Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Sunday, July 15, 1945. Lifting the blackout.

The U.S. surface naval raid on the Japanese home islands continued with the bombardment of Muroran, a steel making location.  Air Force and Navy air raids also continued.

Australian troops captured Mount Batochampar on Borneo.

Blackout restrictions on London's West End were lifted.

Belgium's King Leopold III again refused to abdicate.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 14, 1945. Verboten und Nicht Verboten

Monday, July 14, 2025

Saturday, July 14, 1945. Verboten und Nicht Verboten

Eisenhower announced the closure of SHAEF.

Eisenhower also eased the fraternization rules between Allied troops and German civilians allowing Allied soldiers to chat and speak to German civilians.  

Nazi German poster recruiting women for for the Reichsluftschutzbund, i.e. civil defense.  Women, and teenage boys, later served on antiaircraft gun crews.  A few months after the end of the war, the same targeted audience was beginning to become friendly to US troops.

By September nearly all of the rules would be removed.

Fraternization in this context does not mean what people commonly assume it does, but it is more in line with the etymology of the word's origins, from Latin through French:  "to sympathize as brothers".  Eisenhower, who was first of all an administrator, and highly intelligent, recognized that contact between the Western Allies, and with Americans in particular, would help have a corrosive impact on Prussianized and Nazified German culture.  Bans on contacts had already been lifted as to contacts with children, which were impossible to prevent between oversupplied American troops and German children anyhow.  The British, contrary to what is often reported in regard to the development in policy, followed suit.

There was really no danger that French troops were going to fraternize to any significant degree with Germans, nor those of any country the Germans had overrun.  And of course in Russian controlled territory, where Eisenhower's orders didn't apply rapine Red Army troops simply terrorize and brutalized civilians, and not only Germans.

Be that as it may, the inevitable problem that existed with American troops in particular fraternizing in the wider sense was already there.  It had been a problem after World War One during which the American Army had taken steps to stop friendly contacts between Germans and Americans with limited success.  At that time, Americans already were noting in letters home that Germany looked more like the US than France did, in that it was more technologically advanced and cleaner.  By the end of World War Two this was much more the case, with Americans being shocked by what they deemed the primitive conditions the French and Italians lived in, and impressed with the more advanced state of German municipalities.  While its often little noted, a non insignificant number of GIs found themselves not really liking the French and outright horrified by the conditions Italians lived in.

With things being the way they are, even before the end of the war the U.S. Army had trouble keeping soldiers away from German women, which is not to say that all such contacts had only one thing in mind.  Having said that, the conditions that followed the havoc of the Eastern Front and the war in general were having a massive impact on German culture even without Eisenhower seeking to step in and direct it.  The German military had been huge with a very large number of German men in it.  Many of them were killed during the war and many were simply missing by 1945.

A vast number of German men were held as prisoners of war as well.  The Western Allies held over 3,150,000 by April 30, 1945.  By the end of the war that number was over 7,614,790,with the 425,000 German POWs in 511 main and branch camps. The Soviet Union also held at least 2,733,739, fewer than a person might suspect, actually, reflecting the nature of the combat in the east.

The Western Allies did not, and could not have, repatriated German POWS immediately.  The US held German prisoners until 1946 in the US, with it notably being the case that many went from disciplined Nazi soldiers to actually enjoying the last year of their captivity.  Reeducation proved unnecessary as they rapidly evolved into democratic Germans in the last months of their captivity.

The point, however, is that with over 10,000,000 German men in captivity, and with millions of German men killed during the war, and with the German citizenry in the east put to flight, nature began to play a role in things very quickly.  Hundreds of thousands of German women were left without support in a country that had largely resisted imposing female labor on its citizenry during the war.  Man young women knew at an instinctive level that the normal path of finding a lifelong mate had been destroyed.  And the collapse of the Nazi system proved to be a bit like tearing a scab off a wound as even the Nazifield population proved capable of abandoning Nazi propaganda pretty rapidly, even if only superficially in some instance.  

Added to this, the war itself had damaged domestic life globally.  This has been noted in the context of World War Two marriages in the US on this site already.  While the German situation was different, it was found that after the war an appreciable number of Germans, both male and female, simply changed identities up to and including abandoning a spouse, missing or not.  In some instances German women became outright disgusted with German men and blamed them for the war and the fate they'd suffered, something that was also the case with Japanese women.

By June of 1944, Life magazine was noting:

There’s one blonde Fräulein with braided hair who always walked past two MPs every day on her way to do shopping, swinging her hips from side to side even more noticeably than usual. As she passed she would look slyly at the MPs, tap one hip and utter the word, ‘Verboten.’ […]

In Germany fraternization is officially a matter of high policy. But for the GI it is not a case of policy or of politics or of going out with girls who used to go out with the guys who killed your buddies. You don’t talk politics when you fraternize. It’s more a matter of bicycles and skirts waving in the breeze and a lonesome, combat-weary solder looking warily around the corner to see if a policeman is in sight.”

Ultimately somewhere between 14,000 to 20,000 German women would marry American soldiers after the war, something that stands in remarkable contrast to the French, as only 6,500 French women married US soldiers.  Between 10,000 and 100,000 Italian women married U.S. soldiers. 70,000 English women did the same.

Late war German poster celebrating Maria Schultz.  The poster states; "A German Girl! 'Germany will endure all suffering and create a new world', said Maria Schultz on the 12.February 1945, awaiting her death sentence"  Schultz, whose actual last name may have been Bierganz, was arrested when her diary was discovered, which was fanatically pro Nazi and full of fantasies about killing U.S. troops, but she was just let go, not executed.  German women would help rebuild Germany, but not in the way she imagined.

If all of this seems a bit odd, it's probably a lot more human than people might suppose.  Germany had been heavily propagandized during the Nazi era, but the era was a lot shorter than people like to recall, which is frightening in that Germany descended into madness so quickly.  Be that as it may, DNA tends to rule at the end of the day and the Japanese and German examples tend to show that, with the German one perhaps being the most consequential.  Nazi Germany had very distinct concepts of what women were to do, which were more than a little perverse.  Germany itself was, of course, a Christian nation which the anti Christian Nazi party was seeking to transform into something else, and which it was surprisingly successful in doing in its short period of rule.  

Recruiting poster aimed at teenage girls for the Hitler Youth.  The female variant of the Hitler Youth, the League of German Girls would prove to be downright perverse, encouraging a radical pronatalist view of their role.

The Nazis were heavily invested in an exaggerated martial concept of manliness which failed.  By late 1944 the Allies were on Germany's doorstep.  Fairly soon German soldiers in the East would outright be fighting to the last man to try to protect German civilians from the Red Army, which is much of the reason that the fighting in 1945 was so much worse in the East than at any time prior to that.  German troops did in fact go down fighting in many instances to attempt to give German civilians, including women, the chance to get away, but to a large degree they failed.  German men, in other words, were unable to protect German women from rape and death in the East.

In the West, the German military failure had less severe physical consequences, but German manhood failed there too.  Cities were destroyed and lives wrecked.  The irony, however, was that in the West, the Allies themselves became the protector, and indeed the liberator, of German women.  By making them temporarily Verboten, they gave them independence in a way that they had not had since 1932, if ever.

Italy declared war on Japan.

The French flag was formally unfurled at the summit of the Victory Column in Berlin.

The monument celebrated the German victory over France in the Franco Prussian War.

Japanese destroyer Tachibana was sunk in Hakodate Bay by aircraft of the U.S. Navy.  The battleships South Dakota, Indiana and Massachusetts, plus two heavy cruisers and 4 destroyers, bombarded the Kamaishi steel works in the first naval gunfire directed against the Japanese home islands.

The Simla Conference ended without a positive result.

Last edition:

Friday, July 13, 1945. Japan seeks a way out.

Sunday, July 13, 2025

Friday, July 13, 1945. Japan seeks a way out.

US patrol on Luzon, July 13, 1945.

After a flurry of cables from Japan, Japan's Ambassador to the Soviet Union Naotake Sato met with Molotov in a peace feeler through the still neutral Soviet Union.

The Berlin municipal council confiscated all property held by members of the Nazi Party.

The U.S. took responsibility for the sinking of the Japanese hospital ship Awa Maru on April 1, but cited it as an error, which it was.

Gen. Eisenhower issued a farewell message to the AEF.

World War Two American internment camps were shutting down.

Today in World War II History—July 13, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—July 13, 1945: US War Relocation Authority announces all but one internment camp for Japanese-Americans (Tule Lake) are to close by December 15.

Ben Chifley was chosen as Australian Prime Minister




Last edition:

Friday, July 4, 2025

Monday, July 4, 1910. The Fight of the Century.

Given that this was Independence Day, a lot of Americans had a two day (yes, two day) weekend.

A few had three day weekends.

Injuries and deaths went down on the July 4th holiday by 40%, compared to the prior year, through a public education program.

Saturdays off wasn't all that common.


Boxing legend Jack Johnson defeated James J. Jeffries for the heavyweight boxing championship, making the controversial and colorful Johnson the first black to take the title.  The match was held in Reno, and the results sparked riots.  Depending upon how you viewed the boxing title, Johnson may have claimed it, and quite legitimately, since 1908.

Jeffries was "the great white hope" who was expected to beat Johnson.

He didn't, suffering a TKO in the 14th round.

The fight was billed The Fight of the Century.  It was filmed, with both men making around $100,000 from the film.

Russia and Japan signed a treaty defining their spheres of influence in Manchuria.  Both countries were building railroads there.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 2, 1910. Binder clips.

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Tuesday, July 3, 1945. Don't use the Bomb.

The first draft of a letter by Manhattan Project scientists urging that the Atomic Bomb not be used was circulated.  Hungarian physicist and biologist Leo Szilard was the scrivener.


This version was not sent, as a new one was worked on in order to secure additional signatures.

This is the second such example of such a letter, the other one from Robert Oppenheimer, that I've posted in recent days.  Clearly something was really going on inside the Manhattan Project itself at this time, and what that was, was a debate on whether to use the bomb or not.

Frankly, the views expressed above comport with my own.  Using the bomb was 1) a huge mistake, and 2) deeply immoral in how it was targeted.

It's interesting, however, that this debate broke out at this point.

That the atom could be split and that it could be done in such away that the massive release of energy would result in a huge blast had been known, albeit theoretically, for some time.  The knowledge did not come about during the war itself, but before it.

The war, however, created an enormous imperative to work the physical problems of constructing a bomb out, in large part out of the fear the Axis would get there first.

The Western Allies, the Germans, and the Japanese all had atomic weaponry programs, although its typically forgotten that the Japanese were working on this as well. The German program was enormously feared.

The German program was also enormously hampered by Nazi racism, as it had the impact of causing Jewish scientists, such as the Hungarian Leo Szilard to flee for their lives.  They weren't alone in this, however, as generally the highly educated class of men that were in the field of physics weren't really keen on fascism overall.  Germany had some top flight scientists, of course, but many of the best minds in science in Europe had left or put themselves out of serious research work if they remained. Some of those who remained in Europe and were subject to the Germans somewhat doddled in their efforts in order to retard the advancement of the efforts.

Japan had a program, as noted, and it had some excellent physicists. Their problem here, however, was much like that of the Japanese war effort in chief.  Japan was so isolated that it had nobody else to draw from.

In contrast, the US effort was nearly global in extent, as the US drew in all the great minds, in one way or another, who were not working for the Germans or Japanese, which was most of the great minds in the field.

At any rate, moral qualms about using the bomb didn't really start to emerge until very late in the war, and not really until after Germany had surrendered.  Nearly everyone working on the Manhattan Project imagined it as producing a bomb to be used against Germany.  Japan wasn't really considered.

And there's good reasons for that. For one thing, it was feared that Germany, not Japan, would produce a nuclear weapon and there was no doubt that Germany would use it if they did.  Given that, producing a bomb, and using it first, had a certain element of logic to it.  Destroy them, the logic was, before they can do that to us.

Working into that, it should be noted, was the decay in the resistance to the destructiveness of war that had started to set in during World War One.  The US had gone to war, in part, over a moral reaction to the Germans sinking civilian ships.  By World War Two there was no moral aversion to that at all and unrestricted submarine warfare was just considered part of war.

The Germans had also introduced terror bombing of cities during the Great War, engaging in it with Zeppelins.  Long range artillery had shelled Paris in the same fashion.  Between the wars it was largely assumed that cities would be targeted simply because they were cities, which turned out to be correct.  The Germans had already engaged in this during the Spanish Civil War and would turn to during the Blitz, which the British would very rapidly reply with.  By 1945 the US was firebombing Japanese cities with the logic it drove workers out of their homes, and crippled Japanese industry, which was correct, but deeply immoral.

By July 1945 there were really no more industrial targets left to bomb in Japan, although the bombing was ongoing.  The only point of dropping an atomic bomb was to destroy cities, and the people within them.

That was obvious to the atomic scientists, but that had been obvious about using the bomb on Germany as well. Targeting would have largely been the same, and for the same purpose.  Allied strategic bombing of Germany has actually halted before the German surrender, as there was no longer any point to it, although the concept the Allies had in mind would really have been to use the bomb earlier than the Spring of 1945.  Indeed, had the bomb been available in very early 1945, there's real reason to doubt that the Allies would have used it on Germany, as Allied troops were on the ground and they were advancing.

Still, with all that in mind, there was a certain sense all along that Germany uniquely deserved to be subject to atomic bombs.  Japan in this context was almost an after thought.

Everyone working on the bomb in the US was European culturally.  To those of European culture the Germans were uniquely horrific, and to this day Nazi Germany is regarded as uniquely horrific.  Many of those working on the Manhattan Project, moreover, were direct victims of the Nazis, with quite a few being both European and Jewish refugees.  Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, by late 1944 people were well aware of what was going on in Nazi Germany and that the Germans were systematically murdering Jews.

The Japanese also were incredibly inhumane and horrific in their treatment of the populations they'd overrun, as well as of Allied prisoners of war. But the nature and extent of their barbarity really wasn't very well known.  Indeed, much of it would not be until after the Second World War, at which time the information was suppressed for post war political reasons.  At any rate, in July 1945, the scientists working on the Manhattan Project did not know of Japanese systematic horrors in China.  Very few people did.

And the Japanese were scene, basically, as victims of their own culture, which was somewhat true.  Japan had not been colonized by Europeans at all, making them the only nation in Asia to have that status.  Therefore, European culture, and standards, had really not penetrated very much.  Japan had adopted Western technology, but Western concepts of morality in war had not come in with it very much. To the extent that it did, it seemed to evaporate with the introduction of increasing authoritarianism in Japan after World War One.

But that wasn't really known to the scientific community.

It was, however, to the military community, which had been fighting the Japanese on the ground.

We'll discuss that in the context of the bomb in a later thread.  

The point here is that by this time, many in the non military community, and some within it, who were aware that the Allies were about to produce an atomic bomb were now against using it.

And, indeed, it should never have been used.

Moscow radio announced that the body of Joseph Goebbels had been discovered in the courtyard of the Chancellery in Berlin.

Also in Berlin, the first U.S. troops arrived for occupation duty.

James F. Byrnes became United States Secretary of State.

The first civilian passenger car made in the United States in three years rolled off the assembly line of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit.  The car was a 1946 Super DeLuxe Tudor sedan and was destined for Harry Truman.

Last edition:

Monday, July 2, 1945. Advances on Balikpapen.


Sunday, June 29, 2025

Friday, June 29, 1945. Downfall.

 President Truman approved Operation Downfall.


The planned invasion for Japan would have kicked off on November 1, and would have committed 5,000,000 US troops to the effort.

Czechoslovakia ceded Ruthenia to the Soviet Union.

Last edition:

Thursday, June 28, 1945. Moving in new directions.

Friday, June 27, 2025

Wednesday, June 27, 1945. Giving Japan a warning.

Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard suggested giving Japan a warning about the atomic bomb.

US forces completed the occupation of Luzon's Cagayan Valley.  The island is accordingly nearly fully under US control.

The I-165 was sunk east of Saipan by a US PV-2 Harpoon.

The USS Bunker Hill was struck by a kamikaze resulting in the death of 373 men.

Dr. Emil Hacha, age 73, the former president of the German sponsored "Bohemia-Moravia Protectorate," died in the Prague prison hospital while awaiting trial.

Edward Stettinius resigned as Secretary of State to take up the post of ambassador to the United Nations.

Last edition:

Tuesday, June 26, 1945. The United Nations Charter signed, Manhattan Project scientists worry, Marilyn appears in Yank,

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Sunday, June 24, 1945. A parade in Moscow.

 


A massive military parade marking the defeat of the Germans was held in Moscow.

Japan sent a military delegation to the event.
Today in World War II History—June 24, 1940 & 1945In a bombing raid, the RAF destroys the infamous bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand, built at great cost by slaves and prisoners of the Japanese.
Last edition:

Saturday, June 23, 1945. Polish arrangements.

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Friday, June 22, 1945. The Battle of Okinawa ends.

The Battle of Okinawa ended. It was the last major ground battle of World War Two.

Today in World War II History—June 22, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 22, 1945: Battle for Okinawa officially ends at a high cost—12,520 Americans and 110,000 Japanese were killed, plus 42,000 civilians.

June 22, 1945: The Battle of Okinawa

Operation Ten-Go, the last major Japanese naval operation, concluded.

Gen. MacArthur announced that Gen. Joseph Stilwell would replace Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. as commander of the U.S. Tenth Army.

Emperor Hirohito directed his government to find a way to peace talks.

Japanese generals Isamu Chō, 50, and Mitsuru Ushijima, 57,  committed suicide on Okinawa.

The Japanese withdrew from Liuchow.

Last edition:

Thursday, June 21, 1945. Fall of Hill 89.

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Monday, June 18, 1945. The death of Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.


Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. was killed by Japanese artillery on Okinawa.  He was 58 years old, making him one of the older U.S. Generals of the Second World War.

The artillery projectile was of the flat shooting rifle type, and the projectile had actually ricocheted off of a coral reef, and then hit Buckner.

Prior to World War Two, Buckner had principally been involved in the education and training of troops.  He had seen overseas duty, however, in the Philippines in 1908.

His father, the senior Simon Bolivar Buckner, had been an American Army officer during the Mexican War, and a Confederate general during the Civil war.

Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki informed the Japanese Supreme Council of Emperor Hirohito's intention to seek peace with the Allies as soon as possible.

The USS Bonefish was sunk in Toyama Bay.

The Chinese Army took Wenchow.

The Soviets put sixteen officers of the Polish Home Army on trial for fighting the Soviets.


William Joyce, Lord Haw Haw, was put on trial for treason.

The British Army began demobilizing.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 14, 2025

Thursday, June 14, 1945. Slogging.

The Chinese Army captured Ishan.

"Riflemen of the 2nd Bn., 381st Regiment of the Tenth Army's 96th Div. peer cautiously ahead as they advance across the summit of Yaeju-Dake escarpment (Big Apple Ridge) on Okinawa. 14 June 1945. 2nd Battalion, 381st Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division."

Action continued on Okinawa, but the battle was finally winding down.

Likewise, action continued in the Philippines, and Bouganville.

The British arrested Joachim von Ribbentrop in Hamburg.

The Northern Ireland general election returned a Ulster Unionist Party majority.

A victory parade was held in Rangoon.

Gen. Eisenhower was awarded the French Order of Liberation by Gen. de Gaulle.

The US Joint Chiefs of Staff issue a directive to General MacArthur, General Arnold and Admiral Nimitz to prepare plans for the immediate occupation of the Japanese islands in the event of a sudden capitulation. 

Today In Wyoming's History: June 14--Flag Day1945  Shoshone and Washakie National Forests consolidated.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 13, 1945. Taking the Oruku Peninsula.