I was surprised to learn some years ago after actually reading the famous "Potsdam Declaration", issued in July 29, 1945, that it says nothing about Japan. The public statement released concerning Japan was the "Potsdam Statement", which was issued on July 26th.
The confusion is an easy mistake to make. The tone of the "Declaration" and the "Statement" are similar as they were both issued in triumphant from amidst the rubble of a vanquished and occupied Nazi Germany. But where the "Decrlaration" is also a working blueprint for the shape of Europe's future, the "Statement" is pure politics: part a political initiative, part boastful victory display, and part pure posturing for the voters back home. It was signed by the U.S., Great Britain and China, but really it only mattered to the Americans. The Pacific was our war. And in the statement you will find none of Lincoln’s wise magnanimity. It began with a warning, “The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry…of the whole German people…” .
In the 44 months since Pearl Harbor the United States had largely supplied the allied victory in Europe, and at the same time we had built eight new battleships, 13 heavy cruisers, 2 large cruisers, 33 light cruisers, 18 heavy aircraft carriers, 76 light or jeep carriers, more than 600 destroyers and destroyer escorts, plus 4,000 large landing craft and 79,000 small landing craft. The Marine Corp had grown to over half a million men and the U.S. Army to one million men in fighting divisions. And it was this force, supplied in abundance and seeking revenge, which was descending upon Japan in August of 1945.
That explained to a degree the haughtily tone in which the U.S. informed Japan that the “Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay. There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest. Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan's war-making power is destroyed …Japanese territory…shall be occupied…Japanese sovereignty shall be limited….as we determine…(and) stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals…We call…(for the) unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces,…The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.” It could almost have been written by George Bush’s speechwriters.
The Japanese, reading this statement, noted two things; first, the Russians had not signed it, and two, there was no direct mention of the Emperor. But they had also noticed that American propaganda often included hateful images of the Emperor. And the section about removing “...those who have deceived and misled” seemed to the Japanese, and to most American readers, to refer directly to the Emperor. Seventy years later there are still Americans who believe Hirohito should have stood trial for war crimes. But in 1945 the average Japanese would die to prevent him standing trial like a mere mortal.
From the 1890’s on, all Japanese children were indoctrinated in the belief that the nation and the Emperor were synonymous, that Japan began and ended with the Chrysanthemum Throne. According to the Imperial Cult, a brand of the Shinto religion widespread in Japan, the first Emperor had been Jimmu, supposedly born in 700 B.C.E.. He was the child of the sun goddess Amaterasu, whose spirit resided in the dormant volcano Mount Fuji. Her spirit was the mountain, just as the spirit of Hirohito, more properly know to his subjects as “Emperor Showa”, was Japan. Emperor Showa was thus a spiritual leader, closer to a warrior pope than a king. His subjects fought “for the Emperor” but they took orders from lesser men who ran the government, men like Tojo.
The Americans agreed, for their own reasons. And on August 11, just one day after the Swiss communicated the Japanese note to the Americans, they replied, again speaking through the Swiss to the Japanese. The Americans were still firm and still boastful. After all they were the winners of this war. “From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government… shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Nations. The Emperor will…authorize and ensure the signature by the Government of Japan…of the surrender terms…The ultimate form of government of Japan shall, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.” 
To which the Japanese Government replied as quickly as the stilted etiquette and security of the Palace, politics and diplomacy would allow, on August 14th, and again via the Swiss: “His Majesty the Emperor…is prepared to authorize and ensure the signature by his Government…of the necessary terms for carrying out the provisions of the Potsdam declaration. His Majesty is also prepared to issue his commands to…surrender arms and to issue such other orders as may be required…”
Done and done. Now all they had to do was separate the opponents, which would be a bit like separating two amorous porcupines - a very delicate procedure. 
Tomorrow, the very delicate procedure.
The Japanese were now waiting for the invasion of their most southern island, Kyushu, the next logical target of the U.S. forces. There they would win the "Big Victory" that Okinawa was supposed to have been, in which even a loss would bleed the Americans enough to force them to offer better terms. The leaders of Japan, meeting amongst the wreakage of Tokyo, were certain that a great enough slaughter, mostly of their own people, would drive the Americans to negotiate. And they were certain they could out-negotiate the Americans. Why such clever people were losing the war was a question never asked in public.
The Japanese plan was to use the Russians as a conduit to negotiate with the Americans, rather than talking to their chief foe directly. July was spent trying to open that conduit, but the Russians seemed exceedingly dim and obstructionist, and the niceties of diplomacy slowed everything down even more. But there was no worry. In Japan's view, Russia and America were destined to be enemies, and it seems never to have occured to the Japanese leadership that Russia would see a weakened Japan, the nation which had humiliated them in 1905, as an oportunity too good to pass up. But, by the beginning of August, it seemed to Japan that some progress was being made with the Russians. 
Surrounding villages were being swamped with huge armies of wounded, burned and simply stunned victims stumbling their way out of Hiroshima. 
The Americans had crippled their nation. Hundreds of thousands had been killed. No train was safe in daylight, no city or factory safe at night. The Japanese army in Korea and Manchuria were starving. Troops in Japan were spending as much time tending to rice fields as training. And the harvest that year had been very bad. Come winter, invasion or no, there would be starvation in Japan.
And now an atomic bomb had vaporized one of Japan's cities, and there was a threat of more to follow. And yet the supreme council's only plan remained to wait for the American invasion of Kyushu and kill as many Americans as possible in order to force them to negotiate. About 40% of Japan's remaining strenth had been transfered to Kyushu to fight that battle. But that mas was, in my opinion, to borrow the words of an historian describing the Confederate insistance on defending Fort Dondaldson against Grant, "Too little to defend the place, and too much to lose."
For the first time Japanese Army faced a ground campaign against a mechanized army, with troops hardened by four years of vicious warfare with Nazi Germany. If in 1941 the German soldier was the best in the world, by 1945 it might have been the Soviet Soldier. In the invasion of Manchuria there were one and a half million of them pouring into Japanese territory: eighty divisions, five thousand tanks, including 3,700 T-34’s, acknowledged as the greatest tank of the war. The Japanese had never had any tank or gun to counter the T-34. And there were almost 4,000 first line Soviet aircraft filing the skies. The Japanese had just 50 first line fighters. The Soviet offensive was violent and smart and merciless, which perfectly matched the personality of its planner and commander, Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky:, the man who had saved Moscow in 1941, and who had actually directed the Stalingrad counter offensive, and who had been planning this invasion since late 1944. He called the operation “August Storm”, and perhaps as a homage to Vaslevsky, American General Schwarzkopf called his 1989 similar operation “Dessert Storm”.
The one million Japanese troops in Manchuria and Korea were not prepared for what hit them. The best troops in the Kwantung Army had already been transferred to the Pacific and Burma meat grinders. They were now either dead or isolated and starving on bypassed islands or jungle outposts. The army now contained a high percentage of new recruits. The units spent their time in drill and chasing guerrillas. The Imperial Staff was convinced that any Russian offensive could not be launched before October. So, they ignored warnings from the commanders in Manchuria. And when the Soviet tanks sliced through the stunned Japanese border entrenchments on the morning of August 9th, there was nothing behind them to slow their advance. In just 24 days the Red Army would capture all of Manchuria, make amphibious landings in northern Korea and capture Sakhalin Island and the Kuril islands, then part of Northern Japan.
On August 9th at about 10:30 in the morning Prime Minister Suzuli told the Six that the Emperor agreed with him; the war must be ended as quickly as possible now that Russia had joined the conflict. The Foreign Minister said he could not accept the American position given in the Potsdam Proclamation, because it would require the removal of the Emperor. (Again, no one in Japan had yet told the Americans that this was the primary sticking point.) Terms to be offered for negotiation were that Japan would disarm herself, accept no occupation, and Japan would conduct any war crimes trials of Japanese soldiers. 
In fact the U.S. had enough plutonium for several bombs. The assembly of nuclear weapons was not yet industrialized but it soon would be. Manhatten Project Commander General Leslie Groves reported to the War Depart that another plutonium bomb would be ready for operations on the 17th or 18th of August and at least seven bombs would be available in time for the invasion of Kyushu, scheduled for September. The plan was to use the bombs against the island's defenders, to "clear the ground" for American combat troops. More than one and a half million American soldiers were poised for that invasion. And even at a casualty rate of one American soldier or marine for two Japanese soldiers, and not considering the likely equal civilian deaths (the casuality rate on Okinawa) an American conquest of the southern half of Kyushu now seemed assured.
That night, the Big Six met again, still tied at three-three. But this time the Emperor in person actually cast his vote. It would be peace. The next day Mr. Max Grassli, charge d’Affaires for Switzerland, sent to James Byrnes, the U.S Secretary of State, the following cable:.
Please pardon me, but honestly, it was about friggen time. 
To begin with, the Second World War in the Pacific should have ended on Sunday, July 9th, 1944. On that day, at 16:15 hours (4:15pm local time), Admiral Richmond J. Turner declared the island of Saipan secured. The battle was decisive. In defending Saipan the Japanese Imperial Fleet had lost its offensive arm in the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, where three of their aircraft carriers were sunk and 600 aircraft and pilots were destroyed. The United States lost just 123 planes, and 80 of those experienced crews were rescued. On the ground 30,000 Japanese soldiers and 22,000 civilians had died for the emperor. The United States lost about 2,949 dead, and 10,364 wounded. And they took the island. 
While some Japanese soldiers would hold out in the jungle on Siapan until December of 1945 they were no more than a minor annoyance. Even before Admiral Turner’s pronouncement, Construction Battalions (C.B.’s) had begun turning the island into the world’s largest aircraft carrier, from which, eventually, 2,000 B-29’s would turn Japanese factories and cities into torches. The loss of the their fleet air power and the Marianas, Saipan, Guam and Tinian, meant that the Japanese had lost the war.
The Japanese knew it. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, the architect of the war with America, and his entire cabinet resigned, nine days after the fall of Saipan. But the war went on. It was clear to every American commander that the Japanese could not withstand the American onslaught, that at Siapan Japan had lost the war.
And reading the diaries and personal letters of Japanese commanders it is clear they also knew the war was lost. But Japanese leaders now held onto the idea that if they could bleed America enough, and kill enough Americans, in just one more big battle, they would win a more favorable peace from the Americans. And it was not a total fantasy. In conquering the Philippines the U.S. suffered 14,000 dead and 48,00 wounded, at Iwo Jima 8,621 dead and 19,189 wounded, and at Okinawa, on the threshold of Japan itself, America lost 12,513 dead and 38,513 wounded.
It is also month when very odd things happen. On August first (“National Raspberry Cream Pie Day”) in 1889 it rained ants in Strasbourg, Germany. On the second of August, in 1900, a baseball game between Chicago and New York ended when the Manager of the New York team led a mob assault on the umpire: and in 1980 the oldest known goldfish in Great Britain, Frederica, finally succumbed to ‘fish flake poisoning’ at the age of forty. August the third on the Roman Catholic calendar is celebrated as St. Lydia’s day, the patron saint of dry cleaners. And on August fifth in 1693 Dom Perignon invented champagne, and in 1983, in a baseball game in Toronto, Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield picked up a base hit ball and threw a peg to the second baseman, that was intercepted by a seagull, striking and killing it. Winfield was charged with cruelty to animals and had to post a $500 bond.
August fifth is at the same time “National Mustard Day”, and “National Waffle Day”, and, in 1914, it is the anniversary of the first electric traffic lights being installed in Cleveland, Ohio. On August sixth in 1890 Mr. William Kimmler had the honor of being the first person ever executed by electric chair on purpose. August seventh is “National Raspberries and Cream Day”, and also the anniversary, in 1888, of a patent being granted for the invention of the revolving door. And besides being the anniversary of the murder of King Wenceslas of Christmas carol fame and Edison’s invention of the mimeograph machine, August eighth is also “Sneak some Zucchini on Your Neighbors Porch Night”
August tenth is “National S’mores Day”, and the eleventh is “National Raspberry Bombe Day”. Every August 13th the world celebrates “International Left Handers Day”. August fourteenth is “National Creamsicle Day”, and St. Werenfrid’s Day. She is the patron saint of vegetable gardens. Also on the fourteenth in 1457 the German Astrologer Faust was arrested for selling the first printed books in Paris. Because all of the books were identical the authorities assumed the printer's apprentice had been Lucifer.
One year later, on the anniversary of Chappie’s fatal injury, in Cleveland, a “Napper” batter hit a line drive that struck Athletics’ second baseman Curt “Johnny” Walker in the head and sent him to the hospital. Oddly enough, the injury did not impede what proved to be Curt’s Walker’s dream season, the best of his career. That year Curt batted .337, with 12 Home Runs, 196 hits and 66 RBI’s. He was also a participant on August 25th , 1922 in the Phillies/ Chicago game, which Chicago won, 23 to 26: it remains the largest combined score ever recorded in major league baseball.
In 1692, in Salem Massachusetts, on August 19th, five women were hanged for witchcraft, and continuing in that same somber spirit, August 21st is now officially recognized as National Spumoni Day. August 23 is the anniversary of the death, in 1926, of Rudolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi, aka Rudolf Valentino, the romantic silent film mega-star. He died at the age of thirty-one probably from an infection caught while undergoing ulcer surgery. His ulcer was brought on because some writer had accused him of being gay, which was an absurd charge, as silly as someone today accusing Tom Cruise of being gay.
On August 24, 1905, during the 18th inning of tied ballgame, a bored Philadelphia outfielder named Jimmy Slagle reached into his back pocket to pull out a plug of chewing tobacco. At that very moment a Chicago batter hit a high drive and instinctively Slagle started running to the ball. But he couldn't get his hand out of his hip pocket. With his left hand stoll firmly jammed behind him Slagle leapt, and made a one handed off balance catch for the out. He then paused to free the tobacco from his pocket and bit off a chew. He threw the ball back to the infield and then he took a bow. Chicago went on to win the game, 2-1 in 20 innings, the longest major league game ever played.
August 25 is National Banana Split Day and August 28 is National Cherry Turnover Day. But far more importantly August 28th is also the date, in 476 A.D., when an army of revolting German mercenaries captured their erstwhile commander, Orestes, and cut his throat. Within days of Orestes’ death his son, the “little emperor", Romulus Augustus, had eagerly abdicated and been pensioned off. And that was the fall of the great empire created by Augustus Caesar some 500 years before. And it all happened in the month of August.
