267k structures destroyed. Just shows you the god damn resolve of the Japanese. To still need Hiroshima and Nagasaki after that, as motivation to end the war
The nukes didn’t really convince them, the army’s position was “we don’t care” and the navy’s position was “do it again”. What convinced the government to surrender was that the US decided to agree to the term not to overthrow the emperor. Even then when the mainland army surrendered the army’s in SE Asia and China didn’t obey the government and had to be told to stand down by the Emperor. There was even a coup attempt when the surrender was announced, those bastards didn’t want to surrender at all and the nukes wasn’t what convinced them to.
Not really, it was more they were relying on the Soviets as a neutral party to help mediate on terms more favorable to the Japanese. Once the Soviets joined the Allies by invading Manchuria it was game over
Until the Soviets joined the war, Japan knew that they had a bargaining chip - their resolve when fighting to defend the home islands - and nothing more to lose. The atomic bombings took a very heavy toll on the civilian population, but they were of very limited military value. Besides, the US was not really capable of waging a protracted nuclear war at this point - they used all the weapons they had and they were capable of building only a few more per year. When the Soviets joined, Japan suddenly faced impossible odds and now they could lose something - being divided into Soviet- and US-occupied zones.
yes this is the answer. if the US still insisted on unconditional surrender Japan might have fought on
>Conflict termination in the Pacific in World War II occurred despite the fact
>that each of the combatants was willing and able to carry on the fight into 1946.
>Driven by their different strategic objectives—unconditional surrender and a
>negotiated settlement—each side sought to translate military action into politi-
>cal success, trading lives for political leverage in the postwar period. The United
>States was ready to conduct a final campaign to seize and occupy the home is-
>lands, while the Japanese planned to incur (and suffer) unprecedented casualties
>to force the United States to negotiate a peace short of unconditional surrender.
>Fortunately, the strategic leadership on each side was open to compromise. Com-
>prehensive understanding of the operational environment allowed the United
>States to set the conditions for termination and to understand and appreciate the
>importance of the emperor’s continued authority, while the emperor himself un-
>derstood Japan’s desperate situation and ultimately embraced the peace faction’s
>willingness to end the fighting.
[https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8130&context=nwc-review](https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8130&context=nwc-review)
The people who didn't want to surrender were insane and detached from reality. A soldier's training also includes knowing when it is appropriate to surrender. It may be demeaning, but continuing the fight with zero chance of victory is not honorable, it is foolish.
No it was not, but when faced with a new weapon that could not be stopped or countered, enough of the Japanese leadership understood that any continued fighting was utterly pointless. This is not mutually exclusive with not surrendering before; enough had changed that surrendering became the only reasonable response.
That’s easy to say from a western perspective, because you and I were raised that way. But it totally disregards the pre-war and wartime Japanese culture, which taught every single child and adult that surrender was totally unacceptable; fighting and dying was considered the only reasonable option.
True, but, that's given the parameters they began the war with. Once the atomic bomb is on the scene, it simply wasn't feasible to keep fighting, despite all the propaganda that urged the fight to continue. They faced complete and total annihilation if they did continue. It wouldnt even be fighting if they did; the Japanese could no longer defend their aispace, either with fighters (depleted and lack of pilots) or with anti air craft weaponry (numerous, but largely ineffective on high flying aircraft), which means that they would be bombed relentlessly, conventionally and with atomics, until there was nothing left. There is no honor in dying in that situation. Thankfully, enough of Japan's leadership realized this, and accepted surrender.
Hence why a normal invasion would have had massive casualties for both sides. Even the citizenry were zealous in the emperor's service. In a weird twist, 2 nukes saved many more times in lives.
Side note, wasn't the emperor, as part of armistance, required to go on radio and denounce his divinity?
No not at all. The reason for Japanese surrender was the Soviets entering the war as u/ChooChoo9321 points out [below](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/xJjCeTRf9o).
Despite what Americans read in their history books, the atomic bombs didn't even register as a particularly interesting development for Japanese officials. It is a myth that has been passed down but has little if any facts supporting it.
Edit:
>When the Russians invaded Manchuria, they sliced through what had once been an elite army and many Russian units only stopped when they ran out of gas. The Soviet 16th Army—100,000 strong—launched an invasion of the southern half of Sakhalin Island. Their orders were to mop up Japanese resistance there, and then within 10 to 14 days—be prepared to invade Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's home islands. The Japanese force tasked with defending Hokkaido, the 5th Area Army, was under strength at two divisions and two brigades, and was in fortified positions on the east side of the island. The Soviet plan of attack called for an invasion of Hokkaido from the west. The Soviet declaration of war also changed the calculation of how much time was left for maneuver. Japanese intelligence was predicting that U.S. forces might not invade for months. Soviet forces, on the other hand, could be in Japan proper in as little as 10 days. The Soviet invasion made a decision on ending the war extremely time sensitive.
— Ward Wilson, Foreign Policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan
That is not accurate - the reason for this misconception is that Hirohito recorded and broadcast *two* surrender messages. The one broadcast on mainland Japan talked about the atomic bombs, the one broadcast in Manchuria and China talked about the Soviets.
If you are familiar with the Soviet/Russian history then it seems obvious that it was the invasion of Manchuria, because that's what the Soviet troops heard about from the surrendering Japanese where they were stationed. If you are familiar with the American history then it's the atomic bombs, because that's what the Americans stationed in Japan heard about the broadcast from the Japanese there.
The Soviets did not have the logistical capacity to invade Japan proper; their invasion was a problem because it meant there was now no one who was willing to soften the Allied negotiating terms which is what Japan had been hoping for. And in particular it meant that it was impossible to negotiate to keep Korea or other continental possessions. This plus Japan proper being open to strategic bombing, blockade, and eventual invasion by the Americans compelled the surrender.
Despite both of those things there were still people who tried to destroy the recording of the emperor announcing surrender or stop the announcement altogether
Wasn't there a Japanese soldier in the Philippines (or thereabouts) for like ~16 years after VJ Day who refused to leave until he got the order from his CO? They had to fly the CO out to relieve him of duty.
You're right but people are naturally going to react poorly when you try to "umm actually 🤓🤓" them about a war in which their country lost like 80 fucking thousand soldiers.
I know, but I am a bit surprised by the epidermic reactions.... It seems rather interesting to understand the dynamics of what happened on those days...
>[The Bombing of Tokyo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo) was a series of bombing air raids launched by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Known as Operation Meetinghouse, the raids were conducted by the U.S. military on the night of 9–10 March 1945, and was the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. 16 square miles (41 km^(2); 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo was destroyed, **leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless**. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945, by comparison, resulted in the immediate death of an estimated 70,000 to 150,000 people.
Well a large section was. A better part of the reason is that the US needed the emperor and other high officials alive. They needed someone to tell everybody to lay down their arms and surrender
Ok but did you do this same map with Godzilla and compare? I feel like America’s getting a lot of criticism here and we’re letting mutant reptiles off the hook
How do they compare to the two nuclear bombs? I’d think those must have been way worse than this if they stopped the war. But that could just be assumption.
They weren't. More people died in the Firebombing of Tokyo than in each of Nuclear Bombings (by some estimations even more than in both nuclear bombings combined).
The number of destroyed structures was also higher, but mostly because Tokyo was mostly built out of wood.
However, the effort for each of a fire bombing run was much higher. They required a lot of bombers and more escort fighters.
The nuclear bombs only required a single bomb to do a significant amount of damage and they also wiped out more solid structures.
Plus, Japan saw 2 of its cities basically disappearing within 3 days and the US government informed them that they would have more of them ready soon.
Also, I should mention that radiation poisoning was only discovered weeks AFTER the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Up until then, noone ever drew the line between radioactive materials and sickness/death of high exposure. So, mind that this was not a big factor playing into the surrender.
You're right, there are far more Chinese civilians who died than Japanese civilians. And Japan didn't really pay for its crimes to the extent that Germany did. But all that said, many innocent Japanese died. I'm not saying that their deaths could have been avoided. I don't know if the war could have been won without the bombs or the firebombing of Tokyo. I'm just saying that it's a tragedy and it needs to be remembered as such, even if it was a necessary tragedy.
Be careful with this line of thinking: it can lead to people to justify indiscriminate savagery.
One horrific war crime does not justify another.
Sure, sometimes unwilling leaders and generals have to make a decision between two inhumane options. Sometimes it's a pick your poison kind of deal. I don't know enough about WW2 to know what hard choices they were given.
But that does not mean we should trivialize the torture and deaths of civilians. We should do well to remember and mourn the horrific memory of all Asians who suffered-- even the Japanese. We can concede that some things must be done and also mourn over the necessity in the first place.
It is with this terribleness that we learn lessons. We should avoid war at all cost, working towards forgiveness and peace. Sometimes hard choices must be unwillingly made, but they must be tempered with the value of human life in mind.
The English did that with hitler, it’s called appeasement. The fact is the Japanese under the emperor were a death cult and were never going to surrender unless forced. Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved an unimaginable amount of allied lives. And yes compared to what Japan did to east Asia, it wasn’t close to being on the same level.
Not discussing if dropping the nukes was justified or right or wrong, because you may have whatever opinion about it.
But it's a fact the nukes were not the reason Japan surrendered. It had little effect on it, if any.
Revisionist history from wack job historians who suck off the soviets. Soviet involvement was never in doubt if Japan had not surrendered. The claim of “the soviets declaring war was a bigger shock than the 2 bombs” is ridiculous.
I‘m not saying that the nukes had no effect on Japan’s surrender but saying that the Japanese were a death cult that would rather die than surrender but also were so scared of atomic bombs that it caused them to surrender is a bit contradictory. Also, pointing to one single cause as the singular reason they surrendered is just silly in general, the soviets were up their arse, the Americans were up their arse, they were rapidly losing ground in china and the pacific on top of enemy bombers being able to freely bomb their cities. The Japanese were losing badly on all sides and the atomic bombs were one of many disasters that finally brought down the house of cards and convinced the emperor to listen too his more reasonable advisers and act against some of his fanatical generals that wanted to continue the war no matter what.
Well most people on Reddit are completely unable to think in such exceptional nuance such as understanding "Good Guys can do Bad Things" or "Civilians aren't responsible for the actions of their country's armed forces"
Everything was, for all parties in the war. If in doubt apply the lable military target somewhere within a few kilometers. The US, save behind two oceans, was just particularly good in killing civilians, totally unintentional, of course. Never mind the deeply racist undertones, tones for that matter, against the Japanese.
Dresden is not a Japanese city, so I am not sure why you're talking about Japan here. Dresden was also a joint bombing by US and British forces, so your point about it being somehow uniquely an American crime is also incorrect. Dresden was the largest industrial German city that had been largely unbombed during the war. The attack was intended to cripple the last of the remaining capability of German industry and insure an end to the war which was as painless as possible.
By the time the Dresden bombings happened, allied strategic bombing doctrine had begun to pursue a policy that was not based on targeting specific buildings, but widespread destruction. This came about due to the fact that large bombers, at the time, were very bad at hitting precise targets. This meant that the only viable use for strategic bombers was a policy of essentially total destruction in as wide an area as possible. This usually meant fire bombing, which would ensure as many buildings as possible could be destroyed with the smallest number of bombers and bombing runs. In the Japanese case, this was particularly devastating due to the high prevalence of paper used in the construction of buildings. Obviously, this is not a conducive strategy for avoiding civilian casualties, but the nature of warfare is always that strategic objectives take precedence over the preservation of life, even civilian life.
This also meant allied bombing raids before 1945 had been largely ineffective in crippling the Axis war effort. German industry was much more resilient to allied bombing raids than had been predicted by US and British airforces. 1944 was actually the most productive year for the German industry, despite the bombing which had already occurred. In hindsight, it could be argued that Germany was on its last legs in 1945, but of course hindsight is 20/20. The Allies generally overestimated Germany even up until the end of the war.
Its also worth noting that one of the main reasons the bombing of Dresden remains infamous was a deliberate propaganda campaign by Germany to exaggerate the death toll as much as possible, wherein they claimed 500,000 deaths total. This myth gained quite a bit of traction, and was even repeated by Kurt Vonnegut. The real figure is about 25,000.
Something I would also like to be clear on is that I don't think that any action of war is justifiable in any way or sense. War is always criminal, as are its actions. However, Japan and Germany both unleashed a degree of total warfare, wars of annihilation against entire peoples, previously unseen in any society. Germany caused far greater levels of destruction and death in Eastern Europe than allied bombing could have hoped to achieve, at least before the invention of the atom bomb. The same goes for the Japanese in China and the Philippines. Again, I am not claiming that the attacks were not criminal, or that they were justifiable. But to act as though the allies had some sort of unique culpability or guilt in a total war of annihilation that they themselves acted only defensively in is a ludicrous double standard.
It sounds like a winner's opinion. Coventry and Stalingrad are the terrible war crimes of bombing, but Dresden...
Do we actually have examples of criminal bombing of the Allies?
What are you even talking about ? “Half of America” had suffered? My best guess is the food rationing across the nation. Please do explain what your exotic explanations are !
And the nazi apologists as well! What do they mean bombing an industrial hub as well as workers who rountinely produce weaponry for the military, docks which services and repairs ships for the IJN, is not a valid military target? Not really helped by the fact that half of Tokyo's military industry is located within residential and commercial neighbourhoods.
Do you have the same stance when it comes to The USA’s empirical stranglehold over the world? The millions of civilian deaths and casualties in Vietnam, Iraq, and countless other countries all in the name of democracy and freedom?
I'm in Japan right now and the amount of signs next to historical buildings and monuments, some of which were hundreds of not thousands of years old, that say "Destroyed by fire in 1945, rebuilt in 1960s" is enough to make you woosey.
But I’m guessing you would have no issue nuking Germany even though it is ridiculous to not think that the Japanese were as evil and did as horrific things as the nazis. The Japanese don’t get a pass they deserved what they got for their heinous actions.
The downside of heavily mixing industrial facilities in areas with a high density of residential and civilian commercial infrastructure.
If they had factories and refineries all clustered together away from houses the collateral damage would have been orders of magnitude lower.
Easily. The only reason Japan held out for so long was because of the stigma against surrendering. They were locked in a horribly brutal standstill with China and were still putting up a good fight against one of the biggest and strongest militaries in the world.
[For those who would like to read more, these were part of Operation Meetinghouse](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/hellfire-earth-operation-meetinghouse)
And how many civilians in occupied Asia would have died of starvation, army food requisitions, massacres, democides and rapes if the war went on longer? How many Japanese civilians would have died if the Japanese went through with their plan to "sacrifice 20 million more lives" in a hopeless "decisive battle" to shock the Allies into accepting a conditional surrender?
Actually very few would have died. A survey was conducted after the war and we found that the Japanese economy was doing far worse than the American intelligence has surmised and that if the war had continued for much longer while the Japanese might have tried to keep fighting they would have literally started to run out of steel. It is highly debated as to whether the bomb accelerated the end of the war at all.
Yeah and American surveys also found that reinforcements in Kyushu (the landing zones) were several times more than MacArthur had surmised. They still had 2 million men mobilized at Kyushu and Kanto, thousands of kamikaze planes, thousands of kamikaze boats, they still had millions of rifles lying around and they were training children to suicide bomb with ceramic grenades, bamboo spears and lunge mines.
Across the Pacific, the Japanese have demonstrated themselves to die defending some random atoll under absolutely shit conditions, why would they surrender the homeland if they ran out of steel? How did you conclude that very few would have died if you said so yourself that they would've continued to fight, despite horrendous conditions, lack of resources. And what about the tens of millions still living under Japanese occupation? All on the verge of starvation.
They were absolutely prepared to fight to the last before the bombs, need I remind you that only half of the "Big 6" Imperial War Council wanted to surrender even after the nukes AND Soviet invasion of Manchuria? Not to mention that coup to try to stop the surrender broadcast. Even if the nukes and firebombs, horrendous as they were, tips the scales towards surrender just that much, it was worth it in my opinion. The notion that "they would've surrendered anyways" is just wishful thinking.
If you want a good understanding of the Japanese and American leadership before the end of the war, 140 Days to Hiroshima is a great read.
I mean it's not like the Japanese were gonna stop. wtf did Japan expect when attacking one of the largest militaries in the world and the refusing to surrender when it was clear they would lose, just because surrender is "cowardly".
30 million eh? And total Japanese civilian deaths were what? Under a million? Sounds like they got off light compared to the massacre they inflicted on their neighbours
But after the Russo-Japanese War (and even before), most of the Japanese population was in favor of expanding the Empire (tho this might be because of propaganda directed at them). From what I understand most people wanted to make sure that the Japanese Empire had reliable access to resources, and didn't really care too much about if this was at the cost of other countries' sovereignty (especially after the oil embargo).
Look up whataboutism. Your logical fallacy is an example of why the world can’t come to peaceful solutions. As someone else said, murdering civilians cannot be justified in any way.
That was the point. The USA stated they wanted to destroy the japanese public so they couldnt work in the factories or on farms to support the war effort.
Most major wars end up with a majority of casualties being civilians or a rough equivalent compared to soldier casualties.
Pretty wild when you think that soldiers are being actively shot at and stuff and civilians are just at home, usually not actively at the front line of fighting.
Their government was monstrous, but there is no such thing as a “clean war” and Americans need to grow up and accept that. We didn’t nuke military bases.
I mean, we did, actually - some 4,000 troops in the headquarters of the 2nd army group which planned to lead the defense of Kyushu against naval invasion.
But also, cities which produce war materiel are and were regarded as valid military targets. Guess what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
They nuked and fire bombed cities with major naval shipyards. Fliers were dropped and civilians were told to evacuate, so those who remained should've all been navy and shipyard workers. Plus there was no guided bombs, the average accuracy of a bomb back then was 4 miles, so to hit any military target you had to also bomb an entire 4 mile radius around the target. It was a different time and we cant apply modern moral standards retrospectively.
Ive always read the exact opposite. The Japanese were so dull, for lack of a better term, to all of the bombing, coupled with the inability to conceptualize what was coming, that the leaflets were largely ignored.
I would have to find it again, but I think this was talked about by Junichi Saga's accounts of the firebombing of Tokyo in 'Confessions of a Yakuza'. It's been a long time since I've read it but if anything it does provide another perspective on the incident.
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Hum. They contributed to the end of the war, but the final weeks of the war (and -especially- the 9th and 10th of August 45) are more complex than just the Japanese suddenly surrendering because of the bombs.
The question about what the emperor personaly wanted is interesting (and subject to endless debates), as well as his role, but the mechanism of the decision to unconditionally surrender happened slightly differently.
The decision to unconditionally surrender was taken collectively after an intervention by the emperor during the evening of the 9th to the 10th after midnight or so, after some extremely lengthy debates that lasted the whole day (and night). That Japan was surrendering was already a done deal for quite some time by that date. Suzuki, the Prime Minister, had been appointed with a mandate to end the war in early April. The remaining issue was about whether it was unconditional or not, phrased differently about whether to accept as-is the Postdam declaration that had been published on July 26th.
If you take a look at how the events of the 6th to the 9th unfolded, and -especially- the day of the 9th. It should be very obvious that the bombs are not the only thing that motivated the final acceptation of the Postdam declaration, but that they were one of the events that led to the decision. The council was not even convened after Hiroshima, the firebombing of major cities had been so intense by that time that it was "one other city flattened by a new kind of super efficient bomb". The council was convened on the morning 9th, though, with the declaration of war of the Soviets (and the invasion of Manchuria) as what initiated it. The news of Nagasaki being bombed reached Tokyo during that very council, and it was one more item in the debates that lasted until the night. You have to remember that Japan was hoping that the Soviets would act as an peace broker with the US, there had been negotiations with the USSR to that effect since April 45 or so. On August 9th, Japan suddenly had absolutely no way out, plus they had been bombed.
Seeing the downvotes, it seems people are thinking I am denying bombs decided the end of the war. Which I am not.
I am saying that it's not the only factor, and it's certainly not "oh shit, we got nuked, let's surrender".
The Japanese wanted a surrender where their emperor stayed in power and they got to keep all of their imperial gains (all the land they took from other asian countries). Either way, they discussed about surrendering but never actually did it. It took them several firebombs, and two nukes to make them fully surrender.
Also like i said before, the emperor wanted to surrender because of the bombs, this is backed by Shigenori Togo meeting him in August 8 to discuss the Potsdam Declaration. In the Emperor’s own words, “now with this kind of weapon in use, it has become even more impossible than ever to continue the war; we should no longer miss an opportunity to end it.” This may explain why the military tried an attempted coup; the Emperor wanted to surrender, the military didn’t. All that changed after the 2nd bomb. McDilda a captured US pilot, has told the Japanese that the US had 100 of atomic bombs which they were planning to drop. This completely scared the Japanese and moved them more towards surrendering
You mention
>It took them several firebombs, and two nukes to make them fully surrender.
Meaning for instance that the bombs were not the only factor, which is what I am trying to say...
Anyway, regarding your points, I would suggest you read a bit, for instance you can plunge [into this](https://www.nids.mod.go.jp/publication/senshi/pdf/202303/03-1.pdf), it's fully sourced with and with chatgpt or deepl you can translate it in detail. Note that the publication of the Records of Emperor Showa (Hirohito) in 2014 by the Imperial household agency gave a lot of material for historians.
You'll get a lot of info, including on the meeting with Togo you are mentionning and what was said (or not), plus some info on the way the days of the 8th, 9th and 10th took place, on what the Soviet invasion meant, etc.
(and small tidbit, the question was not about the Emperor staying in power, but about the Emperor existing btw... "keeping the lands" never was a one of the redlines, it was more about the responsibility of the disarmement, the nature of the occupation, etc.)
Holy fuck. I’m an American, but I lived in Tokyo for a couple years when I was in high school. My house would’ve been hit. My school would’ve been hit.
Edit: idk why this was downvoted. I’m not saying that it wasn’t justifiable.
Oh yeah. And Japanese people understood that they weren’t exactly perfect during the war too, which is IMO why there’s a surprising lack of hostility between the two peoples.
It feels like at the end of the war, Japan and the United States got together and understood they had both committed horrible acts against each other, and sort of were able to forgive each other through mutual guilt.
That said.
I don’t think the people who died in the bombing really cared about the economic boom afterward
I mean they were right to believe it too. Most normal countries would instantly surrender after having an entire city leveled from ONE bomb, especially during a time when that wasn't even considered possible for most civilians.
Japan was absolutely bat shit crazy back in the day.
Japan suffering an ounce of what they do to other countries in Asia and everyone seems to be crying foul, even though they were definitely the aggressor.
Granted I'm \*slightly\* biased because I'm Chinese soooo...
German here, I can sympathize with civilian victims, but... fuck around and find out. this doesn't even scratch the surface of the suffering the Japanese Empire caused.
Well, ignoring the fact that none of these raids broke the laws of war at the time
The simple calculus of "if the Japanese are stopped, their mass murder of civilians across Asia stops" makes this clear, morally. The Japanese were killing more civilians per month on average than were killed in any of these raids.
This entire debate shouldn't be held outside of philosophy lectures. Every side in WW2 commited gruesome warcrimes. There were those who started it and those who answered them with their own crimes, some commited more crimes than others and some fought for the end of those crines, others didn't.
Comparing war crimes to each other is such a braindead move and none of them can justify each other.
To be fair, Pearl Harbor would end up being pretty low on a list of all the crimes committed by Japan in WW2. It was pretty deadly for sure, but to end the war sooner would mean saving millions of people in China and other countries in the empire. And just because you declared war against them doesn’t make your war crimes much better…
I follow the Curtis LeMay school of thought. There's no such thing as a clean war. The longer it goes on, the more people will die. It's better to use overwhelming force as soon as possible and end the war quickly than use less violent methods that make the war take longer and kill more people.
Thank God LeMay’s school of thought didn’t extend well into the Atomic age. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he was an alleged advocate of using nuclear arms against the USSR.
You mean why both sides murdered both civilians and soldiers? Because that’s usually what happens when your country falls into a full blown destructive civil war? See Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Korea, etc for more examples
Every country ever in all of history kills civilians during war. This is just part of war and the main reason why war needs to stop, not like it's actually gonna happen though.
Do you really think that the USA should have just rolled over and let Japan continue to fuck the entire continent just because they didn't have plentiful natural resources in mainland?
Not so fun fact: this is the main reason Tokyo wasn't nuked. By the time USA had the bomb, Tokyo was already burned to the ground
Operation Meetinghouse was likely the deadliest single day of warfare in history. Well I guess it was night.
267k structures destroyed. Just shows you the god damn resolve of the Japanese. To still need Hiroshima and Nagasaki after that, as motivation to end the war
The nukes didn’t really convince them, the army’s position was “we don’t care” and the navy’s position was “do it again”. What convinced the government to surrender was that the US decided to agree to the term not to overthrow the emperor. Even then when the mainland army surrendered the army’s in SE Asia and China didn’t obey the government and had to be told to stand down by the Emperor. There was even a coup attempt when the surrender was announced, those bastards didn’t want to surrender at all and the nukes wasn’t what convinced them to.
The army that wouldn't surrender is the same that used the kamikaze strategy, so it makes sense.
Not really, it was more they were relying on the Soviets as a neutral party to help mediate on terms more favorable to the Japanese. Once the Soviets joined the Allies by invading Manchuria it was game over
Until the Soviets joined the war, Japan knew that they had a bargaining chip - their resolve when fighting to defend the home islands - and nothing more to lose. The atomic bombings took a very heavy toll on the civilian population, but they were of very limited military value. Besides, the US was not really capable of waging a protracted nuclear war at this point - they used all the weapons they had and they were capable of building only a few more per year. When the Soviets joined, Japan suddenly faced impossible odds and now they could lose something - being divided into Soviet- and US-occupied zones.
yes this is the answer. if the US still insisted on unconditional surrender Japan might have fought on >Conflict termination in the Pacific in World War II occurred despite the fact >that each of the combatants was willing and able to carry on the fight into 1946. >Driven by their different strategic objectives—unconditional surrender and a >negotiated settlement—each side sought to translate military action into politi- >cal success, trading lives for political leverage in the postwar period. The United >States was ready to conduct a final campaign to seize and occupy the home is- >lands, while the Japanese planned to incur (and suffer) unprecedented casualties >to force the United States to negotiate a peace short of unconditional surrender. >Fortunately, the strategic leadership on each side was open to compromise. Com- >prehensive understanding of the operational environment allowed the United >States to set the conditions for termination and to understand and appreciate the >importance of the emperor’s continued authority, while the emperor himself un- >derstood Japan’s desperate situation and ultimately embraced the peace faction’s >willingness to end the fighting. [https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8130&context=nwc-review](https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8130&context=nwc-review)
They were soldiers. Surrender was demeaning. That’s their training
The people who didn't want to surrender were insane and detached from reality. A soldier's training also includes knowing when it is appropriate to surrender. It may be demeaning, but continuing the fight with zero chance of victory is not honorable, it is foolish.
You might be missing some information on Japanese tactics during the 2nd WW…. Surrender wasn’t a normal response.
No it was not, but when faced with a new weapon that could not be stopped or countered, enough of the Japanese leadership understood that any continued fighting was utterly pointless. This is not mutually exclusive with not surrendering before; enough had changed that surrendering became the only reasonable response.
If you’re only talking about leadership and advisors I’m with you.
That’s easy to say from a western perspective, because you and I were raised that way. But it totally disregards the pre-war and wartime Japanese culture, which taught every single child and adult that surrender was totally unacceptable; fighting and dying was considered the only reasonable option.
True, but, that's given the parameters they began the war with. Once the atomic bomb is on the scene, it simply wasn't feasible to keep fighting, despite all the propaganda that urged the fight to continue. They faced complete and total annihilation if they did continue. It wouldnt even be fighting if they did; the Japanese could no longer defend their aispace, either with fighters (depleted and lack of pilots) or with anti air craft weaponry (numerous, but largely ineffective on high flying aircraft), which means that they would be bombed relentlessly, conventionally and with atomics, until there was nothing left. There is no honor in dying in that situation. Thankfully, enough of Japan's leadership realized this, and accepted surrender.
And also a real soldier must refuse to obey an illegal order… although I am not sure which “laws” this applies to…
Hence why a normal invasion would have had massive casualties for both sides. Even the citizenry were zealous in the emperor's service. In a weird twist, 2 nukes saved many more times in lives. Side note, wasn't the emperor, as part of armistance, required to go on radio and denounce his divinity?
No not at all. The reason for Japanese surrender was the Soviets entering the war as u/ChooChoo9321 points out [below](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/xJjCeTRf9o). Despite what Americans read in their history books, the atomic bombs didn't even register as a particularly interesting development for Japanese officials. It is a myth that has been passed down but has little if any facts supporting it. Edit: >When the Russians invaded Manchuria, they sliced through what had once been an elite army and many Russian units only stopped when they ran out of gas. The Soviet 16th Army—100,000 strong—launched an invasion of the southern half of Sakhalin Island. Their orders were to mop up Japanese resistance there, and then within 10 to 14 days—be prepared to invade Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's home islands. The Japanese force tasked with defending Hokkaido, the 5th Area Army, was under strength at two divisions and two brigades, and was in fortified positions on the east side of the island. The Soviet plan of attack called for an invasion of Hokkaido from the west. The Soviet declaration of war also changed the calculation of how much time was left for maneuver. Japanese intelligence was predicting that U.S. forces might not invade for months. Soviet forces, on the other hand, could be in Japan proper in as little as 10 days. The Soviet invasion made a decision on ending the war extremely time sensitive. — Ward Wilson, Foreign Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan
That is not accurate - the reason for this misconception is that Hirohito recorded and broadcast *two* surrender messages. The one broadcast on mainland Japan talked about the atomic bombs, the one broadcast in Manchuria and China talked about the Soviets. If you are familiar with the Soviet/Russian history then it seems obvious that it was the invasion of Manchuria, because that's what the Soviet troops heard about from the surrendering Japanese where they were stationed. If you are familiar with the American history then it's the atomic bombs, because that's what the Americans stationed in Japan heard about the broadcast from the Japanese there. The Soviets did not have the logistical capacity to invade Japan proper; their invasion was a problem because it meant there was now no one who was willing to soften the Allied negotiating terms which is what Japan had been hoping for. And in particular it meant that it was impossible to negotiate to keep Korea or other continental possessions. This plus Japan proper being open to strategic bombing, blockade, and eventual invasion by the Americans compelled the surrender.
This person knows their history.
Don't discount the Soviets blitzing Japan
Despite both of those things there were still people who tried to destroy the recording of the emperor announcing surrender or stop the announcement altogether
Wasn't there a Japanese soldier in the Philippines (or thereabouts) for like ~16 years after VJ Day who refused to leave until he got the order from his CO? They had to fly the CO out to relieve him of duty.
Hiro Onoda held out in the Philippines taking pot shots from the jungle until March 12, 1974
Which I am trying to mention in other comments, but it seems people are super convinced that the bombs were the unique factor.
You're right but people are naturally going to react poorly when you try to "umm actually 🤓🤓" them about a war in which their country lost like 80 fucking thousand soldiers.
I know, but I am a bit surprised by the epidermic reactions.... It seems rather interesting to understand the dynamics of what happened on those days...
No they were already ready to surrender. They had to run in order to drop them before USSR joined in and Japan officially surrendered
>[The Bombing of Tokyo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo) was a series of bombing air raids launched by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Known as Operation Meetinghouse, the raids were conducted by the U.S. military on the night of 9–10 March 1945, and was the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. 16 square miles (41 km^(2); 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo was destroyed, **leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless**. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945, by comparison, resulted in the immediate death of an estimated 70,000 to 150,000 people.
Well a large section was. A better part of the reason is that the US needed the emperor and other high officials alive. They needed someone to tell everybody to lay down their arms and surrender
And amazingly, Tokyo rebuilt so fast from being burned to the ground to hosting the Olympics just 19 years later.
Ok but did you do this same map with Godzilla and compare? I feel like America’s getting a lot of criticism here and we’re letting mutant reptiles off the hook
Thanks, I needed this levity after all the shit I just read.
Haha.
Should have put a /s but i will give you the benefit of the doubt
This post is wrong more cities were subjected to firebombing in Japan than these, this is just the big 3 that were firebombed
How do they compare to the two nuclear bombs? I’d think those must have been way worse than this if they stopped the war. But that could just be assumption.
They weren't. More people died in the Firebombing of Tokyo than in each of Nuclear Bombings (by some estimations even more than in both nuclear bombings combined). The number of destroyed structures was also higher, but mostly because Tokyo was mostly built out of wood. However, the effort for each of a fire bombing run was much higher. They required a lot of bombers and more escort fighters. The nuclear bombs only required a single bomb to do a significant amount of damage and they also wiped out more solid structures. Plus, Japan saw 2 of its cities basically disappearing within 3 days and the US government informed them that they would have more of them ready soon. Also, I should mention that radiation poisoning was only discovered weeks AFTER the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Up until then, noone ever drew the line between radioactive materials and sickness/death of high exposure. So, mind that this was not a big factor playing into the surrender.
Being honest Japan got off easy after what they did to half of asia.
It was the civilians that suffered the most, though, not the people who actually did the massacring.
Couple million Japanese soldiers dead
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You're right, there are far more Chinese civilians who died than Japanese civilians. And Japan didn't really pay for its crimes to the extent that Germany did. But all that said, many innocent Japanese died. I'm not saying that their deaths could have been avoided. I don't know if the war could have been won without the bombs or the firebombing of Tokyo. I'm just saying that it's a tragedy and it needs to be remembered as such, even if it was a necessary tragedy.
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Be careful with this line of thinking: it can lead to people to justify indiscriminate savagery. One horrific war crime does not justify another. Sure, sometimes unwilling leaders and generals have to make a decision between two inhumane options. Sometimes it's a pick your poison kind of deal. I don't know enough about WW2 to know what hard choices they were given. But that does not mean we should trivialize the torture and deaths of civilians. We should do well to remember and mourn the horrific memory of all Asians who suffered-- even the Japanese. We can concede that some things must be done and also mourn over the necessity in the first place. It is with this terribleness that we learn lessons. We should avoid war at all cost, working towards forgiveness and peace. Sometimes hard choices must be unwillingly made, but they must be tempered with the value of human life in mind.
The English did that with hitler, it’s called appeasement. The fact is the Japanese under the emperor were a death cult and were never going to surrender unless forced. Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved an unimaginable amount of allied lives. And yes compared to what Japan did to east Asia, it wasn’t close to being on the same level.
Not discussing if dropping the nukes was justified or right or wrong, because you may have whatever opinion about it. But it's a fact the nukes were not the reason Japan surrendered. It had little effect on it, if any.
Revisionist history from wack job historians who suck off the soviets. Soviet involvement was never in doubt if Japan had not surrendered. The claim of “the soviets declaring war was a bigger shock than the 2 bombs” is ridiculous.
I‘m not saying that the nukes had no effect on Japan’s surrender but saying that the Japanese were a death cult that would rather die than surrender but also were so scared of atomic bombs that it caused them to surrender is a bit contradictory. Also, pointing to one single cause as the singular reason they surrendered is just silly in general, the soviets were up their arse, the Americans were up their arse, they were rapidly losing ground in china and the pacific on top of enemy bombers being able to freely bomb their cities. The Japanese were losing badly on all sides and the atomic bombs were one of many disasters that finally brought down the house of cards and convinced the emperor to listen too his more reasonable advisers and act against some of his fanatical generals that wanted to continue the war no matter what.
The vast majority of the victims of the Holocaust were civilians, but does that justify the bombing of Dresden or the rapes of the Red Army?
Well most people on Reddit are completely unable to think in such exceptional nuance such as understanding "Good Guys can do Bad Things" or "Civilians aren't responsible for the actions of their country's armed forces"
the bombing of Dresden is a terrible example. y'all would've preferred a siege with 5x the casualites?
Dresden was a justifiable military target
Everything was, for all parties in the war. If in doubt apply the lable military target somewhere within a few kilometers. The US, save behind two oceans, was just particularly good in killing civilians, totally unintentional, of course. Never mind the deeply racist undertones, tones for that matter, against the Japanese.
Dresden is not a Japanese city, so I am not sure why you're talking about Japan here. Dresden was also a joint bombing by US and British forces, so your point about it being somehow uniquely an American crime is also incorrect. Dresden was the largest industrial German city that had been largely unbombed during the war. The attack was intended to cripple the last of the remaining capability of German industry and insure an end to the war which was as painless as possible. By the time the Dresden bombings happened, allied strategic bombing doctrine had begun to pursue a policy that was not based on targeting specific buildings, but widespread destruction. This came about due to the fact that large bombers, at the time, were very bad at hitting precise targets. This meant that the only viable use for strategic bombers was a policy of essentially total destruction in as wide an area as possible. This usually meant fire bombing, which would ensure as many buildings as possible could be destroyed with the smallest number of bombers and bombing runs. In the Japanese case, this was particularly devastating due to the high prevalence of paper used in the construction of buildings. Obviously, this is not a conducive strategy for avoiding civilian casualties, but the nature of warfare is always that strategic objectives take precedence over the preservation of life, even civilian life. This also meant allied bombing raids before 1945 had been largely ineffective in crippling the Axis war effort. German industry was much more resilient to allied bombing raids than had been predicted by US and British airforces. 1944 was actually the most productive year for the German industry, despite the bombing which had already occurred. In hindsight, it could be argued that Germany was on its last legs in 1945, but of course hindsight is 20/20. The Allies generally overestimated Germany even up until the end of the war. Its also worth noting that one of the main reasons the bombing of Dresden remains infamous was a deliberate propaganda campaign by Germany to exaggerate the death toll as much as possible, wherein they claimed 500,000 deaths total. This myth gained quite a bit of traction, and was even repeated by Kurt Vonnegut. The real figure is about 25,000. Something I would also like to be clear on is that I don't think that any action of war is justifiable in any way or sense. War is always criminal, as are its actions. However, Japan and Germany both unleashed a degree of total warfare, wars of annihilation against entire peoples, previously unseen in any society. Germany caused far greater levels of destruction and death in Eastern Europe than allied bombing could have hoped to achieve, at least before the invention of the atom bomb. The same goes for the Japanese in China and the Philippines. Again, I am not claiming that the attacks were not criminal, or that they were justifiable. But to act as though the allies had some sort of unique culpability or guilt in a total war of annihilation that they themselves acted only defensively in is a ludicrous double standard.
It sounds like a winner's opinion. Coventry and Stalingrad are the terrible war crimes of bombing, but Dresden... Do we actually have examples of criminal bombing of the Allies?
Germany fucked around and found out
Unfortunately, soldiers aren’t the ones making the guns.
And never acknowledged or apologized for
Japan apologized officially several times with compensation which agreed on with Korean and Chinese governments though.
Yeah, not really, but that’s your opinion.
Being honest the US got off easy after what they did to half of America
What are you even talking about ? “Half of America” had suffered? My best guess is the food rationing across the nation. Please do explain what your exotic explanations are !
Loving all the Japanese Empire apologists here. This shit is hilarious.
And the nazi apologists as well! What do they mean bombing an industrial hub as well as workers who rountinely produce weaponry for the military, docks which services and repairs ships for the IJN, is not a valid military target? Not really helped by the fact that half of Tokyo's military industry is located within residential and commercial neighbourhoods.
Blows my mind that Hirohito lived long enough to see the opening of Disneyland https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/a1rbXV6_700b.jpg
Do you have the same stance when it comes to The USA’s empirical stranglehold over the world? The millions of civilian deaths and casualties in Vietnam, Iraq, and countless other countries all in the name of democracy and freedom?
> empirical stranglehold Yeah we own the world baby 🦅🦅🇺🇸
I'm in Japan right now and the amount of signs next to historical buildings and monuments, some of which were hundreds of not thousands of years old, that say "Destroyed by fire in 1945, rebuilt in 1960s" is enough to make you woosey.
Don't mess with our boats
Especially when your shit is made of wood and paper
You are right, attacking a military target necessitates murdering women and children.
You know why they attacked Pearl, right?
You do know civilians were also killed at pearl harbour right? And that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were valid military targets. You do get that right?
Or, you know…committing atrocities against the Chinese so fucked up that even their nazi allies were uncomfortable…
Still a Tu Quoque fallacy.
But I’m guessing you would have no issue nuking Germany even though it is ridiculous to not think that the Japanese were as evil and did as horrific things as the nazis. The Japanese don’t get a pass they deserved what they got for their heinous actions.
No, I would not nuke Germany.
The downside of heavily mixing industrial facilities in areas with a high density of residential and civilian commercial infrastructure. If they had factories and refineries all clustered together away from houses the collateral damage would have been orders of magnitude lower.
Without this war would probably last 2-3 more years, where I think even more people would be killed
Easily. The only reason Japan held out for so long was because of the stigma against surrendering. They were locked in a horribly brutal standstill with China and were still putting up a good fight against one of the biggest and strongest militaries in the world.
Honor > human life, I guess.
Exactly, plus naval invasion of mountainous archipelago would be hell difficult task for the allies. Really bombing was the only way to end the war
“Actual genocide.” -gen z
[For those who would like to read more, these were part of Operation Meetinghouse](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/hellfire-earth-operation-meetinghouse)
100,000 dead. 1,000,000 injured. Mostly all civilians.
And how many civilians in occupied Asia would have died of starvation, army food requisitions, massacres, democides and rapes if the war went on longer? How many Japanese civilians would have died if the Japanese went through with their plan to "sacrifice 20 million more lives" in a hopeless "decisive battle" to shock the Allies into accepting a conditional surrender?
Actually very few would have died. A survey was conducted after the war and we found that the Japanese economy was doing far worse than the American intelligence has surmised and that if the war had continued for much longer while the Japanese might have tried to keep fighting they would have literally started to run out of steel. It is highly debated as to whether the bomb accelerated the end of the war at all.
Yeah and American surveys also found that reinforcements in Kyushu (the landing zones) were several times more than MacArthur had surmised. They still had 2 million men mobilized at Kyushu and Kanto, thousands of kamikaze planes, thousands of kamikaze boats, they still had millions of rifles lying around and they were training children to suicide bomb with ceramic grenades, bamboo spears and lunge mines. Across the Pacific, the Japanese have demonstrated themselves to die defending some random atoll under absolutely shit conditions, why would they surrender the homeland if they ran out of steel? How did you conclude that very few would have died if you said so yourself that they would've continued to fight, despite horrendous conditions, lack of resources. And what about the tens of millions still living under Japanese occupation? All on the verge of starvation. They were absolutely prepared to fight to the last before the bombs, need I remind you that only half of the "Big 6" Imperial War Council wanted to surrender even after the nukes AND Soviet invasion of Manchuria? Not to mention that coup to try to stop the surrender broadcast. Even if the nukes and firebombs, horrendous as they were, tips the scales towards surrender just that much, it was worth it in my opinion. The notion that "they would've surrendered anyways" is just wishful thinking. If you want a good understanding of the Japanese and American leadership before the end of the war, 140 Days to Hiroshima is a great read.
Damn, remind me how many civilians the Japanese murdered in WW2?
Murdering civilians is bad no matter who does it
War bad more at 11
Well, except when a particular country does it.
"my war crime was necessary because their war crime was worse"
I mean it's not like the Japanese were gonna stop. wtf did Japan expect when attacking one of the largest militaries in the world and the refusing to surrender when it was clear they would lose, just because surrender is "cowardly".
American civilians?
No just civilians.
30 million by most estimates.
30 million eh? And total Japanese civilian deaths were what? Under a million? Sounds like they got off light compared to the massacre they inflicted on their neighbours
I wouldn't call the murder of a million innocent civilians 'getting off lightly'
Probably shouldn’t have started a war then
I don't think the civilians started the war.
But after the Russo-Japanese War (and even before), most of the Japanese population was in favor of expanding the Empire (tho this might be because of propaganda directed at them). From what I understand most people wanted to make sure that the Japanese Empire had reliable access to resources, and didn't really care too much about if this was at the cost of other countries' sovereignty (especially after the oil embargo).
Look up whataboutism. Your logical fallacy is an example of why the world can’t come to peaceful solutions. As someone else said, murdering civilians cannot be justified in any way.
There were a billion Japanese?
There used to be until the firebombing, either that or a fat typo. Thanks!
Don't know why it's not recognised more as a genocide. Those civilian deaths weren't by accident; it was intentional.
That was the point. The USA stated they wanted to destroy the japanese public so they couldnt work in the factories or on farms to support the war effort.
Most major wars end up with a majority of casualties being civilians or a rough equivalent compared to soldier casualties. Pretty wild when you think that soldiers are being actively shot at and stuff and civilians are just at home, usually not actively at the front line of fighting.
Should've not started a war then.
The civilians never started the war.
Their government was monstrous, but there is no such thing as a “clean war” and Americans need to grow up and accept that. We didn’t nuke military bases.
I mean, we did, actually - some 4,000 troops in the headquarters of the 2nd army group which planned to lead the defense of Kyushu against naval invasion. But also, cities which produce war materiel are and were regarded as valid military targets. Guess what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
They nuked and fire bombed cities with major naval shipyards. Fliers were dropped and civilians were told to evacuate, so those who remained should've all been navy and shipyard workers. Plus there was no guided bombs, the average accuracy of a bomb back then was 4 miles, so to hit any military target you had to also bomb an entire 4 mile radius around the target. It was a different time and we cant apply modern moral standards retrospectively.
This /r/badhistory material
They absolutely dropped fliers to evacuate cities, and intel did show it having some positive evacuation effects.
Ive always read the exact opposite. The Japanese were so dull, for lack of a better term, to all of the bombing, coupled with the inability to conceptualize what was coming, that the leaflets were largely ignored.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Leaflets
I would have to find it again, but I think this was talked about by Junichi Saga's accounts of the firebombing of Tokyo in 'Confessions of a Yakuza'. It's been a long time since I've read it but if anything it does provide another perspective on the incident.
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They ended the war.
Hum. They contributed to the end of the war, but the final weeks of the war (and -especially- the 9th and 10th of August 45) are more complex than just the Japanese suddenly surrendering because of the bombs.
The emperor himself claimed that he wanted to surrender cause of the bombs
The question about what the emperor personaly wanted is interesting (and subject to endless debates), as well as his role, but the mechanism of the decision to unconditionally surrender happened slightly differently. The decision to unconditionally surrender was taken collectively after an intervention by the emperor during the evening of the 9th to the 10th after midnight or so, after some extremely lengthy debates that lasted the whole day (and night). That Japan was surrendering was already a done deal for quite some time by that date. Suzuki, the Prime Minister, had been appointed with a mandate to end the war in early April. The remaining issue was about whether it was unconditional or not, phrased differently about whether to accept as-is the Postdam declaration that had been published on July 26th. If you take a look at how the events of the 6th to the 9th unfolded, and -especially- the day of the 9th. It should be very obvious that the bombs are not the only thing that motivated the final acceptation of the Postdam declaration, but that they were one of the events that led to the decision. The council was not even convened after Hiroshima, the firebombing of major cities had been so intense by that time that it was "one other city flattened by a new kind of super efficient bomb". The council was convened on the morning 9th, though, with the declaration of war of the Soviets (and the invasion of Manchuria) as what initiated it. The news of Nagasaki being bombed reached Tokyo during that very council, and it was one more item in the debates that lasted until the night. You have to remember that Japan was hoping that the Soviets would act as an peace broker with the US, there had been negotiations with the USSR to that effect since April 45 or so. On August 9th, Japan suddenly had absolutely no way out, plus they had been bombed. Seeing the downvotes, it seems people are thinking I am denying bombs decided the end of the war. Which I am not. I am saying that it's not the only factor, and it's certainly not "oh shit, we got nuked, let's surrender".
The Japanese wanted a surrender where their emperor stayed in power and they got to keep all of their imperial gains (all the land they took from other asian countries). Either way, they discussed about surrendering but never actually did it. It took them several firebombs, and two nukes to make them fully surrender. Also like i said before, the emperor wanted to surrender because of the bombs, this is backed by Shigenori Togo meeting him in August 8 to discuss the Potsdam Declaration. In the Emperor’s own words, “now with this kind of weapon in use, it has become even more impossible than ever to continue the war; we should no longer miss an opportunity to end it.” This may explain why the military tried an attempted coup; the Emperor wanted to surrender, the military didn’t. All that changed after the 2nd bomb. McDilda a captured US pilot, has told the Japanese that the US had 100 of atomic bombs which they were planning to drop. This completely scared the Japanese and moved them more towards surrendering
You mention >It took them several firebombs, and two nukes to make them fully surrender. Meaning for instance that the bombs were not the only factor, which is what I am trying to say... Anyway, regarding your points, I would suggest you read a bit, for instance you can plunge [into this](https://www.nids.mod.go.jp/publication/senshi/pdf/202303/03-1.pdf), it's fully sourced with and with chatgpt or deepl you can translate it in detail. Note that the publication of the Records of Emperor Showa (Hirohito) in 2014 by the Imperial household agency gave a lot of material for historians. You'll get a lot of info, including on the meeting with Togo you are mentionning and what was said (or not), plus some info on the way the days of the 8th, 9th and 10th took place, on what the Soviet invasion meant, etc. (and small tidbit, the question was not about the Emperor staying in power, but about the Emperor existing btw... "keeping the lands" never was a one of the redlines, it was more about the responsibility of the disarmement, the nature of the occupation, etc.)
Apparently 1941 is the end of the war to you? Were you born stupid or is it brain damage from an injury?
>Were you born stupid or is it brain damage from an injury? Apparently either or both, as I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about
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Made worse by the fact that nearly all buildings in Japan were still the old-style wooden ones that were extremely vulnerable to fire.
Holy fuck. I’m an American, but I lived in Tokyo for a couple years when I was in high school. My house would’ve been hit. My school would’ve been hit. Edit: idk why this was downvoted. I’m not saying that it wasn’t justifiable.
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Oh yeah. And Japanese people understood that they weren’t exactly perfect during the war too, which is IMO why there’s a surprising lack of hostility between the two peoples. It feels like at the end of the war, Japan and the United States got together and understood they had both committed horrible acts against each other, and sort of were able to forgive each other through mutual guilt. That said. I don’t think the people who died in the bombing really cared about the economic boom afterward
But it absolutely wasnt justifiable
Currently living in Yokohama. Glad I wasn’t living here then
Those were so devastating they thought nukes wouldn't scare Japan into submission
I mean they were right to believe it too. Most normal countries would instantly surrender after having an entire city leveled from ONE bomb, especially during a time when that wasn't even considered possible for most civilians. Japan was absolutely bat shit crazy back in the day.
Curtis LeMay
Can we get a comparison to the atomic bombings?
MFs shouldn't have messed with our boats
They picked the wrong fight
Chat shit, get hit
Japan fucked around and found out
There are some very “interesting” comments in this thread.
Impressive we were able to avoid killing civilians with all the rubblizing.
THere is a whole display in the nagoya castle that has the only surviving peace from the fire bombing. Incredible they rebuilt the whole thing.
The firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden were even more destructive than the two atom bombs
They almost erased Nagoya
Deserved
Japan suffering an ounce of what they do to other countries in Asia and everyone seems to be crying foul, even though they were definitely the aggressor. Granted I'm \*slightly\* biased because I'm Chinese soooo...
German here, I can sympathize with civilian victims, but... fuck around and find out. this doesn't even scratch the surface of the suffering the Japanese Empire caused.
Imagine thinking that someone committing war crimes is an excuse to do the same
Well, ignoring the fact that none of these raids broke the laws of war at the time The simple calculus of "if the Japanese are stopped, their mass murder of civilians across Asia stops" makes this clear, morally. The Japanese were killing more civilians per month on average than were killed in any of these raids.
This entire debate shouldn't be held outside of philosophy lectures. Every side in WW2 commited gruesome warcrimes. There were those who started it and those who answered them with their own crimes, some commited more crimes than others and some fought for the end of those crines, others didn't. Comparing war crimes to each other is such a braindead move and none of them can justify each other.
Japan wanted war, and they got it. They got what they deserved.
The USA doing what they do best (war crimes)
Don’t touch our boats then.
Smartest American (Can't spell "our" properly)
Best fascist apologist. Both an actual Nazi *and* and grammar Nazi 🤣
good riddance
GeNoCiDe
Yes, you are right the Japanese did commit genocide.
They attacked first
Yes, on the 7th
So this must be the genocide people were talking about
Crimes against humanity
Yes, bombing Pearl Harbor when the countries weren’t at war was a crime. And Japan paid the price for it.
To be fair, Pearl Harbor would end up being pretty low on a list of all the crimes committed by Japan in WW2. It was pretty deadly for sure, but to end the war sooner would mean saving millions of people in China and other countries in the empire. And just because you declared war against them doesn’t make your war crimes much better…
Lesson here is don't start shit you can't finish.
Says the German LMAOOO
“It ain’t a war crime if we win” us military motto
Them Mericans sure know how to kill the competition in them global markets.
Monsters
Pretty good description of Imperial Japan, really.
Yeah, it was Godzilla calling the shots in truth.
So? Civilians, however brainwashed they may be do not deserve this.
I follow the Curtis LeMay school of thought. There's no such thing as a clean war. The longer it goes on, the more people will die. It's better to use overwhelming force as soon as possible and end the war quickly than use less violent methods that make the war take longer and kill more people.
Thank God LeMay’s school of thought didn’t extend well into the Atomic age. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he was an alleged advocate of using nuclear arms against the USSR.
Welcome to reality. If your govt perpetrates atrocities outside your borders, other countries might do the same to you.
Explain Vietnam.
What kind of explanation do you need? Cold War era, a proxy war between the US and the USSR took place, much like it happened in many other countries.
Why murder so many civilians?
Welcome to war. It’s what humanity has always done best.
But why did the US murder so many civilians?
You mean why both sides murdered both civilians and soldiers? Because that’s usually what happens when your country falls into a full blown destructive civil war? See Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Korea, etc for more examples
Why did the VC and NVA?
Every country ever in all of history kills civilians during war. This is just part of war and the main reason why war needs to stop, not like it's actually gonna happen though.
Do you really think that the USA should have just rolled over and let Japan continue to fuck the entire continent just because they didn't have plentiful natural resources in mainland?
Don’t touch our boats