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Obama To Become First US President To Visit Hiroshima Since 1945 Nuclear Attack (independent.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: The White House announced U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima, becoming the first sitting American President to do so since the city was destroyed in 1945 by a U.S. nuclear bomb. President Obama and Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit the city on May 27th "to highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement. Obama said he hoped to visit both Hiroshima and Nagasaki when he first visited Japan in November 2009. "The memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are etched in the minds of the world, and I would be honored to have the opportunity to visit those cities at some point during my presidency," President Obama said at the time. At least 140,000 people died from the nuclear attack on Hiroshima on August 9, 1945. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic weapon on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered to Allied forces within a week after that second attack.
The parent is obvious flamebait, but I like history, so I'll share some here...
There was an interesting article in Foreign Policy a couple years ago (possibly paywalled link here) which argued that the Soviet declaration of war was what really prompted the surrender. The author bases this on several arguments, among them:
* The atomic bombing of Hiroshima did not particularly stand out in the context of a huge and destructive conventional bombing campaign.
* The Japanese Supreme Council did not discuss the Hiroshima bombing at all, and indeed, did not seem to care much about the destruction of cities.
* Soviet mediation was seen as the last hope for avoiding an unconditional surrender.
* Japanese forces were deployed to defend against a U.S. invasion, not a Soviet invasion from the opposite direction.
* Giving the atomic bomb credit for provoking the surrender was politically convenient for the emperor as well as the United States.
It's worth a read if you can actually get to the article. There's a comment on the AskHistorians Reddit about the article by Restricted Data (Alex Wellerstein), which gives the original source of this argument (Tsuyoshi Hasegawa), and offers some historiographical context:
The same comment also points out an important aspect of the "moral" debate:
He also has a related article here.
I don't have much of an opinion on whether the atomic bombing was "justified" or not. Large-scale attacks on civilians were common through the war in both theaters, so focusing solely on the atomic bomb seems rather limited to me.
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I believe the reason for the different awareness of WW2 atrocities committed by Germany and Japan amount mainly to cultural differences, but also the generally higher focus and interest in Europe as opposed to the far east, coupled with a well organized Jewish community that naturally has a high interest in clearing up and highlighting the events that took place.
If you had to describe German culture in one word, it would have to be "pragmatic".In the face of overwhelming evidence on the atrocities committed by the Nazis (which many Germans where blissfully unaware of), the only way forward was to accept the facts for what they were, soak in all the guilt and make the best possible thing of it by keeping the memory alive and doing the very best that something similar never happens again. Now it has relaxed somewhat, but throughout the 80's and 90's there were critical documentaries about WW2 and the atrocities on the Nazis in German TV practically every week, and this was also a big topic for all students in German schools.
Japan on the other hand, as most other far-east cultures, has this very important cultural theme of upholding hohor and not losing face. Even when it is irrefutably clear that mistakes are made or something is not right, the Japanese way is to ignore it as much as possible and do business as usual, so that nobody has to lose face (least of all the Japanese culture itself). This is essential, as losing honor, in traditional Japanese interpretation, would basically mean that you should kill yourself. While Japan has westernized and modernized over the last decades, there are still many nationalist elements in Japanese society that do their best trying to silence any voices about Japanese WW2 atrocities while at the same time promoting the theme of the "honorable" and "brave" soldiers who sacrificed themselves for the Japanese Empire.
So obviously, we have two very different ways of dealing with the past here. Then, as I said earlier, there was also the Jewish community actively working to promote awareness for the atrocities committed by the Nazis, something which was lacking in Asia for the Japanese atrocities. The Chinese and Koreans, the main candidates for this endeavor, where too busy with their own problems after WW2.
About 15% of the people killed in the Hiroshima atomic bombing were Koreans brought over as a slave labor force. They're just classified as Japanese deaths because Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 and Korea politically ceased to exist. That didn't stop the Japanese from denying them health benefits for surviving the atomic bombings.
On a personal level, Japanese soldiers forced my grandmother to watch as they raped then killed her sister and niece. All as a ploy to coerce my grandfather (the village doctor) into treating their commanding officer. That's the sort of stuff the people against the atomic bombings are advocating the Allies should have let continue for who knows how many more months.
There are a few documentaries on the subject - one named Hiroshima (strangely enough) where such sentiments are expressed. One lady seemed only to regret that we studied her like a bug afterwards and made her stand naked, barely pubescent, in front of a bunch of doctors and non-doctors - and did so a number of times as we studied the progress of the folks who were in the area.
However, there are other such sentiments being expressed in a number of the recap documentaries. You can probably pick any two and find one of them with someone in there mentioning it. I'd suggest also Hirohito's War. I don't know if it will give you any insight in that direction but it will actually give some information as to why the war ended when it did and how it did.
It's a myth to say that the bombing made it happen. It's a myth to say that it didn't hasten the choice. It's a myth to discount the Russians stomping down across Manchuria and taking some islands (angry Russians are angry). It's a myth to say that Japan was trying to surrender.
Really, it's rather complicated - as it usually is. People like simple so they remain stupid and polarized and you get threads like this where people who have only chosen one source are adamant about what they believe. The reason I suggest the latter is because much of it is from the Emperor himself. I don't know but I think we can count that as authoritative, don't you?
I believe that the Emperor expressed sorrow at having forced the American's hands. There are those who say we should have staved them out but that's probably the most retarded thing I've ever heard - on the subject. It discounts the continued atrocities and soldiers elsewhere and the blind devotion to war that they had going on. I'm sure (I've not made it far into the thread) that someone will suggest that. It's almost always present in every one of these threads.
I am not, technically, a historian or anything but I'm going to wager that I'm fairly well versed in the history and have opted to get my history from myriad sources and not just the US versions. There are inherent biases so it's important to get as much information as one can and go from there.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It constantly amazes me that the japenese don't appear to harbor extreme hatred to all americans. I know I would if they had nuked my country for whatever reason.
First, the nukes were such a small percentage of casualties. Civilians don't really distinguish between being nuked, firebombed or starved to death.
Secondly, you don't understand the perspective of the Japanese people at the time. After the war they quickly came to understand the truth about the magnitude of the lies their militarist government had told them, manipulated them into war. The Japanese public had a incredible turn of opinion against their former leaders. Many genuinely grew to like General MacArthur during the occupation. Having spent so much time in Asia earlier in his career he was one of the few generals who understood their culture and perspective on the world and was well equipped to co-opt that perspective.
Little things he did had a vast impact. When he first landed in Japan and went into Tokyo for the first time he allowed Japanese troops to line the streets on his route and provide security. He had minimal US security on that drive. The public noted that, was surprised at such "civilized" behavior by the American military. It didn't make sense, it didn't match what they had been told. Plus as people came home and told their stories of interactions with Americans even on the battlefield, the anger at the former government grew. In one documentary I recall a Japanese Army Nurse describing how Japanese soldiers on Okinawa gave them hand grenades to commit suicide with. Hers was a dud and failed to detonate when she tried to use it at a later date. She was wounded by mortars and when an American solder approached her, drew his knife, she expected to be raped and tortured and killed as all the American barbarian soldiers would do such things. She was absolutely shocked when he used the knife to cut open her pants near her wound and began to sanitize and bandage her wound before he moved on to another injured person. As she watched the Americans she began to realize she had been lied to, that they weren't barbarians. She had literally been told that some American soldiers were cannibals. Seeing victorious Americans act in humane and civilized ways was a complete shock to many Japanese given what they had been told for so many years. This had a huge impact on the post-war occupation. Probably the wisest, although most likely a quite unjust thing, that MacArthur did was to allow the emperor to live and continue on in a ceremonial role.