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    Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization and the Atomic Bomb [Illustrated Edition]
    Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization and the Atomic Bomb [Illustrated Edition]
    Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization and the Atomic Bomb [Illustrated Edition]
    Ebook188 pages45 minutes

    Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization and the Atomic Bomb [Illustrated Edition]

    By Dr. Michael D. Pearlman

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    About this ebook

    Includes The Bombing Of Japan During World War II illustrations pack with 120 maps, plans, and photos

    The calculations for bringing large-scale hostilities to an end and for establishing a favorable environment in which post-combat operations, including the occupation of the enemy’s homeland, can take place involve high-level military officers in the analysis of a wide range of considerations, many of which fall well beyond what would be traditionally recognized as strictly military in nature.

    In Unconditional Surrender Demobilization, and the Atomic Bomb, Dr. Michael Pearlman brings home this point through his shrewd assessment of the complex issues confronting U.S. officers as they debated the best course of action to follow in ending the war against Japan. Aside from the list of traditional concerns, such as the human cost of mounting an invasion of Japan, these officers had also to consider such intangibles as continued support for the war effort on the American home front.

    Thanks to Pearlman’s research, the reader comes away with a deeper understanding of why these officers made the recommendations they did to the president and why the president decided to drop the atomic bomb to end World War II.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVerdun Press
    Release dateJul 26, 2016
    ISBN9781786259431
    Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization and the Atomic Bomb [Illustrated Edition]

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      Book preview

      Unconditional Surrender, Demobilization and the Atomic Bomb [Illustrated Edition] - Dr. Michael D. Pearlman

      This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.pp-publishing.com

      To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – picklepublishing@gmail.com

      Or on Facebook

      Text originally published in 1996 under the same title.

      © Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

      Publisher’s Note

      Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

      We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

      UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, DEMOBILIZATION AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

      BY

      DR. MICHAEL D. PEARLMAN

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Contents

      TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

      FOREWORD 4

      UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, DEMOBILIZATION AND THE ATOMIC BOMB 6

      THE AUTHOR 32

      CSI MISSION 32

      REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 33

      The Bombing of Japan during World War II 34

      The Doolittle Raid 34

      The American Effort 41

      The Effects In Japan 51

      The Atomic Weapon 58

      The Attack on Hiroshima 61

      The Attack on Nagasaki 109

      The End 121

      Maps 128

      FOREWORD

      The calculations for bringing large-scale hostilities to an end and for establishing a favorable environment in which postcombat operations, including the occupation of the enemy’s homeland, can take place involve high-level military officers in the analysis of a wide range of considerations, many of which fall well beyond what would be traditionally recognized as strictly military in nature.

      In Unconditional Surrender Demobilization, and the Atomic Bomb, Dr. Michael Pearlman brings home this point through his shrewd assessment of the complex issues confronting U.S. officers as they debated the best course of action to follow in ending the war against Japan. Aside from the list of traditional concerns, such as the human cost of mounting an invasion of Japan, these officers had also to consider such intangibles as continued support for the war effort on the American home front. Thanks to Pearlman’s research, the reader comes away with a deeper understanding of why these officers made the recommendations they did to the president and why the president decided to drop the atomic bomb to end World War II.

      Colonel, Field Artillery

      Director, Combat Studies Institute, 1996

      God bless democracy! I approve of it highly but suffer from it extremely. This incidentally is not for quotation.—George Catlett Marshall{1}

      UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, DEMOBILIZATION AND THE ATOMIC BOMB

      In one way or another, George C. Marshall, the U.S. Army’s Chief of Staff, had long been expecting a sharp reduction in military morale. He had witnessed, as aide-de-camp to General John J. Pershing, America’s mood after World War I. Once Germany asked for an armistice (and before it signed a surrender), Congress and the public had demanded a swift demobilization. This indelible memory of November 1918 shaped Marshall’s resolve to minimize military responsibilities after the Nazi capitulation. In Europe, this meant an end to operations in the eastern Mediterranean, where internal political conflicts and instabilities might require a large and long-term occupation by an army about to be drastically reduced in size. In the Pacific, the Japanese would have to be beaten into a position where their surrender would occur shortly after V-E Day. Otherwise, there might not be a capitulation at all, something Marshall predicted in 1943: the collapse of Germany would impose partial demobilization and a growing impatience...throughout the United States. This mood could lead to a compromise settlement along the lines the Japanese Army was hoping to obtain: that is, the retention of the core empire it still occupied (Formosa, Manchuria, and Korea) and no change in the political institutions of Japan.{2}

      America’s military timing was exceptionally good, considering the enormous perplexities of the war. When Germany surrendered in May, the United States had already made what Marshall called the preparation for the final kill. Its armed forces surrounded the home islands of Japan from the south and the east. It had also obtained from Russia a pledge to attack the Japanese Imperial Army in Manchuria, thereby completing the ironclad blockade that the U.S. Navy once planned to execute alone. However, the denial of imports of strategic items, from oil to coal and protein, did not mean that a mere mop-up operation was in the works, Most of the U.S. military, especially the Army, conducted planning on the premise that defeat of the enemy’s armed forces in the Japanese homeland is a prerequisite to unconditional surrender. Even before Japan strongly reinforced Kyushu, the first home island the United States would invade, the American military calculated that America would still have to conduct the toughest landings and follow-up battles seen in World War II—actions that would likely result in some 200,000 casualties and 50,000 fatalities.{3} Admiral William D. Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an advocate of the blockade strategy, would later complain that the Army did not appear to be able to understand that the Navy, with some Army air assistance, already had defeated Japan. The flaw in Leahy’s argument was that the Japanese Imperial Army refused to accept the fact that it had lost the war, at least by the standard of unconditional surrender. That demand was completely unacceptable to an institution that ordered wounded soldiers to commit suicide rather than become prisoners of war.{4}

      Leahy admitted however, that there was little prospect of obtaining unconditional surrender in 1945, Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, would write that the Navy "in the course of time would have starved the Japanese into submission" (Italics mine). Time, however, was a waning asset, especially to Marshall, who would later say

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