Étiquette : Nagasaki

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What was behind the atomic attack against Japan ?

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75th ANNIVERSARY OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI

What was behind the atomic attack against Japan?

At the occasion of the 75th anniversary of bombing the two Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, the debate over the use of nuclear arms against Japan is not yet close. The official story propagated by conventional historiography assumes that the US resorted to the atomic bomb against Japan in order to put an end to the WWII, to save American lives and to alleviate the suffering of the Japanese people. Eminent historians shunned the dominant these rejecting the humanitarian motivation highlighting rather the geopolitical reasons behind the atomic attack against Japan.

By April, 1945, Japanese leadership had no choice but to surrender as American forces had gained a firm foothold on Okinawa. The combined US-Australian island-hopping attack from the Solomons, near New Guniea, all the way to Japan had begun in 1943. By April 1945 it had reached Japan’s Okinawa, close to three months before the deadline Moscow had set for its attack on Japan.

Through the Allied intelligence operations, in particular Australian Military forces, the US leadership knew all about the imminent Japan surrender. There are leakages of information and interception of Japanese signals which contained details of Allied ‘plans for certain operations in the Philippines’ and details of recent Australian army intelligence estimates of Japanese strength there. There were messages from Moscow being passed on to the Japanese consulate in Harbin, northern Manchuria, and then on to Tokyo and among those messages were those US plans for the island-hopping attack on Japan.

From then, the Japanese Foreign Ministry established contacts with Moscow to broker a peace agreement. The emperor also still pinned hopes on those contacts with Moscow while US requested unconditional surrender. That wishful thinking only ended on August 8 when the USSR formally declared war on Japan and immediately began to attack into Japanese-occupied territories in Manchuria and elsewhere. On August 9 the US nuclear bombed Nagasaki. Six days later Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied forces.

Non conventional historical findings show irrefutably it was the prospect of Soviet war against Japan more than the nuclear attacks that forced Tokyo to surrender. After Nazi Germany’s defeat, Soviet forces turned toward Japan with the aim to gain some lost territories – southern Sakhalin and the Kuril islands. It was only hours from landing Soviet troops at Rumoi for the occupation of Hokkaido when Truman reportedly said the troops should go to take some traditionally Japanese islands in the Kurils close to Hokkaido, a deed which Tokyo still uses to refuse a peace treaty with Moscow.

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For which was meant US Atomic bomb?

Hir

75 years ago

For which was meant US Atomic bomb ?

On August 6,1945, Japan’s Hiroshima was bombed by US atomic bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” exploded with a force equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT fired an area that covered three square miles, killing instantly 140000 civilians. On August 9, Nagasaki was bombed by the plutonium core atomic bomb the U.S. dropped that day from the B29 Bockscar, captained by Major Charles Sweeney, killing instantly around 70000 civilians. Despite the Nagasaki bomb was more powerful than that of Hiroshima, material and human damage was limited by the fact that the bomb missed its target and that the mountains surrounding Nagasaki, which is located in a valley, contained the blast. However, in Urakami Valley, where the bomb landed, nearly 70 percent of the population perished.

In the aftermath of the WWII, politicians, military and historians have challenged the official narrative of Truman’s administration that the launch of atomic bomb was aimed at “saving American lives” Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman’s personal Chief of Staff, was critical of using the atomic bombs saying the U.S. “adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the dark ages.” Even the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, DC acknowledges that the vast death and destruction wreaked by atomic bombings “made little impact on the Japanese military.

Truman even knew very well, through the intelligence reports, Japanese leadership were looking for honorable conditions to surrender. Truman was aware of civilians that were becoming increasingly demoralized for lack of food and energy supplies. To this must be added the huge destruction as the U.S. had firebombed and largely destroyed more than 100 Japanese cities, leaving millions homeless.

The question is not whether the atomic bombs were militarily or morally justifiable—they clearly were not. The question is why Truman chose to use them when he knew the end of the war was imminent and said so repeatedly and knew they were putting humanity on a glide path to annihilation.

Some studies point out that the U.S. wanted to test the uranium and plutonium-type bombs to show off their military muscle and take the advantage in the post-World War II diplomacy. As historians have increasingly come to realize, Truman had been obsessed with the Soviet Union since April 13, 1945—his first full day in office. Truman’s confrontation with Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov on April 23, in which he erroneously accused the Soviets of having broken their Yalta promises, marked how dramatically the wartime alliance between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had deteriorated in the 11 days since Roosevelt’s death.

James Byrnes, who became Truman’s Secretary of State in early July but had been his most trusted advisor since his first day in office, and Gen. Leslie Groves, the driving force behind the Manhattan Project, both asserted that the Soviet Union loomed as the real target behind the bomb project. Groves stated on another occasion, “There was never from about two weeks from the time I took charge of the Project any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis.”

Byrnes told three visiting scientists in late May that the bomb was needed to reverse Soviet gains in Eastern Europe. The future Nobel laureate physicist Joseph Rotblat who quit the project a few months later, when he said in March 1944, “You realize of course that the main purpose of this project is to subdue the Russians.” Some studies point out that the U.S. wanted to test the uranium and plutonium-type bombs to show off their military muscle and take the advantage in the post-World War II diplomacy.

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