Presidential vapor in Hiroshima....

[Loren Pechtel]

Once again you show you have no understanding of war.

Surrender was not imminent. Until the bombs Japan was still operating under a strategy of trying to make final victory so bloody and expensive that we would give up and leave them alone. That's what the "peace" offers were about.

You're still committing the fundamental liberal fallacy of thinking there is a good answer. Those who subscribe to this are very likely to make incredibly bad decisions when faced with a situation where there is no good answer.

In the real world you're often forced to choose the lesser evil.

The Japanese did want to surrender some months earlier as history shows. As you mentioned the Cities were being constantly bombed for the allies had control over land sea and air. A ceasefire was possible so that peace talks could begin. As clearly mentioned earlier, even with the unconditional surrender of Japan the allies soon backed down on removing Hirohito and ceased the pursuit of Japanese war criminals.

Therefore the ceasefire for peace talks was more a common sense action than a lesser evil.

Sun Tzu also stated: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

You don't seem to be able to understand the difference between ending the war without surrender and surrender.

- - - Updated - - -

This^^^

In the first place Truman as C in C would have been derelict in his duty to the soldiers, sailors and airmen if he didn't use the bombs and instead went on with the invasion. Military planners estimated a million US casualties and up to 100,000 deaths on our side and well over a million more Japanese deaths. What our planners did not realize was that the Japanese had been husbanding their aircraft and aviation fuel and had over 100,000 aircraft that were to be used as kamikazes against our invasion fleet. They were also training their civilians in combat using spears made of sticks.

To blame the US for it's tactics to end the war is asinine, almost as asinine as the Japanese decision to start a war against two major world powers when she was struggling in her war with a weak nation (China). People forget that the Japanese started the war and they started it for imperial purposes.

America has continued its involvement of its asininities into the 21st Century while sending troops to die in Vietnam and Iraq while also getting involved in Libya and Syria to name a few. At the same time it has racked up debts exceeding a trillion dollars.

If peace talks had occurred a few months earlier as the Japanese requested, then even more lives would have been saved. The Japanese had no place to go. The US wanted unconditional surrender but actually did not achieve this in the end. Hirohito and most war criminals were not prosecuted.

If there was a ceasefire earlier with Japan in response to its request for peace, then not only would the deaths have been avoided but the thousands of Koreans, Chinese and allied prisoners who were in Nagasaki would not have been killed. There again the US is known for killing its own troops or those of its allies through friendly fire.

Of course the Japanese were training its population for defence of the Islands. This is what Britain did when threatened by Germany and is known as common practice in war.

The UK didn't train schoolkids as suicide bombers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This is completely inaccurate. Japan made no peace overtures to the allies. Where are you getting this shit? Japan put feelers out through it's embassy in Moscow, but the Russians refused to give them an audience. We of course knew it at the time because we had broken their diplomatic codes before the war even started. Their terms were not going to be acceptable even had they been able to make them. They did not want to be disarmed, they wanted no war crimes trials and they even wanted to keep most of the territory they had gained.

That's close enough for the revisionists to pretend the Japanese were ready to surrender.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There again to simply agree to a ceasefire and peace talks with the Japanese when these were requested a few months earlier would have saved more American and allied lives including its own citizens it killed in Nagasaki. Then of course the politicians needed some plausible sounding drivel to feed its masses to show how nuclear warfare as a means to test new weapons saves lives.

I don't believe I have ever read anything about a plausible attempt by the Japanese government to request a ceasefire or peace talks. Given the convoluted structure of the Japanese government and its military command, I don't think such a thing would have been possible, even if the Emperor himself wanted it. Hirohito had enough resistance to a surrender, after the second bomb. Why would it have been easier before?

The real worry, after exhausting our nuclear arsenal was that the Japanese would not surrender and truly fight to the last man. This would have left the Allies with no choice but to continue conventional warfare, while building more bombs. It was bad enough to kill so many civilians, but to kill the to no effect, would have left the Allies no choice but to continue with the invasion plans. This would have meant placating Stalin, which would have inevitably led to a partitioned Japan, just as was done with Germany.

I think he's sort-of on target here. There were "peace" feelers--but they were for a end to the fighting, not for a surrender.

 

[whichphilosophy]

The Japanese did want to surrender some months earlier as history shows. As you mentioned the Cities were being constantly bombed for the allies had control over land sea and air. A ceasefire was possible so that peace talks could begin. As clearly mentioned earlier, even with the unconditional surrender of Japan the allies soon backed down on removing Hirohito and ceased the pursuit of Japanese war criminals.

Therefore the ceasefire for peace talks was more a common sense action than a lesser evil.

Sun Tzu also stated: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

You don't seem to be able to understand the difference between ending the war without surrender and surrender.

- - - Updated - - -

This^^^

In the first place Truman as C in C would have been derelict in his duty to the soldiers, sailors and airmen if he didn't use the bombs and instead went on with the invasion. Military planners estimated a million US casualties and up to 100,000 deaths on our side and well over a million more Japanese deaths. What our planners did not realize was that the Japanese had been husbanding their aircraft and aviation fuel and had over 100,000 aircraft that were to be used as kamikazes against our invasion fleet. They were also training their civilians in combat using spears made of sticks.

To blame the US for it's tactics to end the war is asinine, almost as asinine as the Japanese decision to start a war against two major world powers when she was struggling in her war with a weak nation (China). People forget that the Japanese started the war and they started it for imperial purposes.

America has continued its involvement of its asininities into the 21st Century while sending troops to die in Vietnam and Iraq while also getting involved in Libya and Syria to name a few. At the same time it has racked up debts exceeding a trillion dollars.

If peace talks had occurred a few months earlier as the Japanese requested, then even more lives would have been saved. The Japanese had no place to go. The US wanted unconditional surrender but actually did not achieve this in the end. Hirohito and most war criminals were not prosecuted.

If there was a ceasefire earlier with Japan in response to its request for peace, then not only would the deaths have been avoided but the thousands of Koreans, Chinese and allied prisoners who were in Nagasaki would not have been killed. There again the US is known for killing its own troops or those of its allies through friendly fire.

Of course the Japanese were training its population for defence of the Islands. This is what Britain did when threatened by Germany and is known as common practice in war.

The UK didn't train schoolkids as suicide bombers.

Different armies will use different methods but they still trained their defence forces.

- - - Updated - - -

This is completely inaccurate. Japan made no peace overtures to the allies. Where are you getting this shit? Japan put feelers out through it's embassy in Moscow, but the Russians refused to give them an audience. We of course knew it at the time because we had broken their diplomatic codes before the war even started. Their terms were not going to be acceptable even had they been able to make them. They did not want to be disarmed, they wanted no war crimes trials and they even wanted to keep most of the territory they had gained.

That's close enough for the revisionists to pretend the Japanese were ready to surrender.

Ceasing hostilities, ending the war under a peace treaty may not seem like surrender as in John Wayne movie but it is a process to end a war without fighting to the last man standing.

 

[untermensche]

The UK didn't train schoolkids as suicide bombers.

A contingency of history.

Who knows what the British would have done in response to a successful German invasion.

 

[whichphilosophy]

The UK didn't train schoolkids as suicide bombers.

A contingency of history.

Who knows what the British would have done in response to a successful German invasion.

I the Germans had succeeded in an invasion of England it would have still been business as usual in the red light district of London's Soho area.

 

[whichphilosophy]

This is completely inaccurate. Japan made no peace overtures to the allies. Where are you getting this shit? Japan put feelers out through it's embassy in Moscow, but the Russians refused to give them an audience. We of course knew it at the time because we had broken their diplomatic codes before the war even started. Their terms were not going to be acceptable even had they been able to make them. They did not want to be disarmed, they wanted no war crimes trials and they even wanted to keep most of the territory they had gained.

That's close enough for the revisionists to pretend the Japanese were ready to surrender.

You are familiar with Asians in business and life. Even if he wants to deal he will try to make it look as if he is not that interested, when really he is.

 

[whichphilosophy]

If peace talks had occurred a few months earlier as the Japanese requested, then even more lives would have been saved. The Japanese had no place to go. The US wanted unconditional surrender but actually did not achieve this in the end. Hirohito and most war criminals were not prosecuted.

If there was a ceasefire earlier with Japan in response to its request for peace, then not only would the deaths have been avoided but the thousands of Koreans, Chinese and allied prisoners who were in Nagasaki would not have been killed. There again the US is known for killing its own troops or those of its allies through friendly fire.

This is completely inaccurate. Japan made no peace overtures to the allies. Where are you getting this shit? Japan put feelers out through it's embassy in Moscow, but the Russians refused to give them an audience. We of course knew it at the time because we had broken their diplomatic codes before the war even started. Their terms were not going to be acceptable even had they been able to make them. They did not want to be disarmed, they wanted no war crimes trials and they even wanted to keep most of the territory they had gained.

There is a lot of revisionism going on regarding this subject, has been since 1946, starting with Norman Cousins and Thomas K. Finletter who accused Truman of using the nuclear raids as a tool to keep the Russians in line, to Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, published in 2005. Hasegawa uses the favorite tactic of revisionist where he cherry-pick history for support of his revisionism. His work, like most revisionists has been discredited as most of his sources do not support his conclusions.

Don't get me wrong, as new information comes to light, history should be revised. After the death of Hirohito a lot of archived information in Japan was released causing a lot of revisionism in regards to not only Hirohito but as to what was going on in Japan during the final days before the surrender. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in this history read Sadao Asada's The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender––A Reconsideration.

Of course the Atomic Bomb caused Japan to surrender but had peace talks commenced even as early as May that year or before then a lot of lives would have been saved with just about the same result.

The following could have been picked up. However the allies wanted immediate unconditional terms and the Japanese like most Asians at the market wanted to haggle over the price of fish where also unofficial (where this is often officialy known but not stated as such)

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...ence/kent-csi/vol9no3/html/v09i3a06p_0001.htm
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
On 10 January the Japanese Emperor attended a secret council meeting during which someone dared to speak about peace feelers.3
The Emperor was informed that certain Japanese individuals have been attempting to interest the highest authority at source4 in mediating the Pacific War. The Emperor did not express any disapproval of these efforts.
Someone at the meeting declared that such activities might be a useful preparation for a time more opportune than the present. The Council was skeptical of mediation possibilities, evidently believing that only force of arms would settle the conflict. 17 January 1945
24 January 1945
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
On 17 January a conference, the substance of which is reported below, took place with the following people present:
Masahide Kanayama, Japanese representative at the Holy See
Giovani Montini, acting Secretary of State
Mgr. Domenico Tardini, President of the Pontifical Commission for Russia
Pio Rossignani, Private Secretary of the Pope
KANAYAMA: The pacifists in Japan have great faith in the Holy See. An attempt by the Holy See to initiate mediation would greatly encourage our pacifists, even if there should be no immediate concrete results.
MONTINI: It is clear to us that the gap between the viewpoints of the two belligerents is too wide to permit Papal mediation.
TARDINI: Japanese adherence to the tripartite pact seriously hurts the Japanese case in Allied countries. World opinion stigmatizes Japan as an aggressor, and even Soviet Russia concurs.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
An OSS representative has transmitted the following information, reportedly sent to the Vatican on 6 April8 by Lorenzo Tatewaki Toda, the Apostolic Delegate in Yokohama:
Tatewaki Toda, who is a member of a Japanese princely family and related to the Emperor, proposes to call on the Emperor in order to "comfort him with the certain hope that the Holy See will not abandon its attempt at mediation" of the war in the Pacific. Tatewaki Toda believes that the present is the most favorable moment to conquer the intransigence of the extreme militarists in the interests of a peaceful solution to the war. He promises as soon as possible to send the Holy See a set of conditions which it may judge acceptable to the Anglo-Americans, and he beseeches the Pope to pray that Japan's rulers may become convinced of the necessity of an honorable peace.
In Lisbon 31 May 1945

 

[arkirk]

WWII was an advance in the level of inhuman behavior government leaders in all countries involved became willing to indulge in for the sake of winning. I knew when I posted this OP, that the same chorus of promoters of war and destruction would get together and chant their mantra...their only mantra.."It was necessary to save lives." This is pure bullshit. We had already made it abundantly clear our forces were prepared to totally destroy the entire Japanese society...men, women, and children...EVEN IF THERE WAS NO NUKE. The allies had already firebombed city after city in Japan and had to withhold bombs from a few select cities for their experiment in human incineration...men, women, and children. Japan already knew that blitzkrieg was on the way and also the Russians.

It is no surprise that whatever inhumane action is selected or suggested by a guy with a brass hat in the American military, some of us will always feel such actions are "necessary." It is either paranoia or just plain racial hatred. It has been that way for thousands of years and modern technology has done nothing to change that...so we watch guys like Obama and Trump rise in popularity because they are somehow "hip enough" to know those worthless people on the other side of the globe need us to either rule them or exterminate them. It is the same mentality that seeks to grind the Palestinians in Gaza to dust. This pernicious world view is usually held by people who must have all the latest security and wall themselves in from the rest of society. Weapons of mass destruction are the tools of cowardly fools with no sense of human rights. That is why I view the words of Obama at Hiroshima nothing but vapors...suggesting no real way forward to disarmament.

 

[Tristan Scott]

This is completely inaccurate. Japan made no peace overtures to the allies. Where are you getting this shit? Japan put feelers out through it's embassy in Moscow, but the Russians refused to give them an audience. We of course knew it at the time because we had broken their diplomatic codes before the war even started. Their terms were not going to be acceptable even had they been able to make them. They did not want to be disarmed, they wanted no war crimes trials and they even wanted to keep most of the territory they had gained.

There is a lot of revisionism going on regarding this subject, has been since 1946, starting with Norman Cousins and Thomas K. Finletter who accused Truman of using the nuclear raids as a tool to keep the Russians in line, to Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, published in 2005. Hasegawa uses the favorite tactic of revisionist where he cherry-pick history for support of his revisionism. His work, like most revisionists has been discredited as most of his sources do not support his conclusions.

Don't get me wrong, as new information comes to light, history should be revised. After the death of Hirohito a lot of archived information in Japan was released causing a lot of revisionism in regards to not only Hirohito but as to what was going on in Japan during the final days before the surrender. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in this history read Sadao Asada's The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender––A Reconsideration.

Of course the Atomic Bomb caused Japan to surrender but had peace talks commenced even as early as May that year or before then a lot of lives would have been saved with just about the same result.

The following could have been picked up. However the allies wanted immediate unconditional terms and the Japanese like most Asians at the market wanted to haggle over the price of fish where also unofficial (where this is often officialy known but not stated as such)

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...ence/kent-csi/vol9no3/html/v09i3a06p_0001.htm
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
On 10 January the Japanese Emperor attended a secret council meeting during which someone dared to speak about peace feelers.3
The Emperor was informed that certain Japanese individuals have been attempting to interest the highest authority at source4 in mediating the Pacific War. The Emperor did not express any disapproval of these efforts.
Someone at the meeting declared that such activities might be a useful preparation for a time more opportune than the present. The Council was skeptical of mediation possibilities, evidently believing that only force of arms would settle the conflict. 17 January 1945
24 January 1945
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
On 17 January a conference, the substance of which is reported below, took place with the following people present:
Masahide Kanayama, Japanese representative at the Holy See
Giovani Montini, acting Secretary of State
Mgr. Domenico Tardini, President of the Pontifical Commission for Russia
Pio Rossignani, Private Secretary of the Pope
KANAYAMA: The pacifists in Japan have great faith in the Holy See. An attempt by the Holy See to initiate mediation would greatly encourage our pacifists, even if there should be no immediate concrete results.
MONTINI: It is clear to us that the gap between the viewpoints of the two belligerents is too wide to permit Papal mediation.
TARDINI: Japanese adherence to the tripartite pact seriously hurts the Japanese case in Allied countries. World opinion stigmatizes Japan as an aggressor, and even Soviet Russia concurs.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
An OSS representative has transmitted the following information, reportedly sent to the Vatican on 6 April8 by Lorenzo Tatewaki Toda, the Apostolic Delegate in Yokohama:
Tatewaki Toda, who is a member of a Japanese princely family and related to the Emperor, proposes to call on the Emperor in order to "comfort him with the certain hope that the Holy See will not abandon its attempt at mediation" of the war in the Pacific. Tatewaki Toda believes that the present is the most favorable moment to conquer the intransigence of the extreme militarists in the interests of a peaceful solution to the war. He promises as soon as possible to send the Holy See a set of conditions which it may judge acceptable to the Anglo-Americans, and he beseeches the Pope to pray that Japan's rulers may become convinced of the necessity of an honorable peace.
In Lisbon 31 May 1945

As I said it is completely inaccurate to say that Japan made peace overtures to the allies. The talks with the Vatican went no-where mostly because there was no official followthrough on the part of Japan. We know from Japanese records that there was no followthrough because the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, AKA the Big Six, was deeply divided over which course to take to end the war. The three civilian members wanted to attempt a negotiated peace while the three military members wanted to continue the war. Even the Emperor as late as April , '45 when asked if he thought it was time for a negotiated peace he was still holding out for a "Decisive victory". The division of the big six continued until late into the night after the bombing of Nagasaki when the Emperor broke the impasse by ordering a surrender. Even though a handful of lower ranking officers in the army refused to accept the decision and unsuccessfully attempted a coup a few days later, General Anami, the army representative on the big six finally accepted the order. He rationalized that face could be saved because instead of being defeated in the field of battle they were defeated by technology.

It also should be noted that because of the vicious nature of the war with Japan, and because of the unwarranted attack on Pearl Harbor, the American people would have accepted nothing less that an unconditional surrender. The fact that we were open to allowing the Emperor to keep his position was signaled to the Japanese through Truman's declaration following Potsdam when though he enumerated what unconditional surrender meant; loss of territory, total disarmament, answering for war crimes, etc, he pointedly did not mention the fate of the Emperor. This was not lost on the Japanese and is on record as having been discussed during a Big Six meeting. But even with that information the Big Six still could not come to agreement on surrender.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Of course the Atomic Bomb caused Japan to surrender but had peace talks commenced even as early as May that year or before then a lot of lives would have been saved with just about the same result.

The following could have been picked up. However the allies wanted immediate unconditional terms and the Japanese like most Asians at the market wanted to haggle over the price of fish where also unofficial (where this is often officialy known but not stated as such)

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...ence/kent-csi/vol9no3/html/v09i3a06p_0001.htm
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
On 10 January the Japanese Emperor attended a secret council meeting during which someone dared to speak about peace feelers.3
The Emperor was informed that certain Japanese individuals have been attempting to interest the highest authority at source4 in mediating the Pacific War. The Emperor did not express any disapproval of these efforts.
Someone at the meeting declared that such activities might be a useful preparation for a time more opportune than the present. The Council was skeptical of mediation possibilities, evidently believing that only force of arms would settle the conflict. 17 January 1945
24 January 1945
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
On 17 January a conference, the substance of which is reported below, took place with the following people present:
Masahide Kanayama, Japanese representative at the Holy See
Giovani Montini, acting Secretary of State
Mgr. Domenico Tardini, President of the Pontifical Commission for Russia
Pio Rossignani, Private Secretary of the Pope
KANAYAMA: The pacifists in Japan have great faith in the Holy See. An attempt by the Holy See to initiate mediation would greatly encourage our pacifists, even if there should be no immediate concrete results.
MONTINI: It is clear to us that the gap between the viewpoints of the two belligerents is too wide to permit Papal mediation.
TARDINI: Japanese adherence to the tripartite pact seriously hurts the Japanese case in Allied countries. World opinion stigmatizes Japan as an aggressor, and even Soviet Russia concurs.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
An OSS representative has transmitted the following information, reportedly sent to the Vatican on 6 April8 by Lorenzo Tatewaki Toda, the Apostolic Delegate in Yokohama:
Tatewaki Toda, who is a member of a Japanese princely family and related to the Emperor, proposes to call on the Emperor in order to "comfort him with the certain hope that the Holy See will not abandon its attempt at mediation" of the war in the Pacific. Tatewaki Toda believes that the present is the most favorable moment to conquer the intransigence of the extreme militarists in the interests of a peaceful solution to the war. He promises as soon as possible to send the Holy See a set of conditions which it may judge acceptable to the Anglo-Americans, and he beseeches the Pope to pray that Japan's rulers may become convinced of the necessity of an honorable peace.
In Lisbon 31 May 1945

As I said it is completely inaccurate to say that Japan made peace overtures to the allies. The talks with the Vatican went no-where mostly because there was no official followthrough on the part of Japan. We know from Japanese records that there was no followthrough because the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, AKA the Big Six, was deeply divided over which course to take to end the war. The three civilian members wanted to attempt a negotiated peace while the three military members wanted to continue the war. Even the Emperor as late as April , '45 when asked if he thought it was time for a negotiated peace he was still holding out for a "Decisive victory". The division of the big six continued until late into the night after the bombing of Nagasaki when the Emperor broke the impasse by ordering a surrender. Even though a handful of lower ranking officers in the army refused to accept the decision and unsuccessfully attempted a coup a few days later, General Anami, the army representative on the big six finally accepted the order. He rationalized that face could be saved because instead of being defeated in the field of battle they were defeated by technology.

It also should be noted that because of the vicious nature of the war with Japan, and because of the unwarranted attack on Pearl Harbor, the American people would have accepted nothing less that an unconditional surrender. The fact that we were open to allowing the Emperor to keep his position was signaled to the Japanese through Truman's declaration following Potsdam when though he enumerated what unconditional surrender meant; loss of territory, total disarmament, answering for war crimes, etc, he pointedly did not mention the fate of the Emperor. This was not lost on the Japanese and is on record as having been discussed during a Big Six meeting. But even with that information the Big Six still could not come to agreement on surrender.

The Japanese exercised what we have known for thousands of years were initiations for peace. Again all negotiations would be complex with each party trying to retain certain benefits or salvage what they can. Every party will have a different view which is why we have peace talks.

The line fed to the West that the Nuclear bomb by taking lives really saved more lives when in fact early peace talks were ignored, thus resulting in hundreds of thousands of lives prior to and during drops on Hiroshima followed by Nagasaki. The peace talks may have also helped the allies to also come to an agreement among themselves.

 

[arkirk]

Of course the Atomic Bomb caused Japan to surrender but had peace talks commenced even as early as May that year or before then a lot of lives would have been saved with just about the same result.

The following could have been picked up. However the allies wanted immediate unconditional terms and the Japanese like most Asians at the market wanted to haggle over the price of fish where also unofficial (where this is often officialy known but not stated as such)

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...ence/kent-csi/vol9no3/html/v09i3a06p_0001.htm
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
On 10 January the Japanese Emperor attended a secret council meeting during which someone dared to speak about peace feelers.3
The Emperor was informed that certain Japanese individuals have been attempting to interest the highest authority at source4 in mediating the Pacific War. The Emperor did not express any disapproval of these efforts.
Someone at the meeting declared that such activities might be a useful preparation for a time more opportune than the present. The Council was skeptical of mediation possibilities, evidently believing that only force of arms would settle the conflict. 17 January 1945
24 January 1945
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
On 17 January a conference, the substance of which is reported below, took place with the following people present:
Masahide Kanayama, Japanese representative at the Holy See
Giovani Montini, acting Secretary of State
Mgr. Domenico Tardini, President of the Pontifical Commission for Russia
Pio Rossignani, Private Secretary of the Pope
KANAYAMA: The pacifists in Japan have great faith in the Holy See. An attempt by the Holy See to initiate mediation would greatly encourage our pacifists, even if there should be no immediate concrete results.
MONTINI: It is clear to us that the gap between the viewpoints of the two belligerents is too wide to permit Papal mediation.
TARDINI: Japanese adherence to the tripartite pact seriously hurts the Japanese case in Allied countries. World opinion stigmatizes Japan as an aggressor, and even Soviet Russia concurs.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
An OSS representative has transmitted the following information, reportedly sent to the Vatican on 6 April8 by Lorenzo Tatewaki Toda, the Apostolic Delegate in Yokohama:
Tatewaki Toda, who is a member of a Japanese princely family and related to the Emperor, proposes to call on the Emperor in order to "comfort him with the certain hope that the Holy See will not abandon its attempt at mediation" of the war in the Pacific. Tatewaki Toda believes that the present is the most favorable moment to conquer the intransigence of the extreme militarists in the interests of a peaceful solution to the war. He promises as soon as possible to send the Holy See a set of conditions which it may judge acceptable to the Anglo-Americans, and he beseeches the Pope to pray that Japan's rulers may become convinced of the necessity of an honorable peace.
In Lisbon 31 May 1945

As I said it is completely inaccurate to say that Japan made peace overtures to the allies. The talks with the Vatican went no-where mostly because there was no official followthrough on the part of Japan. We know from Japanese records that there was no followthrough because the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, AKA the Big Six, was deeply divided over which course to take to end the war. The three civilian members wanted to attempt a negotiated peace while the three military members wanted to continue the war. Even the Emperor as late as April , '45 when asked if he thought it was time for a negotiated peace he was still holding out for a "Decisive victory". The division of the big six continued until late into the night after the bombing of Nagasaki when the Emperor broke the impasse by ordering a surrender. Even though a handful of lower ranking officers in the army refused to accept the decision and unsuccessfully attempted a coup a few days later, General Anami, the army representative on the big six finally accepted the order. He rationalized that face could be saved because instead of being defeated in the field of battle they were defeated by technology.

It also should be noted that because of the vicious nature of the war with Japan, and because of the unwarranted attack on Pearl Harbor, the American people would have accepted nothing less that an unconditional surrender. The fact that we were open to allowing the Emperor to keep his position was signaled to the Japanese through Truman's declaration following Potsdam when though he enumerated what unconditional surrender meant; loss of territory, total disarmament, answering for war crimes, etc, he pointedly did not mention the fate of the Emperor. This was not lost on the Japanese and is on record as having been discussed during a Big Six meeting. But even with that information the Big Six still could not come to agreement on surrender.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was NOT AN ATTACK ON A CIVILIAN POPULATION. Those were battleships and other warships that were attacked on that day. These was a lot of firepower stationed in Hawaii at the time. Do you think this was for no purpose? These huge battleships poised at the ready...to sail to Japan or perhaps run the Japanese out of their empire and make it an American one. General Lemay's firebomb attack on the entire population of Japan was an animal of a different sort. It was NOT AT THAT TIME any longer an escalation of war into the killing of civilians as the U.S. had already firebombed big cities in Europe. We as a species have become so virulently violent that we must abandon the politics of aggression. We need to acknowledge it and get to work on that...not go to Japan and tell them they deserved it and we needed it and give up hope on nukes going away in Obama's lifetime. We really don't have the time for foot dragging on the nuclear disarmament issue.

 

[Ford]

The attack on Pearl Harbor was NOT AN ATTACK ON A CIVILIAN POPULATION.

Well thank goodness the Japanese never attacked civilians, huh?

 

[Keith&Co.]

The attack on Pearl Harbor was NOT AN ATTACK ON A CIVILIAN POPULATION.

No, just a lot of guys who weren't on a wartime footing, who were looking forward to Christmas stand-down. So, tactically unwarranted. But strategically sound for the purpose of the Japanese's goals of disabusing American interference in their war.

Which also applies to the atomic bombings. Tactically unwarranted, but strategically sound for the purpose of ending the war.

 

[arkirk]

The attack on Pearl Harbor was NOT AN ATTACK ON A CIVILIAN POPULATION.

No, just a lot of guys who weren't on a wartime footing, who were looking forward to Christmas stand-down. So, tactically unwarranted. But strategically sound for the purpose of the Japanese's goals of disabusing American interference in their war.

Which also applies to the atomic bombings. Tactically unwarranted, but strategically sound for the purpose of ending the war.

Those were battleships in Pearl Harbor, not cruise ships. If they weren't there, there would not have been an attack. Use your head, the U.S. was competing with Japan for control of the Pacific long before the war started. The U.S. was building its own trade empire in the Pacific and that is why the battleships were in Pearl Harbor. There undoubtably were U.S. strategic plans to limit the Japanese empire in the Pacific. It was still a sneak attack, though there is controversy over whether the Roosevelt administration had prior knowledge of it. When it comes to WWII the last of the gloves came off in the struggle for world domination. The U.N. tried to walk it back after the conclusion of the war, but the truth is there is no international sanction in place that can be used against a country that engages in wars of aggression that means anything in reality. It is up to the civilian population to the take down the military threats we have allowed to grow in our respective countries since Hitler and Truman.

 

[SimpleDon]

The object of any military action is to convince the enemy that it is a bad idea to continue fighting. This make war very similar to a bar fight.

In addition to inflicting pain on the enemy, one has to reduce one's own pain as much as possible. There is validity to the claim that two atom bombs saved the lives of countless US soldiers and Japanese civilians.

It's easy to judge in 21st century hindsight and declare things to be wrong. That does not make them any less necessary. Sorry.

This^^^

In the first place Truman as C in C would have been derelict in his duty to the soldiers, sailors and airmen if he didn't use the bombs and instead went on with the invasion. Military planners estimated a million US casualties and up to 100,000 deaths on our side and well over a million more Japanese deaths. What our planners did not realize was that the Japanese had been husbanding their aircraft and aviation fuel and had over 100,000 aircraft that were to be used as kamikazes against our invasion fleet. They were also training their civilians in combat using spears made of sticks.

To blame the US for it's tactics to end the war is asinine, almost as asinine as the Japanese decision to start a war against two major world powers when she was struggling in her war with a weak nation (China). People forget that the Japanese started the war and they started it for imperial purposes.

This ^^^ also. I quite happy that they dropped the two bombs, my father was in the US Navy and was training to pilot an amphibious amphtrac landing craft for the invasion of Japan. They expected 90% casualties in the invasion forces.

 

[Keith&Co.]

No, just a lot of guys who weren't on a wartime footing, who were looking forward to Christmas stand-down. So, tactically unwarranted. But strategically sound for the purpose of the Japanese's goals of disabusing American interference in their war.

Which also applies to the atomic bombings. Tactically unwarranted, but strategically sound for the purpose of ending the war.

Those were battleships in Pearl Harbor, not cruise ships. If they weren't there, there would not have been an attack.

Sure. But it was still an unwarranted attack, coming as it did before any declaration of war.

Use your head,

Fuck off.

the U.S. was competing with Japan for control of the Pacific long before the war started. The U.S. was building its own trade empire in the Pacific and that is why the battleships were in Pearl Harbor.

And Japan chose to change the 'competition' from trade to dropping bombs... In an unwarranted attack.

There undoubtably were U.S. strategic plans to limit the Japanese empire in the Pacific.

'Undoubtable' plans are not a precedent for bombing.

It was still a sneak attack, though there is controversy over whether the Roosevelt administration had prior knowledge of it. When it comes to WWII the last of the gloves came off in the struggle for world domination.

And Japan took off the gloves first.
And acted surprised that it didn't cow us into abandoning the Pacific.
And reaped what they sowed in a strategic exchange.

You can't hold that the Japanese had reasons for what they did in an act of aggression and deny that the US also had reasons for what they did in retaliation. Well, you CAN hold to that idea, i suppose. You just look silly.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It applies to any war

Not really.
IT doesn't apply if we're not looking to hold the lands of the opposing side as an expansion of our own empire.
If what we want is for htem to stop shooting at us, and to feel secure that they're not in a position to threaten us again, then scorching the earth to remove them is perfectly valid and 'taking them intact' is not a consideration.

 

[Tristan Scott]

WWII was an advance in the level of inhuman behavior government leaders in all countries involved became willing to indulge in for the sake of winning. I knew when I posted this OP, that the same chorus of promoters of war and destruction would get together and chant their mantra...their only mantra.."It was necessary to save lives." This is pure bullshit. We had already made it abundantly clear our forces were prepared to totally destroy the entire Japanese society...men, women, and children...EVEN IF THERE WAS NO NUKE. The allies had already firebombed city after city in Japan and had to withhold bombs from a few select cities for their experiment in human incineration...men, women, and children. Japan already knew that blitzkrieg was on the way and also the Russians.

It is no surprise that whatever inhumane action is selected or suggested by a guy with a brass hat in the American military, some of us will always feel such actions are "necessary." It is either paranoia or just plain racial hatred. It has been that way for thousands of years and modern technology has done nothing to change that...so we watch guys like Obama and Trump rise in popularity because they are somehow "hip enough" to know those worthless people on the other side of the globe need us to either rule them or exterminate them. It is the same mentality that seeks to grind the Palestinians in Gaza to dust. This pernicious world view is usually held by people who must have all the latest security and wall themselves in from the rest of society. Weapons of mass destruction are the tools of cowardly fools with no sense of human rights. That is why I view the words of Obama at Hiroshima nothing but vapors...suggesting no real way forward to disarmament.

History is what it is. What happened happened. The US has plenty to answer for when it comes to war, but WWII was not on us. Had Europe taken our advice after WWI, WWII would most likely not have happened and 50 million people's lives would not have been snuffed out. The US didn't ask for the war and certainly wasn't prepared for it.

As to the middle east, the situation there was created by the west, chiefly Britain and the US. Would you now have them turn away from the mess they created. That would be like me doing something stupid that catches my neighbors house on fire, then refusing to help him put the fire out.

 

[untermensche]

And Japan took off the gloves first.

How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan’s Attack on Pearl Harbor

Accordingly, the Roosevelt administration, while curtly dismissing Japanese diplomatic overtures to harmonize relations, imposed a series of increasingly stringent economic sanctions on Japan. In 1939 the United States terminated the 1911 commercial treaty with Japan. “On July 2, 1940, Roosevelt signed the Export Control Act, authorizing the President to license or prohibit the export of essential defense materials.” Under this authority, “[o]n July 31, exports of aviation motor fuels and lubricants and No. 1 heavy melting iron and steel scrap were restricted.” Next, in a move aimed at Japan, Roosevelt slapped an embargo, effective October 16, “on all exports of scrap iron and steel to destinations other than Britain and the nations of the Western Hemisphere.” Finally, on July 26, 1941, Roosevelt “froze Japanese assets in the United States, thus bringing commercial relations between the nations to an effective end. One week later Roosevelt embargoed the export of such grades of oil as still were in commercial flow to Japan.”[2] The British and the Dutch followed suit, embargoing exports to Japan from their colonies in southeast Asia.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1930