WORLD WAR II IN ASIA:  III
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Okinawa

The two arms of the Allied campaign linked up in March 1945 on Okinawa—the first of the Japanese home islands invaded by the Americans.  Okinawa was a test of how the Japanese would respond to the unthinkable:  invasion.  (No one had ever successfully invaded Japan.)  It proved a sobering test.  Civilians—women and children—were trained to fight the invaders with bamboo spears and hoes.  They committed suicide rather than surrender.  The battle lasted until June—long enough for news of V-E to reach the invading force.  Now they could expect to be joined by troops in Europe for the ultimate invasion of Japan.

To Bomb or Not to Bomb

The casualty rates on Okinawa, combined with the the reports of Japanese brutality towards prisoners of war, played upon American perceptions of the Japanese as inhuman fanatics.  Military leaders were projecting a possible minimum casualty rate orf 1 million in an invasion of the Japanese home islands--not to mention the deaths of Japanese civilians.

With the capture of islands in the Marianas chain in the summer of 1944, together with improvements to the B-29 bombers, put American planes within bombing distance if Japan.  Rather than targeting military sites only, American planes fire bombed Japanese cities with incendiary bombs.  Constructed primarily of paper and wood, Japanese dwellings burned in minutes.  Hundreds of thousands of Japanmese civilians died in the fire-bombing of conventional warfare.

Nevertheless, when military leaders suggested the possibility of an atomic bomb on Japan as a means of shortening the war and preventing further casualties (in the long run) on both sides, divisions emerged over the perceived morality of dropping such a weapon on Japan.  Many of the scientists who worked on the atomic bomb were German-Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany.  They had been the ones to suggest the atomic bomb project in the first place.  However, in March of 1945, U. S. intelligence forces reported that Hitler had not been anywhere close to building an atomic weapon.  Upon hearing this news, many of the scientists celebrated.  They knew what a terrible weapon they were preparing, and now they felt relief that they would not be responsible for its use.

The suggestion that the Americans drop the bomb on Japan elicited expressions of concern from many scientists in the project.  They argued that using such a weapon on the Japanese would be immoral.  They knew the Japanese had not been working on a similar weapon, so to use it on them would be the equivalent of using machine guns and poison gas on Stone Age tribesmen:  it would not be a "fair fight."  These scientists ciruclated a petition arguing against using the Bomb against Japan.  Their concerned were carried to Washington, where key figures in the government and military met to discuss whether or not to propose that President Truman use the Bomb against Japan.  Opponents argued that instead of dropping the bomb, we could stage a demonstration on an abandoned island.  Through intermediaries, we could invited a delegation of Japanese to view the destruction, which would surely convince them to surrender unconditionally.  Proponents counter-argued that such a demonstration would be fruitless.  They didn't even know yet if the Bomb would work, and even if it did, limited supplies of precious uranium and plutonium would be potentially wasted on a gamble that the Japanese would prove reasonable (which they hadn't thus far).  Some leaders in the Navy suggested using a conventional naval blockade to starve the Japanese into submission, but this proposal, too, met with opposition.  In the end, the group voted to recommend that Truman use the Bomb if Japan refused to surrender unconditionally.

The Trinity Test

The scientists laid fears of the Bomb's efficacy on July 16, 1945, when they successfully exploded the world’s first atomic bomb at the Trinity Test site at Alamagordo, New Mexico.  Soon thereafter, a ship containing bomb components on board the U. S. S. Indianapolis left San Francisco for the island of Tinian, in the Marianas chain.   Meanwhile, the scientists sent a coded message announcing the success to Harry Truman, just as he was traveling to his first major conference with the other Allied leaders at Potsdam.  A jubilant Truman relayed a message to the Army:  unless the Japanese agreed to surrender unconditonally, we would drop the bomb.  Time was essential:  if the Japanese did not surrender by August 7, Stalin would enter the Pacific War, and America would have to face the prospect of Communist aggrandizement in Asia as well as Eastern Europe. 

The Trinity Test

The Potsdam Conference

On July 17, 1945, the remaining leaders of the victorious Allies—Truman, Churchill, and Stalin—met outside Berlin at the Potsdam Conference to decide the future of Germany.  Stalin wanted revenge for the 20 million Soviets killed by the Nazis.  However, Truman and Churchill wanted to avoid the mistakes of Versailles, and argued for fair treatment of the Germans.  Then, in the middle of the conference, the British electorate voted the Tory Party (Churchill’s) out of Parliament.  Clement Atlee suddenly replaced Churchill at the Conference.  Now Stalin alone of the original Allied leaders remained to lead his nation into the Postwar world.

Hiroshima

America demanded that Japan surrender unconditionally.  The Japanese government, however, wanted to preserve their emperor, to disarm themselves, and to avoid occupation.  Thus, on August 6, 1945, a single B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, left Tinian for Japan.  It dropped a single atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.  It had the explosive force of 50,000 tons of TNT.  Again, the U. S. demanded that Japan surrender unconditionally.

U.S.S.R. Declares War on Japan

In keeping with his promise to declare war on Japan three months after Germany’s surrender, Josef Stalin declared war on Japan on August 7, 1945.  Immediately, he invaded Manchuria, and pushed his way down towards China and Korea.  Now the Communist presence in Asia was a reality.

Nagasaki and V-J Day

On August 8, 1945, the United States dropped a second atom bomb on the city of Nagasaki.  Again, President Truman demanded that the Japanese surrender unconditionally or face a rain of such bombs.  (He was bluffing:  we didn't have any more bombs ready to go!)  Meeting in Council with his War Cabinet, Emperor Hirohito conceded that he could no longer sit by an watch his "children" be slaughtered by such hideous weapons.  Therefore, they must bear the unbearable, and endure the unendurable, by surrendering.  Many of his officers, who'd carried out a savage and brutal war in the name of the divine emperor, could not conceive of such a dishonarable act and so plotted to overthrow Hirohito and take Japan down into a glorious death.  Fortunately, the plotters were discovered and Hirohito's decision was carried out, and so on August 14, 1945, the Japanese Imperial Government surrendered unconditionally to the Allies.  At last, the war was over.

Official Surrender

Gen. Douglas Macarthur signs the instrument of surrender.  Behind him stand
General Joathan Wainwright and Sir Harry Percival, both recently release from Japanese imprisonment.

On September 2, 1945, the Japanese formally surrendered in a ceremony held on board the U. S. S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay.  The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Asia, General Douglas MacArthur, was there to oversee the ceremony.  In a small gesture of profound significance for all concerned, MacArthur forced the the Japanese to surrender to himself and those Allied commanders--including his own subordinate, Jonathan Wainwright--who had been imprisoned, tortured, and starved by the Japanese.  The gesture said all that needed to be said about imperial Japanese notions of "honor."