The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945

by The New York Times

  All along, it has been a race with the enemy. Ironically enough, Germany started the experiments, but we finished them. Germany made the mistake of expelling, because she was a “non-Aryan,” a woman scientist who held one of the keys to the mystery, and she made her knowledge available to those who brought it to the United States. Germany never quite mastered the riddle, and the United States, Secretary Stimson declared, is “convinced that Japan will not be in a position to use an atomic bomb in this war.”

  A SOBERING AWARENESS OF POWER

  Not the slightest spirit of braggadocio is discernable either in the wording of the official announcements or in the mien of the officials who gave out the news. There was an element of elation in the realization that we had perfected this devastating weapon for employment against an enemy who started the war and has told us she would rather be destroyed than surrender, but it was grim elation. There was sobering awareness of the tremendous responsibility involved.

  Secretary Stimson said that this new weapon “should prove a tremendous aid in the shortening of the war against Japan,” and there were other responsible officials who privately thought that this was an extreme understatement, and that Japan might find herself unable to stay in the war under the coming rain of atom bombs.

  The first news came from President Truman’s office. Newsmen were summoned and the historic statement from the Chief Executive, who still is on the high seas, was given to them.

  “That bomb,” Mr. Truman said, “had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It had more than 2,000 times the blast power of the British ‘Grand Slam,’ which is the largest bomb (22,000 pounds) ever yet used in the history of warfare.”

  EXPLOSIVE CHARGE IS SMALL

  No details were given on the plane that carried the bomb. Nor was it stated whether the bomb was large or small. The President, however, said the explosive charge was “exceedingly small.” It is known that tremendous force is packed into tiny quantities of the element that constitutes these bombs. Scientists, looking to the peacetime uses of atomic power, envisage submarines, ocean liners and planes traveling around the world on a few pounds of the element. Yet, for various reasons, the bomb used against Japan could have been extremely large.

  Hiroshima, first city on earth to be the target of the “Cosmic Bomb,” is a city of 318,000, which is—or was—a major quartermaster depot and port of embarkation for the Japanese. In addition to large military supply depots, it manufactured ordnance, mainly large guns and tanks, and machine tools and aircraft-ordnance parts.

  President Truman grimly told the Japanese that “the end is not yet.”

  “In their present form these bombs are now in production,” he said, “and even more powerful forms are in development.”

  He sketched the story of how the late President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill agreed that it was wise to concentrate research in America, and how great, secret cities sprang up in this country, where, at one time, 125,000 men and women labored to harness the atom. Even today more than 65,000 workers are employed.

  “What has been done,” he said, “is the greatest achievement of organized science in history.

  “We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.”

  AUGUST 2, 1945

  Editorial

  THE CONFERENCE ENDS

  After three weeks of deliberations, the momentous Conference of Potsdam, which met to liquidate Hitler’s ghastly heritage and to lay the cornerstone for the new world of tomorrow, has come to its end. The Big Three, on whose shoulders rested perhaps greater responsibility this time than ever in the past because victory in Europe enlarged their freedom of choice, are homeward bound to put their decisions into effect.

  Nearly three months have passed since V-E Day, and a distraught and devastated Europe looks with dread to the approaching winter, which promises to be the hardest in its history, but against which it can do little until peace succeeds war. And that peace, for the first time since Europe beat off the invasions from Asia and Africa, is now in the keeping of the three chiefly extra-European Powers which met in Potsdam. Time presses, therefore, and it is quite in order that President Truman should have declined the numerous invitations to visit other countries in favor of a brief visit to the King of England aboard a battle cruiser at Plymouth. It is a welcome and a graceful gesture which not only returns the King’s visit to the United States just prior to the war, but also demonstrates the enduring friendship between our two countries beyond all changes in national and international politics.

  What decisions the Conference has made will not be revealed until its final communiqué is published. It would be useless to speculate on them. But one can take hope from the repeated interim reports that progress was being made. The alternative to agreement, in fact, would be too grim to contemplate. At the same time, the change in the personnel of the Big Three since their previous meetings, and even in the midst of this conference, has demonstrated that this was a meeting, not of three men, but of three nations with specific problems and interests to reconcile. And the further fact that the United States not only played the decisive role in the victory, but that its President also presided over the conference to gather its fruits, has put a particularly large share of responsibility on America.

  In a sense, the Potsdam Conference was in the nature of a preliminary peace conference at which the Big Three sought to agree among themselves on the framework of a peace that will so much depend on their support. In such a preliminary gathering, secrecy is unavoidable if results are to be achieved. Not even the most enthusiastic exponents of open diplomacy will cavil as long as the full results are published at its conclusion. And it is inevitable that its decisions will go far to determine the shape of things to come. But it will be well to bear in mind that in the last analysis even its decisions can only be provisional—a basis of procedure, not a dictate to be blindly accepted by the rest of the world. They must still remain subject to ratification—by one or more peace conferences in which all affected nations must have a voice, by the individual Governments of the Big Three themselves, and in the end by the conscience of the world. For unless they are so ratified, they will not endure. The development of the United Nations Charter, from the Atlantic Charter, through Dumbarton Oaks, through the San Francisco Conference, to the final ratification by the United States Senate, with its successive stages of increasing publicity, debate and improvement, has set the precedent and the moral for the peace treaties to come.

  AUGUST 10, 1945

  TRUMAN WARNS JAPAN: QUIT OR BE DESTROYED

  SECOND BIG AERIAL BLOW

  Japanese Port of Nagasaki Is Target In Devastating New Midday Assault

  By W. H. LAWRENCE

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  GUAM, Aug. 9—Gen. Carl A. Spaatz announced today that a second atomic bomb had been dropped, this time on the city of Nagasaki, and that crew members reported “good results.”

  The second use of the new and terrifying secret weapon which wiped out more than 60 per cent of the city of Hiroshima and, according to the Japanese radio, killed nearly every resident of that town, occurred at noon today, Japanese time. The target today was an important industrial and shipping area with a population of about 253,000.

  The great bomb, which harnesses the power of the universe to destroy the enemy by concussion, blast and fire, was dropped on the second enemy city about seven hours after the Japanese had received a political “roundhouse punch” in the form of a declaration of war by the Soviet Union.

  VITAL TRANSSHIPMENT POINT

  GUAM, Aug, 9 (AP)—Nagasaki is vitally important as a port for transshipment of military supplies and the embarkation of troops in support of Japan’s operations in China, Formosa, Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. It was hig
hly important as a major shipbuilding and repair center for both naval and merchantmen.

  The city also included industrial suburbs of Inase and Akinoura on the western side of the harbor, and Urakami. The combined area is nearly double Hiroshima’s.

  Nagasaki, although only two-thirds as large as Hiroshima in population, is considered more important industrially. With a population now estimated at 253,000, its twelve square miles are jam-packed with the eave-to-eave buildings that won it the name of “sea of roofs.”

  General Spaatz’ communiqué reporting the bombing did not say whether one or more than one “mighty atom” was dropped.

  HIROSHIMA A ‘CITY OF DEAD’

  The Tokyo radio yesterday described Hiroshima as a city of ruins and dead “too numerous to be counted,” and put forth the claim that the use of the atomic bomb was a violation of international law.

  The broadcast, made in French and directed to Europe, came several hours after Tokyo had directed a report to the Western Hemisphere for consumption in America asserting that “practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death” Monday, when the single bomb was dropped on the southern Honshu city.

  The two broadcasts, recorded by the Federal Communications Commission, stressed the terrible effect of the bomb on life and property.

  European listeners were told that “as a consequence of the use of the new bomb against the town of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, most of the town has been completely destroyed and there are numerous dead and wounded among the population.”

  [The United States Strategic Air Forces reported yesterday that 60 per cent of the city had been destroyed.]

  “The destructive power of the bombs is indescribable,” the broadcast continued, “and the cruel sight resulting from the attack is so impressive that one cannot distinguish between men and women killed by the fire. The corpses are too numerous to be counted.

  “The destructive power of this new bomb spreads over a large area. People who were outdoors at the time of the explosion were burned alive by high temperature while those who were indoors were crushed by falling buildings.”

  Authorities still were “unable to obtain a definite check-up on the extent of the casualties” and “authorities were having their hands full in giving every available relief possible under the circumstances,” the broadcast continued.

  In the destruction of property even emergency medical facilities were burned out, Tokyo said, and relief squads were rushed into the area from all surrounding districts.

  The Tokyo radio also reported that the Asahi Shimbun had made “a strong editorial appeal” to the people of Japan to remain calm in facing the use of the new type bomb and renew pledges to continue to fight.

  [A special meeting of the Japanese Cabinet was called at the residence of Premier Kantaro Suzuki to hear a preliminary report on the damage, The United Press said.]

  AUGUST 15, 1945

  PRESIDENT ANNOUNCING SURRENDER OF JAPAN

  YIELDING UNQUALIFIED, TRUMAN SAYS MAC ARTHUR TO RECEIVE SURRENDER

  By ARTHUR KROCK

  Special to The New York Times.

  WASHINGTON, Aug. 14—Japan today unconditionally surrendered the hemispheric empire taken by force and held almost intact for more than two years against the rising power of the United States and its Allies in the Pacific war.

  The bloody dream of the Japanese military caste vanished in the text of a note to the Four Powers accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945, which amplified the Cairo Declaration of 1943.

  Like the previous items in the surrender correspondence, today’s Japanese document was forwarded through the Swiss Foreign Office at Berne and the Swiss Legation in Washington. The note of total capitulation was delivered to the State Department by the Legation Charge d’Affaires at 6:10 P.M., after the third and most anxious day of waiting on Tokyo, the anxiety intensified by several premature or false reports of the finale of World War II.

  ORDERS GIVEN TO THE JAPANESE

  The Department responded with a note to Tokyo through the same channel, ordering the immediate end of hostilities by the Japanese, requiring that the Supreme Allied Commander—who, the President announced, will be Gen. Douglas MacArthur—be notified of the date and hour of the order, and instructing that emissaries of Japan be sent to him at once—at the time and place selected by him—with full information of the disposition of the Japanese forces and commanders.”

  President Truman summoned a special press conference in the Executive offices at 7 P.M. He handed to the reporters three texts.

  The first—the only one he read aloud—was that he had received the Japanese note and deemed it full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, containing no qualification whatsoever; that arrangements for the formal signing of the peace would be made for the “earliest possible moment”; that the Japanese surrender would be made to General MacArthur in his capacity as Supreme Allied Commander in Chief; that Allied military commanders had been instructed to cease hostilities, but that the formal proclamation of V-J Day must await the formal signing.

  The text ended with the Japanese note, in which the Four Powers (the United States, Great Britain, China and Russia) were officially informed that the Emperor of Japan had issued an imperial rescript of surrender, was prepared to guarantee the necessary signatures to the terms as prescribed by the Allies, and had instructed all his commanders to cease active operations, to surrender all arms and to disband all forces under their control and within their reach.

  PRESIDENT ADDRESSES CROWD

  After the press conference, while usually bored Washington launched upon a noisy victory demonstration, the President with Mrs. Truman walked out to the fountain in the White House grounds that face on Pennsylvania Avenue and made the V sign to the shouting crowds.

  But this did not satisfy the growing assemblage, or probably the President either, for, in response to clamor, he came back and made a speech from the north portico, in which he said that the present emergency was as great as that of Pearl Harbor Day and must and would be met in the same spirit. Later in the evening he appeared to the crowds and spoke again.

  He then returned to the executive mansion to begin work at once on problems of peace, including domestic ones affecting reconversion, unemployment, wage-and-hour scales and industrial cut-backs, which are more complex and difficult than any he has faced and call for plans and measures that were necessarily held in abeyance by the exacting fact of war.

  But certain immediate steps to deal with these problems and restore peacetime conditions were taken or announced as follows:

  1. The War Manpower Commission abolished all controls, effective immediately, creating a free labor market for the first time in three years. The commission also set up a plan to help displaced workers and veterans find jobs.

  2. The Navy canceled nearly $6,000,000,000 of prime contracts.

  The Japanese offer to surrender, confirmed by the note received through Switzerland today, came in the week after the United States Air Forces obliterated Hiroshima with the first atomic bomb in history and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics declared war on Japan. At the time the document was received in Washington Russian armies were pushing back the Japanese armies in Asia and on Sakhalin Island, and the Army and Navy of the United States with their air forces—aided by the British—were relentlessly bombarding the home islands.

  When the President made his announcements tonight it was three years and 250 days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which put the United States at war with Japan. This was followed immediately by the declarations of war on this country by Germany and Italy, the other Axis partners, which engaged the United States in the global conflict that now, in its military phases, is wholly won.

  President Harry S. Truman announces the surrender of Japan to the White House Press Corps, August 15, 1945.

  If the note had not come today the President was ready, though reluctant, to give the order that would have spread throu
ghout Japan the hideous death and destruction that are the toll of the atomic bomb.

  These are a few highlights in the violent chapter of unprecedented war that ended today with the receipt of the note from Tokyo. It is not strange that, remembering all these things, the President and high officials were under a strain as acute as any mother, father or wife of a man in the Pacific combat could have been while waiting for the words that would bring the chapter to a present close.

  The alternative for the Japanese would, of course, have been national suicide. But there are many in Washington, students of this strange race or baffled by the ways of the Orient, who have predicted that such would be the decision of the Japanese military leaders to which the people would submit. The Japanese, they contended, would commit mass suicide before they would yield their god, the Emperor, to an alien enemy as his overlord.

  But now this god, in the person of an ordinary human being, representative of other human beings who were vanquished with him, is to take his orders from a mortal man who, above all others, symbolizes the spirit of the alien enemy that was foremost in crushing the myth of divinity and shattering the imperial dream. And the Emperor, with his Ministers and commanders, has been obliged to accept the condition that disproves the fanatical concept used by the militarists of Japan to produce unquestioned obedience to orders issued in the Emperor’s name, however much or little he may have had to do with them.