Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Fat Man mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rises 18 km (11 mi, 60,000 ft) into the air from the hypocenter.

The debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki concerns the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place on August 6, 1945 and three days later on August 9, precipitating the end of World War II. The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the United States' ethical justification for them has been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades. J. Samuel Walker wrote in an April 2005 overview of recent historiography on the issue, "the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue." Walker noted that "The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States."

Support

Preferable to invasion

A map outlining the Japanese and U.S. (but not other Allied) ground forces scheduled to take part in the battle for Japan. Two landings were planned:
(1) Olympic — the invasion of the southern island, Kyūshū,
(2) Coronet — the invasion of the main island, Honshū.

Those who argue in favor of the decision to drop the atom bombs argue that massive casualties on both sides would have occurred in Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan.

The American side anticipated losing many soldiers in the planned invasion of Japan, although the actual number of expected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate. U.S. President Truman stated after the war that he had been advised that American casualties could range from 250,000 to one million men. Other sources put the highest estimates at 30,000 to 50,000. In a study done by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April 1945, the figures of 7.45 casualties per 1,000 man-days and 1.78 fatalities per 1,000 man-days were developed. This implied that the two planned campaigns to conquer Japan would cost 1.6 million American casualties, including 370,000 dead. In addition, millions of Japanese military and civilian casualties were expected. An Air Force Association history says, "Millions of women, old men, and boys and girls had been trained to resist by such means as attacking with bamboo spears and strapping explosives to their bodies and throwing themselves under advancing tanks," and also that "[t]he Japanese cabinet had approved a measure extending the draft to include men from ages fifteen to sixty and women from seventeen to forty-five (an additional 28 million people).

Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on 1 August 1944, ordering the disposal and execution of all Allied prisoners of war, numbering over 100,000, if an invasion of the Japanese mainland took place.

Speedy end of war saved lives

Supporters of the bombing also argue that waiting for the Japanese to surrender was not a cost-free option. "For China alone, depending upon what number one chooses for overall Chinese casualties, in each of the ninety-seven months between July 1937 and August 1945, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 persons perished, the vast majority of them noncombatants. For the other Asians alone, the average probably ranged in the tens of thousands per month, but the actual numbers were almost certainly greater in 1945, notably due to the mass death in a famine in Vietnam. Newman concluded that each month that the war continued in 1945 would have produced the deaths of 'upwards of 250,000 people, mostly Asian but some Westerners."

The end of the war also liberated millions of laborers working in harsh conditions under a forced mobilization. In the Dutch East Indies alone, there was a "forced mobilization of some 4 million — although some estimates are as high as 10 million — romusha (manual laborers)...About 270,000 romusha were sent to the Outer Islands and Japanese-held territories in Southeast Asia, where they joined other Asians in performing wartime construction projects. At the end of the war, only 52,000 were repatriated to Java."

The firebombing of Tokyo alone had killed well over 100,000 people in Japan since February 1945, directly and indirectly. Intensive conventional bombing would have continued or increased prior to an invasion. The submarine blockade and the United States Army Air Forces's mining operation, Operation Starvation, had effectively cut off Japan's imports. A complementary operation against Japan's railways was about to begin, isolating the cities of southern Honshū from the food grown elsewhere in the Home Islands. "Immediately after the defeat, some estimated that 10 million people were likely to starve to death," noted historian Daikichi Irokawa. Meanwhile, fighting continued in The Philippines, New Guinea and Borneo, and offensives were scheduled for September in southern China and Malaya. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, had in the week before the surrender caused over 80,000 deaths.

Philippine justice Delfin Jaranilla, member of the Tokyo tribunal, wrote in his judgment:

"If a means is justified by an end, the use of the atomic bomb was justified for it brought Japan to her knees and ended the horrible war. If the war had gone longer, without the use of the atomic bomb, how many thousands and thousands of helpless men, women and children would have needlessly died and suffer ...?"

Part of "total war"

Chinese civilians massacred during Japan's campaign of total war in Xuzhou.

Supporters of the bombings have argued that the Japanese government had promulgated a National Mobilization Law and waged total war, ordering many civilians (including women and children) to work in factories and military offices and to fight against any invading force. Father John A. Siemes, professor of modern philosophy at Tokyo's Catholic University, and an eyewitness to the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima wrote:

"We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb. Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians."

Supporters of the bombings have emphasized the strategic significance of the targets. Hiroshima was used as headquarters of the Fifth Division and the 2nd General Army, which commanded the defense of southern Japan with 40,000 military personnel in the city. Hiroshima was a communication center, an assembly area for troops, a storage point and had several military factories as well. Nagasaki was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials.

An article published in the International Review of the Red Cross notes that, with respect to the "anti-city" or "blitz" strategy, that "in examining these events in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property." The Blitz was not one of the charges against Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, at the Nuremberg Trials.

On 30 June 2007, Japan's defense minister Fumio Kyuma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war. Kyuma said "I now have come to accept in my mind that in order to end the war, it could not be helped (Shikata ga nai) that an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and that countless numbers of people suffered great tragedy." Kyuma, who is from Nagasaki, said the bombing caused great suffering in the city, but he does not resent the U.S. because it prevented the Soviet Union from entering the war with Japan. Nagasaki mayor Tomihisa Taue protested against Kyuma, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized over Kyuma's remark to Hiroshima A-bomb survivors.

In the wake of the outrage provoked by his statements, Kyuma had to resign on 3 July. However, the comments of Kyuma were almost similar to those made by Emperor Hirohito when, in his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975, he was asked what he thought of the bombing of Hiroshima. Hirohito then answered : "It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn't be helped (Shikata ga nai) because that happened in wartime."

In early July, on his way to Potsdam, Truman had re-examined the decision to use the bomb. In the end, Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. His stated intention in ordering the bombings was to bring about a quick resolution of the war by inflicting destruction, and instilling fear of further destruction, that was sufficient to cause Japan to surrender.

In his speech to the Japanese people presenting his reasons for surrender, the emperor referred specifically to the atomic bombs, stating that if they continued to fight it would result in "...an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation..." In his Rescript to the Soldiers and Sailors, delivered on 17 August, he focused however on the impact of the Soviet invasion, omitting any reference to the atomic bombings.

Japan's leaders refused to surrender

Some historians see ancient Japanese warrior traditions as a major factor in the resistance in the Japanese military to the idea of surrender. According to one Air Force account,

"The Japanese code of bushido — "the way of the warrior" — was deeply ingrained. The concept of Yamato-damashii equipped each soldier with a strict code: never be captured, never break down, and never surrender. Surrender was dishonorable. Each soldier was trained to fight to the death and was expected to die before suffering dishonor. Defeated Japanese leaders preferred to take their own lives in the painful samurai ritual of seppuku (called hara kiri in the West.). Warriors who surrendered were not deemed worthy of regard or respect."

Japanese militarism was aggravated by the Great Depression, and had resulted in countless assassinations of reformers attempting to check military power, among them Takahashi Korekiyo, Saitō Makoto, and Inukai Tsuyoshi. This created an environment in which opposition to war was a much riskier endeavor.

According to historian Richard B. Franklin

"The intercepts of Japanese Imperial Army and Navy messages disclosed without exception that Japan's armed forces were determined to fight a final Armageddon battle in the homeland against an Allied invasion. The Japanese called this strategy Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive). It was founded on the premise that American morale was brittle and could be shattered by heavy losses in the initial invasion. American politicians would then gladly negotiate an end to the war far more generous than unconditional surrender."

The U.S. Department of Energy's history of the Manhattan Project lends some credence to these claims, saying that military leaders in Japan

".... also hoped that if they could hold out until the ground invasion of Japan began, they would be able to inflict so many casualties on the Allies that Japan still might win some sort of negotiated settlement."

While some members of the civilian leadership did use covert diplomatic channels to attempt peace negotiation, they could not negotiate surrender or even a cease-fire. Japan could legally enter into a peace agreement only with the unanimous support of the Japanese cabinet, and in the summer of 1945, the Japanese Supreme War Council, consisting of representatives of the Army, the Navy and the civilian government, could not reach a consensus on how to proceed.

A political stalemate developed between the military and civilian leaders of Japan, the military increasingly determined to fight despite all costs and odds and the civilian leadership seeking a way to negotiate an end to the war. Further complicating the decision was the fact that no cabinet could exist without the representative of the Imperial Japanese Army. This meant that the Army and the Navy could veto any decision by having its Minister resign, thus making it the most powerful posts on the SWC. In early August 1945 the cabinet was equally split between those who advocated an end to the war on one condition, the preservation of the Kokutai, and those who insisted on three other conditions : leave disarmament and demobilization to Imperial General Headquarters, no occupation and delegation to Japanese government of the punishment of war criminals The "hawks" consisted of General Korechika Anami, General Yoshijiro Umezu and Admiral Soemu Toyoda and were led by Anami. The "doves" consisted of Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki, Naval Minister Mitsumasa Yonai and Minister of Foreign Affairs Shigenori Togo and were led by Togo. Under special permission of the Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito), the president of the Privy council, Kiichiro Hiranuma, was also a member of the imperial conference. For him, the preservation of the Kokutai implied not only that of the Imperial institution but also the continuation of the emperor's reign.

Japan had an example of unconditional surrender in the German Instrument of Surrender. On 26 July, Truman and other allied leaders issued The Potsdam Declaration outlining terms of surrender for Japan. The declaration stated that "The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction." It was rejected. The Emperor, who was waiting for a Soviet reply to Japanese peace feelers, made no move to change the government position. In the PBS documentary "Victory in the Pacific" (2005), broadcast in the "American Experience" series, the historian Donald Miller argues that in the days after the declaration, the Emperor seemed more concerned with moving the Imperial Regalia of Japan to a secure location than he was with "the destruction of his country." This comment is based on the declarations made by the Emperor to Koichi Kido on 25 and 31 July 1945, when he ordered the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan to protect "at all cost" the Imperial Regalia.

It has sometimes been argued that Japan would have surrendered if simply guaranteed that the Emperor would be allowed to continue as formal head of state. However, Japanese diplomatic messages regarding a possible Soviet mediation — intercepted through Magic, and made available to Allied leaders — have been interpreted by some historians to mean that "the dominant militarists insisted on preservation of the old militaristic order in Japan, the one in which they ruled." They also faced potential death sentences in trials for Japanese war crimes if they surrendered. This was also what occurred in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and other tribunals.

Professor of history Robert James Maddox wrote that "Another myth that has attained wide attention is that at least several of Truman’s top military advisers later informed him that using atomic bombs against Japan would be militarily unnecessary or immoral, or both. There is no persuasive evidence that any of them did so. None of the Joint Chiefs ever made such a claim, although one inventive author has tried to make it appear that Leahy did by braiding together several unrelated passages from the admiral’s memoirs. Actually, two days after Hiroshima, Truman told aides that Leahy had 'said up to the last that it wouldn’t go off.'" "Neither MacArthur nor Nimitz ever communicated to Truman any change of mind about the need for invasion or expressed reservations about using the bombs. When first informed about their imminent use only days before Hiroshima, MacArthur responded with a lecture on the future of atomic warfare and even after Hiroshima strongly recommended that the invasion go forward. Nimitz, from whose jurisdiction the atomic strikes would be launched, was notified in early 1945. 'This sounds fine,' he told the courier, 'but this is only February. Can’t we get one sooner?'" "The best that can be said about Eisenhower’s memory is that it had become flawed by the passage of time." "Notes made by one of Stimson’s aides indicate that there was a discussion of atomic bombs, but there is no mention of any protest on Eisenhower’s part."

Maddox also wrote that "Even after both bombs had fallen and Russia entered the war, Japanese militants insisted on such lenient peace terms that moderates knew there was no sense even transmitting them to the United States. Hirohito had to intervene personally on two occasions during the next few days to induce hardliners to abandon their conditions. . . . That the militarists would have accepted such a settlement before the bombs is farfetched, to say the least."

Another argument by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa is that it was the Soviet declaration of war in the days between the bombings that caused the surrender. Other scholars disagree.

The "one condition" faction, led by Togo, seized on the bombing as decisive justification of surrender. Kōichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest advisers, stated: "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war."

Opposition

See also: Anti-nuclear movement

The cenotaph at the Hiroshima Peace Park is inscribed with an ambiguous sentence: "Rest in peace, for this mistake will not be repeated." This construction, natural in the Japanese language, was intended to memorialize the victims of Hiroshima without politicizing the issue.

Fundamentally immoral

On 8 August 1945, Albert Camus addressed the bombing of Hiroshima in an editorial in the French newspaper Combat:

"Mechanized civilization has just reached the ultimate stage of barbarism. In a near future, we will have to choose between mass suicide and intelligent use of scientific conquests[...] This can no longer be simply a prayer; it must become an order which goes upward from the peoples to the governments, an order to make a definitive choice between hell and reason."

In 1946, a report by the Federal Council of Churches entitled Atomic Warfare and the Christian Faith, includes the following passage:

"As American Christians, we are deeply penitent for the irresponsible use already made of the atomic bomb. We are agreed that, whatever be one's judgment of the war in principle, the surprise bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are morally indefensible."

The bombings as war crimes

A number of notable individuals and organizations have criticized the bombings, many of them characterizing them as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and/or state terrorism. Two early critics of the bombings were Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard, who had together spurred the first bomb research in 1939 with a jointly written letter to President Roosevelt. Szilard, who had gone on to play a major role in the Manhattan Project, argued:

"Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?"

A number of scientists who worked on the bomb were against its use. Led by Dr. James Franck, seven scientists submitted a report to the Interim Committee (which advised the President) in May 1945, saying:

"If the United States were to be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race for armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons."

Mark Selden writes, "Perhaps the most trenchant contemporary critique of the American moral position on the bomb and the scales of justice in the war was voiced by the Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal, a dissenting voice at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, who balked at accepting the uniqueness of Japanese war crimes. Recalling Kaiser Wilhelm II's account of his duty to bring World War I to a swift end-"everything must be put to fire and sword; men, women and children and old men must be slaughtered and not a tree or house be left standing." Pal observed:

"This policy of indiscriminate murder to shorten the war was considered to be a crime. In the Pacific war under our consideration, if there was anything approaching what is indicated in the above letter of the German Emperor, it is the decision coming from the Allied powers to use the bomb. Future generations will judge this dire decision...If any indiscriminate destruction of civilian life and property is still illegal in warfare, then, in the Pacific War, this decision to use the atom bomb is the only near approach to the directives of the German Emperor during the first World War and of the Nazi leaders during the second World War."

Selden mentions another critique of the nuclear bombing, which he says the U.S. government effectively suppressed for twenty-five years, as worth mention. On August 11, 1945, the Japanese government filed an official protest over the atomic bombing to the U.S. State Department through the Swiss Legation in Tokyo, observing that:

"Combatant and noncombatant men and women, old and young, are massacred without discrimination by the atmospheric pressure of the explosion, as well as by the radiating heat which result therefrom. Consequently there is involved a bomb having the most cruel effects humanity has ever known. . . . The bombs in question, used by the Americans, by their cruelty and by their terrorizing effects, surpass by far gas or any other arm, the use of which is prohibited. Japanese protests against U.S. desecration of international principles of war paired the use of the atomic bomb with the earlier firebombing, which massacred old people, women and children, destroying and burning down Shinto and Buddhist temples, schools, hospitals, living quarters, etc. . . . They now use this new bomb, having an uncontrollable and cruel effect much greater than any other arms or projectiles ever used to date. This constitutes a new crime against humanity and civilization."

Selden concludes that despite the war crimes committed by the Empire of Japan, nevertheless, "the Japanese protest correctly pointed to U.S. violations of internationally accepted principles of war with respect to the wholesale destruction of populations."

In 1963 the bombings were the subject of a judicial review in Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State. On the 22nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the District Court of Tokyo declined to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, but found that "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war."

In the opinion of the court, the act of dropping an atomic bomb on cities was at the time governed by international law found in the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907 and the Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare of 1922–1923 and was therefore illegal.

As the first military use of nuclear weapons, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki represent to some the crossing of a crucial barrier. Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, wrote of President Truman:

”He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species. It was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity."

Kuznick is one of several observers who believe that the U.S. was largely motivated in carrying out the bombings by a desire to demonstrate the power of its new weapon to the Soviet Union. Historian Mark Selden of Cornell University has stated "Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan."

Takashi Hiraoka, mayor of Hiroshima, upholding nuclear disarmament, said in a hearing to The Hague International Court of Justice (ICJ):

"It is clear that the use of nuclear weapons, which cause indiscriminate mass murder that leaves [effects on] survivors for decades, is a violation of international law".

Iccho Itoh, the mayor of Nagasaki, declared in the same hearing:

"It is said that the descendants of the atomic bomb survivors will have to be monitored for several generations to clarify the genetic impact, which means that the descendants will live in anxiety for [decades] to come. [...] with their colossal power and capacity for slaughter and destruction, nuclear weapons make no distinction between combatants and non-combatants or between military installations and civilian communities [...] The use of nuclear weapons [...] therefore is a manifest infraction of international law."

John Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations, used Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples why the US should not adhere to the International Criminal Court (ICC):

"A fair reading of the treaty [the Rome Statute concerning the ICC], for example, leaves the objective observer unable to answer with confidence whether the United States was guilty of war crimes for its aerial bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan in World War II. Indeed, if anything, a straightforward reading of the language probably indicates that the court would find the United States guilty. A fortiori, these provisions seem to imply that the United States would have been guilty of a war crime for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is intolerable and unacceptable."

Although bombings do not meet the definition of genocide, some consider that this definition is too strict, and that these bombings do represent a genocide. For example, University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings states there is a consensus among historians to Martin Sherwin's statement, that "the Nagasaki bomb was gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst."

The scholar R. J. Rummel instead extends the definition of genocide to what he calls democide, and includes the major part of deaths from the atom bombings in these. His definition of democide includes not only genocide, but also an excessive killing of civilians in war, to the extent that this is against the agreed rules for warfare; he argues that indeed the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes, and thus democide. Rummel quotes among others an official protest from the US government in 1938 to Japan, for its bombing of Chinese cities:

"The bombing of non-combatant populations violated international and humanitarian laws."

He also considers excess deaths of civilians in firestorms caused by conventional means, such as in Tokyo, as acts of democide.

In 1967, Noam Chomsky described the atomic bombings as "among the most unspeakable crimes in history". Chomsky pointed to the complicity of the American people in the bombings, referring to the bitter experiences they had undergone prior to the event as the cause for their acceptance of its legitimacy.

State terrorism

See also: Allegations of state terrorism by the United States

Historical accounts indicate that the decision to use the atomic bombs was made in order to provoke an early surrender of Japan by use of an awe-inspiring power. These observations have caused some commentators to state that the incident was an act of "war terrorism". Michael Walzer wrote, "... And, finally, there is war terrorism: the effort to kill civilians in such large numbers that their government is forced to surrender. Hiroshima seems to me the classic case." This type of claim eventually prompted historian Robert Newman, a supporter of the bombings, to argue that the practice of terrorism is justified in some cases.

Certain scholars and historians have characterized the atomic bombings of Japan as a form of state terrorism. This interpretation centers around a definition of terrorism as the targeting of innocents to achieve a political goal. As Frances V. Harbour points out, the meeting of the Target Committee in Los Alamos on 10 and 11 May 1945 suggested targeting the large population centers of Kyoto or Hiroshima for a "psychological effect" and to make "the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized." As such, Professor Harbour suggests the goal was to create terror for political ends both in and beyond Japan. However, Burleigh Taylor Wilkins has written that it stretches the meaning of "terrorism" to include wartime acts.

Militarily unnecessary

Those who argue that the bombings were unnecessary on military grounds hold that Japan was already essentially defeated and ready to surrender.

The 1946 United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that it had been unnecessary to the winning of the war. After interviewing hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, it reported:

"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

Historians, such as Bernstein, Hasegawa, and Newman, have criticized Paul Nitze, the author of the Survey report, for drawing a conclusion that, they say, went far beyond what the available evidence warranted, in order to promote the reputation of the Air Force at the expense of the Army and Navy.

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years:

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."

Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion , and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.

Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings themselves were not even the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories in Manchuria that forced the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945, though the War Council did not know the extent of the losses to the Soviets in China at that time.

Nagasaki bombing unnecessary

The black marker indicates "ground zero" of the Nagasaki atomic bomb explosion.

The second atomic bombing, on Nagasaki, came only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, when the devastation at Hiroshima had yet to be fully comprehended by the Japanese. The lack of time between the bombings has led some historians to state that the second bombing was "certainly unnecessary", "gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst", and not jus in bello.

In response to the claim that the atomic bombing of Nagasaki was unnecessary, Maddox wrote "Some historians have argued that while the first bomb might have been required to achieve Japanese surrender, dropping the second constituted a needless barbarism. The record shows otherwise. American officials believed more than one bomb would be necessary because they assumed Japanese hard-liners would minimize the first explosion or attempt to explain it away as some sort of natural catastrophe, precisely what they did. In the three days between the bombings, the Japanese minister of war, for instance, refused even to admit that the Hiroshima bomb was atomic. A few hours after Nagasaki he told the cabinet that 'the Americans appeared to have one hundred atomic bombs . . . they could drop three per day. The next target might well be Tokyo.'"

Racism and dehumanization

Historian James J. Weingartner sees a connection between the American mutilation of Japanese war dead and the bombings. According to Weingartner both were partially the result of a dehumanization of the enemy. "[t]he widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human constituted an emotional context which provided another justification for decisions which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands." On the second day after the Nagasaki bomb, Truman stated: "The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true".

Further reading

Debates over the bombings

• Allen, Thomas B. and Polmar, Norman (1995). Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan And Why Truman Dropped the Bomb. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684804069.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Concludes the bombings were justified.

• Alperovitz, Gar (1995). The Decision To Use The Atomic Bomb And The Architecture Of An American Myth. Knopf. ISBN 0679443312.

Weighs whether the bombings were justified or necessary, concludes they were not.

• Bernstein, Barton J. (Editor) (1976). The Atomic Bomb: The Critical Issues. Little, Brown. ISBN 0316091928. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)

Weighs whether the bombings were justified or necessary.

• Bird, Kai and Sherwin, Martin J. (2005). American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Knopf. ISBN 0375412026.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

"The thing had to be done," but "Circumstances are heavy with misgiving."

• Feis, Herbert (1961). Japan Subdued: The Atomic Bomb and the End of the War in the Pacific. Princeton University Press.
• Frank, Richard B. (1999). Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Random House. ISBN ISBN 0-679-41424-X. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Fussell, Paul (1988). Thank God For The Atom Bomb, And Other Essays. Summit Books. ISBN 0-345-36135-0.
• Grayling, A. C. (2006). Among the Dead Cities. Walker Publishing Company Inc. ISBN 0-8027-1471-4.

Philosophical/moral discussion concerning the Allied strategy of area bombing in WWII, including the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

• Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (2005). Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Belknap Press. ISBN 0674016939.

Argues the bombs were not the deciding factor in ending the war. The Russian entrance into the Pacific war was the primary cause for Japan's surrender.

• Maddox, Robert James (1995). Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0826215629.

Author is diplomatic historian who favors Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs.

• Newman, Robert P. (1995). Truman and the Hiroshima Cult. Michigan State University Press. ISBN 0870134035.

An analysis critical of postwar opposition to the atom bombings.

• Nobile, Philip (Editor) (1995). Judgement at the Smithsonian. Marlowe and Company. ISBN 1569248419. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)

Covers the controversy over the content of the 1995 Smithsonian Institution exhibition associated with the display of the Enola Gay; includes complete text of the planned (and canceled) exhibition.

• Takaki, Ronald (1995). Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb. Little, Brown. ISBN 0316831247.
• Wainstock, Dennis D. (1996). The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-95475-7.

External links

• Why Truman Dropped the Bomb Richard B. Frank, (Weekly Standard, August 8, 2005)
• Annotated bibliography on the decision to use the atomic bombs on Japan - The Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization, and the Atomic Bomb by Michael D. Pearlman U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-1352
• "The Obliteration of Hiroshima", Stephen R. Shalom (from New Politics, vol. 6, no. 1 (new series), whole no. 21, Summer 1996)
• Hiroshima: the 'White Man's Bomb' revisited: Dropping the Bomb on Japan was the final act of a bitter race war in the Pacific. by Mick Hume, Spiked, 2 August 2005. Abridged version of a 1995 article in Living Marxism.
• Record of private talk between Winston Churchill and Generalissimo Stalin after the Plenary Session on July 17 1945 at Potsdam