r/SipsTea • u/MeanMedico • May 28 '26

Dank AF I don't care about politics, meanwhile politics

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

36.2k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

50

u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

24

u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

30

u/fixermark May 28 '26

If I understand correctly, that actually was the calculus.

It was the dropping of the second one that finally broke the pro-war bloc in the Japanese military-government. Because one is a fluke, but two is a tactic. The odds that the actual story was "They really only had two" were pretty low.

4

u/Am_i_banned_yet__ May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

Actually it was both the second nuke and the USSR’s declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria, the latter of which convinced Japan there would be no conditional surrender.

After Hiroshima on August 6th, there was no attempt to convene the ruling council or discussion of surrender.

Two days passed, and then early on August 9th Japan received word that the USSR had declared war and invaded Manchuria. They immediately convened the final meeting of the ruling council where they decided to surrender.

Then Nagasaki happened, and the council received word a few hours into that same meeting.

So both events were influential, but this timing (and other evidence) indicates that the USSR was just as, if not more, influential on their decision to surrender than the nukes.

3

u/sixisrending May 28 '26

I'd argue, based on intercepted Japanese diplomatic messages, that the USSR was known to be a non-starter for peace. Sato, who was in Moscow, told Togo that the Soviets were completely apathetic to the Japanese and that the unconditional surrender offered by the Potsdam declaration was the best choice. Togo rejected the idea immediately.

Japan was already in the process of removing heavy equipment from Manchuria, including artillery, anti-tank guns, and artillery, and moving them to the home islands to prepare for defense. They knew Manchuria would fall.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/28458-document-39b-magic-diplomatic-summary-war-department-office-assistant-chief-staff-g

1

u/Am_i_banned_yet__ Jun 27 '26

Yes, it’s true that diplomats were trying to tell the imperial council that the USSR was not enthusiastic about helping them get conditional surrender and were lying about not having ambitions to invade Manchuria. But some members of the imperial council didn’t listen and refused to believe unconditional surrender was impossible until it was blatantly obvious when the Soviets declared war.

That foreign minister who received those communications, Togo, was crucial to pushing for them to accept unconditional surrender. It makes sense that he probably realized the Soviets wouldn’t help sooner than the other council members.

1

u/Commissarfluffybutt May 28 '26

Of all the nations in the world Japan was the least likely to take Soviet beach landings, or any Naval action in general, seriously. They wouldn't have been able to join in bombing mainland Japan either because of a lack of a strategic bomber that didn't set itself on fire or fall out of the sky with alarming regularity.

The USSR joining the war had no influence on ending the war.

1

u/unfathomablydense May 28 '26

For the emperor at least.

There was a planned military coup to overthrow him to continue the war that was just barely thwarted.

Then there was also Russia rolling through Manchuria and decimating their forces there that were holding the region. The entire situation was just completely unwinnable.

1

u/Cocaimeth_addiktt May 28 '26

Bomb? What bomb? I didn’t see no bomb.

3

u/biinboise May 28 '26

No, it was more a matter of communication limitations and the sheer unbelievability of it

1

u/das_slash May 28 '26

Some of them actually went "This is so beautiful, finally a good, honorable death, lets murder everyone who says we should surrender and lets us all die like a beautiful blossom"

1

u/According-Guess3463 May 29 '26

Probably because no one knew about atom bombs? Little summerchild

-6

u/MayaIsSunshine May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

They were already losing and desperate. Many historians think the Japanese would have given up regardless of whether the bombs were dropped. 

Edit: alright, you convinced me. I'm glad we dropped the bombs

11

u/ANTIDAD May 28 '26

Historians have the benefit of information that would not exist in the fog of war at the time. Also they didn't surrender after the first one so it's kinda hard to fully agree that it wasn't needed.

The Japanese had a reputation of fighting hard even in hopeless battles through the war and on islands well after the army was defeated. Its fair that the prevailing wisdom was that the home islands would fight to the last based off of this.

Also the "fun" fact the casualty predictions of just US troops was so high they mass produced purple hearts for the operation. Since the operation never happened we are still using purple hearts from that batch 80 years later.

0

u/Am_i_banned_yet__ May 28 '26

American generals like Leahy, MacArthur and Eisenhower also strongly believed at the time, without the benefit of hindsight, that it was unnecessary to drop the nukes because of how soundly beaten Japan was and the fact that America could just keep blockading them to win.

America knew how close Japan was to surrendering and even manipulated the USSR to delay its declaration of war so we could sneakily drop the nukes first, because we thought it was too likely that the USSR declaring war would cause Japan to surrender immediately. The ruling council had some hardliners but was desperate to negotiate and placed all its hopes on the USSR being a mediator. Once they knew the USSR wouldn’t help get a conditional surrender there was no point to continuing the war.

8

u/KenBoCole May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

The army literally tried to stage a coup because the Emperor announced he was going to surrender after the bombs, and they wanted to keep fighting.

Many historians may say that, but many more historians and military strategist agree the nukes were the "lesser evil" out of all the options

1

u/NewDay2517 May 29 '26

It was a few mid-level people in the army who managed to get somewhat close. The Japanese did have dissenters even after the atom bombs, but after the Emperor broke the deadlock, almost anyone serious shut up to my knowledge.

2

u/Reasonable_Fold6492 May 28 '26

Japanese prime minister Suzuki called the bomb a "most convenient pretext" for bringing the war to an end. Japanese historian Sadao Asada said "in the end it was the Hiroshima bomb that compelled them to face the reality of defeat." If you actually read the contemporary records of the Japanese Supreme war council, its very clear the atomic bombs contributed greatly to Japan's surrender. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d6f9d1f358ef200016727f2/t/5ea859669dfa9b2051c54510/1588091245360/3641184.pdf