Was It Necessary????

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Navy photographer pictures suffering and ruins that resulted from atom bomb blast in Hiroshima, Japan. Japanese soldier walks through leveled area. Picture From Nail Database

The popular, or traditional, view that dominated the 1950s and 60s--put forth by President Harry Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson-- was that the dropping of the atomic bombs was a solely military action that avoided the loss of as many as a million lives in the upcoming invasion of the island of Kyushu. In the 1960s a second school of thought developed--put forth by "revisionist" historians--that claimed the dropping of the bomb was a diplomatic maneuver aimed at intimating and gaining the upper hand in relations with Russia. Today, fifty years after the two bombings, with the advantage of historical hindsight and the advantage of new evidence, a third view, free of obscuring bias and passion, can be presented. First, the dropping of the bomb was born out a complex myriad of military, domestic and diplomatic pressures and concerns. Second, many potentially viable alternatives to dropping the bombs were not explored by Truman and other men in power, as they probably should have been. Lastly, because these alternatives were never explored, we can only conjecture over whether or not Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs was a savior of lives, and by extension, we may never know if Truman's monumental decision was a morally just one. Philip Goodman

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[Pre-attack mosaic view of Hiroshima, Japan.]
Pictures From Nail Database

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[Post-attack mosaic view of Hiroshima, Japan.]
Picture From Nail Database

Were Atomic Attacks Necessary? by Doug Long

Might the war have been ended sooner, with fewer deaths on both sides, before the Soviets had gotten into northern Korea (thus possibly avoiding the Korean War), before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima frightened the Soviets into putting their atomic bomb program into high gear and before an atomic precedent had been set? While there can be no conclusive answer to this question, it is worthwhile to study this topic for whatever insight it may give for future decision-making and the future saving of lives on all sides.

Historian and former Naval officer Martin Sherwin has summarized the situation, stating, "The choice in the summer of 1945 was not between a conventional invasion or a nuclear war. It was a choice between various forms of diplomacy and warfare." Long-time historian of the atomic bombings Barton Bernstein has taken a cautious view of what might have been: "Taken together, some of these alternatives [to dropping atomic bombs on Japan] - promising to retain the Japanese monarchy, awaiting the Soviets' entry, and even more conventional bombing - very probably could have ended the war before the dreaded invasion [of the Japanese mainland by the Allies]. Still, the evidence - to borrow a phrase from F.D.R. - is somewhat 'iffy', and no one who looks at the intransigence of the Japanese militarists should have full confidence in those other strategies. But we may well regret that these alternatives were not pursued and that there was not an effort to avoid the use of the first A-bomb - and certainly the second."

Echoing the concern of Assistant Sec. of War John McCloy and Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence Captain Ellis Zacharias that the Allies became overly dependent on military means, Leon Sigal writes, "At worst, withholding force might have prolonged the war for a while at a time when little combat was taking place; it would not have altered the final result. Yet restraint could have significantly reduced the gratuitous suffering on both sides, especially for noncombatants." Sigal concludes, "it could be argued that the United States behaved as if the objective of inducing Japan to surrender was subordinated to another objective - in Stimson's words, that of exerting 'maximum force with maximum speed.' American policy was guided by an implicit assumption that only the escalation of military pressure could bring the war to a rapid conclusion."

Regarding claims that the atomic bombings saved lives, Gar Alperovitz has noted, "It has been argued in this connection that using the atomic bomb was less costly in human life than the continuation of conventional bombing would have been. Apart from the fact that accounts which urge such a view commonly leave aside questions concerning [modifying the unconditional] surrender formula and the impact of the Russian attack, by early August 1945 very few significant Japanese civilian targets remained to be bombed. Moreover, on July 25 a new targeting directive had been issued which altered bombing priorities." "Attacks on urban centers became only the fourth priority, after railway targets, aircraft production, and ammunition depots." "...the new directive (as the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey noted) 'was about to be implemented when the war ended.'".

It didn't take long after the atomic bombings for questions to arise as to their necessity for ending the war and Japan's threat to peace. One of the earliest dissents came from a panel that had been requested by President Truman to study the Pacific war. Their report, The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, was issued in July 1946. It declared, "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." In 1948 Sec. of War Henry Stimson published his memoirs, ghost-written by McGeorge Bundy. In them Stimson revealed, "It is possible, in the light of the final surrender, that a clearer and earlier exposition of American willingness to retain the Emperor would have produced an earlier ending to the war".

Stimson and Bundy continued, "Only on the question of the Emperor did Stimson take, in 1945, a conciliatory view; only on this question did he later believe that history might find that the United States, by its delay in stating its position, had prolonged the war." Robert Butow has affirmed Stimson's position: "Secretary of War Stimson has raised the question of whether an earlier surrender of Japan could have been achieved had the United States followed a different diplomatic and military policy during the closing months of the war. In the light of available evidence, a final answer in the affirmative seems possible, even probable." Butow continues, "Although it cannot be proved, it is possible that the Japanese government would have accepted the Potsdam Proclamation immediately had Secretary Stimson's reference to the imperial structure been retained. Such a declaration, while promising destruction if Japan resisted, would have offered hope if she surrendered. This was precisely Stimson's intention." Butow adds, "The Japanese military... interpreted the omission of any commitment on the Throne as evidence of the Allied intention to destroy forever the foundation stone of the Japanese nation. Here was an invaluable trump card unintentionally given them by the Allies, and the militarists played it with unfailing skill."

Martin Sherwin has also followed up on Stimson's observation: "That unconditional surrender remained an obstacle to peace in the wake of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Soviet declaration of war - until the government of the United States offered the necessary (albeit veiled) assurance that neither Emperor nor throne would be destroyed - suggests the possibility, which even Stimson later recognized, that neither bomb may have been necessary; and certainly that the second one was not." As noted earlier, Stimson explained, "the Allied reply [to Japan's 8/10 surrender offer]... implicitly recognized the Emperor's position".

In regard to the U.S. knowledge at the time of Japan's effort to end the war, Butow writes: "the fact is there was at least something of an opportunity here, or perhaps a gamble, which might have yielded startling results had it not been ignored. Although this criticism may be the product of too much hindsight, it is difficult to explain why the Togo-Sato intercepted messages did not at least produce a logical revision of the then current draft of the Potsdam Proclamation to include some guarantee - even a qualified one - with respect to the preservation of Japan's imperial system."

From information contained in the Togo-Sato dispatches, the U.S. knew that Japan wished to send to Russia "Prince Konoye as special envoy, carrying with him the personal letter of His Majesty stating the Imperial wish to end the war". Here may have been another opportunity to bring the war to an earlier end, with lives saved on both sides. Butow notes, "Had Prince Konoye, as the fully empowered personal representative of the Emperor of Japan, been permitted to travel to Moscow (or anywhere else, for that matter) and had he there been handed the text of this [Potsdam] proclamation prior to its release to the world at large, he conceivably could have resolved speedily the very issues which government leaders in Tokyo spent the next three weeks in debating without result. Had the Allies given the prince a week of grace in which to obtain his government's support for acceptance, the war might have ended toward the latter part of July or the very beginning of August, without the atomic bomb and without Soviet participation in the conflict. Although Stalin's price for co-operation might have been equal to what he had already been promised at Yalta, the Western Allies might at least have been spared the added burden of subsequently having the Yalta concessions flagrantly augmented many-fold by hostile Soviet action in Manchuria and Korea." Doug Long, Was It Necessary?

What is worse 260,000 people dying due to incendary bombs being dropped on various cities in Japan without any defense? or Two bombs doing close to the same thing? President Truman wanted to stop the increasing number of American casualties as in Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He "hoped there was a possibility of preventing an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other". The Okinawan experience showed the sheer determination that the Japanese possessed in defending their homeland. The mass numbers and fire power of combined American forces could not ensure a quick and cheap victory over the Japanese. Sources said that over one million casualties could be expected if there were to be an invasion on Japan. On March 9, 1945 Bomber Command attacked Tokyo with 325 aircraft armed exclusively with incendiaries, flying at low altitude under the cover of darkness. In a few minutes of bombing the city centre took fire and by morning 16 square miles had been consumed; 267,000 buildings had burnt to the ground, and the temperature in the heart of the firestorm caused the water to boil in the city's canals. The casuality list is recorded at 89,000 dead, half as large again as the number of injured survivors treated in the cities hospitals. Losses to the bombers were below 2 percent and were to decline as the campaign gathered momentum. By mid-June, Japan's five other largest industrial cities were devastated- Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki. 260,000 people had been killed, 2 million buildings had been destroyed and between 9 and 13 million people made homeless. The destruction continued and there was virtually no loss to the American bomber crews. By July, 60 percent of the ground area of the country's 60 larger cities and towns had been burnt. Now I ask, What was worse?

Page 1 The Day The World Changed

Page 2 The Effects

Page 4 Should It Have Been Dropped??

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