Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
On this day in 1945, two days after Hiroshima, Japan, was nearly obliterated by an atomic bomb, a Silverplate B-29 Superfortress named Bock’s Car dropped a more powerful atomic bomb on Nagasaki. One week later, following an attempted coup by military officers intent on continuing the war, Emperor Hirohito announced by radio that Japan was surrendering. The formal surrender ceremony occurred on the battleship Missouri on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay.
In his radio message, Hirohito said:
Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.
Japan’s war began not with its attack on Pearl Harbor, but with its invasion of Manchuria near the end of September, 1931. Its empire’s expansion was stopped at the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May, 1942, and its fate was sealed a month later at the Battle of Midway. By 1944 Japan, in every practical sense of the word, was defeated — yet it fought on for another 18 months in increasing desperation and depravity, subjecting its citizens to terrible fire bombings and its military to needless death.
That the atomic bombs detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki provided the shock that finally brought Japan’s leaders to their senses and brought the war to a conclusion cannot be disputed by responsible historians. Whether such destructive weapons should have been used given that eventually conventional warfare would have defeated Japan (at, I believe, a very high cost in American lives) will be endlessly disputed. My conclusion: Truman’s decision to use atomic bombs was justified.