View Full Version : Hiroshima 65 Years Later: US Offers No Apology
The US sent its first delegation to Hiroshima's annual memorial ceremony. Some Japanese would like the US to apologize for nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And so it goes...
Richard :munchin
Hiroshima 65 Years Later: US Attends Ceremony, But Offers No Apology
CSM, 5 Aug 2010
Sixty-five years after the United States dropped "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, effectively ending World War II and ushering in an era of nuclear dread, the US sent its first delegation to the annual ceremony to remember the over 100,000 Japanese who lost their lives in the bombing.
Britain and France also sent representatives for the first time.
While some Japanese hailed the presence of the US and other nuclear powers as a sign of commitment to eventual nuclear disarmament, for others it was too little, too late. Some Japanese still want an apology for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while others complained about the absence of President Obama.
Some of Hiroshima’s hibakusha – as atomic bomb survivors are known – criticized the US ambassador for failing to meet with them, apologize for the bombing, or even offer a floral tribute. Others however, saw his visit as a sign of progress.
On the streets of Tokyo, there were mixed feelings regarding the US delegation’s attendance. “It’s good they’ve come, but why has it taken 65 years?” asked an office worker who was watching the morning’s ceremony from Hiroshima on public broadcast NHK. “And really, Obama should be here after the speeches he’s made about nuclear weapons."
US Ambassador to Japan John Roos was joined by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and delegates from over 70 countries as Prime Minister Naoto Kan implored the world to “accept the Japanese people's hope that nuclear destruction never takes place again."
In the traditional peace declaration, the mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, called on the central government to continue Japan’s policy of not producing nuclear weapons and to remove itself from the protection of the US nuclear umbrella.
In a press conference after the ceremony, Kan said that while “we share strong hopes for nuclear disarmament,” Japan had to face the “reality that nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction are spreading,” and that “nuclear deterrence continues to be a necessity for our country.” The US maintains military bases in Japan that are politically controversial.
The UN’s Ban also visited Nagasaki on his trip, the first by a secretary-general to the cities, declaring, "The only way to ensure that nuclear weapons will never again be used is to eliminate them all."
At the ceremony, the names of a further 5,501 recently confirmed to have died from radiation aftereffects were added in two books to the memorial to the dead. The cenotaph now contains almost 100 books containing the names of 269,446 people.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0806/Hiroshima-65-years-later-US-attends-ceremony-but-offers-no-apology
The Reaper
08-06-2010, 09:32
My first reaction: "Aren't these the same people that, when they knew they were losing, locked POWs in barracks and set fire to said barracks??"
My second reaction: " It was 65 years ago, maybe the best thing for the world is to let it be in the past and move forward. A simple apology doesn't hurt anyone. "
Am I the only conflicted one?
The Japanese are, IMHO, culturally in denial about their military aggression as the primary cause of WW II in the PTO, and the atrocities that their soldiers committed, not just against the US military, but against military and civilians in virtually every country that they invaded. China and the Phillipines spring immediately to mind as examples.
Perhaps if they were to apologize and accept the fact that they started the war in the Pacific (many years before Pearl Harbor) and their crimes against humanity, they would see that the measures we took to end the war, while harsh, were no more than was reasonable at the time.
Burned to death by a nuke or an incendiary is all the same to me. I do not see a nuclear weapon as anything more than a time and space saver. Dead is dead. Would the Japanese be happier if we took the time and resources to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki into rubble like Tokyo, then burned them to the ground conventionally and conducted an amphibious invasion of the island, losing a million American lives and the majority of their civilian population in the process? Look at the civilian casualties from Okinawa (including suicides) as a predictor.
I do not see an apology being necessary. Both sides did what they had to. The Imperial Japanese could have either not attacked the US, or sued for peace at any time they chose, which they did, after the two nuclear weapons were employed. I have no issue with the targeting decision. The intent was to get the Emperor and his military staff to see the futility, suffering and cost to the Japanese people of protracting the lost campaign.
Just my .02, YMMV.
TR
My idea of an apology for such a situation would be along the lines of:
To the people of Japan,
On behalf of the American people and their commitment to our national ideals, we remain saddened that the Imperial Japanese government forced us to engage the Japanese people in a terrible war which - based upon the actions of the Imperial Japanese military during that war - led our national command authority some 65 years ago to believe that the use of atomic weapons was necessary. It is our sincere wish that we are never again forced to use such weapons for such a purpose.
On behalf of the American people,
BHO
President of the United States and Commander-In-Chief
And so it goes...
Richard's $.02 :munchin
mark46th
08-06-2010, 14:55
A few things come to mind-
1. My dad drove a landing craft in the PTO. I think my brother and I are probably here because of the A bombs on Japan.
2. We fought the war according to rules the enemy(Japan) understood. Thank God for MacArthur who understood the mindset of the Japanese and for Truman who had the stones to drop said A bomb.
3. Japanese casualties from an invasion of the home islands were estimated in the millions. How many of the ingrates protesting realize they wouldn't be living right now if the U.S. had invaded?
Japan is lucky it isn't a series of barren rocks....
Another interesting point- Hiroshima and Nagaski were supposedly going to be glowing in the dark for thousands of years. They glow in the dark now but because of neon lights. These two cities have been completely rebuilt...
Utah Bob
08-06-2010, 15:07
As stated, the Japanese are culturally in denial about their actions in WWII. The other belligerents, not so much.
I read Last Train from Hiroshima a while ago. I've read plenty of other first person accounts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I've also read plenty of American Pacific Theater POW first person accounts.
War is nasty business.
Am I sorry for the loss of life in those cities? Sure. Dresden and Cologne to.
But apologize? No, certainly not.
greenberetTFS
08-06-2010, 15:17
I have no sympathy for the Japanese, my dad served in WW2 as a Combat Medic in the PTO and he told me enough about them............... :( Screw them if they expect an apology!.............. :( To bad we didn't drop the 3rd one on Tokyo ................ :mad:
Big Teddy :munchin
In a way it reinforces the notion you can export culture a la the Romans. The Japanese started that war and lost. Just as our parents and grandparents of the greatest generation ,who are no longer with us, might turn over in their graves at the "pussification" of America. It seems with democracy, capitalism, Mcdonalds, blue jeans etc, apparently the Japanese have also learned how to whine like hypersensitive liberals who ignore their own history. Their culture preferred death to surrender only 65 years back, and now they want an apology for losing a fight they started? If this is our biggest issue with Japan, splendid! This bodes well for Iraq in 50 years, I hope they too are sipping Shamrock shakes, enjoying the fruits of a stable democracy and whining about global warming...:eek:
Our apology could be rebuilding their manufacturing infrastructure and taking great pains to rebuild their government with no demands of war reparations. Oh wait..
It is all due to the liberal trend at "world apologetics" just for us being who we are.
I have a picture on my computer at our store as a lady came in to have it scanned and blown up. It was a picture of her deceased husband on a landing strip standing by a tent. In the background were several aircraft. One of them was the Enola Gay. He had just loaded the bomb on the aircraft. You can zoom in on the photo land see the name painted on the aircraft. He had no idea what he was loading at the time.
mojaveman
08-07-2010, 21:24
If the Japanese would not have bombed Pearl Harbor we never would have dropped two atomic weapons on them.
They started it.
We had to use that level of power to end hostilities in the Pacific because WWII was bankrupting America.
My father went through both Nagasaki and Hiroshima while on leave during the Korean War and told me that at that time they were both still devestated.
In my book, no apologies necessary. THe A bombs just saved us the trouble of firebombing those cities to the ground one night anyway.
I have long wondered why we didn't use poison gas in the pacific against the japanese before the A bombs were developed. Gas would have saved lots of American lives on Iwo and Okinawa.
Edited to add: ...well maybe not. YThis article takes the position that chemical weapons would not have been of help in the pacific http://books.google.com/books?id=3wUAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=chemical+weapons+pacific+theater&source=bl&ots=QuNRx6uOAr&sig=kT35pf2l6Q6ehKIG8-81c_RJY_A&hl=en&ei=ZEdeTNywL8L38AaqouDGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=chemical%20weapons%20pacific%20theater&f=false
FWIW, for decades, diplomatic historians have agreed broadly that factors beyond military expediency shaped the decision to use atomic weapons. Not the least of these factors was how having atomic weapons might shape America's relations with the USSR following the war. Moreover, scholars have challenged the long-standing belief that hundreds of thousands of servicemen would have perished had the U.S. invaded the Japanese home islands. For instance, Rufus Miles found that military planners never projected casualty figures close to Truman's oft-cited 500,000. Barton Bernstein found that worst case scenarios had projections of 46,000 casualties. Bernstein and Robert L. Messer believed that Truman used such a large number to assuage lingering ambivalence over his decision.*
__________________________________________________ _________
* J. Samuel Walker, "The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update," Diplomatic History , 14:1 (1990): 97-114, but especially104-106; Walker, "Recent Literature on Truman's Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground," Diplomatic History, 29:2 (2005): 311-344. especially, 325-326 and 328-329.
Considering the total number of potential human lives that would have been lost, both measured in military and civilian lives, it was the right decision.
I think it's time for anther bomb or two, but that's just me.
WD
ZonieDiver
08-10-2010, 23:31
FWIW, for decades, diplomatic historians have agreed broadly that factors beyond military expediency shaped the decision to use atomic weapons. Not the least of these factors was how having atomic weapons might shape America's relations with the USSR following the war. Moreover, scholars have challenged the long-standing belief that hundreds of thousands of servicemen would have perished had the U.S. invaded the Japanese home islands. For instance, Rufus Miles found that military planners never projected casualty figures close to Truman's oft-cited 500,000. Barton Bernstein found that worst case scenarios had projections of 46,000 casualties. Bernstein and Robert L. Messer believed that Truman used such a large number to assuage lingering ambivalence over his decision.*
__________________________________________________ _________
* J. Samuel Walker, "The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update," Diplomatic History , 14:1 (1990): 97-114, but especially104-106; Walker, "Recent Literature on Truman's Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground," Diplomatic History, 29:2 (2005): 311-344. especially, 325-326 and 328-329.
Sometimes, academics are just that.
There were 27,000 US casualties, including 7,000 dead, during 7 weeks of combat on Iwo Jima. There were 50,000 Allied casualties during 3 months of fighting on Okinawa. To think that there would only be 46,000 casualties in the conquest of the Japanese mainland is preposterous.
As one whose father wad slated to be in the invasion, I am glad Pres. Truman had the brass to drop the bombs (of which there were only two).
Chemical agents such as mustard gas were being considered until Little Boy was confirmed for use.
Japan is just complaining because they had to loose face.
We deserve their thanks.
The Reaper
08-11-2010, 06:35
FWIW, for decades, diplomatic historians have agreed broadly that factors beyond military expediency shaped the decision to use atomic weapons. Not the least of these factors was how having atomic weapons might shape America's relations with the USSR following the war. Moreover, scholars have challenged the long-standing belief that hundreds of thousands of servicemen would have perished had the U.S. invaded the Japanese home islands. For instance, Rufus Miles found that military planners never projected casualty figures close to Truman's oft-cited 500,000. Barton Bernstein found that worst case scenarios had projections of 46,000 casualties. Bernstein and Robert L. Messer believed that Truman used such a large number to assuage lingering ambivalence over his decision.*
__________________________________________________ _______
* J. Samuel Walker, "The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update," Diplomatic History , 14:1 (1990): 97-114, but especially104-106; Walker, "Recent Literature on Truman's Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground," Diplomatic History, 29:2 (2005): 311-344. especially, 325-326 and 328-329.
Given that we lost 50,000 troops taking Okinawa, and the Japanese military lost over 100,000, with another 100,000 Japanese civilians comprising 25% of the island's population dead, I find Bernstein's numbers laughable.
TR
The Japanese are, IMHO, culturally in denial about their military aggression as the primary cause of WW II in the PTO, and the atrocities that their soldiers committed, not just against the US military, but against military and civilians in virtually every country that they invaded. China and the Phillipines spring immediately to mind as examples.
Perhaps if they were to apologize and accept the fact that they started the war in the Pacific (many years before Pearl Harbor) and their crimes against humanity, they would see that the measures we took to end the war, while harsh, were no more than was reasonable at the time.
Burned to death by a nuke or an incendiary is all the same to me. I do not see a nuclear weapon as anything more than a time and space saver. Dead is dead. Would the Japanese be happier if we took the time and resources to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki into rubble like Tokyo, then burned them to the ground conventionally and conducted an amphibious invasion of the island, losing a million American lives and the majority of their civilian population in the process? Look at the civilian casualties from Okinawa (including suicides) as a predictor.
I do not see an apology being necessary. Both sides did what they had to. The Imperial Japanese could have either not attacked the US, or sued for peace at any time they chose, which they did, after the two nuclear weapons were employed. I have no issue with the targeting decision. The intent was to get the Emperor and his military staff to see the futility, suffering and cost to the Japanese people of protracting the lost campaign.
Just my .02, YMMV.
TR
Agree, it seems the Japanese should apologize to their own people for opening up a Can of Whoop Ass on themselves.
Sometimes, academics are just that.
<<SNIP>>
To think that there would only be 46,000 casualties in the conquest of the Japanese mainland is preposterous.
Given that we lost 50,000 troops taking Okinawa, and the Japanese military lost over 100,000, with another 100,000 Japanese civilians comprising 25% of the island's population dead, I find Bernstein's numbers laughable.
TRZD and TR--
With respect, I would like to point out that the operative word in my post is "found." This is to say Bernstein's number is based upon research in declassified government documents. FWIW, Bernstein's article is available here (http://books.google.com/books?id=oQYAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA38&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false). End note #6 has the citation for the specific record of the U.S. Joint War Plans Committee.
IMO, the fact that historians such as Bernstein have challenged successfully long standing views of this subject does not invalidate Truman's decision. YMMV.
TrapLine
08-11-2010, 10:02
As one whose father wad slated to be in the invasion, I am glad Pres. Truman had the brass to drop the bombs (of which there were only two).
I feel the same way, ZonieDiver. My grandfather had returned from the ETO and was making his way to the PTO at the time. The decision by Pres. Truman allowed him to return home. My mother was the youngest of five, and the only post WW II child in the family.
So, did Japan fear the Red Army more than the A-bomb? View that fear of Soviets, rather than A-bomb, forced Japan's surrender gains traction among Historians.
Something to consider.
And so it goes...;)
Richard :munchin
Historians Rethink Key Soviet Role In Japan Defeat
AP, 15 Aug 2010
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 army occupying eastern Asia. Within days, Emperor Hirohito's million-man army in the region had collapsed.
It was a momentous turn on the Pacific battleground of World War II, yet one that would be largely eclipsed in the history books by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the same week 65 years ago. But in recent years some historians have argued that the Soviet action served as effectively as – or possibly more than – the A-bombs in ending the war.
Now a new history by a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, seeks to reinforce that view, arguing that fear of Soviet invasion persuaded the Japanese to opt for surrender to the Americans, who they believed would treat them more generously than the Soviets.
Japan's forces in northeast Asia first tangled with the Russians in 1939 when the Japanese army tried to invade Mongolia. Their crushing defeat at the battle of Khalkin Gol induced Tokyo to sign a neutrality pact that kept the U.S.S.R. out of the Pacific war.
Tokyo turned its focus to confronting U.S., British and Dutch forces instead, which led to the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941.
But following the German surrender on May 8, 1945, and having suffered a string of defeats in the Philippines, Okinawa and Iwo Jima, Japan turned to Moscow to mediate an end to the Pacific war.
However, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had already promised Washington and London that he would attack Japan within three months of Germany's defeat. He thus ignored Tokyo's plea and mobilized more than a million troops along Manchuria's border.
Operation August Storm was launched Aug. 9, 1945, as the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, and would claim the lives of 84,000 Japanese and 12,000 Soviet soldiers in two weeks of fighting. The Soviets ended up just 30 miles from Japan's main northern island, Hokkaido.
"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 Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose recently published Racing the Enemy examines the conclusion of the Pacific war and is based on recently declassified Soviet archives as well as U.S. and Japanese documents.
"The emperor and the peace party [within the government] hastened to end the war expecting that the Americans would deal with Japan more generously than the Soviets," Hasegawa, a Russian-speaking American scholar, said in an interview.
Despite the death toll from the atomic bombings – 140,000 in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki – the Imperial Military Command believed it could hold out against an Allied invasion if it retained control of Manchuria and Korea, which provided Japan with the resources for war, according to Hasegawa and Terry Charman, a historian of World War II at London's Imperial War Museum.
"The Soviet attack changed all that," Charman said. "The leadership in Tokyo realized they had no hope now, and in that sense August Storm did have a greater effect on the Japanese decision to surrender than the dropping of the A-bombs."
In the U.S., the bombings are still widely seen as a decision of last resort against an enemy that appeared determined to fight to the death. President Harry S. Truman and U.S. military leaders believed an invasion of Japan would cost hundreds of thousands of American lives.
The impact of the Soviet invasion comes through in the words of Japan's wartime prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki, urging his Cabinet to surrender.
He is quoted in Hasegawa's book as saying: "If we miss [the chance] today, the Soviet Union will take not only Manchuria, Korea and Sakhalin, but also Hokkaido. We must end the war while we can deal with the United States."
V-J Day, the day Japan ceased fighting, came on Aug. 15 (Aug. 14 in the U.S.), and Japan's formal surrender followed on Sept. 2.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-battle_15int.ART.State.Edition1.356350e.html
So, did Japan fear the Red Army more than the A-bomb? View that fear of Soviets, rather than A-bomb, forced Japan's surrender gains traction among Historians.
Something to consider.
And so it goes...;)
Richard :munchin
So... the Soviets owe them an apology too? ;)
IMO-- Japan got off pretty easy for the atrocities they committed, not only to US personnel, but to the Korean and Chinese people. I think Japan has a whole lot more "apologising" to do than we do, when it comes to war.
Do some feel we should use similar weapons on enemies we face today? Perhaps a small demonstration of such weaponry would serve us well before Iran has truely developed nuclear weapons, or would it only cloud the current muddy waters?
I fugure if our enemies are seeking to obtain these weapons, they intend to use them, which means we retaliate, having said that, we go first.
Agree, it seems the Japanese should apologize to their own people for opening up a Can of Whoop Ass on themselves.
Do some feel we should use similar weapons on enemies we face today? Perhaps a small demonstration of such weaponry would serve us well before Iran has truely developed nuclear weapons, or would it only cloud the current muddy waters?
I fugure if our enemies are seeking to obtain these weapons, they intend to use them, which means we retaliate, having said that, we go first.
The weird-beards running things over there (Iran) deserve nothing less. If what they want is their virgins & face time with Allah, I say send it. Switched to Extra Crispy. The finesse part is making it appear like it was an AD/ND ;)
James Clifton
09-02-2010, 03:17
My Dad was at PH when they hit it! He told me later his thoughts about Japan!
Jim
The bombs were horrible, they were supposed to be just that. Ike took flak for letting the Russians take Berlin. His rationale was to avoid the estimated 100k US casualties, this number according to Beevor was very close to Russian casualties incurred. I hear the notion a blockade or fears of Soviet entry might have worked, but as folks mentioned the cultural hatred in the Pacific and evidence of rising casualties among combatants and civilians the closer US forces got is a cold merciless equation. The Japanese had thousands of planes and troops hoarded in reserve, and had correctly anticipated the exact invasion beaches. IMHO it would have been hell on earth for all involved, particularly Japanese civilians. I think the crime was Tojo and his thugs leading the Japanese into such a war.