excerpt from a compilation of Hiroshima writings:
Robert Maddox: the veteran historian ("I regard Hiroshima [revisionism] as the greatest hoax in American history") is interviewed by Victor Fic on every Atomic bombing subject imaginable (read more)…
A sampling of revisionist fictions treated in Hiroshima is as follows:Read the whole thing™…
1. That intercepted messages between Tokyo and Japanese diplomats abroad during the summer of 1945 revealed Japan’s willingness to surrender.
None of these messages even hinted that Japan was prepared to surrender under any circumstances. Some members of what Robert P. Newman has referred to as the “civilian elite” were trying to enlist the Soviet Union in brokering a peace that would have permitted Japan to escape with its prewar empire and imperial system intact. Several enterprising revisionists, including Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin in their recent Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2006), have misrepresented these messages by the simple device of pretending that the word “peace” meant the same thing as “surrender.” They neglect to inform their readers that as late as 17 July 1945 the Japanese foreign minister stated that “we are not asking [for] the Russians’ mediation in anything like unconditional surrender. . . .”
Sadao Asada’s essay in Hiroshima, based largely on Japanese sources, shows how difficult it was for the Japanese “peace party” to prevail over the hardliners in the government even after both bombs had been dropped and the Soviet Union had entered the war. That they could have done so before these catastrophic events is impossible to credit.
Edward J. Drea points out that regardless of what the diplomats were trying to accomplish, intercepted military traffic (ULTRA) revealed that the Japanese military was “struggling around the clock to turn Kyushu’s beaches [site of the first planned invasion] into massive killing grounds.” And the generals controlled the situation, not the civilians.
Related:
• Hiroshima 15: Examining the Issues Surrounding the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan (Erik Svane)
• Hiroshima 14: "I regard Hiroshima revisionism as the greatest hoax in American history" (Robert Maddox)
• Hiroshima 13: Although It Is Not Said Openly, Hiroshima Also Played a Purifying Role, IE the Baptism of a New Japan, the Event that Put an End to 50 Years of Crimes (Le Monde)
• Hiroshima 12: Political Correctness in Japan: The comment "tramples on the feelings of victims", so… Shut the F**k Up and Lose Your Job! (re the forced resignation of Japan's defense (!) minister)
• Hiroshima 11: If Western elites cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all; most never learned the narrative of WW II, only what was wrong about it (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Hiroshima 10: If Not for the Atom Bombs, Japan, as we know it today, would not exist (S L Sanger, author of “Working on the Bomb”)
• Hiroshima 9: Over one million warning leaflets were dropped over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities 5 days before the Hiroshima bombing (Bill Whittle)
• Hiroshima 8: Was It Wrong to Use the Atom Bomb on Japan? (Father Wilson Miscamble)
• Hiroshima 7: Some Facts About Hiroshima and World War II That You Hear Neither From America's MSM, University Élites, and History Books, Nor From Japan's (New York Times)
• Hiroshima 6: "Lance or spear practice was a regular women's exercise to practice for the anticipated U.S. landing" (a Japanese American)
• Hiroshima 5: Japan's plans for defense involved mobilizing the civilian population, including women and children, for the customary suicidal battle tactics (Thomas Sowell)
• Hiroshima 4: "Les 300 000 morts d'Hiroshima ont épargné bien davantage de Japonais, qui auraient été écrasés sous des bombes ordinaires" (Charles de Gaulle)
• Hiroshima 3: A mainland invasion could have resulted in millions of Japanese deaths—and that's not counting civilians (Wall Street Journal)
• Hiroshima 2: Hand-wringing over Hiroshima is just virtue-signaling by people who never said a bad word about Stalin or Mao’s mass murders (Glenn Reynolds)
• Hiroshima 1: Unlike the ends of the majority of conflicts, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland (Erik Svane)
