soc.history.war.world-war-ii

David Thornley wrote:
: In article ,
: edward ohare wrote:
: And
:>the firebombings didn't make Japan quit.

: No.

: The nukes did.

There are other possible explanations.

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's "Racing the Enemy" postulates that it was the Soviet
declaration of war on Japan and subsequent invasion of Manchuria that did the
trick.

I would not defend Hasegawa's thesis to the death but he does marshall a
certain amount of evidence to support it.

It is a mistake to think that Japan's surrender as some kind of rational
calculation; destroying X cities, sinking Y ships, capturing Z islands,
dropping N thousand tons of bombs and incendaries would result in 1 Japanese
capitulation.

The Imperial War Council was a small group of leaders with various interests
and perspectives, bound by elaborate protocol and precedent. It should not be
a surprise that the strategic calculations they made did not correspond to how
US leaders saw them.

In that situation, and given the lack of contemporary records of the decision,
Hasegawa does make a defensible case.


Andrew Warinner
warinner@xnet.com
http://home.xnet.com/~warinner