Aleutian Islands3 June 1942--24 August 1943

A NATURAL AVENUE OF APPROACH - FORBIDDING WEATHER AND DESOLATE TERRAIN, CRAGGY

MOUNTAINS AND SCANT VEGETATION

MADE THE APPROACH MILITARILY UNDESIRABLE. HOWEVER…STRATEGIC LOCATION TO DRAWN THE WEAKENED

PACIFIC FLEET INTO BATTLE AND WIPE THEM OUT

STARTING IN JUNE 1942 THE JAPANESE HAD THREATENED AMERICA'S NORTHERN FLANK

FOR FOURTEEN MONTHSUS JAPAN549 killed,1,148 wounded

2,850+ killed,29 captured

2,100 American servicemen were evacuated from Attu for disease or climate-related injury.

YALTA CONFERENCE• Took place February 1945 before WWII

was over (V-E Day May 8 1945)• Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill (Big 3) met

in Yalta in the Soviet Union to discuss post WWII

• How to deal with the defeated or liberated countries of eastern Europe was the main

problem discussed at the conference• Set up United Nations

APRIL 12, 1945

At the beginning of his 4th Term, President Franklin D. Roosevelt passes away

The U.S. went through a major grieving period

Harry S. Truman, as Vice-President, takes the role as President

POTSDAMJULY – AUGUST 1945 Truman, (Churchill and then Clement Attlee (elected

PM) and Stalin met in Potsdam, Germany Drew up a blueprint to disarm Germany and

eliminate the Nazi regime

POTSDAM CONTINUED Divided Germany into 4

sections (occupied by France, Britain, U.S. and Soviet Union)

Berlin to be divided up

Set up the Nuremberg Trials to persecute Nazi leaders

Japan must “unconditionally surrender”

NUREMBERG TRIALS International tribunal court tried Nazi

officials Over 23 nations tried Nazi war

criminals in Nuremberg, Germany 12 of the 22 defendants were

sentenced to death 200 other officials were found guilty,

but give lesser sentences

1ST PART OF WORLD WAR II FOR THE UNITED STATES WAS OVER…

NOW WE TURN OUR ATTENTION TO THE PACIFIC

AFTER IWO JIMA AND OKINAWA, PRESIDENT TRUMAN KNEW AN INVASION OF JAPAN WOULD PRODUCE ENORMOUS CASUALTIES

OPERATION DOWNFALL - PLAN TO INVADE JAPAN• US planned to invade

Japan with eleven Army and Marine divisions (650,000 troops)

• Casualty estimates for the operation were as high as 500,000 to 1.4 million

Operation Cornet, the plan to take Tokyo

General Douglas MacArthur and other top military commanders favored continuing the conventional bombing of Japan already in effect and following up with Operation Downfall

• The United States had scientists working on another option.

• Scientists of the Manhattan Project had carried out research on developing the world’s first

atomic bomb.Truman would had to decide if using the atomic bomb would avoid predicted invasion losses

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT RESULTED IN THE CREATION OF THE FIRST NUCLEAR WEAPON, AND THE FIRST-EVER NUCLEAR DETONATION, KNOWN AS THE TRINITY TEST ON JULY 16, 1945 IN NEW MEXICO.

Trinity explosion

• The Japanese seemed ready to fight to the last man, woman, and child, in the spirit of

the kamikaze. Many believed only the shock of an atomic bomb would end the Japanese

resistance.

Kamikaze pilot receivinga cheerful farewell by youngJapanese girls.

THE POTSDAM DECLARATION – JULY 1945 TRUMAN, CHURCHILL, AND CHIANG KAI-SHEK(NOT THE SAME AS POTSDAM AGREEMENT)

Key Points:

1. We-the President of the United States, the President of the National Government

of the Republic of China, and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing

the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred and agree that

Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war.

13. We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional

surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate

assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is

prompt and utter destruction.

ATOMIC BOMB

Surrender terms for Japan

POTSDAM DECLARATION CONT.1. Japan would be occupied until the declaration was signed.

2. The Japanese army would be allowed to return home.

3. Once the declaration was met, allied troops would be

withdrawn.

4. “Japan shall be permitted

to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy

and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those which would

enable her to re-arm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control

of, raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual world trade relations shall be

permitted. “

Japan did not agree to the Potsdam Declaration

JAPAN’S RESPONSE TO THE POTSDAM DECLARATIONNOT A SIMPLE NOBefore Japan could agree to any surrender, the top

military officials had to figure out a way to satisfy

many different groups inside Japan.

A Japanese official used the word mokusatsu which

had a few different English translations.

- The US and the US newspapers interpreted

the word to mean “reject” when in fact it could have

meant something different.

- The apparent rejection of the Declaration definitely

sped up the process of using the atomic bombs.

Also, a decoded message from Japanese officials

clearly stated that Japan had no intention to surrender

Kantari Suzuki – used the word

JAPANESE VIEW OF UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

Emperor Hirohito was totally against unconditional surrender.

Americans viewed Hirohito as a symbol of military aggression *Many hated him – executed or imprisoned

Unconditional surrender destruction of “divine” monarchy.

DECISION- JAPAN WILL FIGHT UNTIL THE ENDIMPERIAL CONFERENCE IN TOKYO – JUNE 8TH 1945.

Top Japanese officials decided that their soldiers would “fight to the death” - ULTRA

“Fundamental Policy” of the Japanese government was to fight on and choose honorable death of the hundred million over surrender

- For 2000 years – Japan had never been defeated- no word for surrender in Japanese dictionary

LOSING BY SURRENDER WAS NOT AN OPTION

Japan is willing to fight to the bitter end as an underdog.

OFFICIAL ORDER TO DROP BOMB

President Truman could have reversed the order if Japan accepted the

Potsdam Declaration.

Truman was advised to use the bomb. In the Spring and summer of 1945, Truman approves the decision.

The Official order was issued on July 25th.

Why the bomb was needed or justified:The Japanese had demonstrated near-fanatical resistance, fighting to almost the last man on Pacific islands, committing mass suicide on Saipan and unleashing kamikaze attacks at Okinawa. Fire bombing had killed 100,000 in Tokyo with no discernible political effect. Only the atomic bomb could jolt Japan's leadership to surrender.

With only two bombs ready (and a third on the way by late August 1945) it was too risky to "waste" one in a demonstration over an unpopulated area.

An invasion of Japan would have caused casualties on both sides that could easily have exceeded the toll at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The two targeted cities would have been firebombed anyway.

Immediate use of the bomb convinced the world of its horror and prevented future use when nuclear stockpiles were far larger.

The bomb's use impressed the Soviet Union and halted the war quickly enough that the USSR did not demand joint occupation of Japan.

Why the bomb was not needed, or unjustified:Japan was ready to call it quits anyway. More than 60 of its cities had been destroyed by conventional bombing, the home islands were being blockaded by the American Navy, and the Soviet Union entered the war by attacking Japanese troops in Manchuria.American refusal to modify its "unconditional surrender" demand to allow the Japanese to keep their emperor needlessly prolonged Japan's resistance.A demonstration explosion over Tokyo harbor would have convinced Japan's leaders to quit without killing many people.Even if Hiroshima was necessary, the U.S. did not give enough time for word to filter out of its devastation before bombing Nagasaki.The bomb was used partly to justify the $2 billion spent on its development.The two cities were of limited military value. Civilians outnumbered troops in Hiroshima five or six to one.Japanese lives were sacrificed simply for power politics between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.Conventional firebombing would have caused as much significant damage without making the U.S. the first nation to use nuclear weapons

WHO WAS TALKING IN TRUMAN’S EAR?General Douglas MacArthur and other top military commanders - advised Truman that such an invasion would result in U.S. casualties of up to 1 million.

Moral reservations of Secretary of War Henry Stimson (urge Truman to stop targeting civilians before the United States got “the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities.) , General Dwight Eisenhower and a number of the Manhattan Project scientists

Proponents such as James Byrnes, Truman’s secretary of state–believed that its devastating power would not only end the war, but also put the U.S. in a dominant position to determine the course of the postwar world. (oped that the atomic bombings would induce Japanese surrender before the Soviets invaded.)

In order to avoid such a high casualty rate, Truman decided to use the atomic bomb in the hopes of bringing the war to a quick end.

The Szilárd petition, drafted by scientist Leó Szilárd, was signed by 70 scientists working on the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, Illinois. It was circulated in July 1945 and asked PresidentHarry S. Truman to consider an observed demonstration of the power of the atomic bomb first, before using it against people. However, the petition never made it through the chain of command to President Truman

Near the end of his life, Oppenheimer expressed mixed feelings about the atomic bombings:"I have no remorse about the making of the bomb and Trinity [the first test of an a-bomb]. That was done right. As for how we used it, I understand why it happened and appreciate with what nobility those men with whom I'd worked made their decision. But I do not have the feeling that it was done right. The ultimatum to Japan [the Potsdam Proclamation demanding Japan's surrender] was full of pious platitudes. ...our government should have acted with more foresight and clarity in telling the world and Japan what the bomb meant.

In Nov. 1942 he was appointed Director of what was to become the Los Alamos Laboratory, which would design and construct the atomic bomb.

• On August 6, 1945, a B-29 named the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima, Japan, a city of 300,000 people.

Within seconds of the explosion, up to 90,000 people died.

HIROSHIMA VICINITY OF GROUND ZERO

FORMAL WARNING TO JAPANThe leaflets called

for a petition to the Emperor of Japan to stop the war and agree to thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender.

Used Hiroshima as example of destructive new weapon

EVACUATE YOUR CITIES immediatelySample Leaflet

On August 10, 1945 thousands of leaflets were dropped over the city of Nagasaki

• Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb, Fat Man. This bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki, killing

40,000 people instantly.

• As many as 250,000 Japanese may have died from the two atomic bombs, either directly or as the result of burns,

radiation poisoning, or cancer .

JAPANESE LEADERS AFTER THE USE OF THE ATOMIC BOMBS

Even after the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese were still undecided on whether to surrenderThe surrender plan with four conditions

1. A guarantee that the imperial family will continue to reign. 2. Disarmament of the armed forces by Japan herself. 3. Trial of war criminals by Japan herself. 4. Occupation of Japan to be limited to the minimum time and places

THE ATOMIC BOMB DID CONVINCED THE EMPEROR TO BREAK THE DEADLOCK OF

JAPAN’S GENERALS AND ACCEPT THE POTSDAM DECLARATION

*was given as the main reason for the surrender of Japan

The atomic bomb allowed Japans military officials to surrender and still keep their honor. “If military leaders could convince themselves that they were defeated by the power of science but not by lack of spiritual power or strategic errors, they could save face to some extent”

Therefore Japanese leaders could believe that they were beat by the element of science.

• Truman received this informal surrender on August 14, Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day). The one term of the surrender allowed the emperor to

keep his office but only in a ceremonial role.

• The Allies officially accepted the Japanese surrender aboard the American battleship

Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.

• About 55 million died (30 million civilians) during World War II. The Soviet Union paid the highest human cost, with

more than 20 million of its people killed. • Some 400,000 Americans gave their lives.

POST-WAR IMPACT OF ATOMIC BOMB• Changed the very

nature of war• Presented the possibility of

annihilation of humankind

• US came to place great strategic reliance on atomic bomb• War plans emphasized sudden

atomic attack against USSR to allow time for conventional mobilization

15 megaton thermonuclear device test on Bikini Atoll in 1954

POST-WAR IMPACT OF ATOMIC BOMB

• US held an atomic monopoly until 1949• Huge US-USSR arms race

followed• Eventually led to Mutually

Assured Destruction (1967)

• Massive retaliation strategy (1954) meant US was prepared to respond to Soviet aggression with a massive nuclear strike

POST-WAR IMPACT OF ATOMIC BOMB• Nuclear

weapons prove to not be a reasonable option in limited wars

• You will see this in Korea and Vietnam

The US considered, but did not use, atomic bombs in support of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954