Rain of Ruin by Richard Overy explores the bombing and surrender of Japan in 1945, showing how it was a complex process, and he explores the context of key decisions made during the war: the bombing of Japan and shift to firebombing, the decision to use the atomic bombs, and the decisions of the Japanese to surrender on 15 August 1945. But he also tries to show these decisions as they were made at the time; what information did decision-makers have, and how did those decision-makers justify their actions at the time?
Rather than a simple cause and effect of the American bombing of Japan, and especially the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Overy shows that the American bombing of Japan was the result of ideas that argued air power could win wars itself, and that the targeting of industry and civilians would bring a nation to its knees. The Japanese bombing campaign was the product of experience and refining what had already worked but also long planning around how Japanese cities could be best destroyed. Some justified this in talking about targeting industry dispersed among Japanese cities, while others (like Curtis Le May) were blunter; that Japanese civilians were the target, and it was necessary to kill them to end the war. The shift to firebombing in March 1945 was the culmination of this, but also the failures of the high-level precision bombing campaign to achieve results. The raid on Tokyo on 9/10 March 1945 which devastated the city and killed more Japanese than either of the atomic bombs, and the following campaign of firebombing Japanese cities was the result. The use of the atomic bombs was simply an extension of this campaign to bring Japan to surrender with air power and targeting civilians to do this was a bridge that had already been crossed.
Overy also shows that the Japanese surrender was not simply a direct result of either the bombing campaign on Japan, or even the atomic bombings themselves. Rather it was a combination of factors including the naval blockade of Japan and other air raids that helped to bring the Japanese economy (and food situation) to a dire situation. The Japanese surrender was a drawn-out process based on a combination of factors – the war and economic situation, the impacts of the bombing campaign, Japanese fear of a breakdown in morale and social upheaval, a fear of a communist uprising (similar to Russia in 1917). Interestingly, one factor was whether surrender was even possible in the Japanese constitutional system and trying to find a path to make it happen. Overy argues that in the end, the Japanese surrender was not due to any single factor but a combination of them – most importantly that the atomic bombings did not themselves force Japanese surrender, nor did the Soviets entering the war.
I especially liked how Overy used Japanese sources and was able to provide the Japanese perspective. Often, books and articles on the end of the war in 1945 focus on Allied decision-making and don’t include the Japanese side of things. It was enlightening to see how fraught and long the process of trying to surrender was for Japan – it was not a bolt out of the blue, but something that was being debated for some time.
Overy shows the importance of testing our historical assumptions and incorporating all the perspectives we can, and of looking at history in its own context rather than only with hindsight.
Read more by Richard Overy
Read more about the surrender of Japan
This is a list of various books about the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, how and why they happened, and about the experiences of those who survived. The bombings heralded the start of the nuclear age, the nuclear arms race, and the suffering of hundreds of thousands. But they also helped end the Pacific War and spare untold numbers of Allied and Japanese soldiers and civilians from the invasion of Japan.
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