Taken From a Newsgroup Online Concerning Dropping the 'A' Bomb

http://www.nhk.or.jp/nuclear/touron/e/iken/p7_1.html

Mr.Tonoue seems to argue that sacrificing 63,000 American servicemen in a ground invasion was a reasonable alternative to dropping the bombs. He assumes that the invasion of Kyushu would force the generals to surrender. The Big Six could not agree to surrender EVEN AFTER the second bomb destroyed Nagasaki. Japanese soldiers simply did not surrender. American commanders valued their soldier's lives greatly and did everything that they could to spare their men, but the Big Six were planning to sacrifice every last Japanese, soldier or civilian, in defending Kyushu. If the invasion had gone ahead without the bombings, and ex-Prime minister Tojo still vetoed a surrender, the US would have dropped the bombs on Tokyo and Yokohama, again to try to force a surrender, and hundreds of thousands of people would have died needlessly. In that case Mr. Tonoue would be arguing today that the US immorally waited too long before using the bomb and killed Japanese civilians unnecessarily during the invasion.

Negotiations for surrender were not supported by the key members of the Big Six. The US knew this because they were reading all diplomatic radio traffic. The US had learned a bitter lesson about negotiating with the Japanese in November 1941 when Japanese diplomats were negotiating a settlement of issues with the US while the Tojo was secretly preparing the strike against Pearl Harbor. Clearly the Japanese were willing to negotiate without any intention of reaching a settlement in order to increase the effectiveness of the surprise attack and the Japanese declaration of war. Does Mr. Tonoue really think the US government could responsibly delay the prosecution of the war to follow another "negotiation" after this remarkable betrayal?

Truman judged correctly, and the Emporer ended the war six days after Nagasaki was bombed. This raises the most difficult question of all: why did he wait? If the Emporer could end the war, wasn't he responsible for its' conduct? Japanese soldiers fought the war in the Emporer's name. The Emporer accepted the responsibility for the actions of his soldiers who waged war for him and responsibility for their deaths. His representative surrendered to the Allies.

Why did Mr. Hirohito -the man- wait for so long to end the war? What was he thinking as a man, as he watched the invasion of Machuria, the brutal massacres in China, the murder of British, Australian, and American civilian internees in Malaysia, Borneo and the Philippines? Why did he remain silent as the Okinawan civilian population was destroyed in the Allied invasion, and the population of Japan's cities was burned to death with napalm? Why did he watch silently as his ministers prepared plans to sacrifice his beloved people, the entire civilian population of Kyushu, in a suicide defence against an unstoppable enemy? Why did he allow the second city -Nagasaki- to be destroyed by nuclear fire before surrendering?

It is unthinkable to blame the Emporer for the "...burned innocent children..." of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From fifty years distance and an ocean away he seems like an unimaginative and dutiful man who could not say "no" to the cruel and ambitious men who surrounded him. Many Japanese seem to hope to protect the memory of the Emporer Hirohito by blaming the Americans for the consequences for his people of the his repeated inaction as Japan raced into suicidal war.

Name Peter Seto