Posted on 08/19/2011 2:21:26 PM PDT by mojito
What ended World War II?
For nearly seven decades, the American public has accepted one version of the events that led to Japan’s surrender. By the middle of 1945, the war in Europe was over, and it was clear that the Japanese could hold no reasonable hope of victory. After years of grueling battle, fighting island to island across the Pacific, Japan’s Navy and Air Force were all but destroyed. The production of materiel was faltering, completely overmatched by American industry, and the Japanese people were starving. A full-scale invasion of Japan itself would mean hundreds of thousands of dead GIs, and, still, the Japanese leadership refused to surrender.
But in early August 66 years ago, America unveiled a terrifying new weapon, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a matter of days, the Japanese submitted, bringing the fighting, finally, to a close.
On Aug. 6, the United States marks the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing’s mixed legacy. The leader of our democracy purposefully executed civilians on a mass scale. Yet the bombing also ended the deadliest conflict in human history.
In recent years, however, a new interpretation of events has emerged. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara - has marshaled compelling evidence that it was the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan’s surrender. His interpretation could force a new accounting of the moral meaning of the atomic attack. It also raises provocative questions about nuclear deterrence, a foundation stone of military strategy in the postwar period. And it suggests that we could be headed towards an utterly different understanding of how, and why, the Second World War came to its conclusion.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
“Uncle Joe was shrewd”
He sure was and very soon he would play that mafia bumpkin Truman for a total moron in his masterpiece, the Korean conflict.
Even IF the Japanese actually surrendered “more” because of the Soviet attack, or because Hirohito had a dream that night, or whatever, the REASON the USA dropped the bombs and the circumstances, would be the same. INCLUDING that there was no Soviet attack until we started the bombings.
Further, this article does not discuss the Japanese war council meetings in detail. It is my understanding they certainly discussed the atomic bombings and that the decision to surrender indeed revolved around the new weapon.
This doesn’t change a thing. US armed forces were not privvy to the Japanese war room discussion. They based their decisions on losses sustained at Okinawa, Pelilu, and Iwo Jima. When the Japanese surrendered, there were no more bombs that were dropped. Whether the reason for their surrender were the bombs or the Russians might be interesting historically, but did not bear on Truman’s decisionmaking at the time.
Look at the US Army in Europe during WW II..We accomplished amazing military victories. Yet the overwhelming number of American WW II histories, either ignore, or give lip service to the fact that the Russians chewed up over 50% of German military strength BEFORE we entered the war, and even after we entered..Africa, Italy, then France, the vast majority of German forces were committed to the east. The average America knows well the great battles of Western Europe, yet has NO idea of the monumental scale of the conflict in eastern Europe..FRance pales by comparison.
The US victory over the Germans was primarily one of logistics. We had more troops, more weapons, and a far better supply system.
Basil Liddell-Hart, viewed by many as perhaps the finest military analyst/historian of he 20th century, has written, in his History of WW II, that every time US and German forces facing each other were somewhat equally matched in troop strength and weapons, beginning with Kasserine Pass, the Germans won.
This is not to suggest that one wants a "fair fight" in war. Just the opposite.
So while the author of the article spouts the usual liberal tripe about the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, I suspect that there is a solid element of truth in the underlying thesis. The Japanese always had the majority of their forces in Manchuria..
Also, the Germans, realizing the Western Allies would be more lenient, surrendered in droves, whereas the Germans knew the fate against the Russians would be much more harsh and fought them tooth and nail, as the Red Army marched all the way to Berlin.
BS- America wanted a presence in the pacific to offset the growing communist threat from stalin and the potential of mao so dugout doug, who had been a complete disaster throughout WWII, thought the best way to do it was treat the japs with kid gloves...
in fact there is footage of german soldiers racing on foot at the end of the war to get out of soon to be soviet occupied areas into western occupied areas...
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The atom bombs showed we could defend Japan if they surrendered to us. They’d have been crazy to surrender without that evidence.
“The Russians waited until they knew it was over then declared war to gobble up as much territory as they could.”
Bingo.
Not to mention the fact that the Soviet Union only formally declared war after the first A-bomb was dropped.
Oh for Petes sake.
The Russians had no more Far East Fleet (which Yamamoto helped sink in the Battle of Tsushima) in which to protect an amphibious operation against the Japanese islands nor the airborne assets to do it either.
They couldn’t build that fleet if they wanted to and by the time they had and moved their forces in place, every major city in Japan would have been leveled by the US.
Future tales of the Great Patriotic War might have the US completely removed...
Mao didn't gain power until 1949.
Mao didn't gain power until 1949.
Soldiers... and...
women, children, dogs, cats, mice, birds, houseflies, crickets,
Invasion of Japan in 11/45 with the War Department figuring on 100% casualties. Follow on invasion in 2/46 leading to the destruction of the Japanese political system.
While we were saving the russian bear’s miserable murderous skin in Europe, they were in China in alliance with Japan to destroy any vestige of democracy there.
The russians won on both fronts thanks to fdr and truman.
That would be a damn good start.
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