Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945 and Nagasaki, August 9th 1945

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-- Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945 and Nagasaki, August 9th 1945

Posted by ogvh5150 on Aug-08-2005 17:43:

Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945 and Nagasaki, August 9th 1945

We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools
Martin Luther King Jr.

As John Whittier Treat notes, apart from being "a redundant act," the Nagasaki bomb was unique in that ground zero was the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in Japan and Nagasaki itself had the largest Catholic and Christian population in Japan.(1) In an instant, 73,000 people died, over 8000 of whom were Christian. Less than one percent of the Japanese population was Christian, yet they comprised over ten percent of the bomb's victims. A larger issue for the victims, as well as for subsequent generations of Japanese and Christians, was why the West would target the most Christian city in Japan, and why would God allow His people to be so afflicted?...

...With the opening of Japanese society under the Meiji Restoration, beginning in 1873 with the legalization of Christianity, however, Nagasaki became an open center of that religion. Urakami Cathedral, the largest Roman Catholic church in Japan, was built in the city, and consecrated to the Virgin Mary. The bomb detonated directly above this cathedral...
The Cross and the Bomb: Two Catholic Dramas in Response to Nagasaki by Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.

Posted by BadBadNeil on Aug-08-2005 17:51:

"those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."
George Santayana's

A bad but I think necessary time in our history.

Posted by rainbow_marble on Aug-09-2005 22:00:

impressive bomb.

Posted by apostrophe on Aug-10-2005 02:58:

I'm guessing the US didn't pick the city for it's religious reputation...

There was probably another reason for this target...

Why does it matter though? Is it just because they were Christians, too? They were the enemy, their religion probably wasn't thought of much. Don't get why this whole thing matters.

Posted by donnybrasco on Aug-10-2005 06:29:

Huh?

That's one more way I guess the U.S. is supposed to feel guilty for ending a war Imperial Japan started?

Bombing of civilians was proven highly in-effective after the war, in both Europe and Asia. It was a mistake...but those bombs DID play a part in ending that war, that's just a simple fact, like it or not. And to this day, the shear horror of these weapons is what kept the cold war from ever getting hot.

Posted by GRinLoCK on Aug-10-2005 08:00:

Love the BomB i say!
it keeps countries on there toes
especially the ones that invented it lol

Posted by ogvh5150 on Aug-10-2005 21:10:

quote:
Originally posted by apostrophe
I'm guessing the US didn't pick the city for it's religious reputation...

There was probably another reason for this target...

Why does it matter though? Is it just because they were Christians, too? They were the enemy, their religion probably wasn't thought of much. Don't get why this whole thing matters.

Where there any military installations at or near ground zero and the blast radius?

Why pick civilian targets as opposed to military targets?

Posted by donnybrasco on Aug-11-2005 00:00:

Actually just saw a special on this and supposedly those cites were picked specifically because they had not been bombed before, thus the true affects of the Atom Bombs could be guaged.

Posted by Lira on Aug-11-2005 02:46:

quote:
Originally posted by ogvh5150
Where there any military installations at or near ground zero and the blast radius?

If you listen to the presidential speech (you can get hold of that in any P2P program), the president says a "military base" had been bombed, not mentioning the death of civilians.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Posted by ogvh5150 on Aug-11-2005 04:17:

quote:
Originally posted by Lira
If you listen to the presidential speech (you can get hold of that in any P2P program), the president says a "military base" had been bombed, not mentioning the death of civilians.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

While Hiroshima did have a military base in the city, it was not the base that was targeted, but the center of the city.
Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki , by David Krieger, August 1, 2003

All major factories in Hiroshima were on the Periphery of the city--and escaped serious damage
United States Strategic Bombing Survey: 'The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki' [Chapter 4]

As the headquarters of the Second Army and of the Chugoku Regional Army, it was one of the most important military command stations in Japan, the site of one of the largest military supply depots, and the foremost military shipping point for both troops and supplies....
...On 7 August, the commander of the Second Army assumed general command of the counter measures, and all military units and facilities in the area were mobilized for relief purposes. Army buildings on the periphery of the city provided shelter and emergency hospital space, and dispersed Army supplies supplemented the slight amounts of food and clothing that had escaped destruction.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey: 'The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki' [Chapter 2]

Apparently the civilian population was targeted if the Commander of the Second Army was able to oversee relief efforts according to that report.

Posted by Lira on Aug-11-2005 15:39:

By the way, I'm not saying they bombed the base rather than the city, but that it shows how innacurate the reports were.

The Japanese-American relations have been twisted since the beginning though. First there was Commodore Perry - makes you wonder whether Pearl Harbour would've happened if Perry did not open Japan the way he did. Then, there were the atom bombs. Incredibly though, Americans are worshipped in Japan (and the Japanese are worshipped in the US in a very peculiar way, it seems). The US has Japan wrapped in its fingers but, unlike many other unsuccessful manipulations, they've become the world's second greatest economy. What if there was no communist China, would things be different? Would Japan be as wealthy as most Latin American countries?

Hmmm....

Posted by shaolin_Z on Aug-11-2005 17:42:

quote:

Hiroshima health effects linger
By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Tokyo

Imagine what it is like to know that as a child you were doused in radioactive fallout.

It fell on your clothes and on your skin. It was in the water you drank, the scraps of food you could find. It entered the fabric of the buildings you were sheltering in.

What hidden damage was done in your earliest days?

For those who were in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 it is a fear they live with constantly.

This is not history for them. It is an everyday concern.

Keiko Ogura was a little girl living in the suburbs of Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped.

"I don't have scars," she says, "but I do have nightmares."

Like thousands of other survivors - the hibakusha , as they are known in Japan - Keiko Ogura was given regular check ups by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in the first few months after the bomb was dropped.

After the war, the Americans provided medical care for those affected. This also enabled scientists to study the effects of radioactive exposure on people.

"Several times the car came and took me to the research centre where they examined me," she said.

"I always had this fear. Is there anything on my body? It was a fear of the invisible. I had a little anaemia, so immediately I asked myself, is that anything to do with the bomb? And then I thought about my future, will I be able to have children normally?"

Keiko Ogura's fears are not unusual. You hear similar stories from others who were exposed to the fallout as children.

Medical study

The people who were put through the terrible events of August 1945, and their offspring, are more closely monitored than almost anyone else by doctors and scientists.

"This is the only place where we can research the effect of radiation on the human body," said Dr Saeko Fujiwara, at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation.

"We study the relation between the level of exposure and that of radiation. Ours is the only major epidemiological study that can do this. That's why we're unique," she said.

That study has helped scientists to draw up the guidelines for safe exposure to radiation that is used around the world in the nuclear industry, for example.

Charles Waldren, an American who is the foundation's chief scientist, believes that almost half a million radiation workers in the US and at least that many in Europe have benefited.

"Our research allows people to continue to work at a level of exposure which is considered safe for the general welfare," he said. "I think risk estimates from radiation used in every country in the world come from our data."

Cancer risks

But the close monitoring of Hiroshima's citizens, those who were exposed to the blast and their children and grandchildren, is not just a matter of scientific curiosity.

There is real concern about the survivors as they get older. The average age of the hibakushas is 72.

When they were exposed to the radiation, they suffered damage to their genes, with those closest to the centre of the explosion the worst affected.

In many cases their genes repaired themselves. It is possible that those repairs were imperfect, making it more likely that they will develop cancer in later life.

"Radiation induces genome damage," said Professor Kenji Kamiya, the director of the research institute for radiation, biology and medicine at Hiroshima University.

"In some people that isn't fixed correctly. So 60 years later they have problems. The highest risk for A-bomb victims developing cancer is among the youngest who were exposed to the blast. These people are now approaching an age where they would be more likely to develop a cancer anyway," he said.

Science does have some answers, but much more work is needed.

"We are trying to develop new genome technology and new methods for diagnosis and treatment," Professor Kamiya said. "Re-generative medicine offers the possibility of repairing cell damage."

The number of cancer cases among the survivors will continue to rise in the next few years, perhaps peaking in the 2020s.

"That's why we have to rush to develop new treatments for these patients," he said.

Sixty years after the bomb was dropped, science is still working hard to find ways to cope with its after-effects.

And for survivors like Keiko Ogura, that means little chance in the short-term that her anxieties will go away.

Source: BBC News

It sickens me how some people STILL try to justify the Hiroshima Bombings.

Posted by occrider on Aug-11-2005 20:34:

quote:
Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Source: BBC News

It sickens me how some people STILL try to justify the Hiroshima Bombings.

I would be happy to continue my debate on this subject if you would like to respond to my arguments:

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...%22hiroshima%22

As for the targeting decision, Niigata, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kokura were the chosen areas. Kyoto was originally considered but ruled out because of its cultural value. Tokyo was not on the list because of the presence of the emperor but also because by August 1945, Tokyo was already rubble. Other options were discussed, including detonating an atomic bomb in Tokyo Bay (for visual effect) or issuing a warning in advance. These ideas were not seriously countenanced because of a fear of the propaganda loss and the grave danger of an A-bomb falling into the enemy's hands (if the plane were shot down) or not working.

It was generally agreed that for maximum visual and psychological effect the bomb should strike a city of military significance, previously untouched by mass aerial bombing and of appropriate size and topography to ensure the most effectiveness. Hiroshima and Nagasaki met all the conditions. Two cities situated in a basin and surrounded by mountains ensured the blasts would be at their most devastating within a five-km diameter. Nagasaki, on the morning of August 9, was not the intended target. Instead, the city of Kokura was to be bombed, however, haze and cloud cover over Kokura however forced the plane to fly south and bomb the back-up target of Nagasaki.

At any rate, the cities were definitely targeted, along with whatever military facilities in and around the cities. This is the era of total war after all where strategic bombing was standard military doctrine at the time. The Germans started using strategic bombing in their campaign in Poland and it intensified with the air raids over England in the 40�s and particularly the bombing of Coventry. Why do you think there was so much technological development towards the V1 and V2 rockets. The former was used for strategic bombing of London, while the latter would be used for attacks against New York and other cities. The allies primarily used large engine bombing aircraft for strategic bombing of cities such as Dresden, Schweinfurt, etc. The Japanese used it in China against Chongging. In Japan it was used to firebomb Tokyo. Welcome to 20th century total war. Different warfare for a different time.

Posted by shaolin_Z on Aug-11-2005 22:31:

I've got a test tommorow and I don't plan on debating this as it apparently obvious we have very different values (please don't take this in the wrong way, by that I mean according to my values, there is NO justification for killing innocent civilians, and when I say NO justification, I really mean no justification, I'll explain that one a bit later in this post). It's not like they(US Military/Gov) didn't know that the bomb would have devestating effects and kill thousands of innocent people. Thanks for explaining the choice of the targets and giving me a link to the other thread with the article etc, but I guess where you and I really differ is "Is the act morally justifiable?" I guess if I weren't Muslim I might have a different stance on this (maybe) but since I am, I don't. Islam teaches that there are also rules in warfare. And those include not harming non-combatants who do not pose a threat to you or needlesly destroying property. I'm not neccesarily the most religous person but I do strongly beleive in these rules (I didn't mention others here since I only needed to mention these to make my point). So based on our difference of values, we're bound to disagree. And I don't buy the argument that there was no other alternative. I'm pretty sure that the US military had the ability, if they wanted, to completely destroy Japans military, without needlessly killing thousands of civilians in the process. Ofcourse, that would have come at a higher cost to the US.

And as for the officialy stated "intentions" of the bombing, I completely disagree with you there. People in power have never given a fuck about the value of human life and they never really will.(pardon my language, but it really irritates me when people assume their leaders are benevolent people with good intentions, putting the common good before their interets).

Posted by occrider on Aug-12-2005 06:45:

quote:
Originally posted by shaolin_Z
I've got a test tommorow and I don't plan on debating this as it apparently obvious we have very different values (please don't take this in the wrong way, by that I mean according to my values, there is NO justification for killing innocent civilians, and when I say NO justification, I really mean no justification, I'll explain that one a bit later in this post). It's not like they(US Military/Gov) didn't know that the bomb would have devestating effects and kill thousands of innocent people. Thanks for explaining the choice of the targets and giving me a link to the other thread with the article etc, but I guess where you and I really differ is "Is the act morally justifiable?" I guess if I weren't Muslim I might have a different stance on this (maybe) but since I am, I don't. Islam teaches that there are also rules in warfare. And those include not harming non-combatants who do not pose a threat to you or needlesly destroying property. I'm not neccesarily the most religous person but I do strongly beleive in these rules (I didn't mention others here since I only needed to mention these to make my point). So based on our difference of values, we're bound to disagree. And I don't buy the argument that there was no other alternative. I'm pretty sure that the US military had the ability, if they wanted, to completely destroy Japans military, without needlessly killing thousands of civilians in the process. Ofcourse, that would have come at a higher cost to the US.

Well I certainly respect your beliefs and as I said to those I argued in the original thread I referenced, here's where we'll have to agree to disagree. While I most certainly value human life, and am largely in sync with your current views in the present, I cannot look back on history with the same mentality because the circumstances were vastly different. Total wars have only occurred on two occassions in the history of the world. Where entire economies and the men and machines that compose them are completely devoted towards war. There is no debate about withdrawal while retaining your soveriegn way of life. Defeat will result in unconditional submission. As such, there was no holding back in ANYTHING of warfare except for recognized terms that you would wish the other side to respect. POW treatment was one of those original geneva convention terms. But in 1939, there were no conventions against strategic bombing or any other such legal precedent and the fact that the axis powers fully utilized such methods opened the floodgates so to speak (this is not the first time ... unrestrictive submarine warfare is what brought the US into WW1).

Certainly there were always "other" alternatives to any military action. The US could have continued with the firebombing which would have resulted in far numerous loss of life. They could have abstained from all strategic bombing, proceeded with operation Coronet, and faught directly with the populace and resulted in some 1 million American casualties and several million Japanese civilian casualties. Is that a better alternative? However, looking back with 20/20 hindsight vision is a luxury decision makers cannot afford. In a total war, the onus of valuing the life of your citizens rests upon the government of those citizens as opposed to the enemy of that government. You cannot have a responsible government that values the life of an enemy combatant's citizens over the life of the citizens it was elected to protect to a reasonable degree.

quote:

And as for the officialy stated "intentions" of the bombing, I completely disagree with you there. People in power have never given a fuck about the value of human life and they never really will.(pardon my language, but it really irritates me when people assume their leaders are benevolent people with good intentions, putting the common good before their interets).

Yea, the military leaders didn't give a shit about the lives of German/Japanese human life so long as they posed a threat. They placed the lives of their own citizens over the lives of the enemy's. And it's a tough moral decision to make, but that is what I would want out of a leader when hundreds of thousands of people are dying in total war.

Posted by Q5echo on Aug-12-2005 07:47:

Posted by shaolin_Z on Aug-12-2005 15:56:

@ Occrider:

I see. Well I certainly understand your veiws alot better now. I still don't agree with certain things but I'll leave that for another time. I have to go to a study group rightnow before my test but thanks for the prompt response. Peace.

Posted by Michael19 on Aug-12-2005 17:52:

quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo i hope your either high or drunk. if not, i think you should thread a poll on just how dumb you really are.

how's that for ad-hominem, occ?

i agree with him. Better fire up a poll about how stupid i am aswell now.

Of course people in charge dont value human life, the same way none of us really value human life.

Posted by Sunsnail on Aug-13-2005 03:01:

I think I saw on the History Channel or something that the Japanese were in the process of surrendering while the bombs were dropped.

Posted by smokeape on Aug-13-2005 03:41:

Re: Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945 and Nagasaki, August 9th 1945

quote:
Originally posted by ogvh5150

Really hard to believe the strikes came so close together, like about 3 days apart. No wonder the Japs surrendered. They thought we had an arsenal which didn't exist. Oh well, better the nukes than a mainland Japan invasion which would've cost humanity much greater than 10 times the casualties from the nuke strikes....

[[[smoke]]]

Posted by tathi on Aug-13-2005 03:54:

quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Incredibly though, Americans are worshipped in Japan (and the Japanese are worshipped in the US in a very peculiar way, it seems).

http://users.on.net/~magni/charisma1.jpg
http://users.on.net/~magni/Charisma2.jpg
http://users.on.net/~magni/charisma3.jpg

Posted by occrider on Aug-13-2005 20:30:

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
I think I saw on the History Channel or something that the Japanese were in the process of surrendering while the bombs were dropped.

What I'm about to post is a third party summary of the book, Nihon no Ichiban Nagai Hi by the Pacific War Research Society. The society consisted of 14 Japanese historians who spent years interviewing every Japanese survivor involved in any way with the decision to surrender, except for Hirohito. It was published in 1965, and it was later translated into English with the title Japan's Longest Day.

quote:

Japan in the summer of 1945 was governed, in the name of the emperor, by the Supreme War Council or Big Six. The SWC consisted of representives of the Army, the Navy and the civilian government. This body ruled by consensus. That is the six would debate amoung themselves until they all agreed on a course of action which could be presented to Hirohito. The most powerful person on the SWC was the Army Minister. It had become a rule of Japanese politics that the Army Minister was chosen by the Army and no cabinet could exist without an Army Minister. This meant that the Army could veto any decision by having its Minister resign.

The issue on the table in late summer of 1945 was the surrender of Japan. The SWC could not, did not achieve consensus.

It is a remarkable fact about the crisis which overtook the SWC in August 1945 that no one changed their opinion. The SWC members who advocated immediate acceptance of the Potsdam declaration stayed pro-peace throughout. More amazingly, the SWC members who opposed surrender before Hiroshima, continued to oppose it right up till August 14.

SWC DOVES:

Foreign Minister Togo (the leader of the doves)
Prime Minister Admiral Suzuki (77 and very flaky)
Navy Minister Admiral Yonai

SWC HAWKS

Army Minister General Anami (the leader of the hawks)
Army Chief of Staff General Umezu
Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Toyoda

It is a curious fact that the Navy was so important, even though it only had a few destroyers left.

Since these six people were unable to agree to end the war, there were two other sources of authority which could possibly break the deadlock, although, since Japan was already at war, the hawks had no desire to break the deadlock.

THE ARMY

The Army was in physical control of the country and Tokyo. The Army had a tradition of murdering political opponents. Many middle level officers in the Army believed that the Army should murder all the doves and take control of the country. This would mean, in effect, kidnapping Hirohito. Many officers viewed this as preferable to surrender. Everyone believed that a surrender order would be followed by an immediate coup attempt and assasination spree.

THE EMPEROR

Hirohito strongly wanted peace. In principle, he could have ordered the Army to surrender at any time. Under the Meiji Constitution he was explicitly Commander and Chief. However, it was not clear that the Army would obey him. If he ordered the Army to surrender, a successful coup would leave him a prisoner. He knew he only had one shot. He would have to stake his position and the lives of his fellow doves on one attempt to bulldoze the Army. The question was, when to try it. Hirohito was not isolated, he had the help of many senior politicians. He had friends in the Army. It just wasn't clear that he had enough to ride out a coup.

DOVE arguments:

Everyone agreed on the importance of protecting the 'national polity'. Doves emphasized the importance of the Monarchy. They argued that immediate surrender to the US was the best way to preserve the Monarchy. Peace feelers to the US from doves had been broken off at hawks insistence, but not before the US had communicated to the doves that Japan could surrender and keep an emperor. The doves also didn't like the Russians and would have preferred ending the war before they occupied any of Japan. (Even though Japan was still at peace with Russia, indeed trying desperately to negotiate with Stalin, Japan could see the Russians deploying massive forces on the border. The Russian attack was not a big surprise.)

HAWK arguments:

The hawks accepted that the war, and empire, were gone. They believed that the US would allow Japan to retain its government structure and independence if it were clear that the price of insisting on occupation was too high. They advocated a guerilla war. They believed that even if the emperor were hiding in the mountains with a few soldiers, that was preferable to having the public humiliation of the emperor subordinated to foreigners.

However, the hawks didn't think it would come to that. After all, all they wanted was a little area around Tokyo where the emperor and his soldiers could wave the flag unmolested. Was this too much to ask in exchange for thousands of US lives? The hawks thought US diplomatic concessions would be coming.

The hawks also thought the Soviets would help. They could pressure the US directly, although that was unlikely. More usefully, the Soviets could overrun Manchuria and Korea, scaring the US into coming to terms.

However, the hawks main hope was for a US invasion. Until the US invaded, Japan had no good way to kill Americans. However, if the US fought Japan's 2 million man home army in Japan's rugged terrain, Japan would kill plenty of Americans.

POTSDAM PROCLAMATION:

The July 26 PP explicitly called for the "unconditional surrender of the Japanese Armed Forces". The cabinet correctly interpreted this as saying that the monarchy would not be eliminated. The foreign office pressed for immediate acceptance. The Army was unmoved. The SWC reached a consensus to do and say nothing. (This was there most common approach to all problems). Unfortunately, PM Suzuki said to reporters that the cabinet would 'mokusatsu' the PP. This harsh language, which was a slip from a well-meaning but senile dove, infuriated Togo because he knew it would get a bad reaction from the US. How bad, he couldn't imagine.

HIROSHIMA

Hiroshima was bombed on Aug 6. Nothing happened in Tokyo on the 6th or 7th. On Aug 8, Hirohito informed PM Suzuki that the war must be ended immediately. Suzuki was instructed to call an immediate SWC meeting for that purpose, "but the meeting had to be postponed because one of the members was unavoidably detained by 'more pressing business' elsewhere." [I, also, find this incredible, so I just quoted what JLD says]

RUSSIA

Russia declared war the afternoon of the 8th.

AUGUST 9

The doves woke up early this Thursday. Furious about the meeting that had been blown off, leading to Russian entry, Togo et al. managed to get an SWC meeting going by 10:30 AM. Immediately, the SWC split into its two familiar factions and started going over the familiar arguments. Halfway through the meeting a message arrived saying that Nagasaki had been bombed at 11:00 that morning. This changed no opinions. The SWC meeting broke up at 1:00 PM with no decision having been made.

That afternoon the arguments were repeated in a full cabinet meeting lasting from 2:30 to 10:00 PM. The Home Minister explicitly predicted that a coup would likely happen if the government ordered surrender. The meeting had no result.

Suzuki then, after consultation with Hirohito, called a SWC meeting for 11:50 PM, to be held in the presence of the emperor, an unprecedented, although perfectly legal, procedure.

AUGUST 10

For two hours the SWC went over the same arguments it had been arguing non-stop since mid-morning the day before. At 2:00 AM Suzuki turned to Hirohito, saying "your decision is requested". Hirohito said he supported Togo. He then left the room.

Suzuki then convened a cabinet meeting to prepare the formal note of surrender. By 4:00 AM the note had been approved by the cabinet and sent to the Foreign Office for translation and transmission. The FO had one last trick. The cabinet had demanded that the US respect "the powers of His Majesty". The FO translated that to English reading "the prerogatives of His Majesty." Since few hawks spoke English, they got away with it.

Anami returned to the Army Ministry where he addressed senior personnel and explained the developments. A young officer demanded, "Is the Army Minister actually considering surrender?" Anami silenced the officer by smashing the table with his swagger stick. However, the young officers could still hope that the Allies would reject the note and a coup would be unnecessary.

The US delivered a massive bombing raid on Tokyo.

AUGUST 11

In Tokyo the leaders waited for the US reply. Anami made a belligerent public proclamation. Young officers began drawing up lists of doves to be killed.

AUGUST 12

The Byrnes reply came at 00:45. The FO diplomatically mistranslated it as well, substituting "controlled by" for Byrnes' "subject to" in the crucial phrase describing the Hirohito's relation with MacArthur.

This was the signal to start the same arguments all over again. There was now the added edge that the coup planning was in full process. Anami hoped to use the threat of the coup to prevent acceptance of the Byrnes note, but he also wanted to make sure there was no actual coup.

AUGUST 14

The Allies dropped leaflets describing the exchange of notes. This terrified the government. They were sure this would lead to a coup. So by 10:00 AM the SWC and cabinet were assembled for an Imperial Conference down in Hirohito's bunker. Hirohito announced his decision to accept the Byrnes note. He asked the cabinet to prepare an appropriate rescript for him to read to the nation.

That afternoon Hirohito recorded the rescript

Anami forced the top Army officers to sign a statement of loyalty. Anami was still consorting with the coup planners but Umezu definitely decided he was against a coup.

That night Anami went to his house and committed sepukku.

The coup began with junior officers seizing the Imperial Guards Division and the Imperial Palace. General Mori, commander of the Guards, was murdered. Meanwhile, a series of assasinations was attempted. PM Suzuki barely got out of his house alive before soldiers came, searched it, and burned it in frustration. He went into hiding at a friend's house.

AUGUST 15

Although the rebels had held the palace all night, the coup ran out of steam in the morning. General Tanaka of the Eastern District Army showed up at the palace. Hirohito and his hosehold were safe. Most of the plotters killed themselves.

At 12 noon, Hirohitos voice read the rescript ending the war on NHK.

Although sporadic mutinies contined for a few days, the situation was stable when the US arrived. General Umezu signed on the Missouri.

As can be seen, final decision to surrender didn't come until August 10th. It is interesting to note that despite the Emperor's desire to end the war, the hawks defied the emperor and attempted a coup to prevent the surrender broadcast from going out:

quote:

Generals foiled Aug. 15 palace coup
Pair's actions credited with ensuring Hirohito surrender decree

By MUTSUO FUKUSHIMA

Kyodo News

Hours before Emperor Hirohito decreed Japan's World War II surrender 60 years ago, two Imperial army generals foiled a coup attempt by a dozen officers to block the historic broadcast.

On Aug. 15, 1945, nearly 1,000 soldiers occupied the Imperial Palace grounds for six hours from 2 a.m., aiming to seize two 25-cm records of the reading of the surrender decree and blocking its noon broadcast that day.

The actions of Lt. Gen. Takeshi Mori, commander of the First Imperial Guards Division, and Gen. Shizuichi Tanaka, commander of the Eastern Defense Command, enabled the monarch, known posthumously as Emperor Showa, to announce over the radio to the Japanese people and armed forces the nation's unconditional surrender.

The broadcast paved the way for the Allied Powers to occupy Japan without serious turmoil.

Emperor Hirohito made the recording at around 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 14, and Chamberlain Yoshihiro Tokugawa put the two records in a small safe in the first-floor office of the monarch's retinue, hidden from sight with piles of papers.

At around 1:40 a.m. on Aug. 15, Mori, 52, was shot by Maj. Kenji Hatanaka and then hacked to death by Capt. Shigetaro Uehara at his headquarters after rejecting their demand to order his 4,000-man division to revolt against the government and seize the palace.

"Mori rejected the officers' demands to order his Guards Division to rise up in revolt, because he had recognized the importance of establishing peace with the Allied Powers to prevent the Japanese people from being destroyed by a continued war," historian Kazutoshi Hando said in a recent interview.

"Had the broadcast of the surrender rescript been blocked, the Japanese military would have kept up its fighting spirit, and the armed forces would have carried on on many battlefields," he said.

On Aug. 14, the government of then Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki decided to accept the Allied demand for unconditional surrender. The decision was made at a meeting of the six-member Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, including Suzuki and War Minister Korechika Anami, in the presence of Emperor Hirohito.

At around 2 a.m. the next morning, Maj. Hidemasa Koga, Guards Division staff officer and son-in-law of Gen. Hideki Tojo, the prime minister at the time of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, issued a bogus order for the 1,000 soldiers to occupy the palace, seize all gates and cut all telephone lines except one linking the palace to the Guards headquarters.

The order was aimed at isolating the Emperor from the outside, preventing him from asking the government or any forces inclined toward peace, including the Eastern Defense Command, for help, and toppling the Suzuki administration to form a new government led by War Minister Anami.

The Eastern Command, led by Gen. Tanaka, was in charge of defending the capital.

The coup leaders affixed the official seal of murdered Division Commander Mori to copies of the order, tricking the division's field and company officers into believing it was authentic.

In addition, a 60-man company of the Guards Division's First Regiment occupied NHK, then based in Tokyo's Uchisaiwaicho, and prohibited all broadcasts. NHK was then 1.5 km away from the Imperial Household Ministry, the predecessor of the Imperial Household Agency.

"I heard three bangs when I was on sentry duty in an air-raid shelter outside the room of Division Commander Mori," said Ikuo Okazawa, who was a 24-year-old lance corporal in the division's Second Regiment at the time of the assassination.

Okazawa, now 84, claimed he initially thought the three bangs might have come from a motorcycle being started nearby.

Shortly after the shots, 2nd Lt. Tamiharu Sasaki came to the shelter and ordered Okazawa and three other soldiers to make "a pair of wooden boxes large enough for a person," as well as lids.

"We went to a nearby First Regiment barracks, and tore up the floorboards to make the boxes," Okazawa, a former legislator of the town assembly of Kamigori, Hyogo Prefecture, said in a recent interview.

An hour later, Okazawa and the others took the rough-planed coffins to the commander's room.

Then, "2nd Lt. Sasaki, loosening his sword, told us he would hack us to death if we said anything to anybody about what we were going to see upon entering the room," he said.

"When I entered the room, I found the bodies of Mori and his brother-in-law, Lt. Col. (Michinori) Shiraishi," he said. It was only at that moment that he realized the boxes he had made were coffins, he reckoned.

Shiraishi, staff officer of the Hiroshima-based Second General Army, had come to Tokyo the previous day and called on Mori, his wife's older brother, before he was to fly back to Hiroshima.

"My estimate is that the number of soldiers who entered the palace premises was more than 1,000. . . . Those who invaded the Imperial Household Ministry building to seize the recordings of the rescript numbered between 40 and 50," Masahisa Enai, a former corporal in the Imperial Guards Division's Second Regiment and a coup participant, said in a telephone interview.

Enai, 88, became an Asahi Shimbun journalist after the war.

At the Aug. 14 supreme council meeting, Hirohito asked the councilors to prepare the capitulation decree.

"If we continue the war, Japan will be totally annihilated. If even a small number of Japanese people's seed is allowed to remain . . . there is a glimmer of hope of an eventual Japanese recovery. . . . I am willing to go before the microphone," he said.

In the subsequently recorded announcement, he said: "I have ordered the government to communicate to the governments of the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that our empire accepts the provisions of their joint declaration" issued from Potsdam near Berlin on July 26.

However, despite a series of military defeats in the Pacific, including in the Philippines and Okinawa, the Aug. 6 atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Aug. 9 bombing of Nagasaki, and even Japan's dispatch of a cablegram on Aug. 10 accepting the Potsdam declaration, there were still plenty of military fanatics who refused to surrender.

Masataka Ida, a coup leader, said in a 380-page memoir that he tried to persuade Mori to order his Guards Division to occupy the palace at a meeting that began at around 12:40 a.m. on Aug. 15.

"Your excellency, if we obey the Emperor's order, the emperor system could be abolished. . . . A plan has been devised to kill you, though it depends on your response," Ida told Mori.

The lieutenant colonel quoted Mori as responding: "I am prepared for the worst. I am risking my life to defend the palace."

Just after Ida left Mori's room, Maj. Hatanaka and Capt. Uehara entered and learned Mori had rejected their demand that he order the coup. Then they killed him.

Capt. Nobuo Kitabatake, commander of one of the three Guards Division battalions that took over the palace, wrote in his memoir: "If the Imperial Guards Division became the first to rise in revolt, it would embolden the entire military to rise, thus leading Japan to continue the war."

After the forged order to gain control of the palace was issued at around 2 a.m., Koga and Hatanaka entered the palace, tricking Col. Toyojiro Haga, commander of the 1,000 Imperial Guards on the grounds, into believing the war minister would soon call on the Emperor to persuade him to scrap his decision to surrender.

The soldiers started searching for the surrender records. Capt. Kiichiro Aiura, a leader of a machinegun company with the Imperial Guards Second Regiment, was one of the officers ordered to join the search.

"I was ordered by Maj. Koga to go to the Imperial Household Ministry building and search for the records of the (surrender decree) along with Capt. Shinichi Kitamura, who had already been looking," he said.

The rebels searched for the recording for 90 minutes, but to no avail.

The plotters suffered a setback when Col. Kazuo Mizutani, chief of staff of the Guards Division, escaped to the Eastern Defense Command and alerted Gen. Tanaka.

At 4 a.m., Tanaka arrived at the barracks of the Imperial Guards Division and persuaded Col. Taro Watanabe, commander of its First Regiment, who was on the brink of sending 1,000 reinforcements to the palace, to disperse his soldiers.

Tanaka then summoned Haga, informed him that Mori had been murdered and that the occupation order was a sham, and persuaded him to order his troops to stand down.

After a furious Haga confronted Koga and Hatanaka, they left the palace and killed themselves. Haga had all of the troops pulled out of the palace at around 8 a.m.

At noon, the surrender recording was broadcast, and the nation heard the Emperor's voice announcing Japan's capitulation.

Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers, an adviser to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, wrote in 1947 of the broadcast, "This historically unprecedented surrender unquestionably shortened the war by many months and prevented an estimated 450,000 American battle casualties."
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin...n20050812f2.htm

It is impossible to say what kind of effect the dropping of the bombs had on the SWC cabinet meetings and the emperor's decision to terminate the war, however, given the steadfast refusal of the hawks to terminate the war even after hiroshima and nagasaki, one can hardly criticize Truman for knowing that Japan was going to surrender when in fact the surrender decision was frought with uncertainty, and in such a precarious position knowing what we know 60 years after the fact. Would Hirohito have had the support of the army without the events of the atomic bombs? Would Mori have made the same decision to not support the coup as well? These are questions and uncertainties revisionists fail to answer or address.