That’s history for you, before you know it you are part of it 
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That’s a good thing to say. The more I covered the war in 1941-42, the more I realized the similarities in news coverage to the coverage of the War on Terror in 2001-02. Pretty interesting, ain’t it?
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I sense kindered spirits, I guess
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Nice! 
Make sure to go through that thread and please note, most of the articles are incomplete so would you mind helping me out by editing them? I have the newspapers written in the first posts of certain days (Check out the Pittsburgh Press archive on Google)
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My friend, you’ll get nothing substantial from that dreck. Even my college professor, a Stone fan, shredded it to pieces back in the day.
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I will ask Spartacus
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Make sure to give an officer’s rank if this hassle continues
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You can have my leader rank, you deserve it! Note: I already chewed up all the cookies in the officers lounge 
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Oh thanks. 
Still haven’t received my wiki abilities back tho.
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I would take issue with your claim that I’ll “get nothing substantial from that dreck.” I never gave an opinion about the Oliver Stone series as a whole. I simply referenced it as the original source I encountered to the topic at hand. So, my friend, from that point, I would argue that I did get something substantial from it.
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Oh I see. It’s just I personally don’t consider Stone to be a reliable source, I’m sorry.
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Hello Harry,
What you are suggesting here is born out by official documents from the Japanese Imperial Archives. Despite what we have been told, the atomic weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not what forced the hand of the Japanese. Frankly the firebombing of Tokyo had been more destructive of life and material than either nuclear weapon. In their own words, the Japanese high command feared invasion by the USSR and the subsequent execution of the Emperor and the eternal shame of the nation of Japan as a result. (One might also suppose that the USSR seemed the greater of the various evils). Soviet attacks in Manchuria unilaterally overwhelmed the best remaining troops in Japan’s Army within a fortnight. Soviet operations on Sakhalin and the Kuriles were also rapidly successful, and in the case of Sakhalin continued after the official Japanese surrender, much to the annoyance of the Russians. While the Western Allies like to point to the use of nuclear weapons as the knock-out blow, this was not the thinking of the Japanese in their own documents.
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Thank you for your input! Nice to see you agree on the matter! I cannot emphasize enough how much both major victors of ww2 already were engaging into the conflict, we call the Cold War, which was not so cold, considering all the tragic casualties it did produce: never forget!
Again I really appreciate your added comments on my topic and I believe that it is very important to stay unbiased when we discuss history, although that can be a challenge sometimes
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Interesting points, do you have links to primary sources like mine to the surrender speech of Hiro Hito were he mentions the bomb as the main cause of surrender.
Japan as the ones on the receiving end of the A bomb always argue understandable against it. Japanese history of the bomb never even show no context and “forget” the Japanese “A-bomb projects”, the Navy and Army had their own. The Army project was actually annihilated by the Tokyo bombing ( by accident).
The Soviets had a much better land Army they had showed In 1939 and the 1945 attack was successful but the did not have the naval assets to go against mainland Japan
Japanese historians mention indeed the invasion of Sakhalin Island as “evidence”. Well see the treaty of Portsmouth, Japan invaded Sakhalin in 1905 and remained on the part below the 50th parallel. On the 11th August the Soviets started a land offensive to get it back. This went on after the 15th August as the Soviets were grabbing territory.
The Kuriles are another example. Gee it was invaded causing the Japanese to surrender (revisionist “historians” tend to forget dates or print August 1945 which is technically correct. The 18th August 1945 was however after the surrender speech and Hiro-Hito was in no position to restart a war just against the Soviets. (well they did join the anti-Soviet coalition much later.
So in my view, yes the A-bomb is horrible, the Japanese had a rightful fear of being colonised but the A-bomb made their strategy to defeat The Allied invasion unattainable. The Americans would eventually nuke away any opposition. Glad the latter never happed.
Ps I know these Japanese text can be very convincing. On of my school assignment was to examine a revisionist work on Nanking and we really had to Double check everything with prime sources .
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Almost happened nearly six years later with China, though. Truman said no.
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Again, I simply state that the atomic bomb was not the main reason for Japan to surrender but it was the shock and awe, Stalin delivered by launching his own ‘Blitzkrieg’, or as the Germans themselves called it ‘Bewegungskrieg’ against the Japanese forces, making it a desperate struggle, even Japanese courage and determination would not be able to counter. Saving face and the position of the emperor was, as ever in Japanese thinking, paramount, so the Soviet attack really, imho, was the cout de gras.
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It is known that the USA had no more capability to produce more than the two bombs and needed at least a few months to reproduce a new bomb. Immatterial, as so rightly is pointed out: the firebombing on a large scale was much more lethal and destructive as such.
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Thanks for the reply
I totally agree that the 8th of August start must have some impact I presume. I do try to weed out bad arguments from good ones. Adding bad arguments even if there are many actually damages the case. I had this discussion with anti-bomb protesters a lot, rethinking nuclear weapons is fine, just bashing the people who decided to use the atomic bomb to win the war alienates possible Allies. The same goes for the Japanese efforts to lend Atomic Bomb displays to museums and at the same time demand that the link between Pearl Harbor, concentration camps of unit 794 should not be made in the display. Note I defended the Japanese view on decolonization and also made it clear that Japan had good reason to be threatened. I also asked Formless777 for links to those documents! Next post is timeline
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Thank you as well for your reply! It is always good to see, read and feel there is mutual respect within this great army and I commend you on your great contribution!
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Just building up a small (tell me it if is incorrect of a timeline). Possible the Soviet Union war declaration of 8th August cannot be separated from the bomb:
Situation 1939 The Soviets Crushed the Japanese and easily one
1941 USSR-Japan have a non-aggression pact
1942-1945 Weinberg makes the very believable claim that there was an unwritten understanding that if the Japanese leave the Lend-Lease convoys to the USSR alone the Soviets would decline US requests to put Airbasis in Wladivostok and other nearby Japan places. (that would have helped the Allies greatly.
Early 1945, we are certain that the Soviets spied on the US nuclear program and Almost certain they did the same on the Japanese Army nuclear program in Tokio and the Navy Nuclear program in Korea (the didn’t cooperate) . According to Wienberg the latter likely to the best of our knowledge attained fission and surely was ahead of Germany. But the important thing, Stalin knew and unless he was stupid acted on it.
July 16th 1945 First nuke explodes in New Mexico and some of the scientist are happy they did not accidently destroy the planet. (No one really was a 100.0 % sure of the chain effects.
6 August Hiroshima, Trumann DID State they used an atomic bomb and would keep dropping them on Japan. Some of the Japanese leadership assumed or hoped the US had only one which is not unreasonable actually.
8th August The Soviet Union declares war on Japan. I can’t mindread Stalin but he might have prepared for this offensive before the 6th of August. I it kind off hard to organize in 2 days and I guess he wanted to grab a lot of territory including the Nuke program in Korea.
9th August Bomb number 2 while the Japanese leadership was discussing what to do after the bomb 1 + USSR.
10th August, the Japanese accept the terms or at least seriously start negotiating but want to keep the Emperor. Actually this is the point were the Soviets had the impact.
12th August, the USSR starts a land war to get Sakhalin back (This has no impact on August 10 and as Russia owned Sakhalin before it was kind of expected)
15th August Surrender Japan, Hiro- Hito explicitly mentions the bomb and threat of total annihilation. I am not sure about the A-bomb being more lethal but it also has a nasty thing called radiation poisoning. Where I live there are still some cold war bunkers and you could shelter in those but not go out because of radiation poisoning. Anyway Hiro Hito mentioned the bomb and I am most interested in prime sources who argue that it really was the bomb but then again the Soviet invasion seems to have been coordinated and surely didn’t help.
The bomb maybe just made a “more sellable” excuse? I mean the “we are not scared of the Russians but can’t do anything about the A-bomb argument?” Maybe there was less shame in surrendering to a “A-Bomb”.
Further timeline:
The Sakhalin war happily went on after the Japanese surrendered and as it had been Russian territory before the Allies probably couldn’t care much and were not incline to start a war with the Soviet Union,
The Kuriles were invaded after Japan surrendered that in my view makes it a bad argument as the invasion of Guersney was also unsuprisingly successful after the other side had given up. (not entirely comparable but you get the point).
Oh and I know most history books tell us that they Allies were out of bombs but there was a fourth one (New Mex, Hiroshima, and the Kokura one which was diverted to Nagasaki due to bad weather (or actaully really good weather for the Kokurians)
I am still not sure what delivered the most and the situation was incredibly complex and the Japanese had to make decisions about a Empire which had existed for thousands of years in a matter of days…
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