bodhisamaya wrote:

From what Japanese friends have told me, it is a very common belief among Japanese that Japan tried to surrender prior to the bombing of Hiroshima but America would not accept it.  We will never know what the reality actually was though.  Those who win wars write the history books.  Given that jockeying for post war position started well before WWII even ended, it makes sense.  Much more so than the idea that Japanese brass wanted a prolonged campaign on Japanese soil down to the last warm body knowing they had no chance for victory.

It's a very common belief, but at the same time a very uninformed belief.  Japan wanted guarantees about the emperor system.  The US said unconditional surrender.  Japan's position (I mean by that its lack of a bargaining position) was one that, realistically, offered no room for bargaining.  The only bargaining was over an amphibious invasion of the main Japanese islands.  Japan thought that was their bargaining chip -- that an amphibious invasion would be something so costly they could use it as leverage.  Japan was quickly shown that an amphibious invasion was not the only solution from the US side.  They quickly threw in the towel, but not until that bluff was called.

When you "try to surrender", you just do so.  "We give up, and we toss ourselves upon your mercy or lack thereof."  Surrender is not something you have to "try" to do.  You do, or you don't.  The argument is so facile I cannot believe anyone with half an intellect can buy into it.  You surrender, period, and it's over.  Anything LESS than that is not a surrender.  Surrender means, "We give up, entirely -- we quit."  It does NOT mean let's bargain about how we are going to "give up".

When you "surrender", you put your weapons down and refuse to pick them up whatever the consequences.  This is surrender, and there is no real other definition.  Very, very few Japanese military personnel were in that state of mind.

The concept of "tried to surrender but couldn't" is one that makes the mind revolt.  It is, per se, impossible.  If you quit fighting and give up (THE definition of surrender), then it's over.  Anything after that by the victor then is surely a war crime.  But mealy mouthed claims about surrender that are merely negotiations for "surrender on your terms" are NOT surrender.  You give up, or you don't.  Period.  Surrender does not mean "only if you ...".

One must presume that at any time his royal highness the Showa Emperor could have gone on radio and tossed in the towel.  He did not until some time after TWO atomic bombs were dropped.  One, apparently, was not enough.  It was not until societal extinction stared them starkly in the face that the Emperor decided enough was enough.  Boo on him.

Last edited by Wally (2009 May 30, 5:28 am)

bodhisamaya wrote:

Much more so than the idea that Japanese brass wanted a prolonged campaign on Japanese soil down to the last warm body knowing they had no chance for victory.

I just want to add one more point here, because I *am* a military historian with a graduate degree in national security studies:  No reasonable Japanese military person could envision victory after Midway.  It wasn't just the carriers, which was enough of a disaster, but the trained pilots that went down with them.  Japan could fight a rearguard action after that, but the end was never, ever in any doubt.  Doom.

Now go to Leyte Gulf in October of 1944 -- way before even Okinawa.  After this battle, Japan didn't have anything resembling a navy.  The 3rd and 7th US fleets basically swept the Japanese navy from the ocean.  If you thought you had a chance after Midway, you were a supreme optimist.  If you thought you had a chance after Leyte, you were an insane idiot.  Period.  I will brook no discussion about it.  Japan was dead, dead, dead in the water, so to speak.

But give up.  Noooooooooo.

So when do reasonable people EXPECT that they *might* give up?  Answer:  Never.  They were doomed, but they kept on plugging away like they lived in an alternative universe where losing, and losing big, eventually translated into victory.  There was no reason for America to EVER assume that Japan was willing to quit until Hirohito took to the airwaves.  They were beaten so badly they were a sick joke, but still they wanted to fight.  They resorted to kamikaze attacks.

There was nothing out of Japan, nothing realistic, that ever suggested that they didn't want to go down in some bizarre Armageddon.  Nothing until the Emperor finally stopped it when societal extinction became a serious possibility in the Japanese mind.

I will edit this to say "nothing about surrender".  Yes, Japan was willing to stop fighting if, if, if.  These terms included guarantees about the emperor, and no occupation.  Japan, however, was in no position to negotiate.  In poker, it's called overplaying your hand.  Again, you either surrender, or you don't.  There are no "will surrender if" clauses when you are getting your butt kicked.  I mean, you can TRY.  But don't be surprised if you get your butt kicked even harder in the process.

Last edited by Wally (2009 May 30, 5:59 am)

zanzibar wrote:

A minor point in a debate that remains unsettled after decades, but one that applies, in some small way, to our study of this language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokusatsu# … p._774_0-1

Whether it backs up Wally's point regarding the Japanese terms for surrender, I leave to you.  (I also found the NSA article referenced at the bottom to be rather interesting, as well, for many reasons.)

The real point is that Japan was genuinely defeated a year or two years earlier.  It was continuously inserted into the wrong end of a meat grinder, and the writing was on the wall for all but the most obtuse.  If Japan "wanted to try to surrender", that should have been communicated by the end of 1942, a time by which the end was already determined.

But Japan fought on.  Doggedly.  Determinedly.

Bully for them.  But they were getting ground up like so much sausage.  They were dead, but like zombies, refused to be dead.  It is no surprise, then, that America truly *feared* them.  They were like some supernatural enemy that couldn't understand reality.  They were apparently going to go down fighting, even if that meant to the last human being on Honshu.  That was the image they tried to project, and by golly it worked, didn't it?

Until it provoked a response so devastating that the image could no longer be reasonably projected.

"They were beaten so badly they were a sick joke, but still they wanted to fight.  They resorted to kamikaze attacks."

There were teenage boys in those kamikaze planes. Many of them were there because they wanted to defend the country they were about to lose. To characterize these boys as "sick jokes" is to belittle their sacrifice. What they did was both heroic and tragic, a function of the times in which they lived.

when you said "THEY were a sick joke", it did seem as though you were referring to all Japanese soldiers. and, the kamikaze were soldiers for Japan - they were soldiers of the air.

In a high school class, if you get bullied and asked for your wallet, you don't just surrender. You punch them in the nose and make them nosebleed even if you are a skinny twig and it's a pathetic joke.

vinniram wrote:

once again putting words in my mouth. I simply stated that an event, the atomic bombings, was a mass murder. I didn't mention any other events, nor their status as either mass murders or not mass murders. please don't resort to personal attacks. I am not personally attacking you. If you find me to be such a "simpleton" and a "troll", why are you responding to this thread?

You are not trolling vinniram, nor are you a simpleton. People with an opposing viewpoint are simply attempting to bully you into submission. Classic internet forum tactics. I learned a while ago that debating history & politics on the internet is a pointless exercise because extremists will just shout louder & louder until you give up (and will subsequently interpret that as some kind of victory). No credible historian would suggest that the atomic bombings were anything less than mass murder.

i was just pointing out a flaw using your own analogy.  the repercussions of war are life and death for millions of people, not a few bloody noses.

mafried wrote:

i was just pointing out a flaw using your own analogy.  the repercussions of war are life and death for millions of people, not a few bloody noses.

I think it is a quite good one. You do know US demanded Japan to relinquish Taiwan, Manchu and Korea, don't you?

And according to your logic, shouldn't US have surrender when Perl Harbor was bombed to avoid loosing more American lives?

I know this kind of conversation most likely goes nowhere and ends up in a flame war, but trying to justify these nukes too much wouldn't make you, and American in general, look very humane.

Last edited by masaman (2009 May 30, 1:25 pm)

kazelee wrote:

There is a difference between fighting a war and fighting an un-winnable at the cost of your nations own children (the irony) wouldn't you say?

That's why they stopped fighting at last right? I'm only saying just because Japanese government did not surrender easily it did not make the use of nukes any humane. Now there isn't such a thing as a humane war, so I'm not even bashing the use of nukes, and as you said, we can't do anything about what happened in the passed, but we can at least say that the decision wasn't the best one.

masaman wrote:

kazelee wrote:

There is a difference between fighting a war and fighting an un-winnable at the cost of your nations own children (the irony) wouldn't you say?

That's why they stopped fighting at last right? I'm only saying just because Japanese government did not surrender easily it did not make the use of nukes any humane. Now there isn't such a thing as a humane war, so I'm not even bashing the use of nukes, and as you said, we can't do anything about what happened in the passed, but we can at least say that the decision wasn't the best one.

Read a little more about that era. All sides have something to be ashamed of. What country has made a good decision in the time of war?

Nanking has nothing to do with nukes. Both were unforgivable atrocities. The fact that the Japanese did X, Y and Z does not change the fact that the United States committed mass murder of civilians.

harhol wrote:

Nanking has nothing to do with nukes. Both were unforgivable atrocities. The fact that the Japanese did X, Y and Z does not change the fact that the United States committed mass murder of civilians.

Yep, sure did. Because it's called war.