New Page 1

This writer contends that taking into context the nature of war in the Pacific, especially the unrelenting and brutal nature of the Japanese, the decision to utilize nuclear weapons against Japan was completely understandable and justified. The Japanese tried to take over the world, first due to expansion then driven by a greater hate of other races. Most of the general public know of Hitler’s attempts at annihilating the Jews in Europe but few realized the Japanese attempt to annihilate any race that was not their own.

When President Truman took over office after the death of President Roosevelt he was faced with the decision to use nuclear weapons, and he was driven by the need to end the war as soon as possible with the least number of casualties. At the core of his decision were the American soldiers fighting the battles in the Pacific. According to E.B. Sledge,

“On 13 April (12 April back in the States) we learned of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Not the least bit interested in politics while we were fighting for our lives, we were saddened nonetheless by the loss of our president. We were also curious and a bit apprehensive about how FDR’s successor, Harry S. Truman, would handle the war. We surely didn’t want someone in the White House who would prolong it one day longer than necessary.” [1]

Historians have debated over Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb since the bombs wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In a radio broadcast after the dropping of the bombs President Truman said:

who have starved and beaten and executed America prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international Laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan’s power to make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us.”

This was considered by historians the most acceptable justification to drop the atomic bomb. For years historians believed in the reasoning put forth by Truman. The big question in current historians debate is was dropping the atomic bomb the only way to avoid an invasion of Japan and bring a prompt end to the war.

In the 1960’s, revisionist historians argued that the United States reasons for dropping the atomic bomb lay in their relations with the Soviet Union. The Cold War became the justification for using the bombs on Japan. The revisionists felt the bomb was used as intimidation by the US against their rival, Russia. The revisionists claimed by 1945 that the emperor was ready for surrender as long as the provisions were made for him to continue in his role as head of Japan. Traditionalists argue surrender was not definite because the Japanese were divided. Japanese leaders were torn between surrender or continue fighting until no Japanese were left.

Revisionist felt that Truman delayed Russian involvement and ignored the Russians importance of entry into the war. The Traditionalists on the other hand argued for Russian entry as soon as possible but did not feel it would have stopped an invasion of mainland Japan. With regard to the Japanese surrender, various historians have found that surrender was not imminent before the dropping of the atomic bombs. The bombs and the entry of Russia finally forced surrender. Many leaders in the Japanese government wanted to continue fighting to the end.

The Revisionists and Traditionalists argued over Trumans’ estimated casualties if war continued. The casualties could not be estimated conclusively. Even if the numbers Truman calculated were wrong, the casualties would have been high on both the Allied and Japanese sides based on the numbers leading up to the time of the decision. The atomic bombs seemed a better option than more Allied deaths.

Another issue involved in Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb was race. Historians felt American racism helped drive the decision to drop the bomb. More recent studies have found variations of theories to add to the debate. John Dower and Ronald Takaki are two modern day historians who believe race played a large role in the war in the Pacific. Other historians concede that race could have been an issue in that racial stereotyping occurred, and that may have made the decision a little easier.

The debate over why the bomb was first introduced also continues. The history of the development of the bomb in the US begins when Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the President of the United States and claimed Germany had started to develop their own nuclear weapons. Many historians claim Americans would never have used the atomic bomb on Germany but in actuality the bomb was first developed for use against the Germans. It was not developed for use against the Soviet Union. Truman’s utmost concern was the war with Japan and Germany, not Russia. Of course, he knew how the bomb would affect relations with Russian.

The recent studies have only modified the original reasons why the bombs were dropped. They have not shed any more light on Truman’s analysis leading up to his decision.

Although the full extent of the horrendous atrocities committed by the Japanese military was yet to be exposed, President Harry S. Truman would have been aware of the savage style in which the Japanese had waged war in the course of their military assault. He would have been aware of the brutality, racism, and fanaticism routinely displayed by the Japanese military: the cruelty towards, and frequent murder of prisoners of war and non-combatants; the raping and looting; the mass slaughter of Chinese civilians; and the readiness to fight to the last man and never surrender.

The Imperial Japanese military fought every battle with the thought of dying; either by enemy hands or by suicide. Up until World War II Japanese soldiers were to follow the ethical code of “bushido” which meant the way of the warrior. Bushido was based on values of benevolence and right conduct. According to Yuki Tanaka, bushido is based upon seven essential elements.

for truth and the avoidance of lying. The sixth element is honor: the realization of one’s own duty and privilege. The seventh element is loyalty: obedience to one’s seniors but never blind obedience.” [2]

In time, the ideas put forth by the ethical code became shortened and altogether the meanings behind the words were lost. This led to the corruption of the code and the atrocities in World War II were able to happen. According to Tanaka, “the single greatest corruption was in the demand for blind loyalty to the Emperor”.[3] The Japanese believed they were descended from Emperor Jimmu who was the direct descendent of the Sun Goddess. Soldiers that died for their Emperor were considered Japanese heroes and were to be immortalized that way.

Above all, a Japanese military man’s education was based on “love of country, worship, and absolute loyalty and obedience to a godlike emperor.”[4] To the Japanese defeat was not possible nor their surrender. Suicide was seen as an acceptable option but the thought was you had better kill one of the enemies when you do. Ritual suicide was also acceptable for atonement for failure. Dying for the emperor was considered the highest honor. According to Werner Gruhl in his monograph, Imperial Japan’s World War Two 1931-1945, eighty-five percent of the Japanese soldiers fought to the death in the Pacific War. Even Allied troops knew of their Japanese counterpart’s ideology. According to E.B Sledge in With the Old Breed; At Peleliu and Okinawa, when troops heard of the surrender of Germany many replied, “so what”.

Dehumanizing training methods by Japanese military leaders and even the trainees themselves caused the Japanese to be so tenacious and brutal during World War II. The Japanese spent years training their soldiers. The training began at an early age with school who taught country above all else. Elementary students were taught by teachers who “behaved like sadistic drill sergeants, slapping children, hitting them with their fists, or bludgeoning them with bamboo or wooden swords.” [6] There was an extreme pressure to conform to authority even at this early of an age. This pressure continued through out school and then even into military training. Frank Gibney’s book, Senso: The Japanese Remember the Pacific War describes an episode when recruits were sent off:

“Probably the world’s roughest corps of noncommissioned officers literally slapped and beat and kicked their charges into submission.

Japanese were trained brutally and therefore acted brutally. Junior officers were given a “trial of courage”[8] to become a platoon leader in the Japanese military. The trial consisted of decapitating a prisoner. The idea was to slice the head off in one strike like a Samurai warrior. This would prove the Japanese officers capability of being a leader.

Unit 731 or “death factory” [9] was Japanese’s secret biological warfare unit in the northeast of China in Manchuko. Unit 731 researched, developed, produced, and tested biological weapons. Ishii Shiro, physician and graduate of Kyoto University in Japan started the Japanese program to research biological weapons and develop ways to utilize them with the full support of the military. In 1932, Ishii set up a program titled “Epidemic Prevention Laboratory” in Tokyo where the biological defense research would occur and the Togo Unit in Bei-inho. Bei-inho was chosen for it’s remoteness in order to hide the human experimentation that would transpire there. Ishii and Imperial Japan chose to ignore the 1925 Geneva Convention which prohibited the use of chemical and biological weapons.

After traveling in Europe Ishii knew the effectiveness of these weapons and also wanted to research vaccines to help the Japanese soldiers. In 1936, the Togo Unit was reorganized and expanded. Unit 731 became a reality. Unit 731 had four divisions: research, experiments, ant epidemic, and water purification and production. Ishii had three thousand staff members at Unit 731. Unit 731 developed ways to disperse biological weapons. Typhoid fever, black plague, cholera, dysentery, and anthrax were all designed to be used against enemies. Many were tested by dropping items contaminated from aircrafts on Chinese Villages killing hundreds. They would drop care packages with cotton and food items inside which were infected with different biological weapons. “The Japanese biological experimentation to develop methods of mass death was in itself grisly to the point of unthinkable.”[10] Some of the biological warfare against China was in retaliation for Chinese suspected of helping American fliers from the 1942 Doolittle raid of Tokyo.[11] According to Yuki Tanaka in Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II, the Japanese were planning on using biological weapons against the Allied Forces in the Pacific. “The plan was to attack U.S. and Philippine forces on Bataan Peninsula by releasing 1,000 kilograms of plague-infected fleas on each of 10 separate occasions.”[12] There were also plans to use weapons at the Battle of Saipan but the U.S. forces over ran the island before they could be dispersed.

Unit 731 also was the faction that experimented on humans. “Their lethal medical experiments on living prisoners were atrocities as morally disgusting as anything in the twentieth century.”[13] Pregnant women were dissected alive to investigate the transmission of venereal diseases and then burned in electric furnaces. Witnesses talk of live human dissections. A patient would be strapped down and then cut into with no anesthia.

Prisoners of War were also used in the Japanese plans for biological and chemical weapons. The prisoners would be injected with malaria and other diseases then left to be observed. No medical attention would be provided and many people died. The Japanese had no care for human life except what they could advance for themselves.

A prime example of the Japanese disregard for life occurred when the city of Nanking fell on December 13, 1937, “ Japanese soldiers began an order of cruelty seldom if ever matched in world history.”[14] Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, describes the story of the events that lead to how and why the Japanese were able to massacre hundreds of thousand innocent people at China’s capital city of Nanking in 1937 and why it was kept out of “public consciousness”[15] for so long. She contends that the atrocities were the worst in history and that the real crime was that this “Holocaust “ was neglected in the histories of World War II and was used and is still used as a political tool.

International Military Tribunal of the Far East estimates more than 260,000 non-combatants died in Nanking. The Chinese were used for bayonet practice and the Japanese held competitions on the decapitating of the Chinese which was a common theme with the Japanese military. In every battle, from China to the Pacific, the Japanese treated all the people the same. Chang says the Japanese were trained and given the green light to do the things they did because the Chinese were seen as an inferior race.

Japanese Imperial Governments “Three All Policy” was a policy of warfare to be practiced by all Japanese Military. The “Three All Policy” meant “loot all, kill all, burn all”. This policy led the Japanese on “Campaigns of Annihilation”.[17]

She contends that the Japanese war against the Chinese was on the level of the Nazi’s plan to annihilate the Jews. The “Rape of Nanking” occurred over a few weeks with over three hundred thousand people killed in horrific, brutal ways. The time period was short for such carnage.

More carnage would be found at the Sandakan POW camp which was located in North Borneo and included 2500 POW’s; 2000 Australian soldiers and 500 British Soldiers. POW’s were deprived of medical treatment, forced into labor, starved, and then killed in mass executions. Sandakan stood between the oil fields on the east coast of Borneo and the Philippines and the Japanese occupied Asia-Pacific. Little was known about Sandakan because so few survived. The Sandakan POW camp was established in order to have forced labors build an airstrip and a road to connect the two together. According to the Hague Convention in 1907,

“The state may utilize the labour of prisoners of war…Work done for the state is paid at the rates in force for work of similar kind done by soldiers of the national army, or, if there are non in force, at a rate according to the work executed. When work is for other branches of the public services, or for private persons, the conditions are settled in agreement with the military authorities.”[18]

This was developed further by the Geneva Convention which the Japanese never ratified but later agreed. One of the clauses left out by the Japanese from the Geneva Convention was that putting POWs to work on projects dealing with the operations of war was prohibited. This caused conflict because Japan was breaking international law, but Japan saw it as a war strategy. The Japanese left a “grey” area.[19] When Allied POWs brought up the international laws the Japanese military leaders would say the air park and road were not for military purposes but just commercial use. At first conditions were good at Sandakan but then several escape attempts occurred. Workers were made to sign contracts saying they would not escape. Three demands were listed:

These demands were against the Geneva Convention which stated that a soldier could escape and his punishment would only be a 30 day confinement. Once again, this showed the contradictions of the Geneva Convention versus Japanese military law. The Japanese tended to use their own code for treatment of POWs. This ties into their arrogance and beliefs they were above Western laws.

Eventually disease spread through the Sandakan POW camp. Malaria, dysentery, beri beri, and tropical ulcers were common diseases. Although there was a sufficient supply of medicine, no treatment was given to the POWs.

There were two incidents, the Sandakan incident and the Haga incident which left the Japanese unsure if they could keep control of Borneo. The Sandakan incident was when a POWs formed an intelligence group and tried to gain information for the Allies. They were caught and tortured. The Haga incident was when Japanese police found a radio transmitter and accused hundreds as being part of a resistance movement. 257 people were tortured and killed.[21] After these incidents the treatment of the POWs worsened. There were beatings continuously and cages were constructed to hold prisoners which measured 1.8 by 1.5 by 1.2 meters.

“Hinchcliffe was made to stand in a squatting position, with sharp-edged lengths of wood jammed behind and under his knees, his arms outstretched and facing into the sun for one hour. Every 10 minutes, the punishment squad would come and beat him. He was then taken to the punishment cage and confined for seven days without food.” [22]

As the war started going bad for the Japanese, the Sandakan camp deteriorated. Rations were made smaller and treatment of the POWs became worse. By the end of 1944 more than 400 POWs died in a 4 month period. As Allied forces were closing in, the first Sandakan Death March began on January 29, 1945.

Each group were given four days rations for a three week trek through muddy swamps and over steep hills.[23] Before the Death March began orders were given to leave no one behind. If a POW fell behind, he was to be killed. “It took 15 days to march the 260 kilometers, an average of 18.6 kilometers a day (with one day lost to heavy rain), with each prisoner carrying 30 kilograms of equipment and Japanese ammunition.[24] At the end of the March out of almost 500 POWs only six survived.

On May 29, 1945, the second Sandakan Death March began. The Allied troops were almost upon the camp. 288 POWs were left at Sandakan camp. The Japanese grew apprehensive and began the march by selecting the healthiest which would have been impossible since almost all of the remaining POWs were at deaths door. The Japanese knew the soldiers would die but did not care. This group faced the same conditions. They all died before the journey was over. By July, the number still in Sandakan dwindled to fifty. Of the remaining fifty, twenty three were executed while the other twenty seven died naturally. The Japanese were not going to leave any Allied troops alive to tell their tale after the war.

Japanese brutality was not just against Prisoners of War but anyone associated with the Allies. As Japanese forces made their way into Hong Kong they forced their way into an emergency hospital, bearing the Red Cross Flag, which had set up at a local college. The Japanese troops killed two doctors and raped the British and Chinese nurses. Two of the nurses were decapitated.[25] The Australian nurses in Singapore had heard the report of the brutality in Hong Kong. They were warned to shot themselves than succumbing to the depravities of the Japanese troops. When the order was given to evacuate Singapore, two ships were designated to transport the civilians and nurses left in the city. The Empire Star, which made it out into the harbor first was able to avoid Japanese fighters and made it out successfully. The second ship, the Vyner Broke, which was delayed in port because the last of the nurses had a tough time getting to the ship under enemy fire, was sunk outside of Banka Island. Twelve of the 65 Australian nurses aboard drowned. The survivors which included twenty-one nurses, landed on the Island. After a debate between the survivors they surrendered to the Japanese since they occupied the island and their was no way to escape. When Japanese troops arrived the nurses asserted they should be treated as POWs under the Geneva Convention but were ignored. Once again the Japanese disregard international law and use their own brand of military law. The Japanese soldiers took the men in two different groups and slaughtered them. The first were stabbed to death with bayonets and the second were shot to death. The only surviving nurse, Vivian Bullwinkle, gives her account:

“They came back and we knew what had happened…they came back wiping their bayonets. We realized what was going to happen. I can remember one of the girls saying, ‘Two things that I hate most, the

She was able to survive with another survivor that was shot by hiding in the woods and relying on the civilians on the island who hated the Japanese.

The nurses all wore uniforms and their Red Cross badges were visible. Once again the Japanese ignored the Geneva Convention. The 32 other nurses that survived were detained in camps in Muntock on Banka Island. When moved to Bukit Besar the women lived in two houses but would later thrown out to set up “comfort houses”. These nurses were repeatedly offered comforts if they would prostitute themselves. Luckily the nurses were not forced into prostitution, but their rations were shortened and their living conditions worsened.

Japan’s answer to the rape and brutality in their treatment of women across Asia was to form “comfort houses”. The Japanese high command “made plans to create a giant underground system of military prostitution/one that would draw into its web hundreds of thousands of women across Asia”[27] The idea was to have women available for the Japanese soldiers to perform sexual acts in order to keep the soldiers from raping their way across Asia. According to the Japanese military, the “comfort houses” could be used to control sexually transmitted diseases by having the troops wear condoms and also help morale for soldiers fighting. The first official “comfort house” was set up in Nanking after international outcry from the raping and torture that occurred there.

According to Iris Chang the brothels were “sordid beyond the imaginations of most civilized people”. More than a hundred thousand women were pressed into brothels and made to prostitute.

Nanking was an example of what would happen when the Japanese took over a city. Okinawa was to be an example of how the Japanese fought their war. Okinawa was to be the last major battle before reaching the mainland of Japan. The Japanese knew this could be their last chance at holding back the Allied forces. Japan’s military forces were well over a hundred thousand on Okinawa and were equally equipped to fight a large and long battle. The Japanese military plan was to “buy time and inflict casualties”.[29] The Japanese hoped to buy time to strengthen the Home Island defenses. As in Iwo Jima the Allied troop’s landings were not assaulted. The Japanese hoped to hold tight and make one large stand. As Allied forces advanced they were met with little resistance until they reached the “Shuri Line”. “Shuri” was a defensive masterpiece, largely impervious to American bombardment.[30] One of the most brutal and bloodiest battles occurred at “Sugar Loaf Hill”.

Sugar Loaf Hill was impossible to conquer. It took numerous attempts but was finally taken six days later. Okinawa was an example of what an invasion of Japan would have been like. The number of casualties was extremely high on both sides.

Many of the civilians of Okinawa died. The Japanese would use the civilians as shields to get an advantage on enemy troops. The Japanese would also hide civilians in the caves because they knew the Allied forces would not shoot at them.

The Japanese would hide in civilian clothes and travel in groups with them. The Japanese knew the Allied forces had dispersed fliers telling the civilians not to come through the lines.

To summarize, taking into context the nature of war in the Pacific, especially the unrelenting and brutal nature of the Japanese, the decision to employ nuclear weapons against Japan was completely understandable and justified. The bombs dropped led to a swift end to the brutality, racism, and cruelty towards the Prisoners of War; the raping and mass slaughter of innocent victims: and the casualties of United States soldiers. The world needs to understand the brutality that faced the Allied troops fighting the ground war in order to comprehend the reasoning behind dropping nuclear weapons.

[1] Sledge, E.B. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. ( New York: Presidio Press, 1981), 201.

[2] Tanaka, Yuki. Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996.) 207.

[3] Ibid., 208.

[4] Gruhl, Werner. Imperial Japan’s World War Two 1931-1945. (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2007.) 189.

[5] Sledge, E.B. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. ( New York: Presidio Press, 1981), 223.

[6] Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. (New York: Penguin Books, 1997.) 21.

[7] Werner Gruhl, Imperial Japan’s World War 1931-1945 (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2007), 190.

[8] Ibid., 191.

[9] Werner Gruhl, Imperial Japan’s World War 1931-1945 (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2007), 139.

[10] Ibid., 82.

[11] Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. (New York: Penguin Books, 1997.)

[12] Tanaka, Yuki. Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996.) 3.

[13] Daws, Gavan. Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific. (New York: Quill, William Morrow, 1994. )

[14] Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. (New York: Penguin Books, 1997.) 4.

[15] Ibid., 15.

[16] Ibid., 6.

[17] Gruhl, Werner. Imperial Japan’s World War Two 1931-1945. (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2007.) 36.

[18] Tanaka, Yuki. Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996.) 16.

[19] Ibid., 18.

[20] Ibid., 19.

[21] Ibid., 27.

[22] Ibid., 36.

[23] Ibid., 46.

[24] Ibid., 48.

[25] Ibid., 82.

[26] Ibid., 86.

[27] Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. (New York: Penguin Books, 1997.) 52.

[28] Tanaka, Yuki. Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996.) 80.

[29] O’Donnell, Patrick K. Into the Rising Sun: In Their Own Words, World War II’s Pacific Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat. (The Free Press, 2002.) 257.

[30] Ibid., 260.

[31] Ibid., 260.

[32] Ibid., 264.