Nagasaki and Hiroshima Bombings were not necessary
...se to surrender on our terms within a few months. It was not ... There can hardly be a well-grounded dissent from the conclusion reached by the members of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey ... "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." In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words: [T]he 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. . . . [I]n being the first to use it, we . . . 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. [THE DECISION, p. 3.] * The commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, gave a strong indication of his views in a public statement only eleven days after Hiroshima was attacked. Asked on August 17 by a NEW YORK TIMES reporter whether the atomic bomb caused Japan to surrender, Arnold said: The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air. [THE DECISION, p. 334.] In his 1949 memoirs Arnold observed that "it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." [THE DECISION, p. 334.] * Arnold's deputy, Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, summed up his understanding this way in an internal military history interview: Arnold's view was that it [the dropping of the atomic bomb] was unnecessary. He said that he knew the Japanese wanted peace. There were political implications in the decision and Arnold did not feel it was the military's job to question it. [THE DECISION, p. 335.] The famous "hawk" who commanded the Twenty-First Bomber Command, Major General Curtis E. LeMay (as reported in THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE): said flatly at one press conference that the atomic bomb "had nothing to do with the end of the war." Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander U.S. Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946: The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it. . . . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before. [THE DECISION, p. 331.] As could be gleaned from the aforementioned, the position of many of the key players in that moment was overwhelmingly slanted toward the almost absolute absence of justification for the bombing due to the fact that militarily the Japanese were technically defeated and would not have posed any danger whatsoever to the Allied Forces so as to warrant even the planned invasion of Japan, which would have meant further endangering the lives of more American soldiers. The sea or naval blockade that was put in place would have practically paralyzed the already crippled Japanese army. Together with conventional bombing of strategic areas and cities in Japan, the blockade was certainly the Allied Forces’ decisive advantage during that moment, and it certainly didn’t threaten, nor did it necessitate the further endangerment of the lives of innocent civilians, more so, of American soldiers. What is more revealing was that President Harry Truman and his advisers knew that they had workable peaceful options with which to attain their objective. Moreover, they were aware, through messages intercepted by intelligence units, that the Emperor himself was trying to find acceptable diplomatic channels whereby they could proceed to talk peace without undermining the Emperorship. Hence, an assurance from the Allied Forces that the Emperorship would be preserved as a condition for surrender, coupled with the specter of the Red Army joining the Allied Forces against them soon, there were strong indications that the Japanese would have readily signed the surrender papers. No less than U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, upon the urging of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, through the U.K. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was said to have tried to persuade Pres. Truman to include assurances to the Emperor in the Potsdam Proclamation, to no avail. Which, brings us to the second point. B. Diplomatic solutions like the Potsdam Proclamation would have greatly influenced the Japanese Military to surrender had it included a provision that made certain that the Emperorship would not be abolished, thereby, making the bombing and other military options utterly unnecessary. The Potsdam Proclamation was supposed to lay out the terms by which the Japanese could avail of a peaceful surrender. The most critical component of the Proclamation was supposed to include assurances that the Emperor’s position shall be retained. The critical factor in the issuance of surrender conditions was the known fact that the Japanese considered their Emperor as God and that a mere assurance that the position will not be abolished would have saved the Japanese from utter humiliation and thus, paved the way for voluntary peaceful surrender. The absence of any assurance regarding the Emperor's fate became Japan's chief objection to the Potsdam Proclamation (Pacific War Research Society, The Day Man Lost, pg. 212-214). Somehow, there is a strong case to suspect that whoever drafted the final version of the Proclamation made sure that the Japanese would not accept it. The Proclamation was supposed to be signed by the US, UK, and Russia but at the last minute, Russia was not asked for its concurrence. The Emperor was already sending surrender feelers through the Russians weeks before the bombing. It is highly evident that the circumstances at that time did not merit taking decisive military action such as the one that happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Proclamation issued unconditional surrender, yet afterwards the critical condition of sparing the Emperorship was granted anyway. This is a totally ...