As the anniversary of the atomic bomb attacks in 1945 arrives, many commentators will argue they should never have been used. To the contrary, if they hadn’t the war would have gone on at the cost of 30 million lives – most of them Japanese.
Arguments for not using the weapons are wrong, and in fact we should be grateful they were deployed.
What was the Japanese plan?
It was to bring the Allies into a D-Day Mark II – a new version of the 1944 Normandy landings in France. A massive 75 per cent of Japan is not level ground, and this would have worked well for the defenders. The huge Allied superiority in tanks, artillery, and air attack would have been made much less effective. Japan’s eight million armed forces members would have been supplemented by an enormous militia – if that is what you call 13-year-old girls with satchel charges hurling themselves under tanks. Ten thousand kamikaze aircraft would have attacked the Allied landing force. To this would be added suicide speedboats, divers, and submarines.
The Allies would have suffered grievously in the assault, which would have begun in the Kyushu Peninsula. Likely fatalities would have been around 1.25 million over much of 1946.
The Japanese, however, would have borne the brunt of the deaths. They already had this characteristic built into their DNA. Whereas historically normal military forces break and run at a 30 per cent casualty rate, the Japanese died instead. At Tarawa, for example, their Army lost all but eight of 2,571 men, a loss rate of 99.7 per cent. Similar figures were seen in other battles.
The civilian militia would not have resisted so strongly, given their limited training and lack of battle experience. But out of millions deployed, it is not unreasonable to expect many dying. Other civilians would have died too from having their cities bombed – Japan’s industrialisation was part of everyday streets across the country.
Some critics of the A-Bomb deployment argue for other means of getting Japan to surrender. It is worth examining those arguments to see their mistaken reasoning.
Starvation. Japan was already being blockaded by the US Navy, and a shortage of food was occurring nationwide. But it was not going to be enough to get the country to surrender, and it was primarily hurting the civilians, with food going first to the military fighting on behalf of the country. Ironically continuing the blockade would kill more civilians than military.
The Russians. Japan was not afraid of Russia – they had beaten them convincingly in the 1905 war – and the USSR had almost no amphibious assault capabilities with which to assist an invasion.
A demonstration bomb? Some argue setting off a demonstration of an atomic weapon would have convinced the Japanese to surrender. Apart from stopping such a demonstration by placing a large group of POWs at the site, the demonstration would have required one of two bombs the US had. And without a great loss of life, how would a massive explosion be convincing? Japan had endured massive bombing raids for months without giving up.
Delay? General Sweeney, pilot of the second atomic aircraft Bocks Car, calculated 900 Americans a day were being killed and wounded. Once the defence of the sacred Home Islands began, Japanese Prisoner of War commanders were under orders to execute their prisoners. Approximately 300,000 POWs were in captivity, and all would have died. And of course the war would have continued every day across the Pacific where the Japanese were still being fought. Refusing combat, if such a thing could have been commanded, would only give the Imperial forces time to recover.
Negotiation. The Japanese were not seeking surrender. On July 10, the former Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew said: ‘We have received no peace offer from the Japanese government through official or unofficial channels.’ Indeed, after the Hiroshima bomb the Imperial government broadcast on radio: ‘…as long as we formulate strong steel-like measures to cope with this new type of bomb, it will be possible to keep damage at a minimum.’ They had a huge underground cave command system at Nagano, north of Tokyo, and a national resolve to keep going. One of the residents of Nagasaki later wrote:
‘A few days later, enemy planes scattered leaflets over the city. Although I do not remember clearly, these said something like “Japan is defeated, and the emperor has surrendered.” We scoffed at this information, calling it lies.’
Ironically, a D-Day-style invasion would have killed far more on both sides. With the terrain favouring the defenders, it would have taken many months of resistance being blasted to bits. The norm in Europe had been if any village contained resistance – snipers; barricades with defenders, and so on – then the oncoming forces withdrew and rained down artillery and air-delivered explosives before their precious soft-skinned infantry went in. And to fight would have been a Japanese norm. Mitsuo Fuchida, air leader of the Pearl Harbour attack, said post-war: ‘Every man, woman and child would have resisted the invasion, with sticks and stones if necessary.’
Post-war there have been a number of commentators who, it seems, would much rather the Allies died in huge numbers than the war was halted by the Emperor’s decision not to go on. They seemingly hate the USA, some for example, even argue there was a racist factor, postulating a nuclear weapon would not have been used on Germany. But notably Japan fared better under occupation than some of the victorious nations. Britain, for example, endured rationing until 1955 – it ended in Japan in 1953.
Towards the end of the American Civil War, General Sherman commented ‘War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it. The crueller it is, the sooner it will be over.’ It was that way for the 200,000 dead of the A-Bomb raids, but better that than 30 million dead.
Dr Tom Lewis OAM is a military historian. This article draws from his book Atomic Salvation. His latest works are Gallipoli – Dawn of the Anzac Spirit, written for children and published by Big Sky, and The Battle of the Coral Sea – Explained; ‘how America saved Australia’, from Avonmore Books.
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