Ever since the horror of Hiroshima the debate
has raged whether a weapon so indiscriminate in
its mass destruction of human life should have
been used. It has been argued that the main
reason why it was dropped was to warn the
Soviet Union of the new invincible power of
the US. No doubt the possession of the atomic
bomb made it possible for the US to feel that it
was safe to demobilise even in the face of the
superior weight of the Soviet armed forces. But
the bomb would have been dropped even had the
Soviet Union not existed. The investment in
the construction of the two nuclear bombs avail-
able for use in 1945 had been huge. It was
thought that using them would prove decisive in
ending the war without more fighting and the
expected further losses of Allied lives from storm-
ing the Japanese home islands against fierce resis-
tance. The killing of enemy civilians in order to
shorten the war was seen as justified after so much
death and destruction. No one thought in terms
of drawing up a balance sheet of losses of enemy
men, women and children as against the lives of
Allied soldiers. That is shown by the devastating
raids on German and Japanese cities with con-
ventional weapons. Loss of civilian lives was
greater in Tokyo and Dresden than in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
The Soviet Union’s declaration of war on
Japan on 8 August and its invasion of China were
fresh disasters but not decisive factors in forcing
Tokyo’s leader to make a decision. Messages sent
by the Allies and received in Tokyo on 13 August
1945 indicating that the emperor would not be
removed from the throne were more important in
the final deliberations. On 14 August the emperor
broadcast Japan’s surrender. Over the radio he
spoke for the first time to the Japanese people,
saying that the unendurable had to be endured.
The Second World War was over.
1
THE VICTORY OF THE ALLIES, 1941–5 305
