10 August??? I called Ed this morning (14 August), Ed is a 96-year old vet who had served at Okinawa during that time. He was in our local VFW chapter, but is now in a senior care facility near his children. He recalled that all hands had gotten the word on the tenth that Japan had offered to surrender. There was a lot of celebration. He said the wild firing into the air was a bad mistake as several men were killed and wounded.
The US accepted on the 12th of August. The only exception to the Japanese
offer was that Hirohito could only remain
in a
purely ceremonial role and NOT as Japan's 'Heavenly Sovereign'. There was a delay in Tokyo for debate about acceptance of Hirohito's eclipse - or continuation of the war. So on 13 August (14 August in Japan) B29s from Tooey Spaatz Strategic Air Force Pacific resumed air raids attacking Iwakuni, Osaka, Tokoyama, Kumagaya, and Isesaki. The PM, the Navy Minister, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs all opted for surrender. The Army was more intransigent, or at least some firebrands there thought they could get away with a coup and continue the war. They murdered a Lieutenant General who would not go along with them. Hence the Kyūjō incident.
But wiser heads prevailed. On the 14th (15th in Japan) Hirohito announced the surrender via radio to all in his nation so that they would know it was his personal decision to capitulate. He stayed in that ceremonial Emperor role for another 44 years. A good movie was made about the decision and the coup. Back in 1967 the great Kihachi Okamoto directed "Japan's Longest Day" aka "The Emperor and the General". Some dramatic license like all cinema, but well presented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident
https://www.bestmoviesbyfarr.com/movies/japans-longest-day/1967
http://www.midnighteye.com/features/a-tribute-to-kihachi-okamoto/
There is a remake out titled "The Emperor in August" released five years
ago on the 70th anniversary. I have not seen it yet but hope too soon.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2015/08/05/films/complex-portrayal-emperor-hirohito/
I also called today and chatted with a elderly former Woman Marine who was stationed at Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay as a supply clerk during the war. She couldn't remember a lot. Said she was on duty when the announcements were made so missed all the partying in downtown Frisco.
The formal surrender of course did not take place until two weeks later on board the U.S.S. Missouri on 2 September.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1303405
UPDATE: Much has been said about the estimated casualties if the Invasion of Japan, Operation Downfall, had gone ahead. In April 1945, a Joint Chiefs of Staff planning
paper assessed possible casualties based on experience in both
Europe and the Pacific given a troop list of 766,700 men and a 90-day
campaign. Based on the "Pacific Experience" JCS projected that the US Sixth Army could be expected to suffer 514,072 casualties (including 134,556 dead and missing). There were three problems with that this assessment: 1] it only included casualties up to X+90 on Kyushu and not for the later invasion of Honshu on the Kanto Plain; 2] it did not include personnel losses at sea from Japanese air attacks; and 3] Japanese were easily
able to accurately predict the Allied invasion plans and thus tripled their defenses on Kyushu from what the JCS estimates had been based on. There were other estimates, MacArthur low-balled it at 105,000 total casualties but again that was only for Kyushu. Mac had made a habit of underestimating enemy strength. He did it in Luzon twice, here, and later in Korea.
Senior Navy admirals were against the invasion of the home islands. This was based on their experience at the lengthy and costly Okinawa Campaign where 368 Allied ships were damaged while another 36 were sunk, and the 5000 Navy dead exceeded Army KIA and USMC KIA. And probably based also on their experience at Iwo where Kamikazes sank an escort carrier, severely damaged a fleet carrier, and also damaged another escort carrier, an LST, and a transport. They preferred a blockade with continuation of a conventional bombing campaign. It might take longer but would save a lot of blood.
The Navy brass were also against the dropping of A-Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. According to Truman, Admiral Leahy called it "the biggest damn fool thing we have ever done". Admiral King called the rationale that the bomb would save American lives misplaced, because if Truman had been willing to wait a blockade would have "starved the Japanese into submission". Admiral Nimitz considered the bomb "somehow indecent, certainly not a legitimate form of warfare". Admiral Halsey, using military reasoning instead of humanitarian concern said "It was a mistake ever to drop it. Why reveal a weapon like that to the world when it wasn't necessary."
UPDATE#2:
Ahead of the surrender, he had to choose between two conflicting orders – one by McArthur instructing the fleet to allow Japanese officials to fly to Tokyo, and another from his captain, ordering him to blow them out of the sky. His Dad's account:
“I relieved the watch in the combat information center. As was routine I just read all the dispatches that had come in since the previous watch. And one of them was a dispatch from General MacArthur’s headquarters in the Philippines saying that if we intercepted any Japanese transport planes that were flying a red pennant from the tail of the fuselage that we were to let the planes through, I presume because they were flying the Japanese generals from China to Japan to receive the surrender. Anyway, we were to let this plane through."
Don't forget the Soviet declaration of war on Aug 8 and subsequent invasion on Aug 9.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this Mike, I had forgotten about the anniversary.
ReplyDeleteMy dad, who passed a couple years ago at 92, was a combat aircrewman in the Navy. He primarily flew in TBF's off escort carriers doing pre-invasion bombardment and air support for the Iwo Jima, Saipan and the Phillipines invasions.
After he passed I ordered his complete records from the Navy. He never talked about VJ day - actually he didn't talked much about the war. He told me some stories when I was very young, maybe assuming I wouldn't remember. For many years I wasn't sure whether to believe them because my Dad was the best bullshitter I ever knew, but once I did the research and got the declassified war report from his unit along with his records I realized that most of it was true. And it explained a lot.
He was already back in the states on VJ day having been transferred in during the summer. He was at the training school, presumably for additional training. Following that in late August he went to Florida for an aircraft gunnery school. Shortly after he was admitted to the hospital and was discharged in early September for "hysteria" and an unexplained almost total loss of hearing in his right ear.
He was proud but humble about his service in a quiet sort of way. He was happy and honored when I decided to join the Navy. His dad had been a Marine with service in China during some of our intervention there around WWI (I forget the dates) and then in the Merchant Marine for WW2. I was lucky to get my grandfather's Navy sea chest with a bunch of memorobilia from China as well as the mememtos from my dad's service.
He was certainly elidgible but never request any benefits or dispensation from the VA beyond the GI Bill that everyone got. He could have gotten something for his hearing and maybe PTSD but never did and wasn't interested. It's quite a contrast to some in my cohort who nakedly try to game the VA to maximize their disability rating.
Anyway, just some random thoughts on a Friday night after a few glasses of wine. Hope you all are doing well in these troubling times. History gives us some useful perspective on our tendency to overly focus on the immediate and transient (and usually less important) matters in our lives.
Andy –
ReplyDeleteI am doing well. Thanks for the good wishes and the same back at you. Your words regarding History and its ability to give us a better perspective on life is something I realize is on point, although I had not thought about it before your mention. Your Dad and mine, who was a veteran of the North African and Italian campaigns, were of a unique generation. You need to tell us some of the stories he told you. I doubt they were BS.
Ed, the 96 year old I mentioned above, was also a China Marine like your grandfather. He was of a different generation though, as he was shipped to Tsingtao soon after V-J Day. Truman sent the Seventh Fleet and 6th Marine Division to northern China to accept the surrender of Japanese and repatriate them. Also to ”help the Nationalists reassert their control over areas previously held by the Japanese”. This was undoubtedly a reaction to the Soviet ‘Маньчжурская операция’ that Ael comments on above. They repatriated over a half million Japanese that otherwise might have been sent to the forced-labor camps of Siberia and Kazakhstan like their compatriots who were captured in Manchuria by Marshal Vasilevsky’s Far East Command.
Ael -
ReplyDeleteHirohito wanted to surrender earlier in the year. Reasons being the incendiary raids on Tokyo, the US landings on Okinawa, and after a US string of victories in the Philippines. He was seconded by the Foreign Office despite the bullheadedness of the Army. Japan's Ambassador to Moscow, Naotake Satō early in 45 judged and reported to Tokyo that it was unlikely that the Soviets would assist Imperial Japan in negotiating a conditional surrender. But you are probably correct that the Soviet breaking of the Japanese-Soviet Non-aggression Pact was what changed the minds of many in Tokyo.
David Glantz, military historian and Russian linguist, wrote two studies for the US Army about the Soviet Invasion you mentioned. They were written for the Command and Staff College at Fort Leavenworth and titled "August Storm". One was subtitled "The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria". The other of a less strategic nature was subtitled "Soviet Tactical and Operational Combat in Manchuria, 1945". Both are worth the read and can be found for free online as PDFs. Glantz highly praises the Soviet operation, specifically their use of combined arms and of Marshal Vasilevsky's "tank armies crossing mountains and desert to joint ground and riverine actions conducted over diverse terrain, from heavily wooded mountains to swampy lowlands".
But Glantz also admits that Japan's Kwantung Army was largely hollow. He claims: "... the Kwantung Army lacked quality. The Japanese Imperial High Command had transferred most veteran Japanese divisions from Manchuria before the summer of 1945. Hence, most remaining divisions were newly formed from reservists or from cannibalized smaller units. In fact, only the 119th, 107th, 108th, 117th, 63d, and 39th Infantry Divisions had existed before January 1945. Training was limited in all units, and equipment and materiel shortages plagued the Kwantung Army at every level. The Japanese considered none of the Kwantung Army divisions combat ready and some divisions only 15 percent ready."
He also claims that Japanese intelligence in Manchuria knew well in advance of the impending Soviet operation even if Tokyo was naively thinking they could renew the Neutrality Pact with Moscow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutrality_Pact
Ael -
ReplyDeleteI meant to add that the Soviet invasion was not just of Manchuria. They also invaded northern Korea, eastern Inner Mongolia, Sakhalin, and the Kurile Islands. The US Navy gave the Soviets 250 ships for the Sakhalin & Kurile Islands thrust of the invasion. This included Frigates, Minesweepers, and large landing craft (100-man LCIs). See Project Hula based out of Cold Bay in the Aleutians.
All true enough, but I didn't want to completely thread-jack your post by mentioning it. (Besides, it was purely a land grab and mostly happened after the surrender.)
DeleteI did not know about Project Hula. Thanks.
I knew someone who was in the Winnipeg Grenadiers (but joined after Hong Kong, lucky for him).
Thread-jack? No offense taken. We are all about tangential issues here. And
ReplyDeleteAnd yes as you say much of it happened after the surrender. Most of the Allies stopped in place at word of the Japanese Surrender on the 14th or as late as the 15th. The Soviets continued the land grab until 5 September, three days past the formal surrender on the USS Missouri.
I wasn't familiar with the Winnipeg Grenadiers. So had to look up their battle honours. Sweet mother of god, those poor bastards fought in Ypres, the Somme, Arras, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Amiens, and every other major bloodbath between 1915 & 1918. And then for the regiment to be destroyed during the Battle of Hong Kong! Did any at all survive in POW camps and come home at the end of the war?
I posted an update above regarding the proposed invasion of Japan's home islands, the Navy opposition to that invasion, and their opposition to Little Boy and Fat Man.
ReplyDelete"Admiral Halsey, using military reasoning instead of humanitarian concern said "It was a mistake ever to drop it. Why reveal a weapon like that to the world when it wasn't necessary."
ReplyDeleteThat argument I do not get: It was clear around 1945 that such a weapon is possible, it was tested in the USA (thousands(?) knew it)...
Ulenspiegel
A naval blockade was the way to go, but it's usually overlooked that even IF you firebomb a city, you don't need to do it while there are 100,000+ people in it.
ReplyDeleteThe Allies were in a process of moving American, Canadian and British 4-engined bombers from Europe to the Far East. They could have told Japan that they would destroy one specific city with a 3,000 bomber raid in a 96 hrs time window. This would have allowed the Japanese to evacuate it. Then they could have demonstrated this might.
The demo would have been a lot more devastating if all the barbarian B-29 firebombing hadn't happened before already.
Then the Allies could have signalled after the 3,000 bomber raid that Kyoto and Tokyo would be next unless Japan yields to a limited set of peace conditions.
The maximalist expectation of unconditional surrender was an evil in both Europe and Far East. It extended the by months into its most lethal phase.
Ulenspiegel -
ReplyDeleteAdmiral Halsey knew nothing of the bomb until he was briefed on 22 July, just two weeks prior to Hiroshima. Although earlier he probably did wonder why his carrier raids were prohibited from attacking military targets in Hiroshima & Nagasaki, plus Kokura & Niigata the alternates. He certainly did not know that Klaus Fuchs and the other Atomic Spies had already passed engineering details of the bomb and uranium enrichment methods to the Soviets.
And Halsey was never an academic star at the Naval Academy. He once came dangerously close to failing theoretical mechanics until he recruited a class scholar as a tutor. Halsey was much more attuned to football and social pursuits. I doubt seriously that he followed world news regarding physics.
With the exception of Admiral W. R. Purnell the Navy had been officially excluded from the Manhattan Project by Vannevar Bush and General Groves. Probably at FDRs direction as he wanted the Navy focused elsewhere. Purnell was charged with keeping knowledge of Manhattan Project secrets from the Navy. But he did bring a few Navy ordnance officers into the secret project, like Deak Parsons an expert in fuzing.
AFAIK the atomic weapons project was a pretty deep secret in '45. Truman didn't know about it, for one, and I can see that Halsey, regardless of his academic prowess, would have been well out of the loop.
DeleteI'm not sure that the "unconditional surrender" demand did as much to extend Japanese resistance as it did German. The IJA, in particular, was pretty far gone into senshoubyou. It was pretty obvious as early as 1944 - hell, many senior politicians and officers in the IJN thought as early as '41 - that the war was unwinnable. I think that the IJA, at least, would have insisted on fighting on, regardless of terms or no...
My father was in the early stages of the Navy V-12 (pilot) training in August of 45. He never really said much about the end of the war, other than that he was glad it ended before he got out to the Fleet; carriers being the kamikaze targets they were, I can't say he was wrong in that.
"AFAIK the atomic weapons project was a pretty deep secret in '45. Truman didn't know about it, for one, and I can see that Halsey, regardless of his academic prowess, would have been well out of the loop."
DeleteNo dispute. But if you bring Halsay's opinion as an relevant opinion, than I see a certain contradiction. :-)
Physicists on both side assumed back then that such a weapon is possible. There was tests in the USA which was "observed" by hundreds or thousands of people, to keep the djinni in the bottle was IMHO impossible in 1945.
It boils down whether an actual use of the weapon was essential for the capitulation of Japan or whether it was the solution with the lowest US losses.
Ulenspiegel
FDC -
DeleteYour father was in good company. Other V-12 participants included RFK, Scott Carpenter, Warren Christopher, William Webster, and many more notables.
And the program saved hundreds of small colleges and universities that otherwise would have had to close their doors and never re-open. And it was not just schooling for future Navy line officers, bit also for hundreds of medical schools and theological seminaries to educate future Navy doctors and chaplains. Compare FDR's decision-making on V-12 with the Moron-in-Chief's threats to take away tax exempt status of those universities whose speech culture he dislikes.
Ulenspiegel -
Delete"It boils down whether an actual use of the weapon was essential for the capitulation of Japan or whether it was the solution with the lowest US losses."
The solution with the lowest possible US losses was a blockade and continued bombing campaign as proposed by Admirals Leahy, King, Nimitz, and Halsey. Why Marshall & MacArthur insisted on an invasion makes no sense. Even an argument that a blockade would prolong the war is irrelevant as the invasion of Honshu the main island had been scheduled for the spring of 1946 but most believe it would not have happened until at best the following year.
As for Halsey's opinion, the only contradictions were the fact that the GRU already had information that the nuclear test at the Trinity site on 16 July was successful; plus a week or so later Truman implied to Stalin at Potsdam that we had tested it successfully.
So it was relevant at the time to Halsey with the knowledge available to him and to most others. Does not matter that many physicists worldwide assumed such a weapon was possible. And where do you get the hundreds of thousands of observers claim? There were maybe 600 to 1000 who witnessed the test.
The thing about Halsey's comment is that it kind of points out the degree to which even professionals - senior professionals - didn't understand the difference between the atomic weapons and "everything else". Since '45 both politicians and the military have come to see nuclear war as almost wholly "political". IIRC every wargame fought over a hypothetical nuclear strike against another nuclear power ended up going global. The "tactical" nukes meant that the big bombs would come next.
DeleteSo trying to hide such a weapon would seem it LESS useful, not more. The whole point was to dissuade a potential opponent from either beginning a conventional war, or escalating a conventional war into a nuclear one.
So it seems to me that Halsey, thinking like a naval officer of 1945, saw the early nukes as just one more "secret weapon" whose use and effect would be purely tactical.
Not surprising, given the situation. But not exactly prescient, either...
mike wrote: "The solution with the lowest possible US losses was a blockade and continued bombing campaign as proposed by Admirals Leahy, King, Nimitz, and Halsey. "
DeleteBut the losses were even lower with the use of the nuclear weapon. Correct?
Mike wrote: "And where do you get the hundreds of thousands"
Or NOT of. :-))
FDC wrote: "So trying to hide such a weapon would seem it LESS useful, not more. The whole point was to dissuade a potential opponent from either beginning a conventional war, or escalating a conventional war into a nuclear one."
No dispute.
Ulenspiegel
@Ulenspiegel: "But the losses were even lower with the use of the nuclear weapon. Correct?"
DeleteProbably. The most commonly cited estimate of Japanese casualties from the B29 raids is 333,000 killed and 473,000 wounded. Other estimates are higher. But after the Tokyo firebombing in March many (>3/4) of the population of large cities had been evacuated to the countryside. That included all children and non-essential adults. Those who remained were organized to fight fires and/or provide aide and disaster relief. Every family, urban or rural, was obligated to dig air raid shelters. The civilian defense organization dynamited and cleared huge swaths of housing to make firebreaks in the cities. The air raid warning system was made more efficient.
IMO the greater death toll would have come from diseases linked to undernourishment & malnutrition. By the summer of 1945 caloric intake in Japan was well below what was needed for good health. In order to provide a better diet, arable acreage was more intensively cultivated, leading to depletion. Much of the fishing fleet had been destroyed and fuel oil available to remaining fishermen was restricted. The available local fishing grounds were becoming increasingly dangerous. It a wonder that there was not mass starvation by the time they surrendered.
PS - Your "Or NOT of' regarding the number of observers went completely over my head. I have no idea what you are saying.
I wrote "hundreds or thousands" (spectators plus guards)
Deleteyou made it
"hundreds of thousands" :-))
Ulenspiegel
I just reread your original. Xin lỗi! Looks like i'm overdue for an eye exam.
DeleteSven -
ReplyDeleteSome blame 'unconditional surrender' on General Ulysses S Grant of the American Civil War. At the Battle of Fort Donelson he had demanded unconditional surrender from Confederate General Simon Buckner. Which Buckner called "ungenerous and unchivalrous". However Grant gave very generous surrender terms at Vicksburg, and also to Lee at Appomattox.
I agree with your premise that the demand for unconditional surrender extended the war. Balfour's book "Withstanding Hitler" claims the demand discouraged the resistance against Hitler and perhaps dissuaded top generals in the Heer from a coup. I have to wonder about similar sensibilities in the Japanese military, but the IJA was a lot more fanatical than the German Army, so maybe not?
Let me rephrase that last sentence. It should have said: "...but the IJA was fanatical, where the Heer was NOT."
DeleteThe US Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific) concluded that:
ReplyDelete"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a421958.pdf
I added a second Update above. This one an account by David Sanger of his father's conflicting orders on V-J Day: whether to allow Japanese officials to fly to Tokyo for the surrender, or whether to shoot down the aircraft in which they were flying.
ReplyDelete