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Reasons the US dropped the Atomic bomb in Japan, (Orthodox view: military…

- - - - Military advisers told Truman that Japan was a defeated nation and that the US naval blockade of the home islands meant that its war effort would wane quickly
        
        3 million Japanese soldiers stranded in China who could not return to defend Japan
      - Senior commanders from all arms (Eisenhower, MacArthur, Leahy, King, Nimitz, Arnold and LeMay) opposed its use.
      - US Strategic Bombing Survey’s Report
        
        Showed the US blockade would have obliged Japan to surrender by November
      - Vadim Nekrasov in The Roots of European Security (1984): stated that the US decision to use the bomb was simply to show its power to the world, especially to the USSR.
      - Stalin had promised Roosevelt he would intervene and support the US if they intervened in the war.
        
        To end the war completely and avoid the USSR from entering the war in Asia, the US decided to bomb Japan, Nagasaki, a second time on the 9th of August.
        
        Stalin stated he would declare war on Japan the 7th of August on 1945. After the bombimg of Hiroshima
  - - - Japan chose to ignore declaration – ‘kill it with silence’ – mokusatsu – negotiating tactic to meet offense with silence.
      - US interpreted response as rejection of Potsdam
      - Truman and Churchill at 7am on 26 July give Japan ultimatum
      - Maldwyn Jones asserts that, ‘The military and civilian leaders who took the fateful decision did so... to save Allied lives and to end the war at a stroke’.
      - The US secretary of State, Byrnes took out the name of the Soviet Union as a signatory in the Potsdam Declaration. This meant that when Japan surrendered, they would not surrender to the allies, as Germany did (splited equal parts), they would just surrendered to the US.
- - - - Killed 12,5000 US sailors, marines and wounded 44,000
      - Kamikazes sank 27 ships and damaged 164.
      - Most costly naval campaign of Pacific War
      - Loss of 1465 aircraft and crews.
    - - Had not destroyed Japan’s ability to make war
      - US General LeMay’s focus on civilian destruction meant much of infrastructure intact.
      - Rail network, the Korura arsenal and the essential coal ferry between Hokkaido and Honshu were not disabled.
  - - - 4000 converted to kamikaze planes
      - Japan outnumbered the US in ships (however, they could not afford to lose any because they didn’t built them as fast as the US)
      - Millions of troops, civilian volunteers and ‘child soldiers’ 15 years and above. 5000 effective aircraft
  - - - Japanese pilots that would crash their planes into American ships and bases.
    - - 23,000 Americans
      - 20,000 Japanese
    - - 50,000 Americans
      - 100,000 Japanese
  - - - Killing 90,000 Japanese civilians
    - - 2-4 million American casualties
      - 5-10 million Japanese casualties
- - - - Army Chief of Staff General Yoshijirō Umezu
      - Navy Chief of Staff Soemu Toyoda
      - Minister Korechika Anami
    - - "All fight to death"
      - Training of civilians to operate as suicide bombers
      - Civilians were to form a shield against invaders
    - - Japanese military had no intention of surrendering and meant to fight to the last man, woman, and child.
      - Japanese military did not consider surrender even after Hiroshima.
  - - - "Nobody is more disturbed over the use of atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war" (Extract from Truman’s letter of 11 August 1945 to the General Secretary of the Federal Council of Churches of the USA)