Why Japan surrendered in 1945?

[chrischa]

And Josh's analysis of the Asian mentality is spot on. In Europe, similar mentality exists in the Balkans.

I'm afraid all I picked up from Josh's comments and anecdotes are that the east is still in a place where my country was a thousand years ago and that it is accepted.

But I do agree with Josh, in that I think the West view the East very differently. Forget the logistics and land locked countries, etc I do not believe for one moment the allies would have used the Atomic bomb on Germany.
And, although the bombing of Japan gave a clear message to the USSR, I believe it was the right thing to do. Allied lives would still have been lost.

(Personal anecdote, my Grandfather was a Chief Petty officer serving in the pacific who was still being attacked up to the end. I'm sure him and his mates were of the opinion to bomb Japan).

[jerryrehr]

I smell a Nick here.
Jerry

[Seigfried]

I find this "apology demand" very silly as well

Really? So why have the Germans bent over backwards to apologise and atone for their behaviour leading upto and during WW2. By apologising they are admitting that they were wrong.

The Japanese have never apologised (therefore proving that they think that what they did was acceptable), and do not mention it in their school syllabus.

I went to the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Kanchanaburi, the link is here if you can be bothered:

http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/...WAR%20CEMETERY

Nearby is a museum about the area during the war - a sanitised museum that did nothing to describe the barbarity of the japs during the war, so as not to offend jap tourists who know nothing about what actually happened. I vocally registered my disgust at this revisionism, much to my wife's embarrassment but we owe it to all the POWs and civilians tortured and murdered by the japs not to forget what happened.

You say it is normal and acceptable for them to behave this way, well it is normal and acceptable for the west to bomb them out of existence for starting the war in the first place. If the japs had had an atom bomb they'd have dropped it on the allies without a second's hesitation.

[chrischa]

Good post John.

[Peter J.]

"Really? So why have the Germans bent over backwards to apologise and atone for their behaviour leading upto and during WW2. By apologising they are admitting that they were wrong."

Perhaps because the Germans realized that they probably were in the wrong. Denying it would be as stupid to sa KZ-camps never existed. Bare in mind they were also raised in a west -civilisation inviroment.

My comment about Ulysses Grant went into oblivion. Perhaps some elaboration as to how he as a leading American military enforcer believed the waging of war should be conducted. Then we can go from there throwing stuff left or right.

cheers
Peter

[Totenhead]

Good post John.

Good post, I agree

But whom has had the last laugh.... as we drive around in our Japanese cars, or ride our Japanese motorcycles, and sit at home watching our Japanese TVs, the list goes on..............

[Robert Shoaf]

"Really? So why have the Germans bent over backwards to apologise and atone for their behaviour leading upto and during WW2. By apologising they are admitting that they were wrong."

Perhaps because the Germans realized that they probably were in the wrong. Denying it would be as stupid to sa KZ-camps never existed. Bare in mind they were also raised in a west -civilisation inviroment.

My comment about Ulysses Grant went into oblivion. Perhaps some elaboration as to how he as a leading American military enforcer believed the waging of war should be conducted. Then we can go from there throwing stuff left or right.

cheers
Peter

The "war is hell" quote is attributed to Gen. William T.Sherman, in a postwar speech, not to U.S.Grant.
What, exactly, is a "military enforcer"?

Bob Shoaf

[Peter J.]

Bob, my bad. Posting late isn't perhaps such a good idea. Of course I meant the "military leader" Gen. Sherman.

If I'm not mistaken his perception of how to wage war was simple i.g. no fighting forces without a working homefront (the raid through Georgia being a good example). As a coinsidence, the first Geneva convention dealing with warfare came into ecistence that exact year (1864). It wasn't before Hitler's invading troops stood in front of Moskow, when Stalin offered to sign the Geneva convention. We all know how much that meant.

Point made: we as "civilized westerners" shouldn't place ourselves morally higher than any other group of people in the world. Either way, the book in question was IMHO not written to establish who are the biggest a-holes, but rather to show the reasons as to why Japan actually capitulated at a specific date.

cheers
Peter

[pasoleati]

Really? So why have the Germans bent over backwards to apologise and atone for their behaviour leading upto and during WW2. By apologising they are admitting that they were wrong.

Because it means the acceptance of the "collective guilt" concept which is against everything in the western judicial tradition. Basically people who as individuals did not commit a single crime are making an apology. The concept of collective guilt is the key e.g. to the Holocaust: As we know, Hitler blamed the Jews for the loss in WW1. Now, undoubtely there were some individuals who did so (aided the enemy war effort in WW1) while happening to be also Jewish. Now, in Hitler's collective guilt concept this meant that instead of judging individuals by their individual actions, all Jews were to be lumped in one lot and declare them all collectively guilty. The same collective guilt concept was also deeply rooted in Bolshevism.

Second, why should only the losing side apologize?

[pasoleati]

I have not studied the war in Japan in detail I admit, but did not the fire bombing of Tokyo by the USAAF kill as many civilians as the first atomic bomb??

Yes. E.g. Chester Marshall's B-29 book mentions a death toll of some 80,000 civilians.

[pasoleati]

"If one really compares the Pearl Harbor attack to nuclear bombing a city one is beyond help".
I will do my best to reframe from a rebuttal as this conversation is obviously going nowhere, but please show me where I compared Pearl Harbor, which was an attack on a "neutral" country without declaring war, to nuclear bombing? My message, not comparison, was simply and direct; Japan made the first attack which resulted in the U.S entering the war, that's all. Note I didn't (and won't) go into war crimes as that topic is very subjective and sensitive to most. Such a conversation will only yield a argument rather than a healthy debate and that's not why I am here.

When Japan launched a surprise attack aganist Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, both British and U.S. media praised it with comments like "a brilliant stroke"etc (Liddel-Hart quotes many similar comments in his WW2 history). None of them spoke of a "day of infamy". So, it surely gives an impression of double standards to hail an act if it were against Russians but condemn if it were against Americans.

And, quite a many observers of that time considered U.S. pre-war policy against Japan a virtual declaration of war. E.g. Herbert Hoover felt that way.

And finally, whether one is attacked without a declaration of war, the Geneva and Hague conventions on warfare still apply!

[gadaru_kanaru]

Yes. E.g. Chester Marshall's B-29 book mentions a death toll of some 80,000 civilians.

From Robert McNamara's New York Times obit. He worked with Curtis LeMay as a stastistical analyzer in the USAAF.

“We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo — men, women and children,” Mr. McNamara recalled; some 900,000 Japanese civilians died in all. “LeMay said, ‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.’ And I think he’s right. He — and I’d say I — were behaving as war criminals.”

“What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” he asked. He found the question impossible to answer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us...anted=all&_r=0

[Seigfried]

Second, why should only the losing side apologize?

Err...because they started it in the first place??

[Seigfried]

And finally, whether one is attacked without a declaration of war, the Geneva and Hague conventions on warfare still apply!

That is rich! Did the japs abide by the Geneva Convention? They launch an unprovoked attack on the US, Singapore etc murdering and raping as they went, and then hide behind the Law of Armed Conflict when it is getting a bit too tasty for them! Face it they got some of their own medicine back in spades and didn't like it - well tough sh*t.

[codytrcollector]

Well said in your last two post, John. Japan attacked the United States first, unprovoked and without declaring war, period. Everything after that is clearly debatable and something I'll leave to you all-though I feel this is a situation were it's best to agree to disagree and move on. All sides commit mistakes and unthinkable atrocities during time of war, this we know.