Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
duality of thinking. On the one hand, he had lectured Arnold on the problems
associated with urban-area attacks, and he did not want the United States to
gain, as he said, the “reputation of outdoing Hitler in atr~cities.”~’ On the other
hand, he was concerned that the airmen might so bomb Japan that “there would
be no good background on which to use the weapon,” thus apparently losing the
opportunity of convincing the Japanese that further resistance was futile.* On
June 19, Stimson met with Under Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew, with
whom he often conferred on this and similar questions. These men concluded
that it “would be deplorable if we have to go through with the military program
with all its stubborn fighting to a finish.”72 They wanted to find a way to induce
Japan to surrender, and that way seemed more and more to be the atomic bomb.
Warnings to Japan preceding the invasion could, in Stimson’s mind, include
atomic attack.73 The nature of that attack and its target, whether city or relatively
unpopulated area, Stimson did not say.
Stimson, Marshall, and Truman faced the uncertainties of the new weapon’s
use in the war with some doubts. ULTRA seems to have been one of the factors
that helped them resolve their dilemma. In April 1945, Willoughby had sent
MacArthur his estimate that the Japanese would defend Kyushu, site of the
projected November landing in the Japanese home islands, with at least eight
and probably ten divisions. This was to prove conservative. Through May, June,
and July, decrypted Japanese messages analyzed in Washington revealed a
burgeoning defense preparation effort on Kyushu. Air and naval suicide units
supplemented an assembly of armored brigades and combat divisions
transferred from Manchuria and elsewhere in Japan. Newly formed divisions
and garrison troops added to the strength. In all, ULTRA identified thirteen of the
fourteen Japanese divisions on the island, supported by considerable air power.
ULTRA counted 600,000 Japanese with 6,000 to 7,000 aircraft; in fact, the final
Japanese total was more nearly 900,000 armed men. Although Japanese air and
land forces were no longer the well-armed, efficient fighting units of 1942, the
Japanese had demonstrated repeatedly their ferocity and willingness to fight to
the death. Stimson’s concern, as he noted in his diary, clearly grew when he
examined the numbers (although he did not note ULTRA as his source). General
Marshall had substantial doubts about the proposed landings as well, and so told
Truman at the July Potsdam Conference. Storming ashore in the face of a
bloodbath did not appeal to Washington policy makers, who were concerned not
only with the immediate cost in dead and wounded but also with the prospect
of an uncertain length to the war, with possible Soviet military involvement that
*At that time, MAGIC had not yet picked up the messages between Prime
Minister Togo in Tokyo and Ambassador Sat0 in Moscow. Their communications
indicated that the Japanese government was willing to consider peace with some
conditions, primarily retention of the emperor. MAGIC Diplomatic Extracts,
SRH-040. MAGIC intercepts on this topic did not begin until July 11, 1945.
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