Saul David On The WW2 Battle Of Okinawa

Saul David On The WW2 Battle Of Okinawa | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra

"We should never lose sight of the fact that Truman and most of his seniors advisors were heavily influenced by the unutterable horror of the fighting on Okinawa, and actually interesting, not just the deaths of servicemen, but also the deaths of civilians. And although you may think that all of Truman's calculations come into play when he's trying to save American lives, actually, I don't think that's true. And he's gone on the record and did go on the record at the time saying, this wasn't just about American lives. This is about saving Japanese lives.

So when you get people criticizing and accusing the Americans of an atrocity by using those two nuclear weapons, you need to understand the context in which that decision is taken. And you need to understand the potential consequences for the loss of life, particularly among Japanese civilians in Japan, if the fighting had continued and the weapons hadn't been used. So yes, 200,000 lives lost isn't appalling tragedy, which is the estimate of lives lost to the use of those two nuclear weapons. But we also need to take account of the fact that many, many more lives would have been lost if they hadn't been used…

Basically, what's remarkable is that the the casualties [on Okinawa] didn't affect them [the Japanese] in the slightest. They didn't affect them in the slightest. They didn't particularly affect them. And this is even more chilling thought, Rob, after the first nuclear weapon was dropped on Hiroshima. So you know, it's interesting people say, well, you even if you justify the use of one bomb, why then use the second one? Because nothing had changed after those.

The Americans when they made the decision with the allies with Churchill and with Chiang Kai Shek, the Chinese nationalist leader to use the new nuclear weapons, they then put out a warning to Japan. It was a coded warning, to be fair because the Japanese had no idea that this weapon would be as destructive as it was, but they were making it pretty clear that you know, they were going to unleash terrible destruction. You could say okay, they were still a little bit unsure of the power of this weapon, but they certainly weren't unsure of it after it was dropped on Hiroshima.

And yet the hardliners were still absolutely arguing we should go on, we should fight on. And even after the second weapon was dropped, which of course leads to the decision for unconditional surrender, there was a split among the High Command and the Emperor. And it's the Emperor, interestingly enough, who is finally persuaded by some of his, you might describe them as more moderate, but I would describe them as slightly less extreme than the than the other characters in the war cabinet, who said, you know what, we've got to surrender. That they're just going to blow Japan to pieces. There is nothing we can gain by fighting on. And yet, despite all of that, now, two atomic weapons have been dropped. It's pretty clear where this is going.

There is an attempted coup, which luckily is defeated and the moderates retain control. But there were still hardliners, even after the second atomic bomb that was dropped, arguing we should continue the fight. So you get a sense of some of the mindset of people in Japan of that time, let's just keep fighting to the end, a bit like, of course, the Germans had done in in Europe...

The long term legacy of the battle is unfortunate, and that legacy is that there are still US  servicemen on the island today. And this is actually quite controversial because, you know, there's a feeling that you wouldn't, we want to see the back of these people? You know, we are not some kind of colony of America, not 75 years on. And yet the same time this same witness - he’s no longer alive, he died a few years ago - but this same person made the point that actually the Americans had played their part in saving a lot of lives. When the Japanese on the one hand, were encouraging people to commit suicide, the Americans were doing everything they could to save civilian lives by providing food and shelter and a safe place for them to go and he acknowledged the debt that they still owe to America today."


Of course it's more fashionable to bash the Americans as evil savages