From: “James M. Cobb” <jcobb@ahcbsd1.ovnet.com>
To: llurch@networking.stanford.edu
Message Hash: 1c43c4b76a99026b391b7fd2ddef341857a5e7b656976c518cecbef5ef757a65
Message ID: <Pine.BSD.3.91.960204043412.13565C-100000@ahcbsd1.ovnet.com>
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UTC Datetime: 1996-02-04 09:53:34 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 17:53:34 +0800
From: "James M. Cobb" <jcobb@ahcbsd1.ovnet.com>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 17:53:34 +0800
To: llurch@networking.stanford.edu
Subject: Re: Sometimes ya just gotta nuke em
Message-ID: <Pine.BSD.3.91.960204043412.13565C-100000@ahcbsd1.ovnet.com>
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Rich,
Neither dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese cities nor an invasion
of Japan was necessary to secure surrender of the Japanese government.
David Kahn explains:
Communications intelligence contributed...in major ways to the
Allies' Pacific victory. It stepped up American submarine sinkings
of the Japanese merchant fleet by one third. This cutting of Japan's
lifelines was, Premier Hideki Tojo said after the war, one of the
major factors that defeated Japan.
David Kahn. "Codebreaking in World Wars I and II: The
Major Successes and Failures, Their Causes and Their
Effects" (1980). In: Kahn on Codes: Secrets of the New
Cryptology. Macmillan Publishing Co. 1983. Page 108.
The water transport intercepts should provide case after case of how
American submarines won one of the most important victories in the
Pacific: the sinking of the Japanese merchant fleet....
Kahn. "Opportunities in Cryptology for Historians." Op
cit. P 289.
Some information came out shortly after World War II, when we
all heard about how we broke some Japanese codes before Pearl
Harbor, which...did help very much...in the successful American
submarine blockade of Japan, which very largely brought the Jap-
anese empire to its knees.
Kahn. "Signals Intelligence in the 1980s" (1981). Op cit.
P 292.
In other words, it was Starvation City.
---------------------------------------
As an aside. these three quotations from Kahn on Codes, a collection
of articles, show that David's views in this regard are consistent
over the years.
Continuing--
Dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese cities or an invasion of Japan
was not necessary to secure surrender of the Japanese government.
William Langer explains:
In the greatest air offensive in history [during May, June, and
July 1945] United States land-based and carrier-based aircraft des-
troyed or immobilized the remnants of the Japanese navy, shattered
Japanese industry, and curtailed Japanese sea communications by sub-
marine and air attack and extensive minefields. United States bat-
tleships moved in to shell densely populated cities with impunity
and the Twentieth Air Force dropped 40,000 tons of bombs on Japanese
industrial centers in one month.
William Langer. An Encyclopedia of World History.
Houghton Mifflin Co. 1948. Page 1169.
It was Devastation City.
------------------------
Then why Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
There were two main reasons nuclear weapons were dropped on Japanese
cities:
(1) generally, to proclaim Pax Americana...with a bang
(2) specifically, to declare war on the Soviet Union.
For the sake of completeness, let's ask: If it really had been
necessary to drop nuclear weapons on Japan in order to compel the
Japanese government to surrender, should they have been dropped?
Without hesitation.
Cordially,
Jim
NOTE. The first part of the "Opportunities" article was published
in 1972. The second part, dealing with World War II, was written
perhaps a decade later for publication in the collection.
Return to February 1996
Return to “Vincent Gebes <vgebes@jp.psi.com>”