Hiroshima Quotes
On March 9-10, 1945, over three hundred B-29 Superfortresses, loaded with 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs flew over Tokyo bombing the city in waves for 6 hours. Over 250,000 buildings were destroyed and more people killed than would be in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki which were destroyed by atomic bombs. The fact that the Japanese would not surrender even after such complete destruction of their capital and largest industrial city, was used by American leaders in assessing whether to use the atomic bomb afterwards. There were many who believed that the atomic bomb would not be enough for motivate a Japanese surrender as Japanese culture prohibited surrender. Indeed, even after the 1st atomoc bomb, the Japanese did not surrender, and after the 2nd, the war council was split 3-3 and the Emperor historically broke the tie. Even the atomic bomb might not have worked. Later generations found this resistance to surrender hard to understand but Japanese culture was amazingly strong then.
Truman had been briefed on the number of Japanese who committed suicide rather than surrender—including civilians—in Saipan, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and other locations where United States troops had invaded. He and his experts agreed that the Japanese would not surrender unless there was a new dramatic factor that was outside the usual thinking—the atomic bomb. He was proved right about the warning. Not only did the Japanese ignore it, but they did not even surrender after the nuclear devastation at Hiroshima. It took a second bomb dropped on Nagasaki to motivate the surrender. So even a demonstration with all those Japanese casualties did not cause the surrender until it was repeated.
Truman had just told Stalin about the new technology. Stalin had actually already known something about it as the result of Soviet espionage in the United States.
The second atomic bomb had just been dropped.
Shortly thereafter the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. To this day there is historical debate over whether Japan received enough notice to afford them the opportunity to surrender or whether their cultural imperatives would allow surrender under almost any circumstances. This Japanese rejection of the surrender demand, seems so reckless in retrospect. Even after the second atomic bomb drop, most senior officers of Japan did not want to surrender. Even after the Emperor decided on surrender, there was an unsuccessful coup attempt of officers totally opposed to surrender.
The bombing of Tokyo to which she referred, killed over 100,000 Japanese in a single raid, more than each of the two atomic bombs. However, those who, in hindsight, raise the issue of the morality of using the atomic bombs, say nothing about the firebombing. The graphic is of Dr. Libby when she was working with Enrico Fermi to create the first nuclear chain reaction to prove the feasibility of a nuclear bomb. She was the only female on the team.
The note was found in an abandoned Japanese camp on Bataan. There are some who believe that this note was a forgery. However, most think it genuine as it reflected one of the Japanese
“aces in the hole” to defend against an allied invasion of the Japanese mainland. It was one of the reasons that some American planners advocated use of the Atomic Bomb. Of course that was a real risk of using the bomb. The Japanese might be so angry and feel morally abused and kill the many allied prisoners they had. Many thought it was a lesser risk because it did not have the symbolic animus that foreigners occupying the Japanese homeland had. The quotation illustrates the amazing complexity that the American and allied leadership faced trying to end WWII in the Pacific.
Ironically, the Japanese Government and military were so polarized that it took several days for the authorities to get together and agree on a course of surrender action. The second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki speeded things up.
When the American troops invaded Okinawa, the individual Japanese soldiers and civilians would not surrender, even when completely surrounded and out numbered. Surrender was culturally dishonorable and the Japanese had been told by their leadership that if they did surrender the Americans would kill them anyway. Almost all the Japanese died and the United States forces had an astoundingly high casualty rate—37%. Truman was fearful that there might be hundreds of thousands American casualties in the subduing of the Japanese mainland. The atomic bomb solved that problem.
