Pope condemns possession of nuclear weapons

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It was about time. Just one detonation either intentional or by error and we will be paying for its consequences for many years ahead.
 
Estimates for the entire Pacific Theater of Operations, in the last year of the war, were between 100,000 and 300,000/month, accelerating as the year wore on. My best estimate, from all my reading on the subject, over the past 25 years (a long time hobby) is 200,000+ per month. Best treatment is HELL TO PAY/Giangreco. 2nd edition is preferred.
 
May as well get started. Been a long time since I’ve had to do this, but all good things come to an end.

The home defense plan (Ketsu-go) involved a planned total of 28 million otherwise civilians, as a supplement to the Japanese military in the Home Islands. They spoke of bearing up to 20 million casualties, but that total would have been roughly 30% of the Home Island population, and is likely bombastic, not realistic. This was the gyokusai, “the breaking of the jewels/shattered jade”. That is, the sacrifice of the people, to ensure the survival of the Kokutai, the national polity.

Now time for the standard recommendation of the best book out there on the topic: Frank’s DOWNFALL: THE END OF THE JAPANESE IMPERIAL EMPIRE. Unsurpassed, though it can be supplemented.

Recommendation based on the 25 year study I mentioned, and the 150+ books over there, on the shelf, on the topic.

Further comments/corrections deferred until the board lets me post again. I’m too verbose.

And there is so much to correct here.
 
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GKMotley said:
Though the “Truman promised amnesty” is new.
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Truman did in fact let the Japanese know that they could choose to keep their emperor after their surrender and occupation. This info was sent to Tokyo only after the A-bombs had failed to produce the desired capitulation. The fact that the war criminal Hirohito was not put on trial bears witness to this truth. The Truman administration then put out the propaganda that Hirohito was somehow “necessary” to the USA’s occupation of Japan. And we all believed that nonsense.

BTW, the USSR with some assistance from the US Navy was fully capable of invading Japan.


 
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The reply to the Japanese interrogatory in their post-bombing conditional acceptance (note: post bombing, as you say. What went on the the gozen kaigen, 9-10 Aug would be necessary to understand, as to why the conditional reply was made at all) was formulated to address the One-Condition position that was finally accepted, when Togo directly asked the Emperor to state his opinion. The Japanese attempted to make a conditional acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration by predicating their tentative acceptance “with the understanding that said declaration does not comprise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of his majesty as a sovereign ruler”. The wording was Hiranauma’s, more hard-line than Togo’s . It was an attempt to continue state Shintoism, and was not what the Allies had in mind for post-war Japan.

The 11 August reply was not Truman, but Byrnes. “From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms”. …"“The ultimate form of government of Japan shall, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people”. That they could choose to keep the idea of the Emperor was stated. That it would be, in any case, in the Meiji Constitution format: political, military, and diplomatic prerogatives was not. By the freely expressed will of the Japanese people. After the occupation had changed things to the victors’ wishes.

Continued.
 
Fascinating link you gave, to Bix’s article. The points I made above could be found in a myriad of my books, but, in fact, I opened one that was sitting by my chair. Herbert Bix’s HIROHITO AND THE MAKING OF MODERN JAPAN. I recommend you seek it out, esp. pp.516-519. Bix makes the point that what Hiranuma’s words implied was a continuation of the traditional kokutai, as opposed to Togo’s more restrained concept of preserving the imperial dynasty, not Hirohito himself. And neither was acceptable. “It was upon Japan’s acceptance of an intact unconditional surrender principle, and of an uncertain status for the emperor, that the absolute authority of General MacArthur would be predicated and the institutional reforms (my bold) of the early occupation period based”. Leading to the new constitution and, if the people desired it, a suitable role for the Emperor. In the eyes of the victor. So it was.

As to the Russians, it would have taken a great deal of US assistance, to allow the Bear’s claws onto the Home Islands. After which would follow the same bloodbath anticipated if we had invaded ourselves. The Russians were quite good at rolling over defeated folk. The Japanese were quite ready to bleed them and themselves. And then there would be that extension of what the Russians brought to eastern Europe. An opening on the Pacific, Russian style. Having watched what was happening, particularly in Poland, that wasn’t going to happen, either.

I do wonder at your continued enthusiasm to have Russians ruling people.

As to your first clip, yes. That’s the basic, reductionist revisionist point. In a word, no.

As a myriad books over there can illustrate. The Russian attack proved to the most optimistic faction of the Saiko Senso Shido Kosein Kagi that there was no diplomatic way to ease the strictures of the Potsdam Declaration. The continuing and increasing butcher’s bill we could levy on Japan was now on a more economical scale: one plane, one bomb, one city. Both factors influenced the surrender. To what extent 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 9-10 August 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 ketsu-go plan, raising the invaders butcher’s bill to the point that the conditions set by the hard-liners (Anami’s clique) group would be achieved.

A subject, this, that demands concentrated study, not googling.
 
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GKMotley said:
I do wonder at your continued enthusiasm to have Russians ruling people.
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Thanks for the reply.
In hindsight (its a wonderful thing) I feel that the A-bomb was wasted on Japan. The USA’s 5 year head-start should have been utilized for one purpose: to prevent the USSR from building the same. I have heard it said that this was not possible, but I don’t buy that. It is proven, I believe, that after the A-bombing of Japan, the USSR redoubled its efforts to build its own bomb.

Furthermore, Japan, faced with the prospect of a Russian invasion, would have had the option to surrender to US occupation.

What’s done is done, and now our best, and perhaps only option, for survival is unilateral nuclear disarmament, at least according to the OT prophets.
 
You’re welcome. I don’t seek out threads like this, but when found, I do my best to correct historical infelicities.

And I know. We’ve discussed this before. The problem was that our nuclear capability would not have been adequate, before Joe-1, to do much with respect to the Soviet Union, as a whole. As late as just before the Korean war, our arsenal barely past double digits, of basically the Nagasaki model weapon, depending on a limited (but larger than in 1945) number of Silverplate B-29s. The Soviet Union was a big target, and was as tough an adversary, with as tough a leader, as one might want to avoid.

Japan wasn’t going to surrender to anyone, on the basis of a potential invasion. They knew we were coming, where it would hit first (good guess work) and were prepared for gyokusai. Didn’t matter whether the invader was us or the Russians, for them. The point of ending the war included doing so as rapidly as possible, with as small a total human cost as possible, and get on with restructuring Japan as we desired. So it was.

As to your ultimate para, you may discuss that with any OT prophets you can locate. Keep it between yourselves.
 
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Unfortunately, no one here has the command and control authority to disarm. Nothing is proven about the Soviet A-bomb project except their first atomic test in August 1949. The Chinese Civil War ended the following month, and the Communists seized power. In June 1950, the Korean proxy War began. What is most odd is the the Russians put the MiG-15 to use against the very similar F-86. What is even more odd is that the MiG-15 used a direct copy of the British Nene engine which Stalin was considering stealing but didn’t have to. The British sold it to him even though the Americans had final say in the transfer/sale of various technologies at the time.
 
edwest211 said:
Nothing is proven about the Soviet A-bomb project except their first atomic test in August 1949.
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Odd thing to say. We know this and that. If my child had not run off with my copy of STALIN AND THE BOMB, I’d be more specific. But what fault do you find with wiki, on the Soviet nuclear bomb development?

And the Nene. Courtesy of the perennial left-slanting Sir Stafford Cripps, Minister for Aircraft Production for most of the war, then and at the time the Soviets came asking, President of the Board of Trade. Just the man. Of course, the Brits, in the (dimming) glow of 1946, did ask that the Soviets not use it for military purposes and not reverse engineer it. They didn’t, til 1947. Shows restraint. There was an abortive effort to negotiate some further sales to them, after the initial 20-25, but cooler heads prevailed.

How do I have these factoids (vaguely) to hand when they are not pertinent to the atomic question? I’m a wide spectrum WWII reader, have been for over 60 years (you will recall). Just finished Monday, THE PERFECT ENGLISH SPY, Tom Bower’s book on Dick White, the rather colorless head of both MI-5, followed by MI-6.The case is on page 88.

Now, tell me the details of how the Americans were to have final sale of technologies such as these. Other than the nuclear variety. Which, of course, Klaus Fuchs and Allan Nunn May helped provide a method around. Serious question. I need to see if I’m forgetting something, or need to get more books.
 
Except the mass suicides of civilians on captured islands suggests that the people really were that fanatical, not because they wholeheartedly believed in the Imperial cause, but because they had been propagandized to believe that the Americans would treat them the same way the Japanese military treated people they conquered. The Japanese had a mindset of absolute obedience to authority, and in many ways, they still do, but in World War II, this obedience was used to serve lunatics. The fact that deliberately crashing planes into ships was a viable tactic proves as much.

The gravity of the situation was further compounded by the precarious condition of the civilian population. The military government didn’t need to force the population to fight in order to inflict such casualties; they merely needed to continue fighting themselves. Japan was already suffering severe famine at the end of the war; mass starvation would have occurred had the war continued through the winter of 1946.
 
Except for the word “Except”, I agree.

Marpi Point, Saipan. Okinawa. Shudan jiketsu.

The focus of the bombing was shifting toward transportation assets, and the Sea of Japan was both mined by B-29s (which irritated LeMay), and patrolled by subs, to cut off the import of war material and food from the Asian mainland.

Hunger and disease are particularly attracted to the young, and the military, perforce, got preferential treatment.

At one time we had a poster on this board (old form) whose mother, she revealed in one of these ever-reappearing threads, was part of the ketsugo defense plan, in the Volunteer Fighting Force part of ketsugo. Given a lunge grenade, IIRC. The point of the plan, indeed the whole Japanese defense strategy by this time, was not so much to defeat the the invaders, but to raise the blood bath/butchers bill, both Japanese and American, to the point where a negotiated peace would follow. This was the last example of the protean concept of the decisive victory, a concept central to Japanese planning since before the war.

One might see the always recommended Frank/DOWNFALL, the previous mentioned Giangreco/HELL TO PAY or Bix/HIROHITO, or new comers such as Weintrab/THE LAST GREAT VICTORY or Zaloga/DEFENSE OF JAPAN 1945. Generally. Or other stuff.
 
edwest211 said:
Unfortunately, no one here has the command and control authority to disarm.
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Candidates for Congress and the White House would have to adopt a platform of unilateral nuclear disarmament and then be elected. That would be possible if voters were to understand the dangerous position that the USA’s nuclear arsenal puts them in.

Few believe that ancient prophecy has relevance for our modern world, and of those who do, few see it as predicting a global nuclear war. My understanding is that no current candidates for the White House have unilateral nuclear disarmament as part of their platform. So its not that the power to accomplish this critical task does not exist, its that the citizens of the USA don’t want it done.
 
GKMotley said:
And I know. We’ve discussed this before. The problem was that our nuclear capability would not have been adequate, before Joe-1, to do much with respect to the Soviet Union, as a whole. As late as just before the Korean war, our arsenal barely past double digits, of basically the Nagasaki model weapon, depending on a limited (but larger than in 1945) number of Silverplate B-29s. The Soviet Union was a big target, and was as tough an adversary, with as tough a leader, as one might want to avoid.

Japan wasn’t going to surrender to anyone, on the basis of a potential invasion.
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It’s my understanding that the USA’s development of nuclear weapons languished after the Japan bombings. There may have been a public backlash against the bomb’s use against a defeated enemy. Anecdotal story: my dad worked on elements of the Chicago reactor and received a Manhattan Project medallion for that. Years later my mom related that she felt distressed when she learned of the A-bombing of Japan because of her husband’s involvement.
The Truman administration did not take the USSR’s nuclear projects seriously and believed that Russia was too backward to ever develop the A-bomb. I believe that the USA could have prevented the USSR from gaining nuclear capability if it had refrained from using the new capability on Japan (which induced Stalin to redouble the USSR’s efforts) and had not allowed its own nuclear bomb development to languish.
 
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As to your first para, no. There was strong support for the use of the bombs, generally. Any backlash developed much later, as memory of the circumstances faded. Early critics such as Blackett or Anscombe were voices in the wilderness. My hat-tip and salute to your dad.

As to your 2nd para, no. To assert that we thought the USSR too backward to develop nuclear weapons is grotesque.The expected time for them to develop the bomb ranged up to 10 years, which was the officially accepted figure and was Groves. The extent of the Soviet penetration of the Manhattan project was not known until after Joe-1. If you think that the US allowed its own bomb development to languish, you know little of the history. I’d suggest Rhodes/DARK SUN as a start. Consider Teller’s advocacy of the “Super”. Which, despite technical opposition from within the scientific community, we had in hand in little more time than we took to develop the first bombs. The production of which, post war, continued, with 4 successive mods to the basic Fat Man implosion weapon, giving us in around 4 + years about 300 weapons (1950). This averages roughly 6-7 weapons per month, added. Which was double the rate assumed in August 45, of around 3+ a month before Operation Olympic. A steady and steadily increasing production rate of upgraded weapons, the continued post war production of Silverplate B-29s, the continued development of the B-50s/B-36s, as the replacements for the B-29, as the primary delivery system, all before First Lightning, all speak to the fact that, as usual, you are wrong. On about everything.
 
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A great deal of history from World War II and the immediate post-war period (September1945 to mid-1950) remains classified and though bits and pieces have been mentioned, I have yet to see a comprehensive historical treatment. US nuclear weapon development slowed to the perceived needs of the period mentioned. President Truman, by way of the US intelligence community, took Russian nuclear development seriously. He may have been told that the Russians would not test an atom bomb until 1952 or 1953.

1946 A book was released to inform the public about the nature and meaning of the atomic bomb. Key scientists were very concerned. It’s title - One World or None. A list of contributors is given:


But that didn’t stop two nuclear tests in mid-1946 at the Bikini Atoll. In 1948, a book was released by a ‘radiological monitor’ at the tests. It was titled No Place to Hide by David Bradley.

In a message from the period, the British urged the US to launch a strike against any known or suspected nuclear test and development sites in the USSR before 1949. Their concern was obvious: England was the key staging point for American aircraft during the war and men and equipment for D-Day. Knock England out and that’s that. The Americans declined to help. Though the US and England enjoyed a ‘special relationship’ during the war, that was not the case with nuclear weapons. The British tested their first nuclear device in 1952 just off the coast of Australia, a Commonwealth country.
 
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As usual, history is a complicated story. But what I’ll add is a sort of neat fact. That British test, just off the NW coast of Aussie-land, had the device placed on HMS Plym, an (obviously) surplus RN frigate. 25K later, a successful test. Intent was to model a clandestine attack, by a ship in a British harbor. It proved conclusively that, at least, said ship would not be escaping to repeat the performance.
 
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