My sources (see pic) tell me that the United States had knowledge that Japan expressed willingness to surrender WWII in messages to other countries a year before the bombing, and they were on their last legs by the time they were bombed, and Harriet Truman ignored this so the Atomic Bomb could be finished and he wanted to show it off to the Soviet Union.
Was that true? I think it's at odds with Harriet Truman's warning to Japan to surrender.
Then perhaps they should have surrendered
To my understanding they were willing to surrender if they got to keep some lands from korea and china.
They didn't surrender after the first bombing, so no. Not to mention the firebombing which killed more than the atomics.
>Harriet Truman
Is this some new meme?
...
WE
WUZ SICK OF THIS MEME.
>They didn't surrender after the first bombing, so no.
They gave the Japanese all of three days before dropping the second bomb.
>conditional surrender
It doesn't take three days to send a telegram saying "alright, we get it, calm down bro"
fuck the gooks
they deserved it anyway
We're not talking about an individual sending a message, we're talking about a national government. Even after Nagasaki, it took them almost a week to make the necessary preparations.
maybe they should have had their shit together then
it shouldn't take three days to figure out that a city got instantly wiped off the face of the earth and that it might be a good idea to call uncle [spoiler]sam[/spoiler]
You have to understand the system of the Japanese government at this point.
They're run by a cabinet of ministers, with the military exercising a large amount of control.
The cabinet has to vote unanimously to surrender for it to legally count. Since the IJA legally has to have a representative at the cabinet, this means the IJA has the right to refuse surrender.
The IJA and IJN were in favor of fighting the US in the home islands. There were in fact, many people in the Japanese government, including Emperor Hirohito, who were desperately pushing for peace, and making gestures to the US through neutral countries. They didn't have the power to deliver on a peace agreement.
Even after both atomic bombs and the Soviet declaration of war, Hirohito had to personally beg the military representatives in his cabinet to allow him to make peace.
During this time, there were three separate coups trying to put Hirohito into "protective custody" so the war would continue. When that failed, many senior officers killed themselves conducting bombing raids or kamikaze flights in an effort to poison peace negotiations.
it isn't America's fault or problem that the Japanse government is fucked.
Daily reminder that the US let those actually responsible walk free.
It does make peace negotiations rather difficult, though.
In the most technical sense, it was our problem because it meant we had to go over there and then skullfuck them into behaving like civilized human beings.
But yeah, people take the words and actions of the peace faction in the cabinet as the policy of the Japanese government as a whole, which is totally incorrect.
If it's not an unconditional surrender than it doesn't matter.
Technically they got to keep their Emperor.
And warcriminals.
Technically the condition was effectively a request the US could've dropped if they wanted.
After he admitted he wasn't divine.
That shit was easily worth the cost of a couple hundred thousand rice crispies.
It doesn't matter. The US couldn't have accepted anything short of unconditional surrender because they didn't know the extent of the emperor's involvement in beginning the war. For all America knew keeping the emperor in power would ensure WW3. They only allowed the Emperor to live and stay the emperor after an investigation after Japan's surrender.
>For all America knew keeping the emperor in power would ensure WW3
When Japan (or rather, part of the Japanese government) was sending messages about surrender in the months prior to dropping the bombs, they didn't ask that the emperor be kept in power. The only condition they asked for was that the primary branch of the Japanese royal family not be stripped of their royal status or titles, aka, don't dismantle the royal family.
first post best post
Like I said, the US had no idea who or how the war was instigated. The US was willing to to allow Japan to live however they wanted to live more or less, so long as the individuals and form of government involved in starting the war were taken out of power for good. That means nothing short of unconditional surrender.
There are documents showing multiple Americans involved with the decision to drop the bomb acknowledging that they weren't necessary in Japan's surrender.
they weren't necessary for Japan to surrender, but they were necessary for a surrender without the deaths of tens of thousands of American servicemen, and half of Japan and all of Korea falling to the Soviets
Didn't they need Japan to surrender ASAP because the soviets declared war and if they seized Japanese territory it would be a similar situation to a split occupied Germany?
That's a theory that's been pitched, but there really hasn't been any hard evidence that the Soviet invasion drove the decision.
Plus, it's not like the Soviets were invading anytime soon. They were hilariously bad at amphibious landings, and even their operations to take the Kurils and Sakhalin went pretty poorly. For a real invasion of mainland Japan (or even Hokkaido), the Soviets were going to have to do a lot of preparation. Realistically, I don't see the Soviets being able to mount an amphibious invasion of Japan until at least 1946.
This is a meme
The soviets had no way of landing on japan unless america gave them landing crafts, which i doubt they would have done.
>Japan surrendered because the Soviets declared war
>the Soviets wouldn't have been able to invade them
so they're just fucking retarded then
The soviets drove out the Japanese from Manchurian, but beside that nothing else. like said, even after their armies abroad were destroyed, they still wanted to continue fighting.
Blame MacArthur I suppose. This came from a general who fucked up the defense of the Philippines.
You could say keeping the emperor was vital in keeping the country stable, but then again they could've just installed a new one and hanged him.
As for the war criminals especially those notorious scientists, they could've just tied loose ends by getting rid of them once they got what they wanted and nobody would know or even care.
>making landing craft is impossible
>but beside that nothing else.
because they surrendered before an invasion, not because invasion was impossible
It would have taken them 1-2 years to produce the amount they would need to invade and train their troops. With the Americans only months away from an actual invasion, a potential soviet invasion was not a pressing issue for the japanese.
Hmm, I see.
We are not talking about surrender. We are talking about unconditional surrender. Japan didn't agree to unconditional surrender until the end. The decision to make an unconditional surrender is the reason the Japanese military assaulted the Imperial Palace. They didn't want it to happen right up until the bitter end.
The argument I always see used by people claiming it was the Soviets that got Japan to surrender tends to pivot around two major points:
>Japan more afraid of the Soviets
>Soviets were seen as Japan's "way out" for negotiating a peace
Remember that after the Kwantung Army got their buttholes reamed at Khalkhin Gol the Japanese pretty much panicked, signed a non-aggression pact, and hastily reworked their entire plans for expansion into Asia. In their pre-war dealings leading up to Pearl Harbor, Japan consistently seemed more afraid of having to go to war with the Soviets than any other power (at least after 1939), and the fact that the Soviets swept through Manchuria so fast once they invaded seems to cement that idea.
And then there's the fact that the Soviets were on friendly terms with Japan right up to the point they entered the war. Japan had an ambassador in Moscow that (reportedly) went as far as trying to make peace terms for the Soviets to pass on to America, and the Soviets were remaining decidedly neutral, impounding any Allied aircraft or soldiers that happened to find their way into Russia in the Far East. When Russia entered the war against Japan, their ambassador was expelled and their last real contact with the major powers of the world was severed.
Though I personally don't find this to be enough evidence to argue that it was solely the Soviets who forced the surrender, that tends to be the argument that many people make.
>hurr durr I'm diplomatically retarded
It was fucking 1945, you idiots. Get your shit together before shitposting, gaijins.
I'll leave this here and let you all see and make your own opinions.
nuclearfiles.org
>fried rice it is then
Fpbp
>b-but japan wanted to surrender!
Why didn't they? Shit, it took TWO atomic bombs before they finally did. Your revisionism is shit OP.
>surrender
>unconditional surrender
They're not the same.
inb4
>b-but they kept the Emperor anyway
What mouth breathers fail to comprehend is that the US didn't know what role the Emperor played in instigating the war. For all the US knew was that the Emperor was the main proponent.
Conditional surrender was unacceptable to the US. We demanded, and received, an unconditional surrender following Nagasaki.
>Before the war crime trials actually convened, the SCAP, the IPS, and Japanese officials worked behind the scenes not only to prevent the Imperial family from being indicted, but also to slant the testimony of the defendants to ensure that no one implicated the Emperor. High officials in court circles and the Japanese government collaborated with Allied GHQ in compiling lists of prospective war criminals, while the individuals arrested as Class A suspects and incarcerated solemnly vowed to protect their sovereign against any possible taint of war responsibility.[49] Thus, "months before the Tokyo tribunal commenced, MacArthur's highest subordinates were working to attribute ultimate responsibility for Pearl Harbor to Hideki Tōjō" by allowing "the major criminal suspects to coordinate their stories so that the Emperor would be spared from indictment
Makes me wonder how much the US actually knew at that time.
Adding to this:
Anyone know what the reasons were for protecting the Emperor?
I've read about him being useful to keep Japan stable after the war, but were there any more reasons?
You shouldn't leave out the fact that the Japanese military invaded the Imperial Palace when Emperor Hirohito tried broadcasting his decision to surrender. The military was controlling the government by that point, the emperor nothing more than a symbol of national unity, and those generals wanted to fight to the last man.
It all has to do with creating a strong Westernized nation state. Japan needed a strong national identity so they unified the country using public schooling to brainwash kids and using the Emperor as a symbol for national unity. Take away the emperor and Japanese leaders feared that there would no longer be a strong unified Japan. The extraordinary success of Japan's westernization just goes to show how precarious it was. If they screwed anything up European powers may have simply cut up Japan like they did China.
>turn 18
>enlist
>next day we drop atomic bomb
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
There is no denying that Hirohito was one of the main pushers for a surrender at the end, and the coup attempt is a clear example of how it could have ended with Japan nuked into a wasteland if not for him.
But there is also quite a lot of documentation linking him to knowledge of or ordering of war crimes
>The debate over Hirohito's responsibility for war crimes concerns how much real control the Emperor had over the Japanese military during the two wars. Officially, the imperial constitution, adopted under Emperor Meiji, gave full power to the Emperor. Article 4 prescribed that, "The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution," while, according to article 6, "The Emperor gives sanction to laws and orders them to be promulgated and executed," and article 11, "The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and the Navy." The Emperor was thus the leader of the Imperial General Headquarters.
Poison gas weapons, such as phosgene, were produced by Unit 731 and authorized by specific orders given by Hirohito himself, transmitted by the chief of staff of the army. For example, Hirohito authorised the use of toxic gas 375 times during the battle of Wuhan from August to October 1938.
Exactly how much he did/knew is apparently quite debatable. from what I can tell.
China wasn't cut up by Western powers.
It very much would have been after the Boxer Rebellion had the US not put up such a stink about it.
Luckily for us this was right about the time the British realized the US was the up and coming big power and were trying to get on our good side. When the Brits agreed the rest of the world had little choice but to follow.
Just acknowledge that you are wrong, dumb, ignorant and cut your losses.
Im not the one who claimed China was cut up.
>Japan wants a conditional surrender that allows them to keep the Emperor in place
>"no it must be unconditional lol"
>Japanese refuse to surrender
>US drops two atomic bombs on them
>Japanese surrender unconditionally
>Americans still let the Emperor remain in place
Why did they do this?
see
I meant why didn't the US just assure the Japanese that they wouldn't remove the emperor as the national figurehead, since that's what ended up happening anyway even with "unconditional surrender."
>unless america gave them landing crafts
America was already proving the Soviet Union with ships for the express purpose of helping them invade to the Japanese islands. It was only scrapped when Japan actually surrendered that the US sought to keep the SU completely out of the occupation process.
Because fuck you that's why.
whats so difficult to understand about UNCONDITIONAL
SURRENDER
america a gud boi never do nuffin wrong
There's little evidence that suggests that the nuclear bombs were integral to compelling the Japanese to accept an unconditional surrender. There's lots of evidence that the Japanese high command were not particularly concerned about the loss of cities. They had lost like ~68 of them before Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Let me put it to you this way, how would you as a leader of America feel about the loss of Chattanooga, TN & Charlotte, NC after Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Sacramento, San Diego, and every other city above 500,000 people had already been burned to the ground?
The bombs however were convenient for both the US & the Japanese. The Japanese could portray themselves as victims of new super-weapon as opposed to brutal aggressors. It also allowed them to sweep the failures of administering the war under the rug, 'it wasn't our fault we lost, the other side had a super weapon nobody could account for'. And for the US the bombs provided an opportunity to showcase their military might to the USSR in a manner that
Because at the time of the Potsdam deal that is what they wantet. And then they changed their minds
This might be as good a place as any to ask this: The japanese rejected the terms of the unconditional surrender, this we know, hoping for a more favorable position. Besides keeping their royal family, what else did they want? To keep a bunch of conquered land like China/Korea? No dis-armament?
Those, plus all of their "war-criminals" must also be tried by their own court. This is coming from the guys who bitched, whined and moaned about victor's justice later
They thought that if they held out they could keep at least some land in China, Korea, and the Pacific.
And instead they got 2 doses of canned sunshine.
Are you fucking stupid? They couldn't just hang the fucking emperor and replace him, do you even know why the Japanese cared about having the emperor?
They just really wanted the blinding light of freedom, I guess
Was this when japan offered america there conditional surrender terms? Or did they eventually drop those conditions and just keep the emperor one?
They never offered any conditional surrender terms. The closest Japan ever got to offering conditional surrender was their ambassador to the USSR, on his own initiative, trying to pitch peace terms to the Soviet ambassador in hopes the Soviets would mediate.
But the terms were unanimously rejected by the Japanese government, and the Soviets never actually passed anything on to the Allies.
Thank you for clarifying that for me. So even right up to the day before we dropped the bomb on them, Japan still was committed to keeping Korea and staying armed, as well as keeping their emperor?
You'd think they could at least send something like "hey we plan to surrender now, we're just getting it formally organized so let's not fuck our shit up any further"
Well, depending on who you ask, they either:
>The closest Japan ever got to offering conditional surrender was their ambassador to the USSR, on his own initiative, trying to pitch peace terms to the Soviet ambassador in hopes the Soviets would mediate.
>But the terms were unanimously rejected by the Japanese government, and the Soviets never actually passed anything on to the Allies
as said
or made every attempt at peace with the US besides the whole emperor-thing, but were ignored just so they could nuke them.
Either way, fired rice was the result