http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4727&Itemid=201
The Myths Surrounding Hiroshima
Written by Victor Fic
Friday, 03 August 2012
The original mushroom cloud
Was the use of nuclear weapons against Japan justified? An author says yes
The US bombing of Hiroshima ranks as one of history's greatest
controversies. Dennis Giangreco, former editor of Military Review, is also the
award winning author of Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall the Invasion of Japan,
1945-1947. His path breaking research into Japanese defense preparations leads
him to defend the atomic strike. He offers this exclusive interview to Asia
Sentinel.
Q. Mr. Giangreco, please summarize the arguments of the critics of
President Harry Truman over the bombing.
Actually, they have changed somewhat over time. Originally, his critics
maintained that Japan would have soon surrendered even without the atomic bombs
or the Soviet entry into the war on August 8 1945. And, more importantly, that
Truman knew this but bombed Japan to intimidate the Soviets, not save lives
during a bloody invasion --- that Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked America's
opening shots in the Cold War.
After the death of Japanese Emperor Hirohito in 1989 and the very public
struggle over how to exhibit the Enola Gay bomber that hit Hiroshima at the
National Air and Space Museum in Washington, a flood of documents emerged from
archives on both sides of the Pacific.
They revealed that there was no compelling evidence to support any of
these theories. In fact, there was overwhelming documentary evidence
demonstrating the opposite. Truman had meant exactly what he said: that the
bombs were used to bring a terrible, brutal war to a swift, and decisive
conclusion.
Q. What did you find regarding how the battle of Okinawa in April-June
1945 caused US war planners to revise upward projected battle deaths?
American planners for the invasion of Japan as far back as the summer of
1944 produced a worst-case scenario of "half a million American lives and many
times that number wounded." The Japanese Imperial Army's increased efficiency
at killing Americans, particularly on Okinawa, demonstrated to US Secretary of
War Henry Stimson and many Pentagon planners that the worst case was a real
possibility. This begged a question. The invasion of Japan was scheduled for
fall 1945. If the situation on Okinawa -- fully half a year before the invasion
-- was movng toward the original worse case scenario, was there an even worse
case, unanticipated death toll? This notion alarmed Stimson. He ordered a
multifaceted examination of the US Army's manpower and training requirements.
Shortly before the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, this resulted in an ominous
warning: "We shall probably have to kill at least 5 to 10 million Japanese
[and] this might cost us between 1.7 and 4 million casualties including 400,000
and 800,000 killed."
Q. Did Truman see these figures?
Yes. But by then he also knew the secret of the atom bomb. At the June
1945 White House meeting where he gave the go-ahead for the invasion of Japan,
he expressed hope "that there was a possibility of preventing an Okinawa from
one end of Japan to the other."
Q. What new documents about Japan did you examine and where did you find
them?
I was long dissatisfied with the cursory examinations of US plans for the
assault on Japan --- southern Kyushu then the Tokyo area -- and especially with
the nearly total disinterest in Japan's well developed efforts to repel the US
invaders. Extensive holdings on both sides' preparations exist in various
American national and military archives including our Command and General Staff
College. I was determined to produce an analysis that gave as much weight as
possible to the efforts of the Japanese Imperial forces to defend.
Q. What did you learn about the Japanese defense plans and how do they
tie in to the high death toll predictions?
Japanese planners had correctly deduced when and where the invasion
troops were going to land, providing them a priceless advantage in the type of
battles that they were going to force the Americans to fight. The land, air,
and sea, elements wielded by General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester
Nimitz were tremendously powerful --- and amphibious warfare had been developed
into an art. But as evidenced by the casualty ratios that emerged from Iwo Jima
and Okinawa, the Japanese were very strong.
Q. Some insist that if Washington had softened its demand that Japan
surrender unconditionally, that would have obviated the need to use the atomic
bomb --- your comment?
The actions of the Japanese government falsifies this. The militarists
were certain that they could so bloody the invading Americans that the they
would settle for an armistice with the Japanese Emperor remaining on the throne
and much of the Empire left intact. Remember, even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki
were destroyed in a flash and Soviet entry into the war, the Emperor's most
senior military advisors counselled emphatically against surrender. They
maintained that combat on the Japanese Home Islands would decide the issue --
in Japan's favor. These same leaders, and, most importantly, War Minister
Korecheika Anami, subsequently acquiesced to the Emperor's wishes to surrender
upon receiving clear, heartfelt direction from Hirohito himself.
It was apparent that continued use of the atom bomb would deny them the
murderous "decisive battle" that held out at least some prospect of a
settlement on their own terms. After the news of the Nagasaki blast was
announced during a meeting of the Supreme War Council, Prime Minister Kentaro
Suzuki said "the United States, instead of staging the invasion, will keep on
dropping atomic bombs."
Q. So, is there any solid proof that Japan was on the verge of surrender
and that unconditional surrender was responsible for prolonging the war?
No. Although analysts Herbert Bix and Sadao Asada approached the subject
from somewhat different perspectives, they have conclusively demonstrated that
it was the unrealistic and incompetent actions of Japan's leaders that caused
the war to continue.
Q. If the US had invaded, would Washington have used atomic bombs?
The US Army's chief of staff, General George C. Marshall, was a strong
proponent of the use of tactical nuclear weapons and poison gas. If the
Japanese did not surrender even the US use the atomic bomb to destroy the four
cities on the approved target list, he was going to move to retain all
subsequent bomb production for tactical, instead of strategic, use. When
Emperor Hirohito broadcast the Imperial Rescript for surrender on August 15,
American plans were already underway to use approximately nine bombs to support
the three invasion sites on Kyushu and approaches to the area.
This would have amounted to six nuclear detonations in a tightly packed,
triangular zone measuring 65 x 40 x 45 miles with up to three more blasts
within this area or points to the north affecting millions of Japanese on
Kyushu and Shikoku and, ironically, millions of Americans on Kyushu and the
Philippine Sea.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
