CHAPTER 6
The city of Hiroshima flattened to the ground as the result of a single atomic bomb.
In the full context of World War II, the possibility that Nazi Germany would develop an atomic bomb led the United States to develop its own weapon of mass destruction. When it was ready, the new bomb was used against Japan instead. Plans for the invasion of Japan, with its anticipated high costs in life, supplies, and money, were no longer needed once the atomic bombs had been dropped on the cities of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9). On August 14, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito finally announced on Japanese radio that their country had been defeated. Japan surrendered, bringing the Pacific War and World War II to an end.
The use of the atomic bomb remains one of the most controversial issue of the war, although it aroused no great public disagreement in 1945. The long-term consequences of dropping the atom bomb, however, were profound. The world was now changed into a planet where nuclear weapons could destroy civilizations and damage the world’s ecology. Some of the scientists involved in the development of the atom bomb realized this and did not want the new weapon to be used. They were overruled because the need to defeat the Japanese was seen the most important concern.
HARRY S. TRUMAN Harry S. Truman, the president of the United States at the time, had been informed that between 25,000 and 46,000 Americans were likely to die in an invasion of Japan. It is argued to this day that these lives, and those of many Japanese, were saved by the use of the bomb. Others argue that lives could have been saved on both sides if surrender terms had been negotiated before using the bomb. Japanese military leaders knew their country was defeated and peace negotiations had already begun. Settlement was prevented by Japan’s fear that their Emperor, regarded as a god at the time, would be dethroned if Japan surrendered unconditionally. If it had been agreed that the Emperor could continue to rule, as he was actually allowed to do after 1945, then a negotiated surrender might have taken place. Some historians believe that the U.S. feared a confrontation with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and that using the new weapon was intended to help the U.S. keep the USSR at bay in what soon became the Cold War.
A mushroom cloud over Nagasaki, a result of the atom bomb dropped on the city: ‘When you deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast,’ wrote President Truman after the attack.
From Tinian, one of the Mariana Islands captured in 1944, B-29 bombers took off carrying atomic bombs to drop on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
ATOMIC BOMBS: THE FACTS
When the Pacific War was over, a tribunal was set up in Tokyo to punish those found guilty of war crimes. Twenty-five Japanese leaders were tried and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment or to execution. About 3,000 other individuals were found guilty in other war crimes trials that took place in the Pacific region, and 920 were executed. Emperor Hirohito and many members of his family were granted immunity because the United States wanted to avoid the widespread opposition to their occupation of Japan that Hirohito’s trial would have created. This decision has been criticized by some, as has the fact that those running the trials all came from countries that had suffered at the hands of Japan in the war. One of the judges (there were no juries) was a survivor of the Bataan death march and could hardly be impartial.
Officials representing the Japanese government arrive on the battleship USS Missouri to sign surrender terms on September 2, 1945; the Pacific War was finally over.
The long-term consequences of World War II in the Pacific were huge. In China, civil war between Chiang Kai-shek’s forces and communists under Mao Zedong led in 1949 to the creation of the Communist People’s Republic of China. In the last week of the war, the USSR declared war on Japan, as the Allies had earlier agreed, and invaded northern Korea. This led to an agreed division of Korea, with the north under the influence of the USSR and the south under U.S. influence. Within five years of the end of World War II, hostilities erupted between North and South Korea, and the country became a major theater of conflict in the Cold War.
Perhaps the most important long-term consequence of the Pacific War was that it ended the supremacy of European colonial powers in Asia. In Vietnam, nationalist and communist forces opposing the Japanese were unwilling to accept the return of their French colonial masters. The French eventually withdrew, setting the stage for U.S. anti-communist intervention and the Vietnam War. The Dutch also gave up any attempt to retain their colonial possessions and the state of Indonesia emerged. India, Burma, Malaya and Singapore also struggled and negotiated to gain their independence from Britain. The map of Asia had changed and the U.S. emerged as the major power in the Pacific.
Many countries in East Asia gained independence after the war. Comparing this map with the one on page 5 shows some of the important changes brought about by World War II in the Pacific.
“WAR IS TERRIBLE”
Richard Kennard, a U.S. Marine who fought in the Pacific War, ended a letter home with this thought:
“War is terrible, just awful, awful. You have no idea … After this is all over, I shall cherish and respect more than anything else all that which is sweet, tender and gentle.
Much love to you all
(Your son and Lynn’s sweetheart) Dick”
—Quoted in How It Happened: World War II, edited by Jon E. Lewis
U.S. servicemen dispense food rations to Japanese civilians at the end of World War II in the Pacific.