NHK’s documentary lays out the following:
- The Japanese military knew of the Manhattan project in 1943 and started its own nuclear weapons programs (IJA & IJN) as a result.[2]
- The Imperial Japanese Military gave up these nuclear programs in June 1945. [3]
- The Imperial Japanese Military & Foreign Ministry were informed of the American Atomic test on July 16, 1945 and refused to believe it was a nuclear detonation.
- The code breakers of the Imperial Japanese Army had been tracking the combat operations of the 509th Composite Group including both A-bomb drops.[4] The Imperial General Staff was told of the special message to Washington DC for the Hiroshima attack, sat on the information, and warned no one.
- The Imperial General Staff repeated this non-communication performance for the 2nd nuclear attack on Nagasaki.
2 comments:
What happens to your worldview if the Nip generals were right?
Non-communication was standard procedure for the Japanese military in this war. For example, in the battles around the Leyte Gulf:
The diversionary force attacking from the south through the Surigao Strait had to split into two small forces to get fuel from the islands where it was produced, because American submarines had destroyed most of the Japanese merchant fleet. They failed to make rendezvous and proceeded in two separate attacks. The American invasion fleet received warning, and positioned their bombardment force of old battleships and cruisers in a semicircle around where the Japanese ships emerged from the straits. So the first force went in, and were promptly sunk except for the last ship, which got the bows blown off and went back through the straits in full-speed reverse. It passed the second force - and did not communicate with it at all. The second force went on in and took nearly as heavy losses. And none of the survivors got on the radio and let the main strike force know that this strike had been a success as a diversion, pulling the old battleships away from the transports and landing ships.
To the north, the few remaining Japanese carrier were also used as a diversion. Halsey fell for it, opening the way for the main strike force, including Japans best battleships, to enter the gulf and rampage through the invasion fleet, undefended except by the jeep carriers and subchasers. But this diversionary force also failed to inform the strike force that the diversion had worked. The main Japanese battle line thus entered the gulf timidly, assumed that the jeep carriers they saw were the big carriers they feared, chased them around for a while, then turned around and left without touching the invasion fleet. The small, expendable ships they did sink were hardly worth the fuel they used, let alone the sacrifices in the Surigao strait.
And all because there was no communication...
Sometimes a communication blackout makes sense, e.g. the Pearl Harbor strike was a success partly because there was absolutely no radio use from when they left Japan until the air strike arrived over the targets. US Naval Intelligence was pretty good at intercepting Japanese communications, but complete radio silence left them thinking that the strikes, which they expected to come soon, were all going south and southwest. But once the Pearl Harbor strike started, it was no longer a secret and they used their radios. But in 1944, the Leyte Gulf diversionary forces either kept radio silence even when in contact with the enemy, or just didn't bother communicating.
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