Great thread. I wonder if you’ve ever come across the Australian journalist Murray Sayle’s writings?
He claimed Japan surrendered because they were more afraid of Stalin than us, and therefore the atomic bombings were unnecessary atrocities.
My own reflexive view is, that since we demanded “unconditional surrender”, Imperial Japan had no guarantee that we would have spared them (and the Emperor) any more than the Soviets would have apared them in the event of surrender. The bombs were important precipitants for their decision.
Sayle lived in Japan for 30 years starting in 1972. He died in 2010.
His claims, according to New Yorker magazine:
“From Japan, Sayle contributed several long pieces to The New Yorker, including the Letter from Hiroshima “Did the Bomb End the War?,” from 1995, which questioned the military necessity of employing the atom bomb against the Japanese and argued that fear of a Soviet invasion—and not the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—prompted Japan’s surrender”
From a 1995 article he wrote for New Yorker magazine:
“...the bombs promised only to kill more Japanese, whereas the Soviets, possibly allied with local Communists, threatened to destroy the monarchy, which almost all Japanese, and certainly those in the government, viewed as the soul of the nation. A surrender with some guarantee for the Emperor thus became the best of a gloomy range of options, and the quicker the better, because every day that passed meant more gains on the ground for the Soviets, and thus a likely bigger share of the inevitable occupation. Recognition that a surrender today will be more favorable than one tomorrow is the classic reason that wars end.”
September 23, 2010
Postscript: Murray Sayle
Posted by Jon Michaud
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/backissues/2010/09/postscript-murray-sayle.html#ixzz22zhAJiMT
Letter from Hiroshima
DID THE BOMB END THE WAR?
by Murray Sayle
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1995/07/31/1995_07_31_040_TNY_CARDS_000373616#ixzz234whgWbZ
Right. Tell me again where the soviets would get the sealift capacity to invade Japan, land troops, and keep them supplied?
I know some people (particularly the Japanese who want to portray themselves as innocent victims) try to make that case, but in all the sources I have seen discussing the reasoning of the contemporary Japanese leadership that point is not mentioned. Beyond destroying the Kwantung in China there wasn’t much the Russians could do. They had no amphibious navy and the Japanese knew that. The Japanese also knew the Soviet army in East Asia was at the far end of the longest logistic train in all history, and that the Americans had all they could do to supply their own forces. The final battles arguments in the sources I have seen mention inflicting losses on the Americans. They do not take into account the Soviets. Japanese preparations for invasion focus on what the Americans may do, not the Soviets. To me the maturing Japanese knowledge of us and this comprehensive silence provides a strong argument against that position.