Emperor Tojo and the Atomic Bomb

[Roxanne Appleby]

Just a technical point, but Tojo was not the Emperor of Japan.

Picky, picky.



Hey, BA.

 

[bronzeage]

As I recall he wasn't even the head of the government anymore and hadn't been for a couple of years.

Herohito was a figurehead for the most part, but was still very influential. There could not have been a surrender if he had not agreed to it. As far as I have read, the military council was divided on the question, and there was almost a military coup, which would have led to a fight to the last man, atom bomb or not.

We can (and have) debated whether the bomb should have been dropped. One point that was settled a long time ago was that it worked. The war was over in a matter of weeks.

I made a point about it another forum a few days ago. It seems barbaric to destroy an entire city by today's standards, when we can send a cruise missle through someone's bed room window and kill him in his sleep. Perhaps in 60 years, we will have weapons which make that seem crude.

Picky, picky.



Hey, BA.

Hi, Roxxie.

 

[NoJo]

Just a technical point, but Tojo was not the Emperor of Japan.

No, he was Dorothy's terrier, as I recall

 

[Weird Harold]

My big problem with this mental exercise of "what if?" however, is not that it's pointless (unless you've a time machine and we can change history?); it's that it implies that the A-bomb was just a big bomb, and that dropping it or not is the big question--thus ignoring what that bomb really was and the future it gave us.

The thing that most people don't consider is that to Truman, his civilian and military advisors, and everyone except the scientists who built it, "Just a big bomb" is exactly how atomic weapons were seen even into the sixties.

There were numerous proposals for "peaceful use of atomic explosives -- like digging a bigger and wider Central American Canal through Nicaraugua with Fusion Bombs.

Even the dangers of radiation weren't fully realized -- they were still painting Radium watch dials by hand because the cancer of the toungue radium dial painters contracted wasn't even identified until the mid-fifities and the cause wasn't understood until the sixties.

Truman had three options:

1: do nothing except maintian the total blockade of the Japanese islands and let Stalin do the fighting and dieing by advancing down through Japan from the Kurils.

2: Invade from the South and meet the Russiand in the middle so that we could grow up with a North and South Japan as well as NOrth and South Korea and North and South Vietnam.

3: Use the Bomb and bring the war to an end as quickly as possible.

With a layman's understanding of the dangers of radiation typical of the 1940's, using the "biggest bomb ever built" to end the war as quickly as possible was Truman's only logical and humane solution.

Even if Truman could have talked Stalin into using seige tactics to starve Japan into submission, The harsh reality is that would have been slow death by starvation for tens of millions as opposed to a (perceived) quick death for a few tens of thousands.

The decision to use the Atomic Bomb makes perfect, logical, and "humane" sense when you consider the level of knowledge about the long-term effects of radiation possessed by Truman and his advisors. What Oppenheimer nd the other physicists knew or could have explained so that Truman understood the long-term problems isn't really relevant -- to Truman, the Bomb was just a Bigger, more powerful Bomb; and givent he political andsocial temper ot the world at that time, he probably would have decided to accept the long-term effects on the Japanese as the cost of saving American lives.

 

[DesertPirate]

The sudden end of the war caused by the bombs let us occupy Japan before the Russians were ready to move. Give MacArthur his due, with the backing of Truman he refused to allow Russian troops into Japan at all. Flat told them hell no! That is how we avoided North and South Japan.

 

[caprine]

Not Quite

No, he was Dorothy's terrier, as I recall

I don't know if this was meant tongue-in-cheek or not, but Dorothy's dog's name was TOTO.

 

[cantdog]

Side effects

Another thing the Bomb gave the future is a genre of fantasy fiction: the Post-Apocalypse Novel.

But none of the ultimate impact of the Bomb was foreseen in 1945, as Harold detailed for us. They could very well foresee that the war as a whole, Bomb or no, was going to take a long time to recover from. Displaced populations, political upheavals, the need to clean up from the physical destruction, and the impending lengthy occupations were clearly on the horizon, even once the immediate problem of the war was brought to an end.

 

[colddiesel]

The sudden end of the war caused by the bombs let us occupy Japan before the Russians were ready to move. Give MacArthur his due, with the backing of Truman he refused to allow Russian troops into Japan at all. Flat told them hell no! That is how we avoided North and South Japan.

I'm open to correction but I believe that Russia only declared war on Japan after the Hiroshima bomb, it may even have been after the second bomb.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I am aware of the German efforts, but I didn't have time to do a thorough search. The thing that is ironic, as I stated before, is that Hitler probably could have had an atomic bomb if he hadn't chosen to make war against jewish civilians.

That's true. All the best physicists fled Germany and were recruited by Oppenheimer to work on the Manhattan Project. Hitler referred to quantum mechanics as "Jewish science".

The bomb was inevitable, war or no war. The work they were doing at the University of Chicago with early atomic reactors ("atomic piles") would have led them to it, and the very idea of an atomic weapon is so ridiculously simple. The hard part is purifying the Uranium.

 

[Weird Harold]

I'm open to correction but I believe that Russia only declared war on Japan after the Hiroshima bomb, it may even have been after the second bomb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_August_Storm
The invasion began at dawn on August 9, 1945, precisely three months after the German surrender on May 8 (May 9, 0:43 Moscow time). It began between the droppings of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9). However, it is clear that news of the atomic bombings played no role in the timing of the Soviet attack ...

The Soviets declared War the day before the invasion of Manchuria/Manchukuo exactly three months minus one day after the end of the War in Europe as they agreed to do at the Yalta Conference.

 

[R. Richard]

The Soviets declared War the day before the invasion of Manchuria/Manchukuo exactly three months minus one day after the end of the War in Europe as they agreed to do at the Yalta Conference.

From the 'August Storm' article, it seems that Joseph Stalin was also aware of the existence of the atomic bomb in 1945. It was then just a matter of time until the USSR had an atomic bomb, without regard to the US using the atomic bomb or not.

As Dr_M has pointed out, once you have the proper uranium/plutonium, the actual construction of an atomic bomb is very simple.

 

[Weird Harold]

That's true. All the best physicists fled Germany and were recruited by Oppenheimer to work on the Manhattan Project. Hitler referred to quantum mechanics as "Jewish science".

The bomb was inevitable, war or no war. The work they were doing at the University of Chicago with early atomic reactors ("atomic piles") would have led them to it, and the very idea of an atomic weapon is so ridiculously simple. The hard part is purifying the Uranium.

There is still little declassified information on just how close the Germans and Japanese were to their own bombs and absolutley no information on how the Japanese would have employed it if they did have it.

Still, the story of the U-boat U-234 which was headed to Japane with a couple of tons of Uranium Oxide and a complete summary of the German nuclear program has caused some to speculate that the Japanese might have been able to produce an atomic bomb of their own in around months after the Uranium Oxide arrived.

Personally I think only the fact that both Japan and Germany were under constant and widespread bombardment that kept destroying critical facilities kept either of them from biulding an Atomic Bomb before we did. We simply had the luxury of building the world's largest building to enrich uranium on a mass scale without worrying about it becoming a target for "a thousand plane raid" such as Germany and Japan suffered regularly.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I'm open to correction but I believe that Russia only declared war on Japan after the Hiroshima bomb, it may even have been after the second bomb.

I think you're right, and I'm sure it was very late in the game, no later than July 1945 at the earliest.

BTW, no other country including Germany ever really was close or even had much of a chance to make a nuke. They all vastly underestimated the challenge and amount of resources required, and none of them could have marshalled the effort in less than a decade while also fighting a war.

 

[R. Richard]

One situation of which most of you are apparently not aware is 'publish or perish.' Scientists working on a problem have to publish if they want to become full professors.

Even scientist working on really classified projects find ways to publish around the edges of the restriction, aided by the fact that the censors have no real idea of the science underlying the publications submitted to them. The scientist then gets his/her publication and the scientist working elsewhere in the world extracts a key idea or two and science marches on.

Yes, the technical challenges necessary to overcome to produce an atomic bomb are fomidable, however, the technical challenges are all pretty much involved with producing weapons grade uranium or plutonium. Once you have the main ingredient, cooking the dish is very simple.

 

[incubus666]

When I was in the Navy I spent a lot of time in Japan. I learned a little of their language and traveled all over the country.
I married a young Japanese woman. Her mother, my MIL, was very friendly and gracious to me. MIL was a school girl during WW II. She told me the school childern were told of all the horrors the Americans would bring. The children were instructed and practiced making daggers from bamboo. They were told to come up to the Americans from behind and stab them. They were told it was their duty to die for the honor of Nippon and the Emperor.

I read several years ago of the American plan for the invasion of Japan. They were going to invade Kyshu and push up the length until the Japanese finally surrendered.
As I remember it the casualty estimates were stated As a minimum of 1,000,000 Americans and 5,000,000 Japanese.
The decision to drop the Atomic Bomb in japan saved a million American casualties and reduced Japanese casualties by 96%.
Sounds like a damn good decision to me.
Mike S.

 

[cantdog]

I appreciate your perspective, Mike (incubus).

You know, there's a smallish subset of people for whom the actual history of the WW II era has been important. This is the sort of thread that Colly would have been in the thick of.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I have always believed firmly that dropping the A-bombs was the thing to do. They effectively ended the war and saved millions of lives and the expenditure of treasure on all sides. After the battle of Okinawa, the next step would have been Kyushu, with its tens of millions of civilians, most of whom would have been pressed into service, "to die for the emperor."

Even so, I am surprised that so many persons here, including what Ami would call "the usual suspects" are in agreement. It wasn't all that long ago that liberals complained bitterly about the US using the bomb against civilians.

The US actually considered carefully where to drop it. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombed relatively lightly, were not mnassive population centers such as Tokyo or Osaka or Kobe, but were legit targets, so they were chosen.

 

[colddiesel]

The Soviets declared War the day before the invasion of Manchuria/Manchukuo exactly three months minus one day after the end of the War in Europe as they agreed to do at the Yalta Conference.

I just found a reference that said on August 8 1945 Molotof the USSR foreign minister called in Sato the Japanese ambassador in Moscow and told him that a state of war would exist between USSR and Japan from the following day August 9th 1945. I understand that the Soviets used this as an excuse for seizing Japanese islands(Kurils) to the north of Hokkaodo which Russia still refuses to hand back.

 

[Weird Harold]

I just found a reference that said on August 8 1945 Molotof the USSR foreign minister called in Sato the Japanese ambassador in Moscow and told him that a state of war would exist between USSR and Japan from the following day August 9th 1945. I understand that the Soviets used this as an excuse for seizing Japanese islands(Kurils) to the north of Hokkaodo which Russia still refuses to hand back.

Yep, Russia's declaration of war on Japan stillhas a lot of lasting repercussions -- the Kuril Islands is problably the least of them.

However, The original implication that Hiroshima determined the timing of the Russia declaration is wrong -- the Russians didn't move the hundreds of thousands of troops and tons of equipment that attacked the Japanese the next day in just two days (it still takes eight to ten days to travel from Moscow to Mancuria by the Trans-Siberian Railway.) And the date of the Russian declaration of war was set by Admiral (Acting Fuherer) Doernitz' surrender the preceding spring.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Yep, Russia's declaration of war on Japan stillhas a lot of lasting repercussions -- the Kuril Islands is problably the least of them.

However, The original implication that Hiroshima determined the timing of the Russia declaration is wrong -- the Russians didn't move the hundreds of thousands of troops and tons of equipment that attacked the Japanese the next day in just two days (it still takes eight to ten days to travel from Moscow to Mancuria by the Trans-Siberian Railway.) And the date of the Russian declaration of war was set by Admiral (Acting Fuherer) Doernitz' surrender the preceding spring.

The current government of North Korea, which was a Soviet client, is probably the worst of the repercussions.