Nuklear bomb

[ATAG_Bliss]

Originally Posted by Splitter

Just to clarify for those actually reading this thread, I think you meant to say that the Allies were looking for "unconditional" surrender.

The Japanese wanted conditions, such as the retention of the Emperor, no demilitarization, no Allied occupation, and also wanted to keep some of their territorial gains.

The Japanese went to the Soviets (neutral with Japan at the time) to have them act as intermediaries to get the conditions put into the surrender terms. Here again, the Soviets did not want the war to end so quickly so they sort of played both sides against the middle. It didn't matter though because the Allies had agreed that "unconditional surrender" was the only option.

So yes it is true that Japan refused to surrender until after the second bomb and not immediately even then. I just discovered a piece of history I did not know before: elements of the Japanese military tried to stop the surrender with a coup and nearly succeeded.

Splitter

Hmm, I may have to do some more reading to refresh my memory.

But:

I thought the US basically gave an ultimatum that entailed: "surrender or you will be viciously attacked on your homeland." In other wards, the actions, or in this case, lack of actions of the emperor led to the 1st and 2nd bomb drop. I also thought any sort of negotiations to the terms of the conditional/unconditional surrender didn't even take place until Japan finally responded back well after the 2nd bomb had been dropped. Of course, I may be wrong, but I thought that's how I studied it.

In any case, Japan's emperor had the power to stop the attack at any time and knew full well of the consequences of not responding or not surrendering.

Such a tragic loss of life in any case.

Cheers!