THE ATOM BOMBS DROPPED ON HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI WERE NOT THE REASONS WHY JAPAN SURRENDERED IN WWII
Text of a talk to be given by Commander Robert Forsyth RN (Ret’d) at Deddington Church, 16 August 2020. See www.whytrident.uk for more of Cdr Forsyth’s writings. Also see END Papers 3, The Case Against Trident
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This weekend when we say prayers for peace on the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII we also remember that two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 5th & 9th August. No one really knows how many died but conservative estimates say upwards of 200,000.
The accepted wisdom is that dropping the bombs brought an abrupt end to the war and so saved possibly thousands of allied forces lives.
When at sea in my Polaris submarine in the 1970s I accepted this version of history. Only recently, while researching the concept of nuclear deterrence and the effect of its £200Bn cost over 30 years on our national budget did I find that this accepted wisdom is not correct. Historical facts relate a somewhat different story.
Following the surrender of Germany, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and moved 1.5 million Soviet troops to the east to launch an attack through Manchuria.
At a meeting with the Emperor - a full six weeks before Hiroshima – the Japanese War Council agreed that they must do a deal with the Americans or suffer invasion and occupation by the Soviets. This would result in the certain ‘elimination’ of the Japanese ruling class and the Emperor’s execution. The death of their Emperor God was not something the Japanese nation could contemplate under any circumstance.
The US did not want Japan occupied by the Soviets either – the USSR was already seen as a post-war threat to the West - and, crucially to Japan, the US were prepared to accept the continuation of the Emperor as Head of State.
The Japanese War Cabinet minutes barely mention the bombs. When the second one fell on Nagasaki, the minutes merely record that a messenger ran in and said ‘Sir, we’ve lost Nagasaki, it’s been destroyed by a new ‘special’ bomb’ … and the chairman responded, ‘thank you’.
A city-destroying weapon wasn’t particularly shocking or new to a country that had already suffered fire bombings of more than 60 cities, including a massive attack on Tokyo in March 1945 that burned to death some 100,000 people in one night. But, of course, the Japanese Cabinet had no idea that the long term radiation effects of atomic bombs would at least double the number killed by the initial blast.
The decision to surrender was actually made on August 10th because by then the Soviets had occupied the South Sakhalin and Kurile Islands and were poised to invade mainland Japan.
This - correct - version of events is supported by a number of contemporary statements:
· In his History of WWII Churchill wrote “It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the first bomb fell”
· Admiral Leahy Chief of Staff to President Truman said: “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender”.
· And Professor Galbraith, the official US investigator in Japan said: “The bombs fell after the decision had been taken by the Japanese government to surrender.”
So… why did the US drop the bombs?
Two reasons – firstly, General MacArthur was determined to test them for real and he had absolutely no moral compunction in doing so. Secondly, as US Secretary of War Henry Stimson admitted - the bombs were used “to gain political advantage over the Soviet Union in the post-war situation”.
It then became convenient for the West to allow the myth to linger through the Cold War when we were led to believe the Soviets might attack the West with nuclear weapons. However, Sir Roderic Braithwaite, our Ambassador to the USSR in the early 1990s, has written “…There is no evidence that the Russians ever hoped to incorporate Western Europe by military means”. So was this yet another myth?
In the early 1980s, when the General Synod debated ‘The Church and the Bomb’, Christopher Hall challenged the logic of nuclear deterrence and advocated disarmament. Two years ago the present Archbishop of York did so in an eloquent and powerful address to the Synod. He made the point that while the UK committed to nuclear disarmament in 1968, here we were, 50 years later, building new and more powerful submarines and missiles. By a large majority the Synod called on the Government to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons an action the Government refuses to do.
Discovering the truth behind the myth that the two atom bombs caused the Japanese to surrender was one of a number of discoveries that has now caused me too to challenge the concept of nuclear deterrence and to agree with Christopher Hall, the Archbishop and many others that we should give up our nuclear weapons. You also may find food for such thoughts in the Archbishop’s address.