In memory of the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two American historians: This is how America's leaders knew that there was no need for nuclear bombing to defeat Japan

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 am local time in Japan, in the last days of World War II, the world was on a date with the world's first atomic bomb attack, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, followed by another bomb on Nagasaki, and on As a result, between 150 thousand and a quarter of a million people died as a direct result of the devastating bombardment, and after these two bombs, a new nuclear age opened.

At a time when many Americans are reassessing the many painful aspects of their country's past, the Los Angeles Times said it was an opportune moment for an honest national conversation about the use of nuclear weapons to strike Japanese cities 76 years ago.

Academic historians Gar Alperowitz, author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and director of the Cooperative Democracy Society, and Martin J.

Sherwin, a professor of history at George Mason University and author of the forthcoming book Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Gambling from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis, shares an article detailing the untold history of the nuclear bombing of Japan, which fundamentally changed the course of modern history.

The accepted wisdom in the United States was that dropping the bombs on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki 3 days after Hiroshima, was the only way to end World War II without an invasion that cost hundreds of thousands of American lives and possibly millions of Japanese.

The US rhetoric says the bombs not only ended the war, but did so in the most humane way as well.

However, crucial historical evidence from US and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered in August of that year (in any case), even if the atomic bombs had not taken place, and the documents prove that President Truman and his closest advisers knew it, according to American newspaper.

Unconditional surrender

The Allies' demand for unconditional surrender led the Japanese to fear that the emperor, whom many viewed as a god, would be tried and executed for war crimes.

A study - conducted by the Southwest Pacific Command - by American General Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964) compared the execution of the emperor to "the crucifixion of Christ for us."

“Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace,” Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo sent a letter to his country's ambassador to Moscow, Naotaki Sato, on July 12, 1945, in an attempt to enlist the Soviet Union to broker the terms of the accepted surrender on Japan's behalf.

The entry of the Soviet Union into the war on August 8 or 9 changed everything for Japan's leaders, who secretly admitted the necessity of immediate surrender;

The Soviets and Mongolians soon ended the Japanese control of Manchukuo, Minqiang (Inner Mongolia), North Korea, Karafuto, and Chichima (Kuril Islands).

The intelligence of the Allied countries had mentioned months earlier, and confirmed that the entry of the Soviets would force the Japanese to surrender.

As early as April 11, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff predicted that "if at any time the Soviet Union entered the war, all Japanese would realize that absolute defeat was inevitable."

soviet effect

US President Harry Truman knew that the Japanese were looking for a way to end the war.

He had referred to the aforementioned Togo telegram intercepted on 12 July as "a telegram from the Japanese emperor asking for peace".

Truman (ruled the United States from 1945-1953) also knew that a Soviet invasion would get Japan out of the war.

At the summit in Potsdam, Germany, on July 17, 1945, after Stalin assured that the Soviets would come on time, Truman wrote in his memoirs that he knew that Japan's exit from the war would be swift.

The next day, he assured his wife, "We will end the war a year ago, and think about the children who will not be killed!"

The Soviets invaded Japanese-controlled Manchuria at midnight on August 8, after two days of nuclear bombardment, and quickly destroyed the Imperial Kwantung Army stationed in Manchuria, China.

As expected, the attack shocked Japan's leaders, as they could not fight a war on two fronts, and the communist threat to seize Japanese territory was their worst nightmare.

Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki made it clear on August 13 that Japan must surrender quickly because “the Soviet Union will not only take Manchuria, Korea and Karafuto, but Hokkaido (Japan’s northernmost prefecture) as well. This would destroy the foundations of Japan. We must end the war When we can reach an understanding with the United States."

American acknowledgment

While the majority of Americans may not be familiar with this history, the National Museum of the United States Navy in Washington, D.C., unequivocally mentions on its Atomic Bomb exhibit panel the "enormous devastation caused by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 lives for them." Little effect on the Japanese army. But the Soviet invasion of Manchuria... changed their minds."

The online wording has been revised to put atomic bombs more positively, once again showing how myths can overwhelm historical evidence.

Seven of the five-star (highest ranks) Army and Navy officers of the United States in 1945 approved the US Navy's previous harsh assessment: Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Henry "Happ" Arnold, Admiral William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, and Ernst King, William Halsey;

They state in archives that atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both.

No one was more forceful in his condemnation than Leahy, Truman's chief of staff. He wrote in his memoirs, "The use of this barbaric weapon in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not materially useful in our war against Japan. The Japanese are already defeated and are ready to surrender...Being the first to use it, We adopted a common moral standard with the barbarians of the Dark Ages."

MacArthur believed that the use of atomic bombs was an unforgivable mistake.

He later wrote to former US President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) that if Truman had followed Hoover's "wise statesman" advice to amend the terms of surrender and tell the Japanese they could keep their Emperor "the Japanese would have gladly accepted it, I have no doubt".

Before the bombing, former US President Dwight Eisenhower (1890 - 1969) argued in the German city of Potsdam that "the Japanese were ready to surrender and it was not necessary to hit them with this terrible thing," and the American newspaper commented by saying that the evidence indicates that Eisenhower was right. .