jeffrey_erwin:
Deleting your post, because of space limitations. My response:
We never modified the surrender terms. They were always stated as being IAW the Potsdam Declaration. Which, as the Japanese realized, was, a set of terms. Hence it was not unconditional. There was no specific statement, or even implication, as to the fate of the
kokutai, at any time. But the peace faction in the Supreme Council for the Conduct of the War read between the lines, to assume the Throne and its preogatives would be adequately shielded.
That Japanese “peace” faction in the Supreme Council for the Conduct of the war (which varied, but was usually about half, led by Togo, opposed by the “Four Conditions” faction of Anami, Toyoda and Umezu) , with the Emperor’s tacit approval, was attempting to feel out the Russians, as to whether they might be willing to intercede for a negotiated peace, as you say. This was primarily done by Togo’s directions to Sato, the Japanese ambassador to Moscow. Who rightly saw that what was going on was not a sanctioned effort of the entire Supreme Council. As Sato told Togo repeatedly, the idea of a negotiated peace was a chimera. The Russians were not interested. Sato’s insistence that the only course was the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration was accurate. But it was out of reach.
The Emperor’s response, at the
gozen kaigan on 14 Aug, had been prepared by machinations between Togo, Kido, and the Emperor, in a move that broke with constitutional protocol. The Emperor directed the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration.
The relative weight of the Russian intervention, and the bombs, is a topic of scholarly debate. As it was sometimes said, the bombs convinced the government and the Emperor, and the Russians more impressed the military. In his answer to the request, at the* gozen kaigan*, for a decision breaking the impasse, the Emperor emphasized the bombs, not the Russians. And the Russians did not alter the “conditional” faction’s position that an improved negotiated end to the war, which would preserve much of the threatened national structure, could be gained by a final application of the decisive battle concept, in following the* Ketsugo* plan, raising the butcher’s bill to the point that the conditions set by Anami’s group would be achieved.
The bombs were used as quickly as possible, once they were available, for a number of reasons, which might be summed up in the idea that the goal was to end the war as soon as might be. A number of reasons went into this thinking, including the cost of the proposed invasion of Kyushu, and the desire to keep the Russians from obtaining a position in Japan similar to that they had achieved behind the Red Army in Europe, by proceeding to Hokkaido, after they had overrun southern Sakhalin, as mentioned.
The use of the bombs and the end to the war they were instrumental in bringing about, was the single most efficient way to end the killing, in the most expeditious manner. Any other approach would have resulted in increased casualties on all sides, in all parts of the PTO. The average monthly toll during the war ran between 100.000 and 300,000 casualties a month: military, civilian, young, old, male, female, Japanese, Allied, Asian. The Russian attacks in Manchuria, into China and Korea, down Sakhalin and the Kuriles, resulted, in the roughly 20 days that fighting continued (the Russians did not stop with the Japanese surrender, they continued until they controlled such areas as they had desired) in an additional 12,000 plus Russian dead and over 82,000 Japanese dead. This was a delta to the average ongoing total in all parts of the Theater. With the British scheduled to begin Operation Zipper in the first week in Sep, and the vastly increased plans for conventional bombings on the Home Islands, any prolongation of the war would add hundreds of thousands deaths per month to the total.
The bombs were necessary to the ending of the war in the quickest manner possible, with the fewest deaths possible. Good.
As always, I recommend Frank’s DOWNFALL, Newman’s TRUMAN AND THE HIROSHIMA CULT (particularly his chaps 1-3, on the points here raised), Maddox’s WEAPONS FOR VICTORY, HIROSHIMA IN HISTORY: THE MYTHS OF REVISIONISM (ed. Maddox), Drea’s MACARTHUR’S ULTRA, the Pacific War Research Society’s JAPAN’S LONGEST DAY, as a beginning to an understanding of what actually went on in the end-game of WWII. And I most enthusiastically recommend a book I recently finished reading, Smith and McConnell’s THE LAST MISSION. An excellent overview and summary of what went on in the Japanese command structure. Though I think it has a couple of small mistakes, it can stand with Frank’s DOWNFALL.
The literature on the use of the bombs is voluminous, 65 years on. I’ve been reading it as a hobby for 15 years.
GKC
