A different take on the lives saved by the bomb

Quite correct. After all, TRINITY had tested the difference between the two types of Bomb....the output/effect of Little Man was pure phyics

As for testing against hard targets..."laboratory" conditions were of course FAR better for this too. IIRC weren't large parts of Nagasaki sheltered from direct blast and radiation effects because of a line of hills running through the city?

That's why later in the 1940s and into the 1950s the Americans BUILT the "laboratory conditions" they wanted - and created the urban test facilities they did at each nuclear test, replicating Western building/plumbing techniques in housing, the construction of factories, chimneys etc.....their future and expected target - NOT Japanese paper houses!

It's the results from these tests that were written into The Effects of Nuclear Weapons for future advice and guidance during the Cold War...

 

SymphonicPoet, I think you're accusing me of cherry-picking info from a document (which I am), and then doing it yourself (which you are). Yes, there were a lot of varying estimates and this one begins with Kyushu-- and thank you Mikebatzel for pointing out that it was June 18th (I don't know why I always mix those numbers up). But on page 2, first paragraph, of the report it also suggests that the invasion of Kyushu, along with the continued sea blockade and bombardment and the Russian declaration, might be enough for Japan to concede defeat. The Kyushu estimate states that it "should not exceed" 31,000, suggesting it might be less. Thus, one government estimate was that a land invasion would total 31,000. And during the discussions among the top brass, there was an even lower number presented: McCloy believed that the threat of the bomb might provide a political solution (I'm quoting McCullough's Truman biography here), and recommended informing them. So when I propose that dropping the bomb wasn't necessary to end the war or speed the war or save lives, I'm not just in the company of quacks and consipiracy theorists.

That said, yes, we were prepared to invade Honshu in March if our other efforts weren't successful; and yes, fighting elsewhere would without-a-doubt have added to losses on both sides. Widespread starvation might have occurred by civilians in the countryside-- if you want to perceive the Japanese as hard-hearted against their own people to that extent. But let's go back to the document I presented. According to MacArthur, by a November invasion every industrial target "worth hitting" would be destroyed, the Japanese navy would be "powerless," and reinforcement capabilities to the mainland (and back) would be cut off. Professors (and others) project high mortality estimates based on the idea that the Japanese mentality rejected any idea of defeat or surrender; however, we know that they were contemplating both very seriously. We know that they were willing to negotiate.

I haven't read Phylo_Roadking's suggested thread and I will; perhaps it will change my mind. And I do agree it's important to remember that the 31,000 estimate was for starting a land campaign. I'm not saying that inventing the atomic bomb didn't help end the war (though I'm not sure I'm supporting that idea either); I'm saying dropping the bomb didn't neceassarily save more lives than it lost. Projections went both ways.

Brndirt1-- saying that there were no serious offers prior to the bombing may not be the most precise. Russia was part of the Allied forces, they were at Potsdam, and the Japanese approached them. Whether it was a "serious" offer isn't really known, and I'm not sure how exactly you'd judge that. I'm also not sure what "conspiracy" you keep referring to. I don't think I brought one up.

 

No, Maghappy. I'm not accusing you of cherry picking. I'm accusing you of reading things into the estimate that simply aren't there. The 31,000 figure is an estimate of U.S. casualties in the first thirty days. Nothing more. Nothing less. I see nothing in that document that suggests that it was ever meant to be an estimate for the total casualties of even the Kyushu operation. Further, it isn't raw data, it's high level analysis that, as was elsewhere pointed out, wasn't precisely accurate anyway. You aren't cherry picking facts. You are distorting them. If you bother to read the entire remarkably short and fairly simple document with an open mind you'll see that it undermines your own position. You cannot truthfully use it as support.

You say that Truman "knew" that the casualties of an invasion would be 31,000. That is clearly contradicted by this very document. You said that "almost everyone" from the joint war plans committee agreed on the 31,000 figure, which is only remotely true if you believe "nearly everyone" felt the invasion of Japan would be complete after Kyushu was secured AND it could be secured in 30 days. Which no one anywhere suggests. To be incredibly frank, no one in that document says anything remotely like "We should be able to win the war with another 31,000 casualties."

I'm glad that you like writing plays that deal with an interesting period of history. It disturbs me utterly that you're including such horrifying misinformation in them. It's a free country and you are of course welcome to say what you will and believe what you must, but people believe playwrights. They shouldn't, perhaps, but they do. So yours is a position of some responsibility. And I wish you would use greater care in your research, particularly given the sensitivity of the particular subject. I make no claims to expertise here. I simply read what you posted as evidence. And it doesn't say what you claim it does. Plain and simple.

 

In reverse order, no it was "Nicnac" (not yourself) who brought up the "conspiracy" idea, and it was to his/her post I replied in that vein. As to the other points as to next "up".

What I said was there were no "serious offers" made through the "good offices of the Soviets". That is because Prince Sato (in Moscow) representing the Imperial Japanese was refused audience to the Foreign Minister's office. Molotov kept shuffling him off to "non-persons", and didn't meet with, nor take any offers from the Japanese.

I'll supply you with the frustrated "peace feeler" telegrams posted between Moscow and Tokyo if you wish, but even Sato knew that trying to get the Soviets to make a "deal" was pointless. Whether the Japanese were "serious" or not is a moot point, if the other party doesn't accept the message it isn't an accepted attempt. It wasn't.

 

Hi Brndirt1, sorry-- thought you were referring to my post. If you can point me in the direction of those telegrams, I'd love to read them. You did, though, write that "as Mike pointed out there were no serious offers made by the Imperial Japanese until after the bombs were detonated," which is why questioned you.

The idea I was responding to was the oft stated belief that the Japanese would never have surrendered and fought man-woman-and-child to the end. I'd point to "The Decision for Peace" chapter from the US Strategic Bombing Survery for a counter argument. In it, Sakomizu-- who worked for Suziki-- stated that in May of '45 the he informed the Prime Minister that Japan could not continue the war, and that both Suzuki and the Emperor understood that "the people did not want to continue the war, that their sentiment was antiwar." Furthermore, while we walked away from the battle of Okinawa with the "learning" that Japan would fight tooth and nail, the Japanese Prime Minister saw it as evidence that Japan could not win. So you've got the Minister of War taking the hard line of war til the end and the Emperor and Prime Minister saying we must negotiate surrender. Given the structure of Japanese culture, those in favor of war would have to convince the Emperor otherwise; meanwhile the prince is trying to talk to Russia. We like to imagine General Anami "thundering" (and probably he did), but it doesn't necessarily reflect the position of Japan or its people.

The only way to estimate casualties from a proposed campaign is to look at similar campaigns. But everything changes, so any estimate is fraught with error. I did overstate the truth in writing "Truman knew the casualties would be 31,000" (thanks, SymphonicPoet). However, that was the "best guess" number he had in front of him when he decided to use the atomic bomb. It states twice in the report that three factors might bring about Japan's surrender: a destroyed navy, a Russian declaration, and a "landing on Japan indicating the firmness of our resolution." This sentiment is repeated in the first paragraph of page four. Come November 1st (the day scheduled for Kyushu invasion), two out of those three conditions were to have been in place. So I think it is fair to say that there is something in the document that suggests the Kyushu estimate, however soft, might be the total for the invasion. Yes, they were prepared to go nine months or more; but the reports also present much shorter possibilities. Truman was faced with a whole host of "what ifs".

Farther in the Joint War Plans report there's another statement of note: McArthur (through Marshall) writes that the Kyushu attack would be "most economical one in effort and lives that is possible. In this respect it must be remembered that the several preceding months will involve no losses in ground troops." I'd be interested in what others think he means by this.

And as for my plays, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions. Political drama works best when it explores questions, not supplies answers.

 

The way I see this argument is from a military and 1945 perspective. Using nuclear weapons saved Allied / American lives. If it oblitherated more Japanese too bad for them. It doesn't matter what the alternatives were. Using atomic bombs helped bring the war to a successful close for the United States.
If that sounds callous it is. But war is and should be a terrible thing and wrought on one's enemies with little mercy. That today many "wars" are these never ending rounds of low intensity fighting like the Israeli - Palestinian situation only prolongs the suffering and greif of millions for generations rather than ending it then and there. I for one would prefer war be something fought between enemies such that when it ends it need not be fought again.

 

The whole point is that to really end a war you need both sides to accept some sort of agreement and move on to other things, ramming a solution down the throat of the looser by force is not likely to work in the long run even if it does look good to the winner at the time.
More than the Israeli-Palestiniam conflict, it's hard to think of a "mutually acceptable" solution when both sides include a substantial group that believes they have a "God sanctioned" right to the disputed territories, look at the Franco-German conflicts, it wasn't until both countries found out that economic cooperation was a better idea than fighting that it really ended, the 1815, 1871 and 1919 "peace treaties" turned out to be just a long lasting "cease fire". The need to face the common "perceived threat" of the red army also had a big part. Inducing such a "cultural change" cannot be done by military means, all the military can do is keep control to allow other forces to do the work, consensus gathering is not their job. My idea is that city bombing and other atrocities make the peace builders job harder, people do not forget that sort of thing easily and it only needs an unprincipled rabble rouser to bring that up to gather consensus around it and you're in big trouble.

 

Mag, I fear you are jumping to conclusions too early. You have taken a single document, with estimates created by incomplete information with a good deal of guess work, and applying it as if it was to the authority on the subject. You need to look at the postwar information as to what we had learned of the Japanese troop build-ups, fortifications, planning, etc.

You could apply a 31,000 figure to Luzon as the figure for casualties in the first thirty days, but the fact remains that this was nowhere near a trend. Peleliu came very near a 1-1 casualties ratio, Iwo, was IIRC about a 1-1.2 casualty ratio. Using these figures one could easily conclude that over half a million troops could be killed or wounded on Kyushu alone*. As the document you provided states "Our experience in the Pacific war is so diverse as to casualties that it is considered wrong to give any estimate in numbers."




*This is not a claim by myself, but only used as an example.

 

But would it have gotten the message across that we wanted to send? Would it have had the impact that was needed?

We did.

This is at best a distortion if not a down right fallacy. Hirshima had many military instalations and much of it was militiary related industry. Civilians are going to predominate in any city that's simply the nature of things.

As has been pointed out he knew no such thing. He had a number of casualty projections for both Japanese and US casualties. Most if not all projected higher casualties than the bomb produced. Furthermore if you look back on it the low numbers would almost assuredly have been wrong due to the lack of intel on the Japanese preperations. Indeed Olympic might well have been postponed as the impact of those preperations became apparent in August and Septemeber.

No. This illustrates a rather weak understanding of Japanese history and cultrue. Look for example at the Shogunate period. What the Emporer said or wanted wasn't what mattered who controlled access to him did.

Enough of them for him to make it stick but note there was a revolt against it even so.

Indeed but surrender in August seems unlikely as does September after that who knows.

That's rather a misstatement of what happened. They agreed to unconditional surrender and then it was stated that the Emporer could remain. In part this was to insure that as many as possible Japanese did in fact surrender. As it was there were holdouts for significant periods of time.

That's looking at only half the equation.

There's also the willingness to use them part of the equation. Tests results were also kept pretty close to chest for the most part. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were open to civilians and the press. This assured a much wider dissemenation of the data.

 

??? Might have? It had already started. There might have been some temporary relief when the fall harvest came in but Japan was already in dire straights as far as food went and the Japanese were not even hinting at surrender. They could project the food situation even better than we could by the way.
...We know that they were willing to negotiate.
[/quote]
But the perception was that that was what lead to Hitler and the Nazis. The allies had decided that a negotiated settlement wasn't in their or the worlds best interest.

They could have gone through the Swiss or other neutral parties or corresponded directly with the US and Britain if it were a serious offer.

 

Well they clearly had plans to.

Consider the authors. Also consider that they looked at it primarily from a material stand point.

If that were the case why didn't they surrender before the first bomb was dropped. It appears to me that you don't understand how the politics worked in Japan at that time.

Indeed so what's your point?

No. It was one of them. Even wiki lists the following at:
Operation Downfall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So there are several "official" estimates and you using is the minimum. Furthermore wiki goes on to say:

This page also lists a number of "official" estimates:
Casualty Estimates for the invasion of Japan

In support of the limited direct role of the Emporer in politics I'll quote Invasion Plans and Casualty Estimates

Note the impact as well.

 

Actually - that's exactly what worked in Germany It was the war in the Pacific that was ended how you state, with the eventual Treaty of San Francisco in 1951 IIRC.

 

No. The japanese military would have interpreted as the Americans NOT having the moral stength to use this ultimate weapon - so they COULD be defeated, they COULD be forced by battle casualties into negotiation....if they couldn't bring themselves to using the weapon as designed if it risked civlian deaths.

In other words - a "demonstration" would actually HARDEN Japanese resistance!

No - the nature of MAD is completely the other way round - that your enemy will die just as surely as you will

 

I have a feeling a lot of the clinical nature of this discussion would be different if we were Japanese. Seems like some of the comments here can be boiled down to "it sucks to be them."

 

Perhaps but perhaps not.

In some cases. On the otherhand that could be generalized to describe the citizens of any of the totalitarian countries involved. In any case I'm not sure how relevant it is.

 

Last ones first, MacArthur was woefully uninformed as to the resistance he could expect at Kyushu in the beginning of the discussions. His estimates increased as new data came in as to the Japanese preparations for the proposed invasions. They (Japanese) were actually pretty good at deducing where we would need to invade the home islands, and deploying their best troops to that area. Their ability to use military logic was not dimmed in the least as to figuring out where the most likely invasion beaches would be.

Next up is the "serious" nomenclature, in my post. That may have been a poor choice of words on my part. When I used that term I meant that the offers which were NOT moved up the chain of command in the Soviet to either Molotov or Stalin could hardly be "considered seriously". They (Japanese) might have been "serious", but the fact they were ignored by the Soviets made the offers unlikely to advance toward a negotiated peace. BTW, one must always remember that "unconditional surrender" doesn't mean "NO terms, it means "here are our terms, accept them without reservation, or continue fighting." This meant we (Allies) would set the terms, and Japan would accept them as offered or continue the war.

This is the link to the site for the telegrams between Prince Sato and Togo in Tokyo, and please try to figure out how to read them in a "semi-chronological" order. That can be difficult as sometimes Sato replies to a couple or multiple telegrams from Tokyo, and the reverse is also true.

And notice they are properly labeled as "peace feelers", not suggestions for surrender but efforts to "get the Soviets to help them end their territorial, military and governmental losses". Prince Sato repeatedly tells Tokyo that this is "pointless".

Goto:

Nuclear Files: Library: Correspondence: Telegrams: Togo-Sato

as per a more general set of messages, use this site’s index for communications between the "main players".

Goto:

Nuclear Files: Library: Correspondence: Index

And try to remember that the US was reading these diplomatic telegrams in "real time", and when Stalin informed Truman of the events, Truman was "heartened" that the information had been voluntary as to Stalin "ignoring" the plea. Truman already knew what the Soviets were doing in response to the Japanese, but having the information proffered by Stalin without asking was "good news", and led Truman to believe that in this instance at least Stalin could be trusted. And just as an aside, Stalin had promised to "come into the far east, as he did. But, when the first atomic detonated, he changed his timeline from the 15th of August to the 8th between the two bombs.

 

You are most likely right especially if we were all 80 years old; but, the detachment of time and place provides perspective.

The dropping of the Bombs was totally avoidable, they didn't have to be dropped, if Japan had surrendered.

The Japanese knew well in advance what was comming their way and Hirohito and his inner circle refused to accept unconditional surrender.

How would your perception be different if your son was on the Arizona or on Bataan, or Wake, or even staging on Okinawa for the invasion of Japan?

 

Thanks for the link-- I don't know how I missed (or maybe forgot) about this page, as I've visited this site before. In a way, I think the correspondence is a good reflection of the division within Japan: Sato's harder line and Togo's softer. In particular, Togo's July 20th assessment seems very despairing to me.

You mention that these were being read in "real time"; I'm wondering how real that time was, and your reference for that. When it comes to the pre-Pearl Harbor transmissions, scholars often point out how difficult the process was of sorting through the voluminous intercepted messages and going through two levels of translations, a process that took anywhere from days to weeks.

I'd say that while the messages start out as just "feelers", they become a little more desperate than that. They want to send a special envoy, and at one point Togo states that "Prince Konoye will be empowered to discuss a wide range of subjects," implying a real negotation.

I'd also contend that while Sato got the run-around from Lozovsky and others, it was in part a ploy to act as if their offer wasn't being considered. The info was moved up the chain; Stalin was informed about their efforts, and Stalin took it seriously enough to raise the issue with Truman in private, albeit "casually" (if anything Stalin did could be considered casual). The message was "we're not seriously considering your offer," but the action was decided at the highest level.

Your assertion that MacArthur as Supreme Allied Commander was woefully uninformed as to the resistance he could expect-- in comparision to the heads of state in Washington-- is a curious one, and I'm not sure what to think of it. The statement certainly wouldn't float today. Estimates were flying all over the place for Kyushu, but the one presented to the President for discusion was 31,000 for the first 30 days, and it didn't come from MacArthur. As Japan adjusted their strategy and prepared for a Kyushu landing, we would have also adjusted our strategy to undermine their efforts. By November, that figure would have been reconstructed a dozen times, and who knows where it would have ended up. But on June 18th, that was the plan/estimate Truman agreed to move forward with.

 

Phylo_roadking-- I actually agree with you that demonstrating the bomb in the ocean or on some uninhabited distant island would not have resulted in Japan's surrender. Demonstrating the bomb on a more remote part of their homeland, though, is a different matter. I think it would have hardened the Emperor's resolve to end the war regardless of cost, empowered Togo and Suziki, and weakened the minister of war.

Okay, so you put a smiley face by the MAD comment so I'm going to assume you're just joking, but point out for others that MAD interpreted that way presumes a suicidal mentality in war, rather than a victory oriented one....