LETTER: Japan no foreign upstart in WWII

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by Howard Cooper

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I must object most vigorously to the claims made in James Ling's opinion column ( Thresher , Sept. 22) that my previous letter approved of "nuclear weapons as an efficient way to check rebellious foreign upstarts."

Nowhere in my letter did I use such belittling and culturally demeaning phrases as "foreign upstarts," and I deeply resent Mr. Ling's implication that I did so. It is a sign of a poor debater and an even worse journalist when you are forced to misrepresent people of differing views in this manner.

To suggest that it is my opinion that the atomic bombs were used to put the Japanese "in their place," a phrase that reeks of racism, I find truly offensive.

Criticism over, I would like to add the following points to the debate:

Far from being rebellious foreign upstarts, the Japanese had the most powerful Navy ever seen in 1941.

Their superior weapons and tactics enabled them to destroy both the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet and the British "Fleet Z" and to conquer hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory.

Even so, at this high point of conquest, the Japanese made no attempt to negotiate a cease fire.

In June 1942, when the Japanese carrier force was sunk at the Battle of Midway, the Japanese made no attempt to reach a settlement.

Indeed, the Japanese people and the Army commanders were not even told of the battle, and the surviving Japanese sailors were imprisoned on their return home.

When Guadalcanal and Tarawa were taken, the Japanese leadership made no peace offerings. Throughout 1943 until mid-1944, not a single diplomatic initiative was launched by the Japanese.

Even when Saipan fell in July 1944, with the loss of not only 40,000 Japanese soldiers in combat, but the deaths of 22,000 Japanese women and children who threw themselves from the cliffs to avoid the shame of defeat, there was not one attempt to contact the allies.

At Christmas 1944, the Japanese were informed (via the Soviets) that the Americans were developing the atomic bomb.

Still, they showed a remarkable lack of concern, confident that their own atomic bomb project would be ready first. (In fact, their uranium enrichment plant was to be destroyed in an air raid in February 1945).

In May 1945, the Japanese began their first feeble efforts to arrange a cessation of hostilities (but the word surrender was not used). These Peace Feelers were as tentative as their name implies.

You put out "feelers" to see if your friend's uncle can get you a job for the summer or to see if the girl in the computer lab likes you.

This was the time for bold and decisive action by the Japanese leadership, such as the offer of a cease fire or the surrender of Okinawa, but once again it failed to materialize.

On July 29, 1945, the allies delivered to the Japanese the conditions for their surrender in the so called Potsdam Ultimatum.

This document warned the Japanese leadership that unless they were willing to consider an "immediate surrender," they would "risk the total destruction of their country."

The document went on to promise that "the Japanese people will not be enslaved as a race nor destroyed as a nation" if the surrender was accepted.

One last time the Japanese leadership failed its people and refused to seek terms of surrender.

The atomic weapons were then used and Japan immediately surrendered.

Are there any "lessons of history" to take from this? Perhaps I may offer two.

Firstly, it is unwise of any nation, no matter how powerful and ruthless, to test the will of the democratic peoples of this world.

Secondly, each nation must choose its leaders with the utmost care, for the people will pay a terrible price for poor leadership.

Howard Cooper

Professor of Chemistry

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the September 29, 1995 issue.

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