“Unconditional Surrender” and the Atom Bomb  

The bombing of civilians in Ukraine and talk of tactical nuclear weapons puts us in mind of the original atom bomb, dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945.

This is the second of my three posts attempting to think freshly about the factors that led Harry Truman to choose to detonate that devastating weapon. My first post dealt with Truman’s unfamiliarity with a job held by his predecessor for 16 years and his ignorance of the Manhattan Project.

This post will look at the role, if any, played by “unconditional surrender.”

A country that surrenders unconditionally cannot expect any rights (other than those required by international conventions) or for its government to continue. The victor calls the shots. There is no negotiation.

It has a strange (and troubling) history in World War II, especially with respect to Japan.

Among historians, the major justification for using the atom bomb is  that it would prevent an invasion of Japan to end World War II, an invasion that would have led to between 250,000 and 1 million  U. S. soldier casualties, according to estimates by George Marshall, then Army chief of staff. The major riposte to this view is that the U. S. wouldn’t have to invade Japan if the Allies had given up their dedication to “unconditional surrender” and assured the Japanese that, at least, they could keep their emperor (which, in the end, they were allowed to).

The Problem of Unconditional Surrender

The term “unconditional surrender” was first uttered publicly in the Second World War by President Roosevelt at the closing of the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. It was an offhand statement, as both Roosevelt and Winston Churchill made clear later. Although the two heads of state had discussed demanding unconditional surrender, and it was included in a letter to Churchill’s war cabinet, the words were not included  in the formal concluding Casablanca document.

Thus, recalls Winston Churchill in a memoir, “It was with some feeling of surprise that I heard the President say at the Press Conference on January 24 that we would enforce ‘Unconditional surrender’ upon all our enemies.”[1] Churchill felt he had to support Roosevelt’s statement, or the two would look divided.

As Roosevelt himself said later, the idea had come up somewhat spontaneously. During the conference Churchill and Roosevelt were dealing with two outsize personalities, the French generals DeGaulle and Girard. Roosevelt mentally compared the challenge of bringing them together (although they were on the same side) to Abraham Lincoln’s challenge in bringing Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee together to agree on peace. As Roosevelt said, “the thought popped into my mind that they had called Grant ‘old Unconditional Surrender,’ and the next thing I knew I had said it. “[2]

In other words, unconditional surrender in World War II was at first not a carefully thought-out philosophy. There was, however, a rationale for it. Some people felt that the 1919 Treaty of Versailles ending World War I failed because it allowed Germans to stay in charge of their country and to keep its basic structure—and thus build back again into a military state . Truman’s demand for unconditional surrender made clear “that he was capable of avoiding another Wilsonian debacle at war’s end,” writes Lloyd C. Gardner.[3] It would also keep him in line with Roosevelt’s legacy, important politically.

As it turned out, as World War II neared its end, Germany was so destroyed militarily that unconditional surrender was not an issue there.

But Japan was entirely different. The war was expected to go on, perhaps until 1946. This was the case even though a Japanese win looked hopeless.

The Problems Facing Japan

“By the autumn of 1944, many of the Japanese officers responsible for the day-to-day prosecution of the war against the Allies knew that the likelihood of victory was becoming remote,” wrote William Craig in his classic work, The Fall of Japan.[4] Other historians agree.

However, several factors—in both Japan and the United States—stood in the way of peace talks. In Japan, the military remained in charge—the “war party”—even though there was a growing group in favor of peace. Japan’s military was infused with what David Rees calls “the Samurai war ethic and the fanaticism of the modern, military-sponsored Emperor cult.”[5]  Soldiers often preferred suicide on the battlefield to surrender.

Equally important, to the Japanese the U. S. demand for unconditional surrender would mean giving up a government structure headed by an emperor viewed as a descendant of the divine.

In the United States there was division at the highest levels over unconditional surrender. In general, the State Department wanted to keep surrender unconditional, while the War Department—which would lead the invasion if it became necessary—wanted surrender to be modified, at least by allowing the emperor to remain in his position. James Byrnes, Truman’s new secretary of state, seems to have had Truman’s ear more than others.

Change in July 1945

Only in recent decades have historians looked closely at the Japanese internal negotiations; and limitations on historians’ knowledge of Japanese still prevent a full picture. But there remains a strong possibility that if the Americans had modified unconditional surrender, Japan would have accepted surrender quickly. Both the atomic bomb and an invasion could have been prevented. Historian Brian Villa ends a long paper on unconditional surrender with the statement: “That the surrender policy for Japan could not have been modified sooner so as to avoid use of the bomb must remain something of a tragedy.”[6]

But a lot changed once the Americans knew they had a successful bomb. In fact, just about everything changed. Truman learned of the New Mexico success on July 16, 1945,  when he was at the Potsdam conference with Churchill and Stalin. Very quickly, the issue of an invasion of Japan became moot, since the bomb (or additional bombs, and apparently the U. S. had plenty) would force Japan to surrender.

At the same time, unconditional surrender may have become more important than ever.

If conditions were modified, the Japanese might surrender before the bomb was dropped.  However, it is possible that a new reason had just emerged to use the atomic bomb: not to destroy Japan but to set the stage for a new post-war world and the potential role of the Soviet Union.

In my next post on the atom bomb, I will discuss the impact of the Soviet Union in the waning days of the Pacific war.

Notes

[1] Winston Churchill, The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), 686.

[2] Franklin D. Roosevelt, in inRobert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (1948), 696; quoted in Churchill, 687.

[3] Lloyd C. Gardiner, “Unconditional Surrender: The Dawn of the Atomic Age” in War and Cold War in American Foreign Policy, 1942–62,  Dale Carter and Robin Clifton, eds. (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2002), 49–80, at 64.

[4] William Craig. The Fall of Japan (New York: Dial Press,1967), 1.

[5] David Rees, The Defeat of Japan (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 38.

[6] Brian L. Villa, “The U.S. Army, Unconditional Surrender, and the Potsdam Proclamation,” Journal of American History 63, no. 1 (June 1976): 66–92, at 91.

The image is of the 33rd Japanese Army surrendering in Thaton, Burma (now Myanamar). Licensed by Creative Commons.