Motion picture company Nippon

Motion picture company Nippon Eigasha started sending cameramen to Nagasaki and Hiroshima in September 1945. Sony Vaio PCG-8Y2L Battery

On 24 October 1945 a US military policeman stopped a Nippon Eigasha cameraman from continuing to film in Nagasaki. All Nippon Eigasha's reels were then confiscated by the American authorities. These reels were in turn requested by the Japanese government, declassified, and saved from oblivion. Sony Vaio PCG-8Z2L Battery

Some black-and-white motion pictures were released and shown for the first time to Japanese and American audiences in the years from 1968 to 1970.

In the spring of 1948, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was established in accordance with a presidential directive from Sony Vaio PCG-8Z1L Battery

Harry S. Truman to the National Academy of Sciences–National Research Council to conduct investigations of the late effects of radiation among the survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Among the casualties were found many unintended victims, including Allied POWs,^[ Sony Vaio PCG-7112L Battery

Korean and Chinese laborers, students from Malaya on scholarships, and some 3,200 Japanese American citizens.^[123]

One of the early studies conducted by the ABCC was on the outcome of pregnancies occurring in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Sony Vaio PCG-6W2L Battery

and in a control city, Kure located 18 miles (29 km) south from Hiroshima, in order to discern the conditions and outcomes related to radiation exposure. One author has claimed that the ABCC refused to provide medical treatment to the survivors for better research results.^[124] In 1975, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation was created to assume the responsibilities of ABCC. Sony Vaio PCG-5K1L Battery

The survivors of the bombings are called hibakusha (被爆者^?), a Japanese word that literally translates to "explosion-affected people." As of 31 March 2012, 210,830 hibakusha were recognized by the Japanese government, most living in Japan.^[126] The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation.^[ Sony Vaio VGN-FZ Battery

The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the hibakusha who are known to have died since the bombings. Updated annually on the anniversaries of the bombings, as of August 2012 the memorials record the names of almost 440,000 deceased hibakusha; 280,959 in Hiroshima and 158,754 in Nagasaki.Sony Vaio VGN-FZ140E Battery

People who suffered the effects of both bombings are known as nijū hibakusha in Japan. On 24 March 2009, the Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916–2010) as a double hibakusha. He was confirmed to be 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from ground zero in Hiroshima on a business trip when Little Boy was detonated. Sony Vaio VGN-FZ140E/B Battery

He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the night in Hiroshima. He arrived at his home city of Nagasaki on 8 August, the day before Fat Man was dropped, and he was exposed to residual radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first officially recognised survivor of both bombings. Sony Vaio VGN-FZ11S Battery

He died on 4 January 2010, at the age of 93, after a battle with stomach cancer.^[131] The 2006 documentary Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki documented 165 nijū hibakusha, and was screened at the United Nations.^[132]

During the war, Japan brought as many as 670,000 Korean conscripts to Japan to work as forced labor. Sony Vaio VGN-FZ11L Battery

About 20,000 Koreans were killed in Hiroshima and another 2,000 died in Nagasaki. Perhaps one in seven of the Hiroshima victims was of Korean ancestry. A Korean prince of the Joseon Dynasty, Yi Wu, died from the Hiroshima bombing.^[ For many years, Koreans had a difficult time fighting for recognition as atomic bomb victims and were denied health benefits. Sony Vaio VGN-FZ11M Battery

However, most issues have been addressed in recent years through lawsuits.

The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the US's ethical justification for them has been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades. J. Samuel Walker wrote in an April 2005 overview of recent historiography on the issue, "the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue. Sony Vaio VGN-FZ11E Battery

" He wrote that "The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States."^[137]

Supporters of the bombings generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan. Sony Vaio VGN-FZ11Z Battery

One figure of speech, "One hundred million [subjects of the Japanese Empire] will die for the Emperor and Nation,"^[138] served as a unifying slogan. Although some Japanese were taken prisoner,^[139] most fought until they were killed or committed suicide.^[140] Nearly 99% of the 21,000 defenders of Iwo Jima were killed, Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21M Battery

and the last Japanese soldiers did not surrender until November 1949.^[141] Of the 117,000 Japanese troops defending Okinawa in April–June 1945, 94% were killed.^[139] Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on 1 August 1944, ordering the execution of Allied prisoners of war when the POW-camp was in the combat zone, Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21E Battery

so "escapees from the camp may turn into a hostile fighting force".^[142] As War Minister, Korechika Anami was opposed to the surrender. Immediately after Hiroshima, he commented, "I am convinced that the Americans had only one bomb, after all."^[143] Eventually, Anami's arguments were overcome when Emperor Hirohitodirectly requested an end to the war himself.^[144] Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21S Battery

Those who oppose the bombings, among them many US military leaders as well as ex-president Herbert Hoover, argue that it was simply an extension of the already fierce conventional bombing campaign.^[145] This, together with the sea blockade and the collapse of Germany (with its implications regarding redeployment), Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21J Battery

would also have led to a Japanese surrender – so the atomic bombings were militarily unnecessary. On the contrary, according to Kyoko Iriye Selden, "The most influential text is Truman's 1955 Memoirs, which states that the atomic bomb probably saved half a million US lives— anticipated casualties in an Allied invasion of Japan planned for November. Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21Z Battery

Stimson subsequently talked of saving one million US casualties, and Churchill of saving one million American and half that number of British lives."^[146]

Scholars have pointed out various alternatives that could have ended the war just as quickly without an invasion, but these alternatives could have resulted in the deaths of many more Japanese.^[147] Sony Vaio VGN-FZ25 Battery

As the United States dropped its atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, 1.6 million Soviet troops launched a surprise attack on the Japanese forces occupying eastern Asia. "The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow's mediation", Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31E Battery

said Japanese historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose recently published Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan is based on recently declassified Soviet archives as well as US and Japanese documents.

The Tokyo District Court, while denying a case for damages, stated: Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31M Battery

that the dropping of atomic bombs as an act of hostilities was illegal under the rules of positive international law (taking both treaty law and customary law into consideration) then in force... (c) that the dropping of atomic bombs also constituted a wrongful act on the plane of municipal law, ascribable to the United States and its President, Mr. Harry S. Truman; Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31S Battery

...The aerial bombardment with atomic bombs of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an illegal act of hostilities according to the rules of international law. It must be regarded as indiscriminate aerial bombardment of undefended cities, even if it were directed at military objectives only, Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31J Battery

inasmuch as it resulted in damage comparable to that caused by indiscriminate bombardment.

The debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki concerns the ethical, legal and military controversies surrounding the United States' atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August 1945 at the close of theSecond World War (1939–45). Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31B Battery

On 26 July 1945, the United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. Sony Vaio VGN-FZ32B Battery

This ultimatum stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction."^[2] Some debaters focus on the presidential decision-making process, and others on whether or not the bombings were the proximate cause of Japanese surrender.

Over the course of time, different arguments have gained and lost support as new evidence has become available and as new studies have been completed. Sony Vaio VGN-FZ32 Battery

However, a primary and continuing focus has been on the role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s justification for them based upon the premise that the bombings precipitated the surrender. This remains the subject of both scholarly and popular debate, Sony Vaio VGN-FZ38M Battery

with one minority view claiming that the Soviet declaration of war on Japan had more of an effect than the two nuclear bombings (cf. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa).

In 2005 in an overview of historiography about the matter, J. Samuel Walker wrote that "the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue."^[3] Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31Z Battery

Walker stated that "The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States."^[3]

Supporters of the bombings generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan: Sony Vaio VGN-FZ35 Battery

Kyūshū was to be invaded in October 1945 and Honshū five months later. It was thought that Japan would remain militaristic and thus would not surrender unless there was an overwhelming demonstration of destructive capability.^[4] Those who oppose the bombings argue that it was simply an extension of the already fierce conventional air raids on Sony Vaio VGN-FZ37 Battery

Japan^[5] and, therefore, militarily unnecessary,^[6] inherently immoral, a war crime, or a form of state terrorism.

The bulk of the force invading Japan would be American although the British Commonwealth would contribute three divisions of troops (one each from Britain, Canada, and Australia).^[9][10] Sony Vaio VGN-FZ38 Battery

Those who argue in favor of the decision to drop the atom bombs believe that massive casualties on both sides would have occurred in Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan.^[11]

The U.S. side anticipated losing many soldiers in the planned invasion of Japan, Sony Vaio VGN-FZ19VN Battery

although the number ofexpected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate. U.S. President Truman stated after the war in 1953 that he had been advised that U.S. casualties could range from 250,000 to one million men.^[12][13] A quarter of a million is roughly the level that the Joint War Plans Committee, in its paper prepared for Truman's 18 June meeting, had estimated (JWPC 369/1) . Sony Vaio VGN-FZ29VN Battery

A review of documents from the Truman Library shows that Truman's initial draft response to the query describes Marshall only as saying "one quarter of a million would be the minimum." The "as much as a million" phrase was added to the final draft by Truman's staff, so as not to appear to contradict an earlier statement given in a published article by Stimson (former secretary of war). Sony Vaio VGN-FZ4000 Battery

In a study done by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April 1945, the figures of 7.45 casualties per 1,000 man-days and 1.78 fatalities per 1,000 man-days were developed. This implied that the two planned campaigns to conquer Japan would cost 1.6 million U.S. casualties, including 380,000 dead.^[15] Sony Vaio VGN-FW11 Battery

A later study by the Joint War Plans Committee, - JWPC 369/1, 15 June 1945^[16] - who provided planning information to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that an invasion of Japan would result in 40,000 U.S. dead and 150,000 wounded. Delivered on 15 June 1945, after insight gained from the Battle of Okinawa, Sony Vaio VGN-FW11M Battery

the study noted Japan's inadequate defenses due to the very effective sea blockade and the American firebombing campaign. Generals George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur signed documents agreeing with the Joint War Plans Committee estimate.^[17]

In addition, a large number of Japanese military and civilian casualties were expected as a result of such actions. Sony Vaio VGN-FW11S Battery

Contemporary estimates of Japanese deaths from an invasion of the Home Islands ranged from several hundreds of thousands to as high as ten million. General MacArthur's staff provided an estimated range of American deaths depending on the duration of the invasion, and also estimated a 22:1 ratio of Japanese to American deaths. Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E/H Battery

From this, a low figure of somewhat more than 200,000 Japanese deaths can be calculated for a short invasion of two weeks, and almost 3 million Japanese deaths if the fighting lasted four months.^[18] A widely cited estimate of 5 to 10 million Japanese deaths came from a study by William Shockley and Quincy Wright; Sony Vaio VGN-FW145E/W Battery

the upper figure was used by Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy who characterized it as conservative.^[19] Some 400,000 additional Japanese deaths might have been suffered in the expected Soviet invasion of Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's main islands.^[20] Sony Vaio VGN-FW15T Battery

An Air Force Association webpage states that "Millions of women, old men, and boys and girls had been trained to resist by such means as attacking with bamboo spears and strapping explosives to their bodies and throwing themselves under advancing tanks."^[21] The AFA noted that "[t] Sony Vaio VGN-FW17/B Battery

he Japanese cabinet had approved a measure extending the draft to include men from ages fifteen to sixty and women from seventeen to forty-five (an additional 28 million people)."^[22]

Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on 1 August 1944, ordering the execution of Alliedprisoners of war, POW, Sony Vaio VGN-FW17T/H Battery

"...when an uprising of large numbers cannot be suppressed without the use of firearms" or when the POW-camp was in the combat zone, so "escapees from the camp may turn into a hostile fighting force".^[23]

The great loss of lives during the battle of Iwo Jima and other Pacific islands gave US leaders a clear picture of the casualties that would happen with a main land invasion. Sony Vaio VGN-FW17W Battery

Of the 22,060 Japanese soldiers entrenched on the Iwo Jima, 21,844 died either from fighting or by ritual suicide. Only 216 were captured during the battle. According to the official Navy Department Library website, "The 36-day (Iwo Jima) assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead." Sony Vaio VGN-FW19 Battery

19,217 wounded^[24][24][25] To put this into context, the 82-day Battle of Okinawalasted from early April until mid-June 1945 and U.S. (with 5 Army and 2 Marine Corps Divisions) casualties were over 62,000 of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing.^[26]

The US military had nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals manufactured in anticipation of potential casualties from the planned invasion of Japan. Sony Vaio VGN-FW21E Battery

To the present date, all the American military casualties of the 60 years following the end of World War II—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.^[27] Because of the number available, Sony Vaio VGN-FW21J Battery

combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan were able to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers on the field.

Supporters of the bombing argue that to have waited for the Japanese to surrender would also have cost lives. "Sony Vaio VGN-FW21L Battery

For China alone, depending upon what number one chooses for overall Chinese casualties, in each of the ninety-seven months between July 1937 and August 1945, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 persons perished, the vast majority of them noncombatants. Sony Vaio VGN-FW21M Battery

For the other Asian states alone, the average probably ranged in the tens of thousands per month, but the actual numbers were almost certainly greater in 1945, notably due to the mass death in a famine in Vietnam. Historian Robert P. Newman concluded that each month that the war continued in 1945 would have produced the deaths of 'upwards of 250,000 people, mostly Asian but some Westerners.'"^[28] Sony Vaio VGN-FW21Z Battery

The end of the war liberated millions of laborers working in harsh conditions under a forced mobilization. In the Dutch East Indies, there was a "forced mobilization of some 4 million—although some estimates are as high as 10 million—romusha (manual laborers)... 
Sony VAIO VPCS11J7E/B Battery

About 270,000 romusha were sent to the Outer Islands and Japanese-held territories in Southeast Asia, where they joined other Asians in performing wartime construction projects. At the end of the war, only 52,000 were repatriated to Java."

The firebombing of Tokyo alone had killed well over 100,000 people in Japan since February 1945, directly and indirectly. Sony VAIO VPCS11M1E/W Battery

Because the USAAF wanted to use its bombs on previously undamaged cities in order to have accurate data on nuclear-caused damage, Kokura, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Niigata were preserved from conventional bombing raids. Otherwise they would all have been fire-bombed. Sony VAIO VPCS11V9E Battery

Intensive conventional bombing would have continued or increased prior to an invasion. The submarine blockade and the United States Army Air Forces's mining operation, Operation Starvation, had effectively cut off Japan's imports. A complementary operation against Japan's railways was about to begin, isolating the cities of southern Honshū from the food grown elsewhere in the Home Islands. Sony VAIO VPCS11V9E/B Battery

"Immediately after the defeat, some estimated that 10 million people were likely to starve to death", noted historian Daikichi Irokawa.^[35] Meanwhile, fighting continued in The Philippines, New Guinea and Borneo, and offensives were scheduled for September in southern China and Malaya. Sony VAIO VPCS11X9E/B Battery

The Soviet invasion of Manchuriahad, in the week before the surrender, caused over 80,000 deaths.^[30]

In September 1945, nuclear physicist Karl T. Compton, who himself took part in the Manhattan Project, visited MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo, and following his visit wrote a defensive article, in which he summarized his conclusions as follows: Sony VAIO VPCS123FGB Battery

"If the atomic bomb had not been used, evidence like that I have cited points to the practical certainty that there would have been many more months of death and destruction on an enormous scale".

This point of view was contradicted 7 December 1963 by the Tokyo District Court: Sony VAIO VPCS125EC Battery

"Accordingly, it is wrong to say that the distinction between military objective and non-military objective has gone out of existence because of total war.".^[39]

Supporters of the bombings have emphasized the strategic significance of the targets. Hiroshima was used as headquarters of the Fifth Division and the 2nd General Army, Sony VAIO VPCS128EC Battery

which commanded the defense of southern Japan with 40,000 military personnel in the city. Hiroshima was a communication center, an assembly area for troops, a storage point and had several military factories as well. Nagasaki was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, Sony VAIO VPCS129GC Battery

including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials.^[42]

An article published in the International Review of the Red Cross notes that, with respect to the "anti-city" or "blitz" strategy, that "in examining these events in the light of international humanitarian law, Sony VAIO VPCS12C7E/B Battery

it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property."^[43] While it is true there was no general protection, the Hague Conventions did prohibit the targeting of undefended civilians. Sony VAIO VPCS12L9E/B Battery

The Blitz was not one of the charges against Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, at the Nuremberg Trials.^[44]

On 30 June 2007, Japan's defense minister Fumio Kyuma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war. Sony VAIO VPCS12V9E/B Battery

Kyuma said: "I now have come to accept in my mind that in order to end the war, it could not be helped (Shikata ga nai) that an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and that countless numbers of people suffered great tragedy." Kyuma, who is from Nagasaki, said the bombing caused great suffering in the city, but he does not resent the U.S. Sony VAIO VPCY115FGS Battery

because it prevented the Soviet Union from entering the war with Japan. Kyuma's comments were similar to those made by Emperor Hirohito when, in his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975, he was asked what he thought of the bombing of Hiroshima, and answered: Sony VAIO VPCY115FX/BI Battery

"It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn't be helped (Shikata ga nai) because that happened in wartime."^[46]

Nagasaki mayor Tomihisa Taue protested against Kyuma, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized over Kyuma's remark to Hiroshima A-bomb survivors.^[47] Sony VAIO VPCY115FXBI Battery

In the wake of the outrage provoked by his statements, Kyuma had to resign on 3 July.^[48]

In early July, on his way to Potsdam, Truman had re-examined the decision to use the bomb. In the end, Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. Sony VAIO VPCY118EC Battery

His stated intention in ordering the bombings was to bring about a quick resolution of the war by inflicting destruction, and instilling fear of further destruction, that was sufficient to cause Japan to surrender.^[49]

In his speech to the Japanese people presenting his reasons for surrender, the emperor referred specifically to the atomic bombs,Sony VAIO VPCY118GX/BI Battery

stating that if they continued to fight it would result in "...an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation..."^[50] In his Rescript to the Soldiers and Sailors, delivered on 17 August, he focused however on the impact of the Soviet invasion, omitting any reference to the atomic bombings. Sony VAIO VPCY119FJ/S Battery,Sony VAIO VPCY11AFJ Battery,Sony VAIO VPCY11AGJ Battery