The American Use of the Atomic Bomb to End WWII and Contemporary American Attitudes About the Use of Nuclear Weapons
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Seventy-five years ago, at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, an American B-29 Superfortress bomber, named ‘Enola Gay,’ dropped a 10,000-pound (4,536-kg) uranium-235 bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing about 78,000 people. By year-end, about 140,000 were dead, from an estimated population of 350,000. Three days later, the United States dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki. By 2019 Japan had recognized the total of deaths from radiation illness and injuries in Hiroshima as 319,186 and in Nagasaki as 182,601.
In the context of the war — especially given the attitudes and behavior of the Japanese government conducting that war– it was a difficult, but ultimately a brave, strategic, and morally justified decision by the Untied States to use atomic weapons in an effort to end WWII. That decision saved many more lives on both sides than were lost in the bombings.
Arguments that the Japanese were close to surrender, or that a demonstration of the bomb would have convinced Japan’s murderous military-dominated wartime government to surrender are not well supported by the historical record. Discussions and arguments within the Japanese government after Hiroshima, but before Nagasaki, confim the folly of such claims.
Only strikes that could make the Emperor override Japan’s military leadership in order to save his people and country had a reasonable chance of ending the war.
As horrific as the bombings were, in addition to saving life, the quick end to the war helped preserve the finer and less militaristic aspects of Japanese culture.
Let us mourn the loss of life in war, recognize its waste and horrors, and vow to make war an option only when a threat is clear, a threat is manifest or immanent, and diplomacy is no longer an option.
According to U.S. Naval Institute archivists, “General Minoru Genda, who had played a major role in planning the attack on Pearl Harbor, made a controversial appearance at a U.S. Naval Institute event in 1969 at which he said that he felt no bitterness towards the U.S. for dropping the bomb on his hometown of Hiroshima. He then plainly stated that ‘if we had the atomic bomb in 1945, we would have dropped it on you.'”
The popularity of the American use of atomic bombs has declined over passing decades primarily do to a decreasing antipathy toward Japan (which is now viewed as an ally) and a loss of the sense of urgency the context of war creates.
Regardless, according to a study by Scott D. Sagan and Benjamin A. Valentino, “American public opinion on nuclear weapons hasn’t changed much since 1945 and many Americans would support their use to kill millions of civilians if the United States found itself in a similar wartime situation,” a new study suggests… The results showed little support for the so-called “nuclear taboo” thesis, or that the principle of “noncombatant immunity”—civilian protection from such weapons—has become a deeply held norm in America.” Scott D. Sagan and Benjamin A. Valentino. “Revisiting Hiroshima in Iran: What Americans Really Think about Using Nuclear Weapons and Killing Noncombatants.” International Security Volume 42 | Issue 1 | Summer 2017 p.41-79 (available online via the MIT press at https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/42/1/41/12168/Revisiting-Hiroshima-in-Iran-What-Americans-Really-
“60 percent of Americans would approve of killing 2 million Iranian civilians to prevent an invasion of Iran that might kill 20,000 US soldiers…Women are as hawkish as men and, in some scenarios, are even more willing to support the use of nuclear weapons.”
[Left: A republication from the the Reuter’s archive on the bombing of Hiroshima]
on 1945 (Aug-5 19:15 ET, Aug-6 8:15 JST), the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Among the 140,000 killed were several American PoWs including 19-year-old Navy Airman Normand Brissette. He survived the blast but died 2 weeks later. Details of his fate were classified until the 1970s.
Photo Credit: BBC Archives. Former Japanese imperial army soldier Hiroo Onoda (right) offering his military sword to former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos (left) to express his surrender at the Malacanan Palace in Manila, Philippines, 11 March 1974 Japanese Officer Who Refused Surrender Provides Context For Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Taking Bearings January 17, 2014Historians and pundits who deride decisions made to end WWII, often do so shorn of the gritty context about the nature of combat and combatants. For those who fail to appreciate how difficult and costly a final Allied invasion of Japan would have been for both sides (including Japanese civilians), the story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese Army intelligence officer who refused to surrender after World War II should stand as a cautionary tale.
Soldiers deserve honor and support, but soldiers are also responsible to have situational awareness–even in war they are legally responsible to know when they must disobey orders–and so lauding a soldier–especially an intelligence officer–for continuing to fight in the face of overwhelming evidence that a war has ended is ultimately disrespectful of decisions soldiers must make every day, often under duress and often at peril of their lives.
Onoda’s resistance and reception as a hero in Japan decades after WWII ended should also stir memories of a dark period of barbaric and cruel militaristic fanaticism that gripped Japanese society; a reign of terror that was vanquished only after years of incalculable Allied sacrifice and finally by flashes bringing woefully indiscriminate death and destruction to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Context is easily forgotten. For those who would argue that the Japanese might have surrendered following a mere demonstration of the atomic bomb, I recommend a deep dive into John Toland’s excellent two-volume Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative history published in 1970 titled, “The Rising Sun:The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945.”
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Related Story: Transcripted from the BBC World News, 17 January, 2014
Japan soldier who refused to surrender Hiroo Onoda dies
A Japanese soldier who refused to surrender after World War II ended and spent 29 years in the jungle has died aged 91 in Tokyo.Hiroo Onoda, speaking in 2001: “I’ve never regretted anything”A Japanese soldier who refused to surrender after World War Two ended and spent 29 years in the jungle has died aged 91 in Tokyo.Hiroo Onoda remained in the jungle on Lubang Island near Luzon, in the Philippines, until 1974 because he did not believe that the war had ended.He was finally persuaded to emerge after his ageing former commanding officer was flown in to see him.Correspondents say he was greeted as a hero on his return to Japan.As WW2 neared its end, Mr Onoda, then a lieutenant, became cut off on Lubang as US troops came north.The young soldier had orders not to surrender – a command he obeyed for nearly three decades.“Every Japanese soldier was prepared for death, but as an intelligence officer I was ordered to conduct guerrilla warfare and not to die,” he told ABC in an interview in 2010.“I became an officer and I received an order. If I could not carry it out, I would feel shame. I am very competitive,” he added.Mr Onoda refused to surrender until his former commanding officer rescinded his ordersWhile on Lubang Island, Mr Onoda surveyed military facilities and engaged in sporadic clashes with local residents.Three other soldiers were with him at the end of the war. One emerged from the jungle in 1950 and the other two died, one in a 1972 clash with local troops.Mr Onoda ignored several attempts to get him to surrender.He later said that he dismissed search parties sent to him, and leaflets dropped by Japan, as ploys.“The leaflets they dropped were filled with mistakes so I judged it was a plot by the Americans,” he told ABC.Survival trainingFinally in March 1974 his former commanding officer travelled to the Philippines to rescind his original orders in person.Mr Onoda saluted the Japanese flag and handed over his Samurai sword while still wearing a tattered army uniform.The Philippine government granted him a pardon, although many in Lubang never forgave him for the 30 people he killed during his campaign on the island, the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from Tokyo.Mr Onoda surrendered to the Philippine president in March 1974Following his surrender, Mr Onoda ran a ranch in Brazil, and opened a series of survival training schools in Japan.Mr Onoda was one of the last Japanese soldiers to surrender at the end of World War II.Private Teruo Nakamura, a soldier from Taiwan who served in the Japanese army, was found growing crops alone on the Indonesian island of Morotai in December 1974.Mr Nakamura was repatriated to Taiwan where he died in 1979.
