Gość: diabeł
IP: *.krakow.cvx.ppp.tpnet.pl
11.11.02, 15:31
"The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and
children, revolts my soul."
— President Herbert Hoover
The UNNECESSARY Bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
From A People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn,
and the Political Literacy Course of the Common Courage Press:
The bombing of Japanese cities continued the strategy of saturation bombing
to destroy civilian morale; one nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000
lives. (Zinn points out in the book that "nighttime bombing" was by its very
nature indiscriminate, not aimed primarily at military targets.)
And then, on August 6, 1945, came the lone American plane in the sky over
Hiroshima, dropping the first atomic bomb, leaving perhaps 100,000 Japanese
dead, and tens of thousands more slowly dying from radiation poisoning.
Twelve U.S. navy fliers in the Hiroshima city jail were killed in the
bombing, a fact that the U.S. government has never officially acknowledged,
according to historian Martin Sherwin ("A World Destroyed").
Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki,
with perhaps 50,000 killed.
The justification for these atrocities was that this would end the war
quickly, making unnecessary an invasion of Japan. Such an invasion would cost
a huge number of lives, the government said — a million, according to
Secretary of State Byrnes; half a million, Truman claimed was the figure
given by General George Marshall. (When the papers of the Manhattan Project —
the project to build the atom bomb — were released years later, they showed
that Marshall urged a warning to the Japanese about the bomb, so people could
be removed and only military targets hit.)
These estimates of invasion losses were not realistic, and seem to have been
pulled out of the air to justify bombings which, as their effects became
known, horrified more and more people.
Japan, by August 1945, was in desperate shape and ready to surrender. A New
York Times military analyst wrote, shortly after the war:
"The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position by the
time the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender was made on July 26."
Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in
1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds
of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and
reported just after the war:
"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 December 31 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."
But could American leaders have known this in August 1945?
The answer is, clearly, yes. The Japanese code had been broken, and Japan's
messages were being intercepted.
It was known the Japanese had instructed their ambassador in Moscow to work
on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had begun talking of
surrender a year before this, and the Emperor himself had begun to suggest,
in June 1945, that alternatives to fighting to the end be considered.
On July 13, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired his ambassador in
Moscow: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace." Martin
Sherwin, after an exhaustive study of the relevant historical documents,
concludes: "Having broken the Japanese code before the war, American
Intelligence was able to — and did — relay this message to the President, but
it had no effect whatever on efforts to bring the war to conclusion."
If only Americans had not insisted on unconditional surrender — that is, if
they were willing to accept one condition to the surrender, that the Emperor,
a holy figure to the Japanese, remain in place — the Japanese would have
agreed to stop the war.
Why did the United States not take that small step to save both American and
Japanese lives? Was it because too much money and effort had been invested in
the atomic bomb not to drop it? General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan
Project, described Truman as a man on a toboggan, the momentum too great to
stop it.
Or was it, as British scientist P.M.S. Blackett suggested ("Fear, War, and
the Bomb"), that the United States was anxious to drop the bomb before the
Russians entered the war against Japan?
The Russians had secretly agreed (they were officially not at war with Japan)
they would come into the war ninety days after the end of the European war.
That turned out to be May 8, and so, on August 8, the Russians were due to
declare war on Japan.
But by then the big bomb had been dropped, and the next day a second one
would be dropped on Nagasaki; the Japanese would surrender to the United
States, not the Russians, and the United States would be the occupier of
postwar Japan.
In other words, Blackett says, the dropping of the bomb was "the first major
operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia."
Blackett is supported by American historian Gar Alperovitz ("Atomic
Diplomacy"), who notes a diary entry for July 28, 1945, by Secretary of the
Navy James Forrestal, describing Secretary of State James F. Byrnes as
"most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got
in."
Truman had said, "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped
on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first
attack to avoid, insofar was possible, the killing of civilians."
It was a preposterous statement. Those 100,000 killed in Hiroshima were
almost all civilians. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey said in its official
report:
"Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration
of activities and population."
The dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in
advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped. Was it
because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium
bomb? Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki victims of a scientific
experiment?
Martin Sherwin says that among the Nagasaki dead were probably American
prisoners of war. He notes a message of July 31 from Headquarters, U.S.
Strategic Air Forces, Guam, to the War Department:
"Reports prisoner of war sources, not verified by photos, given location of
Allied prisoner of war camp one mile north of center of city of Nagasaki.
Does this influence the choice of this target for initial Centerboard
operation? Request immediate reply."
The reply: "Targets previously assigned for Centerboard remain unchanged."
True, the war ended quickly. Italy had been defeated a year earlier. Germany
had recently surrendered, crushed primarily by the armies of the Soviet Union
on the Eastern Front, aided by the Allied armies on the West. Now Japan
surrendered. The Fascist powers were destroyed.
But what about fascism — as idea, as reality? Were its essential elements —
militarism, racism, imperialism — now gone? Or were they absorbed into the
already poisoned bones of the victors.
"The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of
nuclear giants and ethical infants."
— General Omar Bradley
