Not so fun fact: American military planners predicted that during Operation Downfall so many servicemen would be killed or wounded that they ordered a massive amount of Purple Hearts be made beforehand. Obviously Operation Downfall never happened and USA was left with a staggering reserve of Purple Heart medals. The reserve of medals lasted through Korean war, Vietnam, both Gulf wars and are still being issued to this day to US soldiers in Afghanistan and the rest of the world. THAT is how bloody they presumed invasion of Japan would be.
Amon Ra The Americans believed that the japanese would never surrender for their homeland. They expected every inch to be fought for, and almost every japanese person holding a weapon. American command was prepared for something a little short if annihilation... scary thought
My Dad was in the Navy in WW2 - in the very hot Pacific theater. He said a day came when they were fitted with colder weather jackets and boots - and everyone knew at some point they were going to be sent to invade Japan. Everyone also knew a lot of them would die.
Right? Noone who fought in WW2 is even alive anymore, lets study it, learn from it but lets not act like we inherit the guilt of the atrocities we never had anything to do with.
@@5illyMe I mean ww2 ended 1945, thats 75 years ago, plus you must have been at least 18 years old so do you know any 93+ year olds? Yes, theres still some people alive, I was exagurating, but they dont make up society. If you walk down the street in Germany you wont see anyone who had anything to do with WW2. Its history.
My mom was Japanese, and in Japan when the bombs were dropped. She said her father was furious because he said the only reason the second one was dropped was because Japan wouldn't back down after the first one. I just feel bad for all the innocent people caught in between
Now THAT is interesting. I love WWII history, grew up in in the US Military and even lived in Japan soaking in all the WWII history I could on Okinawa and I never actually talked to an elder Japanese citizen what they though when they saw the bombs go off!! I talked to Okinawans from then and of course US soldiers from then, and Japanese soldiers, but not actual citizens.
While use of nuclear weapons today is viewed as reprehensible, you can see how they would have been viewed in 1945 facing a likely invasion of the Japanese islands after the bloody fighting in the Philippines, Burma, and various islands in south east Asia as well as the Aleutians (Alaska). What a horrible decision to have to make!
Of course that's why the second one was dropped. The objective was to have Japan surrender. It was either that or destroy them. Innocent people are caught between wars all the time. Causalities will always happen. I'm not at all proud of what my country did but given situation, I wouldnt say it's entirely wrong.
I appreciate this video as a Korean who has heard about Japanese atrocities committed in Korea during the war from the ones who survived. I appreciate that there are Japanese who are aware that these things have happened, hopefully in the future relations between our countries will improve.
For a country that has made so much progress and changes since WW2 it surprises me that Japan still won’t own up to and apologize for its war crimes. Germany did something much worse, and made sure to reflect on it and try to make sure that it never happens again. I’m not sure why Japan won’t if Germany could.
@@MiamiCali706 not just an honor thing. the japanese royal family and lots of war criminals' family were still in charge in japan til now. for example, the last prime minister Abe Shinzo's grandfather(mother's side) Kishi Nobusuke was a class A war criminal. so, to them, lots of current japanese politicians, it's not just admitting the crimes that other prev generations had done, it's admitting the crimes that their own grandparents had done.
It's honestly kind of mind boggling. I can't point to an exact moment, and maybe it's just my own perception of the matter, but it seems by the mid 1950s America and Japan were getting along really well. It's like an anime where the loser of the fight changes sides and becomes friends with the winner. It's actually kind of heartwarming.
@@Preaplanes Well it's simply because of the way the surrender was done. MacArthur allowed the Emperor to surrender with some dignity and MacArthur was personally responsible for the new Japanese constitution. In the early years it was friendship through force essentially and the societal morals of the Japanese were bound to act with honor.
What's more mind-boggling is that: Japan and Germany have become part of the great leadership of the free world. China and Russia, who BOTH received aid and military support to fight off Germany and Japan... are now on the other side of the fence. Thanks a lot Russia and China. Way to go. Not!
@@yetrotagabundok3756 Concerning China, we supported the ROC since they did the fighting. CPC, who at the time was too busy hiding in the mountains and consolidating strength in the countryside, came out and attacked weakened ROC after the war was over.
My grandfather was at Pearl Harbor and served in the Pacific theater. I have no ill will towards Japan about anything in WW2. Because of those events regardless how awful on both sides committed. They led to where we are today. Japan and the US are very close. Every American I personally know loves Japan and holds Japan in the highest regard.
I think it comes down to the willingness to realize that in reality our logic of A-Bomb potentially saving more lives in the long run being true made forgiveness a lot more forthcoming. They were literally poised to fight to the end most likely under the rule of their Emperor. They were that fanatical. Until they realized that holy shit, uhh we don't have a chance. It is highly fortunate that the Emperor finally saw sense to surrender and do the best for his people at that point in time.
@@robertramage9331 I also heard that Japan shrugged at the bombs, it was the threat of Russia invading and never giving back their land that scared them. The Americans repeated this a ton to the Emperor. Would they rather be slave under Russia or free under Americans?
@@mestupkid211986 Wrong. The Atomic Bomb was built in response to an appeal by several German Jewish Scientists who knew what Hitler was trying to develop and they appealed to Albert Einstein to speak to President Roosevelt. FDR listened and the USA began the Manhattan Project in order to beat GERMANY to the Bomb. Then Germany surrendered before the Bomb was used. Then with the high estimated cost of invading Japan President Truman was given the option of using the Bomb on Japan or to invade the conventional way which would be very costly to both sides. In addition, Truman knew that if he sent hundreds of thousands of American boys to injury and death while not using a weapon developed by spending Billions of Dollars it would be seen as traitorous act to the general Citizens of the USA. The USA did the right thing and it saved many lives on both sides. God Bless America.
I'd say that Britain and Japan are the United States' best allies today, and we have been at war with both. I think there are a lot of complex reasons why this is the case, but I'm sure that one of them is that you learn respect for someone if you have to fight them. France and Germany also seem to be buddies these days... but that's just creepy.
The U.S. has a legacy of forging good relations with former enemies. Over the years, we have fought the UK, France (briefly), Mexico, Spain, Germany, Japan, North Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. Of all of those, only North Korea remains as a hostile enemy, and most of the others are now allies. We have good relations even with Vietnam at this point. Once a conflict ends, we generally try to move beyond it, and commonly within a single generation.
We try not to take war personally, it's just the business at the end of the day; Japan did what they did because they sought to protect their national interests and we did the same, no good will come from a lingering animosity. We learned this approach to war from the British who had a habit of switching sides with each successive war to maintain the balance of power on the continent and it has served us well throughout history.
@@costakeith9048 Sorry, but that's nonsense. Japan was as much of a fascist dictatorship as Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, and Americans took Pearl Harbor VERY personally. Maybe what you're trying to say is that our war was against the fascist government, and not the people.
@@ariochiv No, that's not what I'm saying, I make no distinction between the government and the people. The people allowed the government to come to power and stay in power, so they are responsible for the conduct of that government. It's as true for Germany and Italy as Japan. During the war the hatred obviously ran deep, that is the nature of war; but if you look at the actions of the United States after the war it apparent the nation quickly moved on. We extracted some vengeance immediately after the war, hanging several of their leaders as is the right of a conqueror, but by '47 the US government and, therefore, the nation that had put that government in power had moved on, there were new threats on the horizon that needed addressed and we couldno longer afford to be burdened with old rivalries that were no longer pertinent to the new geopolitical landscape. There may have been several individuals that still held animosity, especially those who fought in the pacific, but they do not speak for the nation, the president does.
That while it's a hard topic to talk about, it's good to know that we can revisit history this way: open minded. Thanks man. That was some good insight from a Japanese person.
One of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life was a Japanese warship docked in Pearl Harbor. They were visiting the Arizona Memorial, and when it came time for them to depart, they lined the deck dressed in their whites and saluted the memorial as they passed. It still gets me choked up. Incredible. I was raised a Marine Brat and joined the Air Force when I grew up. Military has basically been my entire life, and that moment is going to stick with me for the rest of my life. On a not so happy note, as a child my family went to Hiroshima. My dad was stationed in Iwakuni and we were living there and made the trip. My sister and I got our picture taken in front of the building the bomb was dropped on, and we went to the museum. The only picture that had issues being developed was the one from in front of the building. All the others turned out fine. You could still make us and the building out, but it was distorted. I remember running out of the museum crying from the wax figures and pictures of the victims.
Those Japanese victims should have stopped their emperor from helping Germans torture and murder 45 million civilians. The bombs are the Japanese fault.
Yea from what i gather every country focuses mostly on it's participation in the war and then cover very broadly the global events. For example here in Bulgaria the pacific front was so badly covered , i had no idea , Japan managed to win against Russia and do so well against China, their ground military must have been something else. Here we covered, why the wars started, who and why did we join and how badly it ended for us lol. We pretty much were forced at gun point by Germany to join, it was either that or they invade us. At least when they told us to prosecute Jewish people, we sabotaged and lied to them about our progress, while sheltering and hiding whomever we were supposed to be exterminating. Our plan was to stay neutral and not get involved , besides the fact Germany wanted us to fight against Russia is the biggest no no in our books, we literally celebrate their Tzar Alexander for freeing us from ottoman slavery , so we despised Germany to the core, i mean every single thing they stood for was against what we viewed as moral.
@@thickac7579 Bulgaria is quite an interesting country during WW2 considering they do next to no fighting, my favorite story apart from saving their Jewish population is when they were sent a few hundred tanks from Germany to use against Russia only to change sides I can just imagine how mad that would've made Hitler late war when he can't exactly replace the few hundred tanks he just lost. My favourite countries to learn about during the war that I was never taught about at school were Greece, Finland and of course Bulgaria.
@@Steve-zc9ht tbh Im way more interested in ppl from allied nations reactions. In Germany we learn about ww2 in great detail in school, over 2-3 years + political situation during the Weimar Republic, the Holocaust and the aftermaths of ww2 - so lets just say the average German has a pretty good understanding of ww2. Meanwhile other nations seem to think its some event from a fantasy book...
@@SovermanandVioboy that's true I can agree with that me my self had to educate myself on European wars and culture since I'm half European because america only focus and talks about itself in every war it's in
Tyler Wilson not exactly true either. Mark Felton has a great video explaining day by day what was happening in the Japanese government in the build up to the nukes and shortly after. Most of the generals and admirals didn’t want to surrender, even after the nukes, even after the soviet invasion of Manchuria. They wanted to fight to the last man. Even when the emperor finally decided to surrender there was an attempted coup to “secure” the emperor and prevent Japan’s surrender.
@@tylerwilson9633 that's been a common theory and while it's true Japan would have lost it's holdings in Manchuria the Soviets had no way to invade mainland Japan. Given the way the USSR was creating it's empire, I highly doubt the US would have allowed and invasion of Japan from Russia. Remember, at that time the US had 27 air craft carriers and 70% of the total ship tonnage in the world. The Russians declaring war on Japan was a factor but it's not the main factor.
@@chaost4544 I thought also USA kinda wanted to flex and make China CCP who is become friends with USA so make China CCP and establish Japan and Guam for stop USSR from spreading to East was necessary and btw ROC(Taiwan) was anti USA so USA helping CCP but in 1970 CCP pro USSR and become USA enemy and want attack Taiwan for 1st election USA send 2 ship and 1st democratic president in Taiwan but after that CCP become big and with his people so USA thought this not very bead if CCP and USSR not really close
The problem Japan would always face in a war versus the US was not only lack of resources compared to the USA but it's Industrial capacity. The US could lose ships and replace them two to ten times over in a year depending on the type of ship. Japan especially with carriers could not afford to lose those ships and hope to replace them fast. Not to mention that the merchant marine of Japan was gutted by American unrestricted submarine warfare which made the resources they got in conquered territory impossible to transport back to Japan. Fun fact the charges of Unrestricted submarine warfare against Dönitz were not assessed during Nuremberg because of this.
@@MaxiusTheGod And even more important: They lost trained and experienced air crews which could not be replaced. Japan had no advanced training programs like the US which could create good pilots in significant numbers. Near the end of the war, after they lost most of their experienced aces, Japan had only rookie pilots who didn't had a chance against US fighter pilots.
True but had the Japanese navy had the necessary natural resources, the US would have suffered great losses to the fully operational and very powerful Japanese navy. The legendary Yamato likely might have been even more of a threat than the Bismarck.
@@AnnedolfFrankler911 Doubtful as the age of the battleship had ended. Japan even with access to resources would still have industrial issues as well. Their navy would have been more active in the later parts of the war if they had fuel but in the end they could only produce so much compared to the USA.
As an Indian, I must say that this ideology of “ I’d rather die than surrender” was very prevalent in mostly Asian countries. It’s not only a Japan thing, this mentality was very much prevalent in India. It’s just a Asian thing lol.
@The Unamed nah. If that was the case, UK would never ever been able to conquer India. Seeing how huge India is, there is no possible way that could have happened. If India had the "i'd rather die" mindset, the whole indian subcontinent wouldn't fall to UK. But you did.
@@TheAlmightyFather India was not conquered but came under British control by a series of treaties with local rulers. The result of that policy is still seen today in Kashmir whose independent sultan decided to favour India despite the majority of his subjects preferring Pakistan
@mcchickenz Like can be seen from the example of Hannibal during the punitive wars, technology and discipline are no guarantee for a Victory. The Indians were not conquered due to lack technology or being vastly underdeveloped. The British wanted to conquer in the first place not just due to the natural resources, the main reason was to get the rich prosperous lands which also held an extreme strategic importance. India was in no way underdeveloped at that time, if it was, the Marathas wouldn't have almost captured the entire subcontinent just before the British arrived, if it was underdeveloped at that time, Britain wouldn't have to care about making any sort of treaties with any local Kings for that matter. Britain didn't have direct control over the subcontinent until very late near the end of the 18th century when the dissolved the East India Company. The East India company only held power through local Kings who ruled the Lands for them. You are absolutely right in your first comment's end portion and your second comment though. Thanks a ton mate for defending Indians in general.
@@TheAlmightyFather India fell because India wasn't really a single country at all when the British came in. Non of the Rulers cared about any possible invasions till hell broke loose on them directly.
@@Liam_Bob anime is literally just "animation" in Japanese, or what most people say: "Japanese cartoons" Weird thing to hate considering there's a huge variety. Don't be single-minded
Both sides in the war did horrible things to each other in the war and the best thing we can do now is acknowledge what happened, forgive, and move forward
@paula That right and wrong is good for motivating your armies in wartime, but in reality it takes away too much nuance. Lack of nuance only exist in fiction. Like how the Empire of Star Wars, where people watch stormtroopers get chewed up by the thousands and audience enjoy it with a smile, forgetting that realistically they were individual people with families, loved ones, hopes, aspirations, and beliefs, sure bad actors set the narrative, but normies become goo under the tires.
70 million people died in WW2. 12 million on the Axis side, 58 million on the Allied side. Of the 12 million on the Axis side about 2 million were civilians. Most of these civilian deaths occurred during the conduct of warfare itself. Of the 58 million on the Allied side over half were civilians. Most of the civilians were killed AFTER their territory was conquered. Your take from this. Both sides did horrible things.
Allies would not have existed had there been no Axis. The war would have ended earlier had the Axis surrendered. The Allies would not have used methods such as city bombings had the Axis not done so first. I don't want to justify wrongdoings from the side of the Allies, but the fact is one side was the perpetrator (Axis) and the other was the respondents (Allies). Also, the Allies did not do human interrogation nor bio-medical research on their captives or use mass concentration camps to exterminate innocent civilians. All Axis nations, Germany, Italy, and Japan, have documented memorandums as to be the dominant human race and the right to conquer, exterminate and kill as they pleased while the Allies main motivation was to, as mentioned above, retaliate against a sudden oncoming wave. Therefore the nations of the Axis must acknowledge, ASK FORGIVENESS, wait until forgiveness is granted, and be the loudest voice for change and peace. That is why I respect the German government, understand the Italians uneager yet acceptance of their role but still cannot understand Japan's refusal to do any of the acknowledgment, asking of forgiveness, waiting for forgiveness, and being the very actors in promoting peace.
@@altansarnaitsering3593 The Japanese invaded Burma and cut India off from its major food supplier. Churchill asked for countries to ship food to India but there wasn't enough shipping available to both keep India fed and keep the Allies supplied all over the world.
As a Japanese American I lost 20 members of my family in Hiroshima the day the bomb fell. While I never knew them they were family. For awhile I pondered the same question if it was necessary then I found Operation Olympic the invasion of the home islands .The key point of McArthur's plan was not invade at all but firebomb the vital Japanese rice crops for two years in a row. Deprived of their main food source many millions of Japanese would have died. It was a cruel if militarily sound idea. Weaken the enemy so much fighting back in any meaningful way becomes impossible. In fact Mc Arthur favored using the A-bombs there in 45 and 46 Given the starvation and disease that would have followed planners thought Japanese casualties may top 10 million innocent civilians. Even tough I lost family what happened preserved the country or my origin and one lived in for years. So my family members did not die in vain wars should never involve nuclear weapons. The kamikaze and bemaze charge's convinced America it was needed. It is the memory of that ferocious enemy that got out respect that makes us good allies today.
Another reason they dropped the a bombs was because they wanted japan to surrender before Russia invaded and occupied japan which wouldn’t have been good for anyone
By the close of WWII, respect for the life of the enemy was at an all-time low for all sides of the conflict. It seems to be the way with war - the more the game is played, the cheaper those body bags seem to get. Firebombing cities and killing countless thousands of civilians stops being a terrible but necessary evil for the allies, and starts becoming an ordinary Tuesday. Had Operation Downfall gone ahead, it would have been staggeringly horrible, but I've no doubt the allies would have done it. I want to believe those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not die in vain. Not just to spare Japan a terrible land invasion, and not just to return a traumatised world to peace. The true, visceral horror of nuclear war was made clear for the whole world to see right from the start. By comparison, seeing a mushroom cloud rise over a patch of empty desert or remote island in a tidy military test, dealing in hypothetical casualties and mathematical models, just doesn't carry the same emotional impact as seeing one rise above a city. It's an image from history that cannot be unseen. It's enough to make anyone reconsider what the point of their cause is. I worry that had there been no atomic weapon attack on Japan, then one of the powers early on in the Cold War would have been far more keen to press the big red button. There would have been no lesson learned on what apocalyptic nightmare it would unleash. I think we only made it this far without filling the world with thermonuclear craters because the world saw in 1945 what the consequence would be for anyone becoming city number 3.
@@SoloRenegade That is quite true. The Russians would have invaded as well since they were running over China and their target was Japan. Can you imagine what the world would look like right now if Russia invaded Japan, and conquered it? The US provided Japan with the best possible choice and they thrived after due to this. This is because of MacArthur.
You should watch the movie “Tora Tora Tora”. The acting and effects are dated, but it tells the story of what happened leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was filmed by American and Japanese filmmakers - and provides a fair, balanced, view os what happened.
Wellllll..... Technically the effects are “dated” (60s/70s models, explosions). But, yes, they’re still better than CGI crap where WW2 planes have the flight characteristics of X-Wings and TIE fighters. Oh, and the modern Navy ships in the harbor (in Pearl Harbor). It was simply horrid and am glad I never paid to see it.
As a former US history teacher, I can tell you that this is an fine presentation! Granted it is highly condensed, but quite accurate. Given today's younger population and attention deficit /phone addictions, this brevity is unfortunately necessary to accommodate moderate assimilation. Well done.
The simplified but accurate history is not the work of this nice young man, he only reacts to it. In general the Japanese post-war generations do almost know nothing about the rol of their country between 1931 and 1945. It is like if any information about that period is prohibited in the Japanese schoolsystem.
@@Corony Because It is. The PM are always releated to some w4r crimin4l. This is not in textbooks and not in the media. There was an anime that mentioned the mukden accident in Manchuria in 1931,and the episode was not allowed to be aired. Or when the movie Unbroken that talked about the behavior of the Japanese army with the POW's,came out,It wasn't initially allowed to be showed in Japan.
“Divine war” Japan was like North Korea on steroids at the time in my opinion. In terms of conventional military power. Those people had been isolated for a couple hundred years, they would’ve died until last man I think. Honor was huge at the time, idk much about Japan but from all the documentaries I saw, their Honor was like their religion.
the whole honor code thing goes all the way back to samurai times. . and it wasnt just a personal honor type of thing. . if you were dishonored it wasnt just you. . your whole family carried that shame. . so it created more of 'fanatacism' around the idea of honor
Japan wasn't as isolated before WWI as a lot of people think. 1853 is when the US put an end to Japanese isolationism. I agree that Honor was a huge part of this because after the end of the Meiji Restoration in the 1860s the Samurai as a class were removed but the ideals of Bushido were made practically universal. It was one of the reasons that every Japanese officer was given a katana, to promote the belief that the military was the continuation of the Samurai and that everyone could become one of these beloved figures. The early Meiji government was very corrupt and full of assassinations and the rise of Imperial Japan really seems to be the result of the reconsolidation of power, plus the warping of national ideals, similar to what Hitler did using Goebbels and propaganda.
@@Blizzard0fHope Just like North Korea. If you did something bad, and you get arrested, not only you will get arrested. Your whole family will. But im saying honor is bad and comparing it to the bad North Korean system, but it's a little similar to that.
@Uncle Ho xD LOL ahahhaha they invaded south part of Korea duh. The North's government tried to get total control of the Korean peninsula. North and south Vietnam thing in terms of similarities.
The question of the Atomic Bomb usage: how many Japanese would have died if we DIDN'T use it? I'm thinking millions, maybe tens of millions. Oh, and also Russia would have had time to join in, and you might be looking at North and South Japan, not just North and South Korea. EDIT: Probably could have chosen less populated cities though. Or I dunno, dropped them in a harbor and said the cities are next. That *might* have worked, but... we were using the bombs as they were being made. We didn't have a stockpile, so that would have been risky if Japan decided not to surrender if we bombed a harbor or something like that.
@@flamingrubys11 I am not a historian, but I don't think there is a simple answer. I am sure the Japanese people were/are divided -some want to quit and others want to fight to last breath and probably the same thing between the emperor and army and the civilians. Were the civilians even told they were the "agressors" or they were told the Japanese empire was being attacked? Would destroying just a miliatary bases or remote location be sufficient? Did US give enough time between dropping the 2 bombs for the people to consider? I wish there was a bomb that would kill only people who wanted the war to continue. But there is no such thing in reality. Sadly, innocent people will die on both sides regardless.
I might be wrong, but I heard from somewhere that they meant to drop the bombs on less populated areas like forests and whatnot, but the pilots were unable to clearly see where they were. On another note, it's extremely debatable what would've happened had America not dropped the bomb or had Japan not surrendered. It's hard to get into the mindset of both sides during this cruel time period since some soldiers believed they were fighting the good fight and others wanted to prove themselves superior. War has a heavy impact on the human psyche, often clouding everyone's reasoning.
It was also a big bluff. We only had two bombs and it would have taken quite some time to build more bombs of the same type. It was a shock and awe strategy that could have failed. Basically the Americans were bluffing they could do this to the rest of the country in a mater of days, hoping logic like that could would sway them. Luckly for us and them it did. from what I understand it would have taken another 6 months to a year to construct new a-bombs to deploy, and if the Japanese had not surrender we would have led to the scenario you described anyway and also shown to the soviets that we had a super weapon but it was in limited supply and took time to construct and deploy.. This was cutting edge tech at the time remember, it couldn't be mass produced yet. So the targets chosen were well chosen for maximum effect, not defending the choice just understanding the logic on why they were chosen by the people in charge at the time. The logic being, hit two targets that are significant to make a point, and to scare the bajeezus out of the soviets so they wouldn't instantly think they could take on the US and the future Nato countries.
A third A-bomb would have been ready in about a month. The would-be third bomb became known as the Demon Core due to the fatal accidents it was involved in. The production rate after that would have been two bombs per month.
Someone once said: "The death of a person is a tragedy, The death of thousand of people is only a number." It was true, and i hate it being true. There is no absolute right and there is no absolute enemy. People can call almost anything as evil as long as that "anything" belongs to the other side. But then again.. even the allies is just a massive machine of contradiction.
Isnt that quote by Stalin? I wouldn't necessarily take advice on how to deal with casualties from Stalin lol... naah Im just joking.. the quote says something about human psyche, how people deal with a lot of death compared to just few. Many times when just one person dies, people gather together to mourn, but if 100 people die they are not interested in the individual but want to see the murderer hang.. or so to speak. Maybe thats just me..
Because hearing about 10.000 people dying is kinda hard for the human brain to really register. You can't relate to 10.000 people. But hearing of 1 little girl or whatever who died is like, that could have been my daughter/sister/friend/whatever. Even if 10% of the 10.000 were little girls just like her, it doesn't hit the same way. (That's also why charities often have pictures of a little kids, or a sad old women, or a hurt animal, or whatever. "Give us 5 bucks and this little girl can go to school!" "Give us 5 bucks and we'll dig a well so this old woman won't have to walk 5 miles to get water every day!" "Give us 5 bucks and this puppy gets to live instead of being put down! )
The loss of life of Japanese civilians was tragic, but it’s estimated that if a full invasion of Japan happened, that 2-4 million Americans would’ve died, and 5-10 million Japanese would’ve died. Especially because of the Japanese policy of fighting to the last man, the loss of life would have been so much more than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The position President Truman was put in was a difficult one that he didn’t even want, but I think he made the right decision. As an American in the present, looking back at it, I am sorry for the loss of Japanese lives, and I am glad we are living in a world where atomic bombs aren’t necessary. I just hope no one will need to use them in future. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes in history, and not repeat them.
Even if the Americans didn’t want to go through the invasion and lose all those lives. The ussr would have. Stalin wouldn’t have cared how many lives it cost.
@@bigjavo36 and if Stalin won, then he probably wouldnt have treated the Japanese as kindly as the US did after the war. Now Japan and America are buds
what i’ve been told, and i don’ t know if it’s true. but apparently japan already wanted to surrender before the mainland invasion. however the US wanted to display the power of the atomic bomb to the soviet union and so delayed the treaty.
@@9tailjeza It's hard to tell with some of these things. That could be true, but I also heard that the U.S. warned Japan to surrender, but they refused. Part of it definitely was to display power to the USSR though. I believe it was both, and the U.S. killed two birds with one stone.
I find that difficult to believe because the Japanese faith saw that surrendering was a dishonorable act which is why any Japanese that found themselves surrounded to either fight to the death or take their own life. Basically surrender wasn’t an option!
I've often wondered about the mindset of certain societies during various historical moments, like what is being expressed by this man in this video. Thank you, you have made a real contribution to what is one of mankind's most important tasks on the road to true peace, the understanding of other cultures.
How about understanding the 45 million civilians who were tortured and mutilated and murdered by the Japanese empire and Axis powers. The Japanese empire would kill themselves too but kamikaze or stabbing to death if a mission went unsuccessful
As an Australian I have high respect for Japan as one of our greatest allies after ww2 however I am heavily proud of our history and how we defended our country and played a key role in the allies victory. Great video BTW keep it up
It is not a great video. He defends the evil Japanese empire who helped the Germans and Axis powers who tortured and murdered 45 million civilians. Yes, be proud of the U.S. who saved the lives of Chinese, Koreans, Americans, Burmese, English and other nations
"Even though we fought before we are good allies, or because we fought before we are good allies." I think the idea that *because* we fought each other is starting to spread, but I think that is wrong. I remember my grandfather and his war friends (rest in peace) speak about fighting the Japanese. They had really deep hatred because of what they saw. They talked about how the soldiers grabbed women and children and used them as shields or tried to kill Americans by pretending to surrender. To them this was now a confrontation with true evil. In the end neither side had mercy for the other. I think why we are good allies now is because, 1. Once Japan got rid of beliefs like "the emperor is god" and other things incompatible with the western view, and the west became less racist, we found out that we had more in common with each other than we did not. 2. I think our nation's strategic interests align now.
I think a main portion of why both countries grew so close was in part to the actions directly after the war. The US replaced the Japanese political system with something close to our own system. This gave the common people of Japan more freedom and benefits that kicked off the big boom in economics they would enjoy. That and Japan being sort of occupied by US forces that intermingled with them and a sort of staging area during the Korean war. Our vets may have been home fuming, but the younger generations that hadn't been so tainted by war time Japan were there and enjoyed it. And as time went by both countries grew closer as they depended on each other. Japan as a stronghold in the area for the US should trouble arise and the US as a defender for the Japanese against aggression from any nations in the area. Both cultures mixed a bit despite the vast distance between the two.
I could see similarities between WWII (with our current war on terrorism). Most of the soldier that fought (or are fighting now never been outside US or have real relationships with people from the other country). The only thing they know are Pearl Harbor (or 9/11 now). The soldiers are only going to see the opposite side as the enemy. The fact is that most civilians on both sides just want to live their lives. But there are small number of influential people -Japanese emperior and the army (or certain terrorist groups) want revenge or broaden their influence. But for US and Japan now, we see the value -there is more to lose than to gain in a war. Hopefully, we can do the same thing one day with all the counties we still have wars or disagreements with. I know I am over simplifying the conflicts we have., but from these videos, I just see a waste of valuable human lives from all sides, which is the saddest part.
@@brianng3414 Unfortunately if you accept certain ideologies, the logical conclusion of them is warfare. This is why it's important to be critical of any belief system, especially ones that start saying "violence is justified to read our goals". All war is, is politics by other means ultimately. If people can't reach their goals (reasonable or insane) via diplomacy, they will attempt to achieve their goals via violence.
There's some truth to that, but I believe that it was MacArthur's decision not to try the Emperor Hirohito for war crimes that allowed the people of Japan to retain some form of normalcy after the war. Add to that the staggering amount of resources and money the allies pumped into Japan to rebuild it after the war, and that the people of Japan recognized the role the US would play in stopping communist aggression during the Cold War.
The allies had planned "Operation Downfall", the invasion of Japans home islands, the allies had planned some 5 million+ Americans and 1million Commenwealth soldiers(with an estimated 500.000-1.000.000 casualties in total) against some 4 million japanese armed forces and over 31 million conscripts who all would fight for every single millimeter of ground. All of this could have dragged the war on for another 2-3 years and the Soviet forces would have landed in Hokkaido and gone south while marching south in main land China So where the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified? From my view yes it safed millions of lives(though we should not forget how it's sad that 129,000-226,000 people had to pay the price for it)
This is what I was taught as well. There were choices, but the bombs made it thr most expedient for Japan's surrender. If there was a land invasion, I have no doubt Hokkaido would have be under Soviet control even after the wars end and become a permanent part of the USSR.
I heard different, I think was a docu that japan was already planning to surrender around 1945 because they knew and feared Russian invasion and didn't want Russia on the negotiation table so Russia could not make any demands
@@Greenberet. that's a lie. It was made up by liberals to make America feel like the bad guys in ww2. You can read japanese war documents and those prove that the japanese had no plan to surrender. Also even after the two atomic attacks and the Soviets joining the war the japanese war council was still split 3 to 3 if to surrender or keep fighting. An the emperor had to make the final decision and he chose to surrender. The atomic bombs kill thousands but saved millions.
Yea Japan was like North Korea at the time but in my opinion, even more nuts. The a-bomb is a horrible weapon but I think it made more sense to drop them, then invade a country with a brainwashed population. Surely the America. soldiers would have been harassed and killed regularly, let’s not forget to mention what the soviets would have done if they landed, you’d have a lot of European babies in northern Japan😬😬
Even from what happened in the Philippines. I still like the relationship that our country has with other countries such as US and Japan, China (not really, but okay, I guess). Like what most people will say or have said, we can only learn from the past and make it better for us and our future generation.
dont be chesspiece for US to fight China. They will sacrifise your country without doubt. and what china did to this world? what US did to this world ? what happened to your little minds? read too much western media propaganda?
As an American born in the 80’s, two of my favorite countries in the world are Germany and Japan. I wonder if my grandfather, who fought in WWII, could have imagined how quickly the sentiment would change. I enjoyed your video and your honesty.
My grandfather liberated Philippines and married a German lady :) Trust me, most forgave right away. Almost every vet I have talked to, had not bad ill towards them in the end, but most would not care to go back to the countries they fought in though hahaha
@@brandtc.7991Help, "liberated the Philippines". If you're from the US, you might not know this but the US freaking colonized us and didn't let go until the PH won the Philippine-American War. I respect soldiers, but you shouldn't have mentioned the "liberated" part because our colonizers treated us like trash. I know it's what it's officially called, but man, it stings that we had to wait until 1946 to be fully independent. But yeah, I doubt anyone would want to visit a place that's very traumatic for them.
His video defends the evil Japanese empire and Axis powers who tortured and murdered 45 million civilians. Yes, the nuclear bombs saved lives of millions of Asians and Allies
Fun fact that isn’t so fun: My dad had a girlfriend whose grandpa was one of the first people to set foot on Japan after the atomic bombs. He said that they had warehouses of weapons for everyone to fight, from guns to knife to even sticks. Everyone was expected to fight if they lived in Japan. (He was also right next to that guy who took the famous picture of the few Americans holding up that flag)
my best friend's grand-father was posted in japan during reconstruction after the war. he had a piece of glass from Nagasaki (like a stone) on display on a bookshelf. that thing gave me the creeps.
The Japanese empire and Axis powers tortured and murdered 45 million civilians. Japanese empire was cutting heads off and torturing women and people in experiments
My opinion on the nukes in Japan from an American perspective: It was either drag the war out and hurl more bodies at Japan that would be killed due to Japanese soldiers not surrendering, and possibly risk Russia invading Japan as well... which more than likely would have greatly affected Japan because America probably wouldn't have the same authority over taking control then it did with the nukes. This *definitely* would have been way more devastating to all countries involved. Specifically Japan as I believe more people would have been killed in a homeland invasion. Or we make the decision to nuke Japan...
Yeah I think if the war hadnt ended when it did and tied Stalins hands we probably would have then been fighting the Russians as they were pretty much land grabbing at the time as there were heading to Japan ie staging an invasion force when the bombs were dropped so yeah I think they did save maybe millions more lives by doin it.. War is basically nasty dirty business not only do young men die but so do the innocent ,hope we never have another....
I'm glad you brought up this perspective, as I was about too. The decision to drop atomic weapons was very much a choosing the lesser of two evils scenario.
Yeeup, with hindsight we can look back and can make a pretty safe assumption that if the nukes weren't dropped and a land invasion did happen, we would have had Okinawa-levels (or worse) of deaths, military and civilian, across nearly every city in southern and central Japan. I doubt it was on their minds when the decision was made, but those two nukes prevented what could have been monumentally worse civilian death tolls.
I'm gonna have to say that the atomic bomb probably saved millions of people in the long run. But here is my reason why, during the second word war it is recorded that Japanese were fierce fighters. It also has been recorded that japan was in a huge rearmament. If we are going off of the historic ideals of japan, it would also appear that there was a sense of Bushido being implemented. Which even now can be seen in the work place. It is evident that japan is like the beehive of the modern world, and there are even reports of people literally working themselves to death. Japanese pride themselves on honor and serving. It's no secret they had kamikaze pilots, and submarine operators. There was a huge sense of loyalty to the nation at the time. So with this in mind, if a nation is so die hard that they are willing to sacrifice men via suicidal crashing attacks, it would not be unreasonable to assume that every last man would have fought to their death if america would attempt a landing. I also do mean every last man, maybe women and children if it was demanded. This was not an ethical way of looking at this particular situation i know. but if the bombs were not dropped, japan would have fought with every last person. I am not here to say that it was right, But in a twisted way. The bomb may have saved more lives of both sides. I am not here to say it was a morally good thing. nor am i going to say that it was right. However it defiantly stopped a slaughterhouse of a battle on the beaches of japan.
I don't think so, I don't agree with the use of atomic bombs, if The U.S didn't dropped it, they would have still fell, but may have possibly been split, due to the USSR had plans to invade the Japanese Mainland.
@@toaacentral3366 For what it's worth, you can google both the US and Japanese projections for a mainland invasion. Japan absolutely expected every last citizen to fight against invasion. US Estimates for casualties were between 500k to 1m, and estimates for Japanese casualties were upwards of 10 million. As far as I know, Japanese estimates were even higher than that. The bombs were unconscionable, but if estimates were even a drip swish and a flick away from being even vaguely correct, a lot of lives were potentially saved. War is evil; there is no "good" side. Just the side that lost less.
people like you always ignore the importance of supplies when they argue that Japan would have kept fighting. Yes if the Allies would have landed on Japan they probably would have done that, but there was no need for it. The Japanese Navy was gone and Japan was basically cut off from outside resources again. At that point a Land Invasion becomes obsolete anyway. I doubt the Atom Bombs saved millions of people in the long run, in fact the Atom Bombs killed millions of people in the long run.
@@TheBlackfall234 at the time of the second world war. It was expected that every man, woman, and child would die for their nation. To the extremes that actual high school girls were being recruited as nurses, and working in caves to work on wounded men. One man on Memoirs Of WW2 channel, one man who has fought on one of the island. Mentioned once the Japanese realized they were gonna loose. They had the women line up on top of the cliffs, to throw their babies off, and jump themselves. Under the guise that the Americans would kill them. That is how extreme japan was during the second world war.
I highly respect your outlook on the war and the atomic bombings my country did unto your people. As you said it was a complicated war and everyone has their own views on the war. I appreciate how open minded you are. It's of course uneasy for my generation to hear about what those bombings did. You've earned a new viewer. With love and respect from the U.S Hoosier state Indiana.
Hello sir, I just want to say that I recently found your channel and I really gotta say I respect that you bring up the Rape of Nanking. You are the first Japanese youtuber I've seen even mention it, and I thank you. If you want a hard, strict look at the Rape of Nanking, I would suggest "Playing the Victim" by Knowing Better. It is not nice. It is not sympathetic. It might make you mad. But as far as I know it is very accurate and... there are pictures. Those pictures haunt me often I will admit; particularly the bayonetted woman. If you believe in evil spirits, that would most certainly be one, the poor dear. I am grateful the photographer at least didn't get her face, may she rest in peace. America (where I'm from) has been allies with Japan for ~75 years now, and many love them as brothers. I want to count myself among them. But it is hard to do sometimes when I have those photos flashing behind my eyelids. Also, what are your thoughts on Unit 731? As far as I know we took those scientists in too, but please correct me if I am wrong. I will keep watching good sir! And thank you, again, for mentioning things. It means a lot - to me anyway.
@@sephiroaone-of-nine101 Absolutely, but we're not talking about that here. 'Look at those guys over there' is not helpful to discussion and learning. The Rape Of Nanking did happen, the discussion surrounding it should be academic and one of acknowledgement of all ours pasts, but also not placing blame on a current generation.
@@Chris44sun perfectly fine to have such a conversation just saying don't point one finger when the hole war is full of war crimes...its a war..shit happens and none of it good -
@@sephiroaone-of-nine101 True, war is bad. Everyone did shit during WW2, and none of it should be excused. But some crimes are simply worse than others. There is no equivalence between American crimes, and those committed by the Nazi and Imperial Japanese regimes, not in scale. Not even close. "Whataboutism" is the death of intellectual discussion and honesty.
@@davididiart5934 Iwhataboutism plays bothsides, sure they were worst but am pretty sure all nations want to roll over their mistakes - russia, america, uk, germany, list goes on and on
It is not great words. He defends the evil Japanese empire and Axis powers who tortured and murdered 45 million civilians and 16 million soldiers. He tries to blame the Allies. Japan was lucky to not suffer 50 nuclear bombs
I’m so happy that people from different nations and ethnic backgrounds can come together and be friendly with each other. I’m sorry for all the lives that our old foes lost.
I like how you are willing to talk about very controversial topics like this, Yuya-san. Your commentary and perspective as a Japanese person are very interesting.
Yuya, I really appreciate that you are keeping an open mind about this! 🙂 It's quite a shame that WW2 isn't being taught in a more honest way in Japan, also leading to strained relations with Korea and other countries. I'm from a country that was on the wrong side of WW2 as well (Austria, back then annexed by Germany) and we were taught about the horrible things that Austrians participated in. I think that this was a very valuable lesson for me, because it goes to show that your own people can be terribly wrong sometimes and coming to grips with that will lead to a better society. There are other people in basically all countries that insist that their history has been faultless and glorious at all times, (for instance how some people in the US think that slavery and the civil war weren't all that bad) but they are wrong and lack self-reflection.
There are not many Americans who think that slavery and the civil war weren't bad or "that bad". The VAST majority of us agree that it was a stain on our history. While keeping in mind we are one of the pioneering nations for criminalizing slavery and racism, most other countries only followed in our footsteps. Also don't believe the idiotic media claiming that the U.S. is a racist bigoted country when we are quite the opposite.
@@jessenoreligionno5731 I'm not trying to paint the US as a racist country. Rather, my point was that the civil war & slavery remain controversial topics and deep wounds have not been allowed to heal as a result. You are far from the only country which has these troubles when facing its own history (a more extreme example would be Turkey and the Armenian genocide). I'm under the impression that in some Southern states it is still taught that the civil war was primarily about state's rights while the full brutality of slavery is somewhat brushed under the rug. The 'Lost Cause' myth has been difficult to dispel. The US was also definitely not one of the pioneering nations when it comes to fighting against slavery & racism. Most European countries did not have slaves way before the United States, where slavery was a major part of the South's economy up until the civil war. And after Reconstruction, black people were disenfranchised from voting in the South until the 1960s - that's hardly pioneering. But again, I'm not trying to single out the US here. All nations have some screwed up stuff in their past, what matters is that we deal with that in an open & honest way. 🙂
@@matthiasm4299 one thing you are misrepresenting here is that most of the European countries who did not own slaves; was not because they were against it. Most European countries simply did not have the excess capital and economic need to partake in the slave trade. None of them are on public record condemning the practice. Then of course like you said, the Armenian genocide. Then of course, Germany also did not have slavery; yet when Hitler came into power they quickly began the "Ethnic cleansing of Europe" and many countries bent to their whim. So when you try to say we weren't pioneers of this thinking, you need to look at everything in context. Of the countries who participated in the slave trade, the US was definitely the first one to condemn it.
@@jessenoreligionno5731 Look, I'm not at all trying to say that the Europeans acted morally superior. For instance, the British outlawed the transatlantic slave trade in 1807 (like the US) only then to colonize Africa in the late 19th century - at times featuring brutal repression and lots of white supremacist ideology. Again, my point is not about condemning American history. People just should try to understand what happened - the good and the bad - and learn from it (and many do). I think you understand as well. But calling the US a pioneer in the fight against slavery... c'mon you know that's putting a lot of spin on things. 😉
As an American, i really love your perspective! Thanks for sharing! Keep the videos coming. And I think our allyship has been a wonderful example to the entire world; showing how two people’s can come together for a brighter future despite their past differences. ☺️
Good video. As I have lived in Japan some 15 years now, I am always asking Japanese people about their opinions on issues such as this. It is always so interesting to hear what everyone thinks (and I have heard all sides). It is great to hear your opinion too. Thanks!
There is no opinion. The Japanese empire and Axis powers tortured and murdered 45 million civilians and consequently suffered atomic bombs. The war was the worst in human history
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I hope we are good allies out of mutual respect. The fierceness of your people throughout history and your beautiful culture has earned the respect of many Americans to this day.
Really interesting hearing you point of view, I had never heard the story that the Japanese Embassy was supposed to let America know about the state of war minutes before Pearl Harbor began. Like you said it wouldn't have made any difference, America would have still reacted the same way even if it did happen.
As an American I appreciate getting to see and understand your point of view. I also share your questions about whether the bombs were necessary. I think those questions should continue to be asked as it dissuades use of the bombs in the future. As it stands today, however, I am very happy about America and Japan’s friendship.
Unfortunately the bombs were a necessary evil, because if not tens of millions would've died from the fighting on main land Japan on both sides. I feel the estimates from both sides are lower then what they actually would've been had the invasion happened
"Because we've fought before we are good allies now" seems to be the right answer. For example, France and Germany : they fought so many times that they share the same History, the same bad memories. They were enemies but they had to unite to build the future, and that's why we've got the European Union today. I could've said the same thing for England but, ya know... We french people are the best enemies of the British since like... an eternity ? Just kidding, now we still fight on the rugby fields and it's called "the crunch"
Personally, I'm just impressed that the allies were still thinking things through that far into the war. They never went all out: "Winning first". I find that very commendable. Sure, there were some decisions that are in the grey area, but that's life. You're in a situation that demands an action. Any action (just about) is better than doing nothing. So you choose the least bad one. I was born in Mainland China, so I know what a government hell bent on victory at all costs thinks. It's not sensible. It does not answer to law. The leaders don't expect to be put on trial. Well, put it this way, they know that if they lose, they don't stand a chance in court. So, like a crazy better, they just go all in and hope the rest of the world is too chicken to do anything, even if all they actually have is two pairs or something. I think the Allies, for all their faults, have always maintained a: "Wait and see" approach, to give the other side the benefit of the doubt. So it's easy for idiot warmonger dictators to get themselves fooled into thinking that the allies are soft, or, even more deceptively, scared. Most of the time, as democracies, they are waiting for the population to make up their minds about if these guys had finally crossed the line from acceptable, through marginal, into unacceptable. And sure, usually, it's the last straw that breaks the camel's back, so it might not look very impressive. But by that stage, the allies would have gathered a truckload of irrefutable evidence against the offenders. And then, that's just about gg.
Thank you very much for your insights into this shared history. Thank you. My father was a pilot in the Pacific war and I grew up initially with the US version of events. Through time, education and reading - and later living outside the US, I have learned much about that time period from different perspectives. For many years now I have been living in Germany working for a well respected international Japanese company. (Is that irony?) A Chinese physics teacher I had at university started her class everyday with the phrase: the nature of matter is change. And so it is. Oh, by-the-way, I came to your channel via Uncle Roger. Subscribed and am enjoying it.
@@lumi3333 ...left as in “remaining” On a smaller scale of “violence proves nothing”...you’re at a bar, someone is being a scumbag, you call them out on it, they challenge you to “step outside” What will that prove other than who is a better fighter...it won’t show who is morally or ethically correct in the given situation...
These two videos were really great videos! I truly enjoyed seeing the thoughts of a Japanese perspective on the war. I also liked that you're really well read on the subject and have an actually, very intelligent view! Really, I really enjoyed this. As for the atomic bombs, there was so much consideration in the actually bombings. One thing is what most people have mentioned, which is the loss of life in any other method of attack. If the US were to try to invade Japan, they knew they would be facing another Normandy, and they definitely didn't want to face that for obvious reasons. They had already suffered from these kinds of battles at Guadalcanal and Okinawa just to name two amphibious attacks. The massive losses of American military personnel and equipment was something that the US wanted to avoid. Also, Japan had already proven (very heavily in Okinawa), just how far they would go to stop the US. The massive amount of civilian deaths at the hands of both the Japanese military and the US military was looked at and extrapolated to the Japanese mainland itself. Also, Typical firebombing had proven to be ineffective. Like has been mentioned, there were hundreds of thousands who died to firebombing of Tokyo and various other cities in Japan, but the people in charge didn't even flinch. They didn't care that civilians were dying, so typical bombing raids of Japan simply wouldn't work to put them out of the war. Another thing that is less mentioned (though, the video does touch on it briefly) is the USSR. The video mentions their occupying of areas that they took over from Germany. This was a really big consideration for the US brass at the time. First, because they already didn't like communism, and second because of the treatment of the civilians. They also didn't want the USSR to have any more bargaining chips when the war ended. The less territory that the USSR had control over meant that they would be less of a threat once the war was over. The US knew that the USSR was recovering their military from the battle in Europe, and they would be ready to invade Japan soon. The US didn't want the USSR anywhere near Japan. Another thing was the concept of starving out the country. But as was stated in another post, this was expected to take about 2 years, and the massive loss of life and disease that would come from this was pretty inhumane. These are just some of the major reasons that the US decided on using the atomic bombs. Time was really of the essence here. They wanted to put an end to the war, and they wanted to do it before the USSR could involve themselves in Japan. They wanted to avoid as much post war potential problems that they could. Now, were the atomic bombs terrible? Absolutely, and before I became interested in WW2, I always thought that they were an absolute atrocity. But after I started to look deeper into the decision making process and why they truly decided to drop the bombs, I came to realize that, while the bombs were shitty, and they were a really terrible thing, they were necessary. I think that if the bombs hadn't been dropped, Japan would be in a much, much worse state than it is in now. Just imagine if the USSR had been involved, and Japan was occupied by them similar to Germany. Think of Germany prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. East Berlin vs West Berlin and the terrible conditions that the people on the USSR side had to suffer through. I think that ending the war as it happened was simply better in the long run. A terrible price to pay, but still, it would have been far worse if any other way happened.
My dad fought in the S.Pacific, and recently died at the age of 96. He, and every single person I have ever met who was alive at the time, felt the atomic bombings were necessary to end the war. Dad always said that we'd still be fighting in the jungles without it. It's important to realize the view of the contemporaries. They were there. That's how they felt.
Salutes your dad. We didn't start that war. Japan kept invading their asian neighbors, siding with natzi germany and SNEAK, attacking Pearl Harbor when america wasn't at war with japan. That attack propelled the US into the war hard. We don't take it on the chin when we get hit. We hit back harder. I say thank God we bombed them, do you know they didn't even want to surrender after the first bomb that how brazen them imperial japanese officers were. You got nuked once and still want to fight. We thank God we had 2 of them.
Very beautiful reaction my friend i really think that all our mistakes makes us better people to the end. As an American im glad and proud to have such beautiful and strong people as our allies and friends! RIP all the people that die in ww2.
Steve Rogers put it pretty honestly, "when i woke up they say we'd won, they didnt say how we'd lost" in the end, humanity lost this battle, for both sides.
This video is going to blow up, I just got it recommended out of nowhere for some reason. Can you do a video on the Ainu? Or maybe an introduction video explaining your background!
As an American, I cant properly explain our actions for the atomic bombing, but Bill Whittle can. Do a search for "What We Saw, The Cold War: Two Bombs" Bill does a great job explaining our mindset at the time
My Grandfather was an occupation troop in Nagasaki, he often spoke of the destruction he witnessed. While he genuinely felt a great compassion for the people of Japan he was also a soldier. He understood that in such times a country does what is needed to save the lives of their own people, the lives of the enemy at the time mean little if anything. That is the way it has been since the dawn of time and I don't see that ever changing. Sad.
Great reaction. The reason why we (USA) had to drop the atomic bombs was because we feared major casualties for a mainland invasion. Estimates up to 300,000 US soldiers killed. When we dropped the first bomb Japan still refused to surrender so we had no choice. It is tragic but war is tragic. I’m glad relations between the us and Japan is good now
22:35 As a German I would like to say: Even though we were allies before (and had also fought before we were allies in the first place), we have been good allies since then and this time for a better cause than the first time, that's for sure. At least this is how I like to see it. Maybe Hongkong will fall under authoritarian control without the "free world" doing enough (like Czechoslovakia in 1938), but I really hope that Japan and Germany are ready to use all of their soft power the moment Taiwan comes under immediate threat to fall under authoritarian control. Of course, Japan and Germany did a lot of good things for the "free world" since 1945, but this would be the first real test of our development and the embracement to do smart international politics with soft power instead of hard power. Everything we went through including the economical success, would be easy compared to this challenge. The challenge is to defend human dignity without destroying it during the process of defending it. I really believe that this can be done, but maybe I have watched too much star trek TNG in my life. (By the way, I have no major problem with Japan's relatively high military expenditure compared to Germany, because I think Japan is in a difficult situation with some of its neighbors compared to Germany, and deterrence through modern military equipment is necessary or at least to a certain extent really worthy of discussion. Without it, the soft power would be damaged, but I hope that the hard power that comes with it will never have to be used. In the case of Germany, I am against any major military expenditure at least in the current situation. It would also send the wrong signal to some countries.)
the only problem I have with Japan's military expenditure and growth is they are trying actively to change the constitution. After WW2, like all axis forces, they were disallowed from forming a 'military' or Armed Forces but could have a Defence force. As you know, the difference is a defense force cannot, in its weapons and armament store, keep weapons capable of attacking but only of that which is defensive. That goes with sending military overseas, where forces cannot be used to attack another nation on their soil (only provide tactical support), only those that try to attack. However, the new change of constitution which is being promoted is changing that so they have attacking capabilities and the right to housing weapons and armaments capable as a war-waging nation. If the govt was truly in acceptance of its imperialistic mindset and wrongdoing, it would not need such a change. The defense force in itself is one of the top 10 most capable forces in the world without attacking capabilities. I
@@jollajolyo I think i agree with you. However I have to little knowledge about the current defensive and offensive capabilities of Japan's military to judge the situation. Germany is also in an "offensive way" (or call it just post invasion situation) in Afghanistan and no one here really understood that decision why we took part in this war. However to certain degree offense is also a good defence. But never trust a politician if he says this. If we start arguing like this, someone will be able to find an argument why Hitler just defended Germany in 1939.
@@jollajolyo The constitutional changes aren't so much internal initiatives but demands by the US. We spend A LOT of money defending Japan, our largest numbered fleet, the 7th fleet, is permanently stationed in Yokosuka. They need to spend more on their own defense, they need to have a strong enough military to take on China on their own, the US's role should be to tip the balance of power in favor of our allies, not provide the first line of defense. Same goes for Germany, though, they need to maintain a military capable of taking on Russia, they should not be relying on the US to defend them in the event of war, the US's role, again, is to tip the balance, not provide the first line of defense.
@@costakeith9048 Sounds easy: Germany - invest more Money for military. If we do so - Poland maybe thinks "wtf neighbour? Again?" We can handle the russian "power play" in Europe better by strengthen the baltic States and Poland - Not by "Making Germany Great Again" - OMG. And yes - I'm a German. There's always a difference between the indifferent american view on Russia and the way europe can deal with Russia (sugar and whip). And believe me - a lot of europeans are sure, that Russia could be a threat. But we're are not so sure it is. We know our eastern drama queen as very well, as our western drama queen, means: we're also sure, the US can be a friend, but we're not so sure, it is. Since some years it's more and more acting like an insurance seller and used car dealer to europe, then as a friendly partner.
@@ratatosk8935 The problem is that the eastern hemisphere is not in the natural sphere of the United States, we are a western hemispheric power and always have been. We have always been reluctant to involve ourselves in the affairs of the old world. We maintained a strict policy of non-interference throughout the 19th century and only very reluctantly entered the world wars. After the first world war, we demobilized and returned home. After the second world war we intended to do the same, demobilizing half the US military between 1945 and 1947 with plans to demobilize the remainder of the army and much of the navy soon thereafter. Then came the Soviet blockade of Berlin and the ensuing Berlin airlift, at which point it was clear that the European powers were in no position to defend themselves and we had to choose between staying in Europe and ceding it to the Soviets. Had the Soviets been anything but communist, we might have seriously considered the latter option, but communism was a serious threat to our international trade so we reluctantly remained. This involvement in the old world arguably may have been necessary, but it was never popular, it's simply something contrary to our national character. Now with communism vanquished in Europe, it's increasingly difficult to justify any presence at all. Trump may have forced the issue, but it's been recognized since the Clinton administration that we need to start withdrawing from the world, certain agencies like the state department and CIA, whose existence is largely justified by meddling in the affairs of the old world, have vehemently resisted and various bureaucrats have found numerous reasons to try to keep us involved, but public opinion against unnecessary entanglements has steadily increased. We need to transition to an order where the nations of the Old World are capable of defending themselves, it doesn't have to happen overnight, but there needs to be a significant and decisive move in that direction. And, in time, we need to return to the traditional norms of non-intervention in the Old World. The historical rivalries and animosities you mention are precisely why we never wanted to involve ourselves in the Old World in the first place and why we should extract ourselves from them, you have invented all sorts of rationalizations and justifications for your perpetual pursuit of conflict, with only the British largely willing to make friends with former enemies rather than nursing historical grudges down through the ages, recounting all manners of wrongs you have inflicted upon each other in what should be long forgotten wars. And today we find ourselves at the mercy of these historical animosities, immersed in the bad blood between Russia and her neighbors, a Germany who won't defend herself for fear of stirring up these same concerns in hers, taking over traditional French responsibilities in Syria, and seeing to traditional British interests in the Middle East. At the end of the day, these aren't and shouldn't be our problems: our ancestors left the Old World precisely to escape from these wars and intrigues. These are European problems and they need to be handled by the European great powers.
I'm a 78 yr old American from No. California. I want to tell You that I have much respect for you for doing this series of videos. I also want to say that I respect for all your options through the fist two videos that I have watched.
Great video series. I think it's fair to say Japan and Western countries are friends. The west had a rough start with Japan, but so did the UK with America when they broke free of the Thirteen Colonies. Now the UK and America are close friends, on a personal level I see the UK and Japan despite being culturally different, have a lot in common as island nations. Both have influenced the world in a recognisable way, innovate and have a great history of philosophy and expression. Both proud and fearless. Circumstance lead to us fighting each other.
One of my favorite quotes by William Tecumseh Sherman about the US Civil War: " I want peace, and believe it (can) only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success. But my dear sirs when Peace does come, you may call on me for any thing-Then I will share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter." But he also said "War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it; the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over." The atomic bomb was a cruel act to end the cruelty of war. And after (according to American history. It may be different to the Japanese and I would love to learn about it) the US helped you to rebuild. Sharing the figurative last cracker and watched with you "to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter." Granted this was for selfish American reasons. But I feel the truth holds. We made the cruelty of war crueler such that the Japanese had to surrender thus ending the war. I neither disagree nor agree with the decision as I was not alive at the time and I have knowledge not available at that time. However, with my knowledge of history, I believe we eventually got to the point of "But my dear sirs when Peace does come, you may call on me for any thing-Then I will share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter." I don't think it is equal and I do believe that the US treated Japan unfairly similarly to Germany when they passed the Treaty of Versailles (not equally but unfairly). But at least this one American would share with you the last cracker. You don't want me to help shield your homes. I am a terrible shot and not healthy at all.
A great movie for you to watch if you want to know what the embassy was doing in washington before they handed in the declaration of war is "Tora Tora Tora:" - I think t came out in the 1970s but its a fairly accurate depiction of the events of Pearl Harbor.
@Chris George But it wasn't a declaration of war. That's the point. It was supposed to be delivered before the attack but as I said it wasn't a declaration of war. You can look up the 14 Part Message and read it. No where does it declare war.
@Chris George It wouldn't though have been interpreted as an immediate need to go on a war footing. Japan though did "declare war" the following day by announcing an official declaration of war in Japanese newspapers. I'm not sure if the US Ambassador in Japan was handed this declaration or not.
I'm from Oak Ridge, TN, which was part of the Manhattan Project. Locally, we still talk a lot about the morals, ethics and necessity of the dropping of the Atomic bombs. There are opinions on all sides of this there, but I've never seen anyone who didn't admit that it was complicated. We have some ties and a sister city in Japan (Russia too). At the very least, we want to take steps to establish friendship in this time of peace.
This video brings to light profound wisdom. I am glad and saddened to have found it. My hope is that these lessons of loss and suffering will never be forgotten and will be used as an important teaching in order to prevent further human violence. Thank you for your input and knowledge Mr.Nipponess.
My great grandfather fought in Japan. He was a part of the invasion of Iwo Jima. I still have a Japanese flag and flashlight that he brought back from the war. In school we were taught that the nuclear bombs were very bad, but that they were necessary. This is because there would be millions of American casualties as well as Japanese casualties. Our government used the instances of where the Japanese citizens jumped off cliffs to die rather than surrender as justification. They said that millions of civilians would rather kill themselves than surrender to the Americans. I am not so sure this is 100% true.
I think they killed themselves because the emperor had told the civilians that the U.S. would basically capture and torture. But, who knows. Probably a mixture
Thank you for mentioning the cliffs. My father suffered from recurring nightmares of the sight of hundreds of women’s and Children’s broken bodies. There was no stopping the Mothers. The Japanese told them the Americans would kill them then eat them.
My great great grandfather was a Japanese but than I guess my mom tell me after that he come fight for America maybe because he was a good person I guess and than my family live in American after would war 2
From what I understand there was a translation issue between the allies and Japan, with the main sticking point being the Japanese wanting reassurances about the emperor, and the allies wanting unconditional surrender.
I would like to point out something that I dont see in the comments. The americans actually dropped papers days before warning the citizens of the two cities that they would be annihilated by a new bomb. The emperor actually made it illegal to read the papers therefore denying the japanese people the ability to evacuate the cities. The americans attempted to minimize the loss of life in most instances. It was reasoned that bombing the cities would result in less deaths on both sides when compared to a full on land invasion. There was also a attempt to negotiate surrender in the days after the first bomb was dropped. The emperor however refused to believe that the devastation was caused by a single bomb as the devastation caused by the nuke actually looked very similar to the air raids that had been conducted beforehand. This refusal as well as a few other factors caused the second bombing.
@@AFR0MAMBA the estimate was in the millions. If I remember correctly the us generals estimated 2 million for the us and 10 million for the Japanese. Japan had built a reputation for fighting to the last man
You should watch mark Felton's videos on this, he explains that really the atomic bombs could have been avoided but the Japanese government refused to surrender, and the military even attempted a coup against the emperor! to continue the war even if it meant being nuked a 3rd time! Years later civilians from japan have tried suing the Japanese government for these events but its been dismissed at every turn.
@Chris George Oh they asked a lot more than just 'keeping the emperor safe'. They terms they offered before the bombs were basically a slap on the wrist (no prosecution of war crimes either), no occupation was a huge nonstarter as well. It was viewed one of the big reasons Germany started the war was because the allies did not occupy it after WW1. This was not going to happen again with the Axis powers this time around. It wasn't until after Hiroshima & Nagasaki (August 6th & 9th) that they finally moved off the conditional terms and moved to accepting the Potsdam declaration on August 10th.
🤣🤣🤣 I didn't know about these videos but I'm saving your reaction videos in my oldest son's history Playlist.... he DIED from laughter watching and was actually interested in history for once 😆.... hard to find educational things that grab the attention of autistic kids and keep them interested 👍 keep these and your cooking up Yuya
I remember in my JROTC company, we were asked whether we would drop the atomic bombs and why. Out of 21 cadets, only I and three others gave an answer. The first was our captain, who said yes, and his reason was: "It's payback." The second, who quarrelled bitterly with our captain, said no, saying that the death toll and effects were too horrible. The third, our 1st sergeant, said yes. His reasoning was to spare the lives of the US soldiers designated to invade mainland Japan. I said yes, but my reasoning was to spare the Japanese from what would likely be a war of genocide given their inclination to not surrender. Thinking back on it, I'm amazed at how varied our thoughts on the subject were. The bombings are still an uncomfortable subject today, not out of shame, but out of a wondering if it had to come to that. Japan has always been the favorite Asian country for the US, even with Pearl Harbor being such a big deal in history class.
If this is true, you must take everything said online with a grain of salt, then you and the other two had much more maturity than your Captain, though I couldn't fault him for responding as he did
Kyoto was taken off of the list of cities to be bombed because one of Roosevelt's cabinet members, I believe that it was Stinson, went on honeymoon there before the war.
One thing for sure, those two atomic bombs ended the cruel Japanese's 3 years of occupation in Indonesia and in one way or another also gave us the space to declare our independence. Sure a lot of people also died in Japan, innocent people, and I am sorry for that. But I also grateful the bomb ended the occupation, a lot of Indonesian people died as well, including my relatives. I have no resentment towards Japanese people, we are the new generation. We should work together. No more war!
By that logic it would have more appropriate to drop those on Germany. But ya know not a good look to drop atomic bombs on a country of white people. Those bombs were an over reaction committed out of shear anger for the bombing of pearl harbor so we indiscriminately dropped the 2 largest bombs we had on hundreds of thousands of innocent non combatant civilians. Its the equivalent of somebody responding to you punching them by murdering you and everybody you know lol
@@brandonhinrichs4393 this is dumb logic. the war germany was all but over and the estimates were in the millions for casualties to invade the Japanese homeland. im not going to sit here and say there werent politcal motivations to it but to sit there and act like there was no reason for it is just idiotic. japan was a fierce fighting force who had proven time and time again that they would not go down with out insanely bloody fighting. we will never know what the casualties would have been if they had been invaded but i cant imagine it would be less than the bombs.
i am from the philippines. i appreciate your openness to discuss the world war 2 since its a known fact that this part of history is a sensitive topic to the japanese. while i appreciate that japanese government and people are doing their best to mend relationship with the rest of the asia, i do hope that the full history world war 2 would be part the japanese curriculum. for me, to paraphrase a famous quote "those who do learn from history, are doomed to repeat it."
I was raised by a WW2 Vet and the stories he told have left me traumatized. The shell shock/PTSD wasn't a treatable thing. Man would yell for his long dead friends to died next to him and even in his arms. He relived this war every night until he died. I can't even begin to imagine what the war did to those who were not soldiers. A lot of the people on both sides didn't want to fight but did because they were soldiers. It's just an insane amount of torture, death and quite honestly, I hope we learn from our history. We should not ever have a repeat.
I'm Canadian, with about a quarter german roots, and I can understand how you feel about many of the things talked about in this video in a different way. Unfortunately my Great Great Grandfather served in the German Army during WW2, and as far as we know was by all means, a Nazi. I hate that fact with many fibres of my being, knowing that my ancestor did those things. And as a Canadian I look back on the history of my country and I see the Residential Schools, where we forced Native American people to abandon their culture for our own, and abused and killed countless children in the process. We still have a large problem with racism toward the Native population today, and it sickens me that people who call themselves Canadian can be that way. Of course, I can never begin to understand the toll of the A-bomb attacks, and I personally believe that it was undeserved. The worst thing anyone can do in war is target civilians, in my opinion, and an attack like that is completely unjustifiable. I don't think that the U.S. ever truely repaid for what they did, but at the same time, it really isn't my place to say. Loved the video, and best wishes!
In the words of Madara Uchiha: “Talking about peace whilst spilling blood, it's something that only humans can do.” “Man seeks peace, while at the same time yearning for war.” The big bad guy in Naruto nailed it in the head. Makes sense, he was the product of our own internal contradictions.
"Was using the atomic bombs the only way to end the war?" -- No. The Tojo Regime could have surrendered at any point up to August 5th, 1945 and never seen an atomic bomb used against them. Imperial Japan chose to keep fighting, instead. The Japanese Empire's refusal to surrender led to the use of the A-Bombs because those were the second fastest and second most efficient way to end the war. The third option was the worst. Operation Downfall would have been as big as Normandy and was predicted to have death tolls as high as the two A-Bombs and all the fire-bombings, combined.
The Japanese were willing to surrender beforehand but america wanted to use the nuclear weapons as a show of force to the soviets. The nuclear weapons were unnecessary and served no purpose in the war. Here's a good article on this www.salon.com/2016/05/11/we_didnt_need_to_drop_the_bomb_and_even_our_ww_ii_military_icons_knew_it/
That first bit isn't really fair. If it were the other way around and your home country was being invaded, wouldn't you expect your country to fight with everything it could in the same era before you knew that nukes even existed?
@@panzerwolf494 Except their home country *wasn't* being invaded. Their home country was the aggressor, 100% with zero mitigating factors. Also, the US had already tested an atomic bomb on July 16th and had made clear on July 26th it would be used (the Potsdam Declaration) if Japan didn't surrender.
YoungXAdonis Then how come Japan didn’t surrender after the first bombing run then there were multiple bombing runs other then the 2 big A bomb drops, how come they waiting till all the bombing was over to surrender? Japan at the time had a strict no surrender policy so I don’t think they were willing to surrender
@@trainv7612 That is simply not true. Imperial Japan wanted to *negotiate peace terms*. They were willing to go to peace...only if certain terms and conditions of theirs were met. That's not surrendering. Not even close. Also, we already had the demonstration of the A-Bomb's power on July 16th at the Trinity test.
Yuya, This was a wonderful video. I love your desire to understand what really happened as well as provide a different perspective from the history taught in the US. I like to think of it according to the samurai theory that after crossing swords with your opponent will you truly be able to understand them. I think this would explain the cross-fascination between our cultures. Great channel!
My fathers father went from the aluetions to ryukyu to eniwetak to Okinawa. Not sure about the order but you can guess. Ive learned alot in the last few days. I am proud of my papa yet seeing some of the things of war. That he had to witness or commit brings me tears. If its anything to you I know my grandfather was a good man for the rest of his life. If he had the ability to go with out the war I am sure he would have. I am sorry for the things that happened to your people in the war. I am glad we have been friends since then. I hope you and your lands are blessed The King Keneth
no kidding. was in high school in the 00's and one of my classmates, after knowing my interest in Japanese culture, said "we should have bombed those SOB'S into the sea". i could understand some old timer getting bitter but this guy was no older than 13 at the time.
Unless it's something like, animosity to one or a few specific people that did something horrible to you personally, or someone extremely close to you. Like, I dunno the guy/s who murdered your mom.
yeah probably because the name still remained as a "Tripartite Pact" which confuses people on how many members the pact should have when there's literally a "Tri" in the name. I'd much prefer it like in WW1 where they changed the Triple Alliance name to Central Powers, still confusing nonetheless.
Glad I found this video (and the one before it), and I have to say if you really want to dig into some fantastical events from World War II, the Battle off Samar (one of the many separate engagements that made up the Battle of Leyte Gulf) is worth a look. A frantic, confused, in many ways impossible to believe knock down, drag out fight between a massive Japanese naval fleet and a tiny American task force made up entirely of destroyers, destroyer escorts, and flimsy escort carriers. Which had to square off against no less than four battleships (including Yamato), six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and eleven destroyers. We really had no business winning it, but as a testament to just how hard-fought the entire affair was: as one particular American destroyer (the USS Johnston) was finally sinking beneath the waves, the captain of the passing Japanese destroyer Yukikaze (along with several of her crew) actually stood at attention and saluted the crew of the pugnacious US destroyer. Drachinifel here on RUclips has a pretty good summary of the battle, but the book The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors goes into considerably more detail.
Not so fun fact:
American military planners predicted that during Operation Downfall so many servicemen would be killed or wounded that they ordered a massive amount of Purple Hearts be made beforehand.
Obviously Operation Downfall never happened and USA was left with a staggering reserve of Purple Heart medals. The reserve of medals lasted through Korean war, Vietnam, both Gulf wars and are still being issued to this day to US soldiers in Afghanistan and the rest of the world.
THAT is how bloody they presumed invasion of Japan would be.
Amon Ra The Americans believed that the japanese would never surrender for their homeland. They expected every inch to be fought for, and almost every japanese person holding a weapon. American command was prepared for something a little short if annihilation... scary thought
My grandfather would have been part of the Japanese mainland landing. Pretty crazy stuff.
My Dad was in the Navy in WW2 - in the very hot Pacific theater. He said a day came when they were fitted with colder weather jackets and boots - and everyone knew at some point they were going to be sent to invade Japan. Everyone also knew a lot of them would die.
@@inklanois My grandfathers were a Marine and a Sea Bee. AKA Usually the first guys on the beach
I think they expected like 2 million total casualties mostly Japanese
Much love from America to our Japanese brothers. The past is the past let's learn from it and do better.
can't exactly learn from it if it's not properly taught tbf
Right? Noone who fought in WW2 is even alive anymore, lets study it, learn from it but lets not act like we inherit the guilt of the atrocities we never had anything to do with.
@@alinac5512 >Noone who fought in WW2 is even alive anymore
What?
@@5illyMe I mean ww2 ended 1945, thats 75 years ago, plus you must have been at least 18 years old so do you know any 93+ year olds? Yes, theres still some people alive, I was exagurating, but they dont make up society. If you walk down the street in Germany you wont see anyone who had anything to do with WW2. Its history.
@@dreamshakejunya you see? Its a big deal that even 1 is still alive. Its not many.
My mom was Japanese, and in Japan when the bombs were dropped. She said her father was furious because he said the only reason the second one was dropped was because Japan wouldn't back down after the first one. I just feel bad for all the innocent people caught in between
Now THAT is interesting. I love WWII history, grew up in in the US Military and even lived in Japan soaking in all the WWII history I could on Okinawa and I never actually talked to an elder Japanese citizen what they though when they saw the bombs go off!! I talked to Okinawans from then and of course US soldiers from then, and Japanese soldiers, but not actual citizens.
While use of nuclear weapons today is viewed as reprehensible, you can see how they would have been viewed in 1945 facing a likely invasion of the Japanese islands after the bloody fighting in the Philippines, Burma, and various islands in south east Asia as well as the Aleutians (Alaska). What a horrible decision to have to make!
Of course that's why the second one was dropped. The objective was to have Japan surrender. It was either that or destroy them. Innocent people are caught between wars all the time. Causalities will always happen. I'm not at all proud of what my country did but given situation, I wouldnt say it's entirely wrong.
every country had innocent lives taken. get over it. Down with axis.
@@_Meng_Lan I never said that it wasnt wrong morally.
I appreciate this video as a Korean who has heard about Japanese atrocities committed in Korea during the war from the ones who survived. I appreciate that there are Japanese who are aware that these things have happened, hopefully in the future relations between our countries will improve.
To my understanding, not acknowledging the crimes against comfort women plays a key part.
I hope unit 731 comes to light too
For a country that has made so much progress and changes since WW2 it surprises me that Japan still won’t own up to and apologize for its war crimes. Germany did something much worse, and made sure to reflect on it and try to make sure that it never happens again. I’m not sure why Japan won’t if Germany could.
@@Ry_TSG I'm sure it's an honor thing. Because shame is more of an issue in Asian countries.
@@MiamiCali706 not just an honor thing. the japanese royal family and lots of war criminals' family were still in charge in japan til now. for example, the last prime minister Abe Shinzo's grandfather(mother's side) Kishi Nobusuke was a class A war criminal. so, to them, lots of current japanese politicians, it's not just admitting the crimes that other prev generations had done, it's admitting the crimes that their own grandparents had done.
As an American, I am very glad seeing the Amazing country and Ally that Japan has become.
It's honestly kind of mind boggling. I can't point to an exact moment, and maybe it's just my own perception of the matter, but it seems by the mid 1950s America and Japan were getting along really well. It's like an anime where the loser of the fight changes sides and becomes friends with the winner. It's actually kind of heartwarming.
@@Preaplanes it really is though. Within a decade or so we went from the bitterest of enemies and hate-filled, to not.
@@Preaplanes Well it's simply because of the way the surrender was done. MacArthur allowed the Emperor to surrender with some dignity and MacArthur was personally responsible for the new Japanese constitution. In the early years it was friendship through force essentially and the societal morals of the Japanese were bound to act with honor.
What's more mind-boggling is that: Japan and Germany have become part of the great leadership of the free world. China and Russia, who BOTH received aid and military support to fight off Germany and Japan... are now on the other side of the fence. Thanks a lot Russia and China. Way to go. Not!
@@yetrotagabundok3756 Concerning China, we supported the ROC since they did the fighting. CPC, who at the time was too busy hiding in the mountains and consolidating strength in the countryside, came out and attacked weakened ROC after the war was over.
My grandfather was at Pearl Harbor and served in the Pacific theater. I have no ill will towards Japan about anything in WW2. Because of those events regardless how awful on both sides committed. They led to where we are today. Japan and the US are very close. Every American I personally know loves Japan and holds Japan in the highest regard.
I think it comes down to the willingness to realize that in reality our logic of A-Bomb potentially saving more lives in the long run being true made forgiveness a lot more forthcoming. They were literally poised to fight to the end most likely under the rule of their Emperor. They were that fanatical. Until they realized that holy shit, uhh we don't have a chance. It is highly fortunate that the Emperor finally saw sense to surrender and do the best for his people at that point in time.
No need for Abomb, Tokyo burned, everything made of wood
@@everythingisvibration The abomb wasnt for Japan, it was to let Russia know what we could do.
@@robertramage9331 I also heard that Japan shrugged at the bombs, it was the threat of Russia invading and never giving back their land that scared them. The Americans repeated this a ton to the Emperor. Would they rather be slave under Russia or free under Americans?
@@mestupkid211986 Wrong. The Atomic Bomb was built in response to an appeal by several German Jewish Scientists who knew what Hitler was trying to develop and they appealed to Albert Einstein to speak to President Roosevelt. FDR listened and the USA began the Manhattan Project in order to beat GERMANY to the Bomb.
Then Germany surrendered before the Bomb was used. Then with the high estimated cost of invading Japan President Truman was given the option of using the Bomb on Japan or to invade the conventional way which would be very costly to both sides.
In addition, Truman knew that if he sent hundreds of thousands of American boys to injury and death while not using a weapon developed by spending Billions of Dollars it would be seen as traitorous act to the general Citizens of the USA.
The USA did the right thing and it saved many lives on both sides. God Bless America.
As an Australian, I'm glad the Japanese are our mates now.
Japanese remilitarising is alarming as , a country with Japan's history which refuses to acknowledge said history is dangerous AF .
But where the pizza
Pizza time
@@mathewkelly9968 There remilitarizing against China
Just send out the Emus.
I'd say that Britain and Japan are the United States' best allies today, and we have been at war with both. I think there are a lot of complex reasons why this is the case, but I'm sure that one of them is that you learn respect for someone if you have to fight them.
France and Germany also seem to be buddies these days... but that's just creepy.
The U.S. has a legacy of forging good relations with former enemies. Over the years, we have fought the UK, France (briefly), Mexico, Spain, Germany, Japan, North Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. Of all of those, only North Korea remains as a hostile enemy, and most of the others are now allies. We have good relations even with Vietnam at this point. Once a conflict ends, we generally try to move beyond it, and commonly within a single generation.
We try not to take war personally, it's just the business at the end of the day; Japan did what they did because they sought to protect their national interests and we did the same, no good will come from a lingering animosity. We learned this approach to war from the British who had a habit of switching sides with each successive war to maintain the balance of power on the continent and it has served us well throughout history.
@@costakeith9048 Sorry, but that's nonsense. Japan was as much of a fascist dictatorship as Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, and Americans took Pearl Harbor VERY personally. Maybe what you're trying to say is that our war was against the fascist government, and not the people.
My grandfather would disagree evil cruel bastards
@@ariochiv No, that's not what I'm saying, I make no distinction between the government and the people. The people allowed the government to come to power and stay in power, so they are responsible for the conduct of that government. It's as true for Germany and Italy as Japan. During the war the hatred obviously ran deep, that is the nature of war; but if you look at the actions of the United States after the war it apparent the nation quickly moved on. We extracted some vengeance immediately after the war, hanging several of their leaders as is the right of a conqueror, but by '47 the US government and, therefore, the nation that had put that government in power had moved on, there were new threats on the horizon that needed addressed and we couldno longer afford to be burdened with old rivalries that were no longer pertinent to the new geopolitical landscape. There may have been several individuals that still held animosity, especially those who fought in the pacific, but they do not speak for the nation, the president does.
That while it's a hard topic to talk about, it's good to know that we can revisit history this way: open minded. Thanks man. That was some good insight from a Japanese person.
One of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life was a Japanese warship docked in Pearl Harbor. They were visiting the Arizona Memorial, and when it came time for them to depart, they lined the deck dressed in their whites and saluted the memorial as they passed. It still gets me choked up. Incredible. I was raised a Marine Brat and joined the Air Force when I grew up. Military has basically been my entire life, and that moment is going to stick with me for the rest of my life.
On a not so happy note, as a child my family went to Hiroshima. My dad was stationed in Iwakuni and we were living there and made the trip. My sister and I got our picture taken in front of the building the bomb was dropped on, and we went to the museum. The only picture that had issues being developed was the one from in front of the building. All the others turned out fine. You could still make us and the building out, but it was distorted. I remember running out of the museum crying from the wax figures and pictures of the victims.
sympathy.
Those Japanese victims should have stopped their emperor from helping Germans torture and murder 45 million civilians. The bombs are the Japanese fault.
I always enjoy seeing what people from other countries, especially old axis countries, learn about World War II history. Very good vid, keep it up!
Yea from what i gather every country focuses mostly on it's participation in the war and then cover very broadly the global events. For example here in Bulgaria the pacific front was so badly covered , i had no idea , Japan managed to win against Russia and do so well against China, their ground military must have been something else. Here we covered, why the wars started, who and why did we join and how badly it ended for us lol. We pretty much were forced at gun point by Germany to join, it was either that or they invade us. At least when they told us to prosecute Jewish people, we sabotaged and lied to them about our progress, while sheltering and hiding whomever we were supposed to be exterminating. Our plan was to stay neutral and not get involved , besides the fact Germany wanted us to fight against Russia is the biggest no no in our books, we literally celebrate their Tzar Alexander for freeing us from ottoman slavery , so we despised Germany to the core, i mean every single thing they stood for was against what we viewed as moral.
Ikr I'm 28% German but I was born in america so it's cool to see Germans and Japanese ppl ract to ww2
@@thickac7579 Bulgaria is quite an interesting country during WW2 considering they do next to no fighting, my favorite story apart from saving their Jewish population is when they were sent a few hundred tanks from Germany to use against Russia only to change sides I can just imagine how mad that would've made Hitler late war when he can't exactly replace the few hundred tanks he just lost. My favourite countries to learn about during the war that I was never taught about at school were Greece, Finland and of course Bulgaria.
@@Steve-zc9ht tbh Im way more interested in ppl from allied nations reactions. In Germany we learn about ww2 in great detail in school, over 2-3 years + political situation during the Weimar Republic, the Holocaust and the aftermaths of ww2 - so lets just say the average German has a pretty good understanding of ww2. Meanwhile other nations seem to think its some event from a fantasy book...
@@SovermanandVioboy that's true I can agree with that me my self had to educate myself on European wars and culture since I'm half European because america only focus and talks about itself in every war it's in
Nowadays we always remember the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan but forget that the fire bombings were just as devastating
Also that the true reason behind the surrender of japan was the Soviet declaration of war of japan and the push into Manchuria
Tyler Wilson not exactly true either. Mark Felton has a great video explaining day by day what was happening in the Japanese government in the build up to the nukes and shortly after.
Most of the generals and admirals didn’t want to surrender, even after the nukes, even after the soviet invasion of Manchuria. They wanted to fight to the last man.
Even when the emperor finally decided to surrender there was an attempted coup to “secure” the emperor and prevent Japan’s surrender.
@@tylerwilson9633 that's been a common theory and while it's true Japan would have lost it's holdings in Manchuria the Soviets had no way to invade mainland Japan. Given the way the USSR was creating it's empire, I highly doubt the US would have allowed and invasion of Japan from Russia. Remember, at that time the US had 27 air craft carriers and 70% of the total ship tonnage in the world. The Russians declaring war on Japan was a factor but it's not the main factor.
I’ve heard they were more devastating but yeah I agree, fire bomb raids should be talked more about
@@chaost4544 I thought also USA kinda wanted to flex and make China CCP who is become friends with USA so make China CCP and establish Japan and Guam for stop USSR from spreading to East was necessary and btw ROC(Taiwan) was anti USA so USA helping CCP but in 1970 CCP pro USSR and become USA enemy and want attack Taiwan for 1st election USA send 2 ship and 1st democratic president in Taiwan but after that CCP become big and with his people so USA thought this not very bead if CCP and USSR not really close
The problem Japan would always face in a war versus the US was not only lack of resources compared to the USA but it's Industrial capacity. The US could lose ships and replace them two to ten times over in a year depending on the type of ship. Japan especially with carriers could not afford to lose those ships and hope to replace them fast. Not to mention that the merchant marine of Japan was gutted by American unrestricted submarine warfare which made the resources they got in conquered territory impossible to transport back to Japan. Fun fact the charges of Unrestricted submarine warfare against Dönitz were not assessed during Nuremberg because of this.
That's why the battle of midway was the deciding battle of the pacific theater. Japan lost too many carriers.
@@MaxiusTheGod And even more important: They lost trained and experienced air crews which could not be replaced. Japan had no advanced training programs like the US which could create good pilots in significant numbers. Near the end of the war, after they lost most of their experienced aces, Japan had only rookie pilots who didn't had a chance against US fighter pilots.
To put what you said in perspective, by 1945 the US had 27 aircraft carriers. That's an insane amount of production.
True but had the Japanese navy had the necessary natural resources, the US would have suffered great losses to the fully operational and very powerful Japanese navy. The legendary Yamato likely might have been even more of a threat than the Bismarck.
@@AnnedolfFrankler911 Doubtful as the age of the battleship had ended. Japan even with access to resources would still have industrial issues as well. Their navy would have been more active in the later parts of the war if they had fuel but in the end they could only produce so much compared to the USA.
As an Indian, I must say that this ideology of “ I’d rather die than surrender” was very prevalent in mostly Asian countries. It’s not only a Japan thing, this mentality was very much prevalent in India. It’s just a Asian thing lol.
It is definitely prevalent in India, than most people think.
@The Unamed nah. If that was the case, UK would never ever been able to conquer India. Seeing how huge India is, there is no possible way that could have happened. If India had the "i'd rather die" mindset, the whole indian subcontinent wouldn't fall to UK. But you did.
@@TheAlmightyFather India was not conquered but came under British control by a series of treaties with local rulers. The result of that policy is still seen today in Kashmir whose independent sultan decided to favour India despite the majority of his subjects preferring Pakistan
@mcchickenz Like can be seen from the example of Hannibal during the punitive wars, technology and discipline are no guarantee for a Victory. The Indians were not conquered due to lack technology or being vastly underdeveloped. The British wanted to conquer in the first place not just due to the natural resources, the main reason was to get the rich prosperous lands which also held an extreme strategic importance. India was in no way underdeveloped at that time, if it was, the Marathas wouldn't have almost captured the entire subcontinent just before the British arrived, if it was underdeveloped at that time, Britain wouldn't have to care about making any sort of treaties with any local Kings for that matter. Britain didn't have direct control over the subcontinent until very late near the end of the 18th century when the dissolved the East India Company. The East India company only held power through local Kings who ruled the Lands for them.
You are absolutely right in your first comment's end portion and your second comment though. Thanks a ton mate for defending Indians in general.
@@TheAlmightyFather India fell because India wasn't really a single country at all when the British came in. Non of the Rulers cared about any possible invasions till hell broke loose on them directly.
As an American soldier and anime lover I am grateful that I get to live in a time where Japan and America are allies I wish we never had to fight
Omg, I hate anime so much. Its so hard not to cringe when I see or hear it, lol...
@@Liam_Bob you must hate cartoons too huh?
@@Tihamatt No. Animie is a certain style of cartoon. A certain style, I don't like...
@@Liam_Bob anime is literally just "animation" in Japanese, or what most people say: "Japanese cartoons"
Weird thing to hate considering there's a huge variety. Don't be single-minded
@@okeeguguru did you read my reply? lol...
Both sides in the war did horrible things to each other in the war and the best thing we can do now is acknowledge what happened, forgive, and move forward
@paula That right and wrong is good for motivating your armies in wartime, but in reality it takes away too much nuance. Lack of nuance only exist in fiction. Like how the Empire of Star Wars, where people watch stormtroopers get chewed up by the thousands and audience enjoy it with a smile, forgetting that realistically they were individual people with families, loved ones, hopes, aspirations, and beliefs, sure bad actors set the narrative, but normies become goo under the tires.
70 million people died in WW2.
12 million on the Axis side, 58 million on the Allied side.
Of the 12 million on the Axis side about 2 million were civilians. Most of these civilian deaths occurred during the conduct of warfare itself.
Of the 58 million on the Allied side over half were civilians. Most of the civilians were killed AFTER their territory was conquered.
Your take from this. Both sides did horrible things.
Allies would not have existed had there been no Axis. The war would have ended earlier had the Axis surrendered. The Allies would not have used methods such as city bombings had the Axis not done so first. I don't want to justify wrongdoings from the side of the Allies, but the fact is one side was the perpetrator (Axis) and the other was the respondents (Allies).
Also, the Allies did not do human interrogation nor bio-medical research on their captives or use mass concentration camps to exterminate innocent civilians. All Axis nations, Germany, Italy, and Japan, have documented memorandums as to be the dominant human race and the right to conquer, exterminate and kill as they pleased while the Allies main motivation was to, as mentioned above, retaliate against a sudden oncoming wave. Therefore the nations of the Axis must acknowledge, ASK FORGIVENESS, wait until forgiveness is granted, and be the loudest voice for change and peace. That is why I respect the German government, understand the Italians uneager yet acceptance of their role but still cannot understand Japan's refusal to do any of the acknowledgment, asking of forgiveness, waiting for forgiveness, and being the very actors in promoting peace.
@paula 31 famines in 120 years of British Rule in just india, the last one killed 4 million people in 1943
@@altansarnaitsering3593 The Japanese invaded Burma and cut India off from its major food supplier. Churchill asked for countries to ship food to India but there wasn't enough shipping available to both keep India fed and keep the Allies supplied all over the world.
As a Japanese American I lost 20 members of my family in Hiroshima the day the bomb fell. While I never knew them they were family. For awhile I pondered the same question if it was necessary then I found Operation Olympic the invasion of the home islands .The key point of McArthur's plan was not invade at all but firebomb the vital Japanese rice crops for two years in a row. Deprived of their main food source many millions of Japanese would have died. It was a cruel if militarily sound idea. Weaken the enemy so much fighting back in any meaningful way becomes impossible. In fact Mc Arthur favored using the A-bombs there in 45 and 46 Given the starvation and disease that would have followed planners thought Japanese casualties may top 10 million innocent civilians. Even tough I lost family what happened preserved the country or my origin and one lived in for years. So my family members did not die in vain wars should never involve nuclear weapons. The kamikaze and bemaze charge's convinced America it was needed. It is the memory of that ferocious enemy that got out respect that makes us good allies today.
Another reason they dropped the a bombs was because they wanted japan to surrender before Russia invaded and occupied japan which wouldn’t have been good for anyone
@@avonbarksdale889 That's not true
Kevin Nitta , I agree
By the close of WWII, respect for the life of the enemy was at an all-time low for all sides of the conflict. It seems to be the way with war - the more the game is played, the cheaper those body bags seem to get. Firebombing cities and killing countless thousands of civilians stops being a terrible but necessary evil for the allies, and starts becoming an ordinary Tuesday. Had Operation Downfall gone ahead, it would have been staggeringly horrible, but I've no doubt the allies would have done it.
I want to believe those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not die in vain. Not just to spare Japan a terrible land invasion, and not just to return a traumatised world to peace.
The true, visceral horror of nuclear war was made clear for the whole world to see right from the start.
By comparison, seeing a mushroom cloud rise over a patch of empty desert or remote island in a tidy military test, dealing in hypothetical casualties and mathematical models, just doesn't carry the same emotional impact as seeing one rise above a city. It's an image from history that cannot be unseen. It's enough to make anyone reconsider what the point of their cause is.
I worry that had there been no atomic weapon attack on Japan, then one of the powers early on in the Cold War would have been far more keen to press the big red button. There would have been no lesson learned on what apocalyptic nightmare it would unleash.
I think we only made it this far without filling the world with thermonuclear craters because the world saw in 1945 what the consequence would be for anyone becoming city number 3.
@@SoloRenegade That is quite true. The Russians would have invaded as well since they were running over China and their target was Japan. Can you imagine what the world would look like right now if Russia invaded Japan, and conquered it?
The US provided Japan with the best possible choice and they thrived after due to this. This is because of MacArthur.
You should watch the movie “Tora Tora Tora”. The acting and effects are dated, but it tells the story of what happened leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was filmed by American and Japanese filmmakers - and provides a fair, balanced, view os what happened.
Tora Tora Tora is a really good movie it's pretty much the same movie as Pearl harbor without a love story
Tora! Tora! Tora! Is an absolutely amazing movie and should be shown in history classes in High School.
The effects were almost all practical effects....so they are not really 'dated'. They are definitely more realistic than some Michael Bay CGI crap.
Wellllll..... Technically the effects are “dated” (60s/70s models, explosions). But, yes, they’re still better than CGI crap where WW2 planes have the flight characteristics of X-Wings and TIE fighters. Oh, and the modern Navy ships in the harbor (in Pearl Harbor). It was simply horrid and am glad I never paid to see it.
We watched that in my 7th grade history class nearly 30 years ago.
As a former US history teacher, I can tell you that this is an fine presentation! Granted it is highly condensed, but quite accurate. Given today's younger population and attention deficit /phone addictions, this brevity is unfortunately necessary to accommodate moderate assimilation. Well done.
The simplified but accurate history is not the work of this nice young man, he only reacts to it. In general the Japanese post-war generations do almost know nothing about the rol of their country between 1931 and 1945. It is like if any information about that period is prohibited in the Japanese schoolsystem.
the title is oversimplified ww2 so yea very condensed
@@Corony Because It is. The PM are always releated to some w4r crimin4l. This is not in textbooks and not in the media. There was an anime that mentioned the mukden accident in Manchuria in 1931,and the episode was not allowed to be aired. Or when the movie Unbroken that talked about the behavior of the Japanese army with the POW's,came out,It wasn't initially allowed to be showed in Japan.
As an American, I am glad our nations are allies once again. Also to great thanks to Ambassador Chiune Sugihara for saving jews lives
“Divine war” Japan was like North Korea on steroids at the time in my opinion. In terms of conventional military power. Those people had been isolated for a couple hundred years, they would’ve died until last man I think. Honor was huge at the time, idk much about Japan but from all the documentaries I saw, their Honor was like their religion.
the whole honor code thing goes all the way back to samurai times. . and it wasnt just a personal honor type of thing. . if you were dishonored it wasnt just you. . your whole family carried that shame. . so it created more of 'fanatacism' around the idea of honor
Japan wasn't as isolated before WWI as a lot of people think. 1853 is when the US put an end to Japanese isolationism. I agree that Honor was a huge part of this because after the end of the Meiji Restoration in the 1860s the Samurai as a class were removed but the ideals of Bushido were made practically universal. It was one of the reasons that every Japanese officer was given a katana, to promote the belief that the military was the continuation of the Samurai and that everyone could become one of these beloved figures. The early Meiji government was very corrupt and full of assassinations and the rise of Imperial Japan really seems to be the result of the reconsolidation of power, plus the warping of national ideals, similar to what Hitler did using Goebbels and propaganda.
@@Blizzard0fHope Just like North Korea. If you did something bad, and you get arrested, not only you will get arrested.
Your whole family will. But im saying honor is bad and comparing it to the bad North Korean system, but it's a little similar to that.
@Uncle Ho Except for that little thing called the Korean War.
@Uncle Ho xD LOL ahahhaha they invaded south part of Korea duh. The North's government tried to get total control of the Korean peninsula. North and south Vietnam thing in terms of similarities.
The question of the Atomic Bomb usage: how many Japanese would have died if we DIDN'T use it? I'm thinking millions, maybe tens of millions. Oh, and also Russia would have had time to join in, and you might be looking at North and South Japan, not just North and South Korea. EDIT: Probably could have chosen less populated cities though. Or I dunno, dropped them in a harbor and said the cities are next. That *might* have worked, but... we were using the bombs as they were being made. We didn't have a stockpile, so that would have been risky if Japan decided not to surrender if we bombed a harbor or something like that.
The japanese wouldve fought to the last man
@@flamingrubys11 I am not a historian, but I don't think there is a simple answer. I am sure the Japanese people were/are divided -some want to quit and others want to fight to last breath and probably the same thing between the emperor and army and the civilians. Were the civilians even told they were the "agressors" or they were told the Japanese empire was being attacked? Would destroying just a miliatary bases or remote location be sufficient? Did US give enough time between dropping the 2 bombs for the people to consider? I wish there was a bomb that would kill only people who wanted the war to continue. But there is no such thing in reality. Sadly, innocent people will die on both sides regardless.
I might be wrong, but I heard from somewhere that they meant to drop the bombs on less populated areas like forests and whatnot, but the pilots were unable to clearly see where they were.
On another note, it's extremely debatable what would've happened had America not dropped the bomb or had Japan not surrendered. It's hard to get into the mindset of both sides during this cruel time period since some soldiers believed they were fighting the good fight and others wanted to prove themselves superior. War has a heavy impact on the human psyche, often clouding everyone's reasoning.
It was also a big bluff. We only had two bombs and it would have taken quite some time to build more bombs of the same type. It was a shock and awe strategy that could have failed. Basically the Americans were bluffing they could do this to the rest of the country in a mater of days, hoping logic like that could would sway them. Luckly for us and them it did. from what I understand it would have taken another 6 months to a year to construct new a-bombs to deploy, and if the Japanese had not surrender we would have led to the scenario you described anyway and also shown to the soviets that we had a super weapon but it was in limited supply and took time to construct and deploy.. This was cutting edge tech at the time remember, it couldn't be mass produced yet. So the targets chosen were well chosen for maximum effect, not defending the choice just understanding the logic on why they were chosen by the people in charge at the time. The logic being, hit two targets that are significant to make a point, and to scare the bajeezus out of the soviets so they wouldn't instantly think they could take on the US and the future Nato countries.
A third A-bomb would have been ready in about a month. The would-be third bomb became known as the Demon Core due to the fatal accidents it was involved in.
The production rate after that would have been two bombs per month.
Someone once said: "The death of a person is a tragedy, The death of thousand of people is only a number."
It was true, and i hate it being true. There is no absolute right and there is no absolute enemy.
People can call almost anything as evil as long as that "anything" belongs to the other side.
But then again.. even the allies is just a massive machine of contradiction.
@Evalation I thought they don't actually know who said that, but it is commonly attributed to Stalin
Isnt that quote by Stalin? I wouldn't necessarily take advice on how to deal with casualties from Stalin lol... naah Im just joking.. the quote says something about human psyche, how people deal with a lot of death compared to just few. Many times when just one person dies, people gather together to mourn, but if 100 people die they are not interested in the individual but want to see the murderer hang.. or so to speak. Maybe thats just me..
Because hearing about 10.000 people dying is kinda hard for the human brain to really register. You can't relate to 10.000 people.
But hearing of 1 little girl or whatever who died is like, that could have been my daughter/sister/friend/whatever.
Even if 10% of the 10.000 were little girls just like her, it doesn't hit the same way.
(That's also why charities often have pictures of a little kids, or a sad old women, or a hurt animal, or whatever.
"Give us 5 bucks and this little girl can go to school!"
"Give us 5 bucks and we'll dig a well so this old woman won't have to walk 5 miles to get water every day!"
"Give us 5 bucks and this puppy gets to live instead of being put down! )
The loss of life of Japanese civilians was tragic, but it’s estimated that if a full invasion of Japan happened, that 2-4 million Americans would’ve died, and 5-10 million Japanese would’ve died. Especially because of the Japanese policy of fighting to the last man, the loss of life would have been so much more than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The position President Truman was put in was a difficult one that he didn’t even want, but I think he made the right decision. As an American in the present, looking back at it, I am sorry for the loss of Japanese lives, and I am glad we are living in a world where atomic bombs aren’t necessary. I just hope no one will need to use them in future. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes in history, and not repeat them.
Even if the Americans didn’t want to go through the invasion and lose all those lives. The ussr would have. Stalin wouldn’t have cared how many lives it cost.
@@bigjavo36 and if Stalin won, then he probably wouldnt have treated the Japanese as kindly as the US did after the war. Now Japan and America are buds
what i’ve been told, and i don’ t know if it’s true. but apparently japan already wanted to surrender before the mainland invasion. however the US wanted to display the power of the atomic bomb to the soviet union and so delayed the treaty.
@@9tailjeza It's hard to tell with some of these things. That could be true, but I also heard that the U.S. warned Japan to surrender, but they refused. Part of it definitely was to display power to the USSR though. I believe it was both, and the U.S. killed two birds with one stone.
I find that difficult to believe because the Japanese faith saw that surrendering was a dishonorable act which is why any Japanese that found themselves surrounded to either fight to the death or take their own life. Basically surrender wasn’t an option!
I've often wondered about the mindset of certain societies during various historical moments, like what is being expressed by this man in this video. Thank you, you have made a real contribution to what is one of mankind's most important tasks on the road to true peace, the understanding of other cultures.
How about understanding the 45 million civilians who were tortured and mutilated and murdered by the Japanese empire and Axis powers. The Japanese empire would kill themselves too but kamikaze or stabbing to death if a mission went unsuccessful
As an Australian I have high respect for Japan as one of our greatest allies after ww2 however I am heavily proud of our history and how we defended our country and played a key role in the allies victory. Great video BTW keep it up
Wait, where was Australia in the fight?....TOTALLY KIDDING!!! Love you guys :) Allies forever!!! love from the USA!
It is not a great video. He defends the evil Japanese empire who helped the Germans and Axis powers who tortured and murdered 45 million civilians. Yes, be proud of the U.S. who saved the lives of Chinese, Koreans, Americans, Burmese, English and other nations
"Even though we fought before we are good allies, or because we fought before we are good allies."
I think the idea that *because* we fought each other is starting to spread, but I think that is wrong. I remember my grandfather and his war friends (rest in peace) speak about fighting the Japanese. They had really deep hatred because of what they saw. They talked about how the soldiers grabbed women and children and used them as shields or tried to kill Americans by pretending to surrender. To them this was now a confrontation with true evil. In the end neither side had mercy for the other.
I think why we are good allies now is because, 1. Once Japan got rid of beliefs like "the emperor is god" and other things incompatible with the western view, and the west became less racist, we found out that we had more in common with each other than we did not. 2. I think our nation's strategic interests align now.
I think a main portion of why both countries grew so close was in part to the actions directly after the war. The US replaced the Japanese political system with something close to our own system. This gave the common people of Japan more freedom and benefits that kicked off the big boom in economics they would enjoy. That and Japan being sort of occupied by US forces that intermingled with them and a sort of staging area during the Korean war. Our vets may have been home fuming, but the younger generations that hadn't been so tainted by war time Japan were there and enjoyed it. And as time went by both countries grew closer as they depended on each other. Japan as a stronghold in the area for the US should trouble arise and the US as a defender for the Japanese against aggression from any nations in the area. Both cultures mixed a bit despite the vast distance between the two.
I could see similarities between WWII (with our current war on terrorism). Most of the soldier that fought (or are fighting now never been outside US or have real relationships with people from the other country). The only thing they know are Pearl Harbor (or 9/11 now). The soldiers are only going to see the opposite side as the enemy.
The fact is that most civilians on both sides just want to live their lives. But there are small number of influential people -Japanese emperior and the army (or certain terrorist groups) want revenge or broaden their influence.
But for US and Japan now, we see the value -there is more to lose than to gain in a war. Hopefully, we can do the same thing one day with all the counties we still have wars or disagreements with. I know I am over simplifying the conflicts we have., but from these videos, I just see a waste of valuable human lives from all sides, which is the saddest part.
@@brianng3414 Unfortunately if you accept certain ideologies, the logical conclusion of them is warfare. This is why it's important to be critical of any belief system, especially ones that start saying "violence is justified to read our goals". All war is, is politics by other means ultimately. If people can't reach their goals (reasonable or insane) via diplomacy, they will attempt to achieve their goals via violence.
There's some truth to that, but I believe that it was MacArthur's decision not to try the Emperor Hirohito for war crimes that allowed the people of Japan to retain some form of normalcy after the war. Add to that the staggering amount of resources and money the allies pumped into Japan to rebuild it after the war, and that the people of Japan recognized the role the US would play in stopping communist aggression during the Cold War.
I think the reason why Japan is such good friends with the USA is because they occupied them for 8 years and gave them democracy and the USSR didn't
The allies had planned "Operation Downfall", the invasion of Japans home islands, the allies had planned some 5 million+ Americans and 1million Commenwealth soldiers(with an estimated 500.000-1.000.000 casualties in total) against some 4 million japanese armed forces and over 31 million conscripts who all would fight for every single millimeter of ground. All of this could have dragged the war on for another 2-3 years and the Soviet forces would have landed in Hokkaido and gone south while marching south in main land China
So where the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified? From my view yes it safed millions of lives(though we should not forget how it's sad that 129,000-226,000 people had to pay the price for it)
Thank god someone else also knows about this.
This is what I was taught as well. There were choices, but the bombs made it thr most expedient for Japan's surrender. If there was a land invasion, I have no doubt Hokkaido would have be under Soviet control even after the wars end and become a permanent part of the USSR.
I heard different, I think was a docu that japan was already planning to surrender around 1945 because they knew and feared Russian invasion and didn't want Russia on the negotiation table so Russia could not make any demands
@@Greenberet. that's a lie. It was made up by liberals to make America feel like the bad guys in ww2. You can read japanese war documents and those prove that the japanese had no plan to surrender. Also even after the two atomic attacks and the Soviets joining the war the japanese war council was still split 3 to 3 if to surrender or keep fighting. An the emperor had to make the final decision and he chose to surrender. The atomic bombs kill thousands but saved millions.
Yea Japan was like North Korea at the time but in my opinion, even more nuts. The a-bomb is a horrible weapon but I think it made more sense to drop them, then invade a country with a brainwashed population. Surely the America. soldiers would have been harassed and killed regularly, let’s not forget to mention what the soviets would have done if they landed, you’d have a lot of European babies in northern Japan😬😬
Even from what happened in the Philippines. I still like the relationship that our country has with other countries such as US and Japan, China (not really, but okay, I guess). Like what most people will say or have said, we can only learn from the past and make it better for us and our future generation.
dont be chesspiece for US to fight China. They will sacrifise your country without doubt. and what china did to this world? what US did to this world ? what happened to your little minds? read too much western media propaganda?
As an American born in the 80’s, two of my favorite countries in the world are Germany and Japan. I wonder if my grandfather, who fought in WWII, could have imagined how quickly the sentiment would change. I enjoyed your video and your honesty.
My grandfather liberated Philippines and married a German lady :) Trust me, most forgave right away. Almost every vet I have talked to, had not bad ill towards them in the end, but most would not care to go back to the countries they fought in though hahaha
@@brandtc.7991Help, "liberated the Philippines". If you're from the US, you might not know this but the US freaking colonized us and didn't let go until the PH won the Philippine-American War. I respect soldiers, but you shouldn't have mentioned the "liberated" part because our colonizers treated us like trash. I know it's what it's officially called, but man, it stings that we had to wait until 1946 to be fully independent. But yeah, I doubt anyone would want to visit a place that's very traumatic for them.
His video defends the evil Japanese empire and Axis powers who tortured and murdered 45 million civilians. Yes, the nuclear bombs saved lives of millions of Asians and Allies
Fun fact that isn’t so fun:
My dad had a girlfriend whose grandpa was one of the first people to set foot on Japan after the atomic bombs. He said that they had warehouses of weapons for everyone to fight, from guns to knife to even sticks. Everyone was expected to fight if they lived in Japan. (He was also right next to that guy who took the famous picture of the few Americans holding up that flag)
Rising sun?
@Soda King yeah that’s the one
9 9 9
my best friend's grand-father was posted in japan during reconstruction after the war. he had a piece of glass from Nagasaki (like a stone) on display on a bookshelf. that thing gave me the creeps.
The Japanese empire and Axis powers tortured and murdered 45 million civilians. Japanese empire was cutting heads off and torturing women and people in experiments
My opinion on the nukes in Japan from an American perspective:
It was either drag the war out and hurl more bodies at Japan that would be killed due to Japanese soldiers not surrendering, and possibly risk Russia invading Japan as well... which more than likely would have greatly affected Japan because America probably wouldn't have the same authority over taking control then it did with the nukes. This *definitely* would have been way more devastating to all countries involved. Specifically Japan as I believe more people would have been killed in a homeland invasion.
Or we make the decision to nuke Japan...
Yeah I think if the war hadnt ended when it did and tied Stalins hands we probably would have then been fighting the Russians as they were pretty much land grabbing at the time as there were heading to Japan ie staging an invasion force when the bombs were dropped so yeah I think they did save maybe millions more lives by doin it.. War is basically nasty dirty business not only do young men die but so do the innocent ,hope we never have another....
That’s pretty interesting.
Japan would also be like Germany with a heavily developed and industrialised part and a not so developed part.
I'm glad you brought up this perspective, as I was about too. The decision to drop atomic weapons was very much a choosing the lesser of two evils scenario.
FYI... the estimates for casualties during the mainland invasion were so high, the Purple Heart medals made in advance are still being used!
Yeeup, with hindsight we can look back and can make a pretty safe assumption that if the nukes weren't dropped and a land invasion did happen, we would have had Okinawa-levels (or worse) of deaths, military and civilian, across nearly every city in southern and central Japan. I doubt it was on their minds when the decision was made, but those two nukes prevented what could have been monumentally worse civilian death tolls.
I'm gonna have to say that the atomic bomb probably saved millions of people in the long run.
But here is my reason why, during the second word war it is recorded that Japanese were fierce fighters. It also has been recorded that japan was in a huge rearmament. If we are going off of the historic ideals of japan, it would also appear that there was a sense of Bushido being implemented. Which even now can be seen in the work place. It is evident that japan is like the beehive of the modern world, and there are even reports of people literally working themselves to death. Japanese pride themselves on honor and serving. It's no secret they had kamikaze pilots, and submarine operators. There was a huge sense of loyalty to the nation at the time.
So with this in mind, if a nation is so die hard that they are willing to sacrifice men via suicidal crashing attacks, it would not be unreasonable to assume that every last man would have fought to their death if america would attempt a landing. I also do mean every last man, maybe women and children if it was demanded. This was not an ethical way of looking at this particular situation i know.
but if the bombs were not dropped, japan would have fought with every last person. I am not here to say that it was right, But in a twisted way. The bomb may have saved more lives of both sides.
I am not here to say it was a morally good thing. nor am i going to say that it was right. However it defiantly stopped a slaughterhouse of a battle on the beaches of japan.
I don't think so, I don't agree with the use of atomic bombs, if The U.S didn't dropped it, they would have still fell, but may have possibly been split, due to the USSR had plans to invade the Japanese Mainland.
@@toaacentral3366 For what it's worth, you can google both the US and Japanese projections for a mainland invasion. Japan absolutely expected every last citizen to fight against invasion. US Estimates for casualties were between 500k to 1m, and estimates for Japanese casualties were upwards of 10 million. As far as I know, Japanese estimates were even higher than that. The bombs were unconscionable, but if estimates were even a drip swish and a flick away from being even vaguely correct, a lot of lives were potentially saved. War is evil; there is no "good" side. Just the side that lost less.
people like you always ignore the importance of supplies when they argue that Japan would have kept fighting. Yes if the Allies would have landed on Japan they probably would have done that, but there was no need for it. The Japanese Navy was gone and Japan was basically cut off from outside resources again. At that point a Land Invasion becomes obsolete anyway. I doubt the Atom Bombs saved millions of people in the long run, in fact the Atom Bombs killed millions of people in the long run.
@@TheBlackfall234 at the time of the second world war. It was expected that every man, woman, and child would die for their nation. To the extremes that actual high school girls were being recruited as nurses, and working in caves to work on wounded men.
One man on Memoirs Of WW2 channel, one man who has fought on one of the island. Mentioned once the Japanese realized they were gonna loose. They had the women line up on top of the cliffs, to throw their babies off, and jump themselves. Under the guise that the Americans would kill them.
That is how extreme japan was during the second world war.
you can see the wheels turning and the realization and scrambling for the mouse once pearl harbor was coming up 😂😂😂
"let me explain"
I highly respect your outlook on the war and the atomic bombings my country did unto your people. As you said it was a complicated war and everyone has their own views on the war. I appreciate how open minded you are. It's of course uneasy for my generation to hear about what those bombings did. You've earned a new viewer. With love and respect from the U.S Hoosier state Indiana.
Sadly in the Battle of Okinawa many rare and priceless Japanese artifacts were destroyed. Only 1 survived.
Japanese empire was evil and tortured and murdered millions of people.
Rats of Tobruk are legends in Australia.
Hello sir, I just want to say that I recently found your channel and I really gotta say I respect that you bring up the Rape of Nanking. You are the first Japanese youtuber I've seen even mention it, and I thank you. If you want a hard, strict look at the Rape of Nanking, I would suggest "Playing the Victim" by Knowing Better. It is not nice. It is not sympathetic. It might make you mad. But as far as I know it is very accurate and... there are pictures. Those pictures haunt me often I will admit; particularly the bayonetted woman. If you believe in evil spirits, that would most certainly be one, the poor dear. I am grateful the photographer at least didn't get her face, may she rest in peace.
America (where I'm from) has been allies with Japan for ~75 years now, and many love them as brothers. I want to count myself among them.
But it is hard to do sometimes when I have those photos flashing behind my eyelids.
Also, what are your thoughts on Unit 731? As far as I know we took those scientists in too, but please correct me if I am wrong.
I will keep watching good sir! And thank you, again, for mentioning things. It means a lot - to me anyway.
Japan wasn't the other nation to commit war crimes...America wasn't all perfect either -
@@sephiroaone-of-nine101 Absolutely, but we're not talking about that here. 'Look at those guys over there' is not helpful to discussion and learning. The Rape Of Nanking did happen, the discussion surrounding it should be academic and one of acknowledgement of all ours pasts, but also not placing blame on a current generation.
@@Chris44sun perfectly fine to have such a conversation just saying don't point one finger when the hole war is full of war crimes...its a war..shit happens and none of it good -
@@sephiroaone-of-nine101 True, war is bad. Everyone did shit during WW2, and none of it should be excused. But some crimes are simply worse than others. There is no equivalence between American crimes, and those committed by the Nazi and Imperial Japanese regimes, not in scale. Not even close. "Whataboutism" is the death of intellectual discussion and honesty.
@@davididiart5934 Iwhataboutism plays bothsides, sure they were worst but am pretty sure all nations want to roll over their mistakes - russia, america, uk, germany, list goes on and on
Great words! "It is by talking to each other and not killing each other that we should understand each other"
It is not great words. He defends the evil Japanese empire and Axis powers who tortured and murdered 45 million civilians and 16 million soldiers. He tries to blame the Allies. Japan was lucky to not suffer 50 nuclear bombs
I’m so happy that people from different nations and ethnic backgrounds can come together and be friendly with each other. I’m sorry for all the lives that our old foes lost.
Do not feel sorry for the Japanese empire and Axis powers who tortured and murdered 45 million civilians and caused the worse war in human history
I like how you are willing to talk about very controversial topics like this, Yuya-san. Your commentary and perspective as a Japanese person are very interesting.
Yuya, I really appreciate that you are keeping an open mind about this! 🙂 It's quite a shame that WW2 isn't being taught in a more honest way in Japan, also leading to strained relations with Korea and other countries.
I'm from a country that was on the wrong side of WW2 as well (Austria, back then annexed by Germany) and we were taught about the horrible things that Austrians participated in. I think that this was a very valuable lesson for me, because it goes to show that your own people can be terribly wrong sometimes and coming to grips with that will lead to a better society. There are other people in basically all countries that insist that their history has been faultless and glorious at all times, (for instance how some people in the US think that slavery and the civil war weren't all that bad) but they are wrong and lack self-reflection.
There are not many Americans who think that slavery and the civil war weren't bad or "that bad". The VAST majority of us agree that it was a stain on our history. While keeping in mind we are one of the pioneering nations for criminalizing slavery and racism, most other countries only followed in our footsteps. Also don't believe the idiotic media claiming that the U.S. is a racist bigoted country when we are quite the opposite.
@@jessenoreligionno5731 I'm not trying to paint the US as a racist country. Rather, my point was that the civil war & slavery remain controversial topics and deep wounds have not been allowed to heal as a result. You are far from the only country which has these troubles when facing its own history (a more extreme example would be Turkey and the Armenian genocide). I'm under the impression that in some Southern states it is still taught that the civil war was primarily about state's rights while the full brutality of slavery is somewhat brushed under the rug. The 'Lost Cause' myth has been difficult to dispel.
The US was also definitely not one of the pioneering nations when it comes to fighting against slavery & racism. Most European countries did not have slaves way before the United States, where slavery was a major part of the South's economy up until the civil war. And after Reconstruction, black people were disenfranchised from voting in the South until the 1960s - that's hardly pioneering. But again, I'm not trying to single out the US here. All nations have some screwed up stuff in their past, what matters is that we deal with that in an open & honest way. 🙂
@@matthiasm4299 one thing you are misrepresenting here is that most of the European countries who did not own slaves; was not because they were against it. Most European countries simply did not have the excess capital and economic need to partake in the slave trade. None of them are on public record condemning the practice. Then of course like you said, the Armenian genocide. Then of course, Germany also did not have slavery; yet when Hitler came into power they quickly began the "Ethnic cleansing of Europe" and many countries bent to their whim. So when you try to say we weren't pioneers of this thinking, you need to look at everything in context. Of the countries who participated in the slave trade, the US was definitely the first one to condemn it.
@@jessenoreligionno5731 Look, I'm not at all trying to say that the Europeans acted morally superior. For instance, the British outlawed the transatlantic slave trade in 1807 (like the US) only then to colonize Africa in the late 19th century - at times featuring brutal repression and lots of white supremacist ideology.
Again, my point is not about condemning American history. People just should try to understand what happened - the good and the bad - and learn from it (and many do). I think you understand as well. But calling the US a pioneer in the fight against slavery... c'mon you know that's putting a lot of spin on things. 😉
As an American, i really love your perspective! Thanks for sharing! Keep the videos coming.
And I think our allyship has been a wonderful example to the entire world; showing how two people’s can come together for a brighter future despite their past differences. ☺️
Good video. As I have lived in Japan some 15 years now, I am always asking Japanese people about their opinions on issues such as this. It is always so interesting to hear what everyone thinks (and I have heard all sides). It is great to hear your opinion too. Thanks!
There is no opinion. The Japanese empire and Axis powers tortured and murdered 45 million civilians and consequently suffered atomic bombs. The war was the worst in human history
Thank you for sharing your perspective.
I hope we are good allies out of mutual respect. The fierceness of your people throughout history and your beautiful culture has earned the respect of many Americans to this day.
Please react to "The WWII Japanese soldier who didn't surrender until 1974" by Simple History.
And maybe some more Oversimplified videos, as well.
You’re one of the more nuanced reviewers I’ve come across my friend, sending good vibes from Texas..
This was a great reaction. You presented a very fair and balanced perspective. I’ll be watching more!
"we have been in to extreme a situation for to long" sums it up nicely
Thank you for making these videos, they offer a perspective I've never gotten to see
Really interesting hearing you point of view, I had never heard the story that the Japanese Embassy was supposed to let America know about the state of war minutes before Pearl Harbor began. Like you said it wouldn't have made any difference, America would have still reacted the same way even if it did happen.
As an American I appreciate getting to see and understand your point of view. I also share your questions about whether the bombs were necessary. I think those questions should continue to be asked as it dissuades use of the bombs in the future. As it stands today, however, I am very happy about America and Japan’s friendship.
Unfortunately the bombs were a necessary evil, because if not tens of millions would've died from the fighting on main land Japan on both sides. I feel the estimates from both sides are lower then what they actually would've been had the invasion happened
"Because we've fought before we are good allies now" seems to be the right answer.
For example, France and Germany : they fought so many times that they share the same History, the same bad memories.
They were enemies but they had to unite to build the future, and that's why we've got the European Union today.
I could've said the same thing for England but, ya know...
We french people are the best enemies of the British since like... an eternity ?
Just kidding, now we still fight on the rugby fields and it's called "the crunch"
Personally, I'm just impressed that the allies were still thinking things through that far into the war. They never went all out: "Winning first". I find that very commendable.
Sure, there were some decisions that are in the grey area, but that's life. You're in a situation that demands an action. Any action (just about) is better than doing nothing. So you choose the least bad one.
I was born in Mainland China, so I know what a government hell bent on victory at all costs thinks. It's not sensible. It does not answer to law. The leaders don't expect to be put on trial. Well, put it this way, they know that if they lose, they don't stand a chance in court. So, like a crazy better, they just go all in and hope the rest of the world is too chicken to do anything, even if all they actually have is two pairs or something.
I think the Allies, for all their faults, have always maintained a: "Wait and see" approach, to give the other side the benefit of the doubt. So it's easy for idiot warmonger dictators to get themselves fooled into thinking that the allies are soft, or, even more deceptively, scared. Most of the time, as democracies, they are waiting for the population to make up their minds about if these guys had finally crossed the line from acceptable, through marginal, into unacceptable. And sure, usually, it's the last straw that breaks the camel's back, so it might not look very impressive. But by that stage, the allies would have gathered a truckload of irrefutable evidence against the offenders. And then, that's just about gg.
Thank you very much for your insights into this shared history. Thank you. My father was a pilot in the Pacific war and I grew up initially with the US version of events. Through time, education and reading - and later living outside the US, I have learned much about that time period from different perspectives. For many years now I have been living in Germany working for a well respected international Japanese company. (Is that irony?) A Chinese physics teacher I had at university started her class everyday with the phrase: the nature of matter is change. And so it is. Oh, by-the-way, I came to your channel via Uncle Roger. Subscribed and am enjoying it.
War is ugly and generations after have to clean it up.
War never shows who was right...it only ever reveals who is left...
@@trayolphia5756 no buddy the axis were definitely evil and the allies were def right😂😂
@@lumi3333 ...left as in “remaining”
On a smaller scale of “violence proves nothing”...you’re at a bar, someone is being a scumbag, you call them out on it, they challenge you to “step outside”
What will that prove other than who is a better fighter...it won’t show who is morally or ethically correct in the given situation...
@Welcome Cat if America invaded japen it was a estimated that 11 million soldiers on both sides could’ve died. The abombs saved lives
@Welcome Cat so their life’s don’t matter????? 200k deaths > 11 million
These two videos were really great videos! I truly enjoyed seeing the thoughts of a Japanese perspective on the war. I also liked that you're really well read on the subject and have an actually, very intelligent view! Really, I really enjoyed this.
As for the atomic bombs, there was so much consideration in the actually bombings. One thing is what most people have mentioned, which is the loss of life in any other method of attack. If the US were to try to invade Japan, they knew they would be facing another Normandy, and they definitely didn't want to face that for obvious reasons. They had already suffered from these kinds of battles at Guadalcanal and Okinawa just to name two amphibious attacks. The massive losses of American military personnel and equipment was something that the US wanted to avoid. Also, Japan had already proven (very heavily in Okinawa), just how far they would go to stop the US. The massive amount of civilian deaths at the hands of both the Japanese military and the US military was looked at and extrapolated to the Japanese mainland itself.
Also, Typical firebombing had proven to be ineffective. Like has been mentioned, there were hundreds of thousands who died to firebombing of Tokyo and various other cities in Japan, but the people in charge didn't even flinch. They didn't care that civilians were dying, so typical bombing raids of Japan simply wouldn't work to put them out of the war.
Another thing that is less mentioned (though, the video does touch on it briefly) is the USSR. The video mentions their occupying of areas that they took over from Germany. This was a really big consideration for the US brass at the time. First, because they already didn't like communism, and second because of the treatment of the civilians. They also didn't want the USSR to have any more bargaining chips when the war ended. The less territory that the USSR had control over meant that they would be less of a threat once the war was over. The US knew that the USSR was recovering their military from the battle in Europe, and they would be ready to invade Japan soon. The US didn't want the USSR anywhere near Japan.
Another thing was the concept of starving out the country. But as was stated in another post, this was expected to take about 2 years, and the massive loss of life and disease that would come from this was pretty inhumane.
These are just some of the major reasons that the US decided on using the atomic bombs. Time was really of the essence here. They wanted to put an end to the war, and they wanted to do it before the USSR could involve themselves in Japan. They wanted to avoid as much post war potential problems that they could.
Now, were the atomic bombs terrible? Absolutely, and before I became interested in WW2, I always thought that they were an absolute atrocity. But after I started to look deeper into the decision making process and why they truly decided to drop the bombs, I came to realize that, while the bombs were shitty, and they were a really terrible thing, they were necessary. I think that if the bombs hadn't been dropped, Japan would be in a much, much worse state than it is in now. Just imagine if the USSR had been involved, and Japan was occupied by them similar to Germany. Think of Germany prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. East Berlin vs West Berlin and the terrible conditions that the people on the USSR side had to suffer through. I think that ending the war as it happened was simply better in the long run. A terrible price to pay, but still, it would have been far worse if any other way happened.
The 101st Airborne at Bastogne. Makes me proud to be a Screaming eagle 😄
My dad fought in the S.Pacific, and recently died at the age of 96. He, and every single person I have ever met who was alive at the time, felt the atomic bombings were necessary to end the war. Dad always said that we'd still be fighting in the jungles without it.
It's important to realize the view of the contemporaries. They were there. That's how they felt.
Salutes your dad. We didn't start that war. Japan kept invading their asian neighbors, siding with natzi germany and SNEAK, attacking Pearl Harbor when america wasn't at war with japan. That attack propelled the US into the war hard.
We don't take it on the chin when we get hit. We hit back harder.
I say thank God we bombed them, do you know they didn't even want to surrender after the first bomb that how brazen them imperial japanese officers were. You got nuked once and still want to fight. We thank God we had 2 of them.
Japan helped Germans to murder 45 million civilians. Yes, the bombs were necessary, and it was Japan's fault.
Very beautiful reaction my friend i really think that all our mistakes makes us better people to the end. As an American im glad and proud to have such beautiful and strong people as our allies and friends! RIP all the people that die in ww2.
Steve Rogers put it pretty honestly, "when i woke up they say we'd won, they didnt say how we'd lost" in the end, humanity lost this battle, for both sides.
This video is going to blow up, I just got it recommended out of nowhere for some reason. Can you do a video on the Ainu? Or maybe an introduction video explaining your background!
As an American, I cant properly explain our actions for the atomic bombing, but Bill Whittle can.
Do a search for "What We Saw, The Cold War: Two Bombs"
Bill does a great job explaining our mindset at the time
My Grandfather was an occupation troop in Nagasaki, he often spoke of the destruction he witnessed. While he genuinely felt a great compassion for the people of Japan he was also a soldier. He understood that in such times a country does what is needed to save the lives of their own people, the lives of the enemy at the time mean little if anything. That is the way it has been since the dawn of time and I don't see that ever changing. Sad.
The Japanese empire and Axis powers tortured, mutilated and murdered 45 million civilians. Do not feel sympathy for evil murderers
I truly loved you commentary and perspective. And I'm glad we're friends today.
Great reaction. The reason why we (USA) had to drop the atomic bombs was because we feared major casualties for a mainland invasion. Estimates up to 300,000 US soldiers killed. When we dropped the first bomb Japan still refused to surrender so we had no choice. It is tragic but war is tragic. I’m glad relations between the us and Japan is good now
Hard subjects are often the conversations we need.
22:35 As a German I would like to say: Even though we were allies before (and had also fought before we were allies in the first place), we have been good allies since then and this time for a better cause than the first time, that's for sure. At least this is how I like to see it.
Maybe Hongkong will fall under authoritarian control without the "free world" doing enough (like Czechoslovakia in 1938), but I really hope that Japan and Germany are ready to use all of their soft power the moment Taiwan comes under immediate threat to fall under authoritarian control. Of course, Japan and Germany did a lot of good things for the "free world" since 1945, but this would be the first real test of our development and the embracement to do smart international politics with soft power instead of hard power. Everything we went through including the economical success, would be easy compared to this challenge. The challenge is to defend human dignity without destroying it during the process of defending it. I really believe that this can be done, but maybe I have watched too much star trek TNG in my life.
(By the way, I have no major problem with Japan's relatively high military expenditure compared to Germany, because I think Japan is in a difficult situation with some of its neighbors compared to Germany, and deterrence through modern military equipment is necessary or at least to a certain extent really worthy of discussion. Without it, the soft power would be damaged, but I hope that the hard power that comes with it will never have to be used. In the case of Germany, I am against any major military expenditure at least in the current situation. It would also send the wrong signal to some countries.)
the only problem I have with Japan's military expenditure and growth is they are trying actively to change the constitution. After WW2, like all axis forces, they were disallowed from forming a 'military' or Armed Forces but could have a Defence force. As you know, the difference is a defense force cannot, in its weapons and armament store, keep weapons capable of attacking but only of that which is defensive. That goes with sending military overseas, where forces cannot be used to attack another nation on their soil (only provide tactical support), only those that try to attack. However, the new change of constitution which is being promoted is changing that so they have attacking capabilities and the right to housing weapons and armaments capable as a war-waging nation. If the govt was truly in acceptance of its imperialistic mindset and wrongdoing, it would not need such a change. The defense force in itself is one of the top 10 most capable forces in the world without attacking capabilities. I
@@jollajolyo I think i agree with you. However I have to little knowledge about the current defensive and offensive capabilities of Japan's military to judge the situation.
Germany is also in an "offensive way" (or call it just post invasion situation) in Afghanistan and no one here really understood that decision why we took part in this war.
However to certain degree offense is also a good defence. But never trust a politician if he says this. If we start arguing like this, someone will be able to find an argument why Hitler just defended Germany in 1939.
@@jollajolyo The constitutional changes aren't so much internal initiatives but demands by the US. We spend A LOT of money defending Japan, our largest numbered fleet, the 7th fleet, is permanently stationed in Yokosuka. They need to spend more on their own defense, they need to have a strong enough military to take on China on their own, the US's role should be to tip the balance of power in favor of our allies, not provide the first line of defense. Same goes for Germany, though, they need to maintain a military capable of taking on Russia, they should not be relying on the US to defend them in the event of war, the US's role, again, is to tip the balance, not provide the first line of defense.
@@costakeith9048 Sounds easy: Germany - invest more Money for military. If we do so - Poland maybe thinks "wtf neighbour? Again?" We can handle the russian "power play" in Europe better by strengthen the baltic States and Poland - Not by "Making Germany Great Again" - OMG. And yes - I'm a German. There's always a difference between the indifferent american view on Russia and the way europe can deal with Russia (sugar and whip). And believe me - a lot of europeans are sure, that Russia could be a threat. But we're are not so sure it is. We know our eastern drama queen as very well, as our western drama queen, means: we're also sure, the US can be a friend, but we're not so sure, it is. Since some years it's more and more acting like an insurance seller and used car dealer to europe, then as a friendly partner.
@@ratatosk8935 The problem is that the eastern hemisphere is not in the natural sphere of the United States, we are a western hemispheric power and always have been. We have always been reluctant to involve ourselves in the affairs of the old world. We maintained a strict policy of non-interference throughout the 19th century and only very reluctantly entered the world wars. After the first world war, we demobilized and returned home. After the second world war we intended to do the same, demobilizing half the US military between 1945 and 1947 with plans to demobilize the remainder of the army and much of the navy soon thereafter. Then came the Soviet blockade of Berlin and the ensuing Berlin airlift, at which point it was clear that the European powers were in no position to defend themselves and we had to choose between staying in Europe and ceding it to the Soviets. Had the Soviets been anything but communist, we might have seriously considered the latter option, but communism was a serious threat to our international trade so we reluctantly remained. This involvement in the old world arguably may have been necessary, but it was never popular, it's simply something contrary to our national character. Now with communism vanquished in Europe, it's increasingly difficult to justify any presence at all.
Trump may have forced the issue, but it's been recognized since the Clinton administration that we need to start withdrawing from the world, certain agencies like the state department and CIA, whose existence is largely justified by meddling in the affairs of the old world, have vehemently resisted and various bureaucrats have found numerous reasons to try to keep us involved, but public opinion against unnecessary entanglements has steadily increased. We need to transition to an order where the nations of the Old World are capable of defending themselves, it doesn't have to happen overnight, but there needs to be a significant and decisive move in that direction. And, in time, we need to return to the traditional norms of non-intervention in the Old World.
The historical rivalries and animosities you mention are precisely why we never wanted to involve ourselves in the Old World in the first place and why we should extract ourselves from them, you have invented all sorts of rationalizations and justifications for your perpetual pursuit of conflict, with only the British largely willing to make friends with former enemies rather than nursing historical grudges down through the ages, recounting all manners of wrongs you have inflicted upon each other in what should be long forgotten wars. And today we find ourselves at the mercy of these historical animosities, immersed in the bad blood between Russia and her neighbors, a Germany who won't defend herself for fear of stirring up these same concerns in hers, taking over traditional French responsibilities in Syria, and seeing to traditional British interests in the Middle East. At the end of the day, these aren't and shouldn't be our problems: our ancestors left the Old World precisely to escape from these wars and intrigues. These are European problems and they need to be handled by the European great powers.
Really grateful I found your videos. Interesting and insightful responses I'd never encountered.
I'm a 78 yr old American from No. California.
I want to tell You that I have much respect for you for doing this series of videos.
I also want to say that I respect for all your options through the fist two videos that I have watched.
Great video series. I think it's fair to say Japan and Western countries are friends. The west had a rough start with Japan, but so did the UK with America when they broke free of the Thirteen Colonies. Now the UK and America are close friends, on a personal level I see the UK and Japan despite being culturally different, have a lot in common as island nations. Both have influenced the world in a recognisable way, innovate and have a great history of philosophy and expression. Both proud and fearless. Circumstance lead to us fighting each other.
One of my favorite quotes by William Tecumseh Sherman about the US Civil War: " I want peace, and believe it (can) only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success.
But my dear sirs when Peace does come, you may call on me for any thing-Then I will share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter."
But he also said "War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it; the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over." The atomic bomb was a cruel act to end the cruelty of war. And after (according to American history. It may be different to the Japanese and I would love to learn about it) the US helped you to rebuild. Sharing the figurative last cracker and watched with you "to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter." Granted this was for selfish American reasons. But I feel the truth holds.
We made the cruelty of war crueler such that the Japanese had to surrender thus ending the war. I neither disagree nor agree with the decision as I was not alive at the time and I have knowledge not available at that time. However, with my knowledge of history, I believe we eventually got to the point of "But my dear sirs when Peace does come, you may call on me for any thing-Then I will share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter."
I don't think it is equal and I do believe that the US treated Japan unfairly similarly to Germany when they passed the Treaty of Versailles (not equally but unfairly). But at least this one American would share with you the last cracker. You don't want me to help shield your homes. I am a terrible shot and not healthy at all.
A great movie for you to watch if you want to know what the embassy was doing in washington before they handed in the declaration of war is "Tora Tora Tora:" - I think t came out in the 1970s but its a fairly accurate depiction of the events of Pearl Harbor.
That was an excellent film. Hope he enjoys it of he does watch it!
There was no declaration of war.
@Chris George But it wasn't a declaration of war. That's the point. It was supposed to be delivered before the attack but as I said it wasn't a declaration of war. You can look up the 14 Part Message and read it. No where does it declare war.
@Chris George It wouldn't though have been interpreted as an immediate need to go on a war footing. Japan though did "declare war" the following day by announcing an official declaration of war in Japanese newspapers. I'm not sure if the US Ambassador in Japan was handed this declaration or not.
I'm from Oak Ridge, TN, which was part of the Manhattan Project. Locally, we still talk a lot about the morals, ethics and necessity of the dropping of the Atomic bombs. There are opinions on all sides of this there, but I've never seen anyone who didn't admit that it was complicated. We have some ties and a sister city in Japan (Russia too). At the very least, we want to take steps to establish friendship in this time of peace.
This video brings to light profound wisdom. I am glad and saddened to have found it. My hope is that these lessons of loss and suffering will never be forgotten and will be used as an important teaching in order to prevent further human violence. Thank you for your input and knowledge Mr.Nipponess.
My great grandfather fought in Japan. He was a part of the invasion of Iwo Jima. I still have a Japanese flag and flashlight that he brought back from the war. In school we were taught that the nuclear bombs were very bad, but that they were necessary. This is because there would be millions of American casualties as well as Japanese casualties. Our government used the instances of where the Japanese citizens jumped off cliffs to die rather than surrender as justification. They said that millions of civilians would rather kill themselves than surrender to the Americans. I am not so sure this is 100% true.
I think they killed themselves because the emperor had told the civilians that the U.S. would basically capture and torture. But, who knows. Probably a mixture
Thank you for mentioning the cliffs. My father suffered from recurring nightmares of the sight of hundreds of women’s and Children’s broken bodies. There was no stopping the Mothers. The Japanese told them the Americans would kill them then eat them.
My great great grandfather was a Japanese but than I guess my mom tell me after that he come fight for America maybe because he was a good person I guess and than my family live in American after would war 2
A RUclips channel called “Potential history” has some videos on WW2 Japan.
“Pearl Harbor The Best Bad Option” and a video about kamikaze attacks
I've been to the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima and it absolutely broke me. I was crying the rest of the day.
From what I understand there was a translation issue between the allies and Japan, with the main sticking point being the Japanese wanting reassurances about the emperor, and the allies wanting unconditional surrender.
Excellent reaction! I loved your very thoughtful comments. Thank you for that.
Japan and the USA have a special bond that two great fighters have. Respect.
I would like to point out something that I dont see in the comments. The americans actually dropped papers days before warning the citizens of the two cities that they would be annihilated by a new bomb. The emperor actually made it illegal to read the papers therefore denying the japanese people the ability to evacuate the cities. The americans attempted to minimize the loss of life in most instances. It was reasoned that bombing the cities would result in less deaths on both sides when compared to a full on land invasion. There was also a attempt to negotiate surrender in the days after the first bomb was dropped. The emperor however refused to believe that the devastation was caused by a single bomb as the devastation caused by the nuke actually looked very similar to the air raids that had been conducted beforehand. This refusal as well as a few other factors caused the second bombing.
What was estimate of lives lost (both sides) if there was land invasion?
american revisionism
@@AFR0MAMBA the estimate was in the millions. If I remember correctly the us generals estimated 2 million for the us and 10 million for the Japanese. Japan had built a reputation for fighting to the last man
@@cooldude4643 yeah? Where? Nothing I've written is factually inaccurate
@@michaellovitt8497 no, you parroted the american propaganda word for word from your history textbooks
You should watch mark Felton's videos on this, he explains that really the atomic bombs could have been avoided but the Japanese government refused to surrender, and the military even attempted a coup against the emperor! to continue the war even if it meant being nuked a 3rd time! Years later civilians from japan have tried suing the Japanese government for these events but its been dismissed at every turn.
@Chris George Oh they asked a lot more than just 'keeping the emperor safe'. They terms they offered before the bombs were basically a slap on the wrist (no prosecution of war crimes either), no occupation was a huge nonstarter as well. It was viewed one of the big reasons Germany started the war was because the allies did not occupy it after WW1. This was not going to happen again with the Axis powers this time around. It wasn't until after Hiroshima & Nagasaki (August 6th & 9th) that they finally moved off the conditional terms and moved to accepting the Potsdam declaration on August 10th.
I’ve been curious what someone from Japan has thought about WWII for a long time. Thank you for sharing your thoughts in a respectful way.
You have my respect for how you held yourself in this video, more people should have this attitude about past wars or conflict.
🤣🤣🤣 I didn't know about these videos but I'm saving your reaction videos in my oldest son's history Playlist.... he DIED from laughter watching and was actually interested in history for once 😆.... hard to find educational things that grab the attention of autistic kids and keep them interested 👍 keep these and your cooking up Yuya
I remember in my JROTC company, we were asked whether we would drop the atomic bombs and why. Out of 21 cadets, only I and three others gave an answer.
The first was our captain, who said yes, and his reason was: "It's payback." The second, who quarrelled bitterly with our captain, said no, saying that the death toll and effects were too horrible. The third, our 1st sergeant, said yes. His reasoning was to spare the lives of the US soldiers designated to invade mainland Japan. I said yes, but my reasoning was to spare the Japanese from what would likely be a war of genocide given their inclination to not surrender.
Thinking back on it, I'm amazed at how varied our thoughts on the subject were. The bombings are still an uncomfortable subject today, not out of shame, but out of a wondering if it had to come to that. Japan has always been the favorite Asian country for the US, even with Pearl Harbor being such a big deal in history class.
If this is true, you must take everything said online with a grain of salt, then you and the other two had much more maturity than your Captain, though I couldn't fault him for responding as he did
Kyoto was taken off of the list of cities to be bombed because one of Roosevelt's cabinet members, I believe that it was Stinson, went on honeymoon there before the war.
One thing for sure, those two atomic bombs ended the cruel Japanese's 3 years of occupation in Indonesia and in one way or another also gave us the space to declare our independence. Sure a lot of people also died in Japan, innocent people, and I am sorry for that. But I also grateful the bomb ended the occupation, a lot of Indonesian people died as well, including my relatives.
I have no resentment towards Japanese people, we are the new generation. We should work together. No more war!
By that logic it would have more appropriate to drop those on Germany. But ya know not a good look to drop atomic bombs on a country of white people. Those bombs were an over reaction committed out of shear anger for the bombing of pearl harbor so we indiscriminately dropped the 2 largest bombs we had on hundreds of thousands of innocent non combatant civilians. Its the equivalent of somebody responding to you punching them by murdering you and everybody you know lol
@@brandonhinrichs4393 German didn’t invade Indonesia. It would be done nothing for the pacific war if German was nuked.
@@brandonhinrichs4393 this is dumb logic. the war germany was all but over and the estimates were in the millions for casualties to invade the Japanese homeland. im not going to sit here and say there werent politcal motivations to it but to sit there and act like there was no reason for it is just idiotic. japan was a fierce fighting force who had proven time and time again that they would not go down with out insanely bloody fighting. we will never know what the casualties would have been if they had been invaded but i cant imagine it would be less than the bombs.
@@evolburd5768 yes I'm suggesting that there is zero reason for us to drop 1 let alone 2 atomic bombs on civilians.
@@brandonhinrichs4393 as opposed to the allied forces coming through and killing potentially millions of civilians?
i am from the philippines. i appreciate your openness to discuss the world war 2 since its a known fact that this part of history is a sensitive topic to the japanese. while i appreciate that japanese government and people are doing their best to mend relationship with the rest of the asia, i do hope that the full history world war 2 would be part the japanese curriculum. for me, to paraphrase a famous quote "those who do learn from history, are doomed to repeat it."
I was raised by a WW2 Vet and the stories he told have left me traumatized. The shell shock/PTSD wasn't a treatable thing. Man would yell for his long dead friends to died next to him and even in his arms. He relived this war every night until he died. I can't even begin to imagine what the war did to those who were not soldiers. A lot of the people on both sides didn't want to fight but did because they were soldiers. It's just an insane amount of torture, death and quite honestly, I hope we learn from our history. We should not ever have a repeat.
I'm Canadian, with about a quarter german roots, and I can understand how you feel about many of the things talked about in this video in a different way. Unfortunately my Great Great Grandfather served in the German Army during WW2, and as far as we know was by all means, a Nazi. I hate that fact with many fibres of my being, knowing that my ancestor did those things. And as a Canadian I look back on the history of my country and I see the Residential Schools, where we forced Native American people to abandon their culture for our own, and abused and killed countless children in the process. We still have a large problem with racism toward the Native population today, and it sickens me that people who call themselves Canadian can be that way. Of course, I can never begin to understand the toll of the A-bomb attacks, and I personally believe that it was undeserved. The worst thing anyone can do in war is target civilians, in my opinion, and an attack like that is completely unjustifiable. I don't think that the U.S. ever truely repaid for what they did, but at the same time, it really isn't my place to say. Loved the video, and best wishes!
In the words of Madara Uchiha:
“Talking about peace whilst spilling blood, it's something that only humans can do.”
“Man seeks peace, while at the same time yearning for war.”
The big bad guy in Naruto nailed it in the head. Makes sense, he was the product of our own internal contradictions.
"Was using the atomic bombs the only way to end the war?" -- No. The Tojo Regime could have surrendered at any point up to August 5th, 1945 and never seen an atomic bomb used against them. Imperial Japan chose to keep fighting, instead.
The Japanese Empire's refusal to surrender led to the use of the A-Bombs because those were the second fastest and second most efficient way to end the war. The third option was the worst. Operation Downfall would have been as big as Normandy and was predicted to have death tolls as high as the two A-Bombs and all the fire-bombings, combined.
The Japanese were willing to surrender beforehand but america wanted to use the nuclear weapons as a show of force to the soviets. The nuclear weapons were unnecessary and served no purpose in the war.
Here's a good article on this
www.salon.com/2016/05/11/we_didnt_need_to_drop_the_bomb_and_even_our_ww_ii_military_icons_knew_it/
That first bit isn't really fair. If it were the other way around and your home country was being invaded, wouldn't you expect your country to fight with everything it could in the same era before you knew that nukes even existed?
@@panzerwolf494 Except their home country *wasn't* being invaded. Their home country was the aggressor, 100% with zero mitigating factors.
Also, the US had already tested an atomic bomb on July 16th and had made clear on July 26th it would be used (the Potsdam Declaration) if Japan didn't surrender.
YoungXAdonis Then how come Japan didn’t surrender after the first bombing run then there were multiple bombing runs other then the 2 big A bomb drops, how come they waiting till all the bombing was over to surrender? Japan at the time had a strict no surrender policy so I don’t think they were willing to surrender
@@trainv7612 That is simply not true. Imperial Japan wanted to *negotiate peace terms*. They were willing to go to peace...only if certain terms and conditions of theirs were met. That's not surrendering. Not even close.
Also, we already had the demonstration of the A-Bomb's power on July 16th at the Trinity test.
Yuya, This was a wonderful video. I love your desire to understand what really happened as well as provide a different perspective from the history taught in the US. I like to think of it according to the samurai theory that after crossing swords with your opponent will you truly be able to understand them. I think this would explain the cross-fascination between our cultures. Great channel!
My fathers father went from the aluetions to ryukyu to eniwetak to Okinawa. Not sure about the order but you can guess. Ive learned alot in the last few days. I am proud of my papa yet seeing some of the things of war. That he had to witness or commit brings me tears.
If its anything to you I know my grandfather was a good man for the rest of his life. If he had the ability to go with out the war I am sure he would have. I am sorry for the things that happened to your people in the war. I am glad we have been friends since then.
I hope you and your lands are blessed
The King Keneth
Anyone holding on to personal animosity about actions taken 80 years ago really needs to reassess. Learn and move on.
no kidding. was in high school in the 00's and one of my classmates, after knowing my interest in Japanese culture, said "we should have bombed those SOB'S into the sea". i could understand some old timer getting bitter but this guy was no older than 13 at the time.
The CCP does everything possible to keep fueling resentment towards Japanese. It's constantly in Chinese popular media and government propaganda.
Unless it's something like, animosity to one or a few specific people that did something horrible to you personally, or someone extremely close to you. Like, I dunno the guy/s who murdered your mom.
2:10 japanese arent the only ones; the rest of the world only knew 3 axis countries
yeah probably because the name still remained as a "Tripartite Pact" which confuses people on how many members the pact should have when there's literally a "Tri" in the name. I'd much prefer it like in WW1 where they changed the Triple Alliance name to Central Powers, still confusing nonetheless.
I think former enemies make the best allies.
US and Japan
Goku and Vegeta
Same story, really.
France and Britain is another example
Goku and Vegeta? LOL.
@@staraptorflock3661 France and Anyone really.
U.S. and Russia still have some work to do on that one though lol
I always say two brothers who fought growing up are much closer when they get older. They know the value of trust and support.
Glad I found this video (and the one before it), and I have to say if you really want to dig into some fantastical events from World War II, the Battle off Samar (one of the many separate engagements that made up the Battle of Leyte Gulf) is worth a look. A frantic, confused, in many ways impossible to believe knock down, drag out fight between a massive Japanese naval fleet and a tiny American task force made up entirely of destroyers, destroyer escorts, and flimsy escort carriers. Which had to square off against no less than four battleships (including Yamato), six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and eleven destroyers.
We really had no business winning it, but as a testament to just how hard-fought the entire affair was: as one particular American destroyer (the USS Johnston) was finally sinking beneath the waves, the captain of the passing Japanese destroyer Yukikaze (along with several of her crew) actually stood at attention and saluted the crew of the pugnacious US destroyer. Drachinifel here on RUclips has a pretty good summary of the battle, but the book The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors goes into considerably more detail.