Could Japan Have Fought On? October 4, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary , trackback
On the 6 August 1945 American planes dropped their first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Japanese would surrender within a month, arguably hundreds of thousands of US lives and very possibly hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives were saved by Little Boy and his elder brother Fat Man. The Japanese surrender came about because of Little Boy and Fat Man. The prospect of the Americans dropping one of these monsters a week on the homeland was just too much: and there is no question that the Japanese were right to surrender; the Japanese war had failed 7 Dec 1941 when the Imperial Navy attacked the US rather than the Soviets. But, for the sake of argument, could Japan have gone on fighting against the Americans for much longer, perhaps forcing an invasion of the homeland or at least holding out into 1946? This question is interesting not so much for what it tells us about Japan but for what it tells us about US nuclear capacity at the time. The first point to make is that the US did not have many atom bombs: though could the Japanese reasonably have deduced this fact? In fact, they seemed to have had three, two of which were used in early August and one of which was, apparently, being held back for Tokyo, or at least what was left of that Japanese city. Beach has failed to get to grips with the question of how quickly the US could have made atom bombs. Are we talking about two or three a month, or perhaps more like one a month? drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com The consensus on the net – though who knows how good the proofs – is one a month. This brings us to the second fundamental point about those early bombs: with huge apologies to those who died in the blast and those who suffered consequences for decades after Little Boy and Fat Man were just not that powerful. Little Boy was said to be 16 KT in strength and the closest survivor from ground zero was Eizo Nomura who was a mere 170 metres (560 feet) from where the bomb touched the ground. (Hiroshima actually had some very solid cement buildings, put up with earthquakes in mind). Just to put this in a wider scale of values the Soviet’s Tsar Bomba in 1961 had a strength of 50,000 KT. Not even a cockroach would have survived at 170 yards. As to Little Boy the fire bombing of Tokyo was more deadly.
We often mistakenly think that the US would have thrashed the Soviet Union in a third world war fought in 1946 or even 1948. These puny atom bombs would have been absorbed by the Soviet Union with relative ease: at least, as many as twenty or thirty…
30 Oct 2014: Dr Gus writes: Such “what if” speculations are by far my favourite aspect of history, and something my 13 year-old son and I spend a lot of time discussing. I have thought long and hard over the years, about one of the thoughts Laurens van der Post put forward about the effects of the atomic bombs on Japan. As you undoubtedly know, van der Post had a long standing love of Japan and the Japanese culture that he had to try and reconcile with the treatment he and his fellow prisoners of war suffered at Japanese hands. He was very interested in the differences between the moon worshipping cultures he knew from Africa and the sun worshipping culture of Japan, and how this related to their outlook and approach to life and other people. Van der Post was very certain that the fact that the energy of the atomic bombs was the “energy of the sun”, effectively the power of their gods being turned on them, was behind the collapse of the Japanese will to fight on, and indeed the transformation in their outlook and relationship with the rest of the world after the Second World War. If my memory serves me correctly, it was in The Night of the New Moon that he discussed this at some length.’ Nathaniel makes an obvious point but one that many of us (including myself) would have a great deal of sympathy with: The belief at the time was that Japan would fight on. Although its naval and air forces had been devastated, its army was largely intact. At the time the bombs were dropped preparations for a conventional invasion were well underway. The U.S. Navy ship my dad was on (he was then 19 years old) was scheduled to be part of it. If there’s any chance the bombs prevented that I for one am very glad, while at the same time wishing the whole war hadn’t happened.’ Thanks Gus and Nathaniel! KHM writes: It is my impression that the demand for unconditional surrender at the Potsdam conference prolonged the war with Japan. If the allies had been willing to enter into negotiations with Japan the war could have ended months earlier. Japanese society was completely dominated from the top down. If the emperor or his top officials had been injured or killed (or the national treasures destroyed) little motive would remain for continuing the war. This was the argument for dropping an a-bomb on Tokyo first rather than Hiroshima. The USA had a free hand in the air war. The fire bombing of population centers with napalm and white phosphorus, especially of Tokyo, had the effect of lowering Japanese morale and their ability to continue war production. They knew defeat was inevitable. I would say that even though the Japanese could have fought on (as the military extremists preferred according to the Bushido Code) it ould have been at a terrible cost to the civilian population and the overseas troops. No centrally coordinated defense would have been effective. Fortunately the emperor chose common sense rather than the code.
