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History As It Happens
1945: Unconditional Surrender
00:40:47
This is the second episode in a 5-part series marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in August 1945. Most wars do not end in total victory. They usually end at the negotiating table after years of indecisive combat. What made...
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- [00:01]
Martin DeCaro
I say this every election cycle and I'll say it again. The 2024 political field was intense. So don't get left behind in 2025. If you're running for office, the first thing on your to do list should be securing your name on the web with the your name vote domain from GoDaddy.com. you'll stand out and make your mark. Don't wait. Get yours today.
- [00:28]
James Holland
History as it happens. August 8, 2025. Unconditional surrender.
- [00:33]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Our demand has been, and it remains, unconditional surrender.
- [00:40]
Harry Truman
In the city of Reims, once under the German heel, stands the schoolhouse where.
- [00:44]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The terms of unconditional surrender are to be sight. Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, Tuesday 8th May. The victory won in the must now be won in the East. The whole world must be cleansed of the evil from which half the world has been free.
- [01:07]
Harry Truman
Crowds before the White House await the announcement from the President that the Japs have surrendered unconditionally.
- [01:13]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
And indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood.
- [01:23]
Harry Truman
And carnage of the past.
- [01:24]
James Holland
Eighty years ago, the Allies achieved total victory, first in Germany, then in Japan, ending ending the Second World War in a pair of mushroom clouds. The Allies demanded unconditional surrender, and that is what the Axis ultimately agreed to, but only after suffering catastrophic defeat that erased millions of lives. War rarely if ever ends in total victory anymore. Why? World War II was different. Next with James Holland. As we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [01:54]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
We are now prepared to destroy more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have in any city.
- [02:04]
Harry Truman
So this gives a clarity of moral purpose to the continued war effort. It also makes it clear to the enemy as well. Now, the argument against it is that this, is this prolonged the war. I don't believe that for a minute. I don't think either Japan or Germany would have ever given up before they did because that wasn't the nature of the way they went about their war. I mean, you know, Hitler, right? For the word go has always said it's a thousand year, right? Or it's Armageddon. You know, there's no gray areas.
- [02:41]
James Holland
In his first address to Congress as president, just four days after FDR's death in April 1945, Harry Truman announced to the world there'd be no change in Allied policy. Germany and Japan would face total defeat unless they quit, Period.
- [02:57]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
So that there can be no possible misunderstanding, both Germany and Japan can be certain beyond any shadow of a doubt. That America will continue the fight for freedom until no vestige of resistance remains. We are deeply conscious of the fact that much hard fighting is still ahead of us. Having to pay such a heavy price to make complete victory certain. America will never become a party to any plan for partial victory. To settle for merely another temporary respite would surely jeopardize the future security of of all the world. Our demand has been, and it remains, unconditional surrender.
- [03:58]
James Holland
In his book the the Defiance and Destruction of Nazi Germany, historian Ian Kershaw notes the formula of unconditional surrender was produced by President Roosevelt at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. It was the first time a sovereign state had been formally offered no terms short of total and unconditional capitulation. Kershaw goes on to say this was often seized upon in the early postwar years, particularly by German generals, as the sole and adequate explanation for Germany's prolonged fight. Since it was claimed anyway, the demand for unconditional surrender ruled out any alternative. Some former soldiers, long after the war ended, still insisted that it had helped to motivate them to keep on fighting. It is certainly possible to argue that the demand was counterproductive and and that it simply played into the hands of Nazi propaganda. But Kershaw says it's doubtful whether attributing blame to the Allies for a mistaken policy of unconditional surrender amounts to any more than what one scholar has called a flimsy excuse. According to General Walter Warlemant of the German High Command, hardly any notice was taken of it, and there was no examination by the OKW Operations staff of its military consequences. In other words, says Kershaw, it made no difference to the strategy or lack of one adopted by the German military leadership in the last phase of the war.
- [05:19]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The German delegation headed by General Yodel, Germany's chief of staff, have arrived for the fateful ceremony. The general puts his signature to the.
- [05:26]
Harry Truman
Document which acknowledges the complete defeat of.
- [05:29]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The German armed forces by those of Britain, Russia and the United States. For this victory we join in offering our thanks to the providence which has guided and sustained us through the dark days of adversity and into light. Much remains to be done.
- [05:48]
James Holland
What was left of the leadership of Hitler's Reich did surrender unconditionally in early May 1945, only after the Fuhrer had committed suicide and the Red army had conquered Berlin, after millions of people had fought and died in a war that had long been over, except for the fact that Hitler refused to consider surrendering.
- [06:06]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Today is Victory in Europe Day. Tomorrow will also be Victory in Europe Day. But let us not forget for a moment the toils and efforts that lie ahead.
- [06:20]
James Holland
A similar drama would play out over the course of the next three months. The Japanese were defeated but refused to surrender, even after being warned by President Truman in early June.
- [06:30]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
What has already happened to Tokyo will happen to every Japanese city whose industries feed the Japanese war machine.
- [06:39]
James Holland
And Japan was warned again after the Potsdam Conference in July and then again after the first. A bomb fell on Hiroshima in early August.
- [06:48]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
We are now prepared to destroy more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factory and their communications. Let there be no mistake. We shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war.
- [07:10]
James Holland
And we know that only after the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki did the Japanese mercifully give up. But even then there were complications. As David M. Kennedy writes in Freedom from Fear, the Japanese surrender offer relayed through the Swiss government arrived in Washington on the morning of August 10th. Its proviso that the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler, meaning the Emperor, were to remain intact was a sticking point. Burns objected that I cannot understand why now we should go further than we were willing to go at Potsdam when we had no atomic bomb and Russia was not in the war. Stimson countered that use of the Emperor must be made in order to save us from a score of bloody Iwo Jima's Nokinawas. A compromise was reached stating that the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese government to rule the state shall be subject to the supreme Commander of the Allied powers. As the author notes, that was a bit vague.
- [08:06]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the United States army forces in the Pacific, designated Allied supreme commander to accept the surrender of the.
- [08:17]
James Holland
Japanese, September 1, 1945. The surrender documents are signed aboard the USS Missouri before General MacArthur that from.
- [08:26]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
This solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past. A world founded upon faith and understanding. A world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance and justice.
- [08:53]
James Holland
This is the second episode of my five part series marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Part one featured an interview with Antony Beaver. In this episode, another acclaimed military historian will join us. You know, Most wars since 1945 have not ended in total victory, but rather at the negotiating table. After years of indecisive, even pointless fighting, the Russian Ukraine war may be headed in this direction now too. We'll See? So why was the Second World War different? And how has its outcome distorted our view of how war should end? Say, when the US promised to liberate Iraq in 2003 and easily defeated Saddam Hussein's regular army, but became bogged down in a vicious counter insurgency that did not end with a heroic victory parade a la 1945? Historian and author James Holland has written a series of books on World War II. His latest was just published in July, co authored with Al Murray, Victory 45 the End of War in Eight Surrenders. They host a super popular World War II podcast. We have ways of making you talk. Our conversation next.
- [10:04]
Martin DeCaro
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- [10:34]
James Holland
James Holland, it is great to have you here. Welcome.
- [10:37]
Harry Truman
Well, thank you for having me on, Martin. That's great.
- [10:39]
James Holland
World War II junkies are familiar with your podcast, co hosted with Al Murray, the World War II pod. We have ways of making you talk, but for the uninitiated, tell us a little bit about your show and then we'll talk briefly about your new book that's coming out.
- [10:53]
Harry Truman
Oh, well, thank you. Yes. Yeah, we started it in April 2019. We just started speculatively. A friend of mine runs a company called Goal Hanger. It was originally Gohanger Films. Now it's Goal Hanger podcast because they've sort of taken over the world in a certain area. And so would I be interested in doing a Second World War podcast? And I said, yes. And he said, but I, you know, I need you to have a friend to do it with or someone, you know, a co host. I said, what about Al Murray? And Al is a very famous comedian over here, but he, he studied history at Oxford University. He's obsessed with World War II and has subsequently written a number of books about the subject and is, you know, highly regarded as a historian in his own right. But I suggested it to Al, Al said yes, and off we went and we just did it just for, for a laugh. Ready? But. But here we are kind of six and a half years on. Yeah.
- [11:37]
James Holland
Available on Spotify. Correct.
- [11:39]
Harry Truman
And itunes. And wherever you get your podcast and.
- [11:41]
James Holland
Your new book, Victory 1945. We must be channeling each other because I'm doing this series on the 80th anniversary of the war and its legacies. Victory 1945, the end of the war in eight surrenders. So why eight surrenders? And how does that change our view of the war?
- [11:59]
Harry Truman
It always struck me as really interesting is, is that certainly the war in the west in, in Europe is commemorated on 8 May, but that was actually the day there wasn't any surrender. The main principal surrender happened in the early hours of the 7th of May at General Eisenhower, who was the supreme Allied Commander in the west, at his headquarters in Reims in France. Then there was some sort of jockeying back and forth between Britain and America and the Soviet Union about when to announce this. Then the Germans announced it themselves on radio and a journalist for Associated Press called Ed Kennedy then decided that the embargo under which he'd been placed as a journalist who'd been at Reims decided that had been made null and void by the Germans announcing it. So the then leaked it, thought it was a scoop of a century. It all got out, everyone started celebrating. So Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain, rang up President Truman, who'd taken over on 12 April 1945, and said, Look, I really think we should. This is ridiculous. We can't not hold off any longer. The reason they're holding off is because Stalin didn't want to announce it until the 9th of May, when he had completed his own formal surrender ceremony in Berlin. So Truman and Churchill agreed that 8 May would be victory in Europe Day. And the Soviet Union continued with its own plans in the early hours of 9 May 1945. The irony is that 8th of May, which we still commemorate as VE Day, Victory in Europe Day, was actually the day there weren't any surrenders. And then you suddenly realised that actually there were quite a number of unconditional surrenders. So the first one was signed on 28 April 1945, but didn't come into being until 2 May, and that was in Italy. Then you had unconditional surrender of all German forces in the north of Germany to Field Marshal Montgomery, the British commander. And then the following day you had the surrender of German forces in Bavaria and Austria to the sick farming group under or Alexander Patch. And then you had the surrender in Berlin itself, of course, on the 2nd of May. And then finally you had the two surrenders in Japan. You had the surrender itself when they agreed to throw in the towel on 15 August, and then you had the surrender ceremony on the USS Missouri. And the whole thing's actually quite complicated and a bit of a mess. And so the point about the book was to clear all that up, write about the different surrenders and sometimes through the prism of really big players, whether that be Hitler or Montgomery or General Patch or whoever, but also for a number of smaller, less significant people, but who equally played a huge part in that. So whether that be the liberation of a Hungarian Jew or whether that be the part played by two senior SS officers or a Soviet translator, or even the only American general to have surrendered his forces to the enemy en masse in. In World War II, which was General Matthew Wainwright. He was an amazing character, incredibly courageous. Handed a poison chalice when President Roosevelt ordered General MacArthur, who was the commander in chief of American forces, the Philippines at the start of the war, later Supreme Allied commander. And when Roosevelt ordered him off the island of Corregidor in the Bay of Manila in the Philippines in March 1942, he handed over command to Wainwright. And Wainwright knew it was poison. J knew it was going to end in defeat and. And so had to surrender Filipino and American forces to the Japanese in May 1942 and spend the rest of the war and after the war, in fact, as a prisoner of the Japanese and suffered all manner of privations and stuff, you know, we wanted to cast some light on some of these forgotten heroes and forgotten characters in the whole story and tell the very complex story of the end of the war.
- [15:19]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
My fellow Americans, Supreme Allied Commander General MacArthur and allied representatives on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The thoughts and hopes of all America, indeed of all the civilized world, are centered tonight on the battleship Missouri. There, on that small piece of American soil, anchored in Tokyo harbor, the Japanese have just officially laid down their arms. They have signed terms of unconditional surrender. Four years ago, the thoughts and fears of the whole civilized world were centered on another piece of American soil. Pearl Harbor. The mighty threat to civilization which began there is now laid at rest.
- [16:16]
James Holland
And the wars, plural, ended and the fighting continued. You know, our notions of unconditional surrender, total Allied victory, especially in the United States, that triumphalism has certainly had a lasting influence on the way we view war, how war should unfold today, we're gonna get to that. But, yeah, I think it's best to see World War II as a number of wars and then gave birth to further wars of decolonization for decades afterward.
- [16:43]
Harry Truman
One thing's for sure that the world was certainly a very, very Unstable place in the years that followed, that is for sure. But there's no question also that peace reigned in Europe, Western Europe. American service personnel were eventually able to come home and enjoy the prosperity that the post war boom years brought. And for the most part, us. We in the west at any rate, have experienced 80 years of peace pretty much ever since. And that was not only due to the incredible Allied victory, but also due to brilliance of, or not making the same mistakes that have been made in 1919 following the end of the First World War. But yes, you know, if you're Nigerian or, you know, in Central America or many of the other parts of Africa or many of the other troubled hotspots of the world, you might. Or Burma or Malaya or whatever, you might see that slightly differently.
- [17:27]
James Holland
Well, the principles of the Atlantic Charter did mean something to the colonized peoples of the world. So onto unconditional surrender. The topic of our conversation here. Modern wars between states usually do not end in unconditional surrender. They end in some kind of negotiated settlement rather than total victory or total defeat and occupation. If you're on the losing end, was this the first time a sovereign state or states, Germany and Japan, were offered no terms short of total capitulation?
- [17:59]
Harry Truman
Well, other than the Confederate forces at Apatomax, Yep, pretty much. I mean, deep into the past, I mean, the victors had all the spoils and the vanquished had no say in any matter whatsoever. But I think putting it in terms of unconditional surrender, that was the terms that Ulysses S. Grant made clear to General Lee in 1865. That was very specifically an echo of that that Roosevelt introduced to the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. And just so that, you know, for those who don't know it, Casablanca Conference was one of the. One of the first major conferences between Britain and America. The chiefs of Staff. The Combined Chiefs of staff. So you would have a commander in chief of each of the three services, plus the political chiefs, that is President of the United States and Prime Minister of Great Britain. They were talking about war strategy and what they should do and where the emphasis should be. And Roosevelt had mentioned the notion of unconditional surrender to Churchill, and Churchill has said, yes, yes, it's all very sensible, I agree with that, but hadn't warned anyone at the press conference he held where he announced it. My own view is that this was the right course to take.
- [19:04]
James Holland
Why did FDR settle on unconditional surrender when the war obviously was so destructive? Millions of people had already been killed by this point. What was the Thinking behind that decision.
- [19:16]
Harry Truman
Fingers had been burned in the dealings of the Vichy French around the torch landings. And this was the Anglo US invasion of Northwest Europe, Northwest Africa, rather, in November 1942, they had negotiated with Admiral Darlan, who was fascist in outlook and was pro Vichy. And it had backfired very badly. You know, domestically at home, back in the US but also politically, you know, the Americans particularly, who'd been carrying out most of the talks with the, the French, the Vichy French, and this means that they're pro German, pro Axis, but it had played very badly and, and they'd felt very compromised. Unconditional surrender gives you incredible clarity. I mean, how can you compromise? How can you impose conditions on the Nazis who have been practicing genocide? You just can't do it. So this gives a clarity of moral purpose to the continued war effort. It also makes it clear to the enemy as well. Now, the argument against it is that this, is this prolonged the war. I don't believe that for a minute. I don't think either Japan or Germany would have given up before they did, because that wasn't the nature of the way they went about their war. I mean, you know, Hitler right from the word go, had always said, it's a thousand year Reich or it's Armageddon. You know, there's no gray areas. So in a way, Roosevelt is just rubber stamping that lack of any gray area. He's just saying, you know, let's have some moral clarity here. Let's, let's know exactly what we got to do. This is what we got to do. And when we're in the, in the froze of victory, we will be calling the shots. And in actual fact, the unconditional surrender of Japan isn't unconditional because the condition is that Emperor Hirohito stays in power, which he does, albeit a checked power.
- [20:48]
James Holland
That came after the initial Potsdam Declaration. There was a discussion or debate within the Truman administration. Let's return to that in a second. About the European theater or the entire war, really. The notion was the post war world cannot have a continuation of the current governments in Germany and Japan, period, because those would have been theoretically, the kinds of conditions. Well, certainly the Japanese at the very end were offering ridiculous conditions. Right. Their leaders wouldn't be tried for war crimes, that they'd be able to hold on to captured territory in Asia. That was ridiculous.
- [21:23]
Harry Truman
Yeah. And also then you just end up having a sort of arguing match and the fighting continues. I mean, so this way everyone knows where they stand. To a certain extent, it is then the prerogative of the Allies to decide whether they will, after all, allow some conditions. But I think announcing it was the right decision. And as I said, I don't think it made any difference to the outcome war at all.
- [21:41]
James Holland
Yeah, I agree that it did not prolong the war. In fact, the German High Command did not even notice, really, the Casablanca declaration, or if they noticed it, they didn't change their strategy.
- [21:52]
Harry Truman
Right, no, exactly that. Exactly that. The scale of delusion amongst both the high command of the Imperial Japanese and indeed the Nazi regime is just astonishing at the end of the war, and I'm talking about way before the final battles, but in those last dying months, weeks and days, you know, it's just astonishing that Japanese could ever considered fighting even before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, let alone the second. And yet they do the sort of gross delusion in Hitler's bunker in the final weeks in Berlin, and then followed by the Donitz government, who he takes over as commander in chief of the German state following the death of Hitler. Ditto. I mean, it's just absolute insanity.
- [22:32]
James Holland
Well, we know the Allies were trying to convince the Germans to quit. It would be better not to have to fight all the way through. Right. All the way to Berlin, as the Soviet Union did, the Red army did, at an appalling cost. And there was a. Yeah, but I.
- [22:45]
Harry Truman
Don'T think that means that the Allies would have fought at the same cost as well. I mean, you know, the reasons the Germans are fighting is because they don't want to fall into the hands of the Soviet Union. You know, you reap what you sow. They all know perfectly well the horrors that they've committed in the Eastern Front and can expect no mercy. But that's not quite the same with the Western Front. And, you know, one of the reasons why Donis continues fighting the war until early hours of 7th of May is because he wants to get as many of his troops over to the west to surrender to the Americans and to the British and Canadians while he can. I mean, this makes absolutely no sense at all, of course, because there's no means of getting across the River Elbe, which is the stopping point for the Western forces, Western Allies, apart from one bridge at Tangamunda, and that's just a single broken bridge, but that's the reason. And I think had General Simpson established his bridgehead on the eastern side of the Elbe, and had Eisenhower said, yeah, go for Berlin, I think the Allies would have walked into it. They certainly wouldn't have suffered the 900,000 casualties or so that the Red army suffered. But I would also argue that that was through total ineptitude of the Soviet Union rather than because of the threat from the Germans.
- [23:44]
James Holland
There were many reasons why the Germans fought on, and I do mean Germans as in the entire society, not just Hitler and the fanatics in the bunker. However, the Allies did believe they might be able to convince through the strategic bombing campaign, that they could hasten the end of the war by demoralizing the German population. That was the reason for the March 18, 1945 bombing of Berlin ordered by Eisenhower. But that did not work. I mean, was this a mistake to believe that you could demoralize a population under authoritarian dictatorship?
- [24:17]
Harry Truman
It's certainly not a mistake to think you can demoralize the population, because there's absolutely no question they're demoralized and their morale is absolutely rock bottom. You know, you've got history to call upon. And generally speaking, countries that are involved in war surrender or sue for peace because they're not going to win and they've run out of money. You know, by that judgment, you could argue, and argue fairly convincingly that the Germans should have surrendered back half of 1941 because they weren't going to win there often just not. Not a chance. There might have been reverses, there might have. You know, the war might have played out in a different way, but ultimately.
- [24:46]
James Holland
They weren't going to win when they fell. When they fell short in Moscow in 41, is what you're referring to.
- [24:51]
Harry Truman
Well, when Barbarossa failed, okay, you can say when they failed to get Moscow, but I would say when. When Barbarossa failed and they had to come up with a different plan that was already massively behind schedule. They were short of troops. They were short of frontline troops. The cream of their forces had gone. They didn't have the resources, they didn't have the logistics to back it up. You know, up until the middle of June 1941, they had one enemy, which was Great Britain, albeit Great Britain, plus Dominion and Empire. Fast forward six months to the middle of December, you've suddenly got three enemies. You've got Great Britain, Dominion and Empire, the USSR and the United States of America. You know, those three. Some of the largest and most industrial, powerful, and modernized, mechanized, and technically advanced countries in the world. Germany isn't going to win. It just doesn't. It doesn't have access to the world's oceans. It doesn't have enough food. It doesn't have enough anything. It just physically can't do it. And kind of similar cases with the Japanese. I think when one is looking at 1945 and the war in the west and the war in Northwest Europe, you have to look at this through the prism of the unfinished job against the Imperial Japanese. Now we all know that the atomic bomb was dropped first on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki, but no one knew that in March 1945. No one knew that on 15th of February when Dresden was being pulverized, or Forzheim 10 days later, or Wurzburg or wherever. So what you sense is this mounting frustration and visceral anger on the part of the Allies, particularly on the part of the Americans for that matter, that the Germans are just still fighting when they're so self evidently beaten. Just give up, throw in the towel. The moment you stop the bombing stops. The moment you stop, we stop killing your civilians and stop pulverising your cities. It's exactly the same with the Japanese. You know, however morally uncomfortable we may feel about area bombing of Japanese cities with the Superfortresses and all the rest of it, the fact of the matter is as soon as Japan threw in the towel, that would be it. And what everyone is worrying about is the horrible trend that has revealed itself in any ground fighting against the Japanese, the closer they get to Japan. So, you know, I'm talking about Saipan in the summer of 1944. I'm talking about Peleliu in September to November 1944. I'm talking about the Philippines, I'm talking about iwo Jima in February 1945. I'm talking about Okinawa begun on the 1st of April 1945, ending not until the 22nd of June. You know, these are bloodbaths on a terrible scale. The loss of life, the casualties just absolutely horrific. And what they're confronting is the invasion of the Japanese home islands with potentially millions of casualties. You know, the first task of the political leaders of these countries, whether you be Britain, whether you be United States, to protect the people that you're in charge of. You know, even America with its huge population is still running short of manpower by 1945 to do it in the way that it wants to do. And the way the Allied way of war is to fight with technological advancement, with using machines are still not, not, not our flesh. And to use bombers to do a lot of the hard yards so the guys on the grounds don't have to. Now it's really interesting that when you look at the makeup of Allied armies in the Second World War, I'm talking about British or Canadian American, you know, only about 14, 15 are infantry. Yet in the narrative we think of, it's kind of like 70 infantry and 20 tanks, 90 divisions when it isn't. But. But the casualties amongst those front light troops are absolutely horrific. No one wants to do the invasion of, of mainland Japan, but until the atomic bomb comes on the scene and in the first half of 1945, there's no guarantee, there's no guarantee at all. The actual droppings of the bombed on Hiroshima, no uranium based bomb had ever been dropped before. It's a plutonium bomb that they dropped in the desert of New Mexico. So it's a guinea pig run. Completely new science. And no one knows whether it's going to work or not. And of course it does, and spectacularly, effectively too. But this is not known. And so when one is making judgments about the war in the west, it has to be done through the prism of the uncertainty of what's to come in the Pacific and specifically against the Japanese.
- [28:41]
James Holland
The moral Rubicon, as you say, had already been crossed when it comes to the bombing of civilians. The atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of course, were a different kind of technology. One airplane, one bomb obliterates a city. But was it March, the firebombing of Tokyo, 100,000 casualties. So, yeah, the moral question, at least 100,000. Yeah. The moral questions have to begin before the atomic bombings, but when it comes to ending the war, the Potsdam Declaration, There was a debate within the Truman administration about whether to allow for the maintenance of the emperor, and they decided not to place that in the Potsdam Declaration. Why? Because the Japanese eventually do get that condition, although under different set of circumstances. The bombs had already been dropped.
- [29:27]
Harry Truman
The emperor was so wedded to the fabric of Japanese society that you couldn't unpick that. You could unpick the war leaders, you could unpick the hawks, but you can't unpick the emperor. So the emperor continues in an effort to maintain cohesion and in an effort to speed up the Japanese willingness to throw in the towel. And, you know, it's 100% the right call, even though that bastard lives until the 1980s.
- [29:53]
James Holland
But I believe the Truman administration was under domestic political pressure not to modify the terms of unconditional surrender at that point, which is why the Potsdam Declaration was a call for unconditional surrender. That any modification of that would have not sat well with the American people. The Japanese see the terms and there's a debate among historians, James, about how the Japanese responded to this. A translation of A word. Was it no comment or we're waiting? What's your take on that? How did they respond?
- [30:23]
Harry Truman
Well, I mean, you know, that's the brilliance of language and nuance, isn't it? I mean, no one still knows entirely what they really thought. And I don't think they even knew themselves, really. I mean, the problem is there's this faction. I mean, even after the first bomb, there's a refusal to accept what it is, you know, because we had a. We. The Japanese had an atomic policy and we couldn't do it. And so therefore we concluded that the science wasn't possible and therefore no one else could do it when clearly that wasn't the case. But that's what they rather arrogantly assumed. There was actually an attempted coup to go against those who were prepared to throw in the towel. I mean, I suppose if you've given everything and given so much and sacrificed so much to a notion and embrace culture of surrender being shame and unforgivable, then perhaps you wouldn't ever want to surrender under any circumstances. Fortunately, the emperor himself realized that the game was up and insisted on calling it quits. But I can't stress enough until it happens. No one is necessarily expecting it to happen. I mean, there is confidence once the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, when they see the devastating results of that. As you say, one plane, one bomb. But, you know, it's not like they've got an arsenal of hundreds. They haven't. You know, despite the threat that Truman makes in the aftermath of the first.
- [31:35]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Bomb, we are now prepared to destroy more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories and their communications. Let there be no mistake. We shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war.
- [31:58]
Harry Truman
They've got one other, and it's not a uranium bomb. It's a plutonium bomb. And if that doesn't work, then, you know, yikes. I mean, what are you. What are you going to do?
- [32:05]
James Holland
Yeah, one can assume that the. The firebombing campaign would have resumed or.
- [32:09]
Harry Truman
Eventually continued between the two bombs. You know, just to put this on perspective, I mean, you know, 30 to 40,000 killed in Nagasak, you know, 100, 120,000 people at least killed at Hiroshima, but at least 900,000. Nearly a million killed in firebombing or, you know, conventional bombing. 8.5 million people de. Housed by that. And yet, unquestionably, a Rubicon has been crossed by the dropping of the toilet.
- [32:33]
James Holland
But, you know, there is a very difficult Question that's really, it's impossible to answer, and that is whether Japan would have collapsed eventually. You mentioned the amphibious invasion of the Japanese home islands for the southern, the smaller island that was scheduled for the fall of 45 and then operation Olympic was for the spring of 1946. Maybe by that time the Japanese would have collapsed because they were defeated.
- [32:56]
Harry Truman
Well, this was, this was the view of Admiral Leahy, who was, had been Roosevelt's senior military advisor and he was all for starving them out. Do a siege, you know, stop any ships coming in, shoving them out, they'll all starve. You know, that would lead to far greater loss of life, of course. But he said let them sort it out themselves, you know, let them surrender that way rather than dropping this terrible weapon.
- [33:16]
James Holland
Impossible to know, right? Impossible.
- [33:18]
Harry Truman
Impossible to know. Impossible to know. But whatever way you look at it, the solutions are all absolutely awful. I mean, you know, none of them are giving anyone much cause for cheer. Quite the opposite, you know, you know, you now have this technology and you've warned them about it. There's something terrible is, can be dropped. They've not heeded that. You drop one, they still don't throw in the towel, you drop another one. You know, there's no question that this was one of the biggest moments in the history of the world. There's also no question to me that it ultimately saved lives. But you know, try explaining that to the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- [33:50]
James Holland
It changed the 20th century, changed world history.
- [33:53]
Harry Truman
Well, I would also. It's also why we haven't had an atomic bomb or nuclear bomb drop since. It's why Putin is not even using tactical nuclear warheads. Everyone knows what this can do. If it had never been dropped, it hadn't been dropped in the war, I think one would have been dropped. Since now with the dropping of a little boy, the ironically named bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. You know, everyone knows, everyone can see what the fallout is and everyone can see what the long term fallout is as well, which is as catastrophic as the original destruction in many ways.
- [34:23]
James Holland
One more remark about Japan and then we'll begin to wrap up about the legacies of unconditional surrender. Historian David M. Kennedy had told me once that he met a kamikaze pilot or someone who was supposed to be a kamikaze pilot many years after the war. And he was sure, happy. Well, maybe happy is not the right way of putting it, but he was relieved that the war ended when it did because of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because he was scheduled to Go out on a kamikaze flight, or maybe his father was. And he wouldn't have been there that day had that happened. And Antony Beaver has reminded me that by ending the war when it did end, millions of people who are under Japanese occupation in Asia, who are starving, thousands upon thousands a month, you finally can get some relief to those people. So, James Holland, how has the story of total victory, unconditional surrender, influenced our understanding of war ever since? What I'm getting at here is this idea that we can achieve total victory a la the United States in Iraq in 2003. Well, that went so swimmingly at first, right? Until it didn't. I think this has had a negative influence, or at least the way politicians have used and abused this history has had a negative influence on our societies because modern wars are just so difficult to end.
- [35:42]
Harry Truman
I think wars always have been difficult to end. And yes, you're absolutely right. And I think that the legacy is less of unconditional surrender and more with the fact that the atomic bomb was dropped, because unquestionably the fact that it was dropped means that it hasn't been used again and we've returned to more conventional types of warfare. I mean, one of the things that's also remarkable when you look at Gaza or you look at Ukraine, I mean, what you see is lots of smashed buildings, lots of burnt out hulks, lots of destroyed vehicles, streets and ruins, civilians lives being turned upside down. That's the legacy of the Second World War. I still maintain that the unconditional surrender was the right terminology to use in World War II against unprecedented enemies, in an unprecedented conflict. I'm not sure you're going to need it now, necessarily. Yeah, the world is a sort of more complicated place than it was back in 1945. It's the legacy of how that war ended, I think is what's so significant.
- [36:38]
James Holland
Historian William Hitchcock in his book the Bitter Road to Freedom. In his preface, he talks about how he began his research in 2003 when US leaders were invoking World War II. Our past heroes, liberation. And one point that Hitchcock makes in his book is all this talk of total victory, eradicating a modern day Hitler, Saddam Hussein, liberating the Iraqi people. It obscures just how violent and horrendous World War II was in the aftermath and how much the liberated had to suffer to be liberated and how Europe and Japan were flattened to be rebuilt. These abuses of the past can lead to some really awful things today. You know, in the name of doing. Well, not in the name of doing Bad.
- [37:25]
Harry Truman
Yeah, I'd agree with that. And I would certainly agree that where I think people have made mistakes in from the west certainly in recent times is they've worked out how to defeat their enemy, but they haven't worked out what the piece is. Donald runs down, standing up, saying, you know, we don't do reconstruction. Well, you flipping well should have done. You know, I mean, the lessons are all there. I mean we may be living in a rapidly accelerating world in terms of technology and information and so on, on, but there are many lessons from the past. So past doesn't repeat itself, but patterns of human behavior do. And you've only got to look at the past to realize what you need to do now. The solutions for the troubled world we have at the moment are all in our palms, they're all in our capabilities to sort out. It's just whether the will is there to sort them out. And I would argue it right now, there is not the vision, leadership or will in which to do them. There's not the unity of purpose. I mean, one of the reasons why the Western allies were so successful in the Second World War was because although they came from sort of culturally different points of view, different points of view in terms of kind of end game of what they wanted the world to look like in the future and all the rest, the rest of it they were putting together to a common cause, you know, where's that at the moment? It's completely absent.
- [38:27]
James Holland
And the quality of leadership in our, in our world today is pretty bad.
- [38:31]
Harry Truman
Well, you know, and the truth is we've become, we've become a rather complacent society and particularly in the west, we've been a bit spoiled. I mean, you know, I speak for myself here, but you know, we have access to more entertainment, more information, more help of our day to day lives, food is cheaper than it ever has been before, etc. Etc. Etc. And the result of that is, is we don't want to give any of it up. But the generation that emerged out of the First World War and then the Second World War was much less selfish, I think, and, and much less complacent. Certainly when you look at President Kennedy's speech in 1960, for example, his inauguration speech on 21 January 1960, you know, you look at that, it's full of ideals and, and a sense of together we can push. I mean, what, what's it, what's amazing about it is he never mentions the I word once. You know, it's, it's not about him. It's about we. And we is not just America. It is the globe, it is the world. You know, there are choices. We can do this together. We, you know, but we have to pull together. That's a subliminal message. Whereas now it's just me, me, me, me, me, me, me the whole time on absolutely everything. You know, we still give generously to charities and all the rest of it, but, you know, there is a better world that we can forge, but we're not prepared to give up certain things at the moment.
- [39:36]
James Holland
As we all know, Kennedy was a war hero in the second World War and that generation knew the meaning of suffering. James Holland with your co author Al Murray, Victory 45, the End of the War and Eight Surrenders, published in hardcover on July 29. Thank you so much for being on my show. It was an honor to have you here.
- [39:55]
Harry Truman
Oh, well, thank you for having me on and giving me the time to spout forth.
- [39:59]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
- [40:43]
James Holland
On the next episode of History as it happens, part three of this five part series on the end of World War II 80 Augusts ago, we'll be joined by historian Peter Frische to discuss his new book which is titled 1942. We're going to talk about how people of the world conceived the war, followed the war, how it was presented to them and how the Axis nearly won the war that year. Remember new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter every Friday. Sign up@historyasithappens.com or just go to substack and search for History as it happens.
- [41:24]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Sam.