In this discussion, you will consider how historical lenses can
affect the study of a historical topic. Select one of the secondary
source articles from the Research Kit for your chosen topic. After
reading that article, write a discussion post about which of the
following lenses you believe the article is using: social, political,
economic, or other. Use at least two quotes from your source to
justify your choice of lens. Your post title should also indicate
which topic you have selected. Next week, you will be prompted
to respond to two of your peers’ initial posts.
Social Lens: This lens focuses on people and their interactions with others. It
explores areas of ethnicity, class, and gender. Examining the actions and
behaviors of how different groups of people interact with each other—and
within their own group—provides historians with a great deal of insight into the
past.
This is perhaps the widest and most all-encompassing of the three categories
of lenses. Through it, historians have examined all manner of interaction—
including German immigrants adjusting to their new home in nineteenthcentury United States, class disputes within African American women’s clubs
in the twentieth century, and disagreement among different churches about
whether or not to support the gay rights movement. The social lens includes
the elite as well as the working class, the rich and the poor, and men, women,
and children. It seeks, as do the other lenses, to answer the questions of who
were these people, how did they think and what did they think about, and how
did their thinking drive their actions and behaviors.
Political Lens: Not focusing solely on politicians and governments, the
political lens looks at the relationship of those who have power and those who
do not. Historians using a “political lens” seek answers about the ways in
which legislation and law influence the lives of individuals. How do individuals
(and groups of individuals) react and respond to these? What methods do
they employ to create and/or change the “rules” under which they live?
Political history can be as simple as the recounting of organizing a community
to repeal an unpopular law, or as complex as the behind-the-scenes
interactions that propelled an individual to the presidency. It can examine the
treaties that ended World War I, or explore the “gerrymandering” of
congressional districts to maintain one party’s political control of Congress.
Economic Lens: This lens focuses on the local, national, or international
economy, all of which are central to the lives of every living person. While it
conjures images of corporations and economic systems, the economic lens
also focuses on government regulation of businesses, the relationships
between capital and labor, business strategies such as marketing or
horizontal integration, and the relationships between business and
consumers.
Historians use the economic lens in a number of different ways. Often, it is
used to explore the growth and development of labor unions, the effect of the
loss of small businesses on a community, or the havoc wrought upon farmers
by price changes in the international agricultural and commodities markets. It
can also be used to examine the effect of redlining on suburbs and ethnic
neighborhoods, or even the effect of the Industrial Revolution on artisans and
craftsmen. Economic history can provide insight into the wage differences
between men and women—and the effect they have on the development of
family wealth and status.
Other Lenses: Falling somewhere in between these three broad categories,
or perhaps overlapping one or more of them, are other lenses available to
historians. Each of these lenses helps clarify a specific area of the human
past: the environment, the military, science and technology, and so forth.
Why Japan Surrendered
Robert A. Pape
International Security, Volume 18, Number 2, Fall 1993, pp. 154-201 (Article)
Published by The MIT Press
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/447083/summary
Access provided by Southern New Hampshire University (21 Sep 2018 04:28 GMT)
Why Japan
Robert A . Pape
Surrendered
T h e end of World
War I1 in the Pacific is the most successful case of military coercion among
modern nation-states. On August 15, 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered to the United States, although it still possessed a two-million-man
army in the home islands which was prepared and willing to meet any
American invasion, as well as other forces overseas. Indeed, Japan’s surrender represents a rare instance of a great power surrendering its entire national
territory to an opponent that had not captured any significant portion of it.
This coercive success saved the lives of tens of thousands of Allied soldiers
and many more Japanese.’
From the standpoint of understanding coercion, what matters is not the
exact date of Japan’s surrender, but the fact that it surrendered without
offering last-ditch resistance. The key question is: why did Japan capitulate
before invasion and decisive defeat of her home army?
Debate has raged for decades over this question. This prolific literature
offers three principal explanations, all of which assume that civilian vulnerability was the key to coercion. The first argues that the decisive factor was
fear of future punishment from atomic bombing: ”It was not one atomic
bomb, or two, which brought surrender. It was the experience of what an
atomic bomb will actually do to a community, plus the dread of many more,
Robert P a p is an assistai7t professor 111 the Schoul of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell
Air Force Base, Alabama.
I thank Robert Art, Mark Clodfelter, Michael Desch, Matthew Evangelista, Paul Huth, Akira
Iriye, John Mearsheimer, David Mets, and Stephen Walt for helpful comments. I also wish to
acknowledge an extraordinary debt of gratitude to Chaim Kaufmann for all the help he gave
with this article.
1. Contrary to exaggerated claims at the time that Japan’s surrender saved a half million
American lives, Rufus Miles persuasively estimates that the invasion of Kyushu, the southern
most of Japan’s four main islands, would have cost perhaps 20,000 American deaths. While
estimates for Japanese casualties are unavailable, they would likely have resembled those during
Pacific operations from March 1944 through May 1945, in which Japanese losses were over
twenty times higher than American casualties. Rufus E. Miles, Jr., ”Hiroshima: The Strange
Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved,” International Security, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Fall 1985),
pp. 121-140.
International Securify, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall 1YY3), pp. 154-201
0 1993 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
154
Why Japan Surrendered
I 155
that was effective.”2 Japan surrendered, it is argued, to avoid the risk of
having its population centers annihilated.
The second focuses on the effects of conventional strategic bombing on
Japan’s population. This position is largely identified with the United States
Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS):”It was not necessary for us to burn every
city, to destroy every factory, to shoot down every airplane or sink every
ship, and starve the people. It was enough to demonstrate that we were
capable of doing all this.”3 The decline in morale had a profound effect on
Japan’s political leadership, according to the USSBS: ”At the time surrender
was announced, [low morale] was rapidly becoming of greater importance
as a pressure on the political and military decisions of the rulers of the
country.”4
The third explanation stresses American demands, contending that Japan’s
decision resulted from a concession by the United States, permitting Japan
to retain the emperor. This concession reduced the costs of surrender, and
so made Japan willing to give in rather than face the continued suffering of
its ~ o c i e t y . ~
The principal implication of all three of these arguments is that had American air power not driven up the costs and risks to civilians, Japan would
not have surrendered prior to invasion of the home islands.
However, none of these explanations is consistent with the facts. First, the
argument that the threat of atomic attack coerced Japan fails, because conventional bombing had already achieved such a high level of destruction that
atomic bombs could not inflict dramatically more damage; the ”hostage” was
2. Karl T. Compton, “If the Atomic Bomb Had Not Been Used,” Atlantic Monthly, No. 178
(December 1946), p. 54 (emphasis in the original); Louis Morton, “The Decision to Use the
Atomic Bomb,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 35, No. 2 (January 1957), pp. 334-353; Herbert Feis, The
Atomic Bomb and the End of World War !I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).
3. United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), lapan’s Struggle to End the War (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office [U.S. GPO], 1946), p. 10. Air Force Chief of Staff General
Henry Arnold later contended, “the Japanese acknowledged defeat because air attacks, both
actual and potential, had made possible the destruction of their capability and will for further
resistance.” Quoted in Martin Caidin, A Torch to the Enemy: The Fire Raid on Tokyo (New York:
Ballantine Books, 1960), p. 23.
4. USSBS, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Iapanese Morale (Washington, D.C.: U.S. GPO, 1947),
p. 6. The USSBS also claims that strategic bombing of industry, while it did not cause Japan’s
surrender, helped accelerate it by hastening the collapse of the economy. As discussed below,
it was the blockade rather than bombing that gutted Japanese industrial production, a fact
recognized by the USSBS itself in several subsidiary reports.
5. Paul Kecskemeti, Strategic Surrender: The Po/itics of Victory and Defeat (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1958), p. 198. See also Feis, The Atomic Bomb.
I
International Security 18:2 156
already dead. Second, the argument that bombing collapsed Japanese morale
is also wrong. Despite being subjected to the most harrowing terror campaign
in history, Japan’s civilian population did not pressure the government to
surrender, industrial workers did not abandon their jobs, and Army discipline remained excellent. Third, the argument that a reduction of American
demands can explain the outcome misreads the facts. The United States
never communicated any commitment to retain the emperor, or willingness
to reduce any other demands.‘j
I argue that a fourth explanation is correct. Military vulnerability, not
civilian vulnerability, accounts for Japan’s decision to surrender. Japan’s military position was so poor that its leaders would likely have surrendered
before invasion, and at roughly the same time in August 1945, even if the
United States had not employed strategic bombing or the atomic bomb.
Rather than concern for the costs and risks to the population, or even Japan’s
overall military weakness v i s - h i s the United States, the decisive factor was
Japanese leaders’ recognition that their strategy for holding the most important territory at issue-the home islands-could not succeed. As Japanese
leaders came to doubt whether they could prevent the home islands from
being invaded and overrun, they preferred surrender to the costs of continuing the war.
Three key events persuaded Japanese leaders that their military position
was untenable. First, and most important, by the summer of 1945, the Allied
sea blockade had completely cut off all outside sources of supply, crippling
the key economic and military pillars supporting Japan’s strategy. Second,
the fall of Okinawa in June placed American tactical air power in range of
the southernmost home island of Kyushu. Finally, the rapid collapse of the
Japanese armies in Manchuria under Soviet attack indicated by analogy that
6. Leon Sigal’s work is perhaps the most important since the early 1960s. He debunks the myth
that American concessions on the emperor induced Japan’s surrender. Contrary to the widely
held view, the United States made no such concession prior to Japan’s acceptance of the Potsdam
declaration on August 15, 1945. His second major argument offers a new explanation based on
Japanese domestic politics. Japanese decision makers were motivated, he argues, by their own
interests in preserving their institutions and domestic power, and thus, intervention by the
emperor to overcome the domestic log-jam accounts for the surrender. A problem with this
argument is that it is inconsistent with the first: if actors behave according to domestic considerations and if the United States made no concession to preserve the imperial institution, then
the emperor would have acted against his own interest in preserving the throne by surrendering.
Leon V. Sigal, Fighting to u Finish: the Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan,
1945 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988).
Why Japan Surrendered
1 157
the home army was unlikely to perform as well against the Americans as
had been e ~ p e c t e d . ~
To establish which of these four explanations is correct, three questions
must be answered. First, what were the American coercive strategies and
how faithfully and capably were these strategies executed? Second, what
were the relationships among the progress of the American coercive campaigns, changes in the prospects for Japan’s diplomatic and military strategies, and changes in Japanese leaders’ willingness to surrender? Finally, can
alternative explanations account for Japan’s surrender?
Execution of Military Operations
Military pressure to end the war progressed through three stages, as more
and more coercive implements and strategies were brought to bear. In the
first stage, the United States employed an interdiction strategy, based on a
submarine blockade and precision bombing of industrial targets. The second
stage, which began in early 1945, incorporated both interdiction and “Douhet-style”s bombing of cities. While the naval interdiction effort continued,
strategic bombing shifted from interdiction targets to a strategy focused on
attacking civilian morale. In the final stage, in the summer of 1945, the
interdiction and conventional Douhet strategies were supplemented with an
7. On this point my argument agrees with the British official history, which says, “The Russian
declaration of war was the decisive factor in bringing Japan to accept the Potsdam declaration,
for it brought home to all members of the Supreme Council the realization that the last hope of
a negotiated peace had gone and that there was no alternative but to accept the Allied terms
sooner or later.” Major General S. Woodburn Kirby, The War Against Japan, Vol. 5: The Surrender
of Inpan (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office [HMSO], 1969), pp. 433-434.
8. The city bombing strategy, favored by many Air Force officers, used incendiary raids on
urban areas to compel Japan to surrender by shattering the will of the Japanese people. I call
this a “Douhet strategy” because it rests on the belief made famous by the Italian air theorist,
Guilio Douhet, that infliction of high costs can shatter civilian morale, unraveling the social
basis of resistance, and causing citizens to pressure the government to abandon its territorial
goals. As the Strategic Bombing Survey states, “the implicit strategy now was to mount such
an air offensive that Japan would be forced to surrender because of the disruption of its organized
economic, political, and social life, without an actual military invasion of the home islands.”
USSBS, Effects of Strategic Bombing on lapaiiese Morale, p. 34. For general discussion of Douhet
strategies and detailed discussion in the Japanese case, see Robert A. Pape, Punishment and
Denial: The Coercive Use of Air Power (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, forthcoming), chaps.
2-3.
I
lnternational Security 18:2 158
invasion threat and a mixed “Schelling-D~uhet”~
strategy based on the atom
bomb.
INTERDICTION
Once American forces gained the initiative in 1943, coercion rather than
invasion became the preferred means of ending the war.’O Success in early
island operations, the growing superiority of the American fleet organized
around aircraft carriers, the progress of the submarine campaign, and the
new B-29 long-range bomber all persuaded American strategic planners that
the main pressure applied to Japan should come from the sea and air.
Although much of the planning for blockade and bombardment of Japan
occurred in 1943, these components of U.S. strategy took some time to
execute fully. American submarines did not achieve great success in sinking
Japanese ships until late 1943 and 1944, while large-scale bombing could not
begin until the Mariana Islands were seized in mid-1944.
NAVAL INTERDICTION. The American naval interdiction strategy was based
on commerce warfare. Under this strategy, the attacker simply tries to sink
as much merchant shipping tonnage as possible, reducing the defender’s
stock of shipping by destroying vessels faster than they can be replaced. If
successful, this proceeds exponentially, as fewer supplies are available to
produce replacement ships while attacking forces can concentrate against a
dwindling number of targets. The ultimate goal is to reduce the defender’s
shipping capacity below the minimum needed to maintain its war economy.
9. The atomic bombings of Japan were intended to compel surrender both through their shock
effect on civilian morale, as in a Douhet strategy, and through the threat of horrendous further
devastation, which I call a “Schelling strategy,” because the idea of manipulating the risk of
punishment for political purposes has largely come to be identified with the work of Thomas
C. Schelling. For general discussion of Schelling strategies and detailed discussion in the Japanese case, see Pape, Punishment and Denial, chaps. 2-3. The landmark works regarding the
atomic bomb decision are Henry L. Stimson, ”The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” Harpers,
No. 194 (February 1947), pp. 97-107; Morton, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb”; Len
Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision to Drop the Bomb (New York: Coward-McCann, 1965);
Feis, The Atomic Bomb; and Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1987), pp. 300-316.
10. The naval blockade actually began on a small scale shortly after Pearl Harbor, and escalated
continuously until by the summer of 1945 Japan was cut off virtually completely. The blockade
was carried out primarily by submarines, operating singly or in small groups. The goal was to
sink as much Japanese merchant shipping tonnage as possible, rather than concentrating on
stopping especially important cargos. Karl Lautenschlager, “The Submarine in Naval Warfare,
1901-2001,” International Security, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Winter 1986/87), p. 121.
I
Why Japan Surrendered 159
Japan was exceptionally vulnerable to commerce warfare. First, seventyfive percent of the country’s most important raw materials and high percentages of other basic goods and foodstuffs were imported from overseas.
Second, the Japanese merchant fleet was fairly small, and highly sensitive to
small losses because it was already used to nearly full capacity at the start of
the war.” Third, Japan’s shipbuilding industry was small, so her capacity to
replace losses was very limited. Japan had 6 million tons of shipping available
when the war began, and it built or captured another 4 million tons during
the war, making a total of only 10 million tons, compared to the 85 million
tons of Allied shipping confronted by the German commerce warfare effort
in the Atlantic.12 According to Japanese pre-war estimates, Japan required
an absolute minimum of 5 million tons to continue a protracted war.13
The U.S. strategy to cut Japanese lines of communications depended primarily on submarines, which destroyed far more tonnage than all other
instruments combined, although land- and carrier-based air power also
played a role towards the end of the war. The submarine campaign was
initially hampered by problems in weapons design, particularly torpedoes,
and excessively cautious tactics based on a submerged approach rather than
surface attack at night. Also, few modern submarines could make the long
voyages from Central Pacific and Western Australian bases to the main
shipping lanes off the Asian mainland. By mid-1943, however, these difficulties had largely been solved. The number of U.S. submarines on patrol at
any given time rose from an average of 13 in 1942 to 18 in 1943, to 27 by
January 1944, and to 43 by O ~ t o b e r . ’ ~
By contrast, geographical limitations prevented air power from contributing much to the blockade until late 1944. Although the 14th Air Force stationed in China made limited attacks against the Japanese shipping routes
between Singapore, China, and Japan, it was not until the capture of the
central Philippines in late 1944 that land-based air power could cut into
Japan’s economic lifeline on a significant s ~ a 1 e .Carrier-based
I~
air power was
11. In fact, only 65 percent of Japan’s domestic trade was carried by her own shipping in 1941.
Jerome B. Cohen, Japan’s Ecoriorny in War and Reconstruction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949), p. 251.
12. These figures include all vessels of 500 tons or more. Lautenschlager, ”The Submarine in
Naval Warfare,” pp. 114, 119, 122.
13. Cohen, Japan’s Ecommy, p. 104.
14. Arthur Hezlet, The Submaritie arid Sea Power (London: Peter Davies, 1967), pp. 210-227.
15. USSBS, The Effects of Strntegic Bombing on Japan’s War Economy (Washington, D.C.: U.S.GPO,
1946), p. 36.
I
lnternational Security 18:2 160
allocated to major operations against Japanese naval forces and island bases,
and was hardly used for commerce raiding until 1945.
The naval interdiction succeeded completely, destroying the Japanese economy. Shipping losses were so severe that by August 1945 Japan’s merchant
fleet had been reduced to just half a million tons.lh In fact, over 75 percent
of the tonnage destroyed was sunk prior to January 1, 1945.17Thus, submarines had essentially won the tonnage war before air power could intervene to help.
The economic effects of the blockade were devastating, although they did
not materialize immediately because Japan had stockpiled large quantities of
raw materials prior to the war. Despite heavy shipping losses, during the
first two years of the war Japan was able to increase output in most categories.
However, these reserves could be spent only once. By late 1944, prior to the
initiation of strategic air attacks, the raw material base of Japan’s war economy had been undermined and her industry was in steep decline.
By 1945, commodity imports had practically ceased, with disastrous effects
on industrial production. Oil was the most critical problem. Japan depended
on overseas supplies of oil for 90 percent of her requirements. Aware of this
weakness, U.S. forces gave priority to sinking tankers, drastically cutting
Japan’s import capacity; after March 1945 no oil entered Japan.lRAlthough
Japan had a stockpile of over 40 million barrels in 1941 compared to an
estimated annual requirement of 35 million, this had dwindled to 3.7 million
barrels by the end of March 1945 and just 800,000 by July.I9Finally, by July
1945, with stockpiles of all major materials exhausted and no more coming
in, Japan’s economy was completely shattered. (See Table 1).
PRECISION BOMBING. Interdiction also involved precision bombing against
key Japanese war industries. The primary instrument was the B-29, the
product of an ambitious project to develop a very long range bomber by
1944. A new bomber was needed because existing U.S. heavy bombers did
not have the range to strike Japan from Pacific or Chinese bases, while carrier
16. Cohen, Japan‘s Economy, p. 104.
17. Kirby, Surrender of Japan, p. 475. Approximately 6,835,000 tons of shipping were sunk
between August 1, 1941 and January 1, 1945, and 1,782,140 between January 1 and August 15,
1945.
18. Hezlet, The Submarine and Sea Power, p. 223.
19. Kirby, Surrender of japan, appendix 11; Cohen, japan’s Economy, pp. 134-135, 144. In addition
to the economic effects, lack of fuel drastically curtailed Japanese air and naval operations.
Why Japan Surrendered
Table 1.
I 161
1945 Production in Key Industries as Proportion of Peak.
Industry
Peak Production
Rubber
Aluminum
Oil Refining
Steel
Motor Vehicles
Ordnanceb
Aircraft Engines
Ai rframes
Explosives
1944 (1st qtr)
1944 (2nd qtr)
1941
1943
1941
1944 (3rd qtr)
1944 (2nd qtr)
1944 (3rd qtr)
1945 (1st qtr)
1st Quarter, 1945
18% (4th qtr)
26%
27%
32%
18%
42%
42%
67%
100%
2nd Quarter, 1945
July 1945
10%
15%
9%
8Y' o
6%
31%
39%
61%
75%
13%"
0%
22%
29%
36%
45%
Jerome B. Cohen, Japan's Economy in War and Reconstruction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949), pp. 125-126, 129, 133, 134, 155, 185-186, 231, 235-236,
243, 247, 248, 249.
NOTE: Where quarter is specified for peak production, this is the only quarter for which data
is available.
"The quality of what steel was produced declined due to increasing shortages of high-grade
coking coal, cobalt, nickel, chrome, and molybdenum. Aluminum quality also declined as
an increasing proportion of production consisted of reprocessed scrap. Cohen, Japan's
Economy, pp. 125-126, 156.
b"Ordnance" includes small arms, artillery, tanks, half-tracks, ammunition, and military
electronics, by yen value at 1945 prices; calculated from detailed figures for naval ordnance
and reported fraction of total spending accounted for by the Navy.
SOURCE:
aircraft lacked the weight of striking power for sustained bombardment of a
major industrial state like Japan.20
Precision bombing began in June 1944 and ended in March 1945. It started
with Project Matterhorn, which used B-29s of XX Bomber Command stationed in India and staging through forward bases at Chengtu in China.
From this distance the bombers could just reach the southernmost home
island of Kyushu, but not the main industrial areas on Honshu. As a result,
Matterhorn dropped a mere 800 tons of bombs on Japan in nine missions;
forty other missions were flown against targets in China, Manchuria, Korea,
and South East Asia. Matterhorn demanded excessive logistic support in
20. Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War 11, Vol. 5: The
Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, Iune 1944 to August 1945 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1953), pp. 3-33.
International Security 18:2 I 162
relation to the weight of bombs dropped, and so was de-emphasized once
the Mariana Islands became available.21
The main American bombing effort was based in the Marianas, which were
captured in the summer of 1944. Heavy bomber bases were quickly prepared
and the XXI Bomber Command began precision bombing operations in November, continuing until early March 1945. Even this was a small effort,
amounting to just 20 missions which dropped 5400 tons of bombs (compared
to the overall total of 160,800 tons ultimately dropped on Japan, and 1,360,000
tons dropped on Germany).=
The JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) target directive specified that bombers
should attack, in order of priority, aircraft engine manufacturers, airframes,
port areas, and urban areas.23In fact, nearly a11 the effort (15 of 20 raids) was
dedicated to attacking aircraft p r o d ~ c t i o n . ~ ~
The campaign was a failure, for two reasons. First, operations were hindered by the long flying distances that restricted payloads to three tons out
of the nominal ten, poor weather, Japanese fighter opposition, a sub-optimal
ordnance mix of too many high explosives and too few incendiaries and,
initially, a shortage of aircraft. Thus, little damage was done. Out of Japan’s
nine principal aircraft engine and assembly plants, only three suffered any
lasting damage.25
Second, and more important, any damage inflicted by bombing could
contribute little to reducing Japan’s fighting capacity, because aircraft production was already in steep decline due to the shortages of key materials
caused by the naval blockade. Production of aircraft engines had already
fallen off sharply, and airframes slightly, in the last two months of 1944,
before the plants were struck by B - 2 9 In
~ ~addition,
~~
the quality of Japan’s
21. Gary J. Shandroff, ”The Evolution of Area Bombing in American Doctrine and Practice”
(New York: Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1972), p. 130; Craven and Cate, The Pacific,
p. 175.
22. Craven and Cate, The Pacific, p. 574; USSBS, Summary Report (Pacific War), (Washington,
D.C.: U.S.GPO, 1946), p. 16. Two additional major 8-29 missions were sent against Iwo Jima
as well as some minor raids against both Iwo Jima and Truk.
23. The Matterhorn target directive had included aircraft production, steel, ball bearings, electronics, and merchant shipping. In practice, however, only steel offered significant targets within
range of the U.S. forward base at Chengtu. Craven and Cate, The Pacific, pp. 551-554.
24. Craven and Cate, The Pacific, pp. 554-574.
25. Ibid., pp. 554, 573.
26. For example, output at the Ota aircraft plant had fallen from a peak of 300 per month to
less than 100 before the plant was first attacked in February. Allocation of aluminum to the
industry had declined 70 percent by the first quarter of 1945. Craven and Cate, The Pacific,
p. 570; Cohen, japan‘s Econoiny, p. 227.
Why Japan Surrendered
I 163
remaining industrial output had fallen so far that the equipment still being
produced was highly unreliable. For instance, aircraft availability rates fell
from 80 percent at the beginning of the war to 20 percent, while 40 percent
of non-combat ferrying flights resulted in losses.27Thus, even if left undestroyed, Japan’s remaining industries could contribute little to the combat
capability of Japanese forces.
DOUHET: MARCH-AUGUST 1945
Starting with the fire raid against Tokyo on March 9, 1945, the American
strategic bombing effort shifted from an interdiction strategy to a Douhet
strategy based on inflicting maximum damage on population centers.2s
The transition in strategies can be dated by tracing changes in targeting,
mission profiles, and munitions. An ideal interdiction strategy would pinpoint key war industries and raw materials, while an ideal Douhet strategy
would simply blot out residential and commercial areas of whole cities.
Interdiction missions would be flown in daylight for maximum accuracy and
at high altitude to avoid air defenses, while Douhet missions, requiring lesser
accuracy, could be flown at night when air defenses would be weaker. Finally,
while bombloads for both types of missions might include a mix of high
explosives and incendiary bombs, Douhet strikes would employ a higher
proportion of i n ~ e n d i a r i e s . ~ ~
The impetus for the change to a Douhet strategy came from the air staff
in Washington, which had come to favor area bombing over precision industrial attacks even before the bombing of Japan had begun.30 As soon as
the XXI Bomber Command started operations, pressure was put on its precision bombing-oriented commander, General Haywood S. Hansell, to adopt
area incendiary bombing. Test incendiary raids were ordered as early as
27. Cohen, Japan’s Economy, pp. 144, 230.
28. The primary reason that chemical and biological weapons were not used was strong opposition by the British. Churchill feared that use of gas against Japan would encourage German
gas attacks against Britain. In 1944, the United States agreed not to initiate the use of gas or
retaliate unilaterally without prior consent by the British. Sigal, Fighting to a Finish, p. 163.
29. The high explosive bombs would break up structures so that the incendiaries could set the
pieces on fire. Since homes are normally more flammable than factories or the industrial equipment in them, fewer high explosives are needed for residential area bombing. For a detailed
account of the development of American incendiary tactics, see John W. Mountcastle, ”Trial by
Fire: U.S. Incendiary Weapons, 1918-1945” (Durham, N.C.: Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University,
1979).
30. Shandroff, ”Evolution of Area Bombing,” pp. 134-138; and Mountcastle, ”Trial by Fire,”
pp. 210-220.
I
Znternational Security 18:2 264
November 11, 1944, before the first strikes had been fl0wn.j’ The pressure
intensified after a successful incendiary raid on Hankow, China by Indiabased B-29s on December 18. Finally, on January 20, 1945, Hansel1 was
replaced by General Curtis C. LeMay, who had commanded the B-29s in
India, and was known as an advocate of night incendiary attacks.32
Following a pair of small experimental raids against Kobe (February 4) and
Tokyo (February 25), the incendiary campaign began in earnest with a spectacular fire raid against Tokyo on March 9. This raid remains the most
devastating air attack in history, exceeding even the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 84,000 people died and 16 square miles (25 percent
of the city) were destroyed.33A series of fire raids was then launched from
March 11 to 19 against Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe, which flattened another
16 square miles of Japan’s most important cities.x
The fire blitz was temporarily halted only because LeMay ran out of incendiary bombs.35For the next two months, the B-29s were diverted to support
the Okinawa invasion by bombing airfields on Kyushu and aircraft factories
in Japan, and mining Japanese coastal waters. Even so, LeMay managed to
send two major fire raids against Tokyo, which burned away another 22
square miles.j6
The next major round of incendiary raids, between May 14 and June 15,
sought to finish off Japan’s six largest cities (Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka,
Yokohama, and Kawasaki). Attention was then turned to secondary cities
(with populations over 100,000), and 58 of 62 were burned. The war ended
31. The first fire raids were flown against Tokyo on November 29 and Nagoya on January 3.
Craven and Cate, The Pacific, pp. 564-565.
32. Shandroff, “Evolution of Area Bombing,” p. 136; Craven and Cate, The Pacific, pp. 143-144,
609, 612-614.
33. Craven and Cate, The Pacific, p. 617.
34. Tactics for the fire raids were designed to incinerate Japanese cities most effectively. Since
precision accuracy would be unnecessary, missions were flown at night. In addition, LeMay
developed a set of special tactics to reduce fuel requirements and enable the planes to carry
heavier payloads. First, since the Japanese had very little short- and medium-range flak, the
bombers flew at very low altitudes (5,000 instead of the usual 20,000 feet). Second, because
Japan had no real night-fighter capability, bombers could attack individually instead of flying in
formation, and carry no armament. Craven and Cate, The Pacific, pp. 612-614; Brooks E. Kleber
and Dale Birdsell, Chemicals in Combat, Vol. 3 of U.S. Department of the Army, Office of Chief
of Military History, The U . S . Army in World War ZI, Ser. XI: The Technical Services, VII: Chemical
Warfare Services (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1966), pp. 626-627; and Mountcastle, “Trial By Fire,” pp. 135-165.
35. Shandroff, ”Evolution of Area Bombing,” p. 143.
36. Craven and Cate, The Pacific, pp. 627-635.
Why japan Surrendered
I 165
before the tertiary cities (those with populations over 30,000) could be
bombed.37
The extent to which the Douhet strategy was implemented can be measured by the degree of destruction to Japan’s population centers.38In all, 178
square miles were razed, amounting to 40 percent of the urban area of the
66 cities attacked. Twenty-two million people, 30 percent of Japan’s entire
population, were rendered homeless. 2,200,000 civilian casualties were inflicted, including 900,000 fatalities. These more than exceeded Japan’s combat
casualties in the Pacific of approximately 780,000.39
MIXED DOUHET/SCHELLING: THE ATOMIC BOMB
The final decision to drop the atomic bombs was taken by President Truman
following Japan’s rejection of the Potsdam Proclamation on July 28, 1945.
Hiroshima was bombed on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9. Some 80,000
died at Hiroshima and the city was leveled; at Nagasaki 35,000 died and part
of the city was destroyed.40
Evaluating the effectiveness of the atomic bombings as a Douhet strategy
requires assessing their additional contribution beyond what was already
being done by conventional fire bombing. This can be measured in two
respects: morale or shock effect, and the additional damage and suffering
inflicted on the population.
Surprisingly, the shock effect of the atomic bomb was minor. Due to the
Japanese government’s tight control of information, news of the bombings
spread only slowly and the war ended before much of the population learned
37. The best short overview of the urban area attacks is Craven and Cate, The Pacific, chap. 20.
38. The degree to which the Douhet strategy was executed is often unappreciated. One reason
may be that political leaders understated its magnitude in memoirs, and media coverage at the
time largely neglected the counter-city campaign. Both Churchill and Truman hardly mention
the conventional attacks and, when they do, they give the impression that counter-city attacks
had just gotten under way when the war ended. Likewise, press reports during the war paid
scant attention to the incendiary campaign against Japanese civilians. Sherry, Rise of American
Air Power, pp. 315-316.
39. Craven and Cate, The Pacific, pp. 643, 674-675; USSBS, EJfects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese
Morale, p. 34; and USSBS, Summary Report (Pacific War), pp. 17, 20. Official Japanese figures,
based on unscientific data collection and reporting procedures, were considerably lower (930,000
total civilian casualties). The USSBS Morale Division built its estimate from a sample survey and
is probably more accurate. For a detailed discussion of Japanese casualty estimates, see Sherry,
Rise of Arnericun Air Power, p. 413.
40. Nagasaki suffered less because the city stood among a number of hills that shadowed large
parts of the city from the blast. Figures for both cities do not include deaths due to long-term
radiation effects. Craven and Cate, The Pacific, pp. 724-725.
I
lnternational Security 18:2 166
what had really happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.41While the emotional
effects on the survivors were devastating, it is not certain that citizens of
unattacked cities would have been equally affected even if there had been
time for the news to spread.42
As far as damage is concerned, atomic bombs could contribute much less
than is commonly thought. The two bombs that were dropped killed about
1/7 as many people as the conventional incendiary attacks. The Strategic
Bombing Survey later estimated that damage equivalent to that caused by
both atomic bombs could have been matched by 330 B-29 sorties using
incendiaries; XXI Bomber Command was flying four times that many sorties
every week by August 1Y45.43
To be effective as a Schelling strategy, the atomic bombings should have
met two main requirements. First, they should have been employed to
threaten vast future damage, rather than to maximize current damage. Second, the time between detonations should have been long enough to allow
the bomb’s import to sink in, and for the Japanese to reconsider whether to
accede to American demands.
Neither of these criteria were met. The first could not be met, because the
fire bombings had already inflicted such tremendous damage. By the time
the atomic bombs fell, a vast portion of the urban population had either
become casualties or had fled to the countryside. By the end of the war,
Japan’s 66 largest cities had become shadows of their pre-war selves; those
with over 100,000 had lost 58 percent of their 1940 populations, and those
with over a million had lost two-thirds. If one defines the “hostage” as major
and secondary cities with over 100,000 people, then the hostage was nearly
dead before the atomic bombs fell.@
41. Few people outside the target areas had any real comprehension of what the atomic bombs
meant. For discussion of Japanese control of the media and confusion of the population regarding
the atomic bombs, see Ben-Ami Shillony, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1981), pp. 91-109; and Michihiko Hachiya, Hiroshima Diary: The Iournal of a
lapanese Physician, August 6-September 30, 7945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1955).
42. USSBS argues that morale effects of both conventional and atomic bombing were similar in
that those closest to the blast were affected substantially more than those not in the immediate
vicinity. USSBS, Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale, p. 34.
43. 210 B-29s would have been needed for Hiroshima, and 120 for Nagasaki. USSBS, The Effects
of Atoniic Bombs on Hiroshinza and Nagasaki, p. 33.
44. More than 10 million Japanese, one seventh the national population and one fourth of urban
dwellers, fled to farms for refuge. Thomas R.H. Havens, Valley of Darkness: The lapanese People
in World War II (New York: Norton, 1978), pp. 154-173.
Why Japan Surrendered
I 167
Without many more bombs-perhaps dozens-that the United States did
not have, atomic bombing certainly could not have overshadowed the effects
of incendiary attacks.45Probably the most damaging use for atomic bombs
would have been in re-striking the largest cities, which had already been
badly burned but still had people living amid the rubble. These targets would
have been quickly used up, forcing the atomic campaign to turn to smaller
cities where its advantage over conventional bombing would have been
smaller.
The timing requirement was also not satisfied. Since the Schelling strategy
aims to coerce by increasing future risks, it is necessary to permit the opponent to assess those risks and act accordingly. However, the second atom
bomb was dropped only three days after the first, barely sufficient time for
the Japanese government to carry out a quick investigation of the effects of
a wholly revolutionary weapon, and not enough to develop a reasoned
assessment of the danger it presented.
Despite these weaknesses, the atomic bombings might have been an effective Schelling strategy, providing that the Japanese did not guess that the
United States had no more bombs. This strategy usually depends on signaling
fairly clearly the scale of punishment that the attacker intends to inflict, but
the coercive potential of the atomic bomb depended precisely on the fact that
the Japanese had no way of knowing how much destruction would be visited
upon them. Having no way to estimate how many bombs were in the U.S.
arsenal, they might have believed that we had an unlimited number, and
therefore feared that they would suffer devastation on an even greater scale
than they had already.
INVASION
In fall 1944, the timetable for ending the war against Japan was disrupted by
events in Europe, when it became clear that the collapse of Germany was
not imminent. Since the invasions of Kyushu and especially Honshu depended on redeployment of large numbers of troops from Europe, which
would require four to six months, plans for these operations had to put on
hold. Hence, during the winter and spring of 1945, air and sea operations
45. In fact, no more bombs were on hand at the end of the war and only two were produced
by the end of 1945. “U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, 1945-1989: Numbers of Weapons,”
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (November 1989), p. 53.
International Security 28:2
I 268
against the Japanese homeland continued, but without a fixed time-table for
invasion.46
The final debate over the timing of the invasion took place following
Germany’s collapse in May 1945. The Navy and Army Air Forces still objected
to invasion. Army Air Forces Commanding General Arnold tried to persuade
General Douglas MacArthur that air attack would make invasion unnecessary, while Admiral William Leahy lobbied President Truman for an extension of the blockade.47Despite these objections, the final schedule of amphibious operations against the Japanese homeland was established in late
May, and confirmed by Truman, the JCS, and senior civilian advisors on
June 18.
The reasoning behind the decision was contained in a JCS staff study
which argued that while the Japanese home army lacked aircraft and fuel, it
had 2 million men plentifully supplied with ammunition and powerful discipline. Although Japan was virtually cut off from the Asian mainland, her
food supplies were thought to be adequate at least through 1945. So, despite
the close blockade and intense bombardment of Japan, the JCS ”doubted
whether the general economic deterioration had yet reached, or would reach
for some time, the point at which it would affect the ability of the nation to
fight or repel an invasion.”4R
Moreover, if the Allies were to forgo occupation,
the Japanese government might withdraw from occupied territory on the
Asiatic mainland, yet not agree to unconditional surrender. With some misgivings, Truman accepted the JCS recommendation although, according to
Secretary of War Henry Stimson: ”He had hoped there was a possibility of
preventing an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other.”49
The invasion of Kyushu (Operation Olympic) was to begin on November
1, 1945, followed by the invasion of the Tokyo plain on Honshu (Operation
Coronet) on March 1, 1946.50The last preliminary step, completed in mid46. Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division (Washington, D.C.: Office
of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Department of the Army, 1951), pp. 340-342.
47. Herbert Feis, The Atomic Boinb, pp. 5-8; Admiral Ernest J. King and W.M. Whitehead, Fleet
Admiral King (New York: Norton, 1952), p. 605; William D. Leahy, I Was There (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1950), pp. 384-385.
48. Kirby, Surrender of japan, p. 182.
49. Stimson, quoted in Feis, The Atomic Bomb, p. 11.
50. Kirby, Surrender of japan, p. 152. No formal directive for Coronet was ever issued by the
JCS, since Japan surrendered well in advance of the start of Olympic. Planning for this operation
during the summer and fall of 1945 involved more logistics than strategy-more about how to
redeploy large numbers of Army formations from Europe than about how to employ them in
the Japanese theater. Grace Person Hayes, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in World War 11:
The War against japan (Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 1982), pp. 701-710.
Why Japan Surrendered
I 169
June, was the capture of Okinawa, without which American tactical aircraft
could not reach Kyushu. The plan for Kyushu had three phases. First,
strategic air bombardment would continue the destruction of Japanese industrial power and communications. Next, the southern part of Kyushu
would be isolated from the rest of the island, the mainland, and Honshu by
a close naval blockade and tactical air interdiction. Finally, fourteen U.S.
Army and Marine divisions would commence an assault against the estimated 15-18 Japanese divisions defending southern K y u s h ~The
. ~ ~American
forces would enjoy greater superiority in air, ground, and naval firepower
than ever before in the Pacific war, and were expected to overrun the objective area within 30 days.52
In summary, the interdiction, Douhet, and invasion strategies all satisfied
their basic requirements, but at different times. Although air interdiction
contributed little, the naval blockade had achieved most of its military objectives by the end of 1944, making inevitable Japan’s economic collapse in 1945.
The Douhet strategy was implemented quite effectively from its inception in
March 1945, largely depopulating Japan’s cities by August. While it could
not be carried out before November, the invasion strategy was highly credible, especially after the fall of Okinawa in June provided the necessary
forward bases. For its part, the atomic bomb contributed little to the Douhet
strategy, but could have been effective as a Schelling strategy, depending on
Japanese estimates of the size of the U.S. arsenal.
Explaining Japan’s Decision to Surrender
In order to determine whether it was military or civilian vulnerability that
played the decisive role in Japan’s decision to surrender, first, we must
understand how the Japanese government made consequential decisions.
Second, we need to know Japan’s political objectives in the Pacific war, and
her military and diplomatic strategies for achieving them. Finally, we must
measure the relationship between the increasing vulnerabilities of Japan’s
population and of her military strategy, and changes in Japanese leaders’
willingness to surrender.
51. Kirby, Surrender of Japan, p. 154.
52. If the campaign took longer than 30 days, U.S. forces could be reinforced from Europe at
the rate of 3 divisions a month. Ibid., p. 155.
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lnfernafional Security 18:2 270
JAPANESE DECISION MAKING
Unlike some cases in which the military and political calculations of the target
state’s leadership cannot be measured directly and so must be inferred from
the behavior of the state as a whole, in the Japanese case there is sufficient
evidence to reconstruct the analyses and positions of various groups within
the governing elite.53
Japan was governed by an oligarchy composed of three principal elem e n t ~As
. ~it~ was an authoritarian state, popular opinion played no direct
role in the process, and in practice was merely one factor to be considered
among others by elites.55
The first and most powerful group was the military, which controlled
strategic planning without civilian oversight. Because the Japanese constitution provided that a cabinet could not be formed without a War minister
and Navy minister, the military also had effective veto power over all government actions. Of the two branches, the Army was by far dominant.
Civilian, Navy and even senior Army officials who opposed Army interests
were often simply assassinated by radical junior officers. In addition, the
formation of the Kwantung Army after the seizure of Manchuria in 1931 gave
the Army an instrument wholly beyond central control. The Navy was much
weaker, but did have the advantage over the civilians in that it had the
military information and skills to raise an occasional credible dissent to the
Army.
The second group was the civilian leadership, which included the senior
statesmen serving in the cabinet, some of whom were retired military officers,
and the emperor’s chief adviser, the Lord Privy Seal Kido. This group had
the formal responsibility for running the country, but in practice did not act
against the wishes of the military. Their most important function was to serve
as counsellors to the emperor, who would occasionally summon one or more
of them to offer analysis and recommendations. Although the emperor did
53. However, while there is good evidence for the major coalitions, we do not have sufficient
evidence for all individuals to treat each as a separate case.
54. For discussion of pre-war and wartime Japanese politics, see Akira Iriye, Power and Culture:
The Japanese-American War, 2941-1945 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981);David J. Lu,
From the Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs, 1961);Saburo Ienaga,
The Pacific War, 1931-1945 (New York: Pantheon, 1978); and Michael A. Barnhart, lapan Prepares
for Total War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987).
55. For descriptions of the oligarchical and consensual nature of Japanese government during
this period, see Robert J.C. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1954), pp. 10-17; and USSBS, japan’s Struggle to End the War.
Why Japan Surrendered
I 171
not express his own opinion directly, the simple fact of an audience would
lend weight to the summoned official’s recommendations.
Last was Emperor Hirohito, who served primarily as a religious symbol to
unify the national consciousness of the country. Although in principle he
had the power to make law, in practice he took no formal part in government,
except that cabinet decisions were required to be reported to him.
In theory, national policy decisions were made according to a rule of
unanimous consent. The cabinet, which combined the Army and civilian
groups, worked out a decision and then presented it to the emperor, who
never departed from it. In practice, this did not work because of the Army’s
overwhelming dominance. The Army controlled the military police, a prime
instrument for repression of dissent. For instance, in April 1945 War Minister
Anami ordered the arrest of some 400 persons suspected of harboring endthe-war sentiments, including a former ambassador to England and a judge
of high rank.56 Civilians recognized the dominant role of the army.57
JAPANESE GOALS A N D STRATEGIES
Japan’s main territorial goals in the Second World War were driven by a need
for economic and military autarky. Japan sought to control the major agricultural and raw materials-producing areas of East and Southeast Asia, including Manchuria, much of China, and the Dutch East in die^.^^ War with
the United States was precipitated partly by the American, British, and Dutch
economic embargo of July 1941, which cut off most of Japan’s oil supplies.59
During the war against the United States, Japanese strategy passed through
four phases. In the first, Japan aimed at quick capture of the East Indies as
well as strategic points along a defensive ring from the North Pacific all the
way to Burma, including the Philippines, Central Pacific islands, New Guinea
and the Bismarck Archipelago, Siam, and Malaya. This perimeter, they believed, would defy U.S. counter-offensive efforts, forcing it to accept Japan’s
gains. This strategy enjoyed some success until the Japanese tried to extend
56. Butow, Japan‘s Decision to Surrender, p. 75.
57. After the war, Prime Minister Suzuki said, ”The Cabinet would have collapsed immediately
had the War Minister submitted his resignation. Because Anami refrained from submitting his
resignation, the Suzuki Cabinet was able to attain its major goal, namely, the war’s termination.”
Ibid., p. 204.
58. The Philippines, Malaya, and Burma all had some economic value, but were attacked for
strategic reasons. Barnhart, ]upan Prepares for Total War, pp. 237-262.
59. For a recent discussion of how Western economic coercion backfired, see Jonathan G. Utley,
Going to War uJith]span, 1937-2941 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985).
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International Security 18:2 172
the perimeter to include Midway Island and Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians,
enabling the United States to destroy the Japanese carrier fleet at Midway in
June 1942.60
Once the Japanese lost command of the sea, the initiative passed to the
United States. During the second phase, Japan fought a defensive war,
seeking to ”hold the ring” in the central and southern Pacific in order to
present the United States with the prospect of a long-drawn-out war and
thus induce it to abandon its counteroffensive.61
The third phase began in July 1944. Following the loss of Guadalcanal,
New Guinea, the Marshalls, and the Marianas, it became clear to most
Japanese elites that Japan could not achieve the original objectives for which
she had waged war against the United States in the first place. The cabinet
of General Hideki Tojo, which had begun the war, fell and was replaced by
a new government headed by Premier Kuniaki Koiso.62However, Japan did
not immediately sue for peace, because Japanese leaders believed that continued resistance would inflict enough costs on the Americans to induce
them to lighten their terms. Japan especially hoped to end the war with her
most important mainland possessions intact.63
Towards this end, Japan began to seek intermediaries to facilitate negotiations, hoping to find an ally who would help moderate the unconditional
surrender demands of the United States.64This, however, did not mean that
Japan was willing to accept peace at any price. An indication of the commitments Japan still believed itself capable of defending can be gained from the
September 1944 cabinet discussions about the concessions Japan would have
to offer the USSR to ”mediate” between Japan and the United States.65
Estimating that the Soviets would demand much of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, part of the Kuriles, and other territories, the Cabinet decided not to
proceed at that time.66
60. On Japan’s initial strategy in the South Pacific, see Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender, pp. 712; Paul M. Kennedy, “Japanese Strategic Decisions, 1939-1945,” in Strategy and Diplomacy
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1983), pp. 179-196.
61. Kirby, Surrender of Japan, pp. 393-406.
62. Although some of the Jushin had begun to doubt Japan’s ability to maintain control over
her newly acquired territories as early as 1943, the fall of Tojo was the first real opportunity to
change Japan‘s fundamental policy. Butow, lapan’s Decision to Surrender, p. 15.
63. Ibid., p. 43, n41.
64. Kirby, Surrender of Japan, p. 174.
65. China, Sweden, and Britain were also approached as possible intermediaries, with no
result.
66. Butow, Iapan’s Dectsion to Surrender, p. 89.
I
Why Iapan Surrendered 173
The fourth and final stage began with the U.S. invasion of Okinawa in
April 1945. Koiso fell and was replaced by Admiral Kantaro Suzuki. Suzuki’s
cabinet, however, was not formed to produce a negotiated settlement. Although the Japanese expected that after Okinawa the Americans would
invade the home islands, this did not trigger a decision to open surrender
negotiations. To the contrary, the Army, the emperor, and Suzuki himself
believed that Japan’s best strategy was to fight an intense battle on the home
islands rather than accept surrender.
This plan had two tracks. The first was an approach to the Soviet Union,
beginning in June, in search of diplomatic or military aid.67The second track
was to prepare for a major battle against the invasion forces.
Japanese leaders were divided over the goals of Soviet mediation. For the
civilians, the purpose was to get help in encouraging the United States to
reduce its surrender terms. For the military, which was not interested in
surrender, the purpose was to ensure Japan’s ability to continue the war. In
particular, they sought to purchase Soviet oil and aircraft in return for Southeast Asian rubber, tin, lead, and tungsten or, if necessary, for territorial
concessions. At best, some in the Navy hoped eventually to draw the Soviet
Union into the war on Japan’s side. At a minimum, they wanted to prevent
a Soviet attack. Because of the lack of consensus, contact with the Soviets
was not pursued with any sense of urgency or with a consistent set of
priorities. In any case, the Soviets were unresponsive.6s
In April 1945, the Japanese military began planning for homeland defense.6yRemarkably prescient, Japanese Army intelligence predicted that
American forces would follow the capture of Okinawa with an invasion, first
of Kyushu and then of the Tokyo plain area of Honshu. They estimated that
the United States would invade Kyushu with 15-20 divisions and Honshu
with approximately 30 divisions. While invasion might come as early as July,
it was considered more likely that the United States would not be prepared
to attack Kyushu until October l.70
Japan’s strategy was to inflict such heavy losses on American forces, both
at sea as they approached the landing zones and on the beach once they
67. Statements by some Japanese officials to the effect that Japan first approached the Soviets
in February 1944 are erroneous, according to Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender, p. 127.
68. Ibid., pp. 77, 112-141.
69. Kirby, Surrender of lapan, p. 147.
70. Ibid., p. 149; Donald S. Detwiler and Charles 8. Burdick, eds., War in Asia and the Pacific,
1937-1949, Vol. 12: Defense of the Homeland and End of the War (New York: Garland Publishing,
Inc., 7980), p. 75.
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International Security 18:2 174
landed, that the United States would be compelled to retreat.71The key was
not to actually defeat the American forces militarily, but to raise the price of
conquering Japanese territory higher than American society would be willing
to stand. According to General Shuichi Miyazaki, Chief of the Operations
Bureau, the Army ”hoped to concentrate its strength entirely in the area
where the American forces would make their first landing, and it hoped to
strike a decisive blow, thereby forcing the enemy to abandon [its] intention
of attempting a second landing or else seriously delay this move.””
The high command’s defense plan, “Ketsu-Go,” called for augmenting the
homeland’s existing defenses with divisions brought back from China and
Manchuria and newly raised divisions and air fleets, supplemented with
large numbers of lightly armed guerrillas. Operationally, the American assault would be countered by large conventional forces positioned in and near
the likely landing areas, while guerrilla forces covered lower-priority regions.
Accordingly, southern Kyushu and the Tokyo area were allotted more than
half of the 67 divisions and 35 independent brigades available, while provision was made for rapid reinforcement of the initial invasion area. For instance, should Kyushu be attacked first, its fifteen divisions would be augmented with three others from Honshu. Given Japan’s mountainous terrain,
the possible landing beaches were well demarcated. These beaches were to
be heavily fortified with obstacles, mines, and entrenched troops and artillery
emplacements. If possible, the invaders were to be defeated on the beaches;
otherwise mobile assault divisions would counter-attack and destroy the
beachheads. 73
Rather than provide close air support for the army, Japan’s air power was
to be used in kamikaze (suicide) units against troop transports approaching
the landing zones. Because of a dearth of trained pilots and aviation fuel,
kamikaze tactics were expected to be more effective in inflicting losses than
standard types of air operation^.^^ It was estimated that by cannibalizing
reconnaissance and training units, some 800 army fighter and bomber aircraft
and 3,000 kamikaze aircraft could be made available.” All these preparations
were to be completed by the end of August.
71. Kirby, Surrender of Japan, pp. 96, 149.
72. Quoted in Sigal, Fighting to a Finish, p. 49.
73. Kirby, Surrender of Japan, pp. 147-148; Detwiler and Burdick, Defense of the Homeland and End
of the War, pp. 1-255.
74. Butow, Japan‘s Decision to Surrender, p. 99.
75. Kamikaze air strength actually totaled more than 4,800. Detwiler and Burdick, Defense of the
Homeland, Document No. 119, p. 2.
Why lapan Surrendered
I 175
CAUSES OF CHANGE IN JAPANESE BEHAVIOR
To evaluate the relative effects of civilian and military vulnerability on Japan’s
decision to surrender, we must trace the effects of changes in vulnerabilities
on the positions of the major groups in the Japanese government regarding
surrender. To do this, the case is divided into a number of discrete time
slices, and the degree of Japan’s vulnerability to each type of threat-nuclear,
conventional fire attack, and invasion-is measured for each period. If the
preferences of one group changed at the same time as an increase in one
type of vulnerability, while the other type remained constant, this would
show that the first and not the second was the cause of that group‘s decision.
Carrying out this analysis reveals that the only factor to influence all
principal groups was Japan’s military vulnerability to invasion. Japan’s vulnerability to nuclear attack had some influence on some groups but not on
the Army, the critical group. The vulnerability of Japanese civilians to conventional attack had hardly any effect on any decision makers.
INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
The two independent variables are civilian vulnerability and military vulnerability. Civilian vulnerability is coded as ”low” where civilian costs were not
sufficient to merit the costs of civilian defense procedures, ”medium” where
large civilian costs could be avoided with defensive steps, “high” where
major parts of the population are uncertain about whether they will survive
even with defenses, or “very high” where major parts of the population are
certain not to survive because avoiding the enemy’s attacks is impossible.
Measurement of military vulnerability focuses on the home islands, because control of her national homeland was the most important value that
Japan was being called upon to surrender. Vulnerability is coded as ”low”
where there was no risk of the home islands being overrun in the short term,
”medium” where the risk was considerable but could be reduced by added
defensive measures, “high” where the risks of losing were great despite the
best available countermeasures, but that it might be possible to inflict enough
attrition to reduce the enemy’s commitment to control the territory, and
“very high” where the likelihood of loss of control over the territory approached certainty because both defeat and heavy attrition of enemy forces
are impossible.
CIVILIAN VULNERABILITY.
Before June 1944, Japanese society was not vulnerable to attack. 76 In October 1943, the government ordered non-essential
76. Prior to June 1944 Japan was never bombed, except for the fifteen-plane Doolittle raid of
April 1942.
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International Security 18:2 176
civilians to evacuate urban areas, but few did and no resources were devoted
to enforcing the order.77
From June to November 1944, vulnerability was low. During this period,
China-based B-29s bombed Japan on several occasions, but only a few cities
in Kyushu were affected and damage was extremely light.
In November 1944, civilian vulnerability increased to medium, when Marianas-based B-29s began bombing industries throughout the country. Although thousands of civilians were killed or injured, protective measures
such as air defenses, evacuations, and fire lanes cut through city neighborhoods helped keep costs and risks low. For example, the relative ineffectiveness of early experimental incendiary raids convinced the Japanese that their
fire-prevention systems were highly efficient.78
After March 1945, however, civilian vulnerability was high. The massive
American incendiary raids inflicted high levels of casualties which Japanese
protective measures could not significantly reduce.79As the summer wore
on, the problem grew as Japanese air defenses waned, American bomber
strength grew, and the campaign spread out to strike smaller cities, so that
fewer and fewer safe places remained.so
Following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the vulnerability of Japan’s
population to nuclear attack became very high. Current costs and risks were
not significantly higher than those from incendiary attack. The initial atomic
bombs were not much more lethal than the largest incendiary raids, certainly
not by the orders-of-magnitude increase in lethality that has come to be
associated with hydrogen bombs. More people died in the first major incendiary raid on Tokyo than at Hiroshima. Despite this, the ultimate risks faced
by Japan had escalated markedly. Given sufficient time for the United States
to produce weapons, Japan’s vulnerability to nuclear attack was unlimited.
In fact, the degree of vulnerability perceived by Japanese leaders varied,
depending on whether they understood immediately what these revolutionary weapons implied and how many more they thought the United States
might possess. Some civilian leaders were immediately convinced that Japan
could not sustain this new form of warfare, while some Army and Navy
representatives denied that an atomic bomb had been used at Hiroshima.
77.
78.
79.
80.
Havens, Valley of Darkness, pp. 161-162.
Craven and Cate, The Pacific, p. 565.
Alvin Coox, japan: The F i n d Agony (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970), pp. 28, 33, 41.
Craven and Cate, The Pacific, p. 658.
Why lapan Surrendered
I 177
Not until August 10, after the Nagasaki bombing, did the investigators finally
agree that Japan faced the prospect of an enemy now equipped with atomic
power.*’ By then, however, the government had already decided to surrender.
MILITARY VULNERABILITY. Prior to July 1944, military vulnerability was nil.
Japan’s strategy for holding the defensive perimeter in the Pacific had not
yet been decisively defeated. Japanese leaders still hoped that at some point
escalating losses would deter the United States from continuing the war,
allowing Japan to keep its territorial gains.
Beginning in July 1944, with the fall of the Marianas, military vulnerability
rose, although it remained low. The Marianas were the first positions to fall
in Japan’s inner defensive perimeter, and the battle for the islands destroyed
much of her remaining naval power. As a result of this defeat Tojo’s cabinet
fell. Japan was clearly losing the war, and invasion of the home islands had
to be considered as a remote possibility. Also by this date, submarines had
stripped Japan of much of the shipping needed to continue a protracted war.
In April 1945, military vulnerability increased to medium with the U.S.
landings on Okinawa, the strategic gateway to the invasion of Japan. With
all imports of raw materials blocked and stockpiles largely consumed, production in key war industries had fallen 25 to 50 percent or more. While the
military recognized the risk of an invasion by powerful American forces,
they believed that Japan still retained sufficient resources to make Ketsu-Go
effective. With the morale advantage of fighting on home soil, Japanese forces
would be capable of defeating the attackers. In addition, there was still hope
that the Soviets would provide diplomatic and military assistance, although
they had announced on April 5 that they would not renew the RussoJapanese Neutrality Pact when it expired in April 1946.82
In June 1945, military vulnerability rose to ”high.” With Okinawa in American hands, invasion had to be expected as soon as support bases could be
made ready. The connection with the Asian mainland was now completely
cut, making it impossible to bring back any forces to reinforce Ket~u-Go.*~
With stockpiles exhausted, production of war equipment was running down
rapidly, falling by 55-100 percent in different categories by July. A report by
81. Butow, lapan’s Decision to Surrender, pp. 151-152.
82. Imperial General Headquarters argued that a decisive battle on Japan’s shores would end
in victory for Japan. Ibid., pp. 73-77.
83. For a summary of a Japanese Army report on ”The Present State of National Power,” see
ibid., p. 94. For a similar American appraisal, see Sigal, Fighting to a Finish, p. 109.
I
International Security 18:2 178
the premier’s cabinet secretary concluded that Japan could not continue the
war because of the decline in munitions, shipping, and food.@In addition,
the Soviets had failed to respond to Japan’s requests for assistance.
Under these conditions, it was clear that Japan could not prepare for KetsuGo as fully as was expected in
On June 12, Admiral Kiyoshi Hasegawa reported to the emperor that the Navy had not been able to carry out
preparations as planned. In particular, the kamikaze units would be unable
to cope with the demands of an invasion. At about the same time, General
Yoshijiro Umezu, chief of staff of the Army, was forced to admit that the
Army was encountering serious difficulties in preparing even basic defenses
for the Tokyo plain.86
Still, the Army remained confident that even if ultimate victory was beyond
any realistic possibility, the Japanese strategy of inflicting punishing losses
on the invading forces would succeed despite these problems. Lieutenant
General Seizo Arisue, chief of the Army’s Intelligence Bureau, said, “If we
could defeat the enemy in Kyushu or inflict tremendous losses, forcing him
to realize the strong fighting spirit of the Japanese Army and people, it would
be possible, we hoped, to bring about the termination of hostilities on comparatively favorable terms. ’4’
The Soviet invasion of Manchuria on August 9 raised Japan’s military
vulnerability to a very high level. The Soviet offensive ruptured Japanese
lines immediately, and rapidly penetrated deep into the rear.88 Since the
Kwantung Army was thought to be Japan’s premier fighting force, this had
a devastating effect on Japanese calculations of the prospects for home island
84. USSBS, japan’s Struggle to End the War, p. 7.
85. ”While a full-scale suicide effort could have been supported by the supplies on hand, they
not only would have been exhausted in a few months of full-scale combat but were qualitatively
inadequate, with such essential items as tanks, heavy artillery and field communications equipment largely lacking. . . . Under these circumstances it was obvious that the invasion would
find Japan without means for prolonged resistance, and that even if it were initially repelled,
disintegration of the entire economy would occur in a short time.” USSBS, Effects of Strategic
Bombing on japan‘s War Economy, p. 41.
86. Butow, japan‘s Decision to Surrender, pp. 115-116, 1113.
87. General Shuichi Miyazaki was somewhat less confident, saying that victory “was beyond
all expectation. The best we could hope for [was to inflict] a major blow on the enemy.” Miyazaki
and Arisue quoted in Sigal, Fighting to a Finish, p. 228.
88. For an excellent history, see David M. Glantz, “August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic
Offensive in Manchuria,” Leavenworth Papers, No. 7 (Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1983); and Glantz, ”August Storm: Soviet Tactical and Operational Combat in Manchuria, 1945,” Leavenworth Papers, No. 8 (Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: U.S.
Army Command and General Staff College, 1983).
Why japan Surrendered
I 179
defense.s9If their best forces were so easily sliced to pieces, the unavoidable
implication was that the less well-equipped and trained forces assembled for
Ketsu-Go had no chance of success against American forces that were even
more capable than the Soviets.
As a result of Japan’s depleted ability to execute Ketsu-Go, it was not likely
that U.S. forces invading Kyushu would meet strong opposition. Contemporary American analyses estimated that conquering Kyushu would cost
about 20,000 Allied lives. American planners were still more optimistic about
taking Honshu, which they estimated would cost 15,000 lives, presumably
because they expected that the battle for Kyushu would consume the last of
Japan’s war p r o d ~ c t i o n . ~These
”
figures are not high compared with the
13,000 lost at Okinawa against a much smaller, but better-supplied Japanese
force.
DEPENDENT VARIABLES
The dependent variables are the policy preferences of each of the three major
groups in the Japanese government. To determine the effect of increasing
civilian and military vulnerability on Japanese decision making, the views of
each major group on surrendering must be assessed for each period when
there was an increase in either type of vulnerability. Policy views are coded
as ”no surrender,” which means not willing to surrender prior to invasion;
”limited surrender,” which means willing to surrender most overseas possessions but not the home islands; ”flexible surrender,” which means willing
to surrender before invasion, but not without attempting to obtain more
favorable terms; and ”immediate surrender,” which means willing to accept
unmodified American terms at
89. The Kwantung Army’s reputation was earned by its performance in the late 1930s and early
1940s, but by 1945 non-replacement of aged equipment and repeated drafts for Pacific island
service had reduced it to no more than a shadow of its former prowess. Even so, it still
maintained better equipment and training than could be provided for most of the make-shift
Ketsu-Go forces. See Kirby, Surrender of japan, pp. 193-196.
90. Barton J. Bernstein, ”A Postwar Myth: 500,000 U.S. lives Saved,” Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, June-July 1986, p. 39.
91. Much of the evidence for Japanese officials’ views is problematic, because it comes from
statements made by the principals to American interrogators after the war. The problem is that
evidence may be biased towards presenting the officials as favoring surrender earlier or more
strongly than they in fact did. Given the anticipation of war crimes trials, senior officials had
powerful incentives to maximize the extent to which they personally, and the emperor in
particular, favored surrender, painting the military as responsible for continuation of the war.
Also, because many of the interviews were conducted by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey,
which was concerned to demonstrate the effectiveness of strategic bombing, the interviewees
1
International Security 1 8 2 180
Given Japan’s political system, only a small number of civilians
could influence policy on the war. The key figures on whom we have detailed
evidence are Kuniaki Koiso and Mamoru Shigemitsu, respectively premier
and foreign minister from July 1944 to April 1945; Kantaro Suzuki and Shigenori Togo, who took over these positions in April; Prince Fumimaro Konoye, an influential non-cabinet advisor;92and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
Koichi Kido, the emperor’s personal adviser. Of these, Suzuki was the most
important in the surrender decisions.
Changes in these leaders’ positions on surrender correspond only weakly
to increases in Japan’s civilian vulnerability. None of them changed their
views in response to the escalations of conventional bombing in November
1944 or March 1945, although several were influenced by the dropping of
the atomic bomb on August 6. By contrast, all of them were strongly influenced by the worsening of Japan’s military vulnerability, particularly the
invasion of Okinawa in April 1945, and the collapse of Japan’s war economy
during the summer.
CIVILIANS.
had an incentive to agree that air power had played the decisive role in bringing about the
surrender. For a collection of statements that conventional air power won the war assembled
by the Air Force from postwar interviews, see Mission Accomplished: Interrogations of lapanese
Industrial, Military and Civil Leaders of World War I1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. GPO, 1946). Despite
these difficulties, the fact that we know the likely direction of any bias helps us develop methods
which can separate more reliable from less reliable evidence. First, we should be more confident
of views if we have corroboration from two or more sources. In particular, we should rely more
strongly on statements made in official meetings, whose date and attendance can be verified,
and of which multiple accounts often exist, than on the accounts by single individuals of informal
conversations or of their private preferences. Second, we should give more credit to statements
that could not help the witness’s war crimes liability or reputation. Accordingly, an individual‘s
statement that he did not favor surrender until well after he assumed official responsibility (e.g.,
Premier Koiso, who consistently advocated seeking a decisive battle rather than surrender)
should be trusted, while a claim that he worked for surrender from the start of his tenure in
office (e.g., Premier Suzuki) should not be uncritically accepted. Similarly, claims that the
emperor was kept uninformed until late in the war may reflect attempts to preserve his reputation, although evidence from major government meetings of his statements favoring negotiations can probably be considered reliable. Third, our assessments of individuals‘ statements
should be affected by evidence of their previous preferences prior to their involvement in
surrender decisions. For example, Togo was well known as a member of the “peace party” from
an early stage in the war. By contrast, Suzuki was chosen as premier partly because the Army
saw him as more reliably committed to continuing the war than the major alternative candidate,
Prince Konoye. Indeed, Togo initially declined to enter Suzuki’s cabinet for this reason. Sigal,
Fighting to a Finish, p. 48. Taken together, these methods permit us to characterize Japanese
leaders’ views with fairly high confidence. Instances where codings remain uncertain despite
the best available evidence are noted in the text.
92. Konoye had been premier three times in the 1930s and was also considered for premier in
April 1945. Sigal, Fighting to a Finish, p. 46.
Why /upan Surrendered
I 181
The attitudes of civilian leaders were determined largely by their loss of
confidence in Japan’s ability to execute the Army’s Ketsu-Go plan. However,
some individuals required more evidence than others. Togo and Kid0 seem
to have lost confidence in Ketsu-Go in June 1945, while Suzuki appears to
have harbored hopes of inflicting a major defeat on American forces up until
the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Toshikazu Kase, foreign minister after the
war, emphasized the effect of military vulnerability as the primary concern
of Suzuki: ”The more the prime minister learned of the extensive depletion
of our war potential and our military helplessness the more convinced he
became of the hopelessness of our position.”93Suzuki himself told U.S. Air
Force interrogators that the fire-bombing of the cities by B-29s had been his
main concern, but if this were so he should have advocated surrender in
March, not
Further evidence of their primary focus on the military situation is that the
government never sacrificed military requirements to offset the miseries
being inflicted on the populace. While Japanese leaders frequently indicated
their sympathy for the hardships suffered by the general population in public
and private, they did not hesitate to shift burdens more heavily to civilians
when military requirements were unfulfilled. For example, Japanese leaders
were well aware that food shortages had caused per-capita consumption to
decline well below 2000 calories per day during 1945, but they nonetheless
ordered massive quantities to be stockpiled for the military to use in defending the homeland .y5
Prior to July 1944, when both civilian and military vulnerability was nil,
the civilian leadership did not favor surrender. Some senior statesmen like
Konoye, Kido, and Shigemitsu had growing doubts about Japan’s military
position in 1942 and 1943, and by the spring of 1944 had come to believe
that Japan could not ultimately win a war of attrition against the United
States. A principal factor in this change was a secret study completed in
February 1944 by Rear Admiral Sokichi Takagi, which showed that air, fleet,
and merchant marine losses had led to inescapable difficulties in acquiring
93. Toshikazu Kase, journey to the Missouri (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), p. 148.
94. Suzuki said, “It seemed to me unavoidable that in the long run Japan would be almost
destroyed by air attack so that merely on the basis of the B-29s alone I was convinced that Japan
should sue for peace.” Craven and Cate, The Pacific, p. 756.
95. Kase, journey to the Missouri, p. 196; USSBS, lapan’s Decision to Surrender; Saburo Hayaski
and Alvin Coox, Kogun: The lapanese A r m y in the Pacific War (Quantico, Va.: The Marine Corps
Association, 1959), p. 155.
I
International Security 18:2 282
essential imported material^.^^ Despite this, these leaders had no concrete
plans for surrender; instead, they spoke and behaved as ardent supporters
of continuing the war.
Following the loss of the Marianas in July 1944, several senior statesmen
called for Tojo’s resignation, leading to the cabinet’s fall on July 18. By this
point, some individual civilians had come to favor limited surrender, but the
civilians as a group still did not take action toward ending the war. Lord
Kido, for example, suggested that the new government should consider
concessions, but only ones that would provide some measure of victory for
Japan; in particular, Japan would retain Manchuria.97Shigemitsu, the new
foreign minister, suggested approaching the Soviet Union concerning mediation of a limited surrender, but the cabinet rejected this on the grounds that
excessive concessions would be required. However, Koiso, the new premier,
favored seeking a decisive victory in battle prior to opening negotiation^.^^
The successive increases in civilian vulnerability due to the escalations in
the bombing in November 1944 and March 1945 had no apparent effect on
the views of civilian leaders. For instance, during March the major topic
among the leaders was the prospect for a separate peace with China, not the
devastation caused by the fire bombings. The negotiations fell through because the Chinese demanded that Japan withdraw from China, open separate
negotiations over Manchuria, and make peace with the United States and
Britain.99There was still no consensus among the civilian leadership in favor
of any form of surrender.lo0
The civilian leadership first accepted the idea of limited surrender when
Okinawa was invaded in April 1945, raising Japan’s military vulnerability
from low to medium. The Koiso cabinet fell, and was replaced by a new
government that represented a compromise between civilians who wanted
to end the war and the Army who wanted to fight to the bitter end. With
Suzuki as premier to satisfy the Army and the dovish Togo as foreign min96. Takagi concluded that Japan could not possibly win the war and therefore should seek a
compromise peace. Butow, lapun’s Decision to Surrender, pp. 7-26.
97. Kid0 recorded these thoughts in his diary in January 1944, but did not act on them until
the fall of the government in July 1944. Sigal, Fighting to u Finish, pp. 30-31.
98. Ibid., pp. 33-38.
99. Butow, japan‘s Decision to Surrender, pp. 53-54.
100. One reason Konoye did not want to surrender was that he feared a leftist revolution in
the aftermath of defeat. He thought that the lower and middle ranks of the Army had been
infiltrated by communist sympathizers who would use surrender as an excuse to revolt. Kid0
thought Konoye’s fears exaggerated, although not wholly without foundation. It appears that
there was never any evidence of actual leftist penetration into the Army. See ibid., p. 50.
I
Why Japan Surrendered 183
ister, the new government’s policy was to prepare for a tenacious defense of
the home islands while simultaneously exploring opportunities to obtain
peace on acceptable terms. Togo, supported by Kid0 and Navy Minister
Mitsumasa Yonai, advocated approaching the Soviet Union for mediation
and offering substantial concessions, including all of Manchuria. Suzuki went
along, but supported Army demands that the primary objective should be
obtaining Soviet aid rather than exploring surrender terms. Suzuki’s more
hawkish position may have been accounted for by his belief that Japan could
continue to fight two or three more years.*O’
In June, when Okinawa fell and communications with the mainland became impossible, the civilians began to accept the idea of flexible surrender.
They preferred to drop efforts to gain Soviet assistance and to concentrate
on getting Soviet mediation for terms other than unconditional surrender. lo2
&do was willing to pursue peace through mediation regardless of the price
Japan would have to pay.’O3 Togo got Suzuki and Yonai to agree to send
Konoye as a special emissary to Moscow. Konoye agreed to go to Moscow
despite the risk of assassination by military diehards, and was instructed by
Togo to “try for anything at all short of unconditional ~ u r r e n d e r . ” However,
’~~
the civilian leaders had not yet reached the point of accepting immediate
unconditional surrender, as evidenced by the unanimous rejection by the
Japanese government of the Potsdam Proclamation.
The final straws, which led to acceptance of immediate surrender, were
the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6 and the Soviet attack on
August 9, which raised both civilian and military vulnerability to very high
levels. Immediately after learning about Hiroshima, Togo asked Suzuki to
convene an emergency meeting of the Supreme War Council, and also went
to the emperor to advocate accepting unconditional surrender.Io5 Suzuki,
however, did not come around to this viewpoint until the Soviet attack on
August 9. Informed that Manchuria would be quickly overrun, Suzuki replied, ”Is the Kwantung Army that weak? Then the game is up.”*06While
Kid0 and Konoye supported the decision to surrender, there is no evidence
101. Togo personally thought any hope of Soviet assistance was a chimera. Sigal, Fighting to a
Finish, pp. 48, 50-54; Butow, japan’s Decision to Surrender, pp. 86-89.
102. Iriye, Power and Culture, pp. 257-260.
103. Butow, japan‘s Decision to Surrender, p. 88, fn 33.
104. Sigal, Fighting to a Finish, pp. 76-78.
105. The meeting was not held, because the military representatives refused to attend. Ibid.,
p. 237.
106. Quoted in ibid., p. 226.
I
international Security 18:2 184
as to exactly when they came to this view. Thus, for this final change in
civilian views, it is impossible to determine whether military or civilian
vulnerability had the greatest impact.
EMPEROR. The emperor’s views on surrender were dominated by military
vulnerability, although his final shift to immediate surrender was triggered
by the atomic bomb.
Prior to February 1945, the emperor took no role in trying to end the war.
He was described afterwards by major Japanese officials as having been
largely uninformed, but since they had powerful incentives to protect the
emperor’s reputation, it is not clear whether these reports represent the truth
or whether they were intended to mask the emperor’s actual support for the
war.
During February 1945, the emperor held a series of meetings with senior
Japanese statesmen about Japan’s war situation and plans for the future.
Although several advised him that the situation was serious, no one recommended surrender. The emperor took no action in response to the advice
other than commissioning a study of Japan’s military capabilities by Admiral
Hasegawa.lo7
The first change in the emperor’s position occurred in June, when he came
to favor flexible surrender. As late as a cabinet conference on June 8, the
emperor was still committed to waging a decisive battle on the home islands.
However, when the emperor received Hasegawa’s report on June 12, he was
shocked by its contents. Not only was production low as a result of inadequate facilities and a shortage of raw materials, but also much of what did
roll off the assembly line was defective. Morale was sufficiently high to
continue, but basic capabilities were not. As a result, the final battles would
fail. Army Chief of Staff Umezu also presented an appraisal which, although
concluding that the final battles would be victorious, detailed at length Japan’s abundant military weaknesses.
Following these revelations, on June 20 the emperor told Togo that the
reports from Hasegawa and Umezu had convinced him that the military’s
preparations, in both China and Japan, were so inadequate as to make it
necessary to end the war without delay. On June 22, the emperor suddenly
summoned the key cabinet officials and personally opened the proceedings
by declaring that it was necessary to consider means other than the Army’s
107. Butow, lapan‘s Decision to Surrender, pp. 43-50.
Why Japan Surrendered
I 185
strategy to end the war.108Since the emperor did not explicitly discuss possible surrender terms, it is difficult to say whether his position at this stage
is best described as limited or flexible surrender. However, one piece of
evidence points to the more conciliatory position. On July 7, he suggested
to Suzuki that the government send a special envoy to Moscow, probably
knowing that Togo and Konoye intended that the envoy seek any terms
short of unconditional surrender.’09
The second and final change in the emperor’s views was caused by the
Hiroshima bomb, which increased Japan’s civilian vulnerability. Kid0 reports
that when the emperor received the first reports, he said, ”Under these
circumstances, we must bow to the inevitable. No matter what happens to
my safety, we must put an end to this war as speedily as possible so that
this tragedy will not be repeated.” The emperor also sent Togo to ask Suzuki
to secure a prompt end to the war.110
While the atomic bomb was the catalyst of the emperor’s decision, his
statement to the cabinet meeting at which surrender was decided on the
night of August 9-10 stressed Japan’s military vulnerability. He said:
I cannot bear to see my innocent people suffer any longer. Ending the war
is the only way to restore world peace and to relieve the nation from the
terrible distress with which it is burdened.
I was told by those advocating a continuation of hostilities that by June,
new divisions would be placed in fortified positions at Kujukurihama so that
they would be ready for the invader when he sought to land. It is now
August and the fortifications still have not been completed. Even the equipment for the divisions which are to fight is insufficient and reportedly will
not be adequate until after the middle of September. Furthermore, the promised increase in the production of aircraft has not progressed in accordance
with expectations.
There are those who say that the key to national survival lies in a decisive
battle in the homeland. The experience of the past, however, shows that
there has always been a discrepancy between plans and performance. I do
not believe that the discrepancy in the case of Kujukurihama can be rectified.
Since this is the shape of things, how can we repel the invaders?l’l
108. Ibid., pp. 117-119.
109. As of mid-June, Kid0 had arranged for Togo to report directly to the emperor. Sigal,
Fighting to a Finish, pp. 234-236.
110. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender, p. 152; Sigal, Fighting to a Finish, p. 237.
111. Kujukuri is near Tokyo, on the Boso Peninsula. The most detailed reconstructions of the
emperor‘s speech are nearly identical. See Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender, p. 175; Thomas
M. Coffee, lmperial Tragedy: Japan in World War 11, the First Days and the Last (New York: World
Publishing Co., 1970), p. 354.
I
International Security 18:2 186
Thus, the emperor’s argument was that, because defense of the homeland
was hopeless, Japan was compelled to surrender to avoid pointless losses.
MILITARY. The views of senior military leaders, the most important group
in the surrender decision, were completely determined by military vulnerability. Army leaders were extremely resistant to any form of surrender. They
did not accept even limited surrender prior to the fall of Okinawa in June
1945, and accepted immediate surrender only after the Russian attack on
August 9.
Of the two services, the Army was dominant, and almost unanimous in
its views from War Minister General Korechika Anami and Chief of Staff
General Umezu on down. Some junior officers were, if anything, even more
committed to refusing surrender.l12 On the other hand, the Navy was divided. Some Navy leaders such as Chief of Staff Admiral Soemu Toyoda
consistently supported the Army line. Others, such as Admiral Yonai, supported the more dovish civilian line, although they based their arguments
for surrender entirely on Japan’s military ~ituation.”~
The Navy, given its
basic political weakness and internal divisions, could play no organized role
in opposition to the Army’s no-surrender policy.
Until June 1945, the Army opposed any form of surrender. When the new
government was being formed in April, the Army vetoed the more peaceoriented Konoye as premier in favor of Suzuki and even then demanded
guarantees that the cabinet would continue to prosecute the war fully if any
overtures were made to the Soviets. The Army also agreed to an approach
to the Soviets only on condition that the objective would be obtaining military
aid, not diplomatic mediation.
After Okinawa fell in June 1945, the Army relaxed its formerly irreconcilable commitment to avoid surrender at all costs, and accepted limited surrender. The Army agreed to permit overtures to the Soviets to seek peace,
but Anami insisted that since Japan was still holding most of the territory it
had conquered, it had not lost the war and peace terms had to reflect that
fact.114Similarly, both Togo, a strong supporter of surrender, and Toyoda, a
strong obstacle to surrender, testified that by the end of July no one (including
Umezu and Anami) was opposed to the Potsdam terms providing certain
additional terms were attached. 115
112.
113.
114.
115.
Senior leaders feared insubordination in case of surrender.
Butow, Japan‘s Decision to Surrender, pp. 159-165.
Sigal, Fighting to a Finish, p. 78.
Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender, p. 161.
Why Japan Surrendered
I 187
When Japan's military vulnerability became very high following the Soviet
attack on Manchuria, the Army's commitment to Ketsu-Go finally evaporated. Army and pro-war Navy officials had recognized the weakness of
Japan's resource base for some time.116This, however, did not influence their
views on surrender until the Soviet entry, after which the military chose not
to veto the surrender. Prior to August 9, the Army led the cabinet to reject
the Potsdam Proclamation. When Suzuki called a cabinet meeting on August
8 to discuss reports of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, it had to be cancelled
because the Army representatives claimed to have had "more pressing business." The next day, after the Soviet invasion had begun although before the
Nagasaki bombing had occurred, the Army agreed to a special meeting of
the Supreme War C o ~ n c i l . " ~
Even at this point, Anami, Umezu, and Toyoda all argued that Japan
should not surrender without certain conditions. However, following a direct
plea from the emperor, they no longer blocked the civilians' efforts to make
peace, which they had the power to do. Anami could simply have refused
to endorse the emperor's decision since, under the Meiji constitution, cabinet
decisions required unanimous consent. Alternatively, Anami could have resigned, which would have dissolved the government, effectively vetoing the
decision for surrender, because a new government could not be formed
without the Army's approval of a new war minister.118
In comparison to the Soviet entry, the atomic bomb had little or no impact
on the Army's position. First, the Army initially denied that the Hiroshima
blast had been an atomic bomb. Second, they went to great lengths to
downplay its importance. When Togo raised it as an argument for surrender
on August 7, Anami explicitly rejected it. Finally, the Army vigorously argued
that minor civilian defense measures could offset the bomb's effects. Interviewed after the war, Toyoda said, "I believe the Russian participation in the
war against Japan rather than the atom bombs did more to hasten the
~urrender.""~Similarly, Army Vice-Chief of Staff Torashiro Kawabe said,
"Since Tokyo was not directly affected by the bombing, the full force of the
116. As early ...
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