A Story Behind A Story

History has many secret hidden that are lost somewhere in the sands of time. Historians have always been accused of being biased and ruthless, and often driven by agenda which is backed by a state or an institution. Hence they don’t mind skimming the history as per their convenience or in order to please someone and while doing so, they often end up tampering the facts and henceforth history itself. While many things are hidden which are proving to become difficult to unearth with the passage of time.

One such incident that has suffered the same fate is “The Potsdam Declaration”. It was the official instrument of surrender which ended the biggest war known in the history. What we know so far is that the Americans nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki which forced the Japanese to surrender, but there’s always two sides of a story. With Japanese taking out Pearl Harbor on December 7^th, 1941 forced the US to officially declare war, what followed soon for the next three and half years was nothing but ferocious bloodbath, almost 70-85 million people perished.

In order to deter the war, the Americans fast-tracked the “Manhattan Project” and even increased the artillery supply to the Allied Forces.

Fast-forward in 1945, the Americans conducted air raids on over 60 cities in Japan and constantly bombarded the military and industrial center. But despite all that, the Japanese were not ready to budge in, they went by the ideology of “Kill or Get Killed, No Surrender” and this was very evident from the fact when the butchered the Chinese army during Nanking Massacre in 1937-38 . The Americans decided to detonate “a new type of bomb” as referred by the Japanese which was fuelled by Uranium and Plutonium. They started throwing pamphlets during air raids warning the civilians about it.

Image: One of the leaflet dropped during air raids warning of possible Nuclear Detonation

What made matters worse was the Japanese authorities simply dismissed it from the outset stating that it’s just one of the tricks of propaganda warfare. But soon when the first Atomic Warhead was detonated, there was total destruction in Hiroshima on 6^th August, the Tokyo felt was it was just a normal air raid and the damages are as usual. Three days later, the second nuke was detonated over Nagasaki on 9^th August killing 220,000 people instantly and further gravely wounding another 160,000. It took them a while to realize how serious the damage was. But neither the emperor nor the Imperial Japanese army had any thought of surrender.

Image: Ground Zero after Detonation

They came to a ultimate conclusion that the Allied Forces can have maximum of one or two such bombs, “Yes, there will be damage, there will be causalities, but the war must go on”. They were fully prepared to embrace the carnage and continue the aggression. But some diplomatic and military sections were not in favor of this and the negotiation started and after hard fought few days, the emperor finally decided to surrender and sign the “Potsdam Declaration”. 

There multiple attempts of military coups by some sections of the Imperial Army and constant instigation on keeping the war going. There were multiple propaganda that were doing the rounds, the word even spread that the US and the Allied forces could possibly have “1000 such new type of bomb” which could lead to nothing but total annihilation. Owing to all the event the Japanese eventually succumbed to the pressure and had to accept the terms of surrender.

 A very old technique of Psychological Warfare combined with Tactical Genocide may just have worked for the Allied Forces. 

The official announcement was made on 15^th August while the document was signed on 2^nd September by the Japanese foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu on USS Missouri.

The war was over, but with so much collateral damage that can never be compensated for. The Americans crossed the finish line with the sense of entitlement but lived in the dark for a very long time and even if they knew what they had done, they choose to turn a blind eye for all the atrocities that they committed and were completely unaware of the Psychological debacle of such a large magnitude that took place in Japan until 1980s when some of the Japanese did come to US for immigration and business purposes and spread the tale of horror. The world has more or less living in the shadow of deceit and lies for so long.

Nelson Mandela once said "The Atomic Bomb was not aimed for Japan who were already retreating, but it was for the Soviet Union and rest of the world to see what they are capable of". Till this very day, children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are born with effects of horror, and will carry on for many more years to come. No amount of money can compensate for the loss of a single human life, but simply saying sorry could definitely go a long way. The Americans remain proud and authoritative rather being regretful, which has haunted the world for a very long time and will do so.