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In 1945 US forces are advancing towards Japan, but the road to victory will be bloody.
» CHAPTERS
00:00 Battle of Iwo Jima
17:41 Battle of Okinawa
34:21 Atomic Bombs and Japanese Surrender
43:07 Why Japan Surrendered
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» SOURCES
Akikusa Tsuruji, 17-sai no Iōtō (Tokyo : Bungei Shunjū, 2006)
Allen, Robert E, The First Battalion of the 28th Marines on Iwo Jima: A Day-by-Day History from Personal Accounts and Official Reports, with Complete Muster Rolls, (Jefferson, NC : McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 1999)
Leckie, Robert, The Battle of Iwo Jima, (New York : Random House, 1967)
NHK Shuzaihan, Iōjima Gyokusaisen: Seikanshatachi ga kataru shinjitsu, (Tokyo: NHK
Shuppan, 2007)
Rottman, Gordon L & Wright, Derrick, Hell in the Pacific: The Battle of Iwo Jima, (Oxford : Osprey Publishing, 2008)
Sandberg, Walter, The Battle of Iwo Jima: A Resource Bibliography and Documentary Anthology, (Jefferson, NC : McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2005)
United States Fleet, Headquarters of the Commander in Chief, Navy Department, “Amphibious Operations, Capture of Iwo Jima: 16 February to 16 March 1945” COMINCH P-0012, (17 July 1945)
Alexander, Joseph H., “The Final Campaign: Marines in the Victory on Okinawa”, Marines in World War II Commemorative Series, (Washington D.C : Marine Corps Historical Center, 1996)
Nash, Douglas E., Battle of Okinawa: III MEF Staff Ride Battle Book, (Quanitco, VA : History Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 2015)
Rottman, Gordon, Okinawa 1945: The Last Battle, (Westport, CT : Praeger, 2004)
Shimpo, Ryukyu, Descent into Hell: Civilian Memories of the Battle of Okinawa, (Portland, ME : MerwinAsia, 2014)
Sledge, Eugene, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, (New York, NY : Ballantine Books, 2007)
Sloan, Bill, The Ultimate Battle: Okinawa 1945 – The Last Epic Struggle of World War II, (New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2007)
Yahara, Hiromichi, The Battle for Okinawa, (New York, NY : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995)
Cook, Haruko Taya & Cook, Theodore F., Japan at War: An Oral History, (New York, NY : The New York Press, 1992)
Frank, Richard B, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, (New York, NY ; Random House, 1999)
Glantz, David M., “August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic Offensive in Manchuria”, Leavenworth Papers No. 7, Combat Studies Initiative, (February 1983)
Grew, Joseph C., “Report from Tokyo: An Ambassador warns of Japan’s strength”, in LIFE Magazine, (December 7, 1942)
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, (Cambridge, MA : Belknap Press, 2005)
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (ed.), The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals, (Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 2007)
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi, “The Atomic Bombs and the Soviet Invasion: Which Was More Important in Japan’s Decision to Surrender” in Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (ed.), The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals, (Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 2007)
Hatano, Sumio, “The Atomic Bomb and Soviet Entry into the War: Of Equal Importance” in Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (ed.), The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals, (Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 2007)
Kort, Michael, “Racing the Enemy: A Critical Look”, in Maddox, James, Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism, (Columbia, MO : University of Missouri Press, 2007)
Maddox, James, Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism, (Columbia, MO : University of Missouri Press, 2007)
Pape, Robert A., “Why Japan Surrendered”, International Security, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall, 1993)
»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Research & Written by: Mark Newton, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Editing: Toni Steller
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Great video as always. Ur the channel on YT I've been watching longer than any other. Love it, keep up your excellent work
Why pay for Nebula when the same content pops up on YouTube?
All those opinions seem to ignore the fog of war and its effects. Truman was no Moriarty computing every effects to the smallest details. And forcing Japan to surrender sooner had the obvious secondary benefit of stopping Soviet advances on Japanese held territories. One goal is not necessarily contrary to the other.
I agree more with the orthodox view on why the bombs were dropped on Japan. Revisionists do have compelling arguments and I don’t believe they are completely incorrect, but I believe that the primary goals of the bombs were the goals that the orthodox believe, while the revisionists goals seem more secondary, or even the goals that were obtained as a side effect of the main goals
I try to watch everything covering the pacific theater. By far your video is the best and maintains quite a bit of detail. Great job!
I can see both sides way of thinking but i feel if the united states hadn't dropped the atomic bomb and only the soviets invaded it would have not been the end of the war and the united states would have needed to invade Japan. Now if only the bombs were dropped and the soviets didnt invade i still think there is a chance that japan doesn't surrender but i feel the chances of the bombs ending the war were much more likely in those scenarios. The fact that both things happened basically at the same time damn near guaranteed that the war was over but even then there was plenty of people and military leaders that didnt want to surrender.
DARN IT! Now you got me thinking about communist manga 🤬
Gorgeous thumbnail.
For those with a revisionist perspective, put yourself into Truman's shoes. How do you NOT use the bomb?
27:15 Imperial Japan in a nutshell. Nonstop insane and self-destructive decisions. It cost the equivalent of $3.3 billion to build that ship, and their best idea was to beach it on an island where it would have lasted a grand total of 5 minutes before being destroyed.
neat!
Undoubtedly one of the best, highest quality history channels on YouTube
The US military leadership are on record stating that the atomic bombing wasn't going to end the war (as per Shaun's vid on this topic). Your video doesn't address that (and largely ignores US military leadership, which is weird), thus it's not at all compelling.
When Molotov handed over the declaration of war on August 8th Moscow time, the Soviet war against Japan had already begon some hours earlier on August 9th Vladivostok time.
Japan surrendered because the SU entering the war against them meant that it was not going to fall out with the West, at least not soon enough to help Japan. Of course there was eventually such a falling out, and it could be predicted in 1945. Both German and Japanese leadership late in the war calculated that the imminence of Axis defeat would make the West and the SU to both start to see each other as bigger threats than the now nearly defeated Axis powers. The Allied powers would split into two camps, the western democracies and the communist powers, both of which would want even such aid as the much weakened Axis powers could provide them, and therefore make a separate peace with them some time before Japan and Germany were utterly defeated and their armies dispersed. As unrealistic as such expectations may have been, they were the last best hope for the Axis powers to at least survive the war. The idea is that the significance of the SU entering the war against Japan wasn't that Japan lost a mediator, or lost Manchuria, it was that Japan lost this last hope of the US and the SU falling out and both wanting Japan on their side.
Hasn't more recent scholarship established that Hirohito made the decision to surrender on the afternoon of the 8th, before the Soviets invaded?
An important think to remember about the "traditionalists" vs. "revisionists" is how many of the arguments were/are not honest. Many of the revisionist points are from Soviet propaganda of the time and the Army Air Corp/ US Air Force was desperately trying to make itself the major player of the war. Both groups were selective in what they chose to emphasize or ignore and might not be above a little invention to win.
How a historian finds the truth knowing that is beyond me.
there's a soviet made "biography" of Stalin that is pretty manga….
I believe that the US general referenced at the 12:39 point was Erskine Graves, not Graves Erskine.
Oh, final summation of arguments, so well done. Most listeners should put that on repeat a few times. Best I've ever heard, ty.
Great video!