Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
Not hard for me. Like, who was going to tell them?
I am sure the Japanese high command was waiting by the phone all day
Immediately following the Yalta conference, the Soviets initiated a
massive mobilization of military and industrial capabilities in the Far
East. The Soviet Pacific Fleet was reinforced with additional landing
craft, fast attack boats and other ships - preparations that the
Japanese could not have missed even if every last one of them was
looking south. So, unless the Japanese thought that the massive Soviet
military preparations in the Far East that immediately followed the
Yalta conference were to throw he biggest May Day parade Vladivostok has
ever seen, I am certain they had a fairly good chance of putting one and
one together. Really, there've been volumes written on the subject, so,
like, read a book, man, or something.
Conventional wisdom has it that the Soviets were happy to receive the
delegation to help mislead the Japanese into thinking that a Soviet
attack was NOT imminent
And it was not imminent. The declaration of war, however, was. By
letting the Japanese know that the declaration of war was inevitable,
the USSR would have gained leverage to force a negotiated surrender from
Japan. Stalin had much to gain from such a deal as opposed to a
full-scale invasion, which was planned by Vasilevsky on August 26-31 and
was to be led by the 87th Infantry Corps.
The reason they "shouldn't have" produced results was that Stalin had
made a prior comitment to enter the war against Japan.
Once again, you are confusing the declaration of war with the actual
war. The Soviet preparations for a war with Japan were obvious and there
was an obvious chronological link between these preparations and the
Yalta conference. The fact that the USSR was going to attack Japan
following the defeat of Germany was well-known since the Tehran
conference, when Stalin said that the Soviet attack against Japan would
be possible by increasing the Soviet forces in the Far East threefold,
which can happen after the defeat of Germany. So, yes, Stalin's promise
to attack Japan made at the Yalta conference was definitely the secret
of Polichinelle.
I am very interested in your source of information here. It is hard
to imagine Le May not wanting to use any weapon against Japan
It's a well-known fact that Arnold and LeMay did not favor using the
A-bomb against Japan, believing that the war can be won by conventional
bombing. It is also a well-known fact that LeMay actively opposed the
use of the A-bomb, but carried out the orders imposed on him. LeMay
himself wrote about this in his memoirs. He believed in 1945 as he
believed in Do you people read or just watch PBS? Naturally, not all for
the same reasons, but a number of other US commanders did not support
the use of the A-bomb against Japan: Bradley, Strauss, King, Leahy,
Arnold. And unlike most of them, Le May maintained his position even
after the A-bomb was used, saying during a press conference on September
20, 1945: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at
all."
They hide this information in books, which you should try to read from
time to time to supplement your PBS education.
and
MacArthur (according to a biographical piece I saw recently on PBS)
wanted to use nuclear weapons in Korea.
I don't think we are talking about the same war...
Again, can you show that the US gave Japan any guarantees as to the
Emperor's safety befor they agreed to surender? Such a guarantee
may have been in the formal terms of surrender, but the question
is, was such a guarantee communicated to the Japanese befor
the actual surrender negotiations?
You must be joking. The question of the Emperor was the cornerstone of
this whole diplomatic spectacle. I can imagine the scene on board the
USS Missouri: Foreign Minister Shigemitsu and General Umezu are
glancing over the surrender deal before signing. Shigemitsu: "I'll be
damned, Yoshijiro, look: it says we can keep His Imperial Majesty after
all." MacArthur: "Didn't you two clowns get the memo I sent out this
morning?"
Nonsense. While Truman may have given some consideration to what
territory the Soviets might have gained had the war continued for
another year or more there is no reason to believe he did not give
more consideration to American, Chinese, and even Ja[panese casualties
to be expected from a continuation of the war.
Yes, he was a gentle and caring person this Truman. They say he even
lost his appetite for a few days after nuking tens of thousands of
civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
--
Regards,
Venik
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