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Speaker 1: World War Two has a powerful hold on the American narrative.

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Speaker 1: The nation of which I'm now a part was united

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Speaker 1: in a moral cause to roll back fascism and militarism.

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Speaker 1: But what if the United States was not so united?

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Speaker 1: And what if economics was at least partly to blame.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Benchmark, a show about the global economy. I'm

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Speaker 1: Daniel Moss, columnist at Bloomberg Opinion in New York, and

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Speaker 1: I'm start Landman and economics editor with Bloomberg News in Washington.

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Speaker 1: Where approaching the seventy third anniversary of Japan's official surrender,

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Speaker 1: and most people are familiar with the role the atomic

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Speaker 1: bombs played in bringing an end to hostilities. Few are

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Speaker 1: familiar with the role that economic played in the end

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Speaker 1: of the Pacific War. In the months between the surrender

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Speaker 1: of Germany and Japan's capitulation, the home front was increasingly divided.

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Speaker 1: Unity was fraying, largely because of tensions in the economy

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Speaker 1: and stretched supply chains. Joining us to discuss the final

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Speaker 1: months of the war and the role that economic and

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Speaker 1: commercial decisions played is Mark Gallichio, a professor of history

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Speaker 1: at Villanova University and co author with Waldo Heinrichs of

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Speaker 1: Implacable Foes War in the Pacific nineteen. It's the winner

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Speaker 1: of the eighteen Bancroft Prize from Columbia University for outstanding

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Speaker 1: book on US history and diplomacy. Mark, congratulations and thanks

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Speaker 1: for joining us. Oh, thank you very much. I'm happy

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Speaker 1: to be here. Mark. Tell us why did you and

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Speaker 1: your co author focus your efforts on the final years

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Speaker 1: of the conflict and what surprised you the most. Well,

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Speaker 1: we decided to look at this period of the war

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Speaker 1: because we thought that a lot of the writing about

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Speaker 1: the end of the war focused on the decision to

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Speaker 1: drop the atomic bomb, and it really didn't take into

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Speaker 1: account all the factors that led up to the use

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Speaker 1: of the atomic bombs. And and we thought that there

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Speaker 1: had been a lot of emphasis on the you know,

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Speaker 1: the final days of the war, the military campaigns, but

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Speaker 1: they hadn't incorporated the home front into their discussions or

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Speaker 1: analysis of conditions at the end of the war. So

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Speaker 1: we wanted to kind of broaden the scope of of

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Speaker 1: our analysis to take the home front political factors into consideration,

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Speaker 1: but also to try and understand the logistical challenges that

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Speaker 1: the United States faced in in waging war against Japan,

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Speaker 1: and we chose to begin in early nineteen four because

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Speaker 1: that was when the Americans began to really go on

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Speaker 1: the offensive and began to push ahead against Japan in

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Speaker 1: taking the Marianas, but also with MacArthur moving along the

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Speaker 1: coast of New Guinea and then into the Philippines. And

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Speaker 1: it was then that the Americans had at their disposal

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Speaker 1: the new fast carriers that allowed them to make these

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Speaker 1: long strides against the enemy. So it was really a

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Speaker 1: combination of sort of what the economy was able to

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Speaker 1: produce to give the forces in the Pacific the tools

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Speaker 1: necessary to wage war over this, you know, vast expanse

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Speaker 1: of the Pacific Ocean. Mark how was the wartime economy organized?

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Speaker 1: And by early ninety five was that starting to unravel.

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Speaker 1: There's this famous quote from about Franklin Roosevelt. He said

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Speaker 1: doctor New Deal was going to become doctor win the

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Speaker 1: war at that point. And what that really meant was

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Speaker 1: that Roosevelt placed an emphasis on a sort of maximizing

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Speaker 1: production for the war effort, making the United States the

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Speaker 1: arsenal of democracy and really a victory in the war.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he understood recently enough that Corporate America knew

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Speaker 1: how to mass produce the tools that would be needed

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Speaker 1: to win the war, and and he needed to defer

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Speaker 1: to them. And of course that decision was pretty disillusioning

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Speaker 1: to a lot of people who, you know, hope that

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Speaker 1: the beneficiaries of the new Deal, unions in particular, would

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Speaker 1: be able to hold onto the games they made um.

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Speaker 1: So there was quite a lot of contention by nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty five, how was that uneasy contract, how was that fairing?

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Speaker 1: Was it going the distance? Sole was strains really beginning

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Speaker 1: to emerge there? You could see um strains beginning to emerge.

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Speaker 1: In fact, even in the autumn of nineteen when it

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Speaker 1: looked like the war might be coming to an end

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Speaker 1: for Christmas, with the Allies pushing across France very quickly,

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Speaker 1: and there were people, the civilians in charge of the

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Speaker 1: wartime economy were anxious to begin making the first cautious

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Speaker 1: steps towards transitioning to a peacetime economy because they're great fear.

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Speaker 1: And this is what I think bothered them for the

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Speaker 1: remainder of the war was that if the war were

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Speaker 1: to end suddenly and they weren't prepared for that transition,

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Speaker 1: there would be millions of men coming home from the war,

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Speaker 1: and there'd be no jobs for them, because the economy

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Speaker 1: would not have been able to have shifted quickly enough

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Speaker 1: from wartime production to peacetime pursuits. And UM and of

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Speaker 1: course they were all haunted by the ghosts of the

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Speaker 1: Great Depression and mass unemployment, and that affected workers in particular,

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Speaker 1: who didn't want to get caught in um a munition

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Speaker 1: factory or an airplane assembly line and then come to

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Speaker 1: work one day and find that the plant had shut

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Speaker 1: down because the contract they had been canceled because those

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Speaker 1: materials were no longer needed. So in forty four you

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Speaker 1: began to see signs of that. But then certainly in

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Speaker 1: early after the Battle of Bulbs and when the Allies

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Speaker 1: began to move again, people started getting restive. They were

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Speaker 1: worried about, you know, what the future would pretend, and

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Speaker 1: and um there were signs, isolated cases of factories closing

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Speaker 1: and people being um, you know, thrown out of work.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, the people who were responsible for

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Speaker 1: making sure that the economy continue to produce for the

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Speaker 1: war effort, under Secretary of War Robert Patterson, General Bryan Somerville,

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Speaker 1: who was ahead of the services of supply. They insisted

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Speaker 1: that there be a maximum effort continuing to produce for

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Speaker 1: the war. They didn't want to have any let up

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Speaker 1: where the logistics and supply chains at the time, were

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Speaker 1: they really focused on the war and were they not

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Speaker 1: in great shape for the rest of the U. S economy?

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Speaker 1: What kind of state were they into, you know, to

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Speaker 1: keep the economy going and to keep the wartime effort

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Speaker 1: engaged in the army in particular dominated the economy and

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Speaker 1: consumed sort of most of the a durable goods and

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Speaker 1: a lot of the agricultural goods. I mean that the

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Speaker 1: rationing of meat we're all familiar with, and and you know,

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Speaker 1: people were making money in these war related industries, but

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Speaker 1: they didn't have a lot to spend it on because

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Speaker 1: everything was focused on producing for the war. And so

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Speaker 1: the concern was that peacetime industries would not be able

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Speaker 1: to start up, they wouldn't be able to retool, in

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Speaker 1: part because they didn't even have the materials necessary to

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Speaker 1: begin producing. And then they were also worried about labor shortages.

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Speaker 1: So everything really continued to be geared towards wartime production.

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Speaker 1: So you've got these domestic economic, commercial and political concerns

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Speaker 1: that are percolating a white just beneath the surface. Then

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Speaker 1: only two key things happened on the battlefield. One is

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Speaker 1: Germany collapses. The other is the American campaign on Okinawa intensifies. Now,

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Speaker 1: what is the interaction between those two things and how

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Speaker 1: does it shape Harry Truman's thinking. Well, there is absolute

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Speaker 1: elation at the surrender of Germany, and then you turned

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Speaker 1: to Okinawa, which was occurring at the same time. The

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Speaker 1: battle began on April one, and that was reminiscent of

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Speaker 1: the worst days of World War One, the sort of

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Speaker 1: plotting inch by inch battles causing heavy casualties. And Truman

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Speaker 1: was was greatly disturbed by that because he could see

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Speaker 1: from the Battle of Okinawa what the invasion of Japan

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Speaker 1: itself would portend and and has troubled him tremendous lee. Now,

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Speaker 1: how does that interact with the strains that were beginning

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Speaker 1: to show on domestic wartime economic management. Well, you had

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Speaker 1: asked us, you would ask me earlier what were some

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Speaker 1: of the surprises we found? And this was for us

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Speaker 1: a really big surprise. It really does seem that the

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Speaker 1: American public, after Germany surrendered, sort of turned its attention

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Speaker 1: towards thinking about peacetime, assuming that Japan was on diverge

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Speaker 1: of defeat at that point. UM, and I think also

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Speaker 1: sort of thinking about that war against Japan as really

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Speaker 1: just that you know, sort of revolted by it because

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Speaker 1: of the the level of casualties and the fact that

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Speaker 1: you know, it seemed to be to no purpose because

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Speaker 1: it was clear that the Japanese could no longer win

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Speaker 1: the war, yet they weren't surrendering, and and so America

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Speaker 1: and you know, kept their eyes you know, farther ahead

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Speaker 1: towards the horizon, looking uh to the possibility of peace.

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Speaker 1: And and um, the public was increasingly restive at this time.

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Speaker 1: You know, they continued to sort of give their support

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Speaker 1: to the war. And whenever they were asked in public

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Speaker 1: opinion polls, they said they were they supported American policies

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Speaker 1: and and that um, they were willing to support rationing.

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Speaker 1: They they abhorred the idea of black markets and and

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Speaker 1: and the like. But as individuals, you know, they were

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Speaker 1: making these discrete decisions about what were their best job opportunities,

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Speaker 1: and and uh, they wanted they also this was another

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Speaker 1: big issue. They wanted, Um, the members of their families

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Speaker 1: who were overseas in Europe to be brought home as

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Speaker 1: quickly as possible. So how much in the and did

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Speaker 1: wartime considerations, you know, just winning the war, and how

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Speaker 1: much did domestic economic considerations play a role in the

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Speaker 1: decision the ultimate decision to drop the atomic bombs in Japan.

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Speaker 1: I think that the decision to use the bomb was

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Speaker 1: made when they decided to build the bomb in that sense.

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Speaker 1: But I think what we found was that given the

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Speaker 1: situation on the home front, this frame of public support

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Speaker 1: for the war, demand to bring the soldiers back home,

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Speaker 1: get them out of uniform, that to say nothing of

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Speaker 1: the increasingly stiff resistance offered by the Japanese, that all

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Speaker 1: of those factors converged to make it a pretty easy

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Speaker 1: decision for Truman to use the bomb. If he wanted

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Speaker 1: to compel Japan's unconditioned and all surrender, then you know,

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Speaker 1: the only way he could do that would be through

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Speaker 1: an invasion, which was looking increasingly more difficult, or the

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Speaker 1: use of the atomic bomb. Mark, You're right that Truman

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Speaker 1: had approved Operation Olympic, the invasion of Cayushu for late nine,

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Speaker 1: but was balking at approving plans submitted to him for

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Speaker 1: Operation Coronet, which was a landing on the main island

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Speaker 1: of Honshu the following year. If the decision to drop

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Speaker 1: the bombs was basically made when they developed the weapon,

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Speaker 1: what role were the economic strains having on planning for

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Speaker 1: Olympic and Coronet? And do you think in retrospect when

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Speaker 1: you review the records, how likely was it that they

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Speaker 1: would go ahead if Japan had somehow held on well

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Speaker 1: to sort of back up. I would say that um

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Speaker 1: Truman was facing a really tough decision in summer forty five.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the Olympic operation had been approved, this initial

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Speaker 1: operation to invade the southernmost of the main islands of Kyushu, Um,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't to take place until November, and he

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Speaker 1: Um was finding that the army was in particularly the

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Speaker 1: army was insisting on keeping almost all the men in

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Speaker 1: uniform that had actually been used to fight a two

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Speaker 1: front war, that the army was planning on keeping almost

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Speaker 1: the same number of men in uniform to fight Japan.

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Speaker 1: And and his civilian advisors, particularly Fred Vincent, who was

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Speaker 1: the head of this Office of War Mobilization and re Conversion,

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Speaker 1: and and Vincent who was from Kentucky had been a congressman,

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Speaker 1: was telling in him that the armies, just their monopoly

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Speaker 1: of the economy was really disruptive and was endangering the peace.

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Speaker 1: And and so he was facing a show down on

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Speaker 1: this question of of the necessity of an invasion. We

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Speaker 1: we don't go so far as to speculate as to

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Speaker 1: what would have happened, except to point out that this

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Speaker 1: whole redeployment process was really bogging down. There were all

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Speaker 1: sorts of snags in the rail system in the United

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Speaker 1: States that made it unlikely they'd be able to move

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Speaker 1: troops across the continent, shipping equipment from France all the

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Speaker 1: way out to the Pacific. Um what was behind schedule

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Speaker 1: the um the Port of Manila wasn't actually able to

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Speaker 1: handle the capacity it needed to be able um to

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Speaker 1: move in order to prepare for the invasions. So, in

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Speaker 1: other words, this wasn't really a kind of a golden

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Speaker 1: era of unity leadership and decision making that some people

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Speaker 1: make it out to be. Is that is that something

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Speaker 1: of a myth or was there is there some truth

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Speaker 1: to looking at that way? Even with these problems that

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Speaker 1: you mentioned, it is certainly more fractius than we I

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Speaker 1: think generally remember it. The interesting thing is, as I said,

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Speaker 1: the public continue to sort of they were willing to

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Speaker 1: support the leadership. What we found was that the leadership

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Speaker 1: was divided, and particularly in Congress, and people were calling

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Speaker 1: in Congress, we're calling for a more rapid movement towards

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Speaker 1: economic reconversion. And and so I'd say it really was

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Speaker 1: beginning at the top of government, Congress, the sort of

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Speaker 1: opinion makers, as I said, the civilian war mobilizers UM.

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Speaker 1: One of the other surprises we found was that the

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Speaker 1: sort of level of criticism and that was aimed at

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Speaker 1: the army at this time. Truman himself, when he had

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Speaker 1: served on this what was known as the Truman Committee

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Speaker 1: to investigate UM military expenditures, he had privately said he

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Speaker 1: was convinced that Brand's Somerville would would give the United

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Speaker 1: States a fascist economy if he could. And there was

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Speaker 1: so there was this suspicion all along about the sense

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Speaker 1: that the army was not at all flexible and its

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Speaker 1: demands they were just consuming too much and not willing,

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Speaker 1: you know, to trim the fat anywhere. Mark. This is fascinating.

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Speaker 1: When we think of wartime divisions, we tend to think

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Speaker 1: of Vietnam Iraq. If we're interpreting you correctly, these divisions

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Speaker 1: were present during World War Two, but as long as

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Speaker 1: there was battlefield victory, a lid could be kept on that.

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Speaker 1: Once the momentum there on the battlefield stops, as it

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Speaker 1: appeared to be starting to do, then suddenly these things

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Speaker 1: open up. Yeah. I think that's a that's a good

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Speaker 1: way of putting it, because it's towards the end of

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Speaker 1: the battle for Okinawa when you begin to see people

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Speaker 1: And at first it was legislators in the Republican Party

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Speaker 1: and and former President Herbert Hoover who began to suggest

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Speaker 1: that Japan was ready to surrender and that they might

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Speaker 1: be induced to surrender if the United States was willing

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Speaker 1: to modify the terms of surrender, if the United States

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Speaker 1: was willing to accept something less than unconditional surrender. And

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Speaker 1: if that were the case, then you wouldn't need to

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Speaker 1: continue these wartime restrictions on the economy. You could begin

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Speaker 1: a more um, sort of gradual transition to peace time

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Speaker 1: and uh, and of course you would save thousands, tens

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Speaker 1: of thousands of lives in the bargain. And so I

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Speaker 1: think it's at that moment when everyone knows that the

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Speaker 1: next big campaign is gonna being an invasion somewhere in Japan,

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Speaker 1: that they begin to raise the possibility maybe there's another

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Speaker 1: way to end the war. And and that was that

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Speaker 1: was I think a further sort of pressure on Truman

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Speaker 1: Um he really resisted modifying unconditional surrender. Mark, thank you

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Speaker 1: for sharing your perspective with us as we remember the jade. Oh,

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Speaker 1: you're welcome. I'm really happy to have had chance to

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Speaker 1: talk to you about this and Schmark will be back

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Speaker 1: next week. Until then, you can find us on the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg dot com, or Bloomberg app, as well

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Speaker 1: as podcast destinations such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen. We'd love it if you took the time

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Speaker 1: to rate and review the show so more listeners can

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Speaker 1: find us. You can find us on Twitter, follow me

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Speaker 1: at Moss Underscore, Echo Scott, I'm at Scott Landing. Benchmark

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Speaker 1: is produced by tof of Foreheads. The head of Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Podcasts is Francesco lev Thanks for listening and see you

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Speaker 1: next time.