Did Japan offer to surrender previous to the bombs or not?

[howard112211]

That seems to me to be one of the key issues in those discussions. It appears that in the Hiroshima threads, there always seems to be a lack of clarity about this issue, with large sub-threads being generated with people arguing back and forth about this very aspect of the story. So, what is the final answer? I'm not a historian (and did not go to an American school), so I am actually completely clueless, but it appears to me that this question must boil down to a simple "Yes" or "No" doesn't it? Why isn't the answer to this particular question worked out once and for all, and the answer used as an indisputable fact in further discussions of the topic?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

1. From the Zinn essay I posted tonight:

The Japanese had begun to move to end the war after the U.S. victory on Okinawa, in May of 1945, in the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. After the middle of June, six members of the Japanese Supreme War Council authorized Foreign Minister Togo to approach the Soviet Union, which was not at war with Japan, to mediate an end to the war "if possible by September."

Togo sent Ambassador Sato to Moscow to feel out the possibility of a negotiated surrender. On July 13, four days before Truman, Churchill, and Stalin met in Potsdam to prepare for the end of the war (Germany had surrendered two months earlier), Togo sent a telegram to Sato: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace. It is his Majesty's heart's desire to see the swift termination of the war."

The United States knew about that telegram because it had broken the Japanese code early in the war. American officials knew also that the Japanese resistance to unconditional surrender was because they had one condition enormously important to them: the retention of the Emperor as symbolic leader. Former Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew and others who knew something about Japanese society had suggested that allowing Japan to keep its Emperor would save countless lives by bringing an early end to the war.

Yet Truman would not relent, and the Potsdam conference agreed to insist on "unconditional surrender." This ensured that the bombs would fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It seems that the United States government was determined to drop those bombs.

But why? Gar Alperovitz, whose research on that question is unmatched (The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, Knopf, 1995), concluded, based on the papers of Truman, his chief adviser James Byrnes, and others, that the bomb was seen as a diplomatic weapon against the Soviet Union. Byrnes advised Truman that the bomb "could let us dictate the terms of ending the war." The British scientist P.M.S. Blackett, one of Churchill's advisers, wrote after the war that dropping the atomic bomb was "the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia."

There is also evidence that domestic politics played an important role in the decision. In his recent book, Freedom From Fear: The United States, 1929-1945 (Oxford, 1999), David Kennedy quotes Secretary of State Cordell Hull advising Byrnes, before the Potsdam conference, that "terrible political repercussions would follow in the U.S." if the unconditional surrender principle would be abandoned. The President would be "crucified" if he did that, Byrnes said. Kennedy reports that "Byrnes accordingly repudiated the suggestions of Leahy, McCloy, Grew, and Stimson," all of whom were willing to relax the "unconditional surrender" demand just enough to permit the Japanese their face-saving requirement for ending the war.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Bombs_August.html

[Bonobo]

4. japan had no oil left. They could no longer fight.

http://www.eiaonline.com/history/bloodforoil.htm

"God was on the side of the nation that had the oil." - Prof. Wakimura, Tokyo Imperial University

"Policymakers in America balked at continuing to sell fuel to the Japanese so the Imperial Army could run roughshod over the Asian mainland. Yet America remained cautious for a time. A pre-war U.S. Navy analysis concluded: "An embargo would probably result in an early attack by Japan on Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies, and possibly would involve the United States in an early war in the Pacific."

The Japanese, meanwhile, stockpiled as much Californian and Mexican crude as possible, even offering to buy outright one potentially oil-rich area of Mexico.

The drive for oil led Japan into the first oil paradox of the Pacific War. The Japanese, fearful of a U.S. oil embargo, sought to diversify their sources by gaining control of oil-producing territories, but it was precisely that policy which eventually led to the embargo."

"Soon the Imperial Navy itself began to feel the fuel pinch. Training cruises were first shortened, then eliminated. Strategic decisions were made based on fuel requirements rather than political or military reasoning. In the Marianas campaign of 1944, for instance, the Japanese battle fleet made no attempt to hinder the Americans' advance because its fuel supply was too low. The Japanese were willing to risk everything to defend the Philippines because those islands' location made them critical for defending the long imperial shipping lanes running from Borneo and Sumatra to Tokyo. But at Leyte Gulf, with Gen. MacArthur's invasion force still vulnerable to counterattack, the Japanese 2nd Fleet, under Adm. Takeo Kurita, turned tail only 40 miles from the beaches. He felt he was too short on fuel to risk an attack.

There were no half-measures during the great Allied counteroffensive in the Pacific War. Gen. Curtis LeMay assigned the entire Guam-based 315th Bombardment Wing to strike at Japanese fuel facilities. By the end of the war, Japanese refinery output was down to six percent of normal, and the civilians in the homeland were reduced to such things as attempting to brew fuel from pine roots.


Some historians, caught up in conventional analysis of Japan's military predicament, have suggested they should have pulled their naval and air forces back to the home area instead of spending lives and materiél fighting in far off places. But an understanding of the oil situation wipes that speculation away. An aircraft carrier does no good in Okinawa or Tokyo Bay if the only fuel available for it is in Sumatra. Thus the final Pacific War oil paradox: just at the time a concentrated Imperial Fleet was needed to repel Allied attacks, it was forced to scatter to maintain proximity to fuel sources.

An appropriate postscript to Japan's defeated drive for oil occurred shortly after its surrender, when a detachment of U.S. sailors went to arrest Gen. Hideki Tojo for war crimes. He attempted suicide, and it took two hours to find an ambulance with enough fuel to take him t a hospital. Thomas Moorer, who later became Chief of Naval Operations, was witness to the scene, and he reflected: "What I learned then was never lose a war, and the way to lose a war is to run out of oil."

[Xicano]

13. "japan had no oil left." From what I remember about history that is correct.

In fact I remember seeing a documentary that made the point that Japan had started using bio fuels because they were running out of oil. Here's a link I found mentioning bio fuels during the war.

During World War II (1939 to 1945), when petroleum fuel supplies were interrupted, vegetable oil was used as fuel by several countries, including Brazil, Argentina, China, India, and Japan. However, when the war ended and petroleum supplies were again cheap and plentiful, vegetable oil fuel was forgotten.


http://www.extension.org/pages/History_of_Biodiesel

Nevertheless, not until Japan can admit to and apologize for the many atrocities and war crimes it committed during that war do I think anybody should apologize to them. Plus they need to stop their illegal killing of whales and other marine life and respect the law.

[Bitwit1234]

27. Dropping the bombs were, horrible, but

attacking the peaceful island of Hawaii was outrageous. And I had a fried, who passed away, who said the atrocious the Japanese committed on Palau were terrible. They did not have to attack us, they did not have to be so cruel to residents of the countries they captured. I think like this poster, we have never ever had a satisfactory apology. And UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER was the only solution. In all reports I have seen and read they were asked to surrender. I was a teen in the late 40's and early 50's and that's what was printed and reported. They were told over and over again we would drop these bombs. If they were going to surrender, when asked to do so after the first bomb fell why didn't they. To them saving face was more important than the lives of their citizens. Kind of reminds me of the republicans voting no on everything, screwing the people of THIS country just so they think they can get elected.

[CJvR]

18. The correct line is:

Japan had no oil left. They could no longer fight, as effectively.

If it was just a matter of resources then Japan was screwed the moment the first bomb dropped on Pearl Harbour, and the US a big meanie for shooting back at all!

[Bonobo]

19. You're equivocating

Japan had plenty of oil at first.

Yamamoto knew they would be in trouble in the long term vis a vis oil, so that's why they kicked so much ass in the first 6 months.

They couldn't fight as "effectively"? That's equivocating.

You can't fight a war without oil. Period.

They were finished and were no longer a threat.

[The Magistrate]

20. No Longer a Threat To Who, Sir?

The occupation of large portions of China continued without any great prospect of immediate over-throw.

[Bonobo]

21. Well that is true, but hardly the reason we dropped the bomb. nt

[CJvR]

57. Ironic that the...

...Japanese was the ones that benefitted most from the bombing of H & N.

[CJvR]

56. Really?

So you mean all those things before 1914 like Napoleon, ACW, Franco-Prussian, Russo-Jap were not wars?
What were they then?

[Posteritatis]

49. I've seen people argue that the allies should have left them alone after Midway

Ridiculous, of course, but it's sort of impressive how naive people can be about the war when they've got three generations of separation from it.

[MajorChode]

6. "Gar Alperovitz, whose research on that question is unmatched"

Unmatched by whom? Other revisionists?

Alperovitz' writings criticizing the decision by U.S. President Harry S Truman to use the atomic bomb against Japan have been characterized as revisionist by several historians, including Robert James Maddox, Professor Emeritus of History at the Pennsylvania State University. Maddox has criticized Alperovitz for "his unscholarly use of ellipsis" and other alleged misrepresentation of sources. Maddox also accuses Alperovitz of cherry picking his sources, ignoring those that undermine his thesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gar_Alperovitz#Criticisms

Howard Zinn wrote a lot of great things, but an expert on the Pacific theater of WWII he wasn't. He was also an avowed pacifist. There's certainly nothing wrong with being a pacifist, but he can hardly be considered objective on the subject, and his mischaracterization of Gar Alperovitz is a good example of that. If you seek out enough viewpoints, you can certainly find one that supports what you want to hear. It's much harder to read things that don't support your viewpoint.

Gar Alperovitz set out to revise the history of WWII and that's exactly what he did. In other words, he used evidence that supported his preconceived idea and ignored evidence that didn't. Several historians have pointed out the flaws in his research, so regarding Alperovitz as the end to all debate on the subject is more than a bit presumptuous.

[ShamelessHussy]

29. Dr. Alperovitz is the author of critically acclaimed books on the atomic bomb and atomic diplomacy

Dr. Alperovitz is the author of critically acclaimed books on the atomic bomb and atomic diplomacy and was named "Distinguished Finalist" for the Lionel Gelber Prize for The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, (Knopf, 1995). Dr. Alperovitz's most recent book (as of February 2010) is Unjust Deserts: How The Rich Are Taking Our Common Inheritance and Why We Should Take It Back, with Lew Daly, published in 2008. Today his research interests include<1>:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gar_Alperovitz

[EFerrari]

40. That's the same argument for a gay judge to recuse himself from the Prop8 case.

No one ever says that jingoists should recuse themselves from enshrining our aggressions in history books in their aura of benign inevitability, do they?

Sorry, no sale.

[MajorChode]

51. Hogwash

This isn't a trial. There doesn't have to be only one "judge", and I never claimed he should "recuse" himself. I'm saying Alperovitz's opinion is one of many and there are other historians who have pointed out the flaws in his methods. If you want to pretend otherwise, more power to you.

[EFerrari]

53. Well, no. You said Howard was not objective

because of his own views. All historians have views and some of them are made much of by our militaristic establishment. The analogy is not hogwash, it's a match.

[MajorChode]

54. With good reason

Would you accept a neocon historian's opinions on the justifications for the Iraq war as gospel?

[BeGoodDoGood]

10. The Japanese Got What they deserved

"From the replies these diplomats received from Tokyo, the United States learned that anything Japan might agree to would not be a surrender so much as a "negotiated peace" involving numerous conditions. These conditions probably would require, at a minimum, that the Japanese home islands remain unoccupied by foreign forces and even allow Japan to retain some of its wartime conquests in East Asia. Many within the Japanese government were extremely reluctant to discuss any concessions, which would mean that a "negotiated peace" to them would only amount to little more than a truce where the Allies agreed to stop attacking Japan. After twelve years of Japanese military aggression against China and over three and one-half years of war with the United States (begun with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor), American leaders were reluctant to accept anything less than a complete Japanese surrender....

(After two bombs were dropped) Another Imperial Council was held the night of August 9-10, and this time the vote on surrender was a tie, 3-to-3. For the first time in a generation, the emperor (right) stepped forward from his normally ceremonial-only role and personally broke the tie, ordering Japan to surrender. "

http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/surrender.htm

The Japanese got exactly what they deserved. And the atmic bombs saved many many thousands of American lives.


Walt

[Bonobo]

11. "He who fights with monsters..."

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

[The Magistrate]

12. A Ridiculous Statement, Sir

It was hardly the leadership of Imperial Japan which paid the price exacted by our aerial attacks. The ordinary citizens of Japan had no control over what their government did, and cannot be held to be responsible for its actions in any meaningful sense. To state that the aerial assault on Imperial Japan, killing its citizenry wholesale, was a necessary measure of a total war, is one thing; but to say that citizenry deserved to be 'singed, baked, or boiled to death' by the scores of thousands is quite another.

[BeGoodDoGood]

14. It was Japanese Culture

It was the culture of the Japanese that led its men to burn US POW's alive, make Korean women into sex slaves, starve millions of Chinese civilians as a matter of policy and all the rest.

They got exactly what they deserved.

They seem to have lost their appetite for mass murder since we nuked them.

Walt

[The Magistrate]

15. One Hardly Knows Whether To Laugh Or Cry, Sir

What is it about the culture you were raised in that makes it such an attractive proposition to see yourself as the righteous wreaker of vengeance on those who deserve it, by their very nature?

[The Magistrate]

16. Self-delete: Double Post

[LostinVA]

25. Most of that was the MILITARY CULTURE

And, the civilians at had nothing to do with any of this.

I think the Japanese government needs to apologize for Nanjing, etc., and teach it in schools, REALLY teach it, but your posts in this thread are repulsive.

[BeGoodDoGood]

32. I like 'em.

My posts, that is.

The Japanese got -exactly- what they deserved.

Like I say, they seem to have lost their taste for mass murder since we nuked them.

Using nuclear weapons on them was -not- murder. It was a legitimate military operation compelled on us due to the resistance of the Japanese government.

Walt

[BeGoodDoGood]

34. Most of that was the MILITARY CULTURE

"Most of that was the MILITARY CULTURE."

Don't Japanese mamas raise Japanese babies? It took them centuries to come to it, but it was Japanese culture over time that produced the men who ordered the murder of -ALL- Allied POW's held outside the Home Islands, as the war came close to home.

It was Japanese men who machined gunned prisoners, who burned them or buried them alive, who had them beheaded, who ate parts of them in ritual feasts. Raised by Japanese mamas they were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

And:

Raiders Executed!
(Vol.5, Page 745)

"...The (nine) captured Marines received satisfactory care at the hands of their captors on Makin, and humane treatment continued for nearly a month after they had been moved to Kwajalein. Early in October, Vice Admiral Koso Abe, Marshall Islands commander, was advised that he need not send these prisoners to Tokyo. A staff officer from a higher headquarters told Abe that a recently established policy permitted the admiral to dispose of these men on Kwajalein as he saw fit. Abe then ordered the Marines beheaded. A native witnessed the executions, and based on his and other testimony in war crimes trials after the war, Abe was convicted of atrocities and hanged at Guam. Captain Yoshio Obara, Kwajalein commander who had been ordered to arrange the executions, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, and Lieutenant Hisakichi Naiki, also involved in the affair, was sentenced to 5 years in prison..."

http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/carlsonraidersexecuted.html

The Japenese people got what they deserved by being nuked and fire bombed by the United States.

Ya'll need to be a lot more concerned about -our- people than you are about their people.

Walt

[MattBaggins]

78. Are you certain this is the proper site for you?

[MattBaggins]

79. Ya'll need to be a lot more concerned about -our- people than you are about their people.

This kind of statement is the building block of Racism.

These posts in this thread are disgusting.

[BeGoodDoGood]

86. Anyone Can Be An American

My statement not is not racist at all.

The danger we have is people who have no loyalty to anything, who are apathetic to the future of and the well being of the United States.

Walt

[Posteritatis]

50. And specifically the military culture of that narrow timeframe, too

When they crushed the Russians at Tsushima their treatment of a large chunk of the surviving Russian prisoners was a whole other planet from the way they behaved only a few decades later; Togo told Rozhestvensky right out after his capture that someone has to lose battles like that most of the time so there wasn't any shame in being on the wrong side of things.

[Name removed]

62. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

63. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BeGoodDoGood]

64. MOS

"M-3-7 in country 13 months, MOS 0331 - oh... and that's NOT a Reserve outfit."

I was an 0311 in A-1-8 and an 0302 in L-3-6.

You being a machine gunner doesn't burnish your powers of analysis.

Walt

[Bigmack]

65. Your talking shit doesn't burnish yours....

Lots and lots of reading and study improved my powers of analysis. You need to start in that direction.

Better clean out your headgear. We buy millions of cars made by the Japanese. We buy millions of cars made by the Germans. We buy oil and tennis shoes and shrimp from Vietnam.

The wars go on, but at some point the businessmen kiss and make up. The grunts are still dead. Only suckers and cowboys think anybody "wins".

[BeGoodDoGood]

71. Winning

"The wars go on, but at some point the businessmen kiss and make up. The grunts are still dead. Only suckers and cowboys think anybody "wins"."

I didn't necessarily say we won WWII.

I did and do say the Japanese got what they deserved by having their cities reduced to ash, along with a lot of their citizens.

Walt

[MattBaggins]

80. So your probably a big fan of what happened on 9-11

Your logic would seem to put you right in the same camp as those who support terrorism.

[BeGoodDoGood]

87. I Support the United States of America

I Support the United States of America.

Walt

[howaboutme]

82. But there are winners

The rich and well connected always win. Others die.

Most of our recent wars are about political self interests, business interests and elitist agendas and rarely about evil Huns crossing our borders and invading.

The politicos convince the grunts and masses that it is their patriotic duty to go into battle and sacrifice their lives if necessary for what is often a contrived "cause".

The rich get richer, politicians get reelected, while grunts die and get medals, families weep, we hold parades, build monuments to the patriots who sacrificed and instill the propaganda in the succeeding generation that going to battle and being a vet is the righteous thing. It's easy to buy into that propaganda when you are young.

We need war crimes trials for those who start wars.

[Hannah Bell]

46. bullshit.

[LostinVA]

24. Condemning a whole nation because of their saber rattlers???

[BeGoodDoGood]

35. Just as long........

As they resist.

Walt

[Igel]

45. The "sabre rattlers" here have to be defined just right.

It included the enlisted men, as well.

It wasn't high-level sabre rattlers that conducted the Rape of Nanjing, that were responsible for Bataan, that flew the planes to Hawaii. It wasn't a few dozen high-level sabre-rattlers that made sure there were 20k or so Korean forced labor ("slaves," to use another term for it) present to die in Hiroshima.

I'd like to see those 50 or 60 "sabre-rattlers" scurring from Nanjing, where they single-handedly killed thousands, to Bataan where they, too, were in the jungle forcing POWs to march and die, who went personally to Korea to round up serfs and transport them to Japan to work. It wasn't the case that the sabre-rattlers--at least high-level ones--were on Iwojima, fought until nearly the last man, and then had their remains airlifed to Honshu for immediate resurrection so they could resume their duties.

No, I guess the assumption in the definition of "sabre-rattlers" is that there were several hundred thousand sabre-rattlers in the military, mostly low-level folk who had more than a few nice high-level sabre-rattling-tolerating mothers and fathers, supported by several million sabre-rattlers in the population who supported them and worked to provide for them.

Then again, this population of sabre-rattlers were just obeying. In like fashion, when they were told to cease sabre-rattling, it may have been humiliating but it was compulsory, obligatory humiliation. It doesn't make any difference if a few dozen folk are denied the Nuremberg defense or if a nation is denied the Nuremberg defense.

[Posteritatis]

48. Japan was doing a little more than rattling sabres between '31 and '45. (nt)

[EFerrari]

39. You must be joking. n/t

[LostinVA]

23. And we of course allowed them to keep the Emperor n/t

[Igel]

44. Zinn's article cites true facts.

But because it ignores other true facts, it not only reaches a false conclusion but allows people who can't think critically to misinterpret what he says. I always wonder when highly educated people write things to permit this if they're just disconnected from their audience or if they manipulate their audience.

Zinn did not lie: "American officials knew also that the Japanese resistance to unconditional surrender was because they had one condition enormously important to them: the retention of the Emperor as symbolic leader" is true.

What is not true is to understand that to mean, 'American officials knew also that the Japanese resistance to unconditional surrender was because they had only one condition enormously important to them: the retention of the Emperor as symbolic leader' or 'American officials knew also that the Japanese resistance to unconditional surrender was entirely because they had one condition enormously important to them: the retention of the Emperor as symbolic leader'

There were other conditions that the Japanese insisted on. They continued to argue about these internally after the bomb fell on Hiroshima. After Nagasaki, the emperor intervened and ended the insistence on the other conditions. The one condition that Zinn says they insisted upon was acceptable when the other conditions they insisted upon were dropped, and peace ensued.

Then there's the assumption embedded in "The United States knew about that telegram because it had broken the Japanese code early in the war." This assumes that the telegram was intercepted, decoded in nearly real-time and promptly translated; then that US policy makers were informed of it. It also assumes that "unconditional" meant dropping the one condition that the US actually accepted.

Of course, the implication is that the Japanese made the same offer of peace and until we dropped two atomic bombs we refused to accept them. We allowed US military folk to fight and die in the Pacific before changing our minds just so we'd have an excuse for dropping two atomic bombs. Somehow, people like to believe this.

"We have designated the enemy, and he is that portion of US that doesn't include us."

[MajorChode]

59. There's a lot of ways he took liberty with the facts

Consider the telegram in question. There's no doubt Truman knew about it because he learned of it through diplomatic channels and wrote as much in his diary entry. Now maybe Truman knew exactly what the telegram said, and maybe he didn't, but even if you assume he knew exactly what it said in advance of the bombings, it wouldn't have changed anything. The telegram contained no offer of any specific terms of surrender. It only said the Japanese were interested in bringing and end to the conflict. And why wouldn't they say so? They knew the war for them was unwinnable in 1943. Zinn and Alperovitz try to suggest that there was some specific offer of surrender by the Japanese under any terms and that isn't supported by historical facts. The telegram also said the Japanese were prepared to vehemently fight to the end if the west demanded unconditional surrender so really the only thing you can derive from the telegram was the Japanese had rejected the Potsdam Declaration outright and we already knew that was the case. So what should the US done with such a message? Should they have ended hostilities and waited for the Japanese to give us a better answer as Zinn and Alperovitz suggest? That would have been interpreted as a sign of weakness by the Japanese and would have made them more resolute in their desire to sue for more favorable peace terms. Zinn and Alperovitz also ignore that the US had little to no direct diplomatic channels available to Japan. All of the negotiations would have had to go through Russia and Stalin flatly rejected Japan's offer of negotiation.

[howaboutme]

81. Good question

Good OP question. I admit that I tend to be cynical that many historical events throughout history actually occurred as straightforward as we have been led to believe. Someone once said that politics is behind every historical event. I tend to believe it. As much as we want to respect our leaders, politicians have been known to be devious and unwilling to let any opportunity / event occur without using it to their advantage.

Some claim that FDR knew that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor. Did Saddam offer to leave Iraq prior to Bush's attack? Did our government know in advance about 9-11?

[WolverineDG]

90. So basically, Japan wanted to end the war but only on ITS terms

They wanted to dictate terms, which losing sides don't get to do.

dg

[MellowDem]

91. So Japan didn't want to surrender...

they wanted a negotiated peace, which is very different from surrender. Very different indeed. So if surrender was the objective, really the complete prostration of Japan, just like Germany, then the bombs (or a home island invasion) were necessary.

[iamtechus]

2. Well, sort of ...

Elements of the Japanese government were "suggesting" surrender terms to the allies before the bombs were used but all of their proposals asked that the emperor's position be maintained. All of these proposals were rejected out of hand by Roosevelt. Certain stubborn factions within the Japanese gov would not accept having the emperor's god-like authority stripped from him.

The fact that the Japanese were willing to discuss surrender terms makes one wonder if negotiations might have paid off if we had exercised more patience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#Divisions_within_the_Japanese_leadership

[aquart]

8. How many Americans would have died while we were being "patient"?

Do you think people in prison camps had so much time left? Good of you to protect Japanese lives over ours.

A friend of my mom's died in a Japanese camp the day after the surrender. He couldn't live long enough for liberation or to go home.

Had they made the decision sooner, he might have survived.

[LostinVA]

26. The Chrysanthemum Throne is still in existence

So, we did agree to their one term. After the slaughter and torture of so many...

I can maybe understand the first bomb, but i can NEVER accept the second bomb.

[BeGoodDoGood]

47. The commander of Chichi Jima tortured and killed several aircrew

"The commander of Chichi Jima tortured and killed several aircrew who were shot down over that island, then ate their livers and other organs."

http://ww2f.com/land-warfare-pacific/40938-japanese-cannibalism-against-allied-other-pows.html

[LostinVA]

70. Except this has nothing to do with what I said

The one point the Japaneses wanted we gave them, AFTER the bombs were dropped, which really makes me wonder if certain folks in our government just wanted to drop them as a SEE?! to the USSR and other countries. Especially the second bomb.

[BeGoodDoGood]

75. It Has To Do With What I Said

At least one Japanese officer engaged in ritual cannibalism. He did this apparently knowing it was perfectly acceptable for him to do so. It speaks to the culture the japanese had.

Walt

[The Magistrate]

3. Not Really, Sir

The confusion on the matter is rooted in the confusing nature of Imperial Japan's government at the time. It was not a straightforward business, and the Army and the Navy were, as a matter of practical fact, separate powers independent of the civil government, even though this ostensibly derived from a divine Emperor to whom they had pledged their lives. In the preceding decades, the Japanese military had assassinated political figures who were not nationalist and militaristic enough, and had conducted foreign policy quite independent of the Tokyo government, even to the point of war in China.

It is quite true that the Emperor formed a government in the latter stages of the war that was to solicit terms of peace from the U.S. and allies. It is also true that members of this government had to pursue this aim in a covert manner, for fear of assassination by military officers. It is also true that what they proposed eventually did come down to surrender, with the condition that the Emperor remain. Since in the event the Emperor did remain, this is sometimes presented as showing surrender could have been had with just a small concession made early. But that is not quite the case, since the condition under which the Emperor remained after Japan surrendered, and what was envisioned by the Emperor remaining in the proposals of the Japanese government, were quite different. The civil government proposals envisioned the Emperor remaining as a real ruler, and the structures of government remaining as indicated in the Meiji constitution. These are not the conditions under which the Emperor remained: he remained as a mere figurehead, with ceremonial function only, and decidedly de-divinitized.

It is an open question whether the Army or the Navy would have acceded to surrender on the grounds proposed by the civil government, even if these had been accepted by the United States and allies. The Japanese Army in particular did not feel itself particularly beaten; it still disposed of great resources of man-power and weaponry on the Asian mainland, where it was master of the field so long as the Soviet Union remained out of the fray. The Japanese military continued to think of itself as 'spiritually superior' to the Westerners, or in plain English, as tougher men who could stand the casualties better than the soft and cowardly people they fought. It still seemed to many Japanese officers a reasonable proposition that if they could manage to kill a shocking number of U. S. personnel, the U.S. would lose heart for pressing the fight further. Certainly military figures can be found who did not share this view, but there is no reason to suspect they were predominant. Even after the dropping of the atomic weapons, and when it was known the Emperor intended to surrender, there was a palace coup attempted by officers and men of the Imperial Guard division, who meant to 'rescue the Emperor from his cowardly advisors' and keep the nation on the true Imperial path of war, to the death if that was what came of it.

[CJvR]

5. No.

Not even after Hiroshima.

It wasn't until after Nagasaki, with the regime split down the middle and after a failed coup, that Japan managed to surrender.

Why is this still an issue? Politics, Japan never went through the same de-nazification process as Germany and even today barely admitts to any wrongdoing in WWII. Combined with the EVIL US factions around the world it helps to keep the myth of poor innocent Japan desperatly trying to surrender only to be nuked by the great Satan going.

It is not that hard to surrender, but Japan wasn't looking for that. They were looking for a deal, the minimum of which would likely be retaining the divine Emperor - the core of Japanese racism and chauvinism. Imagine if the bomb had blown up Hitler in 44 and Germany had asked for peace, on the condition that they could keep their racist belief that Jews, Romany, Slavs etc was subhumans...

[pnorman]

7. K & R to study the entire thread later in detail.

n/t

[AngryAmish]

9. Well done, sir.

If after arguing about this for years around here, and over the last week, the fact you can get any responses at all is a tribute to your abilities.

[howard112211]

17. I thank all of the people who took the time to reply.

I am getting a more clear picture now of why the issue is not as simple :)

[ShamelessHussy]

22. Yes, they wanted to negotiate terms of surrender, mainly they wanted to keep their emperor

when we finally told them they would be able to, they surrendered.

here's a link with lots of research on this question...
http://www.doug-long.com

[Statistical]

36. Revisionist history.

They wanted to keep their military intact, and keep all conquered territories. This would include the sovreign nations of China and Korea. It also would have resulted in millions more "lesser humans" killed under brutal Japanese occupation.

[EFerrari]

41. What you describe are terms of surrender, not "revisionist history"

as if any history is anything but a revision.

[Statistical]

42. Sorry I wasn't clear.

I was just pointing out that Japan only wanted to keep their Emperor is false. It is revisionist history.

The reality is Japan wanted to "surrender" and keep their military empire intact.

[MajorChode]

52. It's also revisionist history...

to suggest they only surrendered when we told them they could keep their emperor. We never told them any such thing prior to surrender. The Potsdam Declaration never said the emperor must be disposed anyway, so the terms of surrender always included that possibility and the Japanese knew it, but we weren't going to give them that assurance and never did until well after the war was over.

[ShamelessHussy]

72. sorry, i believe i said their 'main' concern was for their emperor

at least that was what I meant.

by the spring of 45 they were militarily defeated, and there was no question of that by summer.

nuking a defeated nation, that was looking to surrender is a stain on our nation, that will be hard to mitigate while we are still in denial.

[Statistical]

77. Wrong.

We never required he Emperor to step down. The emperoror was never mentioned once in the Potsdam treaty. Not once, ever.

When Japan finally did surrender we offered no assurances on the Emperor. They surrender under the original terms offered.

Japan didn't surrender because it wanted to keep its military, and conquered territory. You are simply playing revisionist history.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

28. No.

The stated war aim of the US was the unconditional surrender of Japan.

The fact that some in Japan would have considered negotiating a peace on terms short of that is irrelevant to the question.

And if some in Japan supported unconditional surrender that is also irrelevant to the question since no such surrender was proffered.

When crack-pot revisionism is so keen to slur every American action that we are supposed to view the Empire of Fucking Japan circa 1945 as a more reasonable actor than the US it really begs questions as to the moral soundness of the revisionists.

The Empire of Fucking Japan sucked even worse than America. Believe it.

[lynne]

30. Nope. In fact, they totally refused to surrender when terms were offered in July -

- before the August bombings. They refused surrender terms as offered in the Potsdam Declaration which promised them "total destruction" if they did not surrender. They didn't even surrender after Hiroshima. It took TWO bombs to get them to call it quits.

[Statistical]

31. No. and they didn't after the first bomb either (and tried to continue the war even after the 2nd)

Prior to bombs japan refused to surrender except under their conditions (which included keeping their military, and all conquered territories).

After the bomb japan refused to surrender. The war council met and minority began to push for surrender but the council was still divided and no overtures of peace were presented. The Americans took great risk to attempt to intercept Japanese radio signals looking for signs of surrender or a breakdown of governmental control. None were found, and Japan offered nothing through official channels so the second bomb was dropped.

After the second bomb the emperor indicated to the council he would surrender. He had a speech drafted and would announce it to the Japanese people the next morning. Some were so uttterly fanatical they staged a coup and seized the emperor to avoid surrender. Now the coup was defeated but is it hadn't the war would have gone on for months longer.

The Japanese weren't logical they were religious fanatics. The emperor was ordained from God, Japanese were the only true humans, and they had a never ended destiny to subjugate and rule the lesser races. Allowing the Japanese to "surrender" while keeping their military and conquered territory would be like allowing the Taliban to "surrender" and letting them keep Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Japanese wanted no surrender. They wanted a brief pause to regain resources and then resume a never ending struggling to bring the lesser races of the world into order under Japanese domination.

[Mudoria]

55. True

The people who start a war, kill millions and then when they are defeated don't get to dictate the terms of surrender.

[legin]

33. From the Goebbels diaries:

"We have heard from our American sources that the Emperor of Japan is to be included on the War Criminals list. That is very good. The Emperor is revered as a god in Japan. No Japanese politician, whatever his tendency to compromise, will dare try to sue for peace if the Emperor is to tried as a war criminal."

(From memory, but I think it is close)

[thelordofhell]

37. 50+ years later and you're still asking the question

Means it will never be answered to your satisfaction. But here's the answer.........

No

[Upton]

38. Does it matter?

Japan started the war..anything that came afterward is on them.

[The Straight Story]

43. Did David Koresh Offer to surrender? Yes. Did he? No. Easier to judge later

When your life, and that of many others, is not on the line.

Defending your life is often done without a lot of thought, but a prosecutor might be able to make you regret it by showing you had other options, etc.

we were at war. You fight to win. It is not pretty, it is not always morally right, but either you are in and realize what goes on is ugly or you are weak and lose.

[Biker13]

58. K&R

Great discussion. Very informative.

[david13]

60. No. The Emperor refused to surrender after the bombs. But the

government did it.
dc

[slackmaster]

61. No

Revisionist fairy tales notwithstanding.

They didn't even offer to surrender after an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

It took TWO nuclear weapons to convince them to agree to surrender.

[proteus_lives]

66. No. They continued haggling.

We would accept unconditional surrender and nothing else. Our terms or nothing.

[geek_sabre]

67. Or not. nt

[Curmudgeoness]

68. And you expected a simple yes or no answer? I guess

it all comes down to who you want to believe. Which historian is right, which is wrong.

I tend to side with the historians who say that there was an offer to surrender prior to the bombs. Winners write history, and we have been told for years that we had to drop the bombs. But truth often comes out later, with a lot of digging. History is not always truth, it often is used as propaganda.

[Statistical]

69. There was an "offer" to surrender but it wasn't acceptable.

The Japanese wanted to "surrender" on their own terms which included:
a) Japanese military and all weapons of war remained intact
b) Neither Japan nor any territory would be occupied
c) Japan would retain all conquered territories (this would have left nearly 400 million people under brutal Japanese occupation

Their conditions for "surrender" were merely a prelude to a continuence of Japanese empire.

It would be like if the Taliban offered to "surrender" if
a) that all Nato troops leave Afghanistan
b) Taliban retain control of all weapons and be given free access to worlds arms markets
c) Taliban gain control of occupied Pakistan including nuclear weapons there.

It would be shocking or even unexpected if Nato refused "surrender" under those conditions.

The Allies offered surrender under Potsdam treaty. Japan refused.
We dropped first atomic bomb. Japan refused
We dropped second atomic bomb. Japan accepted.

We never changed the terms of the treaty. Japan ultimately accepted the exact same treaty they could have accepted months prior. They chose not to. Truman used atomic weapons to convince them that failure to accept surrender would result in complete annihilation. The 3rd atomic bomb was planned for Tokyo.

[ShamelessHussy]

73. Japan wanted to negotiate terms of surrender, which was the norm for nations

I find it interesting that you don't mention the emperor, as that was the one condition we finally conceded on and the war ended, otherwise, the Japanese may still be fighting to this very day e.g. afghanistan.

And the Crysthanamum Throne remains the oldest hereditary monarchy in the world.

Be that as it may, my main disgust lies in the fact that we nuked a defeated nation, looking to negotiate terms of surrender, TWICE.

[Statistical]

76. We never conceeded that point.

because we never mandated the Emperor would be removed.

The postdam treaty simply stated that Japan govt would be based on will of the people (i.e. some form of Democracy).

The Emperor is not mentioned once, ever. We never changed those terms. Japan finally agreed TO THE ORIGINAL TERMS, surrendered, and the war was over. Japan could have done that at anytime prior to the atomic bombs.. We offered no guarantee that the Emperor would remain other than the very same assurances we always had always offered; that the Allies had no intention of ruling Japan and the will of the people would be protected.

"looking to negotiate terms of surrender"
Looking to keep their military complex INTACT and keep 400 milllion people under Brutal occupation. While Japan was defeat in a decade it could have rebuilt its military and infrastructure and began empire expansion again. The Allies didn't want a repeat of Germany. They didn't want a WWIII a decade later.

[MajorChode]

84. There wasn't even an offer to surrender

First one must understand that the Potsdam Declaration was soundly rejected by Japan:

Japanese reaction

On July 27, the Japanese government considered how to respond to the Declaration. The four military members of the Big Six wanted to reject it, but Tōgō persuaded the cabinet not to do so until he could get a reaction from the Soviets. In a telegram, Shunichi Kase, Japan's ambassador to Switzerland, observed that unconditional surrender applied only to the military and not to the government or the people, and he pleaded that it should be understood that the careful language of Potsdam appeared "to have occasioned a great deal of thought" on the part of the signatory governments—"they seem to have taken pains to save face for us on various points."<71> The next day, Japanese newspapers reported that the Declaration, the text of which had been broadcast and dropped by leaflet into Japan, had been rejected. In an attempt to manage public perception, Prime Minister Suzuki met with the press, and stated,

I consider the Joint Proclamation a rehash of the Declaration at the Cairo Conference. As for the Government, it does not attach any important value to it at all. The only thing to do is just kill it with silence (mokusatsu). We will do nothing but press on to the bitter end to bring about a successful completion of the war.

What some people are calling an 'offer to surrender' was nothing more than an offer to talk to Russia about bringing an end to the hostilities, which could mean just about anything. They outright rejected calls to surrender on a number of occasions.

[BeGoodDoGood]

74. Even After The Emperor ...

Even after the emperor made a surrender recording to be broadcast to the country, a faction of Army officers wanted to continue the war - this of course after two atomic bombs were dropped. They tried to steal the recording. Using nuclear weapons was the only way to get peace, and we still didn't get unconditional surrender.

The proof of the efficacy of the use of nuclear weapons is easy to see. The Japanese are among our best allies.

Walt

[raccoon]

83. Well, why don't we just nuke Iraq and Afghanistan, then they'll be allies of ours too?

major :sarcasm:

[BeGoodDoGood]

85. Why not nuke Iraq and Afghanstan

"Well, why don't we just nuke Iraq and Afghanistan, then they'll be allies of ours too?"

The answer is obvious. There is no "Iraq", there is no "Afghanistan". How did you miss that? There is no loyalty to a unifying culture.

The Japanese have a homogenous culture.


Walt

[Canuckistanian]

88. Did they offer? No. Then the war would have been over.

Ask the question differently and you get a different answer.

Was is inevitable that they would offer to surrender soon? Then the answer is YES.

The island of Japan had been effectively isolated in August 1945 after the fall of Okinawa. They had NO external energy or food supply lines left. Their Navy was decimated and their Air Force almost non-existant.

They could have continued fighting, but the only battle could have taken place on the mainland. The Allies could have blockaded Japan, mined it's harbours and aggressively patrolled it's coastline.

The end would have been inevitable WITHOUT the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was only a matter of waiting - one month, maybe two.

An invasion of the mainland was NOT inescapable.

[mmonk]

89. Yes, they attempted to negotiate a surrender with the USSR as intermediary

but were unaware a soviet invasion was already promised by Stalin to the US and Britian.