Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Debate Over Bombings

Debate Over Bombings

The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the US's ethical justification for them has been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades. J. Samuel Walker wrote in an April 2005 overview of recent historiography on the issue, "the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue." He wrote that "The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States."

Supporters of the bombings generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan. One figure of speech, "One hundred million will die for the Emperor and Nation," served as a unifying slogan. Although some Japanese were taken prisoner, most fought until they were killed or committed suicide. Nearly 99% of the 21,000 defenders of Iwo Jima were killed, and the last Japanese soldiers did not surrender until November 1949. Of the 117,000 Japanese troops defending Okinawa in April–June 1945, 94% were killed. Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on 1 August 1944, ordering the execution of Allied prisoners of war when the POW-camp was in the combat zone. As War Minister, Korechika Anami was opposed to the surrender. Immediately after Hiroshima, he commented, "I am convinced that the Americans had only one bomb, after all." Eventually, Anami's arguments were overcome when Emperor Hirohito directly requested an end to the war himself.

Those who oppose the bombings, among them many US military leaders as well as ex-president Herbert Hoover, argue that it was simply an extension of the already fierce conventional bombing campaign. This, together with the sea blockade and the collapse of Germany (with its implications regarding redeployment), would also have led to a Japanese surrender – so the atomic bombings were militarily unnecessary. On the contrary, according to Kyoko Iriye Selden, "The most influential text is Truman's 1955 Memoirs, which states that the atomic bomb probably saved half a million US lives— anticipated casualties in an Allied invasion of Japan planned for November. Stimson subsequently talked of saving one million US casualties, and Churchill of saving one million American and half that number of British lives."

Scholars have pointed out various alternatives that could have ended the war just as quickly without an invasion, but these alternatives could have resulted in the deaths of many more Japanese.

As the United States dropped its atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, 1.6 million Soviet troops launched a surprise attack on the Japanese forces occupying eastern Asia. "The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow's mediation", said Japanese historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose recently published Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan is based on recently declassified Soviet archives as well as US and Japanese documents.