The Battle of Okinawa: The Blood and the Bomb

by George Feifer

But although it can never been known whether the Japanese in control would have abandoned their commitment if given just a week or two more to consider Hiroshima's significance, the indecent haste with which Nagasaki was demolished so soon on its heels apparently made little difference to them. The Supreme War Council's minutes also reveal that the generals were nearly as determined to continue after the second bomb as after the first. (The destruction of the cities appeared to have troubled them less than it did Truman.) They were stopped only by the Emperor's unprecedented cabinet pronouncement, after decades of outward silence about decisions made in his name. Even after His Majesty expressed his wish to prevent further slaughter by "bearing the unbearable" of surrender, it was touch-and-go during the five days after Nagasaki whether hardliners would prevent him from making his very first broadcast to the nation — the surrender resolution — as some were utterly determined to do.