I remember being in high school and, after reading a brief paragraph in a history textbook concerning the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, feeling that there was much more to the story then any of us ever learned in our public schools.
I did some reading years later as an adult and learned some of the terrible details. The truth is that our prejudice and misunderstanding of the Japanese culture had much to do with the terrible decision to use the Atom bomb.
The Japanese wanted to surrender they just did not want to have the Emperor lose face. They considered him a God. We were unable to understand the importance of that and demanded their unconditional surrender and became the only country to ever use nuclear armaments in a time of war.
There is much shame for all participants in that war.
Stunningly little is known about what was going on in Japan's inner circle at that time. There was considerable sentiment in parts of the Japanese military at the time that the allies were not up for the cost of a full scale invasion of Japan, so many Japanese leaders thought stalling could lead to a better peace agreement. What exactly the positions of the most important players on that question was, before the bombs were dropped, is not known; there are no good records of their deliberations, though many historians of the period have their own theories. It's not even settled among historians to what extent Hirohito was a leader and to what extent he was a puppet of an oligarchic inner circle; there are historians with very widely different views on that question, which would seem one of the easier things to determine about how the inner circle worked.
ReplyDeleteCertainly the American leadership at the time had no idea what the Japanese were thinking. This could cut both ways; surely they did not know that negotiation was doomed to failure, and they did not in fact make any serious effort in that direction. But you seem to imply there was definitely a way the allies could have brought about a better outcome, and the historical record is not at all clear on that point.