Thi ssubject is very for me. I'm an America of Japanese and Filipino ancestry, and my grandparents suffered and survived the occupation of the Philippines by the Imperial Japanese military
My heart breaks for the millions of Japanese non-combatant civilians killed by US strategic bombing, including the atomic bombs
But it also break for the tens of millions of non-combatant civilians killed by the Imperial Japanese military, peoples from Burma and Vietnam, to Korea and Manchuria, to Indonesia and Polynesia, and tens of millions in between. Peoples who were still fighting against Japanese Imperial occupation on the days of the atomic bombs
And your article is a sharp and necessary debunking of the myth that either Operation Olympic (or the alternative naval and air blockade) would have been any less bloody
The atomic bombs were horrible. But short of unconditional Japanese surrender prior to the bombs, no other alternative by the US government was better
Thank you,Wes. For years, I was disgusted that the US dropped the bomb, not once but twice, on civilian populations. This crystallizes the horrible decision facing Truman. I cannot imagine the courage that decision required.
After digesting this, there is no question that the bomb saved millions of lives by forcing the emperor to unconditional surrender. Truman may have been one of the top presidents of the 20th century. I was still tiny tot when he left office. All I knew of him for years was that he had the misfortune of succeeding FDR. And that he dropped the bomb.
I always took the view that the bombs were far better than invasion for both sides. Now I see that the one major character who opposed bombing civilians supported a blockade instead. I have little doubt that for Japanese citizens this would have been the worst option of all three
I agree, blockade absolutely would have been more bloody for the Japanese people. Richard Frank in his book "Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire", pointed out that the rice harvests in 1945 were far more meager than the Japanese government anticipated. And for years the people of the Japanese home islands were net importers of food
Astounding work. Thank you very much for writing and sharing this. Our modern world with a Japan where PM Kishida is giving up power to a successor is mildly uninteresting. Thanks to the smart decisions by both sides made in this ultimate Sophie’s Choice scenario, we have the former mortal enemies as each other's strongest ally.
Outstanding article. I really appreciate the depth you went into. I have heard bits and pieces individually. One of the first articles that put all of it together. Excellent read.
Sherman spoke of the "hard hand of war," and the need for a determined enemy to be made to understand it in order to induce surrender.
The Japanese people were in the hands of a genocidal death cult who would happily have sacrificed every Japanese (including themselves) to the Moloch of their idea of honor. Extreme measures and extreme determination were required to break this bond (and they almost didn't). When the Americans landed, there was no resistance, no guerrilla war, no terrorism. The Japanese people laid down flat, because they understood that this was the end. And very much to the benefit of their descendants. Millions of people are alive today because we dropped the bomb and ended the war shockingly and decisively in this way. Would it have been the same by other means?
Excellent analysis, thank you for sharing! Of particular interest to me was the topic of potential use of chemical weapons as US forces grew desperate with mounting casualties and political pressure back home. It would certainly have been a horrific outcome, with millions killed and entire cities poisoned by long-term agents. I look forward to more on your YouTube channel.
This was exceedingly interesting and I very much appreciate you sharing Wes. Couldn't put it down (the phone i was reading this on that is!).
A lot of very interesting details, especially the 'personalities' involved and the detail of the planning. It would have been an apocalypse of a battle.
Nice job! I agree with this and believe that the losses for both sides would have been horrific and Japan would have taken another generation or more to bounce back, not nearly as quickly as they did.
David Westheimers book, light as a feather has a well written epilogue that has some great research
I live in Japan and I've visited a few museums (e.g. the Battleship Yamato one in Kure) that are partly or mostly concerned with the war. The museums tend to be carefully curated so as to not explicitly state just how dire things where in Japan in July/August 1945, but it is quite clear that they were very very bad. It is abundantly clear that Japan had very limited air defense and was short on just about everything
I don't know how many Japanese would have fought an invasion, though I'm sure many would have. I don't know how many would have died in the winter of 1945/46 before any invasion might have happened, it probably would have depended on how good/poor the rice harvest was in August/September 1945 and how much they could rebuild housing in the bombed cities, but I suspect it would have been millions.
Perhaps once the Kyushu invasion started they would have surrendered. Perhaps it would have stiffened resolve - especially if Kamikaze attacks caused large casualties. We don't know and I'm kind of glad we never had to find out.
Hi Francis, thanks for reading. Since you live in Japan, I’m curious about what they teach schoolchildren about the war in general and the atomic bomb attacks? I ask because I’ve heard stories of ultranationalist groups saying that Japan was attacked unprovoked by the US.
I have no idea what they teach children because I have none and no involvement with the school system.
Ultranationalist groups say all sorts of things though so that would not surprise me. I think it is fair to say that most people in Japan ignore them completely. The concerning thing is when LDP politicians say that sort of thing (which I don't think they have recently).
I do know that Japanese in general act like the victims of the atomic bombs without much, if any, consideration for what an alternative where they weren't dropped would have looked like. They also very much gloss over Japan's behavior in mainland China and Korea and the intransigence of the wartime leadership.
BTW this victimhood thing leads some of them to be pro-palestinian without really thinking what they are supporting. I visit Hiroshima fairly frequently, we have friends there and I like watching baseball live in the stadium, and I have had to restrain myself from disrupting the handful of idiots behind the peace dome who are running some kind of vigil for Gaza. I will say that their march through a nearby shopping arcade just before Christmas appeared to earn them more irritation for disrupting people's Saturday evening than support. I was extremely glad that Hiroshima city ignored their demands and did invite the Israeli ambassador to this year's bomb memorial. Nagasaki OTOH told the Israelis to go away and various other countries, including Britain, to my surprise, did not attend the Nagasaki memorial as a result.
I consider myself well read on this particular subject. I applaud your scholarship and agree that being the first nation to develop and use atomic weapons pre-empted German development. I also strongly disagree with any speculation regarding possible casualty estimates for an amphibious invasion. There were clearly individual agendas involved and every estimate of duration and/casualty numbers proved unreliable in the final analysis.
Thank you for sharing Operation Downfall and the thorough research behind it. The personality overviews "the thinking behind the strategies", and ultimate decisions taken by both sides, eventually inspite these complexities (presidents, prime ministers, CIC etc), amazes still today, because of the many other paths the war could have taken - for better or worse 🙏
Thank you for Atomic Weapons and the Great Debate.
I've read that the general plan for tactical use of a-bombs in Japan would have been urban centers that were too difficult to take, with plans to move Allied troops through within 24 hours of use, and my blood just runs utterly cold at that.
Hi Kyle, King and Leahy were the primary proponents of blockade and bombardment and they pushed to secure many more positions in China, Korea, and islands around Japan to make a blockade more feasible. By the end of the war, they had already started a blockade but it was not impenetrable - several Japanese subs were able to sneak by undetected through the Straits of Tsushima.
I couldn't find any detailed plans regarding casualty estimates or duration of a potential blockade, except to say that the combined joint chiefs had set a goal of defeating Japan within 12 months of the surrender of Germany. A blockade alone would have almost certainly failed to meet that timetable.
Dear Wes, what a beautiful piece of research and writing you have done. Very insightful, and most useful in coming to grips with how and why the decision was made to use the nukes. Deeply grateful for your Sharing.
Mahalo for your in-depth analysis
Thi ssubject is very for me. I'm an America of Japanese and Filipino ancestry, and my grandparents suffered and survived the occupation of the Philippines by the Imperial Japanese military
My heart breaks for the millions of Japanese non-combatant civilians killed by US strategic bombing, including the atomic bombs
But it also break for the tens of millions of non-combatant civilians killed by the Imperial Japanese military, peoples from Burma and Vietnam, to Korea and Manchuria, to Indonesia and Polynesia, and tens of millions in between. Peoples who were still fighting against Japanese Imperial occupation on the days of the atomic bombs
And your article is a sharp and necessary debunking of the myth that either Operation Olympic (or the alternative naval and air blockade) would have been any less bloody
The atomic bombs were horrible. But short of unconditional Japanese surrender prior to the bombs, no other alternative by the US government was better
Thank you,Wes. For years, I was disgusted that the US dropped the bomb, not once but twice, on civilian populations. This crystallizes the horrible decision facing Truman. I cannot imagine the courage that decision required.
After digesting this, there is no question that the bomb saved millions of lives by forcing the emperor to unconditional surrender. Truman may have been one of the top presidents of the 20th century. I was still tiny tot when he left office. All I knew of him for years was that he had the misfortune of succeeding FDR. And that he dropped the bomb.
I always took the view that the bombs were far better than invasion for both sides. Now I see that the one major character who opposed bombing civilians supported a blockade instead. I have little doubt that for Japanese citizens this would have been the worst option of all three
I agree, blockade absolutely would have been more bloody for the Japanese people. Richard Frank in his book "Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire", pointed out that the rice harvests in 1945 were far more meager than the Japanese government anticipated. And for years the people of the Japanese home islands were net importers of food
I didn’t know that about the ‘45 rice harvest. Very interesting.
Very 17th/18th century.
Astounding work. Thank you very much for writing and sharing this. Our modern world with a Japan where PM Kishida is giving up power to a successor is mildly uninteresting. Thanks to the smart decisions by both sides made in this ultimate Sophie’s Choice scenario, we have the former mortal enemies as each other's strongest ally.
there was meant to be a “but” or “however” in there 🙊
Outstanding article. I really appreciate the depth you went into. I have heard bits and pieces individually. One of the first articles that put all of it together. Excellent read.
Sherman spoke of the "hard hand of war," and the need for a determined enemy to be made to understand it in order to induce surrender.
The Japanese people were in the hands of a genocidal death cult who would happily have sacrificed every Japanese (including themselves) to the Moloch of their idea of honor. Extreme measures and extreme determination were required to break this bond (and they almost didn't). When the Americans landed, there was no resistance, no guerrilla war, no terrorism. The Japanese people laid down flat, because they understood that this was the end. And very much to the benefit of their descendants. Millions of people are alive today because we dropped the bomb and ended the war shockingly and decisively in this way. Would it have been the same by other means?
Excellent analysis, thank you for sharing! Of particular interest to me was the topic of potential use of chemical weapons as US forces grew desperate with mounting casualties and political pressure back home. It would certainly have been a horrific outcome, with millions killed and entire cities poisoned by long-term agents. I look forward to more on your YouTube channel.
This was exceedingly interesting and I very much appreciate you sharing Wes. Couldn't put it down (the phone i was reading this on that is!).
A lot of very interesting details, especially the 'personalities' involved and the detail of the planning. It would have been an apocalypse of a battle.
You did an excellent job of explaining 👍
Nice job! I agree with this and believe that the losses for both sides would have been horrific and Japan would have taken another generation or more to bounce back, not nearly as quickly as they did.
David Westheimers book, light as a feather has a well written epilogue that has some great research
Thanks for this.
I live in Japan and I've visited a few museums (e.g. the Battleship Yamato one in Kure) that are partly or mostly concerned with the war. The museums tend to be carefully curated so as to not explicitly state just how dire things where in Japan in July/August 1945, but it is quite clear that they were very very bad. It is abundantly clear that Japan had very limited air defense and was short on just about everything
I don't know how many Japanese would have fought an invasion, though I'm sure many would have. I don't know how many would have died in the winter of 1945/46 before any invasion might have happened, it probably would have depended on how good/poor the rice harvest was in August/September 1945 and how much they could rebuild housing in the bombed cities, but I suspect it would have been millions.
Perhaps once the Kyushu invasion started they would have surrendered. Perhaps it would have stiffened resolve - especially if Kamikaze attacks caused large casualties. We don't know and I'm kind of glad we never had to find out.
Hi Francis, thanks for reading. Since you live in Japan, I’m curious about what they teach schoolchildren about the war in general and the atomic bomb attacks? I ask because I’ve heard stories of ultranationalist groups saying that Japan was attacked unprovoked by the US.
I have no idea what they teach children because I have none and no involvement with the school system.
Ultranationalist groups say all sorts of things though so that would not surprise me. I think it is fair to say that most people in Japan ignore them completely. The concerning thing is when LDP politicians say that sort of thing (which I don't think they have recently).
I do know that Japanese in general act like the victims of the atomic bombs without much, if any, consideration for what an alternative where they weren't dropped would have looked like. They also very much gloss over Japan's behavior in mainland China and Korea and the intransigence of the wartime leadership.
BTW this victimhood thing leads some of them to be pro-palestinian without really thinking what they are supporting. I visit Hiroshima fairly frequently, we have friends there and I like watching baseball live in the stadium, and I have had to restrain myself from disrupting the handful of idiots behind the peace dome who are running some kind of vigil for Gaza. I will say that their march through a nearby shopping arcade just before Christmas appeared to earn them more irritation for disrupting people's Saturday evening than support. I was extremely glad that Hiroshima city ignored their demands and did invite the Israeli ambassador to this year's bomb memorial. Nagasaki OTOH told the Israelis to go away and various other countries, including Britain, to my surprise, did not attend the Nagasaki memorial as a result.
I consider myself well read on this particular subject. I applaud your scholarship and agree that being the first nation to develop and use atomic weapons pre-empted German development. I also strongly disagree with any speculation regarding possible casualty estimates for an amphibious invasion. There were clearly individual agendas involved and every estimate of duration and/casualty numbers proved unreliable in the final analysis.
Thank you for sharing Operation Downfall and the thorough research behind it. The personality overviews "the thinking behind the strategies", and ultimate decisions taken by both sides, eventually inspite these complexities (presidents, prime ministers, CIC etc), amazes still today, because of the many other paths the war could have taken - for better or worse 🙏
Thank you for the incisive article!
Thank you for Atomic Weapons and the Great Debate.
I've read that the general plan for tactical use of a-bombs in Japan would have been urban centers that were too difficult to take, with plans to move Allied troops through within 24 hours of use, and my blood just runs utterly cold at that.
I’m curious, did you find any plans for what a blockade would have looked like? Duration? Expected civilian causalities?
Hi Kyle, King and Leahy were the primary proponents of blockade and bombardment and they pushed to secure many more positions in China, Korea, and islands around Japan to make a blockade more feasible. By the end of the war, they had already started a blockade but it was not impenetrable - several Japanese subs were able to sneak by undetected through the Straits of Tsushima.
I couldn't find any detailed plans regarding casualty estimates or duration of a potential blockade, except to say that the combined joint chiefs had set a goal of defeating Japan within 12 months of the surrender of Germany. A blockade alone would have almost certainly failed to meet that timetable.
That’s what I figured. Loved the piece!
Thank you for sharing this.
Dear Wes, what a beautiful piece of research and writing you have done. Very insightful, and most useful in coming to grips with how and why the decision was made to use the nukes. Deeply grateful for your Sharing.