education about atomic bomb

Education about history is important. I would like to know how are you tought about atomic bomb in your country. Maybe different countries teach different way. Especially I'm interested in American way.

I'm afraid that you are going to be disappointed. American elementary and secondary history education is so thin that the joke goes like this: American students are taught that the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which caused the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, after which we occupied Japan and showed you how to build automobiles and radios.

all the best

I am a US citizen, and my view on what I was taught is the following.

The US considered an invasion of Japan after the massive strategic bombing campaign of the major cities failed to produce a Japanese surrender. Military planners estimated that the number of American casualties produced by an invasion of Japan would be over one million. Given the availability of the new bomb, Truman decided in favor of using it instead of invading. The first bomb produced no Japanese surrender. Therefore the second one was dropped, after which the Japanese gov. surrendered.

Every school teaches it a bit differently Yoshinori, or not at all. What I'd be interested in is how Japan teaches the history of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan.

Does Japanese history say anything about the attack on Pearl Harbor for instance?

Thanks, Corky Scott

According to President Truman and the Joint Chiefs. the Magic summaries(see note) we were reading indicated the Japanese were not about to surrender thus making it necessary for us to use the A bomb.

We knew from the Magic decrypts that the Japanese home islands were to be defended from invasion and occupation by 2.3 million troops, another four million Army and Navy employees and a newly created armed militia numbering 25 million. These defenders were sworn to fight to the death, which so many Japanese troops had done in battles throughout the Pacific.

To effectively invade and occupy Japan, American strategists foresaw two invasions, scheduled for November 1945 and March 1946. The first invasion, on the island of Kyushu would employ some 770,000 American troops. The follow-up invasion on the plains of Tokyo, leading to the forced occupation of Japan, called for two million American troops.

On July 4, 1945, the British agree to the use of the atomic bomb against Japan. On July 16, during the Potsdam Conference, the first A-bomb was successfully tested. A way had been found to end the war quickly and decisively. This was the situation on July 26 when the US, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration to Japan to surrender unconditionally, 'The alternative,' said the declaration, 'is complete and utter destruction.

This is what the Americans President Truman, Secretary of War Stimson and Gen. Marshall knew the day before the first atom bomb fell on Japan. Confronted by an enemy leadership that was self-deluded, neither prepared to surrender nor to negotiate seriously, the Americans decided that the only way to end the war quickly would be to use overwhelming force: nuclear weapons.

Two bombs were dropped. The Russians invaded Manchuria. On August 10, Emperor Hirohito overruled his militarist advisors and accepted the Potsdam declaration. Japan surrendered.

Note:

Under the code name MAGIC, the United States produced summaries and transcripts of intercepted and deciphered messages between the Japanese Foreign office and its key personnel and allies throughout the world from 1938 to 1945.

Sources: 'Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire' By Richard B. Frank, an article 'Why Truman Bombed Hiroshima' from the Wall Street Journal, By Bruce Lee, and 'MAGIC the untold story', by David Lowman

Jim Carew

Not only is history taught differently in different countries it's taught differently within different regions of the same country. The way history is taught and what's taught and what's not taught changes too. I grew up and went to school in small town English speaking Canada during the 50s and 60s so my experiences are based on that period. At the time most of our fathers were WWII veterans so history was taught almost exclusively from the perspective of the allies and the western allies at that. No teachers would have had the nerve to teach revisionist bullshit even if they wanted to.

In regards to your question little was taught about the development of the bomb when I was in school. I don't think any of my teachers mentioned the Manhattan project and certainly none mentioned anything about the Canadian nuclear program and Canadian contributions, most probably because they didn't know. More recently it's come to light than many of the natives who dug uranium ore in the Northwest Territories died of cancer which is believed to be a result of their exposure.

In regards to the actual use of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we were taught that it was necessary as Japan wouldn't surrender. The fanaticism of the Kamikazes was cited as an example. We were also taught that people who were killed died in no worse a manner than people who died in conventional raids but that the people who lived suffered from radiation burns and illnesses that were unprecedented and unexpected. We weren't taught an awful lot about it but we were taught about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Japanese atrocities. The general consenus was that using the A-bombs was horrible but given the perfidity of the Japanese attacks, the brutality of the Japanese soldiers and Japanese fanaticism, their use was an ugly necessity.

Every school teaches it a bit differently Yoshinori, or not at all. What I'd be interested in is how Japan teaches the history of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan.

Does Japanese history say anything about the attack on Pearl Harbor for instance?

Thanks, Corky Scott

There are really two schools of thought about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in the USA. The more conventional runs along the lines that the Americans expected fanatical resistance in invading Japan, based on the fanatacism of the Kamikazes, the thousands of Japanese soldiers who were fighting to death against hopeless odds on several of the islands, and the civilians who through themselves off cliffs (on Okinawa?). The bomb and its effects were not understood well, since only one bomb was tested before they were dropped in combat, and that was in July of 1945. Few people saw the explosion to get any idea of what it was like. For the most part, military men just thought we had a new and better weapon. Some even suggested using them during the invasion of Japan-drop the bomb on the beach and then send in the troops behind it. The other thread is that use of the bomb was inhumane. Some of the scientists who helped build it actually sent Truman a letter requesting that it not be used. They thought is was just too terrible.

To think the war in Japan would have ended quickly and relatively bloodless, without the use of the 'atom Bomb(s)' is naive in the extreme. Remember it took *two* to get the message delivered.

I am firmly in the camp that says dropping the bomb(s) was the correct decision at that time. A TV movie about Harry Truman has him commenting something like 'What would I say to the mothers of America who lost sons in the invasion if they found I had the bomb and the power to use it.' (Not a direct quote by any stretch, but it conveys the idead.

And that almost didn't work.

Read 'Downfall' and 'Japan's Longest Day'. It was sheer luck that the coup attempt the night before the surrender failed. Had the plotters not murdered a senior officer, they probably would have succeeded in scuttling the surrender.