Neglected Lessons of a Forgotten Anniversary

On September 2, 1945, aboard USS Missouri, Allied military brass accepted the formal surrender of the Japanese Empire. The Japanese surrendered in the shadow of their capital, on the water, aboard an American battleship. All of these features were significant. At terrible cost the Japanese had been driven back to their home islands, then battered and burned into submission. The sea had been the means of Japanese sustenance, then the justification for its mighty navy, and that navy had transported its troops all over East Asia and the Pacific.

In the course of the war, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army had been utterly destroyed by Allied ships, submarines, air power, and land forces. Just three weeks prior to the surrender two Japanese cities disappeared when atomic bombs detonated in the sky above them. Approximately 170,000 Japanese died in just those two cities. In a solemn ceremony conducted by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Japanese Empire was laid low, crushed by overwhelming moral, economic, and military power. Japanese army, navy, and government officials confessed publicly that their empire had been utterly defeated, and submitted their country and its people to the mercy of the victorious Allies. To the populations of the Allied countries, the ceremony brought enormous relief. Finally, after six years and one day of all-out warfare, the crescendo of horror had finally been stilled. Celebrations spread around the world on August 14 when word came that the Japanese had agreed to surrender. On September 2, they actually signed the documents. For all of those years, no one knew when or if the day might arrive. Upwards of 70 million people died in the course of the war, nearly 3% of the world population. There was a lesson hiding in the ceremony that I learned, but did not completely understand, when I was about twelve years old. I had a copy of Robert D. Loomis' book Great American Fighter Pilots of World War II, from Landmark Books. Enthralled, I read it over and over again. I learned how the Japanese began to use a new weapon beginning in October, 1944, during the Philippine Campaign. They called the weapon Kamikaze, or Divine Wind, harking back to the storm which had wrecked an invading Mongol fleet in the year 1281. Kamikaze pilots swore to fly one-way suicide missions against the Allied (mostly American) fleet, crashing their fuel- and bomb-laden planes onto the decks of Allied ships. During the battle of Okinawa alone, Kamikaze pilots sank 30 allied warships, taking a terrible toll in lives. Loomis explained the lesson in a simple sentence. "It was a weapon we could not use." This puzzled me at first. Why couldn't we use it? When I began to understand the nature of the strategy, it became clearer. Japan sent pilots on suicide missions. These were not missions with only a slight chance of success, but rather missions from which the pilot was not supposed to come back. So they were suicide bombers, sent to destroy themselves in an effort to wreak havoc and take lives in the Pacific Fleets. It was a deliberate war of attrition.

---

In the course of the remaining months of the war, Allied leaders had no choice but to adopt a new strategy to deal with this menace. To stop waves of determined suicide bombers, it was necessary to kill as many of them as possible before they left the ground, and all of the rest of them when en route to the ships that were their targets. Simply put, the strategy became "kill them before they can kill us." That's what the Allies began to do. The Japanese believed that surrender was dishonorable all during the war, but now they were determined to die in order to increase Allied losses. The Pacific war took on a new level of brutality. To take Iwo Jima, there were 6,000 dead and 18,000 wounded. All but 200 of the 21,000 Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima had to be killed. Capturing Okinawa cost 12,000 Allied dead and 35,000 wounded. Still, the Japanese showed no inclination to give up. The kamikaze attacks continued even after Okinawa had been secured and mopped up in the first part of July. In that same July, a new weapon became available to the Allies, the super secret atomic bomb. As soon as it had been tested once, President Truman ordered its use against Japan. Four bombs had been built. One had been tested, leaving three more. On August 6, a single B-29 dropped the first one on Hiroshima. As many as 120,000 died there. Three days later, on August 9, another B-29 dropped a bomb on Nagasaki. Perhaps 50,000 died there. We used nuclear weapons to defeat Japan. There was only one more bomb left, but the Japanese did not know this. We found out later that only at this point did the top Japanese leadership begin to think the war must be brought to an end. Still, it took five more agonizing days before the Japanese command announced that it would, indeed, surrender. Then it was two and a half weeks before the final ceremony in the harbor on September 2.

---

Support Canada Free Press

---

Allied leaders took the obvious choice to smash the Japanese on every front until they gave up. Eventually they did, but an enemy determined to die, even in defeat, took a great deal of smashing before it was all over. It was a lesson for the ages. Surely no one would ever try such a thing again. And yet, in the face of Allied kindliness and outright weakness in the years after the war, highly motivated leaders of splinter movements, and then leaders of religious extremist factions chose to use the suicide bomber as a weapon of choice. For years, the West fought back only after being attacked, often limiting its firepower to reduce civilian and other casualties. As these attacks on the Western way of life increased religious fanatics reinvented the kamikaze when suicide pilots flew civilian aircraft into the World Trade Center, taking 3,000 lives. The West has responded with force at times, but also with platitudes like 'we understand why you're angry,' and 'let's negotiate to find common ground.' There is no common ground. The suicide bombers have determined to win at all costs, yet in the face of these attacks, the West has not decided to survive at all costs. This failure to acknowledge the danger of the threat we face may be considered suicidal. There is an abiding lesson here. An enemy determined to trade his life for some or all of ours must be smashed and smashed again to prevent them from launching attacks. They must surrender or be killed. There is no other way. We should already know that this process can be very costly, even after we begin it. Who among us thinks we should wait any longer to begin? A suicidal enemy must understand that attacking the West when there is weak leadership is one thing, but attacking the West when leadership is clear-thinking and savvy about the lessons of history is quite another. When faced with a suicidal enemy in the past, we used every weapon at our disposal. We know how to do this. Let us hope that it doesn't come to that again, but if it does, we must be sure that the West, which values life, will prevail against the forces of darkness and oppression, which do not. This is the hard lesson of September 2, 1945, and it is why we should always mark the day thoughtfully.