Journalists View Of Nagasaki

[Akira 0]

Below is the first part of his story. Below that you can find the links to the other three parts.

Quote[/b] ]American George Weller was the first foreign reporter to enter Nagasaki following the U.S. atomic attack on the city on Aug. 9, 1945. Weller wrote a series of stories about what he saw in the city, but censors at the Occupation's General Headquarters refused to allow the material to be printed. Weller's stories, written in September 1945, can be found below.

NAGASAKI, Sept.8 -- The atomic bomb may be classified as a weapon capable of being used indiscriminately, but its use in Nagasaki was selective and proper and as merciful as such a gigantic force could be expected to be.

The following conclusions were made by the writer - as the first visitor to inspect the ruins - after an exhaustive, though still incomplete study of this wasteland of war.

Nagasaki is an island roughly resembling Manhattan in size and shape, running in north and south direction with ocean inlets on both sides, what would be the New Jersey and Manhattan sides of the Hudson river are lined with huge-war plants owned by the Mitsubishi and Kawanami families.

The Kawanami shipbuilding plants, employing about 20,000 workmen, lie on both sides of the harbor mouth on what corresponds to battery park and Ellis island. That is about five miles from the epicenter of the explosion.

B-29 raids before the Atomic bomb failed to damage them and they are still hardly scarred.

Proceeding up the Nagasaki harbor, which is lined with docks on both sides like the Hudson, one perceives the shores narrowing toward a bottleneck. The beautiful green hills are nearer at hand, standing beyond the long rows of industrial plants, which are all Mitsubishi on both sides of the river.

On the left, or Jersey side, two miles beyond the Kawanami yards are Mitsubishi's shipbuilding and electrical engine plants employing 20,000 and 8,000 respectively. The shipbuilding plant damaged by a raid before the atomic bomb, but not badly. The electrical plant is undamaged. It is three miles from the epicenter of the atomic bomb and repairable.

It is about two miles from the scene of the bomb's 1,500 feet high explosion where the harbor has narrowed to 250 foot wide Urakame River that the atomic bomb's force begins to be discernible.

This area is north of downtown Nagasaki, whose buildings suffered some freakish destruction, but are generally still sound.

The railroad station, destroyed except for the platforms is already operating. Normally it is sort of a gate to the destroyed part of the Urakame valley. In parallel north and south lines? here the Urakame river, Mitsubishi plants on both sides, the railroad line and the main road from town. For two miles stretches a line of congested steel and some concrete factories with the residential district "across the tracks. The atomic bomb landed between and totally destroyed both with half (illegible) living persons in them. The known dead-number 20,000 police tell me they estimate about 4,000 remain to be found.

The reason the deaths were so high -- the wounded being about twice as many according to Japanese official figures -- was twofold:

1. Mitsubishi air raid shelters were totally inadequate and the civilian shelters remote and limited.

2. That the Japanese air warning system was a total failure.

Weller's son, Anthony, holding his father's camera and a photograph he took in Nagasaki.

I inspected half a dozen crude short tunnels in the rock wall valley which the Mitsubishi Co., considered shelters. I also picked my way through the tangled iron girders and curling roofs of the main factories to see concrete shelters four inches thick but totally inadequate in number. Only a grey concrete building topped by a siren, where the clerical staff had worked had reasonable cellar shelters, but nothing resembling the previous had been made.

A general alert had been sounded at seven in the morning, four hours before two B-29's appeared, but it was ignored by the workmen and most of the population. The police insist that the air raid warning was sounded two minutes before the bomb fell, but most people say they heard none.

As one whittles away at embroidery and checks the stories, the impression grows that the atomic bomb is a tremendous, but not a peculiar weapon. The Japanese have heard the legend from American radio that the ground preserves deadly irradiation. But hours of walking amid the ruins where the odor of decaying flesh is still strong produces in this writer nausea, but no sign or burns or debilitation.

Nobody here in Nagasaki has yet been able to show that the bomb is different than any other, except in a broader extent flash and a more powerful knock-out.

All around the Mitsubishi plant are ruins which one would gladly have spared. The writer spent nearly an hour in 15 deserted buildings in the Nagasaki Medical Institute hospital which (illegible).

Nothing but rats live in the debris choked halls. On the opposite side of the valley and the Urakame river is a three story concrete American mission college called Chin Jei, nearly totally destroyed.

Japanese authorities point out that the home area flattened by American bombs was traditionally the place of Catholic and Christian Japanese.

But sparing these and sparing the allied prison camp, which the Japanese placed next to an armor plate factory would have meant sparing Mitsubishi's ship parts plant with 1,016 employees who were mostly Allied. It would have spared a Mounting factory connecting with 1,750 employees. It would have spared three steel foundries on both sides of the Urakame, using ordinarily 3,400 but that day 2,500. And besides sparing many sub-contracting plants now flattened it would have meant leaving untouched the Mitsubishi torpedo and ammunition plant employing 7,500 and which was nearest where the bomb up.

All these latter plants today are hammered flat. But no saboteur creeping among the war plants of death could have placed the atomic bomb by hand more scrupulously given Japan's inertia about common defense.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

An interesting read by any account, especially by one that is there at Ground Zero. It is also interesting (though perhaps not surprising) that the US refused to publish it.

[EiZei 0]

An interesting read by any account, especially by one that is there at Ground Zero. It is also interesting (though perhaps not surprising) that the US refused to publish it.

Quite an odd way to say "censored."

[SpongeBob 0]

Anyone seen a book called Unforgettable Fire Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors (Ed. Japan Broadcasting Corporation, 1977). Some really graphic accounts of injured and dead people, and some of the pics will give you nightmares.

[harley 3 1185 0]

In a Time-Life book about the end of the war in Japan (part of a HUGE series) there was a large colour section in the middle devoted to such drawings. They never cease to send a shiver down my spine.

Perhaps the most sad and scary thing I've ever seen on the Atom Bomb drops were these pictures of the "Atomic shadow" phenomonen; the shadows of people about their business imprinted on a wall by the incredible light. Scary-I'll try and find a picture.

[Daniel 0]

Yeah, very interesting read. I read a book called "Brother In The Land", kinda put me off nukes. It was about a nuclear holocaust accounted by a guy in a small England town.

[Akira 0]

An interesting read by any account, especially by one that is there at Ground Zero. It is also interesting (though perhaps not surprising) that the US refused to publish it.

Quite an odd way to say "censored."

American news stories were censored throughout the war, as were British. Letters to home were also opened and read and censored to make sure a GI didn't give any information that shouldn't be given.

During my research for as yet unfinished screenplay about the Ploesti raid, there was a section about letters being censored to make sure the airmen didn't give away where they were, or what they were going to bomb. One enlisted man wrote home, mentioned that the enlisted men thrashed the officers in a game of softball. Next to the paragraph in the censors black pen was "Like hell they did."

[breaker44 0]

To be blunt, I know this is gonna be some serious fire-tinder, but if the bomb had not been dropped, we would have lost a helluva lot more people. When it came down to it, it was us or them. And quite frankly, I'm sorry for the civilians, but as for the soldiers, there was a place called Nanking. Read about it sometime.

As far as censorship goes, I'd rather have my letter censored than my troopship sunk, but that's just me.

-Breaker Out

[EiZei 0]

To be blunt, I know this is gonna be some serious fire-tinder, but if the bomb had not been dropped, we would have lost a helluva lot more people. When it came down to it, it was us or them. And quite frankly, I'm sorry for the civilians, but as for the soldiers, there was a place called Nanking. Read about it sometime.

As far as censorship goes, I'd rather have my letter censored than my troopship sunk, but that's just me.

-Breaker Out

If the soviets had nuked Berlin in order to save their own troops we would still be hearing about that tragedy. (and probably from the same people who keep defending the hiroshima/nagasaki ) Or god forbid if the nazis had done something similar they would have been hung twice and nobody sane would have defended them.

Why not detonate it in some remote area and tell japanese goverment that tokyo will be next unless they surrender?

Or the US could have accepted the japanese surrender on some conditions regarding the status of the emperor..

Or they could have at least spared Nagasaki for god's sake.

Anyways, censoring news reports and letters obviously are not the same since this report most certainly was not a security risk, just a political one.

[harley 3 1185 0]

There is a spectacular fallacy in U.S. history regarding the reasons the Japanese refused to surrender;

1.  A comment made by the Prime Minister to the press in mid-1945, on the offer of Unconditional Surrender from the Americans, meant in colloquial Japanese, "No comment".  U.S. Intelligence experts translated it as "No way", thus paving the way for President Truman's authorisation to drop the bomb.

2.  The Japanese government and elements of the military were anxious to bring the war to an end to avoid wide-spread suffering amongst the Japanese populace, as the fire-bombing raids by the XXth Air Force began to take effect.  However, many ranking officials refused to contemplate surrender due to the clause demanding the removal of the Emperor.

The fact that when the bomb was dropped, and the Japanese agreed to surrender under any terms, the U.S. changed position and allowed the continuation of the Meiji throne.  If this had been the position taken at Potsdam, when the "Unconditional Surrender" policy was drafted and endorsed by the Allies, the Japanese would have most likely surrendered-bound by their Emperor's desire to end the war.

Due to these two American blunders, however, I wholly sympathise with the position that Japan needed to be shocked out of the war through the use of the Atom Bombs.  The casualties in the projected invasion of Honshu, Operation "Downfall", would have been atrocious.  After three years of storming fanatically-defended islands throughout the Pacific, this was no longer acceptable.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]Why not detonate it in some remote area and tell japanese goverment that tokyo will be next unless they surrender?

It is highly questionable as to the effect this would have had on the Japanese leadership if any. There was an interesting documentary on PBS about the last days of the Japanese leadership, and even after Hiroshima was bombed, they argued for a continuation of the war. Something along the lines of better to go out fighting.

The special also had interesting interviews, and film footage of the plans for the defense of the Home Islands, including arming and training elderly, women, and children with bamboo spears.

Not to mention there were only two available bombs at that time.*

Quote[/b] ]Or the US could have accepted the japanese surrender on some conditions regarding the status of the emperor.

In the end they did. It was the Japanese insistance that the Emporer remain the head of the government that was unacceptable.

Quote[/b] ]Or they could have at least spared Nagasaki for god's sake.

And bombed what? Why did Nagasaki have to be spared?

Quote[/b] ]Anyways, censoring news reports and letters obviously are not the same since this report most certainly was not a security risk, just a political one.

It was a little of both. Certainly they didn't want the horror of the bomb released stateside, but also they certainly wouldn't want the extent of damage and effectiveness of the bomb released. There were the Soviets remember.

Quote[/b] ]...but as for the soldiers, there was a place called Nanking. Read about it sometime.

Interesting defense considering it wasn't our people brutalized at Nanking. One could just as easily say look at Dresden or the fire bombing of Tokyo.*

*On an interesting sidenote, the documentary had quotes from LeMay, and when asked abotu the deliberate fire bombing of Tokyo he remarked "I suppose if we lost I would be considered a war criminal."

EDIT:

Quote[/b] ]2. The Japanese government and elements of the military were anxious to bring the war to an end to avoid wide-spread suffering amongst the Japanese populace, as the fire-bombing raids by the 10th Air Force began to take effect. However, many ranking officials refused to contemplate surrender due to the clause demanding the removal of the Emperor.

Based on the documentary I saw, I would have to say that is a fallacy. The biggest fear was open revolt, which previously would have been unthinkable, but after the fire-bombing of Tokyo became a real possibility. For sure there were a few that thought they should surrender for your reasons, but the ones running the war, the military dictatorship, refused to consider it, and the Emperor for the time went along with this view.

[Daniel 0]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Or they could have at least spared Nagasaki for god's sake.

And bombed what? Why did Nagasaki have to be spared?

I think he means they only had to bomb Hiroshima to get the message across, though you have already stated that there were talks of continuing the war even after Hiroshima

[EiZei 0]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Or they could have at least spared Nagasaki for god's sake.

And bombed what? Why did Nagasaki have to be spared?

Maybe they should have waited a moment more after hiroshima?

Quote[/b] ]

It was a little of both. Certainly they didn't want the horror of the bomb released stateside, but also they certainly wouldn't want the extent of damage and effectiveness of the bomb released. There were the Soviets remember.

Umm.. didn't they kind of wanted the soviets to know how big and powerful their weapon was? How the hell they could eventually cover that up in a country with more than hundred million people?

Quote[/b] ]

It is highly questionable as to the effect this would have had on the Japanese leadership if any. There was an interesting documentary on PBS about the last days of the Japanese leadership, and even after Hiroshima was bombed, they argued for a continuation of the war. Something along the lines of better to go out fighting.

The special also had interesting interviews, and film footage of the plans for the defense of the Home Islands, including arming and training elderly, women, and children with bamboo spears.

Considering that they already had been showing signs of wanting to end the war id say a demonstration in some less populated area would have had a similar effect.

Germans had plenty of similar plans of distributing weaponry to the civilians and see them fight to the bitter end but nothing came out of it.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]Maybe they should have waited a moment more after hiroshima?

Well, they waited three days, the given time for the Japanese to respond to the US's new demands for surrender. The Japanese returned with their demands, including provisions for the Emperor to remain, which they knew the US would not accept.

Quote[/b] ]Umm.. didn't they kind of wanted the soviets to know how big and powerful their weapon was? How the hell they could eventually cover that up in a country with more than hundred million people?

Of course they knew of the weapon. It had been flashed around the world. But why would they want them to know its effects on the ground, especially given that we obviously had no idea what the result would be (other than large BOOM).

Quote[/b] ]Considering that they already had been showing signs of wanting to end the war id say a demonstration in some less populated area would have had a similar effect.

The military dictatorship showed little desire to end the war with surrender. The outnumbered moderate and liberal elements did. In fact the moderates came up with a plan to probe the US's interest in allowing the Emperor to remain as a figurehead, sometime before the bombs dropped, but the military elements refused to consider this.

The military was in charge, and the Emperor, for the time being, was backing them. He was far more interested in retaining power, than the suffering of his people.

Quote[/b] ]Germans had plenty of similar plans of distributing weaponry to the civilians and see them fight to the bitter end but nothing came out of it.

The Germans are not the Japanese. Did the Germans have trained kamikaze squads? Did the Germans develop and produce a suicidal torpedo plane? Did the Germans send their largest most symbolic battleship out with just enough fuel to attack the American fleet? Did the Germans routinely fight to the last man? Did German civilians leap off cliffs when the Americans would occupy a town?

[EiZei 0]

Quote[/b] ]The Germans are not the Japanese. Did the Germans have trained kamikaze squads?

Did the Germans develop and produce a suicidal torpedo plane? Did the Germans routinely fight to the last man?

There actually were german pilots who demanded to have suicide missions. The germans were also planning to produce a kamikaze plane (luft46) but they simply got bombed to hell before they got to producing those.

Some of the more hard-core units like those brainwashed hitler jugend kids or SS remnants were really tough nuts to crack even though very poorly armed and not properly trained.

Quote[/b] ]

Did the Germans send their largest most symbolic battleship out with just enough fuel to attack the American fleet?

The german one was sunk so no go. The navy took some really heavy losses though and many were sent on clearly suicidal missions.

Quote[/b] ]

Did German civilians leap off cliffs when the Americans would occupy a town?

Well, I give you that.

Quote[/b] ]

The military was in charge, and the Emperor, for the time being, was backing them. He was far more interested in retaining power, than the suffering of his people.

So why did he surrender in the first place?

Quote[/b] ]

Of course they knew of the weapon. It had been flashed around the world. But why would they want them to know its effects on the ground, especially given that we obviously had no idea what the result would be (other than large BOOM).

Im sure they had some random commie spy they just sent over there with a camera than rely on some news reports.

Quote[/b] ]

Well, they waited three days, the given time for the Japanese to respond to the US's new demands for surrender. The Japanese returned with their demands, including provisions for the Emperor to remain, which they knew the US would not accept.

Odd, I recall reading that they didn't get a reply, must double check on that.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]Im sure they had some random commie spy they just sent over there with a camera than rely on some news reports.

Oh I'm sure as well. But I easily see that they refused to publish his reports just based on the possible gutteral reaction that might have taken place in the US. Who likes hearing about dying 15 year olds, and children losing their hair?

Quote[/b] ]The german one was sunk so no go. The navy took some really heavy losses though and many were sent on clearly suicidal missions.

I also remember them hoping from harbor to harbor.

Except of course the Bismarck, which the Brits paid dearly for sinking.

Quote[/b] ]

So why did he surrender in the first place?

Well, guess it would depend on which source you ascribe. In the documentary I watched, and some of the books I read, and what I happen to believe, is that he did in fact in the end worry about his people..."his children"...and his country. What ruler wants to see his country destroyed and his people killed no matter how nationalistic?

Through the war and post-Hiroshima, he was very concerned with the Emperor retaining power, and the belief that it was better to make the enemy pay. Post-Nagasaki (and in part because of the effects of the Tokyo bombing) this view changed, and it was at this point that the military dictatorship was destroyed.

Quote[/b] ]According to some Japanese historians, Japanese civilian leaders who favored surrender saw their salvation in the atomic bombing. The Japanese military was steadfastly refusing to give up, so the peace faction seized on the bombing as a new argument to force surrender. Koichi Kido, one of emperor Hirohito's closest advisors stated that "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945 called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war." According to these historians and others the pro-peace civilian leadership was able to use the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince the military that no amount of courage, skill and fearless combat could help Japan against the power of atomic weapons. Akio Morita, founder of Sony and Japanese Naval officer during the war, also concludes that it was the atomic bomb and not conventional bombings from B-29s that convinced the Japanese military to agree to peace.

Quote[/b] ]Odd, I recall reading that they didn't get a reply, must double check on that.

Actaully think you are correct here...I'm looking it up.

[EiZei 0]

Quote[/b] ]

So why did he surrender in the first place?

Well, guess it would depend on which source you ascribe. In the documentary I watched, and some of the books I read, and what I happen to believe, is that he did in fact in the end worry about his people..."his children"...and his country. What ruler wants to see his country destroyed and his people killed no matter how nationalistic?

Through the war and post-Hiroshima, he was very concerned with the Emperor retaining power, and the belief that it was better to make the enemy pay. Post-Nagasaki (and in part because of the effects of the Tokyo bombing) this view changed, and it was at this point that the military dictatorship was destroyed.

Quote[/b] ]According to some Japanese historians, Japanese civilian leaders who favored surrender saw their salvation in the atomic bombing. The Japanese military was steadfastly refusing to give up, so the peace faction seized on the bombing as a new argument to force surrender. Koichi Kido, one of emperor Hirohito's closest advisors stated that "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945 called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war." According to these historians and others the pro-peace civilian leadership was able to use the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince the military that no amount of courage, skill and fearless combat could help Japan against the power of atomic weapons. Akio Morita, founder of Sony and Japanese Naval officer during the war, also concludes that it was the atomic bomb and not conventional bombings from B-29s that convinced the Japanese military to agree to peace.

Quote[/b] ]Odd, I recall reading that they didn't get a reply, must double check on that.

No answer is an answer is it not?

Well, 3 days is kind of a short time to decide on a fate of a nation.

Personally I think the main reason for their surrender was the fact that the soviets were on their way (and the could not care less about casualties) and the emperor knew in order to save his very own arse he had to surrender to the americans. Also seeing the effects of nuclear weaponry probably made them see US military stronger than the soviet one.

[Akira 0]

The effect of the Soviet Union declaring war can not be understated, especially since January of that year, the Japanese had been trying to get the Soviets to mediate a peace between the US and Japan. This was truly the last hope that they held on to for their nation. When the Soviets declared war, this was completely shattered.

[breaker44 0]

Le May may have been prosecuted, sure, but it doesn't mean he did it to be a criminal, or to kill. He did it because it was necesarry. Nanking, however, was not. The rape, torture, and murder of the people there was unnecesarry, crude, and wrong. That is a war crime. But I digress. It seems there is a good consensus here.

-Breaker Out

[Akira 0]

Le May may have been prosecuted, sure, but it doesn't mean he did it to be a criminal, or to kill. He did it because it was necesarry. Nanking, however, was not. The rape, torture, and murder of the people there was unnecesarry, crude, and wrong. That is a war crime. But I digress. It seems there is a good consensus here.

-Breaker Out

No one is denying the attrocities of Nanking. What I was merely saying is is that it is can't be used as a valid excuse for the dropping of the bomb. Every country in WW2 committed attrocities...whether willfully and with malice or through the "necessity" of war.

[breaker44 0]

Well, wouldn't that make war itself an atrocity (which it is)?

My point being is that it was valid to drop the bomb to save lives. Nanking did not save lives, or help in any military way. I don't know why this is being condemned, Japan was a fascist country at the time, and needed to be stopped.

Anyway, I thought dresden was an accident, guess im wrong.

-Breaker Out

[Akira 0]

Well of course. War is definitely an atrocity, which is why I guess they have "rules" with which to wage it.

It is being condemned for the most part, because of hindsight and the suspect reasoning behind its use. I, personally, have no doubt that in the long run it saved more military and civilian lives than it took. And while such a terrible event, by all accounts and information, the invasion of Kyushu would be worse not to even mention a possible landing on Tokyo.

It is the information that all the commanders in the Pacific thought it was unnecessary that raises questions. It is the supposition that it may have been more of a warning to Russia then anything that raises questions. It is some of the popular myths in American history that raise questions. Indeed, the use of the atomic bomb to save more lives than it takes could be considered noble in as noble as war can be, but that is if indeed that was the reasoning behind its use (not to mention the second one)...

[harley 3 1185 0]

Well, the question of why the Commanders in the Pacific thought the bomb(s) weren't needed is relatively simple to explain;

For the U.S. and Royal Navies, the Japanese at sea had been nearly totally annihilated. The only danger for their ships was navigating mine-fields off the Japanese home islands. The aircraft and battleships of the fleets could pound the enemy coasts without any threat. Nimitz wouldn't have been too keen on using a bomb which famously cost him a cruiser.

For the U.S.A.A.F., XX Bomber Command Chief Spaatz was one of the advocates that Air Power could win the war, as the British had believed over Germany. He thought that Le May's fire-bombing would finish the job, without no new fangled bomb helping.

As for MacArthur, tipped by Roosevelt to command the Invasion armies; he'd have faced the task grimly knowing full well how many of his men would die. His casualties throughout the war were miniscule compared to those of the troops and marines under Nimitz's command. Reason suggests that he would have been all for the bomb, and would explain why he was so eager to go Nuclear in Korea.

We are always going to debate whether the bombs should have been used. I don't mean to sound corny, but we have that luxury-and the benefit of hindsight. They didn't know the Japs would surrender after two bombs; they didn't know that the 2 different types of bomb would even go off. They didn't even know if the "Enola Gay" and "Bock's Car" would even get off the runway. There are far too many ifs and buts to either solidly defend the dropping of the bombs, or to totally denounce the act. My two cents.

[breaker44 0]

Fair enough, yes, but I don't see it as a condemnable act if it saved lives, as opposed to Nanking. That's my only point.

-Breaker Out

[Akira 0]

Fair enough, yes, but I don't see it as a condemnable act if it saved lives, as opposed to Nanking. That's my only point.

-Breaker Out

And one I think most agree with

[shinRaiden 0]

I've got a biography in Japaneses of Emperor Showa published in commemeration of the 100th anniversary of his birthday. According to that, and the standard Japanese 'historical' position, expounds on the "no comment" arguement. The story there is that the emperor was seldom involved directly in matters of state following the pattern of his predecessor Taisho, under the framework of reforms structured during the Meiji era, and secured via a couple civil wars.

In that infantile political structure, the system was quickly corrupted by the old wielders of court power, who then nationalized the religious orders (primarily consisted of providing maintanence, pensions, and support for nationalistic orders, much in line with other countries at the time). This way they were able to adequately mobilize and motivate the otherwise apathetic populace to their expansionist plans.

In regards to the Manchurian occupation, that was as much a by-product of the Russian-Japanese war immediately prior to WWI, as it was 'retaliation' for historical oppression at the hands of the Korean and Chinese empires centuries prior, much in the same way the current ME hysteria centers on the Caliphate vs. the Holy Crusades, even though the current conflict bears not political relation directly to those events.

Of course there were atrocities being committed in Manchuria, but that was not unique for that period. You had the Boxer Rebellion preceding it, the colonialism in India and Africa, pogroms in Russia, Sen. Robert Byrd (D) organizing the Klan in West Virginia, the Aremenian liquidation in Turkey, and so on. Nationalized Eugenics was the progressive order of the day.

Anyway, back to Japan. Once the shipyards started getting busy and farmkids signed up to see the world, the geographically and natural resource-hobbled Japanese Empire began to be rolled back. What was beginning to concern US planners was the tenacity of the Japanese people. Ironically, the racist attitudes of western cultures mirrored in demeanor the condescenion towards the general populace shared by the various Asian leaders. Under that doctrine, the question becomes "can we afford to kill as many as they can afford to lose". The rules that eastern thought, especially in the the absolute empires, operates under is like that of chess - everyone exists to serve the king, and everyone is expendable to save the king. That's why Saddam "won" GW1, because he could afford to lose more people, than Powell could afford to bomb.

The stigma of the racist stereotypes against asians at that period negated that arguement however. At that point the math became much simpler, given that "we got to kill 'em anyway", what's the 'cheapest' way to do it, and get the war over before the election.

By this point the Japanese cabinent was wringing their hands. Pretty much every city of any size other than Kanazawa (the castle and garden's there are rated one of the top three in Japan, and I would say all of Asia, absolutely stunning) lay in ruins, Tokyo and the other major metropolitan areas had been reduced to ashes, and the country was facing catastropic starvation due to the rapid urbanization caused by the war mobilization effort. The problem was that they were playing by Asian rules, which dictated that you prop up the king no matter what - even under rediculous circumstances - and the emperor (Showa) wanted no part, and had taken no active role, in the entire adventure and politicing.

So after Hiroshima, the war cabinent met and collectively said "we're screwed, and according to tradition there's nothing we can do. We've got no rice, no steel, no oil, no lumber, and the Marines are on Okinawa. We can't do anything, because technically the emperor is in charge, even though we've been calling the shots."

( side-note : this cultural crisis is re-manifesting itself today in countless families across Asia, as the elderly grandparents are increasing unable to patriarchally rule their clans, but their children refuse to step up to the plate because the grandparents austensibly are still on the throne, which leaves the grandkids devoid of guidence and direction. )

So the war cabinent went to Showa and ate crow right about when Nagasaki got zapped. According to the bio, everything worked out just great, because the emperor did the dirty work, traditional heirarchy was preserved, and the emperor didn't technically have really much to lose anyway.

The de-nationalization of the religious orders has had mixed results. On one hand, a lot of the traditional and historical sites and institutions that sold out to the government in exchange for a handout have fallen into disrepair and neglect. On the other hand, the non-nationalized shrines were able to get out from under the cloud of non-preferred status, and continue servicing the community.

The basic premise though is Patton's First Law of War Economics : "You don't win a war by dieing for your country, you win a war by making the other guy die for his country." In the aftermath of the acknowledgement of mass atrocities, the progressive movements gained a great deal of political capital globally, which has spurred their efforts towards a Nuclear Freeze under the premise that nuclear warfare is inherently an atrocity. Warfare is in itself a moral traversty, and debating out whether it's more "humane" to kill 'em quick or kill 'em slow, when the end result is they're still dead, I think is kind of stupid.

Anyhoo, China and their lapdogs in the DPRK continue to bring up the Manchurian occupation as poltical leverage to justify their own expansionist policies, and the introverts in the no-nuke community point to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as justification to focus on castrating the nuclear superpowers, as they're the only ones with governments manipulable by their liberal special intrests in their secret societies or something along those lines.

One perhaps less studied and analyzed effect is the migration of the survivors away from Nagasaki and Hiroshima in the large-scale post-war population shifts. It's commonly suspected that that distribution of the survivors through out Japan, and the migration of their descendents, has led to widely distributed genetic anomolies and defects, as well as other generational physiological and psychological disturbances.

In all fairness however, the significant long-term effects were not fully known or understood, beyond the basic principles of the excessive Roetegn Ray exposure cases. Genetic theory and such were still many years away. Also, the design goal of the initial Manhattan Project was to make the ultimate Boom, not to make a radiation zapper. The story goes that when they set off the bomb - consisting of one of the largest piles of TNT made - the observers in the bunker thought the initial fireball was the big one, and only moments later when the core flashed and whited out the inside of the bunker, and they looked out the window and saw the flaming shroom did they realize the real boom. Remember, this was a bunch of engineers and prima donna scientists, which are a pretty clueless lot, according to various people I kinda know...

-edit-

One other item I forgot. Truman's threat to annihilite all Japan via nukes technically was one of the biggest FUD bluff's of all time, as both Little Boy and Fat Man were essentially fielded prototypes, and the nuclear materials to make a third and succeding bombs would have taken many more months or years to produce.