erwin Rommel was mostly during the Second Battle of El Alamein. It mostly had to do with the fact that British raiding parties attacked harbors and supply points in September of 1942 that were vital for the survival of Rommel's army. Because of the shortages of supplies and motorized units, his plan for the Second Battle of El Alamein was more static (in other words mostly foot infantry, making his army kind of weak) then he would have liked.

The battle started on October 23, 1942 while Rommel was away in Italy and Germany because his health was failing. However, he returned two days later (vital days) to fight in the battle. General Georg Stumme commanded Rommel's army while he was away. He (Georg Stumme) later died of a heart attack during the battle, paralizing the German HQ until General Ritter von Thoma took over.

Bernard Montgomery, the British commander stopped major attacks against the Germans when he noticed that his armored brigades were losing tanks at an alarming rate. However, he started again on November 2nd when he launched Operation Supercharge which was able to achieve a 4 kilometer penetration of the line.
On November 3rd, Montgomery found it impossible to continue his attack until reinforcements arrived. This gave Rommel an opportunity to retreat. However, he got the order to stay from Hitler ("Victory or Death").

On November 4th Montgomery recovered his attack with 500 tanks against the 20 tanks that Rommel had remaining. By this time, Rommel decided to retreat. Later, (12 hours after his decision) he got the order from Hitler to retreat but it was already too late because most of the unmotorized part of his army was already caught.

The last offensive by Rommel was on March 6, 1943 at the Battle of Medenine, where he lost 52 tanks which forced him to call of the attack. He later (March 9th) handed over command of Armeegrouppe Afrika to General Hans-Jurgen von Arnim and left Africa, because of his health failing, never to return.

On May 13, 1943, General Messe surrendered what was left of the Armeegruppe Afrika to the Allies.