Original Child Bomb: What We Talk About When We Talk About The Bomb (Part 4)

This is a continuation of a short history of the decision to drop the bomb. The previous section, about the saturation bombing campaign as a precursor to dropping the atomic bomb, can be found below (part 3). 


The first part in the series can be found here (part 1). The second can be found here (part 2).

The Soviet Angle

The Soviet Union had promised to enter the Pacific War three months after victory in Europe. That would be mid-August. The Allies knew that the Japanese High Command feared this happening - since the Soviet army was only, by all calculations, ten days away from Tokyo.

Stalin

After the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima two days went by before the Japanese High Command convened. Despite the strange communiques to the command about the power of the bomb and its devastation, the command did not convene immediately to discuss surrender. What was another city destroyed to them? They were only interested in a surrender that maintained the imperial system. The saturation bombing had been going on for five months. The callousness that had been created by the massive bombing campaign, that had gone into the decision to drop the bomb, existed with the military on both sides. 

But then, on August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. The High Command convened six hours after hearing this news. (Five Myths of Nuclear Weapons, Ward Wilson, 2013, p 31) "In a careful analysis of Japanese records between August 6 and August 17, the historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa found only two statements (out of twelve) referring to the impact of the bombs alone. The rest mentioned bombs and Soviet action or Soviet action alone." (Dower, 243) 

It is not that the bomb had NO EFFECT, it is that it was not the ONLY thing that ended the war. This is important - because the myth of the bomb being solely responsible for ending the war gave the US military free reign (for four decades) in creating and building a nuclear arsenal and using overwhelming air power in almost every conflict.

"Many other high-ranking Japanese, including the most militant diehards, regarded the Soviet attack as the true tipping point, sufficient in itself to prompt immediate surrender." (Dower, 242)

Red Army entering Berlin, 1945

It wasn't only the Japanese that feared the Soviet Union. The US had had a fearful eye on the Red Army as possibly the only threat to postwar world US hegemony since the middle of the war. General Groves, the military head of the Manhattan Project, stated this in sworn testimony: "I think it's important to state…I think it is well known - that there was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of this project (September 1942), any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy and that the project was conducted on that basis. I didn't go along with the attitude of the country as a whole that Russia was a gallant ally. I always had suspicions and the project was conducted on that basis. Of course, that was so reported to the President." (Dower, p 246; Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p 173; Groves' memoir, Now It Can Be Told, p 132, 141)

It's a cliché now, but it's still true. The dropping of the atomic bombs were not the last shots fired in WWII, but the first shots fired in the Cold War. It was very much a show of force, not against Japan, but directed at Stalin. They also wanted the war to end before the Soviet Union made claims on Japanese territory. The US did not want to share occupation duties with the communists in Japan as they were forced to do in Europe.

The Angle of Partisan Politics

 Another angle that is less talked about is the angle of partisan politics. The Manhattan Project had cost over a trillion dollars. This is in terms of the economy of the 1940's. It's an astronomical sum. Many people around President Truman were worried that if the bomb was not used, the opposing party (The Republicans) could point at this seemingly useless boondoggle and cry "Foul! You wasted taxpayer's money in a time of war! For what?"

Byrnes, Cover of Time, September 1945

Also, there was the question of continued research. James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State at the time, and member of the Interim Committee said: "How would you get Congress to appropriate money for atomic energy research if you do not show results for the money which has been spent already?" (Dower, p 250)

So, "using the atomic bombs as flamboyantly as possible…complemented this agenda but also introduced one by helping to ensure broad support for a post-hostilities commitment to developing nuclear energy."(Dower, p 245)

(A side note: The Franck Report referred to this political consideration as a warning: "Congress and the American public will demand a return for their money.")

It is important to understand that these politicians allowed partisan politics to help make the decision to drop the bomb for them. Instead of thinking "shame, shame" (what's the point?), for me, one question arises: how can we leave the production and possible use of these weapons to partisan politics? Adding to that, another question: how can we leave the decisions on the use of something that can annihilate the world to any group of human beings? The power is too great, too frightening, for anyone to handle. Partisan politics and individual flaws versus hundreds of thousands of lives?

Aftermath and Culpability

So, we've gone over the same ground that historians have been plowing for the last seventy years, and found some of the same old truths: that a good part of the decision to drop the bomb was to end the war quickly (before the Soviets had a chance to invade), intimidating the Soviet Union, and preempting partisan political criticism at home.

What I find missing from the story is that the Japanese High Command were culpable in helping maintain the myth that the bomb was what made them capitulate. Many in the military and the government commented that the Soviet entry AND the use of the bombs were "in a sense, a gift from the gods "(Hirohito and the making of modern Japan, Herbert P. Bix, 2000, 509-10). By pointing out that they were overwhelmed, they could surrender unconditionally with their honor intact. And the American military could point to their statements about the power of the weapon to bear up the myth that the bomb was the decisive factor in ending the war.

Reliance on Overwhelming Force: 
Legacy of Death & Ashes

It is sad that the US military and the culture in general still relies on this outdated story of the bomb - as the triumph of overwhelming force - as the truth of how WWII ended. The many threads that led to the end provides a much more complicated picture (I didn't even begin to crack the surface). The US continues this strategy of overwhelming force to this day in conventional terms (saturation bombing, drones, shock and awe), along with the constant background threat of nuclear annihilation.

But how has the use of overwhelming force worked in the last seventy years? 

It has been estimated that 667,557 tons of bombs (including 32,557 tons of napalm) were dropped on Korea (The Korean War: a history, Bruce Cumings, Modern Library, 2010, p 159) Was the US victorious? No.

The estimate for bombs dropped on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos by US forces is somewhere around 7 million tons - 3 1/2 times the tonnage dropped in all of WWII (Micheal Clodfelter, Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1792—1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 1995, p. 225) (See also, List of Bombs dropped in the Vietnam War/Wikipedia) The US lost the war in Vietnam. 

And this, from Nick Turse, Senior Editor/Alternet, about bombs dropped over Iraq: "In 1991, the United States unleashed a bombing campaign of staggering proportions against Iraq: 120,000 sorties were launched and 265,000 bombs dropped. From then on, the missions never stopped. From 1991 to 2003, the U.S. and its allies conducted a low-level air war to enforce no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, while attacking Iraq’s air defenses and other targets. In February 2003, the U.S. would again conduct a blistering “shock and awe” campaign and, by mid-April, Iraq had been subjected to 41,000 sorties and 27,000 bombs dropped. The U.S. air war would continue on as, year after year, U.S. planes attacked targets, killing enemy fighters and civilians alike."  (Nick Turse/Alternet, November 14, 2011) Iraq is in chaos. No one won anything. 

The US is in its seventeenth year of fighting in Afghanistan. I could not find the statistics for tonnage of bombs dropped on Afghanistan during the US' seventeen year war there, but in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. As of this writing, I have no idea what the "Trump strategy" will be - but these strategies are less about who sits behind the desk in the oval office and more about groupthink and habit in the Pentagon. So, we can probably expect more of the same.  

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Bombs:
Civilian Deaths

What I've failed to mention when citing all these statistics for bomb tonnage dropped is the grotesque and incalculable tragedy of civilian deaths. The estimated Korean civilian deaths in the Korean War is a staggering 2,730,000 (not all from falling bombs, obviously). The estimate for the Vietnam War is an equally horrifying two million. (Civilian Casualty Ratio/Wikipedia) Two million people! (For civilian dead in Iraq, see Iraq Body Count.) 

Can you process that in terms of your own culture, your own country? How have these staggering numbers, including the numbers for deaths with only one bomb (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) do in terms of numbing us to horrors suffered now, on a daily basis, in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Yemen, all over the world, simply because the numbers are smaller?

Hiroshima 

 We need to end this legacy of the use of overwhelming force. Who has benefited from this? The only answer I can come up with is - a few military careers and those corporations who produce the machinery of war.  

I end this long section with some wise words from an Afghan soldier: “We know from the past 40 years that bullets don’t stop war.” (The War America Can't Win: how the Taliban is regaining control in Afghanistan, The Guardian, August 3, 2017)

Next: 
Environmental Disaster, Economic Devastation & The New Nuclear Race (mini-nukes)

Hiroshima radiation burn victim

Research that asks questions about the role of the Bomb 
in ending the war:

Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank

Japan in War and Peace (Selected Essays) by John W. Dower

Hirohito and the making of modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix

Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa

Other Resources:

Cultures of War by John W. Dower

Five myths about Nuclear Weapons by Ward Wilson

The Violent American Century by John W. Dower

A History of Bombing by Sven Lindqvist 

The Deaths of Others: The fate of civilians in America's wars  
by John Tirman


Article from the NY Times (2012): 
Why do we ignore the civilians killed in American wars?

Original Child Bomb: What We Talk About When We Talk About The Bomb (Part 3)

Today is the 72nd Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. This is the third section of the series, Original Child Bomb, some of which explores why it's important to acknowledge this anniversary each year. The past is present. The decision-making process that led to the dropping of the bomb has had a direct influence on both conventional US military strategy and US views about its nuclear arsenal. 

The first part in the series can be found here (part 1). The second can be found here (part 2).

The Conventional Narrative

August 6th, 1945: the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved countless lives.

This is the story we in the US are continually told: because of the fierce and almost suicidal fighting on Okinawa by the Japanese (true), and the appearance of kamikaze pilots in the war at sea (true), many in the Pentagon assumed that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would cost the lives of up to a million US soldiers. The story goes on to say that, because the US made the decision to drop two atomic bombs, Japan immediately surrendered - saving countless US and Japanese lives. As Ward Wilson said in Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2013): "If nuclear weapons were a religion, Hiroshima would be the first miracle." (p 23)

The lesson learned - and the legacy for military strategy - was that overwhelming force caused the capitulation of the enemy. So, the question is: did the weapons work in the way American history says they did?

Five Months of Saturation Bombing

Nothing exists in a vacuum. The months leading up to the decision to drop the bomb are as important to remember as the dropping of the bomb itself. In the last five months of the war there was an intense fire-bombing campaign over Japan. Incendiary bombs, filled with napalm (what were then called "jelly bombs"), were dropped on a total of sixty-three cities.

Tokyo Firebombing

On March 9th, 1945, Tokyo was fire-bombed. 334 bombers dropped 2000 tons of bombs on a target measured three by four miles. Winds generated by the flames ranged from 28 to 55 miles an hour. It was claimed by B-29 crews flying at 6000 feet that "the heat was so intense the crews had to don oxygen masks." (John W. Dower, Cultures of War, p 181) Japanese authorities put the fatalities at about 84,000 (most historians find this a conservative number - it was probably more like 100,000). One million were left homeless.

Tokyo Firebombing

Because most of the buildings in Japanese cities were built of wood and paper, they easily burnt to the ground, leaving very little after the fire-storms. What John Swope, a photographer for Life Magazine, and one of the first American photographers to land on the islands, called "Ghost cities" or "Dead Cities." (A Letter From Japan: The Photographs of John Swope) Several thousand US airmen lost their lives in these raids - and the tragedy of most of these deaths is that they were predominantly due to mechanical failure. By this time, the Japanese offered very little resistance. There was nothing left to resist with. Many US airmen, in diaries and journals from the time, called the raids "milk runs."

Between March 9-19, 1945, there was the saturation bombing of Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, and Kawasaki. In late May, the saturation bombing continued on Tokyo. The NY Times headline on May 30, 1945 read: "Fifty-One square miles burned out in six B-29 attacks on Tokyo." (Dower, p 183) These raids were in keeping with the Allied strategy of saturation bombing in Germany, specifically targeting civilian populations, from 1942 through the end of the war.

Tokyo Firebombing (mother & child)

Franklin D. Roosevelt had, in 1939,  beseeched all nations to refrain from “inhuman barbarism,” of attacking civilian centers. In the recent past, he noted such assaults had “resulted in the maiming and in the death of thousands of defenseless men, women, and children.” (The German bombing of Guernica, The Japanese bombing of Shanghai) But by 1942, targeting civilian populations had become a routine Allied strategy. 

Callousness on Both Sides

Tokyo

A report from the US Office of Information Services that was released after the war claimed that in those five months 310,000 Japanese civilians had been killed, 412,000 injured, and 9 million rendered homeless. "For five flaming months…a thousand all-American planes and 20,000 American men brought homelessness, terror and death to an arrogant foe, and left him practically a nomad in an almost city-less land." ("Highlights of the Twentieth Century Air Force," Office of Information Services, Headquarters, Army Air Force, 1945; Dower, p 192) A side note about the saturation bombings: the transportation system that fed the industrial war machine was largely left untouched. The Americans did not want to have to rebuild the system when they finally occupied the mainland. If you think about it, the callousness generated over those five months made the decision to drop a nuclear bomb on civilians that much easier.

Hirohito walks through ruins of Tokyo

While these bombings were going on - rendering most of the cities to sticks and ash, US submarines were blockading the home islands. Nothing was coming or going from the mainland. Did the saturation bombing or the blockade cause the Japanese High Command to consider surrender? No, not to an unconditional surrender. But at the time, they were seeking back channels - through the Soviet Union and others - for a negotiated peace. What they were looking for was a guarantee that the imperial system would remain intact. While hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians were dying all around them, they were still looking for a way out of unconditional surrender, for a "peace with honor." Honor, namely, for themselves. During the summer of 1945, war crimes trials were beginning in Germany, and it must not have been lost on Japanese generals that this would be their fate if they surrendered unconditionally.

The US Decision 

Meanwhile, back in the US, the Interim Committee (a secret high-level group created in May 1945 by United States Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, at the urging of leaders of the Manhattan Project and with the approval of Harry S. Truman to advise on matters pertaining to nuclear energy) were meeting to decide what to do with the nuclear weapon, the product of The Manhattan Project. The project had been started with the belief that the scientists were in a race against Germany. But through intelligence reports, it was clear that by 1944 Germany did not have the capabilities to build a bomb. So, who were we continuing to build the bomb for?

Oppenheimer with General Leslie Groves at Trinity Site

There were misgivings in the Interim Committee, and among the scientists who had created the bomb, about its use on civilians. There was the Franck Report of June 1945, a statement issued by scientists at the metallurgical laboratories in Chicago against the use of the bomb on civilians, and the Szilard Petition, a group of 70 scientists at Los Alamos who signed a petition that made a similar statement. It was much too little, too late. Only a few scientists actually quit the project because of ethical qualms. The project was, in Oppenheimer's terms, "too technically sweet" to walk away from. 

Oppenheimer himself was for the use of the weapon because, in his own convoluted thinking, he believed that "if the bomb is to make war impossible, it must have a very strong effect." So, like the military, he sought peace - even an ultimate global peace - through overwhelming use of force. He also said this: "The elements of surprise and terror are intrinsic to the use of nuclear weapons." (Dower, p 211) Between Stimson, on the government side, and Oppenheimer, on the production side, it was almost unanimous that the bomb be used as a test on some city that was relatively untouched - a test for both physical and psychological damage.

Surprisingly, there was a lone dissenter on the Interim Committee. Under Secretary of the Navy, Ralph Bard, who wrote the "Memorandum on the use of the S-1 Bomb," argued for warning the Japanese ahead of time of the exact nature of the bomb, fearing the decision to drop it on civilians would have an adverse effect on "the position of the US as a great humanitarian nation." (Dower, p 232)

When the decision was made, the actual invasion plans had already been drawn up, and were set to begin in November of 1945 on a southern island, followed by an invasion force into the Tokyo-Yokohama area around March of 1946.  Knowing what they knew about Japanese resistance during the bombings, and how few actual cities were left standing, why the extreme haste in using the bombs? By the fall, starvation alone, and the unrest it would have created for the government, would have brought the Japanese to the table. Surrender could have happened without the bombs, Soviet entry into the war, or an allied invasion.

By this time, because of the massive incendiary bombing of civilians (for years, on all fronts, by everyone), reliance on overwhelming force had become gospel and second nature. In May of 1945, the Interim Committee decided that "the number of people that would be killed by the bomb would not be greater in general magnitude than the number already killed in fire raids." (Dower, p 225)

Hiroshima aftermath

In the documentary The Fog of War, former US Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, recalled that General Curtis LeMay, the man who relayed the Presidential order to drop the nuclear bombs on Japan, had said: "If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals…" 

"And I think he’s right," McNamara said. "He, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

Enola Gay flying from explosion over Hiroshima

Next:

Finishing the history of the decision making process (the Soviet angle, partisan politics, the bomb as the first shot fired in the Cold War, and the spread of the Bomb Myth with help from the Japanese High Command)

 Nukewatch: Nuclear Watch New Mexico

Shadow of someone running,
etched in stone by the Hiroshima blast