[Charles Fair]

Ohayo Gozaimas LostKingdom-san

Originally posted by LostKingdom+Feb 26 2004, 12:15 AM-->

Welcome to the forum. Your question most certainly belongs here - what the Japanese call the Pacific War is very much a part of WW2 to the British or Americans.
<!--QuoteBegin-LostKingdom@Feb 26 2004, 12:15 AM
I think you know what my opinion is about them considering I am Japanese, but what are your views on it? Do you think we deserved it? Or do you think otherwise?

I made several good Japanese friends when I studied in Paris a few years ago. More recently I lived and worked in Japan for a few months in 2002, and had the opportunity to travel around Japan. I think Japan is a wonderful country and found the Japanese to be the most peace-loving, courteous and helpful people that I have ever met. I certainly felt far safer late at night in Tokyo than I would ever feel in much of London. I hope to go back one day to travel round the rest of Japan.

Hiroshima was one place that I visited. It was a very moving place to visit, particularly the testimony of the eyewitnesses displayed in the museum. Having now been there, the A-bomb seems even more unreal than it does from black and white films. I visited on a sunny day, and it was hard to believe that someone could ever have taken a decision to visit instantaneous destruction on such a bustling city.

I dont think the Japanese deserved it - no civilian population could ever deserve such a fate. However, as other posters have pointed out, it did shorten the war and probably saved many hundreds of thousands more lives as well as probable partition. It may well have helped prevent the cold war from becoming hot.

I believe the Soviets had already occupied Sakhalin and had designs on Hokkaido. Keeping the Soviets out of Japan was a key reason for bringing the war to a rapid end. Truman and Churchill had observed the iron curtain descending over Europe and could see that the USSR was shaping up to be the next enemy. I have read that the Nagasaki bomb was as much for Soviet eyes (to give the impression that the West had many more than one A-bomb and an unassailable lead in nuclear research) as it was for those of the Japanese government. There is also the fact that Britain and the USA felt that they had prior 'rights' in forcing a surrender since they had been at war for nearly 4 years whereas the USSR had only declared war on Japan in about June 1945.

I have long wondered on the effect of the bombing on the Japanese national self-image. Did the humiliation of an unconditional surrender lead to an immense 'loss of face'? If so, has Japan recovered?

Charles