Compelling Japan’s Surrender Without the A-bomb, Soviet Entry, or Invasion: Reconsidering the US Bombing Survey’s Early-Surrender Conclusions

Journal of Strategic Studies

Volumn 18, Issue 2, 1995, Pages 101-148

  Bernstein, Barton J ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84952390991     PISSN: 01402390     EISSN: 1743937X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402399508437595     Document Type: Article

References (195)

1. Chairman’s Office, United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War) (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1946), p. 26;
2. Japan’s Struggle to End the War (Washington: GPO, 1946), p.13.
3. Gen. Leslies Groves, notes, nd (July 1946), Groves Papers, Record Group [hereafter RG] 200, National Archives [hereafter NA], Washington, DC.
4. P.M.S. Blackett, Fear, War, and the Bomb: Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy (NY: Whittlesey House, 1949), p. 134;
5. Herbert Feis, Japan Subdued: The Atomic Bomb and the End of the War in the Pacific (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1961), pp. 178–9,
6. The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1966), p. 191;
7. Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy; Hiroshima and Potsdam (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1965), p. 238,
8. and ibid. (NY: Penguin Books, 1985), p. 286;
9. Leon Sigal, Fighting to A Finish: The Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1988), p. 9.
10. Also see Paul Kecskemeti. Strategic Surrender: The Politics of Victory and Defeat (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1958), pp. 192–5;
11. Hanson Baldwin, Great Mistakes of the War (NY: Harper & Row, 1949), pp. 105–7;
12. Robert Messer, ‘New Evidence on Truman’s Decision’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 41/7 (Aug. 1985), pp. 51–4;
13. Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light (NY: Pantheon, 1985), pp. 185/7;
14. Herman Wolk, ‘The B-29, the A-Bomb, and the Japanese Surrender’, Air Force Magazine 58 (Feb. 1975), p. 61.
15. The larger issue of A-bomb historiography is treated in J. Samuel Walker, ‘The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update’, Diplomacy History 14/1 (Winter 1990), pp. 97–114;
16. Barton J. Bernstein, ‘The Atomic Bomb and American Foreign Policy, 1941–1945: An Historiographical Controversy’, Peace and Change 2 (Spring 1974), pp. 1–16
17. idem, ‘The Struggle Over History: Defining the Hiroshima Navrature’, in Philip Nobile (ed.). Judgment at the Smithsonian (NY: Marlowe, 1995).
18. Robert J.C. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1954);
19. Barton J. Bernstein, intro. to ‘Japan’s Struggle to End the War’, in idem (ed.). The Atomic Bomb: The Critical Issues (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), pp.52–3;
20. Bernstein, ‘The Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities and Missed Disasters’, (paper at Amer. Hist. Assoc., Dec. 1985);
21. idem, ‘Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near-Disasters, and Modern Memory’, Diplomatic History 18 (Spring 1995), pp. 250–3;
22. Robert Pape, ‘Why Japan Surrendered’, Int. Security 18/2 (Fall 1993), pp.179–80, n.91, and 199.
23. Robert Newman and Gian Gentile also criticise the pre-Nov. counterfactual in forthcoming studies.
24. For an understanding of this problem before the reports were published, see Paul Nitze to Mother, 28 April 1946, box 165, Paul Nitze Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
25. By no means docs the present essay seek to challenge, or minimize, the value of counterfactuals in studying historical events. For a brief discussion, see James D. Fearon, ‘Countcrfactuals and Hypopthesis Testing in Political Science’, World Politics 43/1 (Jan. 1991), pp.169–95,
26. and for a rich example of rewarding use of this method, see McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choice About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (NY: Random House, 1989).
27. There is added irony in that Nitze was very eager to make sure that P.M.S. Blackett received copies of Nitze’s final report, with his counterfactuals. Nitze to Solly Zuckerman, 8 Aug. 1946, box 165, Nitze Papers.
28. David Maclsaac, Strategic Bombing in World War Two: The Story of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (NY: Garland Publishing, 1976), usefully discusses the establishment of the Survey but uncritically defends its reports on the European war, and never really compared its Pacific War reports with the USSBS Files. For a more critical study, see Gentile (note 4).
29. President Harry S Truman to Franklin D’Olier, 15 Aug. 1945, and D’Olier to Truman, 23 Aug. 1945, Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.
30. The bureaucratic struggle is treated briefly in Maclsaac, Strategic Bombing (note 8), pp.119–48, and the expanded purview is clear in the interrogations and in the many USSBS reports on the Pacific war.
31. Interview with Paul Nitze, 11 Nov. 1993.
32. Interview with Gen. David Burchinall, 12 July 1990;
33. and various interviews with Phillip Farley. Unfortunately, James Beveridge, ‘History of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific) 1945–16’, a War Dept. historical study, usually sticks close to organizational and personnel descriptions, thus avoiding analysis. This historical study is available on microfilm at the Hoover Instn., Stanford, California. Also see Nitze to Mother, 28 April 1946.
34. Strobe Talbott, The Master of the Game: Paul Nitze and the Nuclear Peace (NY: Knopf, 1988), pp.37–8;
35. Paul Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision – A Memoir (NY: Grove Wcidenfeld, 1989), pp.35–7;
36. David Callahan, Dangerous Capabilities (NY: HarperCollins, 1990), pp.46–50.
37. Material on Nitze’s and other Survey members’ opposition to mass-urban bombing of Japan is also available in ‘Report of the USSBS and JTG Conferences’,
38. Gen. Ira Eaker to Gen. Henry Arnold, 18 July 1945, box 2, Office of the Chairman, Records of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (henceforth USSBS), Record Group 243, National Archives, and also cited by Callahan, p.516.
39. Interview with Paul Nitze, 11 Nov. 1993.
40. See USSBS, Japan’s Struggle (note 1), p. 13, and note that the alteration of a handful of earlier sentences on pp.10–13 could easily accommodate a very different conclusion. This is even more true of Summary Report (Pacific War), pp.21–6. Nitze was the chief author of the Summary Report and Walter Wilds of Japan’s Struggle, according to Beveridge, ‘History of the United States Strategie Bombing Survey (Pacific)’, p.223. The third report from the Chairman’s Office, The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Washington: GPO, 1946), and the key pages on the bomb and Japan’s surrender (pp.22–3) are unclear whether the bomb was necessary to break the stalemate in the government and produce a surrender before Nov. 1945, though the tone of this small section could be read to support the pre-31 Dec. 1945 surrender counterfactual. This third report, issued in July 1946, was largely cast by Philip Farley, who states that he came to his own conclusions and felt no pressure from Nitze on this section. Interviews with Farley. Also see Nitze to Farley, 2 July 1945, box 165, Nitze Papers, which indirectly confirms Farley’s recollection.
41. Japan’s Struggle (note 1), p.1.
42. These records, despite a few missing items, were available in paper in Record Group 243 until about 1991, when the Pacific war files were microfilmed, and now only the microfilm copies are available to researchers. They are M1654, nine reels, and M1655, 507 reels. Some of the records examined in paper at the National Archives in 1978–86 seem to be missing from the microfilm copies. This essay rests substantially on that 1978–86 research in the paper copies, and only occasionally on microfilm files.
43. The five whose wartime activities and experience ill-equipped them to give testimony directly relevant to the counterfactuals were: Civilian Defense Division Interrogation No.7, on 1 Oct. 1945 with Mikio Tatemayashi, Chief of Civilian Defense Section, Ministry of Home Affairs; Electric Power Division, Interrogation No.30, on 4 Oct., with Matsuo Araki, Chief, Electric Power Bureau, Ministry of Industry and Commerce; Overall Economic Effects Division, Interrogation No. 12, on 6 Oct., with Etsusaburo Shiina, Chief of the Total Mobilization Bureau; and Office of the Chairman, Interrogation No.29, on 15 Oct., with Lt.Gen. Msao Yoshizumi and Col. Sato, both listed as Chief, Seibi Kyoku (Military Preparations and Equipment Bureau, and later merged into the Central Bureau of the War Ministry). The transcripts or summaries for these interviews were largely irrelevant to the early-surrender counterfactuals, and all of these interrogations arc in USSBS Records. Perhaps Yoshizumi, because of his knowledge of Anami, could have been useful.
44. ‘Interrogation of Prince Konoye’, No.373, 9 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records. The interrogators were D’Olier, Nitze, Galbraith, Capt. T.J. Hedding, and Paul Baran, an economist.
45. This interpretation is based largely on the Togo-Sato messages, 12 July–7 Aug. 1945, transl and available in US Army, Far East Command, Military History Sect., ‘Translation of Japanese Documents’ [hereafter ‘Trans.’], available on microfilm from the National Archives; and Magic-Diplomatic Summaries, July to 8 Aug. 1945, National Security Agency (NSA), and also available in Records of the NSA, RG 457, NA.
46. ‘Interrogation of Prince Konoye’, No.373, 9 Nov. 1945.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. ‘Minutes of Staff Meeting – 10 Nov. 1945’, from USSBS Records and found also in box 166. Nitze Papers.
50. ADFEAF, ‘Japan’s Decision to Surrender’, Interrogation of Konoye (conducted in early Sept.), No.5, 5 Oct. 1945, USSBS Records.
51. Japan’s Struggle, pp. 7–8,13.
52. Even if such testimony were found, it would raise serious questions about Konoye’s consistency, or whether he believed that such a covert strategy, approved by Hirohito, had much chance in July–Aug. of gaining approval from the ‘militarists’. In his memoirs, Konoye did make claims similar to those that the Survey reported as made to its interrogators, but there is substantial reason to question the reliability of those claims. Significantly, Suzuki, Togo, and Marquis Koichi Kido, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, provided no substantiating testimony. For Konoye’s later published claims, see Yoshikate Oka, Kortoe Fumimaro: A Political Biography (Tokyo UP, 1983), p. 177,
53. trans. by Shumpei Okamato and Patricia Murray. In, an interview of 17 May 1949, ex-Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo also raised questions about such a claim, said that he understood that Konoye made the claim in his memoirs, and thus prompted someone using the transcript of Togo’s comments to write in the margin, ‘Konoye memoirs may be exaggeration.’ ‘Statement’ by Shigenori Togo, 17 May 1949, in US Army, Far East Command, Military History Sect., ‘Statements of Japanese Officials in World War II’ [herefater cited as ‘Statements’ with name of the interviewed individual], available on microfilm from the NA.
54. Interrogation of Marquis Koichi Kido, No. 308, 10 Nov. 1945. The same five-man group that interviewed Konoye also interviewed Kido.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Naval Analysis Div., Interrogation of Adm. Soemu Toyoda, USSBS No.378 (Naval No.75), 13 and 14 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records, and also printed under ‘Japanese War Plans and Peace Moves’, in Naval Analysis Div., USSBS (Pacific), Interrogations of Japanese Officials (Washington: GPO, 1946), II, pp. 313–26.
58. The interrogation was conducted by Rear Adm. Ralph Ofstie and Lt. Cdr. Walter Wilds of the Navy, with Nitze, Maj. Gen. Orvil Anderson of the AAF, and Capt. T.J. Hedding and Lt. Cdr. James A. Field of the Navy in attendance.
59. Ibid. For a contrary view of Toyoda’s role, see ‘Statement’ by Shigenori Togo, 17 May 1949, in ‘Statements’.
60. William F. Halsey and J. Bryan III, Admiral Halsey’s Story (NY: Whittlesey House, 1947), p. 271;
61. E.B. Potter, Bull Halsey (Annapolis, MD: Naval Inst. Press, 1985), p.346.
62. Civilian Defense Div., Interrogation of Genki Abe, No.118, 10 Oct. 1945, USSBS Records; Chairman’s Office, Interrogation of Adm. Teijiro Toyoda, No.10, 5 Oct. 1945, USSBS Records; and Naval Analysis Div., Interrogation of Adm. Kichisaburo Nomura, No.429 (Naval No.90), 8 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records, and also printed in Interrogations of Japanese Officials, II, pp. 384–95.
63. The interrogation of Abe was by Col. John Warden, with Nitze, Gen. Grandison Gardner, Lieut. F.H. Lewis,and Ensign D.P. Hornstein. The transcript states that this interrogation ended at 1220 on 8 Oct., and that Nitze would continue the interrogation and that a report of that interrogation would be filed by Lt. (jg) Gorham, the translator, but there is no available record of this report. Vice-Adm. Teijuro Toyoda was interrogated by Nitze, Oftsie, and Gardner, with Wilds present. When asked whether the blockade without an invasion and B-29 raids could have been decisive in producing surrender, Toyoda evaded giving his opinion and simply said that some people agreed with this and others did not. At the session with Nomura, Ofstie, Baran, and Lt. Cdr. C.N. Spinks arc listed as interrogators, with Nitze, Hedding, and Col. Philip Cole also present.
64. Interrogation of Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, No.489, 20 and 23 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records. For later testimony by Hiranuma further emphasizing the resistance of Japan’s military leaders to a surrender, except with excessive conditions, see Interrogation of Kiichiro Hiranuma, 28 Jan. 1950, Doc. No.55127, in US Army, Far East Cmd., Mil. Intell. Sect., Historical Div., ‘Interrogations of Japanese Officials on World War II’ (henceforth ‘interrogations’ with name of the Japanese official), Modern Military Records Branch, NA.
65. Interrogation of Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, No.489, 20 and 23 Nov. 1945.
66. Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Fleet Adm. Osami Nagano, No. 498, 30 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records. He was also interrogated by the Naval Analysis Div., Interrogation of Fleet Adm. Osami Nagano, No.392 (Naval No.80), 20 Nov. 1945, USSBS records, in a session far less relevant to the early-surrender theses.
67. Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Adm. Koshiro Oikawa, No. 494, 9 Dec. 1945, USSBS Records.
68. Morale Div., Interrogation of Hisatsune Sakomizu, No.609, 11 Dec. 1945, USSBS Records. In a later session, with the US Army Historical Sect. on 3 May 1949, Sakomizu stressed that the galvanizing impact of the Hiroshima bombing, minimized the influence of Soviet entry, and stated that, before learning of Soviet entry, ‘we had already made up our mind for the prompt acceptance of the Three Power [Potsdam] Declaration, and had arranged for the purpose.’ ‘We’ did not seem to include military leaders, though Sakomizu was not clear on this matter in this interrogation. ‘Interrogations’ of Sakomizu, 3 May 1949.
69. Joint Interrogation, Interrogation of Premier Baron Suzuki, No. 531, 26 Dec. 1945. The three interrogators were Anderson, Baran, and Burton Fisher of the Morale Div., with Gardner in attendance.
70. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (note 4), pp. 150–209;
71. Barton J. Bernstein, ‘The Perils and Politics of Surrender: Ending the War with Japan and Avoiding the Third Atomic Bomb’, Pacific Historical Review 46/1 (Feb. 1977), pp.17–23.
72. Interrogation of Premier Baron Suzuki, No. 531, 26 Dec. 1945.
73. Because a formal decision had not been made and announced on the issue of trying Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal, interrogated Japanese officials undoubtedly had additional reasons to cast him, quite early, in the ‘peace’ camp. For a larger framework in which to interpret Hirohito’s actions and postwar Japanese statements about the Emperor’s benign, peace-seeking intentions, see Herbert Bix, Japan’s Delayed Surrender: A Reappraisal’, Diplomatic History 19 (Spring 1995), pp.197–225;
74. and also see Bix, ‘The Showa Emperor’s “Monologue” and the Problem of War Responsibility, Jnl of Japanese Studies 18/2 (Summer 1992), pp.295–363.
75. An extreme case of this effort to protect Hirohito is Yasamusa Matsudaira, ‘The Emperor and the Ending of the War’, in the Charles Willoughby Papers, Musselman Library, Gettysburg Coll., Gettysburg, Pa.
76. Japan’s Struggle (note 1), p.1.
77. Interrogation of Adm. Mitsumasa Yonai, No. 379 (Naval No.76), 17 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records, and printed also in Interrogations of Japanese Officials, II, pp.327–36;
78. and Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Yoshijiro Umezu, No. 488, 27 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records.
79. As note 44.
80. Overall Economic Effects Div., Interrogation of Rear-Adm. Sokichi Takagi, No. 487, 23 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records.
81. Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Rear-Adm. Toshitanea Takata, No. 276, 2 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records.
82. Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Lt. Gen. Torishiro Kawabe, 2 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records.
83. Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Lt. Gen. Saburo Endo, No. 279, 3 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records.
84. Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Maj. Gen. Miyoshi, No. 352, 9 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records.
85. Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Maj. Gen. Tatsuhiko Takashima, No. 478, 24 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records.
86. Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of FM Shunroku Hata, No. 522, 8 Dec. 1945, USSBS Records.
87. Interview with Nitze, 11 Nov. 1993.
88. Japan’s Struggle (note 1), p.6.
89. ‘Appendix Survey of National Resources as of 1–10 June 1945’, in Japan’s Struggle (note 1), pp.16–18.
90. ‘Appendix Survey of National Resources as of 1–10 June 1945’, pp.16–18.
91. Morale Div., Interrogation of Hisatsune Sakomizu, No.609, 11 Dec. 1945. Throwing more doubt on the ‘starvation and surrender’ argument, are interrogations in 1949–50, well after the USSBS reports had been published, Sakomizu in a series of examinations by the US Army, ‘Interrogations’, 21 April 1949, 3 May 1949, 31 July 1950 (Doc.62105), and 12 Dec. 1949 (Doc. 62106), never stressed food shortages, and forthcoming starvation, as imminent causes of surrender in 1945 or as the central concerns for himself and other leaders in June–Aug. 1945.
92. Joint Interrogation, Interrogation of Premier Baron Suzuki, No.531, 26 Dec. 1945.
93. Interrogation of Marquis Koichi Kido, No. 308, 10 Nov. 1945;
94. Interrogation of Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, No. 489, 20 and 23 Nov. 1945;
95. Civilian Defense Div., Interrogation of Genki Abe, No. 119, 10 Oct. 1945;
96. Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Yoshijiro Umezu; Naval Analysis Div., Interrogation of Adm. Soemu Toyoda: and Interrogation of Adm. Mitsumasa Yonai. Interrogations of lower-level officials did not provide any strong support for the ‘starvation and surrender’ thesis, surprisingly few stressed food shortages in the month or so before the mid-Aug. 1945 surrender, and then usually for their impact on the people’s morale. See Morale Div., Interrogation of Yutaka Akabane, Vice-Chief of the Cabinet Information Board, No. 109, 22 Oct. 1945, USSBS Records. One source in late Nov. complained then about food shortages but did not project that concern back to July–Aug, 1945. Morale Div., Interrogation of Sukehide Kabayama, of the Publicity Bureau of the Foreign Office, No.443, 21 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records. For omission or minimization the theme of fears of food shortages, see: Morale Div., Interrogation of S. Koizumi, Director of Bureau of Police, Home Affairs, No.157, 22 Oct. 1945, and Morale Div., Interrogation of S. Koizumi, No.158, 25 Oct. 1945, USSBS Records; Manpower, Food, and Civilian Supplies Div., Interrogation of Col. Shinokawa, Head, Military Food and Clothing Board, Maj. Kouda, Assistant on Foods, and Maj. Kato, Assistant on Clothing, No.117, 23 Oct. 1945, USSBS Records; Civilian Defense Div., Interrogation of Shigeo Odachi, Minister of Home Affairs (July 1944–April 1945), No. 8, 4 Oct. 1945, USSBS Records; Providing some slight support for the ‘starvation and surrender’ thesis as likely to fit the pre-31 Dec. argument, Sumihasa Ikeda, in a US Army interrogation of 27 Dec. 1949, recalled that Hiranuma at the meeting of the Big Six and staff on 9–10 August 1945 had mentioned as one aspect of declining popular morale the scarcity of food. ‘Statements’ of Sumihasa Ikeda.
97. Manpower, Food and Civilian Supplies Div., The Japanese Wartime Standard of Living and Utilization of Manpower (Washington: GPO, 1947), p. 108.
98. The Japanese government reduced staple rations by 10 per cent, generally effective on 11 July 1945, but not applicable to the six largest cities until 11 Aug. 1945. Jerome Cohen, Japan’s Economy in War and Reconstruction (Minneapolis, MN: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1949), p. 377.
99. Cohen, a young naval officer in the war, had been a member of the USSBS Overall (sometimes cited as Over-All) Effects Div.
100. Japan’s Wartime Standard of Living and Utilization of Manpower, p. 108, had emphasised the four-day carry-over for late 1945 but had omitted the fact that this amount (133,000 tons) was not far from the 1944 carry-over (384,167 tons), or for 1943 (435,333 tons) or even for 1942 (392,000 tons). Since Pearl Harbor, the carry-over into the new crop year had never exceeded the amount for about 14 days’ consumption. In the years before Pearl Harbor, however, the carry-over had been considerably higher, averaging narly 1,055,000 tons in 1937–41, with a low of 676,900 tons in late 1939 and a high of 1.451,000 in late 1938. Data available in Cohen (note 61), p.367.
101. Japanese Wartime Standard of Living (note 61), pp. 108–9.
102. Somewhat undercutting Nitze’s ‘starvation and surrender’ argument, this 1947 study, on p.108, contended, ‘Just where armed pressure, short of the use of the atomic bomb, could have made the food crisis a breaking point in the Japanese war effort cannot be defined.’ In Japan’s Economy in War and Reconstruction, p. 386,
103. in reaching beyond the explicit conclusions of this 1947 USSBS report, Cohen stated, ‘Had the war continued, there would have been starvation in the urban centers of Japan during the winter of 1945–46.’ Perhaps the strongest interrogation evidence for the ‘starvation and surrender’ pre-Nov. thesis came from Lt. Gen. Tadakazu Wakematsu, the Vice Minister of War; he said that the Army had surrendered, after the Emperor’s decision, because they did not have food to retreat into the mountains, as earlier intended, and then to fight on. No other interrogation provided supporting evidence for this rather strange contention, though possibly he meant small parts of the Army. Oil and Chemicals Div., Interrogation of Lt. Gen. Tadakazu Wakamatsu, No.287, 7 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records.
104. Japanese Wartime Standard of Living (note 61), p.109.
105. Interrogation of Marquis Koichi Kido, No. 308, 10 Nov. 1945; Interrogation of Premier Baron Suzuki, No.531, 26 Dec. 1945.
106. This definition of 95 per cent likelihood for the meaning of ‘in all probability’ in the USSBS reports is based upon surveys in various seminars, 1984–94, with some suggesting numbers in the 80s and many as high as 97–99 per cent.
107. Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost (note 11), pp.36–7.
108. Summary Report (Pacific War (note 1), p.16.
109. Ibid., p.19.
110. Ibid., pp.19–20.
111. Ibid., p.19. The argument about railroads is worked out with more specificity in Transportation Division, The War Against Japanese Transportation (Washington DC: GPO, 1947), pp.10–12.
112. Summary Report (Pacific War), pp.19–20.
113. Ibid., pp.16–20.
114. War Against Japanese Transportation (note 67), esp. p. 11;
115. and Over-All Economic Effects Division, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan’s War Economy (Washington: GPO, 1946), pp. 64–5.
116. A late July 1945 new targeting directive, to shift the emphasis from incendiary, mass-urban attacks and to transportation (as top priority) and other key parts of the economy, was scheduled, allegedly, to go into effect in mid-Aug., but the war ended first. Gen. Ira Eaker to CG US Army Strategic Air Force (Spaatz), 26 July 1945, box 11, Curtis LeMay Papers, Library of Congress, courtesy of Conrad Crane; Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan’s War Economy, p. 65.
117. Exactly how, and when, it would have been implemented raises questions, especially in view of the absence of any mention of this directive by Generals Arnold and LeMay in their memoirs. See Curtis LeMay with MacKinlay Kantor, Mission With LeMay; My Story (Garden City, NJ: Doublcday, 1965), pp. 378–90;
118. Henry H. Arnold, Global Mission (NY: Harper, 1949), pp. 584–600.
119. Overall Economic Effects Division, Interrogation of Naoki Hoshina, Cabinet Secretary in Tojo’s Premiership, No. 505, 19, 22, and 29 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records, said, if key railroads had been destroyed or blocked, ‘it would simply have been a question as to how long it would have taken the Japanese people to starve’ and later on, in vague words, he said that cutting off coal from Honshu to Kyushu, Hokkaido, Joban, and Ube might (‘I think probably it would have’) have been as decisive as the situation that existed ‘at the time of the end of the war’ – though, he added, ‘fighting might have continued, but it would have been meaningless.’ In reading Nitze’s May draft of his report, Solly Zuckerman seemed to conclude that Nitze was stressing the effectiveness of the bombing of Japan’s transportation system, and thus Zuckerman implied that Nitze doubted whether the bombing of cities had been necessary. Zuckerman to Nitze, with two draft-pages by Zuckerman for the report, 27 May 1946, Nitze Papers.
120. MacIsaae, Strategie Bombing in World War Two (note 8), pp. 117–150; and various interviews with Philip Farley.
121. Naval Analysis Div. (USSBS), ‘Surrender of Japan’, 19 Feb. 1945, USSBS Records. In a segment cast by economist Paul Baran, in Ch.5 (‘Surrender’) in Effects of Strategic Bombing, issued in Dec. 1946, ‘the air offensive against Japan proper’ was cited as ‘the major factor determining the timing of Japan’s surrender’ (p. 59).
122. This statement, while minimizing the A-bomb and Soviet entry, stopped short of Nitze’s early-surrender counterfactuals. Baran’s authorship is listed in Beveridge, ‘History of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific)’, p.134.
123. N.a., ‘Suggested Addition to Report’, nd. (1946), USSBS Records.
124. Beveridge, ‘History of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific), pp. 221–22;
125. President’s Appointment Book, Truman Library.
126. The White House controlled the release of the reports to the public. See, e.g., Charles Ross, Truman’s press secretary, press release, 12 July 1946, Truman Library.
127. In various sessions with school children at the Truman Library in the 1960s, the ex-President was frequently asked about the A-bomb decision, and this was a phrase that he often used as part of his often brusque explanation.
128. Gar Alperovitz and Robert Messer, ‘Marshall, Truman, and the Decision to Drop the Bomb’, Int. Security 16/3 (Winter 1991/92), p.205;
129. and for a brief rejoinder. Barton J. Bernstein, ‘Marshall, Truman, and the Decision to Drop the Bomb’ (note 3), ibid., p.215.
130. Contrary to many postwar claims, the formal, pre-Hiroshima estimate (termed an ‘educated guess’) was 25,000 fatalities for the invasion of Kyushu, and about 105,000 wounded in action. Joint War Plane Committee, ‘Details of the Campaign Against Japan’, 15 June 1945, JWPC 369/1, file 384 Japan (3 May 1944), Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, RG 218, NA;
131. Barton J. Bernstein, ‘A Postwar Myth: 500,000 Lives Saved’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42/6 (June/July 1986), pp. 38–40.
132. Shortly before and after the Hiroshima bombing, amid Ultra reports of a growing Japanese military buildup on Kyushu, there was some US uneasiness and a fear that fatalities and casualties could be higher. Willoughby, ‘Amendment No.1 to G-2 Estimate of the Enemy Situation with Respect to Kyushu (dated 25 April 1945)’, 29 July 1945, box 6,
133. Stephen J. Chamberlin Papers, US Army Military History Inst., Carlisle Barracks, Pa.; Gen. Marshall to Gen. MacArthur, 7 Aug. 1945,
134. War 45369, Marshall Papers, George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, Virginia; Edward Drea, MacArthur’s Ultra (Lawrence, KS: Univ. of Kansas Press, 1992), esp. pp. 200–20.
135. Some analysts have greatly exaggerated the significance of a 31 July 1945 medical study of blood requirements, which forecast 395,000 US casualties in the Kyushu campaign. That number included ‘only’ 125,000 battle casualties; the rest were non-battle casualties. This medical study undoubtedly chose to err on the safe side, and thus probably exaggerated the number of casualties and the blood requirements. See Ch.15 (‘From Down Fall to Blacklist’) in the unpub. draft-history, ‘Medical Service in the Asiatic and Pacific Theaters’, Center for Military History, Washington, DC. This chapter is also entitled ‘From Olympic to Blacklist’ on the cover page, but not on the contents page. Strangely, nearly all analysts neglect Gen. Marshall’s mid-June 1945 estimate, according to Adm. Leahy, of not more than 63,000 casualties of the 190,000 US combatant troops. William Leahy Diary, 18 June 1945, Library of Congress.
136. This counterfactual should not be conflated with the very different, and incorrect, contention that American leaders clearly foresaw that the Soviets’ entry into the war would have a dramatic effect on the Japanese leadership and therefore was very likely to propel Japan to surrender within days. This issue is critically, but briefly, argued in Alperovitz and Messer, ‘Marshall, Truman, and the Decision to Drop the Bomb’ (note 81), pp.206–12,
137. Bernstein, ibid., pp.215–19.
138. Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy (1985), pp. 27–33;
139. Alperovitz and Messer (note 81), pp. 207–10;
140. Blackett, Fear, War, and the Bomb (note 3), pp. 128–39;
141. Feis, The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (note 3), pp. 189–92.
142. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (note 4), pp. 130–6,
143. and esp. pp. 130–2, seems to imply that the only sticking point was the US demand for unconditional surrender, but later on Butow, by focusing on the multiple demands of Japan’s ‘militarists’, undercuts this implication.
144. Interrogation of Marquis Koichi Kido, No. 308, 10 Nov. 1945;
145. Interrogation of Premier Baron Suzuki, No. 531, 26 Dec. 1945;
146. and Interrogation of Prince Konoye. No.373, 9 Nov. 1945.
147. Togo-Sato messages, 12 July–7 Aug. 1945 in ‘Translation’; and Magic-Diplomatic Summaries, July to 8 Aug. 1945, NSA.
148. Sato to Togo, 20 July 1945, No.1427, in ‘Translation’.
149. Togo to Sato, 21 July 1945, No.932, in ‘Translation’. In his preceding cable that day, Togo was not any more clear. Togo to Sato, 21 July 1945, No.931, ‘Translation’.
150. Technically, Togo did not intend that the government should actually reject the Potsdam Declaration. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (note 4), pp.145–9.
151. Sato to Togo, 28 July 1945, No.1476, in ‘Translation’.
152. Sato to Togo, 3 Aug. 1945, in ‘Translation’. In a cable of 2 Aug., Togo informed ambassador Sato that the worsening war conditions did not provide much time before ‘the enemy lands on our homeland [but] at the same time, you can easily see that the present domestic situation makes it very difficult for us to decide concrete peace terms at a stroke…. As for concrete peace terms, efforts arc being made to coordinate and harmonize opinions brought up from all quarters as soon as the Soviet Government agrees to our sending the envoy [Konoye].’ In ‘Translation’.
153. ‘Statements’ of Togo, 17 May 1949.
154. ‘Statements’ of Kido, 17 May 1949, Doc.61541.
155. ‘Statements’ of Togo, 17 May 1949.
156. ‘Statements’ of Toyoda, 29 Aug. 1949, Doc.61346.
157. Int. Military Tribunal for the Far East [hereafter IMT for FE], Proceedings, pp.31172–74.
158. ‘Statements’ of Ikeda, 17 May 1949, Doc.54479.
159. ‘Statements’ of Zenshiro Hoshina, 9 Nov. 1949, Doc.61978. Hoshina had been a vice-admiral and chief of the Bureau of Naval Affairs, Navy Ministry.
160. ‘Statements’ of Togo, 17 May 1949; and IMT for FE, Proceedings, p.35787.
161. Ibid., pp.35787–8.
162. Information on Hiranuma, Anami and Manchuria, and Togo all from ‘Statements’ of Ikeda, Doc.54483, and the quotation is Ikeda’s paraphrase of Hiranuma’s words.
163. ‘Statements’ of Zenshiro Hoshina, Doc.53437, and all quotations arc Hoshina’s paraphrases of participants’ words.
164. ‘Statements’ of Togo, 17 May 1949;
165. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (note 4), pp.176–7.
166. For piecing together the Emperor’s statement, see, among other sources, IMT for FE, Proceedings, pp.31177–79 (Kido), 35788 (Togo), 35593–94 (Suzuki); ‘Statements’ of Togo, 17 May 1949; Ikeda, Doc.54483; and Hoshina, Doc.53437. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (note 4), pp.175–6 put together the version, based upon various testimony, that is normally regarded as the most reliable ‘reconstruction’. Butow’s ‘reconstruction’ does not include the air raids, a theme that appears in ‘Statements’ of Ikeda, Doc.54483. in ‘Why Japan Surrendered’ (note 4), Pape stresses the theme of military vulnerability in arguing what seems a badly constructed case, built upon very restricted evidence (and eschewing direct use of translated interviews with ex-Japanese officials), to minimize the importance of B-29 conventional attacks and the A-bomb in producing Japan’s surrender in mid-Aug.
167. IMT for FE, Proceedings, p.35787.
168. ibid.; and ‘Statements’ of Kido, 17 May 1949, Doc.61541.
169. These events arc discussed in Bernstein, ‘Perils and Politics of Surrender’, pp. 17–23;
170. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (note 4), pp. 198–208,
171. and the Emperor’s statement appears on pp. 207–8,
172. ‘rerconstructed’ from sources. It is basically unclear on the issue, so important to Pape, ‘Why Japan Surrendered’, of whether military or civilian vulnerability is stressed, or both. Pape’s analysis generally skips over the crucial 10–14 August 1945 period, and only a few sentences mention the events of those days.
173. The pressures within the services on their leaders to continue the war, and the central issue of whether Gen. Anami was often responding to such pressures or acting primarily out of convictions, remain a problem. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (note 4), pp. 180–1 offers a characteristically subtle interpretation, on Anami’s need to act to restrain subordinates, see ‘Statements’ of Togo, 17 May 1949, Seizo Sakonji, Doc.61339, and Hiroshi Shimomura, 30 March 1950, Doc.57665. Sakonji had been Minister of State, and Shimomura President of the Information Board. For contrary views, which stress Anami’s independence and sometimes his desires (even after the 10 Aug. mtg.) to fight on, see ‘Interrogations’ of Lt. Gen. Masao Yoshizumi, 6 June 1949, Doc.59277, and Lt. Col. Hasahiko Takeshita, 11 June 1949, Doc.50025A.
174. ‘Statements’ of Toyoda, 29 April 1949, Doc.61340. Military men seemed generally to emphasize Soviet entry rather than the A-bomb.
175. The issue of the total number of fatalities and injured from the bombing of Japan is in considerable dispute, even among USSBS reports, with a study, pub. in 1947 from the Morale Div., The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale (Washington: GPO, 1947), p. 34,
176. extrapolating from interview data, estimating 1.3 million injured and 900,000 others killed, while the Summary Report (Pacific War), p. 20,
177. stated 806,000 casualties including about 330,000 fatalities, and these numbers included those for both A-bomb attacks, which the Summary Report, in underestimation, placed at 60,000–70,000 fatalities and another 50,000 injured at Hiroshima, with about 40,000 killed or missing in Nagasaki and a like number injured (pp. 23–4).
178. The Summary Report’s numbers were probably drawn from ‘official Japanese figures, as modified somewhat by the USSBS Medical Div….’ Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale, p. 34 n
179. Arnold, Global Mission (note 74), p. 598,
180. and the official AAF history, Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate (eds.), The Army Air Forces in World War II (Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1953), Vol. V., p. 654, generally rely upon the Summary Report, though Arnold’s numbers slightly reduce the Summary Report’s figures, possibly in a postwar effort to minimize the number of casualties and fatalities produced among noncombatants by air force bombing of cities. High estimates for the number of A-bomb fatalities at Hiroshima (c.130,000) and Nagasaki (80,000–90,000) into early Nov, 1945 appear in Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused By the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki; The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings (NY: Basic Books, 1981), p.367, trans. by Eisei Ishikawa and David Swain.
181. Pape, ‘Why Japan Surrendered’ (note 4), p. 199 concludes ‘that surrender would have occurred at precisely the same time even if there had been no strategical bombing campaign [or atomic bombing, because of] the naval blockade, invasion threat, and Soviet attack….’ By ‘precisely the same time’, he seems to mean mid-August 1945, and not the USSBS’s counterfactual date of simply before Nov. 1945. Though Pape’s own counterfactual conclusion supports the ‘Soviet entry’ counterfactual in my essay, his argument seems quite extreme in its treatment of strategic bombing. A close reading of the postwar interviews (often, interrogations) with former Japanese leaders, and not simply reliance upon small excerpts and summaries in secondary sources, might have altered his conclusion that strategic bombing and the A-bomb played no important role. He also misinterpreted the final terms of surrender, misunderstood the US terms of 11 Aug., and made some dubious assumptions about both conventional strategic bombing and the atomic bombing. See, e.g., Pape (note 4), pp.154–7. Though one can reasonably conclude that the A-bomb helped propel the surrender, and that the surrender might well have been achieved before Nov. without the atomic bomb, it is also possible to conclude that the second A-bomb (the Nagasaki bomb) did not make any appreciable difference in producing the mid-Aug. surrender and thus, regardless of conclusions about the ‘necessity’ of the first A-bomb, the second one was almost certainly unnecessary.
182. See Barton J. Bernstein. ‘Doomsday II’, New York Times Magazine, 27 July 1975;
183. Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed (NY: Knopf, 1975), pp.233–6.
184. ‘Statements’ of Lt. Gen. Kawabe, Doc.52608. In that same interview, Kawabe added, ‘since the atomic bomb and the Russian declaration of war were shocks in quick succession, I cannot give a definitive answer as to which of the two factors was more decisive in ending hostilities.’
185. E.g., in Military Analysis Div., Interrogation of Lt.Gen. Seizo Arisue, No.217, 26 Oct. 1945, USSBS Records, Gen. Arisue [Chief of 2nd Bureau (Intelligence) Army Gen. Staff] stated, ‘One of the greatest problems facing us was what to do if the Allies did not invade Japan. We had been expecting invasion and preparing for it for a long time, but it did not come.’ After the mid-June fall of Okinawa, the Japanese Navy’s Gen. Staff, according to one member, retained the hope of ‘discourag[ing| you [the US] by inflicting great damage on your forces. We estimated we would destroy 30–40 per cent of the initial assaulting forces when you hit the homeland.’ Japanese Intell. Div., Interrogation of Rear Adm. [Sadatoshi, Baron] S. Tomioka, No. 385, 15 Nov. 1945, USSBS Records.
186. This analysis runs contrary to Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy (note 3); Alperovitz and Messer (note 81);
187. Kai Bird, The Chairman: John J. McCloy, The Making of the American Establishment (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp. 240–64,
188. among others. The analysis in the text receives support from, among others, Bundy, Danger and Survival note 5), pp.54–97;
189. Bernstein, Atomic Bomb (note 4), pp. 95–120;
190. Bernstein, ‘The Decision’, San Jose Mercury News, 14 Aug. 1994; Perspective, pp.I–1 and 4;
191. Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign policy, 1943–1945 (NY: Random House, 1968), pp.560–7.
192. See, e.g., Joseph Grew to Henry Stimson, 12 Feb. 1947,
193. Stimson to Grew, 19 June 1947.
194. Grew Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Ma.; and Henry Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (NY: Harper & Bros., 1948), p. 629.
195. Also see Stimson’s memoranda for the President, 2 July and 16 July 1945, Stimson Papers, Yale Univ., New Haven, Conn. and Charles F. Brower IV, ‘Sophisticated Strategist: General George A. Lincoln and the Defeat of Japan, 1944–45’, Diplomatic History 15/3 (Summer 1991), pp.317–33.