MarkA

The Japanese were trying to surrender to or through the soviet union.

They wanted to be allowed to "keep" their emperor, but the USA wanted an unconditional surrender. So they Japanese resisted this and opened a dialogue for surrender with the USSR.
To quickly get the unconditional surrender to the USA, Truman ordered the 2 nukes dropped.

All those thousand of Japanese, Koreans and Americans died in the 2 blasts for political agenda not for a military one.

NOT that preventing a soviet influence in Japan was "wrong" just perhaps a few too many innocents had to die to achieve it.....

tjadams

Correct Mark. The Japanese wanted to retain their emperor (god) at all or any cost & were going to get it from whomever promised it to them first. The US filled that political void by promoting McArthur as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers with the emperor still allowed to keep his head. War is the workshop of politics.

Gerard.

Between May 8 and August 6, Japan had plenty of time to surrender without being asked. I would agree that Nagasaki on August 9 was not necessary or too early. Sincerely I'm glad Truman save the life of the GI's.

How many French were killed by Allied bombing when the battle of Normandy took place ? I know people who became orphan overnight. Has someone seen the picture of Caen ?

Gerard.

The fishes would have been innocent victims.

tjadams

Unless of course one weighs in the factors of if the fish were indeed willingly eaten to aide the continued strength of the Japanese soldier enabling them to resist & wage war with the Allies.

Sugadaddy774

Haha that was too funny.

Hickdive

Technically Truman didn't actually decide to drop the bomb, the decision had already been taken by Roosevelt (on the assumption it worked) before he died and Gen. Groves had been ordered to use atomic weapons against Japan as and when they became available. Truman could have vetoed that and obviously considered all the factors before declining to do so. If it wasn't for the fact that the Manhatten Project didn't have any more fissile material, Groves would dropped more bombs.

The peace overtures via the Swiss or the Soviets by certain factions within Japan were dismissed by the Allies for a huge number of reasons but, ultimately, no-one was going to listen to Japanese 'diplomacy' after the events in Washington DC of Dec. 7th 1941.

In addition, the Soviets had become increasingly belligerent in Europe, there was a perceived risk that, after the pause following Germany's surrender, they would simply continue to roll westwards and with their superior weapons and numbers, the exhausted western allies were in no position to resist.

Finally, there was no doubt that an invasion of Japan itself would be hugely costly in Japanese and American lives. Japan had already demonstrated that civilian casualties meant nothing to them, the USAAF could firebomb their cities at will with conventional weapons without any suggestion of Japanese considering surrender. Furthermore, the American public wouldn't tolerate huge losses amongst their military and as Truman said later, he could never have faced all those American mothers who would have lost sons invading Japan knowing he had a weapon that could have stopped the war in an instant.

tjadams

Good, intelligent answers (mostly) and I might echo that it seems the amount of USD spent, the Japanese refusal to recognized the Potsdam resolutions, the high super egos of Oppenheimer & Grove & reelection all snowballed the decision for Truman. We'll never know for sure & speculation is like a dog chasing its own tail.

Lucius

Aren't wars inherently political? The Allies had decided that Germany and Japan must surrender unconditionally so that 20 years later there would not have to be another war against them. So far, it's working like a charm, politically speaking.

fledse

Well, it sounds like that you guys all think Japan surrenders to the Allies because of atomic bombs. Yes, Atomic bombs themselves droppoed Nagasaki and Hiroshima were very impressive to Japanese authorities such as Tojo Hideki, but the main reason they surrender was Soviet Union, who declared the war against Japan on the same day U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Nagasaki for second time.

Do you think if you are nuked, are you just gonna surrender to enemy nation? No, if I were you, I will do my best to kill that enemy troops when they finally landed on my hometown.

Japanese were more furious after they all knew what happended to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, rather than to surrender to the allies.

So, after Hiroshima, the hawk politicians in Japanese government had more voice than the dove politicians. Of course the hawk politicians had every authorities on military, so the dove could not publicly argue their own opinion, but Japs were more furious on the atomic bombs, and they were more determined to kill one more American when they landed on Japan.

The reason they surrendered was primarily due to Soviet, whose political ideology was oppressed in Japan. I mean, Communists in Japan at the time was outlawed, and if you consider how Japanese did during the war, Communists did not have any reason to show mercy on Japanese, who tortured, raped, and killed.

But, you know, when Soviet declared the war on Japan, Japs did not havy any troops in Korea and Manchuria, where Soviet was initially invading, and they did not wanna be communized (?) in their territory.

Espeically, among the hawk politicians, they hated communism, but they did not have any strength to defend themselves from invasion of communists, soviet.

So, the hawks started to lose their voice in council meeting, while doves gained power, which eventually led them to surrender to U.S.

It was not just two atomic bombs that truly killed a lot, but failed to shatter down Japs' willing to sacrifice themselves in front of American invasion, but it was soviet union's declaration against Japan that broked down every Japs to surrender to U.S.