Chapter 1: Summary of Findings

This is related to the fact that some people argue that bombing the cities was killing innocent civilians, but the Japanese war machine was supplemented by things made at homes rather than everything being made in big buildings. The Japanese homes were made mainly out of wood which made them very vulnerable to incendiary devices which led to major firestorms and square miles of cities being destroyed.

The war in China, which started in 1931, was taken its toll on the people. They didn't necessarily want yet another war, and that with the United States, but once it started and the Japanese forces seem unstoppable their morale went up. Reverses were kept from the people but finally as the Americans got ever closer to Japan, and especially with the bombing raids, the people knew things were not going well.

The air raids and the military defeats finally began to cause their morale to go down. Consumer shortages caused them to fell that victory was no longer certain.

Indicates how important the air raids were. Think about this for a minute. Japan had never been defeated in a war. They were sure that they would defeat anyone they fought. They were doing moderately well in China and doing very well on the Southeast Asian islands. Suddenly the enemy was at the door and this was something they could not quite understand.

Notice the statistics. 43% of the 60 largest cities in the country were destroyed. That's a very sizable number and not something the Japanese government could keep hidden. Also, with 500 targets, there's a heck of a lot of people that knew that something was majorly wrong with how the war was going. The people were helpless during the bombings. The Japanese had no really effective means for stopping the bombing. The made firebreaks, but sometimes firestorms became so power from the incendiary bombing that the firebreaks were of little value. The firefighting efforts were also no where near enough to handle the flames, much less the actual bombs.

900,000 died as a result of the bombings, far more than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki together.

The reaction was fright and terror which, of course, makes sense. The bombs fell and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about it. There was no way to make it stop. I am surprised at the people being more concerned with the high explosives than with the incendiary bombs, though. The fact that they were blaming their own leaders is also important although, unlike elsewhere, they would not stage protests or violent rioting against their own government. For one thing the Japanese secret police would have dealt incredibly harshly with them.

The effects of the bombing resulted in lower morale all around which, again, is a little surprising since I would have thought it would have been a more major difference between those actually bombed and those not.

There was also some interesting information on attitudes towards each other.

More of the above.

So the 'intellectuals' had the lowest morale. Interesting.

This makes sense.

Also, again this makes sense.

This is quite important. We fewer people in the cities, there were fewer available laborers, less demand for products, etc. It obviously helped keep a lot of people alive that would have died in the bombings.

This is also very important. Even though the government tried to keep a lot of the bad news from the people, this spreading out of people also spread out news.

Why the atomic bombs did not affect morale very much.

The target of the hate was the Japanese government, not the U.S.

The government might have surrendered before the end of the year even without the atomic bombs. (In my opinion, I don't think they would have. I think they would have fought to the bloody end.)

Indoctrination by schools and religion.

Why Japanese propaganda didn't work well on the Japanese civilians.

American propaganda had little effect.

The surrender dazed the Japanese people.

The American troops behaved very different than the Japanese had been led to believe they would.

The drop in morale did have an effect.

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